There Are Mice In My Lunchbox!

Molly has been having a few issues at school with the other kids.  She's the kind of kid that worries about everyone else.  She gets worried that if someone copies off of her paper, they might get the answer wrong on their page if she gets it wrong.  Molly worries if someone else in her class gets in trouble.  It's to the point that she is confusing small and simple things at school because she's so worried.  We had a long talk about focusing on the plethora of positive instead of dwelling on a few negatives.  Hopefully she will find a few positive things in her lunch tomorrow.   

Our main entree is a pumpkin bread sandwich.  Autumn is in full bloom here in Western PA.  The leaves are changing and the weather is cooling down.  Everyone has their scarecrows on display and the apple cider is filling the shelves of the local grocery store.  We made this pumpkin bread for breakfast this morning and the kids got to have a warm slice with a little butter.  We had three very big smiles this morning.  Molly requested that she have this bread made into a sandwich with cream cheese and we were happy to oblige.

Our vegetable side is sliced carrots.  Molly isn't a huge carrot fan but every once in a while, she enjoys them.  We sliced these up and keep them in a container with water in the fridge.  This keeps them nice and crisp and makes them very accessible to anyone walking past the fridge.

Our fruit side is our Strawberry Mice!  We cut the hull end off of the strawberry so that the mice can face up. We added sliced almonds for ears and mini white chocolate chips for the eyes and a nose.  The tiny strawberry mouse came from our very own strawberry plant in the front yard.  Homegrown strawberries are very sweet and they never grow to be that big but the flavor is deliciously intense.  Hopefully, these will put a smile on our Molly's face.  There is one to represent each person in our family. ♥

We added a Colby Jack cheese stick for some extra protein and in case the mice need a little snack because we all know how much mice like cheese.  ☺

Finally, our dairy/dessert is a Chobani Champions in Verry Berry.  We figured that it would be a good compliment to the rest of Molly's lunch.