Spring-like Monday

We're finally having nice weather again here in Pittsburgh.  The sun was shining and the temperature actually reached 80 degrees today.  I think that the flowers and the grass were very happy to be warm again after surviving a decent number of frosts last week.  We hope that it this beautiful weather stays for a while.  Playing outside is so much more fun than being stuck indoors.

Our main entree is turkey pepperoni, cheese and crackers.  Molly requested this as we were finishing our dinner tonight since she "hasn't had it in a really long time."  We cut a small flower out of a piece of pepperoni and put it on the cheese to match the cracker.  (It's kind of hard to see from the photo but there is a flower on the cracker.)  The crackers are Ritz spring crackers and each of them have a flower or butterfly on them.  So cute!

Our vegetable side is a few baby carrots.  Molly said that she'd be fine with them but not too many since she is missing a some teeth and it's hard to bite them.  We were just fine with keeping it to a small portion for her. ☺

Our fruit side is strawberries.  We sliced a few of them and then made a couple of mice with two others.  Just a couple of sliced almonds for ears, Trader Joe's cocoa pearls for the eyes and nose and a small piece of licorice for the tail.  Gotta keep Monday fun!

Finally, our dairy/dessert is a Chobani Champions Chocolate Chunk Greek yogurt.  Molly requested this as well.  She just loves the fact that she gets chocolate and it's good for her.

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.