Bring Your Child to Work Day!

Molly is beyond excited for Bring Your Child to Work Day tomorrow.  She went with Daddy to work last year and had an absolute blast.  We whipped up a fun little lunch for her to bring since she wasn't a fan of the lunch last year.  (How does she remember these things?)

Our main entree is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich cut into a star shape.  We added a few fun picks to show how much we love Molly and Daddy!

Our vegetable side is cucumbers and red peppers.

Our fruit side is oranges and red grapes.

We also added a Chobani Champions tube and made a little snack box filled with some pretzels, Annie's bunny graham crackers and Craisins.

Happy Easter Lunch

Today is the last day of school before Easter break for the girls.  They were supposed to have today and Tuesday off but a day off in October due to Hurricane Sandy and a snow day a couple of weeks ago have shortened their vacation a little bit.  We are excited to enjoy time with family and friends celebrating the glorious reason for Easter.  Christ is RISEN!!!  We are also anticipating spring...eventually!  Hopefully our bunnies and chick will be a reminder that it will be here soon. 

Our main entree is yummy bunnies.  We added some shredded cheese to pizza dough, baked it and used some cookie cutters and food safe markers to bring our bunnies to life.

Our vegetable side is shredded carrots under the bunnies.  If Bean is lucky, her bunnies got hungry and ate them...she's not a huge fan of carrots.

Our fruit side is fresh strawberries.  I found these little strawberries at the store yesterday and they are so sweet and delicious. 

Our extra side is a little chick popping out of his egg.  We used a hard baked egg, cut a small part of the white off and added a little carrot beak and used our food safe markers to make eyes.  SO CUTE!  

Happy Easter!!!

The Wizard of Oz Lunch Hop

Some of the Bento Bloggers and Friends and I are celebrating the opening of the movie Oz, The Great and Powerful today.  We all put our creative thinking caps on and did our best to represent the classic The Wizard of Oz.  Enjoy and keep hopping for more fun!

Our main entree is an Emerald Castle sandwich with some cheesy embellishments.  We love our food safe markers!!

Our vegetable side is a small salad with a red pepper house, like the one that Dorothy arrived to Oz in.

Our fruit side is blueberries and ruby slipper strawberries.  We used a small shoe cookie cutter to replicate the iconic shoes.

Finally, our Fun Friday treat is a lollipop...you know, like the Lollipop Guild. 

Now check out what fanciful things Rina has lined up over at Bento School Lunches!

Read Across America and Dr. Seuss Lunch

Each year we celebrate Dr. Seuss day on (or near) his birthday, March 2nd.  This year we decided that we would do a The Cat in the Hat lunch.  We had a few ideas, a few obstacles and a whole lot of fun!

Our main entree is a fish sandwich.  Since it is Friday during lent, we can't have meat (so no ham for green eggs and ham).  We decided to go with the The Cat in the Hat theme right away.  We made a good old peanut butter and jelly sandwich and used our "uncrustable" cutter on it.  Then we added a piece of cheese and drew the fish from The Cat in the Hat on the top....see, a fish sandwich.  tee hee!

Our vegetable side is grape tomatoes skewered with pieces of string cheese on a plastic lollipop stick to create a The Cat in the Hat replica hat.

Our fruit side is a Thing 1 and Thing 2 apple.  We halved the apple and cut a circle out of the skin, then used our food safe gel color and a tooth pick to create the logos seen on the Things shirts.

Finally, our Fun Friday treat is The Cat in the Hat cookies!  We dunked Nutter Butters in white chocolate and piped the details with red and dark chocolates.

Valentine's Week Lunches

We had so much fun making Valentine's Day and love themed lunches all week last week.  Sometimes, it's just sometime as simple as using a heart shaped cookie cutter to make a special lunch.

Our Love "lunchable" is turkey pepperoni, provolone cheese cut with a heart shaped cookie cutter and crackers.  Plus, peppers, berries and a Chobani Champions tube.

 We made peanut butter and jelly for Ash Wednesday (since we are Catholic and don't eat meat on that day). We made it extra fun by turning it into a "fairy sandwich" by adding Valentine sprinkles in the cut out area.  This is accompanied by red peppers, blackberries and Chobani Champions tubes.

Finally, our REAL Valentine's Day lunch is hot pink chocolate chip pancakes. (We bought a mix at ALDI.)  We used our food safe markers to put hugs and kisses on our hard boiled egg, added some berries including a heart shaped strawberry, cherry Jell-o jigglers cut into heart shapes, Chobani Champions tubes and an extra little kiss. ♥

All of this week's lunches are in Easy Lunchboxes.

Hope everyone had a great Valentine's Day!

Last week of January Plus the 100th Day of School

I think that we will be changing the name of our city to Pittsburrrrgh!  It's very cold this week but with the 100th day of school, there was a lot of fun to be had.

We made some fun sandwiches with our CuteZCute cutters.  We added a few flies to our frog (made with mini heart cutters) and some stars to our bear.  Carrot and celery sticks plus fresh strawberries and blueberries rounded out this fun lunch.

February 1st was the 100th day of school for Molly and Bean.  They LOVE breakfast for lunch so we figured that it would be an easy way to incorporate the 100s.  We made whole grain pancakes and used a squeeze bottle to make 100s (and we added a few chocolate chips to a couple of them).  We cut a few strawberries with our mini number cookie cutters to go on top of the other cut strawberries.  We used our food safe markers to put a 100 on a hard baked egg.  Finally, we put a little sticker on a new Chobani Champions tube and added a fun Friday treat of a white chocolate truffle.  Bean dressed up like she was 100 years old and Molly had a shirt with the number 100 made out of buttons on it.  

January 21 - 25, 2013

A peanut butter and jelly sandwich cut with a fun cupcake cutter from The Lunch Punch.  Strawberries, carrot matchsticks and honey Greek yogurt.  We added lots of sprinkles for fun, all in our Easy Lunchbox.

Bean had a special lunch with her teacher and a few friends so we made it fun with little cut out pb&j sandwiches.  We have strawberries, blueberries, red peppers and strawberry yogurt in our Easy Lunchbox.

Molly had some fun sandwiches that day too along with the same sides as Bean.

Breakfast for Fun Friday lunch!  A whole grain waffle with strawberries and cream cheese, a hard boiled egg, some turkey bacon rosettes, apples and blueberries, Annie's Bunny Grahams and the NEW Chobani Champions Greek yogurt tube!  (The kids LOVED it!)

The first few weeks of January

Since taking a hiatus from the blog, I have gotten a lot more sleep and I'm working on myself a lot more.  I've been trying to be more organized in my shopping and menu planning, plus concentrating on health.  We, as a family, threw caution to the wind a bit over the holidays and needed to get back on the healthy wagon.  

We are still packing lunches for the girls (and so is my husband) every day.  I plan to do a round up like this every week or so.  These are just a few of my favorites from the last couple of weeks.

Our happy winter lunch with a sandwich, peppers, clementines, pomegranates, string cheese (I wrote on the wrapper with a Sharpie marker.) and a fun Friday treat of white chocolate dipped pretzels with peppermint in Easy Lunchboxes.

 Our piggy sandwich (CuteZCute Cutters), cucumbers, sugar snap peas, clementines, apples, blueberries and Chobani Champions in Laptop Lunch Boxes.

Our Elephant sandwich (Lunch Punch cutter), cucumbers, clementines, pomegranates and peach yogurt in Easy Lunchboxes.

Happy New Year and a Resolution

Happy New Year Everyone!!!!

As part of my New Year's Resolutions, I have decided that I need to get off of this computer more often.  As a result I am going to change the format of this blog from daily to weekly (probably Friday or Saturday) unless there is a special occasion.

If you are looking for daily inspiration, there will still be an updated list of lunch blogs below on the left.

Eat 'N Park Christmas Star

Just about anyone from Pittsburgh will agree that the Christmas season doesn't start until we've seen one particular commercial.  This year is the 30th Anniversary of the Eat 'N Park Christmas Star commercial.  It has a heartfelt story and a feel good message.  For our last school lunch of the 2012 year, we're paying homage to this Christmas staple.
*Eat 'N Park is a sit down restaurant similar to Denny's or Perkins. (only better!)

Our main entree is a tree shaped quesadilla.  We found the perfect cookie cutter for this lunch and the idea became reality.

Our fruit side is strawberries and blackberries.

Our dairy side is Chobani Champions Very Berry.

Finally, our final Fun Friday Treat of 2012 is something else that Eat 'N Park is known for, the Smiley Cookie!!!  We picked up a couple of mini Smiley Cookies just for this special occasion.

 

Here Comes Santa Claus

We were inspired by Keeley McGuire's Santa coming down the chimney and decided to use a couple of tools to create our own.

Our main entree is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich that was cut with the FunBites square cutter and then stacked it to look like a chimney.  We added a cute little Santa pick to the top.

Our vegetable side is orange and yellow pepper rings.

Our fruit side is a clementine and raspberries.

Finally, our dairy/dessert is a Dannon Light and Fit yogurt that we covered with a Christmas themed cupcake wrapper.

Our Lunchbox Love note today says it all.  We are so in love with our kids that no other gift is necessary.

 

Christmas Tree Ravioli

We found a great new thing for a Christmas at Sam's Club.  It's Christmas Tree shaped ravioli by Nü-ó-vö pasta.  It's not only cute but it tastes great!

Our main entree is Nuovo Christmas Tree ravioli.  We added a little bit of light Italian dressing to them to add flavor and keep them from sticking.

Our vegetable side is red peppers and sugar snap peas.

Our fruit side is sliced apples and pears.

Finally, our dairy/dessert is Greek Gods Honey Greek yogurt.  This stuff is AMAZING!

We also added a little Lunchbox Love note.

Christmas Lights Lunch

One of our favorite things about the Christmas season is all of the lights.  We love to hang them on the tree, on the front porch and ride around and look at all of them around the neighborhood.

Our main entree is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich cut with our Christmas bulb cookie cutter.  We cut a piece of Havarti cheese with the cutter and used our food safe markers to decorate it.  Then, we set it on top of the sandwich.  We added Christmas Goldfish for a little extra treat.

Our vegetable side is sugar snap peas and red and yellow mini peppers.

Our fruit side is blackberries and raspberries.

We put a little Lunchbox Love note with a little interesting fact about Christmas lights.  Use code : MOLLY to receive 15% off of your order.

A Day to Remember

The Hobbit Lunch Hop

The hubby's birthday was Wednesday and he's a huge Hobbit fan so we made our lunch for his birthday.  I wasn't sure which direction to go in when making this lunch.  Should I do a completely Hobbit themed lunch and try to recreate Gollum with cheese or should I go with food that Hobbits would eat.  I went with the latter so I'm hoping that this is a Middle Earth feast that Bilbo Baggins would enjoy.  These are all earthy fresh ingredients that might be found in the Shire.  I did add the Hobbit logo on a piece of cheese to top our main entree.

Our main entree is a Mushroom Reverse Shepherd's Pie.  I started by sauteing some onion, then added mushrooms, a little bit of turkey sausage and a few spices.  Then I added some milk and reduced it down, added a little cornstarch mixed with water and thickened it up.  This is served over (instead of under like a usual Shepherd's Pie) homemade mashed potatoes.

Our vegetable side is carrots that have been cooked with a little butter, honey and orange peel then finished with sea salt.

Finally, our fruit side is fried apples.  We started by melting a tiny bit of butter in our pan and then added a chopped apple, let it cook for a little while (stirring) and finished by adding some raisins, a dash of cinnamon and a drizzle of honey.

Now hop over to see what Marie has cooked up over at Healthy Eating Starts at Home.

Fun Friday Christmas Lunch

We had a fun night tonight filled with traditions.  C. J. had open house at his preschool (which both of the girls attended when they were younger).  We had a great time looking at all of his crafts and meeting his little friends.  Afterward, as we do every year, we drove all around and looked at everyone's Christmas lights.  There were brightly colored twinkling lights and big blow up snowmen, Santas and Snoopys.  We saw some big beautiful displays and some simple displays.  It was awesome!

Our main entree is a salami and cheese sandwich.  We used a Christmas stocking cookie cutter to cut it out and then used our food safe markers to color them in.  I wrote their names on them but they are kind of hard to see.

Our vegetable side is....well corn, maybe.  We added Xochitl tortilla chips in their red and green Christmas variety.

Our fruit side is strawberries.

Finally, our Fun Friday treat is a Trader Joe's Pfeffernusse cookie and a few Christmas themed gummies.

There is also a little note from Lunch Box Love.  They have really cute sayings on the front and then fun trivia on the back.  Use the code: MOLLY to receive 15% off.

Pizza!

After a trip to Trader Joe's, we've got plenty of inspiration for some fun festive lunches, including pizza!

Our main entree is pepperoni pizza.  We used Trader Joe's Middle Eastern Flat Bread for our crust, added Trader Joe's tomato paste, pizza cheese and turkey pepperoni that we cut into tree and snowman shapes with mini cookie cutters.

Our vegetable side is cucumber slices.

Our fruit side is kiwi slices.

Finally, our dairy/dessert is Trader Joe's Strawberry Greek Yogurt.

Pick Your Lunch

This lunch shows a simple way use a few cupcake picks to make lunch look festive.

Our main entree is salami and cheese.  We rolled up a few pieces of salami, cut some colby jack cheese and skewered them with a few fun Christmas picks.

Our vegetable side is orange and yellow pepper rings.

Our fruit side is a clementine and a persimmon.  Bean wasn't too thrilled with the persimmon so only Molly will be eating them.

Finally, our dairy/dessert is vanilla yogurt.

Reindeer Sandwich

We found some great Christmas lunch inspiration all over the interwebs and this was one of the fun things we found.

Our main entree is a peanut butter and jelly reindeer sandwich.  We cut our pb&j with a heart shaped cookie cutter, added pretzel antlers, chocolate chip eyes and a little red nose.

Our vegetable side is a reindeer's favorite, carrots.

Our fruit side is strawberries and black berries.

Finally, our dairy/dessert is Trader Joe's Strawberry Greek yogurt.

Christmas Pasta

Kraft makes a really fun Christmas Mac and Cheese.  We sometimes make it at mac and cheese but sometimes we just use the pasta to make pasta salad.

Our main entree is a Christmas pasta salad.  We used the pasta form Kraft Winter Shapes Mac and Cheese, added turkey pepperoni, red peppers, sugar snap peas and light Italian dressing.  We finished it off with cheese that we cut with some plunger cookie cutters then decorated them with our food safe markers.

Our vegetable is in our pasta salad.

Our fruit side is apples and clementines.

Finally, our dairy/dessert is vanilla yogurt with multi colored mini chocolate chips.

We added a cute little note from Lunchbox Love.  (Use code: MOLLY for 15% off)