Cold Pizza

Oh Monday...why must you come and bring the weekend to an end?

One good thing about Monday is the weekend leftovers!

Our main entree is cold leftover pizza from the weekend.  The girls are huge fans of cold pizza.  

Our vegetable side is baby carrots.  We have an Easy Lunchboxes Mini Dipper with a little bit of Ranch dressing in it for dipping.

Our fruit side is raspberries and blueberries.

Finally, our dairy/dessert is plain Greek yogurt with honey in a silicone tube.

Friday By Request

Both of the girls had their own ideas for lunch tomorrow so we went with it!

Tomorrow's lunches are in Easy Lunchboxes.

 

Bean requested another pumpkin bread sandwich but with whipped cream cheese in the middle.

Molly requested a hot dog with a relish/mustard mix on the side.

Our vegetable side is seedless cucumbers cut with a crinkle knife.  

Our fruit side is red grapes.

Molly has a GoGurt Simple in strawberry and Bean (who is getting very picky lately) has plain Greek yogurt with honey that we made and put into a silicone ice pop maker.

Finally, our Fun Friday treat is a little Dove chocolate.

Pita Pizza

The girls have always been cold pizza fans and asked for a pizza lunch.

This is one of my favorite things to make because it's so easy.

Tomorrow's lunch is in Easy Lunchboxes.

Our main entree is a pita pizza.  We spread a thin coat of tomato paste on a whole grain pita, topped with a sprinkle of Trader Joe's 21 Seasoning Salute, shredded mozzarella and some turkey pepperoni.  Bake and let cool, slice and then right into the lunch box. 

Our vegetable side is baby carrots.  There is a small container (Easy Lunchboxes Mini Dippers) of Ranch for them to dip their carrots in.

Our fruit side is fresh raspberries.

Finally, our dairy dessert is a new Gogurt Simple yogurt tube.

Pumpkin Bread Sandwich

Oh yes, it's the most wonderful time of the year, in my opinion at least.  Fall/Autumn brings cool crisp air, fresh apples, pumpkins, beautiful leaves and the most amazing smell!

We're getting a little taste of it here in Western Pennsylvania today and so is our lunch for tomorrow.

Lunch is in an Easy Lunchbox.  Link below.

 Our main entree is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on Pepperidge Farm Limited Edition Pumpkin Spice Swirl Bread.  YUM!!!!

Our veggie side is a white cucumber and a few pepper rings.

Our fruit side is a Chambersburg peach.

Finally our dairy/dessert (not pictured...oops!) is Chobani Champions Yogurt Tubes.

Make Your Own Lunchables

One of the girls' favorite things for lunch is make your own Lunchables.  They like to pick their favorite meats and cheeses, then add some crackers.  We like that we can choose healthier things than what is in the deli case.  Our lunch is in Easy Lunchboxes.  Link below

Our main entree is honey ham wrapped around a string cheese and then sliced.  We added some butter crackers for the girls to stack their meat on.

Our vegetable side is a white cucumber.  We were given one of these by a really nice man at our local farmer's market.  The skin tasted bitter so we removed it but the rest was really nice.

Our fruit side is fresh blueberries.

Finally, our dairy/dessert is a Chobani Champions Greek yogurt Tube!  YUM!

Day 5, FUN FRIDAY!!!

We've made it!!!!  We have survived the first week of school!!!

We've always had a tradition of having a dessert or something fun on Fridays as a way to celebrate making it through the week.  Well, this week is our first Fun Friday of the year in Laptop Lunch Boxes.  Link below.

 

Our main entree is a pepperoni roll from an awesome little bake shop near our new house.  We added a small container of Ranch for dipping.

Our vegetable side is baby carrots.

Our fruit is grapes and clementine segments.

Finally, our Fun Friday treat is two heart shaped cookies from the bakery.

Day 4 of School

So, we were a little crazy in the spring while getting ready to move and got a puppy.  Yes, horrible timing and a lot of responsibility but he was too cute to pass up.  A great friend works at The Animal Rescue League of Pittsburgh and posted his picture on Facebook and we just couldn't resist.

I mean....could you say no to this adorable little face?  

Instantly, Dublin became part of our family.

The girls asked for a puppy themed lunch in honor of him (who is now about 4 times this size!).  Our lunch is in Laptop Lunch Boxes.  Link below.

 

Molly had a smoked gouda and ham sandwich and Bean's is pb&j.  We used our Lunch Punches to cut out our sandwiches and colored on them with food safe markers.

Our vegetable side is baby carrots for Molly and cucumbers for Bean.

Our fruit side is sliced strawberries.

Finally, our dairy/dessert is Chobani Champions tubes.

ps - they're having a 72 hour sale!!!  

Day 3!

Bean requested mac and cheese for tomorrow's lunch so we are breaking out our Thermos containers and Lunch Bots.  Links below.

Our main entree is Annie's White Cheddar Shells.  Our method is to microwave the pasta in a separate container in the morning, fill the Thermos with hot water from our Keurig to warm it up, dump the water and fill the Thermos with the hot pasta.  The girls say that their lunches are piping hot at school.

Our fruit side is a Chambersburg peach and some prune plum segments.

Our vegetable side is baby carrots, cucumbers and pepper rings.

Finally, our dairy/dessert is a Chobani Champions tube.

2nd Day of School

The girls had a FANTASTIC first day of school.  They absolutely love their new schools, teachers and friends.  We're hopeful that this positive trend will keep going for the rest of the year!

The school is having breakfast for lunch tomorrow so we went with it.  Our lunches today are in Laptop Lunch Boxes using the large insert.  Link below.

Our main entree is a waffle sandwich.  We added whipped cream cheese to 2 waffles (chocolate chip for Molly and whole grain for Bean) and then added thinly sliced peaches.

Our fruit side is champagne grapes (known as baby grapes in our house).

Our protein side is two slices of bacon.

Finally, our dairy/dessert is a Chobani Champions Greek yogurt tube.

1st Day of School!

Tomorrow is the first day of school for Molly and Bean.  They are in a new school, new district and they are going to different buildings for the first time.  It's quite an adjustment but we are thrilled with our move and can't wait to see what the future has in store. Our first lunch is in Laptop Lunch Boxes, a great way to have a waste free lunch.  (link below)

Bean chose cucumber boats (pickling cucumbers hollowed out and stuffed with whipped cream cheese with a little bit of dry ranch mix in it.) for her first main entree.  We added a few pepper rings for some color.

She also has a few crackers and a couple of pieces of turkey pepperoni.

Molly chose pasta salad for her main entree.  She's always been a big fan.

Her vegetables are cucumber slices and pepper rings.  

Both girls have mixed berries for their fruit side.

Finally, their special first day dessert is a Rice Krispie Treat with a few sprinkles added for fun.

Happy first day of school, girls!!!!

We also had to make sure that the teachers were not forgotten.  We made a survival kit for each of them so that they can have a great first day too. 

We picked up a few essentials at the Target travel section.  Tissues, hand sanitizer, band aids, Altoids, Tooth "brushes", Tums, Chap Stick, Advil, Hand lotion, a yummy Annie's snack, a few Hershey's Kisses and of course, the coveted red pen.

All packed up in a re-usable bin with and a little note of appreciation.  

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.