Angry Birds Bentos

Pickle is crazy about Angry Birds. I have only made him one Angry Birds lunch though, and it was just a peanut butter sandwich... and I haven't made one since... because he liked it so much he wouldn't eat it, he wanted to keep it!  It's been a while though, so I figured I'd try again :)

When packing a theme lunch, sometimes I wing it, but most of the time I do a little prep the night before,  gathering my non-perishable ingredients, supplies, & containers, so everything is handy in the morning:

Here I have his drink bottle, yubo lunchbox, a packet of fruit snacks, some graham crackers, the cookie stamps for the sandwiches, and a little peanut butter that came with breakfast at a restaurant a few weeks ago that we didn't use so I took it home. In the morning I'd just need to make the sandwiches, add his yogurt and fill his cup. Oh, and that's not an Angry Birds bottle - I put a rubbery bracelet my friend Ludicrous Mama sent him around the lid of his regular Nalgene bottle for fun - it was a perfect fit! 

These are the cookie / pastry stamps up close:

They are shaped cutters with spring-loaded stamps. They squash the bread quite flat, and they are pretty small, so I made his peanut butter sandwiches double decker. Here's his Angry Birds lunch all put together:

I cut out the Red Bird from the tag that was on the bracelet and taped it on the lid of his Chobani Champions honey-nana Greek yogurt. The peanut butter for dipping the Angry Birds grahams is under the fruit snack pouch. 

I packed Angry Birds bentos for Bella & Beanstalk as well. Bella also got Angry Birds PB sandwiches, grahams & a little green cup of peanut butter for dipping them, tomatoes, & cucumbers. I got that cute little green pig bento pick from my friend Ming of Bento, Monsters :)

Beanstalk's lunch was packed in his PlanetBox. His PB sandwich was made with my CuteZcute cutter. I love that thing, it's so versatile, quick & easy! I added a crown to make the Pig King :) He also has Angry Birds grahams & fruit snacks, plus apple wedges and cherry pomegranate fruit leather.

Oh, and before I put the lid on Bella's EasyLunchbox, I added a cloth napkin and a pouch of fruit snacks to the large compartment. That filled the space and held everything in place too. I know she'll love opening this colourful lunch!

I hope Pickle eats his sandwiches!  

This is the one I made him last year, that he insisted on keeping:

It lived in our freezer for a long time :)

Stuff I used for these lunches:

From BentoUSA by All Things For Sale

Pirates Don't Change Diapers Muffin Tin Meal

Wednesday was Talk Like A Pirate Day, and I read the small sproutlets a pirate bedtime story. Birdie really liked it and took it to bed with her, so yesterday I read it to her again and made her a muffin tin meal to go with it. I'm a longtime admirer of Keitha's Story Themed Lunches, and wow, kudos to her - tying a book into a meal is harder than it looks - and she does it every school day! So here is my imitation = flattery tribute lunch pic, Keitha-style :)

As you can see, our copy of the book is well-loved :) 

Pirates Don't Change Diapers, written by Melinda Long and illustrated by David Shannon,  is a sequel to How I Became A Pirate, (which we also loved). In the book, Jeremy Jacob gets a visit from his pirate friends, who wake his baby sister Bonney Anne from her nap and then must help take care of her. And of course, pirates don't know how to take care of a baby!

 

The baby in the book, Bonney Anne, has strained spinach for lunch. I didn't have any spinach, but I did have broccoli, so I substituted that - it's green! I made a little wailing Bonney Anne from cheddar cheese, and just happened to have a daisy bento pick just like the flower in her baby hair :)

The rest of the lunch is just a little bit pirate-y in general. She has parmesan goldfish, anti-scurvy oranges, grapes on swords, white cheddar Pirate Booty, and mozzarella cheese X-marks-the-spot with one piece of the cheese stuck through a skull & crossbones cupcake ring. 

Birdie loved the pink pirate ring best!

 

I love the Bonney Anne skull & crossbones on the back cover of the book!

♥  ♥  ♥  ♥ 

Did ye catch the Talk Like A Pirate Day Bento Booty Treasure Hunt blog hop I took part in? Nay? Arr, what are ye waitin' fer? Th' hunt is only on 'til Sunday night... don't miss yer chance t' find th' treasure!

♥  ♥  ♥  ♥ 

Afro Circus Field Trip & School Lunches

♪ ♫  Da da da-da-da-da da da Circus! Da da da-da-da-da da da Afro! Circus! Afro! Circus! Afro! Polka-dot! Polka-dot! Polka-dot! Afro!  ♫ ♪

Madagascar 3 is in theatres today! My sproutlets are so excited!
I made them penguin peanut butter sandwiches & Afro Circus oatmeal muffins. Bella had carrots with a giraffe pick & tomatoes with a lion & polka dot picks with hers. Beanstalk had raisins with his (not shown).

This lunch will make more sense if you have seen the Madagascar 3 trailer :) So in case you haven't, or even if you have, and because it's funny...  here is the Madagascar 3 Afro Circus Remix:

Afro Circus Muffins!

I saw some zebra print baking cups and thought I'd try to frost oatmeal muffins to look like a circus afro, but on a whim, I sprinkled some fruity cereal on top of the batter instead. I wasn't sure if they would rise much with the cereal on top, but they did, and and everyone loved them!  I thought about sticking a circus animal cracker on top of each, but the animals weren't very recognizable! I just put the little boxes aside for a snack to take to the movie when we go :)

♪ ♫ Polka-dot! Polka-dot! Polka-dot! Afro! ♫ ♪

Field Trip Lunch!

Pickle was supposed to have a field trip yesterday, and needed a disposable lunch. That didn't mean it had to be boring though! I decorated a strawberry basket with Madagascar character cut-outs and lined it with a red & white striped popcorn bag :)

Inside I packed apple Buddy Fruits, an apple juice box, polka dot penguin peanut butter sandwiches, & an Afro Circus muffin. I also added a yogurt tube, but after I took the photo below. He also got a little box of circus animal crackers for snack time.

Pickle was so excited to be taking a "sack lunch", he even asked that I write Circus Afro Polka Dot Sack Lunch on the paper bag. Here he is with his sack, smiling so big his eyes have disappeared :) But do you see what's happening outside the window behind him?

Yep, rain. And the field trip was a hike in the woods. Sadly, it was canceled at the last minute, which made me extra glad I had made his lunch so fun, I hoped it might help cheer him up. He was soooo disappointed he didn't even want to go to school. The lunch helped - I told him he had to go if he wanted his sack lunch, because we don't eat sack lunches at home! It worked :)

Edible Geekery : May The 4th Be With You! Star Wars Lunch

It's Star Wars Day!

Beanstalk's PlanetBox is packed with a lunch any Padawan would trade his food pellets for. On the Dark Side, a Darth Vader cupcake topper lurks among black grapes. On the Jedi side is a candy coated pretzel rod lightsaber. I had issues with the baking melts - it was meant to be a light coating, but it was too thick for dipping and I had to spread it on with a spatula. It ended up more candy than pretzel, hmph. Beanstalk will be thrilled with all the sugar in this lunch - may the force be with his teacher ;)

Green grapes & lightsaber cupcake picks surround an apple Yoda (thank you Kitchen Fun With My Three Sons for the recipe). I stuck a storm trooper cupcake topper in a square of Clif Z bar, & next to it are a pair of peanut butter granola squares. In the centre is a rolled piece of ham, solo. 

I know, that joke was really bad... but I couldn't resist :)

Bella's not a Star Wars fan, but she wanted in on the fun (I think she just wanted the chocolate covered pretzel rod lightsaber - that I forgot to include in the pic) so I packed her potato soup in her brother's Clone Wars Thermos instead of her pink one, and added some lightsabers to her fruit & veg. The Darth Vader cupcake toppers are rings so I put her cloth napkin through one. 

Can't forget Pickle! He has a Luke's right hand peanut butter sandwich ;) 

And not shown, yogurt & oatmeal cookie, like every day. The lightsaber is just because I had one left. Red is his favourite colour, too.

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In celebration of Star Wars Day, the Bento Bloggers & Friends did a blog hop, but it's broken now. Still, click to see if you can still check out my Rebel friend Jenn's tribute lunch at Bento for Kidlet! 

A Berry Cute Snack

My sproutlets and I received some happy mail the other day, a package from LearningZoneXpress! One of the items inside was LANA's Fruit & Vegetable Snack Recipes cookbook, from the LANA Preschool Program. It's a step by step picture cookbook for preschoolers and caregivers to use together. The recipes are simple, adorable, and nutritious, and the instructions even suggest which steps the child can do. I love that the pages are sturdy and laminated, no worries about my messy little helpers handling it :) We love it!

My Sprout picked out the Strawberry Mini-Mouse Nibbles snack recipe right away, strawberries are her favourite. 

The recipe calls for graham crackers, strawberries, berry cream cheese, mozzarella string cheese, and sliced almonds. We didn't have any graham crackers (I thought we did, but it turns out we had an empty graham cracker box... I'm sure other parents with older kids are familiar with that sort of discovery) but we had everything else.

And we did have berry rice cakes, they'd make a yummy substitute :) 

Sprout enjoyed spreading the cream cheese. She spread quite a bit on her tongue too!  And only 2 of the 4 mice actually survived the snack's preparation, the other 2 were eaten in the process :)

 

Aren't they adorable?! Easy and fun too :)

Thanks LANA & LearningZoneXpress  ♥

Happy Friday!

Rainbow Week : Blue & Indigo + Read.Explore.Learn.

We've reached the end of our Rainbow Week! I'm cheating a little and combining Blue and Indigo - since there are only 5 school days... and there just aren't that many truly blue foods :) We did have some delicious blue potatoes with dinner last night though, love their colour, so fun!

Blue & Indigo

Bella's blue lunch contains the word blue cut from white cheddar, blue corn chips and salsa (in the container under the cheese), purple grapes with blue seal picks, and grape jelly roll-ups for "dessert". Bella suddenly claims she no longer likes blueberries (no reason why, she just doesn't) but blueberry-pomegranate fruit leather is still okay... (okay, whatever... silly sproutlet) so that's what she has for snack.

Lunch for the man. We've decided that the blue-lidded Easy Lunchboxes are his so he knows which lunch he can take, since sometimes I make Bella's the night before too and most of the time he leaves for work before I wake. 

I had various leftover meats in our fridge, so Sailor Boy has pork tenderloin and a sausage kebab, atop a salad with purple cabbage, a little cup of raspberry vinaigrette (lid off for photo), blueberries, and leftover cooked purple cabbage. I like to make kebabs of his meats when I give him a salad - that way if he doesn't want to eat them in the salad, or wants to heat them up, he only has to pick out a couple of skewers rather than a dozen or so little pieces. He also has a blueberry yogurt, and a Lunchbox Love note  ♥ 

We had more cabbage to use up so I cooked it last night and made a leftovers bento for my lunch. Blue potatoes, chicken, and purple cabbage:

My cabbage is a much more vibrant purple than the cabbage in Sailor Boy's lunch! That cabbage was cooked in the wok, on the stove, with red wine vinegar. Mine was cooked in the microwave with a little water. It came out really bright! Check out the water left in the bowl!

Rainbow 
Read. Explore. Learn.

This morning I prepared the girls a Nibble Tray for snack later. I planned to offer the snack after we read The Rainbow Bunch - which is all about eating a rainbow of healthy fruits and veggies - so I took a picture of them together.

Birdie grabbed a blueberry as I was taking the pic of the book cover...

... I was about to tell her the snack was for later - but she didn't want to eat it, she just wanted to match each colour food to the corresponding Rainbow Kid :)

The Rainbow Bunch

 by Kia Robertson

This isn't the first time we've read The Rainbow Bunch - it came with our Rainbow Kit, and of course they wanted to read it as soon as we opened that - but it's the first time this week :) The Rainbow Bunch starts out "There once were five kids... who didn't eat right" and tells about how those kids want to learn and play and grow, but they are too tired and sick - because they eat junk food instead of fruits & veggies - and how they learn about how fruits and vegetables can make them healthy, and how they begin to feel good and have fun once they start eating their rainbow. My little girls really love seeing their Today I Ate a Rainbow! chart in the story. They like to shout "Hey, we have that!" and usually ask for a healthy snack for their rainbow  ♥ Today I'm all set with their rainbow nibble tray :)

And to go with our rainbow reading and rainbow snack...

More Rainbow Fun!

Recycled Crayon Craft

I saw this craft last year in Little Birdie Secrets and knew we had to do it one day. It's one of the ways I justified to hubby my purchasing a bunch of shaped silicone muffin pans - restoring to usefulness all our broken crayons :)

Step 1: Peel any paper from your crayon pieces. My little Birdie loves to peel the paper from crayons most of our crayons are already "naked" - so we got to skip that step!  Step 2: Arrange your crayon pieces in a silicone muffin pan, breaking them more if needed, until each cup is at least 2/3 full. Birdie liked this part, being allowed to break crayons :)

Step 3: Bake in 200 degree oven for about half an hour, or until everything looks completely melted. Step 4: Carefully remove from oven and allow to cool on a flat surface, out of the reach of children.

Step 5: Once they are completely cool and solid, pop them out of the molds!

Ta-dah! New crayons :)

We made these ones as a birthday gift for Birdie's little preschool friend, and packaged them up in a waxed paper lined wooden box from a Melissa & Doug toy we got years ago, that I saved because "you never know when you might need a cute little wooden box". See, Sailor Boy? ;)

Bundled with a big package of construction paper and tied with a rainbow ribbon, I think they make a lovely gift for a 3 year old.

Rainbow Lunch Love

Here are some rainbow lunches by some of my lunch blogger friends:

Astrid of Lunches Fit For A Kid also did a Rainbow Week with a fabulous variety of colourful and healthy lunches. And she makes the most amazing Rainbow bread!

Ludicrous Mama of Biting The Hand That Feeds You has heaps of examples of eating a rainbow - click her lovely rainbow bento below to see them all!

A rainbow & a smile :)

I hope you've enjoyed my Rainbow Week! I know my sproutlets have ♥

If you haven't yet, check out my review of Today I Ate A Rainbow! and enter to win a Rainbow Kit of your own!