Hello Kitty Soup & Sides

Warm soup makes a super lunch on a foggy & chilly winter day.

Fresh fruit, crackers, & cheese nestled in colourful cups & embellished with Hello Kitty details make cheerful sides. Packed in a LunchBots Quad.

The blossom in the Babybel cheese was made using a flower cutter to cut a piece of wax out and a circle cutter to cut a piece from it to put back on.

Happy Friday!

International Chocolate Day Balance Bar Giveaway!

Today is International Chocolate Day! It's the perfect day to give away some indulgent exotic chocolate healthy treats from Balance Bar! They recently sent me some of their delicious Dark Chocolate Crunch Bars & new Dark Chocolate Caramel Macchiato Bars to enjoy & have offered to send a box of the same to one lucky reader :)

 

We've tried the Dark Chocolate Crunch Balance Bars before - they're now one of Bella's favourite energy snacks - but the Caramel Macchiato flavour is new! Caramel Macchiato is Sailor Boy's favourite coffee shop drink, and Bella's just crazy about all things caramel, so both were excited to try one. And you know I had to put them in a bento lunch :

I packed Bella's in a LunchBots Trio - the Balance Bar fits perfectly!  I also packed some grapes, ham & cheddar roll-ups, & broccoli florets. I added some sweet touches to this healthy lunch with candy & chocolate bento picks :) And can't forget the Lunchbox Love! I can always find the perfect note. This one's from one of the new Lunchbox Love for Kids Riddles - the riddle side asks:

"Why does a flamingo lift up one leg?"

Answer: Because if it lifted up both legs, it would fall down! :)

I'll post Sailor Boy's lunch later this week - but I'll tell you now that he did say the Caramel Macchiato was awesome :)

I've recently started eating gluten free myself, and my on-the-go snack options have been feeling the impact - so I'm very happy that I can have both the Dark Chocolate Crunch & Caramel Macchiato Balance Bars. The Caramel Macchiato perfectly combines the rich flavour of roasted coffee & the sweetness of caramel, and the Chocolate Crunch hits the spot with a smooth layer of dark chocolate over a crunchy cookie base. They're both filling & delicious! There's also a gluten free Dark Chocolate Coconut Balance Bar that I'm pretty sure I'll love :)

Here's some nutrition info & a closer look:

• Gluten Free
• 100% Rainforest Alliance Certified™ Cocoa
• 180 Calories
• 13g Protein
• 4g Fiber
• Balanced 40-30-30 nutrition (What's that about? Click here)
• 7 Vitamins & Minerals
• Excellent Source of Antioxidants

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Here's your chance to win a box of these yummy bars!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Today is also Roald Dahl Day, in honour of the beloved children's book author's birthday. I find it very fitting that Dahl Day & International Chocolate Day share a day, since one of Dahl's best-known books is Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - which is celebrating it's 50th anniversary, by the way :) I'll definitely be celebrating both days today - by enjoying both a Dark Chocolate Crunch & a Dark Chocolate Caramel Macchiato Balance Bar ;)

P.S. Check out yesterday's Dahl-icious lunches, they're part of a Roald Dahl Day Blog Hop!

Disclosure: I was provided with Balance Bars to sample. All opinions are my own :)  
Giveaway Terms: U.S. entries only. One (1) entrant per household please! Prize provided by Balance Bar

Valentine's Day Yumbox

I packed Birdie a simple & sweet pink & red Valentine Yumbox for preschool.

Yogurt with pink sugar, graham cracker stars, cheese, watermelon cubes, raspberries with a heart fork pick, & a red Hershey's Kisses treat. Birdie carries her Yumbox in a BUILT Gourmet Getaway Lunch Tote.

She'd been home from preschool with a cold & cough for a couple of days, so was very happy to be feeling better Valentine's Day and go to school and give her teacher the Valentine she'd made :)

The day before, I'd made my little Valentine this LOVE bento to eat at home, inspired by Anna of Becoming A Bentoholic's much lovelier original version she shared in the Bento Bloggers & friends Valentines Day Hop.

L - Baby carrots & a marshmallow heart
O - Strawberries
V - Cheese sandwich heart
E - Watermelon

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Lunch stuff I used:

Sproutlets Choice

Sproutlet's choice lunches today. Bean Sprout asked for fruit, chocolate, & a Go-Gurt in her Go Green Lunch Box. I gave her grapes, strawberries (with a little chocolate bar bento pick), chocolate yogurt covered raisins, chocolate graham stars, & a strawberry Go-Gurt.  I also put some reusable ice cubes in the yogurt section to keep it nice & chilly. 

Bella wanted soup & sides. She got tomato & noodles in her LunchBots thermal container, and Wonderful salt & pepper pistachios, Cheez-It crackers, grapes, & sweet mini peppers in her LunchBots Quad.

Pickle's home with croup and not hungry, Beanstalk's buying in the cafeteria, and Birdie made herself a cheese sandwich with our ice cream cone Lunch Punch, then coloured it with food markers :

Yes, that's Birdie, she wanted her hair "shaved like Amy Pond" (Karen Gillan).

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Some stuff I used for today's lunches:

Shiny Happy Holidays!

We got a dusting of snow last night! It didn't stick, but just the sight of it put me in the holiday spirit, and the feeling was still with me when I woke up this morning :) I packed Bella a festive PlanetBox lunch of crackers & cheese, mini marzano tomatoes & cucumber chunks, a snowflake sandwich surrounded by mint Hershey's Kisses, and a Clif bar that I decorated with cookie icing snowflakes. It's not my best work but she'll love it ♥

And of course I added a Lunchbox Love note ♥ 

Today is the last day to enter my Lunchbox Love Giveaway!

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It's Tuesday, pancake breakfast for school lunch day! So I only had to pack for Bella, and - surprise, surprise - Beanstalk! My 7th grader buys his lunch more often than not, but every now and then he asks me to pack him one. And today, he even said it was okay for me to put a holiday pick in! My big boy green lighting decorations in his lunch? It's practically a Christmas miracle ;)

I didn't go crazy or anything :) He asked for a LunchBots with Ritz crackers (which just happen to have snowflakes on them) apple wedges, & Clif bar, and I added black grapes & a festive food pick. Happy Holidays Beanstalk!

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Some stuff I used to for today's lunches:

Happy Hannukah!

Bella has a Hannukah bento today. We aren't Jewish but her American Girl Rebecca is, & celebrates the holiday in the book Candlelight for Rebecca :)

Bella's LunchBots Quad contains:

•  Whole grain peach Newtons, & chocolate pretzel mushrooms.
  I think upside-down they resemble dreidels, don't you?
• Baby carrots & a cocktail tomato on a dreidel cupcake pick.
• Star of David cantaloupe chunks
• Cucumber chunks topped with a Star of David cucumber slice. For the 3D effect, I sliced it thick, cut the star out of the center & set it aside, sliced the cucumber piece in half, then put the star back in.

She also has a LunchBots insulated container of soup, & cutlery, not shown.

I actually bought a box of matzos and was going to include some - crackers & soup, yum, right? But then this morning when Bella asked what she could take for the food drive, I impulsively changed my mind and gave it to her to donate. It was a really big box, and I don't even know if she likes matzo :)

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Happy Anniversary Doctor Who!

Today marks the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who! Such a milestone deserves to be commemorated with something special, so my littlest Whovian, 4 year old Birdie, helped me make a special bento for her lunch :)

TARDIS lunchbox from ThinkGeek (USA)   K-9 cookie cutter from Lakeland (UK)

Birdie's as much a fan of The Sarah Jane Adventures as she is of Doctor Who, & she loves K-9, the robot dog. She made her K-9 cheese sandwich all by herself ♥ ♥ He's only slightly wibbly-wobbly, she did a fantastic job!

Birdie made her sandwich using one of our new Whovian cookie cutters my amazing English friend Grace (of Eats Amazing) recently sent us.  She also sent the TARDIS chocolate mold I used to make the little blue K-9 sweet ♥ ♥

I packed the other half of the LunchBots Duo with yogurt in a LunchBots Dips cup, apples, & a TARDIS print cloth napkin. I swirled some blue sugar into the pink and blue Trix yogurt to represent the Time Vortex. The apple wedges are striped like K-9's collar (which matched the 4th Doctor's iconic scarf).

My little Whovian was thrilled with her K-9 bento. She's super excited about the 50th Anniversary episode that airs today. She's got her fez on and her sonic screwdriver ready to use when the Doctor uses his ;)

Now click the the button to hop over to Robot Squirrel & the Monkeys and see what the talented Eileen has made for her little Time Lords!

Some stuff used to make this lunch: