Clifford the Big Red Dog

Sprout's library day is today, and as I packed her last week's book in her schoolbag, I chuckled because the book she borrowed was one that we own, both on paper and as a Storia eBook - Clifford the Big Red Dog :) Of course we read the library copy anyways... that girl loves Clifford!

She'll be very happy to open her lunchbox today:

I made the Clifford in his doghouse sandwich with a Critter Cutter Lunch Punch, Americolor food pens, & candy eyes, all available from BentoUSA.

Clifford is also Sprout's kindergarten class mascot!

Lunch is a Nutella sandwich on white wheat, baby carrots, apple wedges, & a Fiber One Strawberry PB&J Chewy granola bar, packed in her green yubo lunch box. None of Sprout's lunch needs to be kept chilled, but she does prefer her apples & carrots crisp & cold, so I put a small ice pack under just those 2 containers instead of the full size one that comes with the yubo.

Lunch is linked to Read.Explore.Learn!

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!

♥  ♥  ♥  ♥ 

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs!

Yesterday I made some meatballs and was reminded of a meal idea in a Parents Magazine article:  Recipes from Your Child's Favorite Books.
Bella's school has a summer reading program, part of which includes the school's library being open Thursday afternoons, so today we borrowed a copy of Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs and I made this for supper :

Bella's school library's copy is 25 years old! It still has the paper check-out card pouch in it just like library books did when I was in school :)

My sproutlets have seen the animated movie of the same name countless times (we own it) but they'd never read the book - somehow, even though it was published when I was 5 and has remained popular over the years - I'd never read the book!  It's completely different from the movie - which was a good thing - we enjoyed the tale without comparing the two.  

The book is about a town called Chewandswallow that gets all it's food from the sky. The town never gets weather like we have; in Chewandswallow it rains soup and snows mashed potatoes! The townspeople are happy with their edible weather. They get plenty of variety - just as our weather varies, so does theirs - and 3 times a day too, for breakfast, lunch & dinner :) There's even an element of environmental awareness - the sanitation department cleans up the leftover food,  feeds it to the animals and sea creatures, and composts the rest. Then one day the weather starts getting really wacky....  

We loved the silly illustrations and humorous story. It was fantastic and imaginative and just as entertaining for me as it was for my 3 year old.

If I'd remembered the meal idea before I made the meatballs, I'd have made itty bitty ones that looked more like they were raining down from the mashed potato clouds. These were golf ball sized cheese-stuffed meatballs - Sprout said they looked more like meteors crashing :) Which was fine with me, I'm glad her supper inspired her imagination!

This post is linked to

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Read.Explore.Learn. - How did that get in my lunchbox?

New lunchbox! Sprout was super excited about her pink Goodbyn Bynto. She wanted her lunch in it even though we ate at home :)

I packed her some carrots, a clementine, tomatoes, apple juice, a cheese sandwich, and a chocolate chip cookie - just like the lunch in our new book,  How Did That Get In My Lunchbox? The Story of Food. 

The book tells about the journey foods make from where they begin until they get to us, depicting orchards, farms, greenhouses, factories, dairies, and finally, all the foods  together in a child's lunchbox. It does not talk about meat, which was a relief. The girls and Pickle do not like to hear about animals becoming food. It does talk about healthy eating, what each food group does for our bodies, and how much we need of each. The small sproutlets & I liked it ... 3 thumbs up!

Sprout was pleased with her lunch except for the clementine - she has suddenly decided she doesn't like them anymore (this week) but she did like that everything in her lunch was in the book :) These pages of the book tell how cocoa beans end up chocolate chips like those in her cookie :

Today was a half day, school let out for Spring Break at noon, so everyone was home for lunch and had pretty much the same thing as Sprout, but on plates. Well, except Pickle who had his usual PB sandwich and yogurt.  Boy, was Birdie mad that she didn't have a Goodbyn lunchbox too!

It's Friday! It's Spring Break! Sailor Boy comes home soon! Wheee! 

Stuff I used for today's lunches:

What Makes A Rainbow? + Rainbow Kit Giveaway!

My sproutlets are getting over a couple of days of mild illness. Birdie, the youngest, was the first to start feeling better, so I encouraged her to eat some fruit, cheese & crackers by arranging them like a rainbow. To go with her rainbow snack, we read one of her favourite books - one we've had since Beanstalk was her age - What Makes a Rainbow? by Betty Ann Schwartz. 

 

It's such a cute book. With every turn of the page, another ribbon colour is added to the rainbow. Now, it's not accurate - there are only 6 colours in this rainbow, which ends with purple rather than indigo, then violet - but that doesn't bother me, she'll learn what really makes a rainbow eventually, and I only had 6 colours of muffin cups and fruit anyways :)

Birdie's favourite page is the blue one, because it has a bird on it (she got her nickname from the way she likes to chirp like a bird - she loves "birdies"). As we read each page, I encouraged her to eat the colour of fruit that matched the colour in the book. After we read through the book in the order it was meant to be read, she played with it, opening pages randomly then eating that colour.

Bella & Sprout wanted in on the fun too and between the 3 of them they ate the rainbow of fruit & cheese, leaving only a few bunny shaped pretzels :)

●  ●  ●  ● 

My sproutlets love to eat rainbows. Any time I want to get them to eat a variety, or try something new, I use rainbows in some way - arranging them in rainbow order, in rainbow coloured containers, or just encouraging them to add that colour to their Today I Ate A Rainbow chart. Hooray for eating rainbows!

  

Today I Ate A Rainbow!

I love our Today I Ate A Rainbow! Kit - it's really helped me get even the pickier sproutlets to eat enough fruits & veggies every day, and try new ones. It's even encouraged Pickle, our little man with autism and a very short list of likes, to try things - and that is amazing :)

The Rainbow Kit comes with all you see here:

• The Today I Ate A Rainbow chart
• The Rainbow Bunch book & bookmark
• Grocery shopping list
• Rainbow Magnet set

You might have noticed the Today I Ate A Rainbow! chart looks a little different from the one I reviewed in February... it's a new one!  There are now more fruit & vegetable suggestions for each colour, and lovely growing garden graphics. My boys really like this new version - although the girls are loyal to our original chart featuring Hannah, the original Rainbow Kid ♥ We've got both charts on our fridge now - one for the boys and one for the girls - which sometimes spurs a little healthy competition :)

The Today I Ate A Rainbow website is a super fun resource too, for caregivers and children alike! The site has a new look that matches the new chart, and there's lots of new free stuff, like fruit and veggie coloring pages,  and on the resource page, a Rainbow Eaters Certificate and a new chart called Today I Tried. Did you know it can take at least 10 exposures to a new food before it's accepted? I know in the past I've given up after only 3 or 4 tries... The Today I Tried chart can be a helpful visual tool, both as a reminder to caregivers not to give up too soon, and as a record for children to see their progress :)

One of my favourite parts of the Today I Ate A Rainbow! website is the video section,  Hannah & Kia cook up healthy fun in the Rainbow Kitchen. My little girls and I made kale chips following along with them!

I know my kidlets are more likely to try foods they had a hand in preparing, and cooking along with the videos is fun and easy for even beginners to follow :)

And my sproutlets love The Rainbow Song.

Sprout & Birdie sang The Rainbow Song on Green Day, 

so this time big sister Mia Bella wanted a turn:

Want your own Rainbow Kit?

You're in luck! March is Nutrition Month, so the wonderful Kia, creator of the Today I Ate A Rainbow! chart & kit, author of The Rainbow Bunch,  and advocate of rainbow eating for good nutrition, is offering my readers another chance to win a new Rainbow Kit of their own!

All you have to do is leave a comment on this post!

Visit Today I Ate A Rainbow! then come back here and leave a comment telling me & Kia something you liked  ♥

I'd also love it if you would visit the Today I Ate A Rainbow on Facebook and Like them - you can make a bonus entry if you do, or already did - just make another comment saying so :) And if you also Like Bent On Better Lunches on Facebook, or you already did, you can make another comment saying so! That's 3 chances to win :)

The winner will be chosen (by comment # using Random.org) and announced on Friday, March 23rd.  Good luck! And remember, I need a way to contact you if you win, so make sure your comment includes one! Thank you :)

Bonus! I will now be drawing 2 winners!
Thank you Today I Ate A Rainbow!

Disclosure: I received a Rainbow Kit from Today I Ate A Rainbow! to review.  No other compensation or payment was given. All opinions & descriptions are my own.

The Rainbow Kit Giveaway is Closed. Thanks for for entering!

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!