A Last Dip of Summer Lunch

On one of the last days of summer vacation, Bella went on a day trip with friends & needed a sack lunch. She asked for a bagel, veggies, apples, & 3 different dips - good thing we have lots of EasyLunchboxes Mini Dippers!

She wanted peanut butter & nutella for the bagel, & caramel dip for the apples. The veggies she requested were broccoli, tomatoes, carrots, & cucumber, which she likes to eat as is, no dip :)

I added some summery decorations: sunglasses & flip flops cupcake picks, & a frog in an inner tube bento pick. I also packed a little plastic spreader that I forgot to include in the photo. 

Fun summertime accessories used:

Poolside Flip Flop Bento

We've been having some sweet summer weather here on Whidbey Island! I set up an inflatable pool on our deck for the sproutlets to cool off in. They love being in it so much, they don't even want to come in for lunch! So today I made bentos in their EasyLunchboxes & let them eat poolside :)

Our EasyLunchboxes are great for letting the sproutlets eat out in the back yard. If they don't want to stop playing, they can eat some, put the lid on & go for a swing, then come back & eat some more. If someone splashes from the pool or a hungry ant comes by, their lunch will be safe! And if they take their lunch with them to the swings, I don't have to worry about breakage :)

These flip-flop sandwiches are so cute, & were easy to make. I first saw them on this spa party platter, with strips of bell pepper for the straps, then my bento buddy Dina of What the Girls Are Having made some with red licorice strings, clever. I used the cut off crusts for mine :) I only decided to make them as I was putting the lunches together, and I didn't have those other things. Cheese would also have worked well, or fruit leather, but I had plenty of crusts!

Here's our hungry pool monster! He won't be pleased about all those veggies! Lucky for him, that's his big sister's bento, not his :)

Here's our pool monster's peanut butter sandwich flip-flops:

The pool monster is pleased :)

Bento Accessory Tip:  Little plastic bookmark clips can easily be turned into bento picks with a couple of snips with utility scissors. These ones were cupcake decorations meant to be bookmark souvenirs: 

●  ●  ●  ● 

Stuff I used to make this bento:

 

 

ABC Lunches for 3

Last week at the store I saw some Cheese Nips crackers in novelty shapes - and maybe it's the Navy rubbing off on me, but right away an acronym came to mind: Angry Birds Crackers - ABC.  So I bought them, and today the younger 3 sproutlets ate their ABCs for lunch.

The 2 little girls got ABC muffin tin meals, with Apple wedge A's, boiled egg Bunnies, Carrot coins, Angry Birds Crackers, whole grain Alphabetti spaghetti, and yogurt with ABC sprinkles:

Pickle had his ABC's in the form of peanut butter sandwiches. He too had an Apple, Bunnies, and a Carrot, stamped with the letters A B & C. He also had a cup of yogurt, without sprinkles, and not shown. The carrot was made with a rocket ship cookie cutter, upside down :)

Bella had the rest of the Alphabetti spaghetti, with muffin cups of the Angry Birds crackers, tomatoes, & cheese on the side, but I didn't bother to snap a photo. Beanstalk had lunch at a friend's house.

●  ●  ●  ● 

I haven't been blogging much,  we've just been too busy enjoying summer. We spent most of today splashing around in the pool I set up on our back porch. Well, the kidlets did - I observed from the shade, wearing a huge hemp straw hat for good measure (my skin does not like the sun), chatting with friends on my phone and occasionally getting doused with a water cannon :) In the afternoon Bella had Musical Theater Camp while I took the smaller sproutlets to the farmer's market. It was a nice day.

My little mermaid Sprout.

Stuff I used for these lunches:

    

First Day of Summer Blog Hop!

Yesterday was the first official day of Summer Vacation for my school age sproutlets! Special summery lunches were in order. Especially since my bento blogger friends & I planned a blog hop for today - the First Day of Summer :)

There's always a lot of chatter when planning a blog hop, and with this hop's theme being Summer, the topic of summer movies came up - so you may see one or two summer movie references among today's lunches. Well, two for sure! One from me, and another from Karen of What's In Mom's Lunch Bag (the next stop on the hop) ... you'll see!

Can you guess what summer blockbuster inspired Bella's lunch?  

I thought it might be a little subtle, so I added some quotes from the movie:

My Mia Bella, age 9, has never seen the summer 1987 hit Dirty Dancing - 

to her, this is just a yummy watermelon-y bento :)  She doesn't know that "Hey Baby" is the title of the song Baby learns to dance with Johnny to*, or that there is any significance to her baby in a blanket (wienie swaddled in a biscuit) being in the corner* of her EasyLunchbox ;)

In the other corner she has celery sticks & cherries, and in the main compartment, watermelon & blueberry kebabs, topped with a slice of watermelon. The watermelon was seedless so I added some NatureBox dried currant "seeds" for fun :) In the little cup she has a SunButter ball (recipe below) and in the pink cup, watermelon salt water taffy. Yum!

 This lunch did not need any more cheese so I did not put any more in it!

That's it for movie references for me. I entertained the idea of doing a Ponyo lunch for Birdie & Sprout, but I didn't have any ham - and you can't do a Ponyo lunch without ham! They did get summery bentos though...

I used some of the dough from the SunButter balls and a little cookie cutter to make beaches with sandcastles! They also got some blueberries, cantaloupe starfish and watermelon. Here's Birdie's -  don't you want to eat that sand!?

Those pebbles are actually candy coated chocolates! Don't they look real? They taste like M&M's. The little girls also got a piece of watermelon taffy each, I just didn't put it in their Easylunchboxes.  I learned from last week's Old MacDonald muffin tin meals that they will still eat the candy first (unlike big sister Bella who saves hers for last) so I gave it to them after lunch.

Sand you CAN eat!

Our loaf of bread was on the small side, too small for any of our sandwich cutters, so Pickle got a peanut butter sandwich shell, embellished with a sandcastle, and a starfish mama & babies. The smaller shapes are one layer of bread stuck on with more peanut butter. And blue yogurt.

Beanstalk didn't want a proper lunch. He slept late and had a big breakfast.

Don't forget about the Summer Blog Hop! You don't want to miss What's In Mom's Lunch Bag and all the others! Click the pic to hop along now if you don't want the recipe for the SunButter balls, or read on if you do :)

● ● ● ● ●

SunButter Balls

 

1/2 cup SunButter (or nut butter of choice)
1/4 cup honey
1/8 cup flax
3/4 cup graham crumbs 

Pour honey or syrup in bowl. Add SunButter and 1/2 cup of graham crumbs,  quickly mixing into dough. Knead dough with hands to combine ingredients well. Shape into balls of desired size. Roll in remaining graham crumbs. Chill in freezer for 10 minutes, then store in refrigerator until ready to serve.  You could add raisins, coconut, chocolate chips, oatmeal... all sorts of things to these.  My picky sproutlets prefer things plain though :)

● ● ● ● ●

Now hop on over and see What's In Mom's Lunch Bag! It's so much fun you'll be whistling... !

* Watch Johnny teach Baby to dance to "Hey Baby" on Hulu
* Watch "Nobody puts Baby in a corner" on YouTube