Lunch On A Stick : Late Edition :)

At almost the last minute before it was time to leave for school, Sprout decided she wanted a "mum lunch" instead of the school lunch. So with less than 10 minutes to spare I made her one a lot like her brothers, but prettier:

Sprout's sweet Something On A Stick Day lunch contains peanut butter sandwiches on a stick, made with my FunBites squares cutter, a string cheese stick and a fruit leather roll stuck through cupcake rings, Trix yogurt (dye free!) and baby carrots, packed in her yubo lunchbox. 

Rather than edit this morning's post, I decided to make this late addition to today's lunches a late edition blog post of it's own. Then I can link it up to my own Something On A Stick Day link-up!

Stuff used for today's lunch:

Lunch On A Stick : Linky Party!

Today is Something On A Stick Day!

Pickle almost always takes a peanut butter sandwich for lunch. It's the only kind of sandwich he likes. I usually cut it in fun shapes with a Lunch Punch or cookie cutters, but today, he's getting it on a stick!

I just got a whole bunch of these long skewers from BentoUSA, and I used my FunBites cutter to make the bite sized squares. His lunch on a stick is packed in a yubo lunchbox with a sprinkle-topped yogurt and a couple of Oreo cookies topped with a Trader Joe's yogurt covered cookie star.

The sproutlets' school is even getting in on the fun - the hot lunch today is pizza on a stick!  So that's what the others are having :) I had mixed emotions when I saw that on the menu - I'm glad they are doing something fun, but also slightly bummed that I won't be making lunch on a stick for ALL the sproutlets - if you follow the blog you know I love to put food on a stick :) Ah well, there's always tomorrow - any day is a good day for something on a stick!

Stuff used for today's lunch:

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Happy Something On A Stick Day :)

* You don't need to have a blog to link your Something On A Stick! You can link photos hosted on Facebook or Flickr  too, as long as you have the Privacy settings to Public :)

Thank You Sweetie!

It's almost American Thanksgiving! Another holiday, another Bento Bloggers & Friends Blog Hop...  right? Well, yes...  but maybe not what you're expecting... Instead of the traditional turkey, pilgrims, & pumpkin pie themes, one of our bloggers, Ludicrous Mama of Biting the Hand That Feeds You, came up with a twist: A "What are you thankful for?" theme!

I'm thankful for a lot of things, but most of all for my Sailor Boy, who not only puts up with my flaws & quirks, but somehow finds them cute, and who, after 17 years of marriage, I'd still rather spend time with than anyone else.

Thank you Sweetie! I love you ♥ Enjoy your lunch :)

Sailor Boy's EasyLunchboxes bento contains:

• Strawberries & cantaloupe - with an anchor pick - because he's a sailor, and because he's MY anchor
• Romaine salad with carrots & cucumber, & mandarin dressing in an EasyLunchboxes Mini Dipper (on the side)
• Turkey kielbasa "hearts" left over from our pierogi skillet supper
• Skewered cherub & sunburst tomatoes (Thanks Mamabelly for the Southwest Airlines heart swizzle stick "skewers"!)
• Pistachios - because I'm still nuts about him after all these years
• & a Babybel cheese decorated with wedding ring picks and carved with the words "I still do." ♥

That's the perfect Lunchbox Love note for this lunch, don't you think? It's from one of the Lunchbox Love for Loved Ones sets from Say Please. On the flip side is a bit of trivia. This note's fact was a funny coincidence to me, because I had joked with my blogger friends that what I was most thankful for most days was coffee, so maybe that would be the theme of my bento :) I was kidding (sort of), but coffee ended up being a part of the lunch anyways, heheh:

Now click the button to hop over to Licious Lunches and see what she's thankful for & how she's expressed it in a bento!

Yummy Mummy... On A Stick!

This sandwich kebab was sooo easy, but came out so cute! 

I used my FunBites Cube it! to cut squares of white cheddar cheese and bread, then alternated them on a wooden skewer - sticking a craisin near the top for the mummy's mouth - and finishing off with candy eyes stuck on with a dab of honey. I've been seeing candy eyes in stores with the novelty baking goods, but you could also use chocolate chips if you couldn't find any.

Mummy Loves You!

The sproutlets got yummy mummy sandwich kebabs in their lunchboxes :) This is Sprout's. She also has a Jack O'Lantern Jello Jiggler, cherry tomatoes, grapes, caramel rice cakes, & a pumpkin candy treat. Pickle got a peanut butter version of the mummy kebab, & Bella's had turkey as well as cheese. I trimmed the pointed ends of the skewers before packing them.

I also added a Lunchbox Love note - they have a new black, purple, & orange Hallowe'en set, with Hallowe'en jokes on the flip sides!

These will be fun to pull out of their lunch bags!

My friend Ludicrous Mama of Biting The Hand That Feeds You made a yummy mummy lunch for her little goblin too! She used her FunBites Luv it! ♥ So creative...  And, she's doing a FunBites Giveaway!

Some Stuff I Used:

  

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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 :)

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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 :)

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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

Rainbow Week : Yellow

We're halfway through our Rainbow Week! Today's colour is

Yellow

Bella's yellow lunch was inspired by Beatles songs ! Beneath the celery sticks and cheese, she has a turkey & cheese sandwich, yellow peppers, and on the side, slices of golden delicious apples, and some plain pasta (with a Thermos Funtainer of hot cheese sauce to pour over it at lunch - not pictured). Do you know which 4 Beatles songs are represented?  ♪ ♫

♫ Yellow Submarine, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Golden Slumbers & Give Peace A Chance ♪

Beanstalk didn't eat the snack I packed him yesterday, so he got it again today, plus an organic Clif Z Bar. Pickle got a cute beehive and bee peanut butter sandwich. The cutter for this was a surprise gift from a friend, and this is the first time we've used it. Pickle loves it,  thank you Linli!

Sailor Boy has pineapple teriyaki chicken kebabs, yellow pepper slices, sharp white cheddar cheese, and grapes in his Easy Lunchbox. I also scratched a little love note on the peel of a banana and sneaked it into his lunch tote  ♥
By the time he opened his lunch the message would have been really dark :)

No pic of the banana, he leaves before the sun rises, too early for me! I also wrote a banana note for Birdie though, if you want to see an example :

She can't read yet so I just drew pictures :)

Rainbow

I saw these rainbow fruit kebabs on the MOMables facebook page way back in August, just before the popular lunch menu plan officially launched, and have wanted to make some ever since. It took me a while, but I finally got around to making some for my sproutlets!  I made these ahead of time for Sprout & Birdie's snack. Two each, and a yogurt cloud to dip in :) 

They still don't like pineapple. More for me :)

We were out all day, so no muffin tin meals, then brought one of Sprout's little friends home with us this afternoon, so Birdie and I made muffins together while they played. Banana muffins! She really liked mashing the bananas:

I almost forgot to get a picture of the banana muffins before the 3 little girls ate them all - and by the time I remembered, there were only 3 left!  They were really good muffins, and so cute in their flower muffin cups :)

There's nothing rainbow about them - but they are yellow :)

Now these muffins, made by the talented Kris

 of In the Kitchen with Audrey, are Rainbow!
   

And healthy too! Click the Rainbow Mom button to see more from Kris, Audrey, & little sister Maurene too!

Thanks for following our Rainbow Week! Don't forget to read my review of Today I Ate A Rainbow! and enter to win a Rainbow Kit of your own!

Heart to heart to heart...

Happy Friday! It's a beautiful sunshiny day today, and I woke up feeling happy and rested and ready to tackle the day - what a great way to start the weekend! I hope my sproutlets have a happy school day...  in any case their lunches should bring smiles to their faces  ♥

Bella's hearty bagel lunch especially makes ME smile... it's where the title of the post comes from: My lunch was inspired by the one below, by my fellow bento maker, Chef Corey of Family Fresh Meals, who was herself inspired by the one below hers, by our friend Keeley of Keeley McGuire Blog ... 

and not only did we all use FunBites, but I copied Chef Corey's switched up apple, Corey and Keeley both have a heart-topped spinach salad, Keeley and I both have a ham FunBites heart and smaller ham and carrot hearts,  and Corey and I both have purple cabbage in our salads...

You know the saying, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery? ... well, I hope both Corey and Keeley are flattered by my copy of tribute to theirs :)

Oh, and Family Fresh Meals and I are both doing FunBites giveaways this week - so if you hurry (hers closes tonight at midnight) you can double up your chances of winning! 

Click here to enter Family Fresh Meals' FunBites  Luv it! Giveaway

Click here to enter MY FunBites Luv it! Giveaway!

Okay, back to my family's lunches :)

Beanstalk's Lock & Lock bento box contains parmesan goldfish, raisins, ham and an orange. I've mentioned before that he doesn't like me to make his lunch cute... well, I snuck a heart in there today, heheh... but only if you know to look for it, and maybe not even then, maybe only I can see it because I know it's there :) Leave a comment if you can see it too!

Pickle has FunBites Luv it! heart shaped peanut butter sandwiches.  And to make sure they make it to lunch still in the shape of a heart,  the bottom slices of bread are solid hearts spread with PB, with the tangram heart pieces stuck on top like stickers :)

No love for Sailor Boy! Well, no hearts anyways...

His EasyLunchbox contains spiced almonds, kiwifruit, and spicy chicken & mandarin kebabs.

That's all folks! No pic of MY lunch - but if you're curious - I'll be having a salad full of all the scraps from these :)

Have a great weekend, and don't forget to enter my Uforýa Giveaway, ending tomorrow night, and my FunBites Luv it! Giveaway, ending Monday morning.