A Pair of Puzzle Lunches

April is Autism Awareness Month in America. I packed puzzle themed bentos for Sprout & Pickle, the only two sproutlets who went to school today.

Sprout took her Yumbox, packed with yogurt, strawberries, grapes, graham stars, & a puzzle piece sweet I made with candy melts & my puzzle mold. Puzzle piece picks decorate the fruit, & blue blossom cupcake sprinkles top the yogurt - I think they look very puzzle-piece-ish :)

Lunch wouldn't be complete without a Lunchbox Love note! 

            

Pickle's puzzle lunch is packed in EasyLunchboxes. He has his usual peanut butter sandwich, cut with my Lunch Punch Match & Munch puzzle cutters, a Go-Gurt  & cookie, plus some blue gelatin in a leak-proof cup with lid, that fits perfectly in the medium section.

Each Lunchbox Love for Kids volume includes a couple of cards with one blank side so you can write your own message, like I did here.

The thing on Pickle's Go-Gurt is a Twixit bag clip. He & his little sister Birdie sometimes have a hard time tearing open their yogurt tube cleanly clean & they don't like it the feel of it when they tear it open jagged, so I have started cutting them with scissors at home then sealing them with a Twixit. The tiny 2¼" ones are the perfect size & easy for them to open!

            

Some of the stuff I used to make these lunches:

 

Late Lunches

I'm a day behind in posts! I wasn't feeling well yesterday so totally slacked off on all my responsibilites, and when Sailor Boy's away there's no one to pick up my slack,  boo hoo.  So now I've got to catch up on yesterday's laundry and last night's dishes (yuck)...  so that I can get to today's!

Here are yesterday's lunches for Bella & Pickle:

Cucumber wedges & carrots, a ham & cheese panda pocket sandwich, dried strawberries, yogurt pretzels, whole wheat fig newtons, & spiced almonds.

Peanut butter puzzle sandwich (& yogurt, not shown).

There are no photos of today's lunch. I got my days mixed up and looked at Friday's menu on the school lunch calendar, which said pizza, and the sproutlets like pizza...  then on the way out the door Bella asked "Mummy, isn't today Thursday?" "Is it?" I asked myself... Uh-oh! It is! The school lunch is bean burritos, they won't eat those! So it was a mad rush to throw something together and no time for cute lunches or photos of not cute lunches :) 

I guess it's just as well I had yesterday's lunch to post today!

Some stuff used for these lunches:

A Sweet Lunch for my Sweet Girl

I had a feeling it wouldn't be easy to jump back into the school routine after Spring Break so I didn't plan on anything cute for lunch, but Bella asked if she could have an Easter theme with some of her candy in it. She rarely asks for anything in particular and she's a good eater in general so I scrambled up a cute lunch to go with the candy she chose:

She chose an orange Peeps marshmallow chick and 2 chocolate eggs, so I packed her a cheddar "Peep" on ham bagelwich, egg-shaped grapes, tomatoes, and carrots (diagonally sliced in ovals). I recently bought some scrapbook paper and she chose a candy coloured one for her lunch's photo :)

April is Autism Awareness Month

Pickle has a puzzle peanut butter sandwich made with one of our Match & Munch Lunch Punches   ♥  and some yogurt & juice (not shown).

Beanstalk packed himself a Clif  Z Bar, an apple, ham, & water. He also left earlier than us to walk with friends. He's getting so independent, doing his own thing... Middle school next year, eek!

Stuff I used for today's lunches:

Lunch is a little mixed up...

Sailor Boy comes in this morning and says "I don't like that it's multiple personality day, but I do." It took me a minute :) It is, according to the internet, Multiple Personality Day*.  So I made a split personality lunch for Bella:

Her EasyLunchbox contains spicy & regular cheese crackers - all mixed up, you can't tell which is which just by looking at them ;) Also, orange & lemon-lime gelatin, a Granny Smith apple with a Honeycrisp heart, a bagel with a ham & cheese tangram heart, and a mozza & cheddar twist string cheese.

Pickle has a puzzle sandwich. I use the Lunch Punch Match & Munch puzzle pieces a lot for him - he loves puzzles - and I love him to pieces ♥

I had already made Beanstalk's PlanetBox lunch before I knew it was so-called Mulitiple Personality Day - he has a checkered apple, red grapes on the vine, a bagel, applewood smoked ham roll-ups stabbed with swords, and 2 Girl Scout Tagalongs cookies for a treat.

Okay, no offense to anyone actually suffering from a psychiatric disorder such as Multiple Personality, aka Dissociative Identity Disorder,  this is purely a coincidence that I am asking this question today, and this "psych" is short for "psychic"... but is anyone out there a fan of the awesomeness that is Psych? If you, or you (bad joke?), answered yes, you have to check out this Psych lunch form Karen of What's In Mom's Lunch bag!

Are YOU a fan of delicious flavour?

* Multiple Personality aka Dissociative Disorders, are real psychological disorders. To learn more about them or how you can help someone you think or know may be living with one,  check out The International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation

Stuff I used for these lunches:

Hooray, it's Puzzle Cookie Day!

Today's post and title is brought to you by my 7 year old, the one we call Pickle. He asked "Will you share my cookie creation on your lunch website?" and how could I say no? So here you go my Pickle, your oatmeal cookie creations, with the title you chose :)

"See my puzzle cookies? I made them like a puzzle. What should I call this creation? I know, how about 'hooray, it's puzzle cookie day'? That rhymes!"

Look , it's an X-Men cookie! 

Oh if only I'd had my camera at the ready on the video setting, because right after he arranged his cookies like that, he did a little bum wiggle dance, singing "I'm so creative, oh yeah, oh yeah, booyah, booyah, booty booty booty". It was one of those hard not to laugh and impossible not to smile moments. Ah well, I'm pretty sure it's permanently recorded on my brain :)

It's kind of funny how he loves puzzles so much, since the puzzle piece has become a recognized symbol for autism. He also loves comments! Sometimes he asks me to post something on facebook and then pesters me all day checking for comments - so it would be awesome if you'd leave one for him either here or on my Facebook page! Thanks if you do ♥

Lunch Box Round-Up

Eek, I'm so behind in EVERYTHING! Laundry, housework, GROCERIES! And blogging too... So, no time to make 2 days worth of posts... I'll borrow from my friend Becka at Just a Bunch of Momsense and do a little lunch box round-up :) Here are lunches from today  and yesterday :

The little girls got honey ham rolled up and secured with little monkey picks, mandarin orange slices, pretzels, and 2 cheese puzzles (made with my Lunch Punch) in a little container. I stuck a note on Birdie's lid for whichever preschool aide unpacked her lunch.

I guess I forgot to take a pic of Bella's ... no, wait, today she took a Thermos Foogo container of Campbell's Spaghetti. Which, I have to say, rocks for keeping food hot! She says it was HOT when she opened it at lunch - and I believe her, because what was left in the container was still warm after school!

Yesterday all the girls got mini grilled cheese sandwiches, carrot and cucumber flowers, and apple wedges. Bella's sandwich had ham on it as well, and she got a little caramel dip. Bella said it was all delicious; her Easy Lunchbox came home empty :)

Aren't the mini grilled cheese sandwiches cute? Bella saw this little loaf of "cocktail" bread and asked for it. "Pleeeease?! It's whole grai-ain..." Smart girl.  I took a picture with my ugly old frying pan and spatula in it for scale - please don't judge me by my cookware...  :)

Pickle's peanut butter sandwiches were an airplane in the clouds yesterday, and 2 puzzles today, both made with Lunch Punches. I don't know what's up with the puzzle sandwich photo - the bread looks furry to me... heh, maybe I've just had too much coffee...

I use smiles as punctuation A LOT ! Just an observation :)