A Joyful Lunch

Joy! Winter Break is over! Heh, you think I'm kidding? Okay maybe a little ;) We did have a lovely Christmas & New Years all together... and I loved sleeping in late, cuddling with my kidlets, & staying in our PJs as long as we wanted... but as much as I loved all that (especially not having to rush out the door into the cold dark morning), and as much as I always feel a bit a pang when I waved goodbye to them at their schools... I really enjoyed coming home to a quiet house yesterday morning. So much :) 

Sprout's EasyLunchbox contains ham, cheese, a croissant, & Gala apple wedges. I was going to make a sandwich of it but she said no, she wanted it all separate. Just the way I would have wanted it too, I was that picky at her age... but I eat ham & cheese sandwiches now, so there's hope for her :)

Bella packed her EasyLunchbox all by herself.  She made a turkey, cheddar, cucumber & mustard croissant sandwich. She was so careful cutting the croissant with the big serrated bread knife, and slicing the cucumbers :) She sliced some very thin for the sandwich and some chunky for the side. For "dessert" she packed an Iced Gingerbread Clif bar. Nice lunch Mia Bella!

I ♥ that smile! She lights up a dreary morning :)

Some stuff used to make these lunches:

   

Edible Geekery : Sherlock Holmes Mystery Lunch

It's Sherlock Holmes' birthday today... so I've packed Sailor Boy's Monday lunch a little early... but even if he peeks, it'll still be a bit of a mystery...

I'll give the end of this post away now, so you don't miss it... this lunch is part of a Happy Birthday Sherlock Holmes blog hop! No sneaking a peek at the next post now,  read mine first! The link to the next blog is at the end :)

Sailor Boy's EasyLunchbox contains a "Mystery Meatball" Bento:

• Mystery meatballs on rice, with teriyaki glaze
• Sharp white cheddar characters
• Fresh pineapple chunks with a heart pick
• & a Peanut Toffee Buzz Clif Bar

How good are your bento detective skills? 

There's a reason behind what's in each section of this lunch. Think you can solve the mystery meanings? Take a look, then read on to see if you're right :)

So what's the mystery with the meatballs? 

No, it's not mystery meat - they're just regular ground beef. But they're stuffed meatballs - the mystery is what's inside each one! It could be chopped bell peppers, a grape tomato, pineapple & ginger, or mozzarella cheese! And the cheese characters? Sherlock's address is 221B Baker Street.

What does pineapple have to do with Sherlock Holmes?

Nothing! But what's a mystery lunch without a nod to another couple of my favourite detectives, Shawn & Gus of Psych? My fellow Psych-os will get it :)

And of course,  you know I always put a heart in my Sailor Boy's lunch ♥

 

And how does the Clif bar fit in?

When my friend Karen of What's In Our Lunch Bags? suggested we make bentos for Sherlock Holmes' birthday, my first thought was,
"So, a bento made of coffee & tobacco then?"

Heh. Caffeine & nicotine was pretty much what Sherlock existed on!

This particular Clif bar is caffeinated, so I think Sherlock would approve :)

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Lastly,  I packed a note from my Lunchbox Love For Loved Ones collection. There's no mystery behind why I chose this one, it's just a fact :) And one of the things I'm going to miss the most when he deploys next week :(

I'd like to thank the folks of Say Please! not only for their gift of these Lunchbox Love notes to slip into my husband's lunches when he's home & care packages when he's deployed, but also for helping to make military life a bit sweeter for all service members & their families via Treats 4 Our Troops  ♥ Visit their website www.treats4ourtroops.org/ or facebook page to learn more :)

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You made it!  Now you can hop over to Chaos & Confections! It's a mystery to me what Jessie's made for lunch... click to find out!

Some stuff I used for this lunch:

Skipped Over Soup 'n Sides Lunch

Somehow this colourful little soup & sides lunch of Bella's from before the Winter Break got skipped over and never posted :(

I *think* it was chicken noodle soup in the Thermos. And I forgot to ask Bella but I bet she & her friends had a laugh over the trivia on that Lunchbox Love note! And no, I didn't know that... did you?

In the Lock & Lock divided bento box she has a snacky side dish for the soup: cucumber slices, snowflake Ritz crackers, carrots, celery, tomatoes & grapes. Not many of each... I'm thinking this may have been the day of her class party when I knew there would be lots of treats later.

Winter Break hasn't ended yet here, my kidlets don't go back until Monday. This has been a long break, I'm probably out of practice packing lunch... I'd better get back in the habit of getting up earlier if I don't want to start the 2013 school year in a scramble!

Happy New Year!

The Ubiquitous Top 12 of 2012 Post :)

Looking back, it appears 2012 was indeed a good year for lunches! 

I'm late to the year end Top 12 post round-up party, but here they are! Fun seeing which posts were most popular, all in one place :) And these are just the top 12... I made 20 times that many posts in 2012. Yowza!

#1 Fun With FunBites & Chopsticks
Cubed sandwiches are perfect to practice eating with chopsticks! Which is of course much more fun than fingers or forks :)

#2 Eating Real Food Can Be Fun!
Let them play with their food with this simple healthy snack!

#3 The Mighty Thor Bento Lunch & Birthday Party
Both the lunch & the movie party were a hit. Love that granola bar hammer!

#4 Do You Like Green Eggs & Ham?
Strawberry Thing 1 & Thing 2 were the stars of this muffin tin meal :)

#5 Every Day is Earth Day
With wacky aqua noodles & Planet Earth jello these were colourful lunches!

#6 What Makes A Rainbow?
We love rainbows! That includes reading about them & eating them too :)

#7 May The 4th Be With You
 A special Star Wars lunch any Padawan would trade his food pellets for.

#8 Disposable Field Trip Bento
Just because everything has to be disposable doesn't mean it has to be trash! Recyclable containers can be repurposed & disposed of in a recycling bin :)

#9 Yummy Mummy... On A Stick!
Isn't everything more fun served on a stick?

#10 Lunch Looks Seussalicious!
Green eggs & ham & other Seussian stuff for Dr. Seuss's birthday!

#11 Back To School 
An A+ apple-themed lunch for the first day of school!

#12 Doctor Who Bentos Are Cool 
I'm so pleased this one squeaked in at #12; it's one of my personal favourites!

Even though it's not a bento, I just love the Bad Wolf ginger carrot soup :)

Happy New Year!

May your 2013 be delicious in every way!

Marvel Hero Muffin Tin Meal

It's Stan Lee's birthday today, so I made my biggest boy a Marvel hero muffin tin meal. Represented are the Thing, the Incredible Hulk, the Amazing Spider-Man, Iron Man, Thor, & Captain America:

Beanstalk's lunch contains:

• Chex Mix
• green apples 
• mozzarella string cheese
• barbecue sauce, for dipping 
• beef franks
• & a peanut butter sandwich

I don't often get to make my 6th grader a muffin tin meal, he's not into cute lunches anymore - but he liked this one :)

Pickle had a Captain America sandwich & yogurt with sugar sprinkles:

The sandwich didn't turn out the way it looked in my head and I was a little heavy-handed with the sugar sprinkles, but he liked it, so that's all right.
I served it with an invitation leftover from Beanstalk's Avengers birthday party, he liked that too  :)

Happy 90th Birthday Mr. Stan Lee!

Here are some past Marvel lunches:

   
   

plus...

check out a marvelous Marvel lunch
Birthday wish over at Our Lunch Bags!
&
a round-up of amazing Marvel
lunches from Bento for Kidlet
&
a couple of comic-al lunches by
Robot Squirrel and the Monkeys