Purple Up Lunch for My Military Kid!

I came across an unpublished post from back in April! Poor forgotten post :( But better late than never :)

April is the Month of the Military Child, & April 15th was Purple Up! For Military Kids day. Schools across the nation encouraged their students to help raise community awareness & support of military children by wearing purple to recognize & thank them for their strength & sacrifices. The colour purple symbolizes all branches of the military, as it's the combination of Army green, Coast Guard blue, Air Force blue, Marine red & Navy blue.

My sproutlets wore purple with pride! I wanted to Purple Up! their lunches as well, but didn't have any purple food on hand.  I did have EasyLunchboxes Brights with lovely purple lids though! I packed Bella a lunch full of leftovers in one that she had decorated herself, with dishwasher-safe stickers :)

Lunch was last night's crock-pot pulled chicken & rice, with cucumbers, carrots, & cauliflower on the side. I packed the chicken & sauce in a jumbo muffin cup so she could remove it to heat in the cafeteria microwave, then pour over & stir into the rice. The jumbo size cups are the same depth as the EasyLunchboxes so when the lid's on there's very little chance of spill-over.

I included a Lunchbox Love note with a joke, & bento picks inspired by it. What is a cow's favourite class? Moo-sic! :) Somehow, out of all the hundreds of bento picks in my collection, there's not a single cow in any shape or form. But I do have plenty of musical notes!

In the dip cup she got some Chef Kidd's Funagrette, in Honey Berry flavour. Bella really loves this sweet vinaigrette with her veggies. Chef Kidd's sent us all 5 varieties to try out, and this was the favourite. 

Look Who's 100 days Smarter!

It's the 100th Day of School for most of my sproutlets! Kindergartner Birdie reaches her 100th day tomorrow :) It's also breakfast for lunch day at school, so most of the kidlets wanted the pancake hot lunch. Bella wanted some of last night's supper leftovers though, which she planned to heat in the lunch room microwave, so I packed her a Laptop Lunches bento box:

She has some saucy pulled chicken to heat & spread on the bun under the Lunchbox Love note, carrots, cucumbers & tomatoes, mozzarella string cheese, a dark chocolate, nuts & sea salt KIND bar, & Light My Fire spork.

To mark Bella's 100th day of school I added a couple of "Look Who's 100 Days Smarter" stickers - one for her & one for a friend - & wrapped her spork in an owl print cloth napkin. I know she'll find this lunch delicious & fun!  :)

Lunch for the Man: Wrap Up Some Leftovers

Sailor Boy's working extra long days this week so he's getting supper much later than the rest of the family. Yesterday I made spaghetti for the sproutlets' supper, then later used the leftover spaghetti sauce to make Sailor Boy a smallish lasagna in a loaf pan. Since I didn't make a full size pan, I ended up with some chopped spinach & ricotta cheese leftovers, but not enough to make another lasagna, so today I wrapped them up for his lunch:

The wraps are tortillas spread with the leftover ricotta & layered with the spinach, some smoked turkey & sharp cheddar, rolled up. I put a Mackintosh's toffee in the centre section of the PlanetBox Rover & it's red & green wrapper seems to have influenced what I chose to pack for his fruit & veggie sides - he has kiwi chunks & raspberries with a red heart fork pick, & cucumber chunks & grape tomatoes with a red pick that says "bite me" :)

Even the Lunchbox Love note I chose is red on one side & green on the other, heheh. When I noticed how festive his lunch was looking I wrapped his fork in a Star Wars print cloth napkin to make it a little less Christmassy :)

Sailor Boy has never beaten me at Scrabble so I had a giggle over the fun fact on the Lunchbox Love note - maybe it will come in handy some day :

Colourful Garden Lunches

Here are a couple of colourful EasyLunchboxes I packed for Sprout & Birdie. They were kind of inspired by the pretty floral print wax paper I used in them :)

 

Birdie likes elephants so I added an elephant bento pick to her leftover homemade pizza (that she helped make). Since she likes her pizza warmed up I lined that section with wax paper so the lunch helper could easily lift it all out to microwave it. In the smaller compartments she has grapes & cantaloupe embellished with silicone flower & butterfly bento picks. 

Sprout ate all her pizza so no leftovers for her. She has ham rolls secured with silicone butterfly & leaf picks, raspberries, cheddar cheese cut with a flower vegetable cutter,  pistachios, & a granola bar. The granola bars come 2 in a packet, but she typically only eats 1 so I wrapped it in a sheet of wax paper to keep it from getting soggy. The spork is for the berries.

Both bentos have colourful silicone cups - fluted, flowers, hearts, & crimped.

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Most of the bento accessories I used can be purchased at BentoUSA :)

Fair Winds & Following Seas...

My Sailor Boy is shipping out again, so this will be his last homemade lunch for a few weeks :( It's only for a few weeks - but he'll miss Father's Day! I stuck in a Dad pick & a Lunchbox Love note, it can be his advance Dad's Day dinner :)

His EasyLunchbox is packed with leftover garlic butter rice & broiled pork chop, with some bite sized sharp cheddar hearts, baby carrots, & kiwi. The sides are in silicone cups so he can take them out to microwave the entrée.

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Stuff I used in this lunch:

Rockin' the Lunch Box

Recently, Bella woke me up asking if I had any poodle bento picks. "No, why?" "Poodle skirts Mum! You know, from the '50s? To make a lunch to go with the Rock Hop?" I wasn't fully awake yet so I was confused for a moment, then I remembered. Her school was having a 1950s themed "spirit day" followed by a dance, called the Rock Hop. I said I'd see what I could do.

Ooh, I had a record cupcake ring! I quickly sliced some carrots into sticks and put the record ring on one, then sliced some cucumbers and filled a heart cup with dried strawberries and stuck music note picks in them. I decided to spell "Rock Hop" with my alphabet picks and stick them in a sandwich, but when I opened the fridge to get the cheese, I noticed the leftover cheese pizza - perfect, can't get much easier than leftover pizza :) 

Meanwhile, Bella put together her idea of a '50s style outfit. She was very pleased that the bright pink of her EasyLunchboxes' lid matched her skirt :)

It wasn't until I got home from taking the sproutlets to school that I remembered the lunch I'd packed for her the night before (my guest post at Bento for Kidlet) was sitting in the fridge. How had I not seen it when I got out the pizza? *sigh*

Like the look of our EasyLunchboxes? Get some!

And the Mini Dippers, and the cookbook too!

iHeart Spaghetti Tacos

No, this is not déja vu, I've made this lunch before. Mia Bella loves iCarly & spaghetti tacos. Not an iCarly fan and wondering what spaghetti tacos are? Basically, you replace the meat in a taco with spaghetti! It might sound strange, but it's actually really good - and a yummy way to use up that little bit leftover spaghetti that's not quite enough for a meal :)

Bella has her iCarly Thermos Funtainer packed with hot spaghetti & marinara sauce. I chopped the pasta a bit to make it easier to fill the taco shells, which I packed in her EasyLunchbox. The big gummi bear is actually a plastic container (from a McDonald's happy Meal!) filled with shredded cheddar cheese to top the taco with :) On the side she has dried strawberries topped with random dancing bears, and cantaloupe "gummi bears".  For protein she has almonds in the EasyLunchboxes Mini Dipper. Bella ♥'s this lunch!

Stuff I used to make this lunch :

 

Lunch for the Man: Farewell My Love

This is it, the last lunch I'll get to pack for my Sailor Boy for a long time. It's boat food for him for the next 9 months! Well, except when they are in port, then he'll get to eat amazing international dishes, right? Hope so! Farewell, my love. I wish you fair winds & following seas. Enjoy your lunch ♥

Lunch might not look like much, but it's full of love. Sailor Boy missed having Thanksgiving dinner with us this year, but we froze & saved him a slice of the pumpkin pie Pickle & I baked! And oh, the cleverness of me, I thought ahead and cut it to fit in his EasyLunchbox :) 

To go with his Thanksgiving dessert, he has turkey in gravy, topped with cheese, on a bed of rice. I put the turkey in a star-shaped silicone container meant for baking little cakes, so he could take it out to warm it up in the microwave then stir it into the rice. On the side he has pineapple & watermelon on blue heart picks. Blue because I'll be blue without him ♥ 

Okay, enough shmoopy. I'll miss making my Sailor Boy lunch, but it's not like I don't still have my 5 sproutlets to pack for :) And I can start planning a special homecoming bento... There's nothing like a military homecoming! 

Love & Lasagna for my #1

I only have a few more days to pack lunch for my Sailor Boy :( He'll soon be shipping out to sea for a long deployment, so I'm using up all his frozen leftover favourites that won't keep until his return. 

Today he has spinach lasagna. I cut it the size of the PlanetBox glass dish when I froze it. The glass dish is perfect for leftovers, he can microwave them at work. I added some cheddar hearts & a sprinkle of parmesan before covering it with the stretchy silicone lid ♥

On the side he has half a banana, carrot sticks & hearts, pineapple, & a Hershey's Kiss. You might have to squint to see, but I wrote Hello Sweetie on the banana with a toothpick. By lunchtime the message will have darkened to a very legible brown :) And hopefully the banana won't be too unripe!

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Bella had a bunch of hearts in her Goodbyn Bynto. Carrots, cucumbers, and turkey & cheddar roll-ups on heart picks. This is a pretty light lunch for her so she also took a Clif bar in her pocket in case she needs an afternoon snack.

Some stuff used to pack these lunches:

   

     

iCarly-Inspired Spaghetti Tacos!

If your kidlet is an iCarly fan, you're probably already aware of the deliciousness that is spaghetti tacos. We had them for supper the other night, and today Bella has the leftovers in her lunchbox. These are leftovers she's excited about eating!

Bella has mini taco shells to fill with spaghetti at lunch time. I stuffed her folded napkin into the end one to help keep it from breaking. I filled a gummy bear container (a gift from Biting The Hand That feeds You, originally a fast-food meal toy) with shredded cheddar for topping.  On the side she has cherry tomatoes & baby carrots with bear picks (random dancing),  Fig Newtons, and in the little pink lidded cup, a few gummy bears for a treat.

I packed the hot spaghetti & "meat" sauce (ours is made with veggie protein crumbles) in her iCarly Thermos Funtainer. I chopped the noodles up a bit so she'd have an easier time filling the shells with her spork. The gummy bear container holding the cheese was filled with gummy bear-shaped notepaper and stickers so I wrote her a note and stuck it to the lid of her EasyLunchbox :)

Bella was so looking forward to lunchtime today!

Stuff used for this lunch:

Lunch For The Mum

Yesterday I packed myself a Laptop Lunches bento box full of random leftovers and put it in the fridge to eat today. When I opened it, I discovered a surprise! Someone had slipped a Lunchbox Love note inside!

Lunch itself was nothing special - some leftover chicken strips, rice, broccoli, a plum, and some cheese scraps from cutting shaped cheese for the the girls - but the note made it special for me ♥ 

Oh, and the note turned out to be from my sweet 9 year old Bella :)

Lunch for the Man : I ♥ U

It's been a while since I've posted a lunch for my Sailor Boy. Don't worry, he's been getting fed :) I snapped a pic of yesterday's though. Nothing fancy, just some leftover Jack in the Box chicken strips chopped up into a salad. And some juicy grapes and strawberries on the side.

And a little reminder that I heart him  ♥