Always Remember I Love You

Today's lunch is all orange, red, pink, and yellow;  I wanted warm girly colours for my Bella on this cold and dreary Monday. I gave her red bell  pepper strips, turkey & mozzarella  roll-ups on pink and orange heart party picks, baby carrot hearts on pink and yellow heart party picks, some rosy Jazz apple with a heart shape peeled from it before it was sliced, and grape tomatoes in a pink muffin cup. I stuck pink elephant picks in the red veggies, and told her that elephants never forget anything, so they would remind her that I love her when she opened her lunch ♥  Corny, yeah, but Bella loves corny :)

Pickle got elephants and love in his lunch too. I didn't really make up a story to go with his sandwiches today, I just told him the same thing I told Bella, and I was pretty sure the heart in the yogurt would be gone by lunch time, so I showed it to him before I put the lid on. Yeah, he couldn't have cared less, lol. Oh well, it made me happy to make it for him. And I just love the mama & baby elephant Lunch Punch sandwich cutter, the little elephant calf sandwiches it makes are just so darn cute!

Bean Sprout and Baby Bird had fruit & veggies for lunch, but I didn't get any pics. They were gobbling up the carrot hearts as fast I could make them.  Aren't they cute? A super easy way to cutesy up a lunch too:

 How to make Carrot Hearts

Start with baby carrots - they already have rounded ends - and pick out 

some plump ones, they're less likely to split when you skewer them.  

 Slice them on the diagonal.

Flip over one of the pieces of diagonally sliced carrot. 

 The two halves make a heart :)

 Skewer the pieces of carrot so that the flat ends fit flush. 

  Voilà - carrot hearts!

ETA 11/18/11:
To see how I made these toddler-safe (no picks) click the pic:

* I didn't come up with these carrot hearts on my own, I've seen them done before somewhere, but can't remember where - if anyone knows, could you please leave a comment? Thanks!

Rawr! I'm going to eat you!

I growled in my best dinosaur voice as I put Pickle's lunch in front of him yesterday: "Rawr! Rawr! I'm going to eat you, unless you eat me first!" My little man was all smiles as he bit into the head of this T-Rex sandwich I made from the crazy shaped bread we got last week. I added teeth and claws with a bit of the crust from the bottom piece, but other than that, he was pretty much ready-made! I love how it turned out! And zero waste of bread :)

If you don't follow me on Facebook, you probably don't know what crazy bread I'm talking about, so here's the back story:

My friend Heidi commented that it looked like a T-Rex head, and just like that, I could see it too! Thanks Heidi! Click the photo to see the full conversation, and how it went from T-Rex to Lady Gaga :)

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Oh, and if anyone was wondering if the permanent marker I accidentally used (instead of dry erase) to write a message on an Easy Lunchbox lid last Monday washed off - it did! That is, all the black came off - and quite easily - but it did leave behind a sort of a shadow, only visible when the light hits it just so... see below... you might need to squint... look just above the logo:

Faint star... only visible from an angle in the light:

So the lid wasn't ruined at all :) Not that it would have been if my drawings hadn't washed off - I would have just added more doodles and love notes each time I packed a lunch with that lid!

Thank You For Your Service!

As a military family,  we are reminded daily of the sacrifices the men and women of our armed forces make. A cutesy lunch seems like a pretty trivial way to honour that, but, I did want to observe the day, so...  since all the sproutlets will be home Veterans Day, I packed a Veterans Day themed school lunch today. I kept it really simple so everyone, including picky Pickle, could enjoy the same lunch. The older kids got theirs in an Easy Lunchbox and the younger girls got a smaller version in a Sassy box :

I used a Lunch Punch to make an airplane in the clouds peanut butter sandwich to represent those who defended from the skies, blue vanilla yogurt represents those who served at sea, and green apple soldier gummies represent those who were part of the ground forces. There are also some oatmeal cookies cut into stars. The soldiers are in a red cup to represent the red poppies my fellow Canadians wear on our version of Veterans Day, also November 11th, called Remembrance Day. Since my American Sailor Boy, our sproutlets and I live in the USA, I wasn't able to find a poppy - next year I'll make or order some ahead of time :)

The camouflage backdrop is a piece of their Daddy's uniform from when he was in Iraq. We are so proud of him, and thankful for him and his fellow service members, and especially grateful to all those who served and fought for the freedom we enjoy today!

Wheel-y Yummy

Some of today's lunches have a car theme :) I made Pickle's "cars in traffic" sandwiches first, then decided to roll with it and give Birdie some cars too:

Birdie's Sassy box bento has an egg-shaped car, a sandwich ball car, a cheese car with turkey dog wheels, and some carrot spare tires. The cheddar car broke when I was cutting it out but she won't mind :)

Pickle has two "cars in traffic" peanut butter sandwiches. He really liked last week's Christmas Tree Farm tractor - he liked that it had a story to it, and it sparked a conversation. I like anything that gets him using his imagination and interacting! So today I used the car and truck shapes from our Lunch Punch Vrrrm! set,  cut extra boxes for the back of the truck, and made a story to go with them. The story is that the truck is all loaded up with a delivery, and driving very slowly, and the car behind it is in a hurry, and annoyed at how slowly the truck is going, and worried that the pile of boxes will fall down on his hood! I asked Pickle to think up what might be in the boxes, and why the driver of the car is in such a hurry - and told him that if he likes he can make the boxes tumble on the car before he eats them :)

No cars in Bella's lunch. She got a Thermos of spaghetti and a salad. I like this little container for packing something that needs to be kept cold when the rest of the lunch doesn't - it has it's own ice pack that fits inside. 

Some stuff I used: Lunch Punch Vrrrm! - Sassy box - silicone muffin cups - Light My Fire spork - Thermos Foogo

Fun & Friendly

Just a snacky little lunch for Birdie today, I'm planning to bake with her and Sprout after preschool. She hasn't been eating much at school lunch lately anyways. She's in that phase of toddlerhood where they don't seem to eat much of anything at all yet still yet have heaps of energy... I'm so jealous!

Some carrot slices with the word FUN spelled in ham, two butter leaf biscuits, a friendly little chunk of cheddar with a ham face on a bed of shredded cheese, and a pair of juicy red fresh strawberry hearts. Fun & friendly :)

Stuff I used:  facial expressions cutter - Sassy box - silicone muffin cups