Blossoms & Bears

I made Sprout & Birdie blossom lunches the other day. I think these are my favourite plate lunches I've made so far! I had the idea to make apple blossoms when I accidentally sliced the apple the wrong way :)

I cut the apple rings with a flower shaped cookie cutter, added grapes to the centres, celery slices for leaves, and used a small vegetable cutter to make carrot flowers. The blossom egg was made with a smallish egg in a star egg mold (they are meant for jumbo eggs). The grilled cheese flower was made by grilling the bottom piece with cheese on it open-faced,  the top piece with the centre cut-out on it's own,  then putting the sandwich together after grilling.

 I love how they turned out, and the little girls loved eating them ✿

They look great on the Healthy Habit plates, and fit the food groups perfectly!

Don't miss my Super Healthy Kids Healthy Habits plate giveaway for a chance to win your own Healthy Habits kids plate!

This Nibble Tray snack should have been part of my Teddy Bear Picnic post, but I forgot to include it. It's so cute I had to share it anyways:

Bumblebee food picks hover over the broccoli woods, while teddy bears made of cheddar cheese, carrot, apple, and chocolate graham cracker wait to be dunked in a blue-coloured plain yogurt pond. Well, maybe not the cheese bears... no, the cheese bears don't want to be dunked in the yogurt...
I'm pretty sure they weren't ;)

Some stuff I used for this lunch & snack:


Links to more stuff I use In My Cupboards

Teddy Bear Picnic with Daddy

I need to finish painting my kitchen, so today Sailor Boy took Sprout & Birdie out (of my way - thank you soooo much sweetie!) to the Children's Museum, and I packed them a picnic lunch :)

But first, the school lunches. We woke up to snow on the ground! Not really picnic weather... but I had already planned a teddy bear picnic...

... for Bella's EasyLunchbox :) Cheddar bears try to climb cracker stick tree trunks in the broccoli woods (to get the honey those bees might be hovering around?) A group of chocolate teddy graham bears sit in a clearing watching some cheddar bears fishing in the lake (blue box containing spiced almonds). On the side a patch of mushrooms (box containing a taffy treat) sit in the middle of a field (of lemon-lime gelatin), near a patch of tomato and carrot blossoms :) Bella giggled at the story, and carried her lunch bag in her hand instead of her backpack so she wouldn't disturb her bears :)

There's a tot-sized Nibble Tray version I forgot to include here ✿

Beanstalk is in love with his PlanetBox, and wants it every day. Of course I just bought 3 more Lock & Lock 4 Square bento boxes for him too ... Murphy's Law right? He has yogurt raisins, ham swords (he mentioned yesterday that he really like the swords - hey, spam my comments with any sci-fi-ish food pick links you know of!) Honeycrisp apple wedges, pretzel & cheese goldfish crackers + a couple of Wheat Stix to try, and 2 chocolates for treat.

It's Tuesday, breakfast for lunch day at school, and Pickle wanted the pancakes, but he also wanted a peanut butter sandwich from home - he doesn't like the sausage and fruit that come with the school lunch. He does like the individual containers of Yami yogurt and juice though, I don't think he needs a sandwich - but I packed him one anyways :)

Three for the Road

Sprout & Birdie got a picnic lunch of cracker sticks, cheddar bears, carrot bears, peanut butter sandwich bears, grapes, and a bear egg for Birdie. The bear's ears didn't really come out - I guess the egg was on the small side :)

Lunch for The Man was not nearly as cute, but, nutritionally balanced, I think :)

Ham & swiss + chicken & cheddar bagelwiches with a smidgen of mayo, carrots, golden tomatoes, grapes on the vine, and hard-cooked eggs. 

FYI : Thermos 9 Cube Ice Mats are a perfect fit in the EasyLunchbox cooler:

If you've ever wondered, if you can pack 1 ice mat + 2 EasyLunchboxes + 2 drinks in 1 EasyLunchboxes cooler bag, the answer is: Yes, you can!

I got lots of  painting done with my little busybodies out of the house! I'm not quite finished yet, but Sailor Boy will help me after the sproutlets are asleep. This kitchen facelift has turned out to be a bigger job than I thought it would be ... especially since I keep making more work for myself - like today, when I impulsively decided to paint the kitchen island Granny Smith apple green :)

Don't miss my Super Healthy Kids Healthy Habits plate giveaway!
Several of my fellow lunch bloggers are hosting giveaways too:
Bobbi's Bentos - FunBites Giveaway
Family Fresh Meals - MOMables Giveaway
Bento School Lunches - Coach Purse Giveaway
Crazy?...Maybe! - MOMables Giveaway - Ending Saturday!
Lots of chances to win great stuff!

Some of the stuff I used to pack these Lunches:

We Heart Super Healthy Kids!

March is National Nutrition Month, the perfect time to introduce your kidlets to the Healthy Habits plates from Super Healthy Kids!

The Healthy Habits kids plate helps kids learn and follow the USDA guidelines to make half their meal fruits and vegetables, using divided sections and fun images to reinforce the teaching. Kids and caregivers can easily see what portions of their plate should be filled with fruits & veggies, grains, & protein.

The Healthy Habits plate is available in Original and new Vegetarian design!

Here's Birdie showing off her Healthy Habits plate. She's not much of a meat eater, so she has the vegetarian version. Instead of a chicken drumstick, eggs & beans in the protein section, hers has a picture of nuts, seeds & beans :)

It's pretty common for toddlers to refuse meat, and I'm not a big meat eater myself, so I'm not concerned - but it's important to not just skip the meat, but to replace it with another source of protein. The Healthy Habits plate serves as a visual reminder for me to fill that portion of my little one's diet. I ♥ these plates!

The Healthy Habits plate also comes as part of gift set complete with a bowl that holds a full serving of vegetables, and a cup to encourage drinking water:

Super Healthy Kids also makes a 4 sectioned plate set that supports the USDA MyPlate icon, with sections for Grains, Protein, Vegetables & Fruit. It's available solo or as part of a Lesson Plan set, which includes a perfectly portioned Dairy bowl. I love that little Dairy bowl for my Pickle's yogurt, and the plate is 10 year Beanstalk's favourite. He doesn't like his foods to touch, so the deep sections are perfect for him, and the design is not too young.

Here are a few yummy balanced meals my sproutlets recently enjoyed served on their Healthy Habits plates!

This hearty vegetarian supper made a colourful plate! Cornbread muffin for grain, chili for protein, & carrots, corn & grapes in the fruit & veggies half:

Crisp lettuce, carrots, cucumbers, radishes, celery, and a sprinkling of shredded cheese make up the bulk of this lunch plate, with seasoned Triscuit crackers and soy protein stir-fried in Italian salad dressing making savoury sides. And my girls loved this heart-themed lunch featuring an egg for protein, rice cakes in the grain section, lots of juicy grapes & great big strawberries.

Sometimes we have convenience foods, and the Healthy Habits plates help us with our serving sizes of those foods, and remind us to make the rest of our meal fruits & vegetables :)

And I've decided this post is long enough, so come back tomorrow if you want to see my favourite plate lunch I've ever made,  so far...  and on Healthy Habits plates too :) ... (sneak preview in the 1st pic)

You'll also find a variety of plate suggestions and meal ideas on the Super Healthy Kids website. It's a fantastic resource for fun family nutrition! There are recipes, meal plans, printables, and more - including the Healthy Habits plates and sets available for purchase! And the awesome Super Healthy Kids blog!
There's even a recipe inspired by one of my lunches!

Would you like a FREE Healthy Habits plate?

Of course you would! And Super Healthy Kids has generously offered to give one lucky reader the Healthy Habits plate of their choice, free!

All you have to do to be entered is comment on this post, telling me which plate style you'd like if you win, Original or Vegetarian!

I'd also love it if you'd follow my blog, and Like both my page and Super Healthy Kids on Facebook, and/or Tweet this giveaway - but since not everyone is on Facebook & Twitter, I won't make those mandatory. I will give you a separate bonus entry for doing each of them though (or to say you already do)! Just make sure you leave a separate comment for each of the 4 possible bonus entries. And make sure I have a way to contact you if you win!  I'm not a detective! If clicking your name in your comment will not link me to your email address, please include it in your comment - thanks :)

Giveaway closes Friday March 9th at 11pm PST. Winner will be selected by Random.org and notified via email & in Monday's blog post. Good Luck!

The giveaway is now closed - thanks for entering!

Disclosure:  I received 2 Vegetarian Healthy Habits plates free for review from Super Healthy Kids, but was in no other way compensated.  All opinions are my own. I purchased the Original Healthy Habits plate, bowl & cup set, and the 4 section MyPlate set myself, since we liked the plates we received for review so much :)

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:

Lunch looks Seussalicious!

I made those Seuss-inspired lunches some time ago but never got around to posting them ... In Birdie & Sprout's Sassy boxes, apples for The Cat in the Hat, goldfish crackers & gummy fish for One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, & green scrambled eggs & honey ham for Green Eggs and Ham.  Bella doesn't like eggs cold so had green plastic ones from last Easter filled with shredded cheese & almonds for her salad instead. Beanstalk doesn't like eggs at all so he got a Clif Z Bar in his Lock & Lock.

No better day than today to finally share them!

Beanstalk and Bella will also be sharing Dr. Seuss pencils with their classmates in honour of the beloved author's birthday. Pickle already handed some out his class on his birthday last Friday.

We love Dr. Seuss! Who doesn't?!  And what a Seussful week we've had so far! I did repeat many of  the themes, but there are some new things too :)

In case you missed it, Monday I made Birdie & Sprout a Seussilicious muffin tin meal with One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish goldfish grahams & gummy fish, a Gala apple & mozzarella Cat in the Hat hat, three cheese trees with 3 chocolate sprinkle fleas, from Fox in Socks, scrambled & dyed Green Eggs and Ham, strawberry, mozzarella & cream cheese Thing 1 and Thing 2, and green tapioca pudding Oobleck:

Yesterday, I made Bella a Seussified bento:

Green egg-shaped grapes & ham :) A Cat in the Hat cracker stack plus mozzarella string cheese. One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish goldfish grahams & gummy fish, & another Cat in the Hat-inspired snack of skewered strawberry fruit leather and mini marshmallows. 

And finally,

Today's Seuss-inspired lunchboxes:

Beanstalk's PlanetBox is pretty plain and simple, the way he likes it. He has a Star Belly Sneetch egg peanut butter sandwich, Cat in the Hat striped Cheez-it crackers (spicy & white cheddar), egg-shaped Granny Smith apples & skewered applewood smoked ham for Green Eggs & Ham, and a couple of green foil-wrapped chocolate eggs just to be sweet :)

Pickle wanted me to take a photo of his sandwich using his iPod's Dr. Seuss Birthday camera app.  I used it for Dr. Seuss' photo above too. It's fun!

I've learned that Pickle doesn't like his sandwiches to look too much like characters he loves, or he doesn't want to eat them. Remember my Angry Birds sandwich? I had to keep it in the freezer for him to admire for weeks. I don't really mind... the Cat in the Hat's hat is a much easier sandwich to make than the Cat in the Hat! So that's what he got, with yogurt & a couple of chocolate green eggs:

Bella's class is having a Read Across America pizza party today so I was told she didn't need a lunch, but just in case she wanted something healthy to go with her pizza, I packed her a little snack inspired by :

Nothing much, just a pair of celery pants & an apple wedge moon, from the last story in the book, What was I Scared of? I also added some lime gelatin Oobleck & a honeycrisp apple Cat in the Hat hat, just because :)

Poor empty pants

With nothing inside them.

That particular story reminds me of my Bella. She would totally feel sorry for and hug the poor lonely pants :) 

Lunchtime Update: 

A last-minute bento for ME! Cucumber Green Eggs & Ham, Cat in the Hat striped radishes, crackers, cheese & potato, broccoli & cheddar Seuss - yum! 

This post is part of a Dr. Seuss Birthday Bento Blog Hop! Your next hop stop is Bento for Kidlet, to see what cheese artiste extraordinaire Jenn has made for her lucky Kidlet.

If you've hopped all around and back again, and still want more, I have more Seussalicious blog posts! Click here to see them all :)