Lunches in Celebration of Elmo's Birthday

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Did you know? - February 3rd is Elmo's Birthday! Our family has had two very enjoyable family vacations to Sesame Place and Elmo was one of the first characters that my son ever showed interest in as a very young toddler. So, when I heard that Elmo's birthday is this month, I decided to create lunches to celebrate.

My husband and I have Elmo lunches in our Planetbox Launches. We have apple slices, blackberries, a side salad with balsamic dressing and sunflower seeds, a sandwich shaped like Elmo's head, and a little container of veggie chips. The lunches are accessorized with Elmo picks and a Happy Birthday sign. 

My kids have Elmo themed lunches packed in two tiered boxes. One tier holds crackers, a slice of cheddar cheese, apple slices, celery, yellow pepper slices, and cherry tomatoes all decorated with a birthday hat, Happy Birthday sign, and Elmo pick. The bottom tier holds a peanut butter sandwich and mini wheats. I made the sandwich with an Elmo sandwich press and colored it with food safe markers. The little cup to the side contains sunflower seeds.

Lunches in Celebration of Groundhog Day

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This year I really had the urge to pack lunches themed for Groundhog Day. I hadn't ever packed a lunch designed for this day and it seemed like a fun idea. I had been tossing around a few ideas in my head, but tonight my daughter asked me if I knew why groundhogs really came out of their burrows. I said I didn't know the real explanation and she went on to explain that males come out to look for mates. She mentioned that people say they are coming out to check if winter will be longer, but really they emerge to search for mates. She then added that they lose a lot of fat during their hibernation and are much thinner in the spring. I asked her how she knew about this thinking that it might have been discussed at school today. She told me she learned it watching Wild Kratts, which makes perfect sense because she really likes that show and seems to retain everything she learns from it.

So, after our conversation, I developed the idea for her lunch. I decided to make my own picks out of Shrinky Dinks (like I did before) and to feature her explanation in Tuesday's lunch.

I drew a few images and word bubbles on plain Shrinky Dink sheets, cut them out with rounded edges, baked at 350 degrees F for a few minutes, and taped my newly made pieces to toothpicks.

I made one groundhog with two word bubbles. One says, "Six more weeks?", and is marked out with a red X to show that he is not out of his burrow to check the length of winter. The second word bubble, "Where's my mate?", shows the real reason he is out and it is marked in green to indicate it is correct. In the background, I placed the Wild Kratts logo along with a groundhog drawn in a similar style to the one featured on the episode my daughter was telling me about. I hope she opens this lunch on Groundhog Day, sees that I pay attention to the things she shares with me and that I think it is wonderful that she enjoys learning about nature.

My husband's lunch also features a groundhog. This one is positioned over his barbecue sandwich to look like he is peering up out of his hole wondering whether or not there will be six more weeks of winter. This lunch is packed in an EasyLunchbox. I use these often for adult lunches and find the three sections useful.

Since my son can't read sentences yet and might not really recognize the idea of a groundhog in his lunch, I decided to skip the theme for him and just pack a brightly colored lunch full of things he loves. His lunch is packed in a Skip Hop Zoo lunch box similar to the one I used for his sister's lunch above. The blue box features an owl and the red box has a monkey on the lid. Both are very cute, inexpensive boxes and are well-sized for little kid appetites.

Thanks for visiting my blog. I hope to have some more fun lunches to share throughout February.

Yumbox Lunches for Four

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We are starting out February lunches with our Yumboxes. Tomorrow, my husband, two kids, and I will each have lunches in Yumboxes.

First up, is my daughter's lunch. It is packed in our light purple Yumbox with a Shopkins theme. Like many eight year old girls, she really loves these toys. I found a simple and no cost way to make quick shopkins picks.

I cut a few of the pictures out from the plastic sheet that came with a Shopkins organizer that she got this weekend. After cutting out the pictures and rounding off the edges, I simply taped a toothpick to the back and Voila - instant, free, cute, Shopkins picks. She didn't see me doing this so I think she will be surprised when she opens her lunch Monday. I hope it makes her smile!

Since I was packing one of my daughter's favorite toys in her lunch, I decided to do something similar for my son. I packed his lunch in our yellow Yumbox and added in several Paw Patrol characters.

Since, Monday is the first lunch of February, I decided to go with a love theme in my husband's blue Yumbox. He has chicken salad on a croissant with a love pick (sent from my friend Amy at Yummy Bites by Amy). He also has sides of fruit, macaroni salad, celery, a Milano cookie, and a Nestle Crunch heart. 

The leakproof lid on the Yumboxes does a great job of keeping wet, runny food like the macaroni salad separate from other foods like the croissant and fruits. Since it works so well, there's no need to worry about holding the lunchbox in a special position. Good news for my husband since he needs to be responsible for three lunch bags every morning!

My lunch is nearly the same, except packed in our red Yumbox. Packing the adult lunches in a nearly identical fashion saves me time :)

Thanks for reading!

Snowman Themed Lunches

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Thanks for visiting Licious Lunches! I was so pleased with the lunch I packed for my daughter for tomorrow that I am even managing to make the time to blog about it. That's a big deal considering my most recent post was in October of 2014!

Haha! Anyway, my inspiration for this lunch came from the silicone snowman shaped cups I was lucky enough to win in a Fred and Friends giveaway a couple of months ago. When thinking about what to pack tonight, I decided to use the snowman and then I came up with the idea of trying to find three kinds of white foods to fill each of the three snowman sections. I ended up using cucumber, apple slices cut into circles, and a snowman icing candy for the head (on top of a small blue container filled with sunflower seeds). 

After I had my plan for the snowman, I filled in the remaining space in the large section with fruits and veggies that my daughter likes. Then in the smaller section to the left, I placed some Club cracker sticks with a snowman cupcake ring and a freshly baked brownie. My daughter LOVES brownies so I think this lunch will be a hit for Friday.

My son's lunch is very similar. He has more blueberries and blackberries than his sister along with a few chunks of cantaloupe. He loves berries and all fruit and will prefer it over the brownie that his sister has. He has become quite particular about the temperature of his foods lately and usually leaves brownies uneaten unless they are fresh from the oven - crazy boy :) Also, his is missing the snowman face because he swiped it and ate it while I was taking the picture of his sister's lunch.

Both lunches are packed in our Planetbox Shuttles. These boxes work well for the amount of food my third grade daughter and almost five year old son usually eat at lunch.

Thanks for stopping by my blog. I am planning to post here more during 2016. In the meantime, you can check out some of the lunches I have shared on Instagram.

Halloween Hop 2014

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Welcome to the 2014 Bento Bloggers and Friends Halloween Hop. I am happy to be taking time to post some of the lunches I have packed during the month of October and excited to join another Bento Blogger Hop. Since I have literally hundreds of unshared, never blogged lunch photos, I decided to include quite a few in this post. More shared means there are fewer trapped forever on a camera, phone, or in the cloud! Please be sure to scroll all the way to the bottom so your can find the link to the next stop in the Halloween Hop over at Bentos on the Bayou.

First up is a lunch I packed for myself. It was packed in a LunchBots Trio. I like packing lunches in this box with a little of this and that. This one included pumpkin shaped pretzels, a cheddar cheese stick, almonds, carrots, red pepper strips, peas, grapes, a couple of candy corn gummy candies, and a turkey wrap cut in half and secured with bat and pumpkin picks. The little skeleton girl at the top is a candy icing decoration. My husband and kids bought those for me for my birthday.

Next are lunches packed for my seven year old (in the green Yumbox) and three year old (in the pink Yumbox). These really are high quality lunch boxes and I have been using these multiple times a week as you will see below. My daughter had a slice of cheese, pieces of an orange, apple slices, pickles, Muddy Buddies, veggies, and a few pieces of candy corn in the center treat section. At a fall festival, my daughter won cupcakes decorated with these candy corn themed rings. She said she picked this set specifically because she knew I would be happy to collect those rings. She is sweet!

My son  had peach yogurt and bone shaped snacks in place of the cheese and Muddy Buddies.

The next lunches were packed quickly on a Friday morning in Sassy boxes. My kids had a Cutie, pepper strips, sugar snap peas, carrots, mini cheese balls, and jello in a pumpkin shaped silicone cup. My daughter had cubes of ham and my son had yogurt.

The next lunches for my kids were packed in the new Panino style Yumboxes. My kids had asked to get some of the tiny Cheez-Its in the little bags. Neither one of my children can reliably open packages like that at school, nor do they need to eat a whole pack at a time. So, I had the idea to transfer the little crackers into the clear RIP coffin shaped containers that I had saved. The containers once held sprinkles and had a large enough opening to easily let the crackers in and out.

Sticking with the RIP theme, my daughter had a shaped sandwich and RIP gummy. She also had veggies, green grapes with a black cat crawling on top and an orange with a Boo! pick.

My son's lunch was similar with a granola bar in place of the sandwich and blackberries along with his grapes.

Both kids were happy with the cracker container and my daughter said she had lots of compliments on her lunch. So I reran that idea several days later with slightly different foods and decorations. The second time, my daughter had string cheese, apple slices, a candy corn colored rice cereal treat, peanuts, blueberries, and an eye gummy.

My son's lunch was similar minus the cheese.

A nice lady at a local grocery store bakery gave me a couple of candy corn picks so I themed the following lunches using those as inspiration. My daughter had cucumber slices, carrots, blueberries, pear slices, and grapes in one layer with a candy corn shaped peanut butter sandwich, candy corn, half a Cutie, and a candy corn colored cereal treat in the other layer. Please excuse the crooked, blurry photo taken at five AM :).

My son's candy corn themed lunch included blueberries, grapes, blackberries, pear slices with a pirate candy corn ring, cereal treat, Cheez-It mix, cucumber slices, carrots, and candy corn.

I'll end with a mummy themed lunch I packed for my husband. He had a turkey wrap decorated with food safe marker to look like a mummy. I also cut a green apple, treated it with Fruit Fresh, and topped it with icing eyes to be similar to a mummy. In the fruit section, there were purple grapes and blackberries topped with a mummy candy corn ring. The lower section held pasta salad. The treat section had a gummy mummy and I included Muddy Buddies because I thought they fit the theme and could pass as little mummies.

I found a little clothespin with a mummy on top and used it to hold a Lunchbox Love note as a special surprise in the middle of the day.

Thanks for looking through my Halloween Themed lunches. Please make sure to click the link below so you can visit the next stop on the hop at Bentos on the Bayou.

Transportation Themed Yumbox Lunches

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For the lunches in this post, I used transportation cutters, food markers, and Yumboxes as part of the 3 Tools, 4 Bloggers series over at Wendolonia. I have enjoyed reading all of the other posts in this series and was happy to have a chance to participate.

I was a little low on produce when packing these lunches, but still pleased with how they turned out. Using the transportation cutters helped me to turn some of the ordinary items I had on hand into something more special.

This lunch in the pink Yumbox was prepared for my daughter. I used the cutter shaped like a ship to cut colby cheese, apple slices, and to make shaped tortilla chips (details on those are at the end of the post). I decorated the cheese slices with food safe markers and paired them with round saltines. I pressed the imprint of the cutter into the apple slices and placed those in a silicone ship-shaped cup along with some grapes in the fruit section of the Yumbox. In the veggie section, I packed carrots, asparagus, and cucumber slices on a pick. The homemade ship-themed tortilla chips were in the grains section and the protein section held ham rollups on nautical picks. The treat section held some colorful fish candies.

I used a blank Lunchbox Love note to write a message that said, "Time to set sail on a fun summer!" to go along with the ship theme. My daughter took this lunch to a birthday party where pizza was being served. She isn't a big pizza fan so she was happy to have this and enjoyed all the ships.

My three year old son also took a transportation-themed lunch in a Yumbox to that party with similar foods, but a granola bar instead of ham.. For his, I used the car-shaped cutter and some cute road sign picks that my friend over at eclecticlamb.com picked up for me on her recent trip to Japan.  He was really intrigued by the cheese decorated to look like cars. He usually isn't a big fan of cheese, but he did try it this day. He did like the crackers, chips, fruits, and veggies. And, all of the star candies were eaten. 

I waited for a long time before buying a Yumbox. After I first used it, it quickly became one of my favorites. It is easy for my kids to open and close and keeps everything separate even if turned upside down. I also love the fact that these boxes lie flat in our new Gabby Kids' Chiller lunch bags by Fit & Fresh with plenty of remaining room for a drink and ice packs.

My daughter has the version of the bag and my son has the glasses version. Both have washed and dryed easily. 

For tips on how I made the shaped tortilla chips, you can continue to read below, or you can click to move on to check out lunches created by the three other bloggers in this week's post of the 3 Tools, 4 Bloggers series over at Wendolonia.

For the tortilla chips, I first I brushed a couple of tortillas with olive oil and lightly salted.

Then, I cut out the shapes using the cutters.

Then, I placed them on a pan and baked for 8-10 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

You can faintly see the imprint of the ship and car shape on some of the pieces before baking, but it was more faded after baking as you see below.

For the shaped apples, I first sliced thin sections of apple and then used the cutters.

I soaked the pieces in some a water and Fruit Fresh mixture before packing so they wouldn't brown.

Thanks for visiting my blog and please remember to check out all of the other cute ideas over at Wendolonia in the 3 Tools, 4 Bloggers series.

A Round-up of Rabbit and Easter Lunches

This post has some recently packed lunches with general bunny or Easter decorations. This first bento was packed in our new Yubo lunchbox. It was for my son's lunch at daycare. He had strawberry bunny-shaped Jello, yellow pepper strips, carrots, celery, tomatoes, grapes, strawberries, a piece of rice krispie treat, a fruit punch Oreo, and strawberry yogurt.

The next was a breakfast bento for my son in a two section Sistema box. He has strawberries, slices of yellow pepper, grapes, a piece of rice krispie treat, watermelon, and graham crackers.

The next was a lunch for me packed in a Goodbyn Bynto. I had a salad, string cheese, strawberries, grapes, apple slices, watermelon, and cookie. The small containers held sunflower seeds and balsalmic dressing for the salad.

Next was a lunch for my daughter packed in a pink Yumbox. She had a slice of cheddar cheese, grapes, ham pieces, carrots, celery, red pepper, a grape tomato, "bunny tail" white cheddar cheese balls, strawberry flavored bunny-shaped Jello, and small bunny and carrot shaped sprinkles.

My son's lunch was in a green Yumbox. It was similar, but contained a granola bar in place of ham and had strawberries.

For small morning snack, my daughter had mini pretzels in a bunny-shaped silicone cup, sunflower seeds in the pink polka dotted container, and bunny shaped Jello.

In this plum Baeba tray, my son had a breakfast bento containing watermelon, strawberries, green grapes, sunflower seeds, and pretzels. Along with this he also had a yogurt tube.

The following are matching lunches my husband and I took to work in our Planetbox Rovers. We had Jello, a slice of cheddar, strawberries, grapes, a salad, Sunchips, and bunny sprinkles. The small containers with white lids held a cranberry and walnut mix to add to the salad and the small Sistema tub held salad dressing.

The lunch above was mine and the one below was my husband's.

And, below are two more matching work lunches. These were packed in EasyLunchboxes. The bread for the turkey sandwiches was stamped with chick and egg presses. We also had a string cheese, strawberries, grapes, carrots, celery, tomatoes, and small bunny containers with sunflower seeds. The fruit was decorated with hatching chick, lamb, and bunny picks.