Spring is Here!

The weather is going back and forth between sunshine and rain faster than a drunk yo-yo on speed, but we are loving the move toward Spring anyway! The trees are starting to sprout new leaf buds. The daffodils and tulips are poking their pretty heads up out of the ground. The birds are returning from their flight south and twittering in the trees again.

The first day of Spring coincided with a special Pajama Day at the girls' school, so I packed these breakfast-y, Spring-y lunches for them.

For Bean, a Spring Butterfly:

She has an Eggo waffle butterfly with fruit leather antennae, a hard-boiled egg, a little cup of maple syrup for dipping the waffle, and a butterfly silicone cup of Sunbursts. She also has yogurt with sprinkles and a cup of watermelons and blueberries.

Cutting the Eggo Butterfly was super fast and easy!

First I toasted two waffles and allowed them to cool slightly. Then I stacked the two waffles, one on top of the other. I cut the stack in four, lengthwise. The rounded parts became the wings and two of the straight parts became the body. The other straight strips I cut into smaller parts to make the wing accents. Simple and quick!

For Princess, an Eggo waffle Easter egg. The Eggo Easter egg was made by toasting two waffles, then cutting them using an egg shaped cookie cutter. I cut the accents out of fruit leather. Princess also has a peeled mandarin orange, a little mayo cup full of maple syrup, a ducky duck egg, yogurt with sprinkles, and blueberries with watermelon. 

The ducky was made by hard-boiling a duck egg (generously provided by our duck hens) and soaking it in yellow food dye for a few minutes. I rinsed the egg after it had soaked in the dye, then used a carrot to make the feet and beak. The eyes are two small sprinkles.

A happy chick is splashing in her yogurt, and the watermelon flowers were easy to cut using a small cookie cutter!

On the same day G-man had an appointment, so I packed up a lunch for him, myself, and for Beaker.

G-man has an Angry Birds Eggo lunch. The egg Eggo is made using the same method as the Easter egg Eggo for Princess. He also has Angry Birds Honey Grahams graham crackers, apple slices, watermelon balls, and a blueberry granola bar for a snack.

For my lunch, I packed some leftover Italian pasta salad made with Easter themed pasta, chunks of peeled kiwi, apple slices, and Crunchmaster multigrain crackers with Laughing Cow cheese.

It was delicious! Especially the kiwi ~ yum!

Beaker's lunch from that day will be shown in a separate post.

The Dude's lunch was more of a snacky tray.

I rolled deli sliced roast beef around strips of havarti and topped them with grape tomatoes. He also has Laughing Cow cheese with Club crackers, a few raspberry shortbread cookies and chocolate covered espresso beans (in the small dish with lid) for dessert, green grapes stuffed with garlic and blue cheese, and kiwi slices with blueberries.

Pretty tasty and easy to make, my favorite!

Products used:

All Last Week

The week after our vacation was all half days due to conferences, and then the next week (last week) was busy and stressful. I have been a bad blogger - no posts for over a week, yikes! I'm making up for that now with one big huge mega post, and then will try to keep on track moving forward.

In no particular order:

A Beaker snack... mozzarella string cheese cut into pieces, banana chunks, Goldfish grahams, and turkey with a pair of dinosaur picks. The picks made great makeshift forks.

Beaker's lunch... two lunches, actually. As I was nearly finished with the first tiny lunch, Beaker came into the kitchen and reminded me that he asked for a "Fee-ferd" lunch. I had promised and then forgotten - oops! It was his first time with a sitter (my awesome friend agreed to watch him for me kind of last minute so I could get to my class), and I was willing to do anything that would help him be more comfortable, so making two separate small lunches didn't tweak my nose. He wound up having a fantastic time and ate both lunches by the time we got home.

The first is in a tiny two layer bento box. The bottom layer has peeled clementine pieces, halved grapes, and Phineas and Ferb fruit snacks, and the top layer has mini beef sausages and "space" themed Goldfish.

The second is a Phineas sandwich, made with turkey, whole wheat white bread, a candy eye, and a clementine piece for the 'hair'. He also has ranch, carrots, and Teddy Grahams.

Snack for Bean - Angry Birds Cheese Nips with Laughing Cow cheese wedge tucked into a triangle onigiri case.

Bean's lunch: peeled clementine segments, grapes, mini beef sausages, a snack size chocolate bar, mini pretzel balls, and Annie's bunny grahams.

Princess' lunch: mini pretzel balls, Annie's bunny grahams, mini Oreos, peeled clementine segments, grapes, mini beef sausages, and a McDonald's barbecue sauce tub tucked in under the cookies. Fast food is rare here, but when we do go I tend to collect extra sauce packets and things to keep in the cabinet. Super easy to pack into lunches!!

A Beaker at-home lunch - carrots with ranch, apple slices, caramel apple candy corn, and super cheesy tuna casserole.

Princess lunch - carrots with hummus, Angry Birds grahams, Angry Birds Cheese Nips, and grapes.

I also packed a tiny turkey sandwich and a pack of Angry Birds fruit snacks for her lunch.

Bean lunch - Not-Lunchables. Purple grapes in a triangle onigiri case for her snack, with heart shaped turkey and cheese, Ritz crackers, and carrots, cucumbers, and spinach leaves with ranch.

Lunch for the Dude: carrots and cucumber bits with tiny cheese hearts, purple grapes, a couple of pieces of leftover Halloween candy, Wheat Thin crackers, and a pair of turkey-veggie wraps.

Lunch for Brick - carrots with ranch, Ritz crackers and leftover Halloween candy, and a pair of turkey wraps.

G-man liked this next one so much he has asked for another for tomorrow. Super Mario Bros. fruit snacks with purple grapes, Ritz crackers with super stars, and Power Up Star Biscoff sandwiches.

Another Beaker at-home lunch, this time featuring Bad Piggies/Angry Birds. Bad Piggies is Beaker's favorite. He knows how to operate the tablet, can turn it on and put on Bad Piggies all by himself. It's kind of a construction/Incredible Machine type game. He has piggy Angry Birds fruit snacks, a 'wood plank' turkey sandwich, apple sticks with Biscoff spread, Angry Birds grahams, and Angry Birds Cheese Nips.

Seriously, these crackers are adorable.

Random snack for Bean, of apple slices and Teddy Grahams.

Bean lunch, with a pair of Halloween candy bars, apple slices and Annie's bunny Grahams with Biscoff spread, and a turkey and sprouts star sandwich.

Princess lunch - roasted pumpkin seeds, Halloween candy bars, apple slices and Teddy Grahams with Biscoff spread, and a turkey bear sandwich.

Princess and Bean had identical lunches this day; I'm not sure whose this was. They each had a chicken caesar salad with the dressing on the side in that little tub, cucumber slices and carrots, cheese flavored mini rice cakes, Halloween candy, a peeled clementine, and pomegranite seeds.

Brick had a very similar lunch, but without the carrots and cucumber.

And finally, Beaker's Muffin Tin Monday lunch! Clockwise from the left he has Italian pasta salad, grapes, a Fig Newton and M&Ms, carrots with ranch, cheese slices, and Scrabble Cheez Its.

Thanks!

An Angry Birds How-To

But first...

Ponyo! If you've never seen this movie, go watch. It's adorable. A little fish who becomes a girl, but more than that. We watched it last night, snuggled up together, and Princess loved it. So for her lunch today... Ponyo!

She has half a pepper turkey sandwich with a pair of flower picks and fruit leather letters. She also has green and purple grapes, cupcake Goldfish, carrot sticks, apple pieces, and grape tomatoes with ranch dressing. A few Swedish fish dance and swim here and there (Ponyo's sisters, of course). The grape tomatoes were a last minute stand in for the frozen yogurt fish I had originally planned. Princess nixed the yogurt while I was putting lunch together for her. Just not interested today.

For the letters I use Stretch Island organic fruit leathers. They make very effective and easy letters, and tasty, too! The 'negatives' and extra bits I tuck into a little plastic baggie and keep it in my purse for Beaker to snack on.

And now, Angry Birds!

I wanted a little something fun for G-man and Bean. I found these Angry Birds fruit snacks and Cheese Nips at the grocery store and thought, oooh, there ya go. So, Angry Birds lunches it was!

This is how I put this lunch together. Like most of the lunches I make, they're easier than they look.

First, start with your chosen dish. I like our Easy Lunchboxes most for things like this, because laying out cute scenes are great in these boxes. Plus, I just really love Easy Lunchboxes!

For the pigs' structure, I use leftover chocolate chip banana pancakes from last night. I started by putting a pancake and some scraps down to build a base. This isn't entirely necessary - you can build the structure without the base layer. I just put it in because I knew Bean and G-man would want a little more, and because it made things a little more secure and less likely to shift on the inside. I flattened a white paper muffin cup and laid it down to make a plain background.

Then I sliced up another pancake into strips and laid them out basic structure like on top of the base layer:

For the thieving pigs, I used green grapes. I just popped them in like they would be in the game (or, er, that is what they're supposed to look like, anyway). The silicone cups on the side help to support the structure, and also hold the rest of the lunch.

For the eyes of the pigs, I used white edible confetti sprinkles and edible food-grade marker. The eyes are held to the grapes using clear glitter cupcake decorator gel.

For the red Bird, I scooped red Jello with bits of fruit mixed in into the smallest section of the ELB. The eyes are made with Wilton's Candy Eyeballs and black edible decorator gel. For the beak, I used a tiny bit of carrot, cut into two triangles and arranged in a beak-like fashion with tweezers.

The silicone cups were filled with small carrot discs and Angry Birds Cheese Nips, and then a pack of Angry Birds fruit snacks were tucked in to the empty section of the dish. Done! Step back and enjoy your hard work. Sure to be a hit!