We Love a Parade!

Before the summer officially started was Parade Season. G-man and Bean were in three or four parades with their middle school band this year. Which of course meant that Beaker and I were there in the crowds to cheer them on!

These are a couple of our Parade Picnic Lunches from this year. Including the Junior Rose Parade, where my kids' middle school took top honors and marched off with the award for first place in their category!

Orange slices, ham and cheese sandwich, crackers, and chocolate cookies.

Apple chunks, Glutino pretzel sticks, ham and cheese rolls, carrots and cucumber with ranch.

Because of course Pandas should be invited to a Parade Picnic!

Beaker loved eating this one while watching the parade. He couldn't decide which part of the parade was his favorite!

And for Mom, cucumber slices with ranch, ham and cheese rolls, crackers, and apple chunks.

All of the above were packed into Easy Lunchboxes. They are our favorites! Fast, easy, convenient, and they make a great solid surface for eating with your lunch on your lap.

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Little Pandas

I am setting a personal goal to post to my blog every day in November. I started the month off with a bang by completely forgetting about that goal this morning! But mid-afternoon still counts!

Fast and easy lunch for Lulu:

Details:

Sabra hummus

Cucumber slices

Carrots

Pretzels

Chocolate chip mini cookies

Ham and cheese rolls

Grapes

Clementine half

Packed in an Easy Lunchbox

And a gluten free version of the same (with no hummus, because she isn't a fan) for Bean:

Details:

Grapes

Carrots

Clementine

Ham and cheese rolls

Cheese wedge

Glutino pretzel crisps

Cucumber slices with pepper and sesame seeds

Packed in an Easy Lunchbox

Happy Pandas

Beaker requested bologna pandas for lunch recently, with about fifteen minutes to spare before we had to run out of the house to meet Lulu for lunch at her school. This is what I whipped together on the super-fly!

Cucumber and shredded lettuce salad, kettle corn, allergy safe trail mix, mango and peach chunks, cold buckwheat pasta salad with peas and carrots, and a bologna panda.

This lunch is gluten-free, egg-free, dairy-free, soy-free, garlic-free, nut and peanut free, and Beaker proclaimed it his "very favorite today!" The cuteness factor was also pretty popular at the lunch table.

The best part are these sweet little panda picks. Happy little pandas dance and play, holding the rolled up scraps of bologna and adding a cute little touch to the lunch.

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(Mostly the) Same Ingredients, Different Lunches

As you can imagine, sometimes it can be difficult feeding a kid with food allergies. Especially when nobody else in the family has those same restrictions. Sometimes - frequently, actually - I have to make an entirely separate meal just for him, and follow stringent rules for cleaning and food handling to make sure no cross contamination occurs. It can be a lot of work! But other times, it is pretty easy to make a meal for Beaker that is similar to what the rest are eating, just by leaving out an ingredient or substituting something else.

Like these lunches! The lunch for Beaker and the lunches for Princess and Bean are pretty much the same. They contain mostly the same ingredients, with just a few minor changes for preference and allergies. To make all three lunches took roughly fifteen minutes total, so not much extra work at all.

For Beaker, a pair of ham rolls secured with a skewer are a great alternative to a sandwich. He also has gluten-free pretzel rings, strawberries from our garden, sliced cucumber and carrots, and some grapes and watermelon.

Cutting watermelon hearts is an easy way to make lunch special. Just slice the watermelon and use a mini cookie cutter to pop out shapes ~ it's that easy! You have to cut it to put in the lunch anyway ~ the extra step takes pretty much no extra time.

The pretzel rings are one of his favorite snacks. They are made by EnerG, and they are gluten-free, soy-free, vegan pretzels. They taste pretty good, actually, and Beaker loves them.

For Bean and Princess, ham-and-jam sandwiches (ew, but they love it) are cut with a CuteZCute sandwich cutter for a sweet little extra special effect.

They also have pretzel sicks, strawberry slices, cucumber and carrots, just like Beaker. Princess added a couple of grape tomatoes from the garden, and Bean has a handful of raspberries she picked in the morning from our berry bush.

Tasty, well balanced lunches don't have to be difficult or time consuming, even when dealing with allergies. With just a little effort and thought, they can be pretty easy!

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Happy Birthday, Bean!

On Monday my sweet awesome Bean turned ten years old!

When I asked her what she wanted to do for her birthday, her only request was "I want to go to the mall with you." Shopping with my sweet girl? I am totally on board with that!

To surprise her, I went one better than that. I took her on an overnight trip to Seattle.

She got to see her grandparents and her aunt and uncle, and go shopping at some great places. I took her and her Nana to Southcenter Mall for some fun and fab shopping. We bought new bento gear at Daiso Japan, TARDIS socks and Doctor Who bracelets at Hot Topic, and birthday tiaras at Claire's. Then we had dinner together at Cheesecake Factory. Bean and I had never been there before, but we will definitely have to go again some time. My salad was a work of art, so beautifully presented and absolutely delicious!

On Sunday, her Papa introduced us to the light rail system. We took the light rail to the last station and from there walked a couple of blocks over to West Lake Center. Papa treated us to lunch at a little vendor outside ~ Bean thought the begging pigeons were funny, and she got to climb on a neat new playground-art structure. Yes, those trees really are blue! Bean loved that.

After lunch we took the monorail to the Pacific Science Center. We have been there several times before, but this was the first time Bean had been without her siblings. It was a nice change for her to get to spend as much time as she wanted at each exhibit which interested her, instead of having to go with what everyone else wanted to do. We even were able to sit in on a planetarium presentation on gravity and black holes.

After PacSci, we took the monorail back to West Lake Center.

From there we walked up a few blocks, to the iconic Seattle landmark - Pike's Place Market.

Bean hasn't been since she was very small, and she LOVED it there. So many things to look at, so many little shops and vendors to stop at and wander through. She bought herself a Doctor Who keychain and helped me find little gifts for each of her siblings, too. She loved being able to see Puget Sound, and all of the amazing handmade items for sale. She said the fish market "smells like fish!" and the flower vendors "are so beautiful!"

It was a wonderful weekend, and I can't wait to do it again someday soon. Bean is an amazing girl. I am so lucky to be her mom!

On Monday I packed her a special birthday lunch, and took cupcakes and punch to her school. Apparently she forgot to tell her teacher I would be coming, so it was almost like a surprise party. Lots of fun, for all of us!

For her special birthday lunch I packed a pair of panda CuteZCute sandwiches wearing party hats. Bean also has grapes and watermelon, cookies and cheese crackers, and alphabet crackers with the first letter of her name.

To make these cute fruit balloons, I used these picks from ATFS with a green grape and a watermelon ball.

HelloPanda! chocolate filled biscuits and Cheddar Rocket crackers are some of Bean's favorite crunchy sides.

Panda sandwiches are super easy and adorable with the CuteZCute sandwich cutter. And Easy Lunchboxes make packing lunches simple and convenient.

Ten years old! My Bean is getting so grown up. 10 is a lot of candles on a little cupcake! She is such a lovely girl and we are so very lucky to be her parents. Bean is always the first to jump in and help when things need to be done. She is sweet and thoughtful, kind and polite. She does great in school and loves to read. She just finished the entire Harry Potter series last week and is starting the Percy Jackson series now. She also likes Babysitter's Club books, Nancy Drew, and Mrs. Piggle Wiggle. She is fun and smart and pretty. She loves arts and crafts too, and is great with animals. All around, she is just a fantastic kid.

Happy happy birthday, sweet girl! 

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St. Patrick's Pandas

Today's lunches for Bean and Princess are all decked out in St. Patrick's Day green! Shamrocks, rainbows, and pandas for a happy fun Friday. Kicking off the weekend right!

For Princess:

She has cucumbers with ranch in the little rainbow cup, a shamrock cupcake with rainbow baran, mango pieces, a mini Baybel cheese with Wheat Thins, sweet bell pepper rings, and turkey-and-cream cheese rolls.

I love this rainbow baran from BentoUSA. Probably one of my most used accessories, so it's a good thing it's so sturdy!

I love the little matching mayo cup, too. It holds just the right amount of dip for my younger kids to dunk their veggies.

For Bean:

Mostly the same foods as Princess, but with kiwi instead of sweet peppers, and no cheese wheel.

Have a happy Friday and a great weekend!

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Panda Pi

Forgot to post this little cutie Pi yesterday for Pi Day!

Panda Pi:

A little panda baran dances on a stack of pear slices and carrot sticks, while another hangs out on a slice of quiche. There is also a few pretzel squares with a wedge of Laughing Cow cheese, a leftover bit of boneless hot wing with celery, and a mini cherry Pi pie.

I love these sweet little panda picks and baran from ATFS.com.

Cherry panda Pi pie!

Hope you had a happy Pi Day!

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Hello, Panda!

For Bean, a sweet baby panda lunch, packed in a Laptop Lunch box.

She has a little panda bear Nutella sandwich with pretzels, yogurt with a sugar heart, Hello Panda cookies, and broccoli and carrots with ranch.

Her sandwich was cut with the CuteZCute, our new favorite cutter.

Cute little panda veggie garden.

These little cookies are way too tasty. Not too sweet, but with a creamy chocolate center. 

For Princess I packed a Hello Kitty lunch. She has a broccoli and carrot garden with ranch, a kitty CuteZCute Nutella sandich, pretzels, and yogurt with a sugar HK head, and in the Hello Kitty container she has granola for mixing in with the yogurt.

Hello, Kitty!

Her dessert: a chocolate filled marshmallow in a Hello Kitty package.

For the Dude's lunch, I packed a light picnic. He has Crunchmaster rice crackers with cream cheese and smoked salmon, a handful of mixed nuts and carrots, half an orange and a sliced kiwi, and a little Dove Raspberry Dark Chocolate for dessert.

I had the same thing for lunch today. In a corny, goofy sort of way it is almost like we shared a picnic, even though we were in different states. <3 Yes, I am a total cheeseball.

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