The Doctor's Wife

Can you hear it? The loud squealing of millions of fans as we gear up for the premiere of the biggest Doctor Who episode ever. The 50th Anniversary!

How many other shows can say that they are still going strong, with world wide popularity and a deeply loyal fan base, after fifty years? Doctor Who has stood through time and tide, and today is loved more than ever. Because? The Doctor is awesome.

And who has been his most loyal friend, from the very begining? The one shining constant on a show which has spanned five decades, the only face which has always been there. Companions have come and gone, the Doctor has changed his face again and again, but the leading lady has always been there.

Obviously I am talking about the TARDIS.

Time And Relative Dimension In Space - T A R D I S. Occasionally known as the Doctor's wife. The constant companion. Or as the Doctor calls her... Sexy.

My lunch for the big day is a tasty TARDIS open faced sandwich with half a plum, cheese, and grapes.

The Doctor has said that he 'borrowed' the TARDIS from a museum, always intending to return her when he was done. But did he steal the TARDIS... or did the TARDIS steal him? As Idris says in The Doctor's Wife, "I wanted to see the universe so I stole a Time Lord and I ran away." Who chose whom, we may never truly know. Maybe it will be among the answers revealed in the big episode today!

I have to work, so the Dude is DVRing the episode so that we can all watch it together tonight when I get home. The kids are every bit as excited as we are - they're even planning snacks out for the show. The youngest three even dressed as Doctor Who characters for Halloween this year.

My little Whovians <3 Beaker was the Eleventh Doctor, Bean was the TARDIS, and Lulu was a (very abstract) Dalek.

Keep following the hop by clicking the pretty button to see what wonders await from Blame it on the Bento and the rest of the group!

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Autumn Leaves

A simple and easy warm lunch for a cool, crisp fall day.

Leaf picks make these honeydew melon balls a little more fun, and easier for a little hand to grasp without dropping.

Jumbo muffin cups are great for holding a serving of gluten-free, extra cheesy rice-mac and cheese.

A mini silicone cup of allergy friendly autumn trail mix makes a perfect treat. To make the trail mix, I toss together shredded coconut, sunflower seeds, dried cranberries, and Enjoy Life mini chocolate chips.

To round out the lunch, Beaker has rolls of ham on colorful autumn leaf picks and a little bit of shredded raw broccoli.

I love these four section plates for meals at home. They make it easy to keep food separate (which my preschooler and sensory-sensitive kids tell me is VERY important) and to portion appropriately. They're also fun, with a variety of cute designs. I found this one, with a little robot theme, for $1. Yesterday I found a few Halloween and Thanksgiving themed four-section plates for half off in the Target dollar bins for 50 cents each. I keep an eye out for new ones each new season and holiday, and for clearance when the new designs roll out. They're easy to find and inexpensive, which I like. I have also seen stainless steel section plates on Amazon, and those are perfect for those who prefer to reduce use of plastic.

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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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Pretty Layered Sandwiches

These open faced layered sandwiches look super fancy, but are actually pretty easy to make.

All you need is lunchmeat, preferably in more than one color or shade, cheese, one slice of bread per sandwich, and a set of cookie cutters in multiple sizes.

Using the largest cookie cutter, pop out the shape in the bread. Cut cheese and bread in graduated sizes, then stack them up. For this lunch, I tucked grapes and carrots around the sandwich, with an extra layer of grapes underneath.

Honey-wheat pretzels and a soft cheese wedge round out the lunch.

This lunch is the same ingredients, but a different cutter shape.

The cookie cutters aren't terribly expensive either. I think the set for this sandwich was only $2 for 6 sizes.

For a different take on the fancy sandwich theme, I made these simple rolls. They are made by laying a slice of cheese on top of ham lunchmeat, rolling up, and slicing.

Included in this lunch is cantaloupe, grapes, and star shaped crackers.

For the smaller appetite, Beaker has a pair of tiny flowers made with turkey and bologne, topped with a little bit of melty cheese.

He also has GF cheese crackers, halved grapes, and cantaloupe pieces.

For flavor and to keep the sandwiches from shifting, I put a little dab of mustard or mayo between each layer of the sandwiches, or warmed the sandwiches a tiny bit to melt the cheese just a touch.

My kids love these little layered sandwiches, and I love how easy they are to make. Double WIN!

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Baby Chick!

I know I have been a little bit absent for a few weeks. Some big changes in the Chaos house! I started working a new job, in addition to going to school. Grandparents moved in with us. And our computer crashed and burned hard. Also, we went on a vacation and I misplaced my camera. No comp = no blog posts (boo). But now we're settling in to a routine and the computer is back from being repaired (yay)! I have still been packing lunches though, so I'll be playing blog catch up again for a few weeks.

I have mentioned before that we raise chickens and ducks. We also had a rooster, until a few weeks ago (no worries, we didn't eat him. He was getting too loud and obnoxious for our suburban neighborhood so we found someone to take him). So when one of our hens went broody at the end of the summer, it was not a surprise. We didn't really think much would come of it, since it was our first broody hen and it seemed like she sat there for a long time. But just when we were starting to think that it was time to pull the eggs and throw them out before they began to stink...Lulu and Bean went out to feed the chickens one day and heard tiny peeping!

Out of the whole clutch only one egg hatched, but OH! What a CUTE egg it turned out to be! It was Lulu's turn for naming, and she wanted to name the chick after herself. After a few days of confusion, we settled on giving the chick her nickname instead. If I can find my camera, I will add pictures of little Lou!

To celebrate, I packed this sweet little chick lunch for Lulu to take to school:

She has a "CHICK" half sandwich snuggled into a nest of lettuce leaves, with the letters spelled out in colby-jack cheese. She also has a hard boiled egg, baby corn, and a little chick stuffed with gummies for a treat. In the top section she has cheese crackers, baby carrots, cucumber slices, and a peeled clementine.

Lulu loved showing off her little chick lunch and telling her second grade class all about little Lou. She said it was her best show-and-tell day ever!

Now a few weeks have passed and little Lou is getting a lot bigger. Free range chicks are much hardier than human-hatched chicks. She lives out in the yard with her mama, Princess the hen. They spend their days scratching for treats, snacking on bugs, and running around through the garden. During the high garden months I keep the chickens and ducks in their large pen, but during the autumn and winter and early spring they free range, turning the garden soil and keeping it fertile and soft for planting. One of the many benefits of keeping backyard chickens!

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