Zoo Day

As the last school year came to a close (yeah, yeah... I'm more than a little behind in sharing these lunches!), Beaker's small school had a field trip to the zoo for the entire school. It was pretty neat to see all of the students from the whole school, kindergarten through high school, there together with their families! Lulu tagged along with us, and Beaker was thrilled to introduce her to his kindergarten teacher and the friends he had met at school.

And of course there was lunch...

Beaker has a cantaloup field for a friendly giraffe, and grape and strawberry stripes for a silly zebra. Enter the zoo through a gluten free sandwich on Udi's bread, with cheesy letters and animals greeting you at the carrot stick gates. Smoked gouda cheese with rice crackers are hanging out in the foliage.

He thought a few of his animal friends should check his lunch out to make sure it was safe before we could close it all up. The zebra approves, but the lion needed a closer look.

Lulu prefers her lunches with a little less flair, so she has a pretty toned down version for hers. Carrots with ranch, cantaloup, strawberries, a sandwich, and rice crackers with both smoked gouda and spreadable cheese make up her meal.

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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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We Heart (Gluten Free) PIzza!

Like nearly everyone ever, Beaker loves pizza. LOVES. The kid would happily eat pizza for dinner every night for the rest of forever. And who can blame him? Pizza is awesome! Hot slices of doughy, saucy, cheesy deliciousness.

We are shin guards deep in soccer/cheer/band perfomance season here. G-man is a freshman this year, and his high school band plays all of the football games. Bean and Lulu are in cheer, and Beaker is in soccer. We have practice four evenings a week and three to five games every Saturday. Plus the Dude and I both work, and occasionally have to shovel out from under the mess of seven people at home. So dinners can get pretty hectic and rushed around here! Every now and then, it's pretty tempting to just swing by a pizza place and pick up a few pies on the way home. So fast and convenient!

Except takeout pizza isn't an option when you have a kid who is allergic to wheat and garlic.

Thank goodness for ready made gluten-free pizza crusts!

I keep packs of gluten-free pizza crusts in the freezer. I haven't yet perfected making homemade pizza dough (translation: All of the ones I have tried so far have been inedible lumpy messes), so having these ready to go is a huge help. I think his favorite are these from Schar! On nights when I know we will be especially rushed, I pull one out before heading out for practice and tuck it in the fridge to thaw. They thaw pretty quickly, so by the time we get home from practice and picking up a take-and-bake pie or two for the rest of the family, the crust is ready to go.

Beaker can't eat commercial pizza sauces, so I usually make one for him using crushed tomatoes and a bit of pepper, rosemary, and oregano. Or sometimes I just brush butter and parmesan cheese on the crust, his favorite. Then top with shredded mozzarella and sprinkle grated parmesan along the crust.

Okay, so I don't always cut heart shapes in the ham slices, but he does love the extra special touches. To make your pizza super cute like his, use two sizes of heart shaped cookie or fondant cutter to cut out the shapes.

Arrange your toppings on top and sprinkle just a little bit more cheese over that. Beaker's favorite pizza toppings are Canadian bacon and pineapple. I like pepperoni, spinach, and mushrooms on mine!

Bake at 425 degrees. And like magic, eight to ten minutes later you have dinner!

One pizza crust makes enough pizza for Beaker to have dinner plus lunch the next day, so BOOM, two meals in one shot. Pop the rest of the pizzas in the oven and dinner is served. Easy and fast, perfect for busy nights!

What are your favorite pizza toppings?

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Perfect Parade Lunch

#throwbackthursday much? Ha!

I actually made these lunches close to a year ago, and never got around to posting them. I was just poking around, trying to convince myself to get back into the swing of blog, and stumbled over this draft from last summer.

It's Parade Season again here, which means several lunches on the run for Beaker and the Chaos Leader (aka Me). Bean and G-man are both in the marching band at school, which makes Beaker and I their personal cheering section.

The first Parade Season after Beaker was diagnosed with food allergies, I misjudged how long the parades can be and only packed Beaker a light snack. Hours later he was hot and starving and miserable, and there was nothing anywhere nearby that I knew was safe to feed him. Never making that mistake again! 

These tasty on-the-go lunches I packed up for a parade last year:

Each has a cup of tuna fish tossed with sour cream and mayo, topped with pepper. The little spoon is perfect for scooping the tuna onto the rice crackers - delicious, and way more fun than a boring tuna sandwich!

The lunches also include mini pickles, blueberries, orange slices, and cut fruit bars - an allergy safe Enjoy Life bar for Beaker and a NutriGrain bar for me.

As you can see from the pic, the Easy Lunchboxes are completely perfect for a curbside picnic! They fit easily inside a regular insulated lunch bag, with an ice pack tucked inside to keep the tuna salad nice and cold. The whole lunch was easily balanced on Beaker's lap, so he could watch the parade while happily eating his lunch. This is one of my favorite things about Easy Lunchboxes - they're perfect for on-the-go meals and fit everything neatly in one container, without a bunch of fiddly pieces to juggle.

SO much better than hauling a hangry kid around!

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Harry Potter and the Bento Blog Hop

We are huge Harry Potter fans here. We have been ever since Brick was tiny!

We first discovered Harry Potter when Brick was four. A friend mentioned that her son liked the books, and hey, did you know they just put out a movie? We bought the first book and read it to Brick and G-man (who was a tiny toddler, barely over a year old at the time) at night before bed.

We were all instantly hooked.

We went out immediately, before even finishing Sorcerer's Stone, and bought Chamber of Secrets and Prisoner of Azkahban from the bookstore. We also bought the first movie, which had just been released to DVD. It was an instant hit with all of us, and became a favorite. We blew through all three books in lightning speed, and then impatiently waited for Goblet of Fire to be released in paperback.... then bought it in hardcover, because we couldn't wait to read it!

We pre-ordered Order of the Phoenix so it was delivered fresh to our door the day it was released. I won the coin flip, so I got to read it first. I spent the next three days curled up in bed with Bean (who was brand new, just a few months old), burning through the whole book. Then waited impatiently for the Dude to finish it so I could read it again! Four year old Brick was reading the second book all by himself. Harry Potter was the first book he ever read independently.

When Half-Blood Prince came out, we took Brick, G, and Bean to their first midnight release party. Bean fell asleep on Dude's shoulder and Brick read the last few chapters of the fifth book while in line waiting to buy the sixth. G and I almost missed the unveiling because we had to potty - little fetus Lulu was playing a drum solo on my bladder in anticipation. A couple of months later Brick started first grade and the teacher didn't believe us when we told her that he had already read the entire Harry Potter series on his own.

But the best was when Deathly Hallows came out. We took Brick, G, Bean, and Lulu to a midnight release party in full costume. Lulu wasn't yet 2, and was so charming in her cloak and curls that she was featured on the front page of a local newspaper. Brick and G were old enough to really enjoy the games and fun events at the bookstore leading up to the release, and Bean had been learning to read with the specific goal of reading the series herself. It was a blast, and is still one of our favorite family memories.

We recently started reading the series to Beaker at night before bed, and seeing him fall in love with the characters the way the rest of us did is nothing short of magical.

Bean has been asking for a Harry Potter lunch for some time, and I finally got around to making her one for this hop. She was utterly thrilled (and has put in a request for a lunch from each of the books)!

This lunch is gluten free and also nut/peanut free, and is packed in a Planet Box Rover. Details:

Moaning Myrtle mini Baybel cheese

Baby carrots

Aragog's apple slices

Diary of Tom Riddle gluten free crackers

Gummy basilisk

Turkey and cheese sandwich on Udi's gluten free bread

Tom's giant snake pet is slithering around this tasty sandwich.

The (gluten free) Diary of Tom Marvalo Riddle...

...And a cheesy Moaning Myrtle.

This year Bean and Beaker were even Harry Potter characters for Halloween!

Beaker was an adorable little first year Harry Potter.

And Bean was a lovely third year Hermione Granger, complete with Time Turner necklace!

Now keep going to see what awesome Potter-ness Organized Bites has to share! And of course be sure not to miss the rest of the great posts in the hop!

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