Pink Fuzzy Bunnies

When KoKo used to be afraid of the dark and didn't want to go to sleep at night, I told her to absolutely not dream about fluffy puppy dogs or pink fuzzy bunnies.  My hope was that as she was falling asleep, she would be thinking of these things and then eventually dream about them instead of scary monsters or whatever it is kids bad dreams are made of.  I had zero inspiration on Wednesday, so ended up making a bunny lunch because of the cute little pink bunny silicone cup...

I recently found a Pampered Chef sandwich sealer, so I decided to make a homemade PB&J uncrustable sandwich that I topped with a little fruit leather bunny.  She also had baby goldfish crackers, carrots in the pink flower silicone cup with a pink bunny pick, raisins in the bunny silicone cup, and four little panda bear cookies she begged me to send.  She also had applesauce with little flower sprinkles in the pink container with the bunny looking character.

The very next day (Thursday), was Grandparent's Day.  KoKo got to eat lunch with her Grandma, but didn't want the chicken fried steak they were having at school.  Seriously...who can blame her?  As seems to be the case, I really needed to get to the grocery store, but ended up filling her thermos with a couple of slices of thin ham steak and Italian sliced green beans.  It wasn't pretty at all, so I didn't take a picture of it, but she LOVED it.  Apparently it was a huge hit.  Who knew?  I went grocery shopping today, so will have some very cute lunches to share later this week.  :o)

Have a Hoppy Day!

So, I am once again trying to get in gear and make lunches every day.  It seems we do this every school year, but KoKo starts out looking at the lunch menu and wants to eat everything.  Then, she asks for a Bento one day, and she wants them every day.

Today, Little Miss KoKo has a cute froggy lunch in her two-tier frog Bento box.  The top tier has a peanut butter sandwich cut in half with four little frog faces cut out of white American cheese (with the faces drawn on by my food safe markers) along with a little frog pick.  The bottom tier has two little silicone cups, one with plain cheerios and the other with cut up baby carrots and cucumbers to look like flowers.  She also had a separate container of applesauce and the little yellow frog container has sprinkles for her applesauce.

I also sent her a breakfast in a cute box this morning.  She has a cut up cereal bar in the bottom tier and cut up banana with a little girl pick in the top tier.  This is one of my favorite Bento boxes, but it is really small, so we don't use it that often.

I have been looking through my Pinterest board to try to get some inspiration.  I can't wait to get some more lunches together for her next week!  :o)

Back to School

Well I spectacularly failed at taking pictures of our lunches this summer.  I honestly got very lazy and made very few cute lunches.  In fact, the girls made several of their own bentos (and were super excited to do that).  However, I got my behind in gear yesterday because it was the last day of summer vacation for KoKo.  She officially started 2nd grade today.  She is such a funny little duck.  She asked me to take her to school and said she wanted me to stay with her, but when we got there, she all but shoved me out the door.  And forget about kisses and hugs.  Apparently she is too grown up for all that.  I did get my hug and kiss, but not because she wanted to give them!  :o)  I expect she'll be too cool for all that next year, so we'll have to get them before leaving home.

So, we have had a tradition since Preschool that we read The Kissing Hand the night before school.  We also trace our hands and put a heart on the hand and exchange them.  JayJay is going to Preschool this year and she got to make her hand too.  She loved the story and was super excited to join in.  Honestly, she has been included every other year, but she didn't remember.  So we did our story and hands yesterday and then they got a special lunch.

I found these cute little school paper plates at Walmart and put their lunch on them.  The peanut butter and jelly sandwich is a cut out hand with cheese heart to represent the kiss from Chester's mom from the story.  They also had a "school" of goldfish, bananas and grapes with a balloon pick, and yogurt with stars sprinkles.

So here's KoKo's first day of school.  I drew a heart on her hand as an extra to our story this year.  She is such a big girl!  JayJay starts Preschool tomorrow.  What in the world will I do with myself?!

Glasses Girl

KoKo recently got glasses and I have been wanting to create something to commemorate this occasion.  When we were out of town last week, I visited a kitchen store and found this adorable cookie cutter in the shape of glasses.  I snatched it up and finally created the cutest little lunch today!

The bottom tier has a ham and cheese sandwich cut with my circle cutter.  I made the hair with the circle cutter also.  The glasses are made out of white American cheese and colored purple (since her glasses are purple) with a food safe marker and the mouth out of pink food safe marker.  I have yet to figure out how to make that stinking marker look good on bread, but at least she has a mouth...There are also goldfish crackers and a package of smarties.  The top tier has grapes with a little girl pick and some baby carrots.  I also included a Gogurt and a small container with grape jello, along with a juice box for her drink.

And oh the problems I had right after taking this stinking picture!  We live in a second floor apartment that faces the north and had a storm that blew through last night.  There was a little leftover wind this morning and since we apparently live in a little wind tunnel, we have to be very careful of having things out on our deck.  I have been taking lunches out there to get pictures of it because it is so much better lighting than in my kitchen.  I just finished the picture when a gust of wind came up and blew the entire lunch box over.  I was able to salvage the sandwich and smarties, but everything else had to go.  I was so upset, but apparently, that was just getting my day started.  I had to get gas on the way to take KoKo to camp and ended up having gas come back out and spit all over me.  Lovely day...I should have just gone back to bed after that.  Hope it gets better soon.

Anyway, this kid is absolutely cracking me up with her little camp.  Today is camo/military day.  Look at this little face!  :o)

She Ra and Cheerleaders

KoKo is going to camp this week at church.  She signed up for the cheer/dance part, so I came up with a cheerleader lunch.

I made two little megaphone sandwiches and put the little cheerleader girl on top.  Her body is made of American cheese cut in a heart shape, a white American cheese circle head with a face drawn on with food safe marker, and hair cut with with the circle cutter and a flower barrette.  Her pompoms are made out of white American cheese and fruit leather cut with fruit and starburst shapes.  She also has a pocky stick, baby carrots, goldfish crackers, and yogurt covered raisins (under the goldfish).  She also had a small container of applesauce and a Gogurt.  The little bunny container has sprinkles for the applesauce.

Today, she had to dress like a super hero and she chose She Ra.  I'm not artistic at all, but this is what I came up with.  She was so excited and it turns out she wanted to be She Ra because she loves the red jewel on the headpiece...um, yeah.  That's so my kid.  :o)

Catching up...

Summer is off and running!  We have been very busy and I have been very lazy about taking pictures of lunches.  I did get a picture of this cute one, though which was made last week after KoKo took her first horseback riding lesson.  She has always loved horses and I had an email from Groupon about a one-hour lesson for $15.  I wasn't about to pass that up, so we packed up the car and headed west last Thursday. 

She was a natural!  I couldn't believe how easy everything was for her.  She got to lead the horse, tie the lead to the hitching post, brush him, and put the bridle and saddle on.  Then she led him to the small area and mounted him all by herself.  I didn't see her without a smile the entire time.  She was just so sweet!

So, lunch included strawberry yogurt with sprinkles, a horse sandwich, and mandarin oranges a little clover pick.  They also had carrots, but those were added after the picture was taken.

 This is my favorite picture.  That is the sweetest face and she was just loving it.  SO SWEET!  :o)

Last Day of School

I completely forgot to post KoKo's last day of school bento.  I found the idea on another blog, but can't remember where at the moment.

She had a ham and cheese wrap with little balloon picks with "First Grade is wrapping up" written in food safe marker.  There is also grape jello, applesauce with alphabet and number sprinkles, carrots, and a little Smarties candy stuck in there.  She also had a Teddy Grahams soft paw cookie.

More penguins

We saw the penguins last night and they are super cute!  Of course, by the time we made it through the line that wound halfway across the zoo, they were tuckered out and all cuddled together to sleep.  It was 7:30.  I would give anything to have my kids tuckered out and cuddled up to sleep by that time. **Sigh** 

I don't quite know what everyone is looking at in this picture.  I told them to look at Mommy and all three of them are looking at someone who was way off to my left.  They were sure having fun, though!

And there they are!  Kind of hard to see, but they're up there.  I couldn't get a good picture of them because of how many people were in there.  Like I said, they were all cuddled up together.  There are six of them and they're on loan from a zoo not too far from us.  We had the opportunity to visit that zoo two summers ago and they are an exhibit in the aquarium.  My girls loved watching them jump into the water, so I'm sure we'll be visiting our zoo to see these guys many times this summer.  Thank goodness for our membership!

Speaking of my monkey girls.  They have been on a roll the last few weeks.  I have said it before and I'm going to say it again...They CANNOT wait for summer vacation.  Tomorrow is KoKo's play day and JayJay and I will be joining her.  Next week, she only goes Monday, Tuesday, and a couple of hours on Wednesday.

Speaking of school...my mother is a kindergarten teacher and they had an incubator with chick eggs in the classroom the last couple of weeks.  The chicks started hatching and as of this morning, she had 23 chicks.  They are so adorable and my girls think they're hysterical.  They had them out on the carpet yesterday after school and were trying to get them to race.  Oy vey...They even got to clean up chick poop since it got all over the carpet.  I guess I can be thankful it didn't land all over them.  :o)  I'll post pictures of the chicks later because I honestly forgot to take pictures last night.  *mental forehead smack*

So, you're all here to see the lunch...I"ll get on with it now.  Today's lunch was another penguin theme.  There is a penguin peanut butter sandwich with a heart sprinkle and eyes and beak colored in with food markers.  There is also a salad in the smooshed red heart silicone container (without dressing because my kids don't like dressing which is completely weird), goldfish crackers, blue jello, and strawberry yogurt with heart sprinkles. 

I went to our cake supply store yesterday and hit the jackpot.  Their bottles of sprinkles were $2 and the same size that I have seen at Walmart for around $5.  I also got several cookie cutters and even got some picks.  I was super thrilled and can't wait to make some of the lunches I have planned.  I also found the container this is packed in at Walmart yesterday for only $3.  Score!!!  Oh, and we got a dustbuster and JayJay is running around sweeping up all the crumbs.  Score one for this mom!

Penguins!

The penguins have arrived!!  The grand opening of their exhibit is tomorrow morning at 9:45, but I just heard there is a sneak peak tonight.  Of course, today's lunch had to be all about the penguins.

On the bottom tier, there is a peanut butter igloo sandwich on flat sandwich rounds with two little fruit leather penguins with icing eyes and fruit leather beaks and feet along with goldfish crackers.  In the top tier, there are grapes and cupcake flavored goldfish crackers with yogurt covered raisins.  There was also a Gogurt in the bag.  I wrote a little note with some fun facts about the African penguins that will be at the zoo.

I'm thrilled with how stinking cute this one turned out.  Please excuse the picture...I put two pieces of paper together and didn't even see the seam until I uploaded the stinking picture to my computer.  I'll get better...I hope.  Happy penguin day!  :o) 

Phinneas and Ferb

I was walking through Walmart the other day (which I completely hate to do...) and ran across an entire section filled with bags of Phinneas and Ferb shaped pretzels.  My kids don't really get it watch the show much at all, but KoKo loves it and would sit and watch for hours if I let her.  I couldn't resist the pretzels and decided right there she would get a Phinneas and Ferb lunch.  This is what I came up with...

So, she has a Phinneas shaped sandwich with carrot hair, Phinneas and Ferb shaped pretzels (Perry the Platypus is on top), some yogurt, a sliced string cheese stick, and some grapes.  I showed her this morning and she really wasn't all that excited.  Fabulous...I'm not sure by her overwhelming lack of response if it is really bad or if she just didn't care...She didn't know who her sandwich was supposed to be either, so I'm guessing I'll add this one to the fail column. 

The penguins are coming Thursday to our zoo and we can't wait!!!  I'm headed to the local cupcake/candy supply store on Wednesday to see if I can find a penguin cookie cutter.  Keeping my fingers crossed!!!