October 22 - 25 lunches

We're continuing our Halloween spirit this week. Its really fun watching a 3 and 5 year old with limited Halloween movie and story experience try to think up enough characters to fill these lunches.

Monday - Witches Lunch - PB&J Witch and black cat. A witch's hat in the cucumbers, and R.I.P. cantaloup grave.

Tuesday - Turkey and cheese Werewolves! Both monkeys agreed on this one. I used the tops of the candy corn as teeth and some left over turkey from the sandwich. Babybel and cantaloup full moons have him going nuts.

Wednesday - Plants vs. Zombies - A favorite game around here for years now, and green monkey requested zombies so this cone-head came to mind. I had also been dying to try to get them to eat tortilla wraps just to have sandwich options.This is the spinach and herb tortilla from Mission. with turkey and monterrey cheese, American cheese cone, and babybel cheese sun. I cut one cucumber into a pea shooter and diced the leftover as peas.

 Thursday - We read Boo on the Loose by RH Disney before bed Wednesday night, both monkeys thought it would be awesome to do a Monsters Inc. lunch. So I made another turkey and cheese tortilla sandwich and used a half of a babybel cheese for his eye and cheese teeth. I made Boo in her costume using a marshmallow in the strawberries and fruit twists for her pigtails. I even found a monster carrot in the bag so of course that got served today. It was only until after I sent them off to school that I realized I forgot horns on Mike, but the monkeys didn't notice either so shh our little secret ;)

Thank you for taking time to look at my blog and especially the comments. I'm so glad to be a part of such a creative blogger community.

Spooky October lunches 15-19

We are all about Halloween this week. From the books the monkeys choose to read before bed to the crafts and field trips. Over the weekend we headed out to the pumpkin patch and Carved out pumpkins. Superman for little Blue monkey and A TARDIS for big green monkey. The kids get to take pie pumpkins to school to decorate.

Monday - Green Monkey requested a vampire, so Count PB&J for him. We used Fruit leather for the hair and suit, and cut a jell bean in half and then in half again on an angle for fangs. Cucumber is Frankenstein again with the jelly bean and fruit leather. Little Blue monkey wanted bats and gave then the other half of the white jellybean for fangs. Little blue monkey got his lunch for our pumpkin patch playdate since it involved a picnic.

Tuesday - Frankenstein Turkey and cheese with fruit leather hair and suit and string cheese scar and bolts. Creepy hand carrots rising out of the ranch dressing, and a frankenberry with raisin bolts and a sliver of jelly bean scar. The frankenberries were our favorites.

Wednesday -  Tuesday night we read his new library book Henry's Amazing Imagination! by Nancy Carlson. In it Henry comes up with all kinds of fantastic stories during Show & tell at school and everyone criticizes him for fibbing. He begins to write his stories out and tell the truth and everyone is bored with show & tell. He is then allowed to read his stories to his class and no one is bored again. Green monkey loved this book and requested aliens the next morning. So we have an alien turkey and cheese, alien cucumber with spinach tentacles, and a marshmallow eye alien grape. I did not have the book open when I made it so this is the blurry eyed 6am memory of what he requested LOL.

Thursday - A haunted house special - PB&J Haunted house and bat with a marshmallow ghost out front. Booberry, and carrot trees ( I was running late so I didn't have time to get too crafty with the branches)

Friday as always is buy your lunch day since he got all green days at school. I may make something fun for little blue monkey to go eat lunch with green monkey, we'll see. Last week I let him buy his lunch there too, he wasn't a fan LOL. He picked pepperoni pizza, carrot sticks, and orange slices and didn't eat any of it so we'll see if he get the same Friday deal when he's old enough for kindergarten.

There's a fantastic Halloween themed blog hop going on if you're looking for more Halloween lunch ideas. I start at Ketha's Chaos then hopped along all the Bento Bloggers & Friends posts.

October 9-11 Lunches and Room mom craft

Monday was a holiday, so no school lunches. I did however do a craft for his classroom his teacher found on Pinterest and brought it in during parent teacher conferences. Getting touchy with numbers from Rhyme Time Using cardstock, sentence strips, sandwich bags, washable finger paints, glitter, tape and glue we made 2 sets so that the class of 20 kids could each work on 1 number then rotate. The monkeys loved helping me make them and it was quick and easy. Each card has a little poem and a number to trace, the bags are attached behind the card so you can flip between reading and tracing. The poems came from Little Giraffes teaching ideas. They are good for any age preschool through Kindergarten for learning how to write numbers.

Tuesday - Back to school and the Halloween spirit has struck our house. Little blue monkey requested pumpkins so I made him a Jack-O-lunch with PB&J, clementine, and salad with cheese. Big green monkey wanted a skull so he also got PB&J, babybel cheese, cantaloup and salad.

Wednesday - Green monkey really liked his brother's lunch yesterday so he requested a jack-o-lunch. PB&J again, a babybel cheese, and vampire strawberry. he didn't want any vegetables and picked strawberry as a fruit so it didn't really lend itself to the pumpkin theme so I punted ;) The eyes are the candy eyes from wilton and the fangs are a jelly bean cut in half and then cut into a wedge.

Thursday - Both monkeys chose ghosts for their lunch so we made some boo-ti-ful lunches. Green monkey got a turkey and swiss ghost sandwich, ghost cucumbers, and boo apples. Blue monkey got the same but his is Munster cheese. I also learned a valuable lesson less is more. I started with the little cucmber ghosts and tried to get too much detail and it came out kind of hard to make out what they were, so less cuts on the big kid's lunch and I think it looked better.

 Friday - Family picnic at school day :) We like to eat lunch with him on Fridays if he gets green days (good behavior) and he gets to buy his lunch. Today Daddy took the day off so we all get to hang out. Should be lots of fun.

October 1-4 lunches

Well another week has come and gone and the monkeys have sure kept me on my toes. Fall is here and we are all finding that snooze button a little easier to push :).  So some are rush jobs but we completed another fun week.

Monday - We watched the Doctor Who fall season finale "The Angels take Manhattan" now if you don't watch the show (and you should) this won't make much sense but my son loved it. So the turkey and cheese sandwich was cut into a bow tie (DW icon) and a weeping angel. I topped the carrots with a babybel Amelia Pond. The honeydew was cut to look like manhattan with the statue of liberty and buildings.

Tuesday - A longtime favorite in this house - Spongebob Squarepants. The preschool teachers had a field day with this one and showed it off to the other kids. Sometimes I need to chances to make it right so at first I colored the swiss cheese then decided he looked better as just cheese. I used marshmallows fruit leather a jelly bean and decorating gel. They love pickels so I bought the little ones and turned it into plankton. The strawberries became Patrick. 2 monkeys, 2 chances, its a learning process.

Wednesday -A sneak peek at our halloween theme this year. Green monkey wants to be Lex Luthor so this was at his request. Turkey and cheese sandwich, raisin eyes, fruit leather and spinach robot suit. Cucumber kryptonite and honeydew and fruit leather kryptonite gun. The nose was kind of fun I stack 3 corners of left over cheese and the squished it into a nose like form.

Thursday - Blue monkey got his turn to decide the theme of the day - Cat woman - PB&J with fruit leather suit. It was also picture day at both schools so I made apple and marshmallow smiles. Today was also my birthday so I sneakily turned their cucumbers into a birthday cake with babybel cheese frosting and carrot stick candles. Apologies for the sideways pictures I can't figure out how to turn them, I saved them in the right orientation and they uploaded like this.

For those who think this is way too much for a 3 or 5 year old's lunch, I am happy to report they are loving them and excited to think up new ideas. I get them made while they eat breakfast just as I would do with a normal sandwich. Somehow adding them into the creative process has inspired them to eat. Every day is filled with " I love you mommy" and "You're the best mommy" and to me they are the only critics that count :) So play with your kids, enjoy them as much as you can with whatever time you get with them be it SAHM or working parent every little thing matters.

Giveaway Halloween Bento Lunch and Rilakkuma Bento Figures

Giveaway Halloween Bento Lunch and Rilakkuma Bento Figures

This wonderful site is offering a giveaway of bento tools. Check them out and follow them on Facebook :)