I am back to my old routine of "No pack Friday's" otherwise known as "yes my darling, if you behave you may buy your lunch once a week" See what I did there? Win-win! These were packed for a trip to a zoo over the summer, but I hadn't had a chance to share them as summer was my "Blogcation". This was also my first chance to use my Lunchbox Love that I won from Karen at What's in Our Lunch Bags awesome giveaway. Thank you so much!
In this lunch :
Peanut butter and jelly star and triangles
Yogurt covered raisins
Ham and cheese rolls
GoGo Squeez applesauce
Our first Lunchbox Love Notes from Say Please won from the fabulous give-away at
In this lunch :
Peanut butter and jelly bear using our CuteZcute cutter
Another Lunchbox love note from Say Please
Ham and cheese rolls
GoGo Squeez applesauce
Yogurt covered raisins
In this lunch :
Salad with cucumber stars
Ham and cheese stripes
Frozen grapes with American flag
Almonds
I hope you all survived your 1st week of school, or if you started earlier your ____th day of school. Best quotes heard at breakfast so far, "Why do we wake up in the dark now?" "why do we eat in the dark" "Do we have to go to school every day, like forever?" Ah childhood, some things never change :)
I'm still playing with all my new bento toys. You can win some cute picks in my 1st Blogiversary Giveaway. Today I'm playing with egg molds from All Things For Sale. These are great you can mold your hard boiled eggs, and since it snaps shut they even kept in the fridge for a couple days before I needed them. The back of the molds has a sandwich cutter so you can make matching sandwiches, or fruit. This is their first time trying hard-boiled eggs so cross your fingers. I also wanted a little extra love in their boxes as we get into the busy schedules of school and me working for the first time in their lives, so I added some Lunchbox Love from Say Please.
Bunny
In this lunch:
Trader Joe's veggie straws
Bunny ham and cheese sandwiches
Carrots
Bunny hard-boiled egg
Grapes
Watermelon
Fish
In this lunch :
Goldfish crackers
Fish ham sandwiches
Carrots
Fish hard-boiled egg
Grapes
Fish watermelon
Cars - Busy parents second home
In this lunch :
Mixed green and veggie salad with heart tomatoes
Ham and cheese cars
Carrots
Car hard-boiled egg
Grapes
Car watermelon
Similar ingredients made packing 3 lunches pretty quick and easy.
First off let me welcome all the new readers for joining our lunch making world. This week I asked my readers entering our very 1st Giveaway what their favorite lunch making tools are. We're getting some awesome responses. If you haven't entered to win some bento flair, don't worry it won't end until September 4th so click that link up there and go enter.
One of the most popular tools of the trade is cookie cutters, my very first set was the Wilton 101 cookie cutters from Walmart for $10. A friend recently donated her William-Sonoma Star Wars cookie cutters to my collection, and for that I thank you :). We also got some new boxes this year, the one I used today was from our local grocery store and it has an icepack that fits in the top of the box.
Darth VS. Yoda
(Apologies for the lighting but mornings aren't my thing so I bento at night)
In this lunch :
Darth Vader and Yoda - ham and swiss
Trader Joe's Rocket cheddar crackers in the background
Trader Joe's Yogurt star cookies (top center)
Orange vs. Green - Oranges and carrots vs. grapes and cucumbers
So who will prevail? Hopefully both with bring balanced nutrition to his lunch. But no matter what I'm done done done, done, done done, done, done done. :)
Ok so Monday back to school kicked off with my son's favorite game Minecraft, it's not surprising that he wanted more Minecraft characters for today's lunch. Some say obsessed, we'll go with passionate :) I also got our Back to School supplies from All Things For Sale in the mail yesterday so we celebrated our very 1st Blogiversary with our 1st Giveaway, you have one week to enter and win 53 pieces of flair.
Minecraft Villains
In this lunch :
Spider holding swiss cheese
Skeleton - Swiss cheese on peanut butter and honey sandwich
Zombie - Carrot sticks, grapes, fruit leather
Steve (ok not a villain but a requested dessert) Caramel rice crispy treat with Nutella and candy eyes
Green monkey was so excited to see this bento box come in the mail yesterday, he had no idea I ordered it. We also found Minecraft legos at Legoland during our summer road trip, he was so excited to meld his 2 loves, and wants more sets.
It's our 1st blogiversary! Hard to believe it's been a year already, and we're still going. What started as a way to, in effect, bribe my picky eaters to eat something for lunch, has evolved into a special hobby for us. We love trying to think up new ideas both for kinds of food, and what we can turn it into. Not every lunch is spectacular work of art or anything, but its a little hug in the middle of the school lunch room.
I made my very first bento for my oldest son's 1st day of kindergarten. I had no idea what I was doing, but I had a millennium falcon sandwich cutter, and well let's just say I've come a long way since then.
I had no idea that the bento community was so huge. All I knew is my friend Keitha over at Keitha's Chaos made a lunch based on her son's books every day. She introduced me to this creative collection of bento bloggers over at Bento Bloggers and Friends, and the addiction to flair began.
At first I was very wary at investing too much in a hobby that may fizzle out with my fickle kids...but it didn't. If this were Chotchkie's I'd say last year I was Joanna working with the bare minimum, and this year I'm turning into a Brian.
So for my very first give-away ever, I decided to give away flair...and I couldn't stop at 37 pieces. Nope I looked at the calendar and kept on going month after month with a selection of pieces for a decent starter kit. I'm a big fan of Bento USA All Things For Sale bento supply, she has the cutest selection and it ships fast. So I went back to school shopping over there and decided to share the wealth with one of my lucky readers.
Nothing is quite as exciting as the first day. Green Monkey headed off to his 1st day of 1st grade today, and is starting at a new school so it's his first day! We are very sad to see summer go, no more sleeping in, back to bed times, and homework. Back to school also means back to bento lunches. We had our favorite bedtime discussion...what do you want for lunch tomorrow? This year he's kicking it off with his favorite game of the summer...Minecraft! But don't fear the creepers, just dig in.
Good Luck Green Monkey!
Don't Fear the Creepers
In this lunch :
Minecraft - Scrabble Cheese-its
Creeper - Peanut butter and jelly with fruit leather face and food coloring
Pick and sword - Carrot and cucumbers
Steve - Caramel rice crispy treat with nutella, peanut butter, and candy eyes
Grapes (unseen under Steve)
Teacher Survival Kit
T - Tissues to dry the tears
E - Extra sparkle for the smiles
A - Aspirin for the hard days
C - Clorox to wipe away the germs
H - Hersheys to sweeten your day
E - Energy to get through the day
R - Rejuvenate after the day
Hopefully it will be a wonderful year, making new friends, and loving his new school.
