Anything Goes

Every night before bed I ask the monkeys what they would like for lunch the next day. After they are asleep I go to work. I'd love to be one of those morning people that hop out of bed and get a jump on the day...but I'm not. I'm a zombie, even after coffee, and the monkeys are no better at mornings. So we all take a good hour to get up, fed, dressed, and out the door. So I bento at night. Last night it was 3 lunches for today and a cute snack for little monkey's class. They are on transportation so I made apple and grape cars, not pictured but you know the ones. If you ever see good outdoor lighting...it was probably a sick day :)

Pixar Transportation 

Cars and Planes 2 of his favorite movies in one bento!

In this lunch : In an ELB

• Dusty Crophopper - Low -carb tortilla with ham
• Lightning McQueen - Peanutbutter and jelly sandwich
• Carrots
• Yogurt pretzels

Spider 

In this lunch : In an ELB

• Spider - Ham and cheese sandwich with candy eyes
• Ghost Peep
• Carrot and orange spider

Jack-O-Lantern 

My class is studying pumpkins this week so I played with my food

In this lunch : In an ELB

• Jack-o-lantern - beans with cheese and nori details
• Rice crisps
• Roasted seaweed under everything
• Jack skeleton orange
• Cucumbers and tomatoes

Don't forget to go check out Day 3 of the Bento Bloggers and Friends Frightful Fall Blog Hop. Today begins with Becoming a Bentoholic sure to please and inspire you.

No minute like the last minute

Usually I take Fridays off letting Green monkey buy lunch at school, usually we try to come visit and picnic with him. Today I got a sub gig again though so with a quick dash to the shower I transformed from gym-mom to substitute preschool teacher. This also meant we needed lunches for little blue and I. So what a perfect day to play with Bentos on the Bayou and her 15 minute Friday linky party, because that is literally all the time I had including figuring out what to make, packing, and clean-up.

Springtime for mommy & me 

We have to be out the door in 19 minutes, ready, set, go!

All done and cleaned up with 2 minutes to get in the car.

 In my lunch :

• Spinach salad, cucumber flower, carrots, sugar snap peas, broccoli, and cheese cubes
• Almonds
• Crab stick and babybel cheese

In Blue's lunch :

• Flower peanut butter and jelly, celery and peanut butter stem/leaves
• Gold fish
• Carrots and grapes

I always love days I get to go teach they are so much fun! Technically I used 17 minutes but considering it included prep, and clean-up for 2 lunches I think it's close enough. They were yummy that's what counts right? :) TGIF

Field trip Mommy and Me lunch

Today was a field trip for Green monkey to the Children's museum with the Kindergarten class, and as room mom I got to go chaperone. To keep from losing lunch boxes and thermoses everything must be disposable. This means brown sack lunches, ziplock baggies, and a prayer that your lunch is not unfortunate enough to be on the bottom of the over-stuffed cooler getting squished. A good portion of the class brought lunchables. My kid even asked for one. However, he will not actually eat them, the meat and cheese are not like what he gets from the deli counter so he generally eats the candy and crackers and throws the rest out. I told him I could make one just like the ones from the store but with fresh food and it blew his mind. To keep it from getting squished when packed with 20 other lunches I recycled a plastic strawberry basket, washed and dried, and used cupcake liners as bento dividers to separate them just like a lunchable. I even recycled a potato bites container for my salad today. Though I didn't set the timer these were both done in less than 15 minutes. Since our picnic was at the park we were able to recycle the paper and plastic items used as well.

Homemade Lunchable

 In this lunch :

• Recycled strawberry basket, washed and dried, with cupcake liners
• Cheddar cheese rectangles
• Ham circles
• Ritz crackers
• Strawberries
• 2 Easter candies
• Strawberry milk

 The strawberry label didn't come off clean so I used some school themed duck tape to decorate the top.

 We even decorated his bag with lego stickers before writing his name on it for fun this morning. I sealed it with more school themed duck tape so it wouldn't spill during loading and unloading of coolers.

 In this lunch :

• Recycled, washed and dried, Baby potatoes basket with cupcake liners
• Mixed greens salad, cucumbers, broccoli, carrots, and the leftover ham scraps from his lunch (No waste)
• Cheese cubes
• Trail mix
• Water

 The napkin kept the cupcake liners from moving around and spilling everywhere (No mess)

We had a really great afternoon with a picnic at the park and then the Children's museum.

This was a brilliant idea that I first saw used by my fellow Bento Bloggers & friends. In fact they did a whole post hosted by Bent On Better Lunches on the various lunches they have made using this idea.

1. Bent on Better Lunches 
2. Bento for Kidlet
3. Bento for Kidlet
4. Bento Lunch.net 
5. Keeley McGuire 
6. Keeley McGuire 
7. Mommy + Me Lunches
8. Bento Lunch.net
9. Biting the hand that feeds you