Valentine's Day Lunches

This morning, my precious Fancy came downstairs, all groggy and wobbling, and said in a half chipper, half sleepy voice, "Momma! It's Thanksgiving Eve!"

Me: (blink, blink) You mean Valentine's Day Eve?

To which she nodded emphatically, came over and hugged me, and proclaimed, "I bet that NO kids will be playing outside after school tomorrow!"

Me: Why?

Fancy: Because it's Valentine's Day! That's a day you should spend loving on your family!

I just love her sweet soul. I asked her if she'd like to go on a hike through the woods tomorrow after school. She wants to. It's going to be fun.

For lunch, of course I couldn't just pack up boxes as usual. I had to make them festive while keeping the foods wholesome and as whole as possible. Here's what I came up with...

Everyone has basically the same foods. Cubed ham, heart-shaped cheddar, Babybel cheese, TLC Cherry Vanilla cereal bars, strawberries, sweet baby peppers, white asparagus. Bay has grape tomatoes and Army Man has some raspberries. Raspberry Lemonade to drink.

I found free printable cards at About.com and I printed one for each of the girls' lunch boxes.

What's Valentine's Day without a little chocolate? Ghirardelli squares in dark chocolate with mint filling, dark chocolate with raspberry filling, and milk chocolate with caramel filling end these lunches on a sweet note.

Hot Lunch for Friday

Yesterday, the girls made their own lunches. They were thrilled. I really wanted to photograph them and post them on the blog, but I was in bed with a killer headache. Fancy put cheese and dessert together in one bin and cut-up bananas and cucumbers together in another. And she thought her lunch was delicious. ;)

I hope they think that the lunches I packed them today are equally delicious. Even if I didn't do weird food combining.

My apologies for the poor photo quality. I was rushed this morning.

Bayberry's lunch was mac & cheese in the Thermos, a clementine orange, pudding, green bean "chips", cucumber, and fruit punch. Below shows how it all fits in her Lunchopolis kit.

Fancy has mac & cheese, vanilla bean Greek yogurt, granola, clementine, half of a banana, and fruit punch. Below shows how it all fits in her Laptop Lunch carrier.

Wednesday's Lunches

Three lunches for tomorrow:

Fancy: Ian's chicken nuggets & ketchup; clementine orange segments; grapes; babybel cheese, and Newman's alphabet crackers (arrowroot). Plain milk to drink.

Army Man: Larabar, cheese, orange, strawberries, and crackers.

Bayberry: Ian's chicken nuggets, ranch dressing, grapes, babybel cheese, clementine sections, and Pirate's Booty. Vanilla soy milk to drink.

Tuesday's Lunches

Peanut Butter & Nutella on 7 Grain + Flax bread; vanilla and chocolate pudding; cookies; clementine orange segments, grapes, and strawberries. Vanilla soy milk to drink.

Four Lunches and a Breakfast

Army Man's in training all week, so he'll be gone every daylight hour. I'm going to school with Fancy for a couple of days, to encourage her to try harder in class. She's quite exceptionally gifted. She's in the gifted program. She's amazing in her intelligence. But she will only do what's asked of her. Nothing extra. So, the teacher and I have come up with some different ways to get her to show her potential. One of them is for me to go to school with her and demonstrate ways she can show her thinking. So, it's back to school I go. And I'm not chancing the cafeteria. I'm packing my lunch.

Here are our lunches, and the breakfast I packed for Army Man:

Fancy: Strawberries, vanilla Greek yogurt, toffee almond granola, cheddar bunnies crackers, cheese, and a honey bun. Vanilla soy milk to drink. Packed in a Laptop Lunch System.

Bayberry: cold pizza, cheddar bunnies crackers, cheese, strawberries, yogurt-covered pretzels. Vanilla soy milk to drink. Packed in a Lunchopolis system.

Army Man (below) and Me (above): Larabar, strawberries, cheese stick, 30 grams cheddar bunnies, and fresh pineapple. Water to drink. 12 WW PP value. Packed in Easy Lunch Boxes.

Army Man's breakfast: raspberry Greek yogurt, dark chocolate almond granola, and two clementines.

New Toys! (I mean, lunch stuff!)

We're halfway through the school year. Bayberry lost her original lunch system. Fancy's outer carry case is dirty beyond what reasonable cleaning efforts can restore. Plus, it was time we had some variety in our packing supplies.

So, I bought two new systems today.

The first is another Laptop Lunch System. I can't recommend them enough. Despite the cost, and despite Bayberry losing her first set, I ended up buying a second set for Fancy.

Bayberry's new lunch system is from Lunchopolis. It comes with the cooler bag, four containers (BPA free, of course), and a drink bottle. All the containers have lids.

Here are the girls' first lunches in their new systems:

Bayberry above and Fancy below. They have the same lunch: turkey & American cheese on 7 grain + flax bread; strawberries; clementine sections; Valentine's Day sugar cookies. To drink, vanilla soy milk. I put a small amount in their drink bottles and freeze them overnight. In the morning, I finish filling them. They stay cold all morning long and thaw in time for lunch.

Wednesday's Lunch

I made a colorful, nutritious lunch for the kids today. Bayberry's was made in the wee hours and rushed out the door before I could snap a picture, but it's the same as Fancy's.

I'm finding that it's the little things that make lunch more pleasing to the eye, like the flower-shaped silicon liner in this lunch. It makes a small difference. It makes lunch fun and cute. And it's pretty much effortless. I may never be a food sculptor like some bloggers I see, but I can use small things, like liners and picks and shapes, to make my kids' lunches interesting.

So anyway, I made this lunch...

turkey & American on Rudi's organic oat bread; cukes; honeydew; mixed nuts; watermelon

And then woke up Fancy, fed her breakfast, and realized that she has a raging fever. So here she is, and here she'll stay...

And maybe she'll still want to eat her pretty lunch. On the couch.