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.

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.

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.

Packed Lunches for Tuesday

Here are the kids' and Army Man's lunches for Tuesday. Tomorrow, I'll share my lunch.

For Army Man:

Cream cheese & turkey pepperoni on a flour tortilla; mini sweet potato muffins, green & purple grapes; Crystal Light.

For Bayberry:

Cream cheese & turkey pepperoni on a flour tortilla; green grapes; candy buttons ("I thought you said they taste like paper." "Oh, I like them now."); mini sweet potato muffins on top of a small handful of butterscotch chips. Orange Juice. A sweet lunch.

For Fancy:

Peanut butter & honey on a bagel thin; two baby carrots; candy buttons; mini sweet potato muffin with a few butterscotch chips; green and purple grapes; orange juice.

3 Lunches for Thursday

To make these cute sandwiches, cut out bread with cookie cutters. Use a tiny cutter to cut a "window" in the top slice of bread. Spread peanut butter on the bottom bread, top with the window bread, then spoon jam into your window.

Pluots are a cross between plums and apricots and are delicious.

Here are the lunches:

Green grapes under four mini window peanut butter & jelly sandwiches; pluots, and dessert bites (brownie, teddy bear grahams, and rice krispies treats).

Green grapes under two mini window PB&Js; pluots; lettuce, half a hard-boiled egg (it's cut jagged like it was hatched), a cheese-stuffed tomato, ham roll-ups, and dessert bites.

Green grapes under one mini PB&J window; lettuce, egg, and cheese with ham roll-ups; pluots.

Lunch for Wednesday

Three lunch pictures today. Remember me telling you that Army Man wanted fancy lunches, too? Well, he's got one. It's hardly a lunch I'd assume belonged to an Army Man, but there you have it.

Army Man has ham & cheddar quesadillas with cheddar & turkey pepperoni flowers on top; an egg shaped like a teddy bear's face (and colored with food coloring pens) on a bed of shaved uncured black forest ham; cut-out brownie bits and cookies.

Bayberry has the same quesadilla; cucumbers and tomatoes; cookies and brownie bits, and fruit (Crenshaw and cantaloupe and strawberries, all cut into stars). She's taking apple cider to drink.

Fancy has the same lunch as Bayberry aside from no tomatoes. She's taking drinkable yogurt (see if your stores carry Lucky Layla Farms drinkable yogurt. It's real stuff, rather than those colorful kid-marketed yogurt drinks).

***There was lots of "waste" in making today's lunch, which is why I had a couple of bowls beside me while cutting things. I just handed each kid a bowl of scraps and called it snack time. They devoured everything. Another option for fruit "waste" is to add it to tomorrow's breakfast smoothie.

3 Lunches for Wednesday

Yesterday, I was so wrapped up in Picky Eater's project that I didn't get around to packing lunches until this morning! That was hectic and NOT something I care to do again! Here are lunches for Army man & the girls for Wednesday:

(My apologies for the poor lighting. I have to remember that it's getting darker earlier and I need to get back to packing lunch at 4 like I used to!)

These 3 lunches will show you that you really don't need to make changes from adult to kids lunches if you plan carefully. Army Man has four mini bagel pizzas (Two whole mini bagels topped with spaghetti sauce, mozzarella, and mini turkey pepperonis, baked at 375 for less than 10 minutes); a handful of muscadines (grapes), and a mini cupcake. He's taking Crystal Light to drink. I'm so glad he's off the Atkins diet.

 

Bayberry has two mini bagel pizzas, a Campari tomato, a few cucumber slices, some muscadines, two mini cupcakes, and a few pretzels. She's taking orange juice to drink.

Picky Eater needs a new nickname. Something less negative. I'll be thinking on it. Anyway, she has two mini pizzas, a few cucumber slices, 4 muscadines, a few pretzels, and a mini cupcake. She's taking milk to drink in her brand new, smaller Sigg brand stainless steel bottle that I got for NINETY-SEVEN CENTS at Dick's Sporting Goods today. What a steal! To give you an idea of how much of a bargain that is, I paid nearly $20.00 for her Hello Kitty Sigg before school started.

Lunch for Everyone (Except Me)

Three lunches to show you today. Nothing fancy in them, except for some colored eggs. To color the eggs, peel them, rinse them off, then add them to a bowl of colored water (10 drops to 2 cups of water for brilliant colors). You can also color them naturally with tea, spinach water, and beet water...but they will impart a bit of flavor as well, so make sure the recipient likes those flavors. I let my eggs sit in the colored water for 10 minutes while I assembled the lunches, then I drained them and patted them dry before placing them in their lunchbox spots.

For the Army Man (aka Husband): Low-Carb Ants on a Log (Peanuts on Peanut Butter on Celery); Turkey Pastrami & Cheese on a Low-Carb Tortilla; Salted Peanuts, 2 Bright Pink Hard-Boiled Eggs; Crystal Light to drink.

For Bayberry: Peanut Butter & Guava Preserves on a Plain Bagel; Green Grapes; 2 Vanilla Cookies; a Bright Pink Hard-Boiled Egg; Cut up Cantaloupe. Nu-Vim Strawberry-Vanilla Smoothie to drink.

For Picky Eater: Peanut Butter & Guava Preserves on a Cinnamon-Raisin Bagel; salted Peanuts; a Vanilla Cookie; Cut up Cantaloupe; Green & Purple Grapes. Berry Punch to drink.