100th Lunches!

This is it....my 100th lunchbox post! Two lunches to share with you today: Bay's and Fancy's. Here they are!

Fancy's lunch: Cubed ham on toothpicks, string cheese, and a sweet mini bell pepper; Larabar (Ginger Snap) and three strawberries; blueberry muffin; blueberry pomegranate yogurt. Milk to drink.

Bay's lunch: Natural Peanut Butter & All Fruit Spread on 15-grain bread and string cheese; cut up tomato and a couple of sweet mini bell peppers; natural applesauce; blueberry muffin. Fruit punch to drink.

An Early Morning Snapshot of Bay's Lunch

She wanted to take hot lunch today, so I had to make it at the last minute. Here it is, a little dark because there's no natural light right now!

Tomato Soup, crackers, shredded cheddar; strawberries; milk to drink.

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.

Hot Foods Served Cold

Cold chicken. Cold pizza. Cold noodles. Cold meats.

Foods that are usually served hot can just as easily be served cold.

Using leftovers in your bento boxes saves money and time, and makes it easy to pack nutritious meals.

Here's what the girls are taking Monday:

Fancy: cooked pasta, pot roast cut into cubes, and cooked carrots, drizzled with olive oil and balsamic vinegar; apple slices covered with lemon wedges (rubbing the slices with lemon, and including the lemon in the lunch, do two things: add flavor and keep away browning due to oxidation). It's also fun for the kids to suck on the lemon wedges. ;) Also, some jello and whipped cream and a few small marshmallows. Ah, junk.

Bayberry (she has an appointment on Wednesday to discuss removing her problematic tonsils!): same cooked pasta and pot roast, sans carrots; same apples and lemons. Walnuts as well.

Have a good week, everyone!

Sore Mouth Lunch

Bay's not feeling well this morning, but still has to go to school. The poor kid has a sore throat (she's being evaluated for tonsillectomy, as we've been battling sore throats for a long, long time now, and it's never strep, always swells up her tonsils, and makes her miserable and makes her miss school). On top of that, she just had her braces adjusted. Motrin, throat drops, and a soft, comforting lunch were in order.

I love our Thermos container. It keeps hot foods hot until lunchtime. The key is to preheat the Thermos, and to over-heat the entree. Preheat your Thermos by filling it with boiling water, loosely putting the cap on, and letting it sit there for five to ten minutes. Then, drain it, and fill it with the over-heated food. Cap immediately.

Here's her lunch:

In the Thermos: chicken stock, small bits of chicken, whole wheat egg noodles, and some olive oil (for extra nutrition). In the pink container: bacon biscuits (I'm not sure she will be able to handle them, but they're her favorite, they're softish, and they add some substance to her meal). In the small container: unsweetened applesauce, topped with a bit of honey (for her throat) and cinnamon. To drink: mocha flavored milk.

Boring Lunch for Bayberry

Sometimes, it's all there's time for. Last night was such a night. It wasn't that there wasn't time for fancy lunches. It was just that I felt more like cuddling with the family, watching Nanny McPhee, than packing lunches.

I did sneak in some home-baked chocolate chip mini cookies. And the ham salad is home-made (in the food processor, I combined two cups of cut-up ham, a handful of baby carrots, some minced garlic, some fresh basil, and some olive oil and gave it a whirl).

So the lunch is wholesome...just not very exciting.

But here it is.

ham salad on whole wheat bread, half a blood orange, and a few mini chocolate chip cookies. Juice to drink.

Lunch for Tuesday

First, thank you for your kind words and understanding last week. It made me feel much better about the whole situation. :)

On to lunch time. The kids had today off from school due to Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, so Tuesday is our first school day of the week.

I love these little containers. I found them at Dollar Tree, and they came eight or so to a package. They're perfect for holding in messy foods, like the ones I'm sending with the girls tomorrow.

Above, you see what Bayberry will see when she takes the lid off of her Easy LunchBox. Her foods are all separate and neat.

Below, I've taken the lids off so you can see the foods.

The girls have the same lunches for Tuesday: Tuna salad (with green onions for Bayberry but without for Fancy), crackers, sliced blood orange, string cheese, vanilla Greek yogurt, and chocolate delight granola (made by Back to Nature brand, and fabulous!). They'll be taking Dark Chocolate Pure Almond milk to drink.

School's Back in Session!

After a lovely Christmas vacation, school begins again tomorrow. It took me a while to put together the girls' lunches, which goes to show that practice really helps streamline things.

I hope your holiday was pleasant, too, and that your back-to-school goes smoothly!

Here are the girls' lunches for Tuesday:

Crepes with cream cheese and raspberries; kiwi; ham & cheese rolled up together; a mini candy cane left over from Christmas; in the cute little heart-shaped bins: cheerios and chocolate. Juice to drink.

It's Back to School Again!

After a week off for Thanksgiving, the girls are back to school tomorrow. So, it's back to lunch packing for me. And what am I going to put in their lunch boxes? What else? Turkey!

I made turkey salad with turkey, feta, walnuts, and mayo, and added shredded carrots for color and texture. The salad is on Flat Out wraps. They both have caramel corn and half a small orange. Bayberry has a couple of small tomatoes and some apple crisp with whipped cream.  Fancy has crustless pumpkin pie with whipped cream. Both girls are taking raspberry lemonade to drink.

Saturday is Bayberry's Birthday

My firstborn child turns twelve on Saturday. We're having a slumber party tomorrow night.

Since her birthday falls on a weekend, I'm sending her birthday lunch a day early. Here it is, followed by Fancy's lunch:

Can you read it? The main compartment has round peanut butter sandwiches, topped with Nutella and marshmallows. The marshmallows spell out the word HAPPY. I wrote on the mini bananas with food coloring pens. And there's an oatmeal cookie. She also has yogurt, and is taking juice to drink.

Fancy has bread rounds topped with peanut butter and marshmallows spelling out I (heart) U. I also wrote on her banana. She has a pumpkin pecan bar cut in half. She's taking a yogurt and juice to drink.

I can't believe this

Apparently, when a kid leaves his or her lunchbox behind in the school cafeteria, one of the lunch ladies takes it home with her. And then fails to come back to school for several days in a row. Bayberry left her $40 Laptop Lunchbox at school last week. Now, it's nowhere to be found, one of the other lunch ladies told her that another lunch lady takes them home when they're left behind, and no one will do anything about it.

I'm livid. And too sick to storm the school demanding my belongings.

So for now, I pack creatively.

Here is Bayberry's lunch for today:

Peanut butter & Nutella on Whitewheat; two baby bananas; mini saltine crackers; Boy Scout cheddar cheese popcorn; Chicken & Stars soup; orange juice.

Lunch for Friday

In case you didn't pick up on it by now, I love using tortillas in lunches. They're like little blank canvasses, ready for me to imprint them however I want. Not to mention how cheap they are. I can buy a package for just over a dollar, or make them for pennies.





I used them again for Friday's lunches.

This time, it was Bayberry's turn to leave her lunch box at school, so she's taking the EasyLunchBox.

Both girls have the same lunch: Tortillas cut into pizza crust rounds, pepperoni cut into little pumpkin shapes, mozzarella cheese, and a small sauce container full of pizza sauce; green grapes; Pumpkin Mousse; graham crackers (in plastic wrap to keep them from getting soggy). Bayberry's taking orange juice and Fancy is taking purple grape juice. And wearing dark colored clothing. ;)

Gingerbread Men for Monday

Not the traditional ones, though. I used my gingerbread man cookie cutter to cut sandwiches into little gingerbread men. I used Wilton food color markers to draw their faces and shirts.

Fancy (above) is taking her lunch in an Easy LunchBox since she left her usual bento at school over the weekend. That's going to be fun to clean...

Bayberry (below) is taking her lunch in her usual Laptop Lunch System.

The sandwiches are flour tortillas, honey ham, and cheddar cheese, with a smear of mayo. They both have grapes. Bayberry has a tomato and Fancy has cucumber sticks. They both have a couple oatmeal raisin cookies.

Fancy will take a water bottle. Bayberry will either take water or juice.

Lunches for Tuesday & Wednesday

Did you get out and vote yesterday? I did. I even have a sticker to prove it. :)

Here was Fancy's lunch for Tuesday:

Cheese and crackers, grapes, and cookies. Juice to drink.

And here are the girls' lunches for today. Note the puzzle pieces? I made them with Lunch Punch. Aren't they cute?

Peanut butter & Nutella puzzlewich; cookies; pudding; and grapes