Daily Bento

12 Apr

 

April showers make for gloomy pictures.

I won’t complain, this is my favorite part of spring. In this area, the earliest part of spring greets us with an over abundance of bugs that fly around and sting you. Bees, wasps, and hornets all come out in full force come mid-March.

That random bit of information brings me to a story now because it relates to the topic of flying, stinging bugs and had I not seen it for myself, I would have never believed it to be true.

My husband and I were walking out of a restaurant after breakfast one morning. As we rounded the corner and headed out into the parking lot we passed a wall of shrubs. The biggest hornets you’ve ever seen in all your days were flying all over the place and one just so happened to fly toward my husband’s face. Without hesitation, he grabbed that hornet out of the sky with his bare hand and threw it on the ground!

Who does that?

Crazy people… that’s who.

Also, people lookin’ to get stung – that’s who too!

How he managed to come away from that situation without meeting the business end of a hornet I’ll never know.

I don’t much care for stinging bugs so it’s nice to know that I married someone who will vanquish them without hesitation for me.

Anyway, the bees, wasps, and hornets haven’t been around so much in the last few days so I’m thinking that I’ve made it safely through another year. Although my little friend Noah was just stung in the armpit yesterday so maybe my relief is premature.

I should probably give it a few more days before I declare an official victory.

For lunch today Cam has a panda sandwich in a fancy hat filled with Biscoff, two cheese flowers, organic strawberries, and veggie chips.

Happy Weekend! 😉

Daily Bento

10 Apr

 

Because I need another lunch box like I need a kick in the teeth…

 

 

Although this one was so cute, I couldn’t pass it up.

I found it on Amazon and had to have it. I have a thing for whimsical owls. I love ’em. They remind me of Camryn.

Confused?

Lemme explain:

Her Father picked out her name and before she was born, I started referring to her as “Ryn” or “Rynie” which sounds a lot like “wren” to me so her nursery was done in a bird theme and pretty much everything that belonged to her had birds on it. It’s still that way, birds have sort of become her trademark.

And because it’s an absolute fact of life that owls are super smart and she’s super smart, owls remind me of her. Hence, the owl lunch box.

I hope all that rambling makes sense.

 

 

It today’s super simple lunch Cam has a Biscoff kitty sandwich, a sliced mozzarella cheese stick, veggie chips, and grapes.

 

 

 

 

 

Daily Bento

9 Apr

 

Another lunch in our LunchBots Trio!

For lunch today I used our FunBites Cube It! to cut a chicken sandwich into fun, bite-sized cubes. I also filled up Camryn’s Lunchbots Trio with cherry tomatoes, carrot coins, broccoli, grapes, veggie chips, and a sliced mozzarella stick.

Cam eats like a little bird (honestly, I wonder how she survives sometimes) so there was enough food leftover for her to eat for snack this afternoon.

 

 

 

Daily Bento

8 Apr

 

Lunch today is in our new Lunchbots container that Camryn picked out.

So far we’re really liking our new container. The size is just right for the amount of food that she eats and I love the way the box is divided. My only complaint is that Camryn has a hard time opening it. I wondered about this before I bought it. Luckily, there is a lunch room helper at her school to help her if she needs it.

Camryn has four chicken sandwiches, veggie chips, carrot coins, mozzarella cheese, grapes, and cherry tomatoes.

 

 

Daily Bento

5 Apr

 

For lunch today, Camryn has a chicken sandwich made to her exact specifications: “light mayo no cheese”, veggie chips, tzatziki in the rainbow box, Hello Panda cookies, grapes, and carrot coins.

Have a great weekend!

Daily Bento

4 Apr

Camryn tried tzatziki last night for the first time and loved it.

Just in case you have no idea what I’m talking about, tzatziki is a yogurt based sauce with cucumbers, garlic, dill, lemon juice, olive oil, and maybe a little sour cream depending on who’s making it.

She’s never been interested in dips, dressings, sauces or gravies. However there are a few exceptions.

Cream cheese on bagels? Yes.

Nutella on toast? Absolutely.

Hummus on pita? Not on your life, Jack!

Yeah, it pretty much ends there.

In an effort to expand her culinary horizons, I thought I’d try a little taste test with her yesterday afternoon.

I can report that hummus is still a no go but tzatziki – that was a total winner.

She was dipping and munching, all the while telling me about all the things that she thought would go well with it. Celery, carrots, cucumber, apples.

Wait…what?

Yeah, she totally went there.

So she has tzatziki in her lunch today and I have a feeling that it will be making an appearance quite often in the next few days.

One of the things I’ve learned about littles is that they will love something one day and then forget they ever liked it the next.

True fact.

So when my kids try something new and like it, that new food goes into heavy rotation so they don’t conveniently forget how they originally felt about it.

Here’s what’s in today’s lunch:

  • PB sandwiches
  • Crackers with tzatziki for dipping
  • Hello Panda cookies
  • Broccoli
  • Watermelon
  • Organic fruit leather

Items used in this lunch:

     

Daily Bento

3 Apr

For lunch today Cam has a vegan snack cake that I made last night, Babybel cheese, chopped organic gala apple, carrot coins, and some cheese crackers for a little something salty.

 

Daily Bento

2 Apr

 

For lunch today, Camryn had: A chocolate hazelnut sandwich, cheese crackers, watermelon, organic fruit leather, pumpkin & sunflower seeds in the rainbow box, and Hello Panda cookies.

 

 

 

Daily Bento

1 Apr

 

Spring Break is ovah!

The kids are back in school where they belong and all is right with the world!

Don’t get me wrong, I love my kids.

But when all four of us are cooped up in our small home and 3 out of the 4 of us are sick, it’s no picnic.

There were no trips to the beach or play dates in the park for us last week. Just 9 straight days of 102 degree fevers, incessant coughing, running noses… and the dreaded stomach virus.

I was the only one that made it out of the other side of Spring Break unscathed.

Maybe it’s all my years of having small people cough and sneeze in my face that have rendered me impervious to viruses. Who knows?

I’m just glad the whole ordeal is done.

I made banana bread over the weekend and I threw in some chopped caramels as a special breakfast treat for my adoring children. Their response was “Um, yeah Mom – this banana bread is fine and all but you’re gonna get us some waffles tomorrow, right?”

Ingrates.

Anyway, I thought instead of a sandwich, I’d put some of that banana bread in Cam’s lunch today. I used our FunBites Cube It! to easily cut it into little bite-sized cubes so she could just pop them in her mouth. She also has a Babybel cheese (her new jam), Annie’s Organic Fruit Snacks (under the cheese), strawberries, carrot sticks, and a little treat from her Easter basket.

Easter Bento

30 Mar

 

Since I hadn’t made any Easter themed lunches this week due to Camryn being sick, I figured I’d better get on it, or Easter would pass me by.

I’m happy to say that Cam does have a bit of her appetite back so she was able to eat lunch today.

In today’s lunch:

  • Chocolate hazelnut bunny sandwich with fruit leather details & marshmallow tail
  • Apple bunnies with fruit leather details & chocolate covered sunflower seed ears
  • Pretzel bunnies
  • Cheesy chicks with carrot beaks & fruit leather feet (hatching chick is made out of colby & mozzarella)
  • Small piece of chocolate in the plastic egg

 

*I noticed after the picture was taken that the Easter Bunny’s ear was crooked. She was sitting right next to me when I snapped the pic so I’ll let you figure out what happened 😉 .