If You Give A Moose A Muffin

When John got off of the bus yesterday we asked him what he did at school and he told us the story of If You Give A Moose A Muffin. We have If You Give A Mouse A Cookie at home so I asked him if he would like that for a Story Time Friday lunch. He said yes but I could tell this morning that his heart wasn't really into it when I handed him the book and asked him to pick out a scene.

And then I had a wonderful idea: YouTube!


So we watched the story and he got all excited when I suggested that that could be his Story Time Friday lunch and he asked for the moose hiding behind the couch (2:12).

The couch is a turkey sandwich on whole wheat colored with natural colors. The antlers and little boy and "moose" are monterey jack cheese. The rest of the letters are American cheese. In the top left are three mini blueberry muffins stacked like they are on the cover. In the top right are grapes and Life Saver Gummies. All of it is packed in an Easy Lunchbox!

Marvin The Martian & K-9 Lunch

We're pretty big Looney Tunes fans around here. It floors me that this is the first time I've made any of them into a lunch! Marvin The Martian has always been one of my favorites and thanks to the wonderful world of YouTube I made sure John had his hilariousness fresh in his mind before I made his lunch for tomorrow ;)

Marvin and K-9 are drawn onto cheese. The stars are mini bologna sandwiches. The "asteroids" are Sixlets. At the bottom is an all natural strawberry twist from Aldi's and a mini Slim Jim. He'll also get an apple or banana and probably a yogurt cup.

House Full of Love

John asked to have the three of us and our house for lunch tomorrow. Uhhhhh ... sure, kid. I actually pulled it off with the help of some little circle cutters for their heads, an upside tulip mini cutter for mine, and our FunBites for everything else!

The three of us and the two hearts on top are monterey jack cheese. The house and top heart are I.M. Healthy Chocolate SoyNut Butter on whole wheat (except for the door which is white). On the bottom are grapes. To each side are Ocean Spray fruit snacks. He's also getting his Capri Sun Super V pouch and a Trix Yogurt cup.

Back to School with Spongebob & Patrick!

Tomorrow John goes back to school after a super long weekend and he asked for Spongebob & Patrick for lunch. When I was googling for a good picture to copy John fell in love with this one from a Spongebob Wiki:

So here's the bologna & cheese version:

The face on Spongebob is the cheese on the second layer of the sandwich! I screwed it up on the bread so just cut it out & redid it on the cheese. Worked GREAT and cracks John up :)

Also an apple (which has since been replaced with applesauce), Spongebob fruit snacks and gummy Krappy Patty, shark crackers & Gary GoGurt tube.

Happy Towel Day!

I'm actually not going in to work tonight thanks to an awful migraine brought on by what appears to be the worst cold ever settling into my left eye. If I was going to work, though, my lunch would have to celebrate Towel Day!

Since putting a towel in my food sounded rather unappealing, I'm using cheese representations of two famous and uber-important pieces of Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide: 42 (the ultimate answer) and DON'T PANIC (in large friendly letters). The 42 is sitting on baked chicken. DON'T PANIC is on low-carb pasta.

Ice Cream for Lunch?!?

What better way to spend your first day of a long weekend courtesy of no snow days than some pool time and ice cream for lunch?

Not really ice cream for lunch, but pb&j sandwiches shaped like an ice cream cone & an "I love ice cream" heart, sherbert Oreos, pudding, grapes and oranges :)

Last night's fun FunBites dinner!

When John got home from school yesterday we walked up to where Tom & I work so he could see his daddy who got stuck pulling an almost-double. I offered to grab him some dinner at one of the little shops but then he decided he only really wanted a hot dog and there's no point in buying one of them out when we have them at home. (He did, however, end up getting a cookie and creamsicle milkshake from Insomnia Cookies ... tastey but pricey!)

Anyhooooo when we made it back home there were a couple of packages on the front porch and one of them was the FunBites LuvIt I won from Bento For Kidlet! Normally John is disappointed when a package doesn't contain a toy for him (especially since lately a lot of them have with his birthday coming up), but he was still pretty excited about it because it goes with the CubeIt we were already given by another bento mom friend!

He still wanted his hot dogs for dinner, but wanted me to use the FunBites so I made him a cheese sandwich with the LuvIt and used the CubeIt to cut his hotdogs and string cheese. Another bento mom friend surprised us with some cute little lunch gadgets so I decided to use some of those as well for John's dips. He got a big kick out of the little forks and cups!

Field Trip Day!!!

Pizza Day tomorrow so no lunch to post ... so instead you get field trip pictures!!! I decided in the wee small hours of the morning that it wasn't completely out of the question for me to surprise John at the zoo this morning and shortly after I got him on the school bus I walked the 3 miles to the zoo and got there right before his bus pulled up. The look on his face when he saw me on the curb was priceless and we had a wonderful time .... until, of course, he decided he just really wanted to go back to school and there was still half an hour left to the allotted zoo time. Poor kid. Hopefully that little bit of misery didn't squash the rest of the day!

 Sleepy bear.

 Sleepy bear imitation :)

 Red Panda (super cool)

 The elephants have a new habitat to enjoy!

 Penguin face

 He could probably have spent all day at the penguins...

 OR the lemurs. ("They're just like King Julian!")

 Close-up of the lemur pile.

 Some shut-eye during lunch.

 Is it time to go yet?

Hooray!!! We're done! One last head count and off to the bus back to school!

Field Trip Lunch!

Tomorrow all of the kindergarten kids at John's school will be going to the zoo! I didn't want him (or the teachers) to worry about keeping tracking of his bags or boxes, so we're going disposable. I found some super cute super hero lunch bags at the dollar store and swiped some sauce cups & lids from work so it only set me back a matter of pennies (since there's 15 bags in the pack and 1 will get used for the lunch).

Of course, John had to color the bag and decorate the back:

 (Yes, those are plants and zombies!)

 Mini cheese sandwiches to match the heroes on the bag -- Wolverine, Hulk & Spiderman.

Pepperoni under the sandwiches. Grapes. Oreo & zoo shape fruit snacks. Cheese stick. Super V Apple Juice.

Love & Kisses

John asked for kisses and an "I love you" for tomorrow's lunch. 

He's such a sweet little boy sometimes!

His sandwiches are bologna & cheese. The words are cheese. Surrounding them are Sixlets. 

He'll also get an applesauce or yogurt cup and his juice.

It'll be a short week for lunches this week. He has a field trip Tuesday to the zoo which will need a lunch but he'll probably do Pizza Day on Wednesday & is off Thursday, Friday and Monday for Memorial Day (and to make up for no snow days this winter).

Doctor Who -- The First for the Eleventh

After giving myself a short period of mourning, I've continued on with the Doctor Who Fest on Netflix. I only saw part of Matt Smith's first season on tv before changing tv lineups or something foolish like that. I wasn't that enthralled with him -- in large part, I think, because I loved 9 & 10 so bloody much. I've decided to give him another go, though, and made a crack earlier that the best way I would think of to endear myself to 11 a bit more is to put him in a lunch box ... so here is a lunch with highlights from his first episode, The Eleventh Hour.

Top Left: oriental blend vegetables topped with haddock sticks & cheese "Who da man?"

Top Right: thousand island dressing, egg whites & tomato chunks

Bottom Left: salad with "Still Not Ginger" in cheese and colored egg white

Bottom Right: Vanilla Pudding (standing in for custard) with "bowties are cool" drawn on

And no, I have absolutely no intention of dipping my haddock into my pudding!

Shaun The Sheep & Bitzer

Right after it was decided that today's lunch would be Wallace & Gromit John ran upstairs and grabbed his stuffed Shaun The Sheep from his bed and said that Friday's lunch needed to be Shaun and Bitzer since they all go together. (Shaun, of course, made his debut with Wallace & Gromit)

Bitzer is turkey on whole wheat. Shaun is cut from cheese. Both were colored with natural coloring from Chocolate Craft Studio (which reminds me -- I need to place another order soon!). They're standing on vanilla wafer cookies topped with all natural fruit snacks. On top and to the side of Shaun are Turkey Sausage Sticks. He's also getting the last of his Yoplait Trix yogurt and the always present (and unpictured) juice bag or box.

Wallace & Gromit

A simple little Wallace & Gromit lunch for Thursday.

Small SunButter & Fluff & Jam sandwiches on whole wheat are joined by string cheese (because they love cheese and so do we), grapes, and a couple of Sherbet Oreos. 

Doctor Who - 10th Doctor Collage

I have four hours of the 10th Doctor left and I'm smashed over it. Tonight is my last night of work for the week (my "weeks" start on Friday) so we're going out with a big beautiful bang.

My lunch for tonight is flaxmeal bread topped with an egg sheet type mess, some pillow-pack sliced beef, tomato, and cheese. Most of the tomato is hiding under the beef with the exception of the two hearts. We also have the Doctor wearing his 3D glasses (I borrowed the image idea from an awesome t-shirt found on redbubble), his hand in its jar, his sonic screwdriver, a red Converse All-Star high top, The Master's Pocket Watch, and his ever-uttered "Allons-y!"

 (^ an amazing tribute video!)

Dr Who -- Adipose

The baby Adipose from Partners in Crime are far too cute not to be included in any sort of tribute to the 10th! When I went looking for the perfect picture to use as inspiration I happened upon an amazing site called Springfield Punx and this amazing image:

As soon as I saw the Adipose with the glasses I knew I had the perfect picture! 

Here are the four little cuties out of cheese on top of some pasta with sauce and a small salad:

Swampy from Where's My Water?

Another favorite game of John's is Disney's Where's My Water? 

Of course, Swampy had to become lunch sooner or later!

 

Swampy is bologna & cheese on whole wheat. He's joined by string cheese, grapes and fruit snacks.

Doctor Who "Are You My Mummy?" for Mother's Day

If you're a Whovian you may be calling foul right now. I said I would be doing a week of lunches based on the 10th. 'Are you my mummy?' was from an episode with the 9th (whom I also adore, of course).

Which is true ... except for an amazing little "blink and you might miss it" moment from The Poison Sky:

So, in honor of the 9th and the 10th and Mother's Day, here's my lunch for tonight:

Top Left: Chicken & Sausage Gumbo with cheese gas mask & words

Top Right: Low-fat cottage cheese

Bottom Left: Salad

Bottom Right: Thousand Island dressing, grapes

Mother's Day Off! A lunch for John BY John!

I typically make John's lunches a day ahead of time but since today is Mother's Day I got the day off from making his Monday lunch and he did it (almost) all by himself!

I was thinking he would want to just grab some Slim Jims or Turkey sticks, but nope! 

He wanted to make his own sandwich and picked out salami and cheese with mayo.

He picked out an apple cookie cutter from the cabinet and cut through almost all of it on his own (salami's a little tough with a plastic cutter so I helped finish that part off).

He picked out Pizza Goldfish and fruit snacks...

He even took a picture of it with his iPod Touch since you can't make a lunch without a picture :)

With an apple and a pouch of Capri Sun Apple Super V, I think he did a great job making his apple-themed lunch!

I'm not the only Bento Blogger & Friends mom getting the day off! 

Some are getting lunches made for them. 

Some are getting their kids to make their own lunches like John. 

Click on the button below to see what's going on over with Emily at BentoBloggy!

(links should be live sometime Sunday or Monday!)

Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey Lunch

Also from Blink, one of the greatest Doctor quotes ...

which came from this scene ...

and is simply cheese words on top of gluten free pasta & sauce left over from Friday dinner :)

Don't Blink! Doctor Who's Weeping Angel

I realized this morning that this week I'll probably have to say goodbye all over again to my beloved Tenth. As such, this week I plan on covering some of my favorite moments from his three seasons starting with the Weeping Angel from the episode Blink.

The angel and words are cut (and colored) from cheese and sit on a salad with cherry tomatoes. The side has ranch dressing, hard cooked eggs, and sliced ham.

Magneto & Cyclops

I think I mentioned the other day that John recently got a set of Classic X-Men figures thanks to his grandmother and the Disney Store. Two of his favorites from the set (who also appear in The Super Hero Squad Show) are Magneto and Cyclops. For tomorrow's lunch he has them by way of small salami and cheese sandwiches with Space Adventure Goldfish and vanilla wafer cookies (I actually found some without the nut warning at Dollar Tree!). He'll also had a yogurt and juice box.

DIY Plants vs Zombies travel mugs

This morning I made to trek up to Dollar Tree & Dollar General to grab stuff for birthday party goodie bags and whatnots.  Before John got on the bus today he expressed his desire to have a Plants vs Zombies cup or bottle which I've already looked for with no luck .... BUT at Dollar Tree they had "color your own" travel mugs so bought two and made him his very own PvZ cups!

I'm planning on filling them up and putting them in the fridge. Then when he gets home from school and does his typical "Mooooommmmmmm I'm thirsty!" I'll tell him to go grab something himself and he'll be SO surprised! Yeah. I'm the most awesome Mom ever :)

(Lunch will be posted soon ... honest!)

Captain America -- he's "too cool" :)

Uh-oh. 

John just said this lunch for tomorrow was "too cool" and said I needed to make it "just cool but not too cool." 

I asked him if I should take out the Mini Slim Jims at the bottom of the box. 

"No!" 

The Ocean Spray fruit snacks? 

"No!" 

The little Ritz crackers? 

"No!" 

Captain America made with Biscoff & Jam? 

"NO!!!" 

So how I'm supposed to make this not "too cool" is beyond me. If you have any ideas, let me know!

RIP Maurice Sendak - Really Rosie in an EasyLunchbox

I was pretty smashed when I read this morning that Maurice Sendak had passed away. He was such a huge part of my childhood and one of the first things I did when I found out I was pregnant was stock up on new copies of his books for John to enjoy.

Really Rosie was one of my favorite things to watch when I was little. Carole King and Maurice Sendak was a perfect combination and oooooh how I wanted to be Rosie! Now, I just have her in an Easy Lunchbox:

Rosie herself is drawn onto flaxmeal bread with the words and stars cut from reduced fat cheese. 

They're sitting on top some of the leftover stir fry vegetables from last night. 

The smaller containers have a clementine and sugar free strawberry jello.

Plants vs Zombies -- Cactus vs Balloon Zombie

John has got the dart shooting cactus going up against the balloon zombie for tomorrow.

The sandwiches are berry cream cheese and jam. The balloon is cheese. Under the zombie are beef bites. Above the cactus are all natural fruit snacks from Aldi's. He's also getting a banana and his Capri Sun Super V juice bag.