How The Grinch Stole ... Lunch?

One of my favorite aspects of blogging John's lunches is the amazing community made up of other moms who get creative with their kid's food.  A lot of them have more experience than I do. A lot of them do more traditional bento style boxes. All of them have amazing ideas.

Keeley makes lunches for her Little Miss and does some of the cutest lunches out there! This past Monday she posted about how she was going to do a countdown to Christmas in each of Little Miss's lunches. I loved the idea and asked if I could use it with John. In her awesomeness, she said I could.

I decided to start the countdown with tomorrow's lunch since it's the first of December and also the day we'll officially start the Wintery/Christmasy lunches ... and put up the actual Advent calendar!

We're starting with the classic How The Grinch Stole Christmas from Dr. Seuss.

The entire family loves the tale and both the cartoon version and the modern live-action movie with Jim Carrey get watched repeatedly each year. What better way to start things off?

The Grinch and Max are small bologna and cheese sandwiches (Grinch on white, Max on wheat).

Max's reindeer antlers are a broken up Rold Gold Cheddar Tiny Twist Pretzel, which he'll get more of on the side in a separate container.

Cindy Lou Who is made out of a cut Nilla Wafer with a Pink Lemonade AirHead for her pajamas and the bows in her hair.

An Orange AirHead was used to make the 24 for the big countdown!

As usual, I used AmeriColor Food Gels to do all of the coloring and detail work. (Which reminds me, I'm running low on white. VERY low. Santa? If you happen to glance at my blog at all you can take that as a big ol' hint! Actually, just get me an eBay gift card so I can stock up on gels and other lunch goodies. Mkaythanksbye.)

@Disney's Wall-E finally makes his lunch bag debut!

Here's Wall-E, Eve and the boot plant!

The boot is a turkey sandwich.

Wall-E is a  colby jack cheese sandwich.

Eve is American cheese.

All 3 are sitting on a bed of Twizzler Nibs, corn chips, and Slim Jims.

Mister Maker & Shapes

Somehow John discovered the wonder that is Mister Maker on YouTube. He instantly fell in love with the characters & activities!

Here is Mister Maker with his friends, the Shapes. (They do one of John's favorite segments on the show.)

The sandwich is SunButter and jelly. The shapes were cut Nilla Wafers. On the side will be yogurt and either an apple or clementine.

Christmas Card Angry Birds

John wanted our Christmas cards this year to be Angry Birds, of course.

 It came as no shock that he also asked for part of it to be turned into a lunch!

The bird and pig are roast beef sandwiches. They're sitting on Rice Krispie Treats with grapes. On the side is chocolate pudding with sprinkles.



 

BONUS: Early Holiday Fun

Thanksgiving is done so in John's mind it's time for Christmas-themed everything. No school until Monday but why wait?

The gingerbread man is pb&j (another bonus of being off from school), with a mini Slim Jim, a couple of Christmas cookies, and all of the green items (tree, package, gingerbread details) are cut from a watermelon AirHead.

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

BONUS: Angry Birds for Dinner!

There was absolutely no reason for this but to see the huge smile on John's face!

(I painted the chicken nuggets while still frozen, in case you were wondering!)

Mayflower & Pilgrim Boy

I'm so pleased with how this turned out it almost negates the fact that I cut the bejeebers out of my left index finger while cutting the cheese for the flags!

Thanksgiving has always been particularly special for me. My mom was our family historian for years before she passed and she was especially proud of our Mayflower families (especially Edward Doten in spite of him being a bit of a trouble maker!). I've told John a little about who he came from in those regards but I don't know how much he paid attention. He is 5, after all :)

The pilgrim and ship body are bologna sandwiches. The masts are swiss cheese on toothpicks. The ocean is a cut blue raspberry Airhead strip with cheese cracker sharks swimming underneath. Grapes make it lunch!

Happy Turkey Day ... Almost :)

Monday the parents have been invited to go have lunch with their kids! Tom & I will have pretty boring lunches in comparison to John's. Same food for the meal, but Tom would rather not have his mini turkey subs cut & colored like a turkey ;)



The turkey legs are pretzel sticks, his tail are clementine slices. On the side are more sticks and slices and in the top corner is some pumpkin pudding.

 

BONUS: Charlie Brown Thanksgiving

Tonight we're back to Tom being stuck on second shift on Thursdays & Fridays so I decided to make a special treat for his dinner. I had originally planned on doing it for one of his 2 school lunches for next week, but didn't want to wait!

Snoopy & Woodstock are toasted turkey sandwiches and the sides, of course, are jelly beans, popcorn & pretzel sticks!

I've got the show loaded onto my ipad so we'll do a dinner & movie & have an early Thanksgiving!

David Mc Kee's Elmer the Elephant

John was first introduced to Elmer back in preschool. He's remained a favorite character and we have a small collection of Elmer books roaming around the house.

Elmer is a pumpkin cream cheese sandwich. After I colored the top slice I slapped it into a heated skillet to get the colors to set better. A GREAT little trick because otherwise John would finish lunchtime with a rainbow face :)

Sides are beef bites, raisins and fruit snacks.

Elmo!

Is there a 5 year old out there who doesn't love Elmo?

Here Elmo is a ham & swiss sandwich. Also included are Goldfish (for his pet, Dorothy), cherry jello, and an apple.

Mickey Mouse

Every morning we watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse so I was a little surprised it took John this long to ask for a Mickey lunch!

Mickey is SunButter & jam. He's joined by some cheese (he is a mouse, after all), grapes, and a chocolate pudding cup.

Lightning McQueen again!

Another half day tomorrow so once John gets home he'll have his pb&j Lightning sandwich with Cars fruit snacks and pretzels.

I  already have the rest of the week cut & colored. Now to turn them into actual lunches :)

Shaun The Sheep Lunch!

To say that John likes Shaun the Sheep would be a huge understatement. Not only do I have hours upon hours of Shaun clips on my ipad and favorited on YouTube for him, but Shaun himself has been almost a permanent fixture in John's bed for years.

Shaun is a grilled bologna and cheese on tortilla bread (the melted cheese to glue poor Shaun's broken ear into place). Sides are fruit snacks, yogurt and either an apple or banana.

Squidward from Spongebob Squarepants

John has a half day today so won't be eating lunch at school.

How dare I assume it would get me off the hook for making a special lunch?

Right before his bus picked him up this morning he requested Squidward... so here he is in all of his pb&j glory. Sides are Spongebob fruit snacks, Spongebob graham crackers & a gummy Crabby Patty!

Leaf Fun

I know it's a bit on the Impressionist side of things when it comes to the leaves, but there was no way I was going to color each individual leaf ;)

John should know exactly what it's supposed to be. After all, he's the one jumping in the leaves while waiting for the school bus this morning!

The sandwich is SunButter & Jam. Turkey Bites, candy corn & mandarin orange gelatin round it all out.

Special Agent Oso

I decided to take it a little less complicated for tomorrow's lunch because the time change still has me exhausted. I work 3rd shift so while most people got to sleep an extra hour, I got an hour of extra work.

I used a Wilton Teddy Bear cookie cutter for Oso's bologna sandwich body, painted it with AmeriColor gel, and spelled Oso with monterey jack cheese (used a cookie cutter for the S, too).

Also included are grapes & Teddy Grahams.

Wow Wow Wubbzy!

 

 

Monday's lunch is Walden, Wubbzy and Widget from Nick Jr's Wow Wow Wubbzy.

They're made out of SunButter & Jelly on tortilla bread.

Sides are Twizzler Nibs and strawberry yogurt.

 

Mercer Mayer's Little Critter

John is a big fan of the Little Critter books just like I was when I was little. He has at least half a dozen of the books at this point with more on the way!

LC is a turkey sandwich.
The spider & mouse  (& heart) are Nilla Wafers.
The small container has carrots & ranch dressing.

ANOTHER @Disney Cars 2 Lunch!

Professor Z and Finn McMissle are the stars of the lunch bag this time. Each one is a small pumpkin cream cheese sandwich. Added are Mini Slim Jims, fruit snacks in the Holly Stillwell bag and grapes in the Lightning McQueen snack box.

Fairly Odd Parents Lunch! (@NickelodeonTV)

John adores watching Fairly Odd Parents. He's seen every episode several times, probably, thanks to Netflix. When it popped up as an option for lunch that was it. I don't think he even listened to the other ideas I had!

Cosmo & Wanda are small bologna and cheese sandwiches (both came from one full-sized sandwich).

Poof is a mozzarella stuffed sandwich ball.

Their crowns are all American cheese.

Sides will be a juice box, fruit cocktail, and somehow I want to figure out a good way to make at least one wand.

Maybe even Timmy Turner will make an appearance! (I'll add another picture if I figure it out!)