BBF Halloween Hop

2 more days until Halloween! Are you as excited as I am? I love fall and Halloween and I cannot wait to take the kids trick-or-treating! Today I am part of the annual Bento Bloggers & Friends Blog Hop. Click through to the next blogger at the end of each post and you will be able to enjoy 18 fabulous Halloween lunch ideas!

We packed a spooky Planetbox Shuttle bento box filled with:

• a spooky ghost vanilla yogurt with melted chocolate decorations
• grape tomatoes with spooky eye ball chocolates
• Peeps Ghost marshmellows
• eye ball grapes and
• CuteZCute chocolate spread bat sandwiches

I also added a fun Lunchbox Love Halloween Card to make this lunch extra boo-tiful!

And now please hop over to Sandra from One Crafty Thing to see what she created for our Halloween Hop:

Things I used to make this Halloween lunch (contains affiliate links):

Talk Like A Pirate Day {Blog Hop}

Argh, Mateys! It is International Talk Like A Pirate Day!
Bento Bloggers & Friends has put together TWO Piratey Hops for ye this year. At t' end o' me post will be links so you can see all t' amazin' lunches!

I made a special midday meal fer th' lads since they just lust Jake 'n th' Neverland band 'o Pirates on the Disney Channel.

The Piratey Midday Meal is packed in our Planetbox Shuttle and Th' lunchbox be packed wit'

• mini oreo gold doubloons
• orange slices to prevent scurvy
• a treasure of chocolate gold coins
• Bucky the ship sandwich with cream cheese and jelly
• Jake made of rice, nori, fruit leather and candy eyes
• and a Jake and the Neverland Pirates fruit snack

Ahoy, Mateys! 

Now swim th' plank 'n head over to me bucko Astrid from Lunches Fit For A Kid to spy wit' ye eye what she packed fer midday meal! Just click on th' button:

After ye've sailed 'round this hop, hang on to yer sea legs!

Click 'ere to board t'next ship fer another hop!

Things I used to make lunch (contains affiliate links):

Holiday Ho Ho Hop

Today is a special morning in Germany. Nikolaustag!
Children put their shoes out by the door the night of December 5th in the hopes St. Nick will fill them with candy and chocolate coins. I love Nikolaustag and since I am German we celebrate it each year and of course my kids put out their shoes last night:

We also left out some carrots for the donkey that Nikolaus rides on and it seems my kids were good this year!

Bento Bloggers and Friends is having a Ho Ho Hop today and  I made a special Nikolaus Lunch in honor of Nikolaustag!

We packed our yubo with a ham and cucumber boot sandwich filled with some small chocolates, Christmas tree shaped pretzels, yogurt with dye free chocolate sprinkles to make a Christmas Tree and some penguin crackers with a Nikolaus decoration.

And now hop over to my friend Keeley to see what she packed for today's Ho Ho Hop!

Arrr Talk Like A Pirate Day Hop

Arrr, it's Talk Like A Pirate Day, Mateys! And what is even more exciting is that this is one amazing Pirate Day Hop! You can win amazing prices from All Things For Sale by hopping through this Blog Hop and collecting pieces of a treasure map to find our Booty! Every Blogger Buccaneer in this here Hop has a piece of the treasure map! You'll need to "collect" each piece and put them together in the right order to find the treasure! You'll want some parchment and a quill, to keep a log with each clue and each number, because there are 39 scurvy pirates running amok with 39 pieces o' the map to collect! 37 pieces will guide you to the hidden treasure (by spelling out the URL where you can enter to win!) and there are 2 bonus pieces with the "secret passwords" to get two chances to win some pirate booty!

Scroll all the way down to find my piece and Good Luck, Matey!

This is our pirate lunch! I made all the kids two ship shaped cheese quesadillas by cutting one quesadilla with a sharp vegetable knife and using it as a stencil for the others. I decorated the ship with seaweed cannon holes and a Nori steering wheel (best cut out with scissors) and a pirate ship sail cupcake topper. My kids also packed vanilla yogurt with a scary seaweed scull and a treasure chest full of gold coins. As always we packed ice water and I added a small veggie snack box as well with cucumbers and peppers :)

I snuck in some piratey lunch notes as well, arrr.

Here is my piece of the map, Matey! Grab it and find the rest. Hope your will find the big treasure in the end!

To continue your treasure map hunt hop over to Bentomonsters and find the rest!

Happy Talk Like A Pirate Day and good luck to all!

EaRtH DaY LuNcH

Sunday is Earth Day!

To celebrate we are having an awesome Blog Hop again, so come and join the Earth day fun!

I don't always show everything I pack for the kids but today I wanted to show you that we only pack re-usable lunch containers and utensils. I always pack lunch in a re-usable lunch container like the EasyLunchboxes, the kids also bring a re-usable water bottle with ice water, a spork for yogurt and fruit and since last week a cloth napkin. There is always a yogurt in their lunch, too. I don't make yogurt myself, so that is our only throw away item. However, I do re-use yogurt containers for water coloring, bento pick storage and crafts, so they don't go in the trash either unless they are recycled at school :)

I made a no-waste lunch for today. There is the little boy holding and caring for the Earth sandwich decorated with melted chocolate from a left over chocolate Easter Bunny (re-use and recycle!), mini carrots with Earth bento picks, and yellow peppers with ranch dressing in a re-usable dip container decorated with a pepper heart. Because we heart the Earth. And of course everything is packed in my favorite re-usable EasyLunchboxes container!

If you wonder how I could have made a no-waste lunch with cookie cutter cut sandwiches, here is how:

I do have bread left overs when I cut sandwiches into shapes - obviously. But since I cut my bread before I put the filling in - I can save the rest.

Save the rest? Good question ;)

I save all my bread scraps in a freezer bag in my freezer and once it is full I cut all scraps into cubes and make French Toast Casserole :)

I makes the best French Toast Casserole and I feel good about not throwing away good food :)

Especially if you saw the Food Network Special "Hunger Hits Home" you know why I am especially careful about not wasting food. It is so hard to know that 1 out of 4 children under the age of 5 goes hungry every day here in the United States and I always urge my kids to remember that we should not waste food if others have none!

If you wonder what to do with veggie and other left over scraps, check out this post from BentOnBetterLunches!

Happy Earth Day 2012!

And now please check out Keeley's Earthy lunch here:

Helping with one no-waste lunch at a time!

Lunch Snack

I did not pack any lunches today but my daughter wanted to have a snack on her new Healthy Habit Plate from Super Healthy Kids that I won from BentOnBetterLunches a while back :)

I am working on some ideas for tomorow's blog hop ~ so be sure to come back to check out some fabulous Easter/ Spring Lunch Ideas ;)

Back to the snack :) My daughter wanted pizza so I made her a mini pizza, a bunny breadstick and a plate of cucumbers, radishes, and grape tomatoes.

I had some pizza dough in the fridge and just made her the mini pizza with the pizza dough, tomato sauce, cheese and one piece of pepperoni. For the breadstick I used a cookie cutter to cut out the pizza dough and baked it for 5 min at 425 degrees :)

She loved her lunch snack!

Happy Tuesday and don't forget to check back for tomorrow's Blog Hop :)

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

Happy 108th Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

We love Dr. Seuss at our house and to celebrate his birthday I wanted to incorporate our favorite books, well, and the upcoming movie ;)

The Cat in the Hat

This sandwich is a Dr. Seuss inspired inside out ham and cheese sandwich. The filling is on top and the top of the sandwich on the bottom. I filled it with cream cheese so my kids can eat it as is :) The Cat in the Hat hat is made with American cheese and ham slices and there is also Goldfish crackers on a Fig Newton to represent Red Fish, Blue fish. Green Eggs and Ham is a piece of cheese with a cucumber egg yolk that I colored in with food coloring. The green egg is resting on turkey mini pepperonis since the kids prefer that to ham :)

And this Cat in the Hat inspired lunch is a round Nutella sandwich decorated with cheese eyes and food markers. The hat is made out of a Gala apple and I removed the peel to create the red and white stripes. The bow is also made out of the other half of the apple. On the side is a Fig Newton with two Goldfish crackers to represent red fish, blue fish and the grapes and apple were my sons idea. He thought it looked Dr. Seuss-ish ;)

One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish

The one fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish lunch is a half a peanutbutter sandwich decorated with Goldfish crackers and food coloring to resemble the book cover. I also added a Fig Newtown with the letters READ stencil out of fruit strips and popcorn. I originally posted this lunch on Wednesday for Read Across America :)

and of course The Lorax

My two older kids wanted to have a Lorax lunch. The Lorax sandwich is cut and shaped out of bread, and the eyes are cheese and food coloring. I added the Lorax trees made out of carrot shavings and celery and all Dr. Seuss lunches need the red and white stripes so I made little cherry tomato and cheese picks. :)

Have a great Read Across America and Dr. Seuss Birthday - Day!

And now hop over to Shannon's blog and check out what she did for Dr. Seuss Day :)



This blog is part of the Dr. Seuss Blog Hop by Bento Bloggers & Friends :)

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

For more Dr. Seuss ideas click here: