Homemade Lunchables

Happy Day-after-Thanksgiving! I have not created or posted any school lunches since the start of the pandemic. But, I miss it. Our school district went to all virtual in March and we will be virtual until the end of this running school year. For obvious reasons. And we miss it all. Family, friends, neighbors, school functions, Christmas concerts, our yearly traditions of lighting the community Christmas tree, get togethers just before the holidays. All of it. Even the dreaded yearly turkey disguise project. Moms, you know what I mean!

Despite it all, I have decided that it does no longer have to mean the end of school lunches. Even if the kids are all home. Because I could use some streamlining in feeding the kids. Some healthier options and some free time to do other things besides feeding three kids lunch during sometimes three (yes, THREE) different lunch times. 

How has your year been? Are your virtual? Hybrid? In school? How are school lunches going in your house? Either way, I hope you and your family are healthy and happy and I hope you will tune in for some lunch ideas in the future again.

Lunch is served in Easylunchboxes (after all these years still my favorite go to) and a simple homemade version of a Lunchable. The beauty of these boxes is that you can fill them infinite ways and tailor them to your kids' tastes. I stuck to the classic version and we filled them with:

• halved baby carrots
• apple slices
• blackberries
• crackers
• cheese
• ham roll ups/pepperoni roll ups
• and a cereal bar.

Happy Lunch!

Hello Goodbye Dog - Literary Lunch + Giveaway

It is LITERARY LUNCH time today and I have a wonderful book for you today! PLUS, you can win a copy at the end of my post!!
I am pleased to review HELLO GOODBYE DOG by Maria Gianferrari today:

Meet Moose, Zara's dog, she loves hellos and really hates goodbyes. So, when it is time for Zara to go to school, Moose keeps escaping to find her favorite girl at school.

My kids love reading this book and they always giggle at all of Moose's antics. I am sure if we had a dog she would be just like that. Because really, who doesn't hate goodbye's.

 My kids loved the fact that Zara did not try to change Moose but found the perfect solution for both of them.

Our favorite page in the book was this one which also inspired our Literary Lunch. Those eyes get me every time!

Our Literary Lunch is packed in Easylunchboxes and contains:

• a bone for Moose banana
• a sad goodbye faced Moose sandwich filled with cream cheese and jelly
• a field of strawberries and blueberies with Moose hiding in them and
• Zara's lunch which is an apple sauce wrapped in wax paper

a Rafflecopter giveaway
For more awesome Hello Goodbye Dog book reviews and more chances to win your own copy, check out the BOOK TOUR:

HELLO GOODBYE DOG BLOG TOUR!

GIVEAWAYS EVERY DAY!!

*Monday, July 24^th:                            Pragmatic Mom + THREE book giveaway!

*Two for Tuesday, July 25th:           Librarian’s Quest

Reading for Research

*Wednesday, July 26th:                    Homemade City

*Thursday, July 27^th:                         Kid Lit Frenzy

*Friday, July 28^th:                              Mrs. Knott’s Book Nook

*Monday, July 31^st:                            Picture Books Help Kids Soar

*Tuesday, August 1^st:                        Bildebok

*Wednesday, August 2^nd:                  The Loud Library Lady

*Thursday, August 3^rd:                      DEBtastic Reads!

*Friday, August 4^th:                           Mamabelly’s Lunches with Love

*Monday, August 7^th:                        Writing for Kids (While Raising Them)

EXTRA: August 25^th:                         Kidlit411—Interview with Patrice Barton 

For more reviews and more chances to win a copy of Hello Goodbye Dog follow the Book Tour:

HELLO GOODBYE DOG BLOG TOUR!

GIVEAWAYS EVERY DAY!!

*Monday, July 24^th:                            Pragmatic Mom + THREE book giveaway!

*Two for Tuesday, July 25th:           Librarian’s Quest

Reading for Research

*Wednesday, July 26th:                    Homemade City

*Thursday, July 27^th:                         Kid Lit Frenzy

*Friday, July 28^th:                              Mrs. Knott’s Book Nook

*Monday, July 31^st:                            Picture Books Help Kids Soar

*Tuesday, August 1^st:                        Bildebok

*Wednesday, August 2^nd:                  The Loud Library Lady

*Thursday, August 3^rd:                      DEBtastic Reads!

*Friday, August 4^th:                           Mamabelly’s Lunches with Love

*Monday, August 7^th:                        Writing for Kids (While Raising Them)

EXTRA: August 25^th:                         Kidlit411—Interview with Patrice Barton 



Find out more about the amazing Maria Gianferrari:

Maria writes both fiction and nonfiction picture books from her sunny, book-lined study in northern Virginia, with dog, Becca as her muse. Maria’s the author of the Penny & Jelly books, Coyote Moon, an ALA Notable Book, and a Junior Library Guild Selection, Officer Katz & Houndini and Hello Goodbye Dog. She has additional titles forthcoming from Roaring Brook Press, Boyds Mills Press, GP Putnam’s Sons and Little Bee. To learn more about Maria, visit her website:mariagianferrari.com, on Facebook and Instagram.

Lunch for Mama

I haven't made myself lunch in a long time but we have a team meeting today for a non-profit that I volunteer with and it is BYOL (Bring Your Own Lunch). I wanted to think a little outside the box and pack something light but filling.

I used my Easylunchboxes and packed:

• almonds
• Larabar Bites
• carrot sticks
• an egg with salt and pepper
• cheese cubes
• and two mini cream cheese bagels

I am so glad I packed a large lunch because I had no time for breakfast and was able to eat breakfast and lunch thanks to packing food!

What's your favorite to-go food?

Monster Trucks - a Literary Lunch

It is Literary Lunch time and I am providing the lunch over at the Little Crooked Cottage today. My kids LOVE this book so much, we made TWO lunches!

First up, is our MONSTER TRUCK lunch in our Easylunchboxes. We packed:

• spooky glow-in-the-dark goldfish crackers with watchful eyes
• a vampire Monster Truck apple
• and a Little Blue Bus sandwich with powdered sugar and chocolate decorations

Next we decided we needed one more lunch to celebrate Little Blue Bus from MONSTER TRUCKS, written by Anika Denise and illustrated by Nate Wragg. Little Blue Bus is perky and cute, so what is she doing in the Monster Truck Race? Find out in this delightful kids' book with a surprising twist!

My kids fell in love with Little Blue Bus and this is our favorite page.

This time we packed a frightful lunch in our Planetbox Shuttle to match:

• MONSTER TRUCKS vanilla yogurt with chocolate decoration
• frightful mac'n'cheese puff creatures of the night
• a Little Blue Bus sandwich with jelly, (s)cream cheese and chocolate

The Infamous Ratsos - a Literary Lunch

This lunch is also posted over at The Little Crooked Cottage as a Literary Lunch. Head over to the fabulous blog of three children's book authors and check out the wonderful Literary Interviews with Mr. Pig himself!

Meet Louie and Ralphie Ratso from Kara LaReau's new book THE INFAMOUS RATSOS, illustrated by Matt Myers:

Louie and Ralphie Ratso want to be TOUGH just like their Dad after their Mom dies. And they will show everybody how tough they are! The only problem is that every time they try to be tough and hard, they actually end up doing a good deed and show kindness and friendship. What will their Dad think when he hears what they have done? Would he want them to be more like him?

We packed an infamously tough lunch to accompany the book:

• Tiny Crawley's hat on cheese crackers
• Mrs. Porcupini's cereal bar soap 
• Mr. O'Hare's hot chocolate pudding
• and the Infamous Ratso Sandwich for Florinda Rabbitski : grilled cheddar with beets and pickled mushrooms! Yum-O!

Same Lunch - 3 Ways

Packing lunches does not have to take long or be stressful - even if you pack multiple lunches in the morning! The end of the school year is in sight and I know a lot of us are loosing our lunch packing mojo. Me included! After several weeks of pizza wheels and homemade lunchables, lunches were coming home uneaten and I had lost my patience with lunch packing.

So, I decided to go back to the basics. We all sat down and decided on a few thing everyone wanted in their lunchbox. Tastes differ and not every kid likes everything, but we could agree on the basics.

Here are today's lunches. Same ingredients - almost - and ranging from first to eighth grade!

First Grade Lunch

My daughter does not eat much for lunch, so I choose our Lock&Lock box today. She has:

• mini cucumber slices
• a raspberry greek yogurt muffin
• a ham, cheese and spinach mini roll
• grapes
• and a Superwoman Chobani tube yogurt 

Fourth Grade

This lunch is packed in our Arctic Zone lunchbox and contains the exact same ingredients as above - just more of it! My son has:

• mini cucumber slices 
• a raspberry greek yogurt muffin
• three ham mini rolls
• grapes
• and a Batman Chobani tube yogurt 

Eighth Grade

My middle schooler needs more food than his siblings, so we packed his lunch in Easylunchboxes and added a cereal bar. However, still the same ingredients:

• mini cucumber slices
• raspberry greek yogurt muffin instead he had:
• a peanut butter mini cereal bar instead of the muffin
• four chicken, cheese and spinach mini rolls
• grapes
• a Flash Chobani tube yogurt 

Planning with your kids makes packing lunches so much easier! If the basics are the same, you can pack lunches so much faster! Swapping an ingredient is not a big deal and everyone is happy in the end.

What I used to make these lunches (contains affiliate links):

The Secret Files of Fairday Morrow - a Literary Lunch

This lunch is also posted over at The Little Crooked Cottage as a Literary Lunch. Head over to the fabulous blog of four children's book authors and check out the wonderful Literary Interviews with Mr. Pig himself!

Have you ever dreamed of living in a haunted house? This is what just became reality for eleven-year-old Fairday Morrow. Not only is she moving thousands of miles away from the life she knew, she is moving into the infamous Begonia House with a mysterious past. 

The Secret Files of Fairday Morrow by Jessica Haight and Stephanie Robinson will keep you at the edge of your seats until the very end. Strange music coming from behind a padlocked door, a secret room, an ancient mirror, a brass key, and a strange picture of a red-haired lady are the first in a series of clues that take Fairday and her friends - the DMS (Detective Mystery Squad) - on a mysterious adventure.

We packed a Mysterious Lady lunch in our Easylunchboxes to help you find all the clues:

• ancient mirror pretzels
• brass key mini peppers
• and a strange picture of a red-haired lady sandwich

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

Thanksgiving Lunch

One of my favorite things about Thanksgiving is Apple Pie. I just cannot resist a warm slice of apple pie with freshly whipped cream - no matter how much other food I already had :) 

And since my kids share my love of pie, today's lunch features:

• an apple and peanut butter "Apple Pie" sandwich
• a "pumpkin" tangerine and
• a fall themed side of celery, carrots, mini pepper and raspberries stuffed with roasted almonds

This Literary Lunch is featured as the Special Holiday Edition of Literary Lunches over at The Little Crooked Cottage today. It was inspired by Linda Ashman's new picture book, Over the River and Through the Wood. A more formal Literary Lunch and book review will be published soon as well.

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

This week in pictures: Nov 1 - Nov 6 2015

If you missed the lunchbox ideas I shared on social media this week, you cancatch up here on the blog. I shared some new and some old lunches and if you want to read more, simply click the picture to see the whole post.

A trip to Trader Joe's and a fun IKEA cookie cutter transformed this lunch into a fun treat.

My daughter loves Pandas and requested a Panda themed lunch. So cute, right?

Love peanut butter (or really any nut butter?) - then this lunch is for you!

We were stuck in a lunch rut, so I used some refridgerated pretzel dough to make lunch fun again.

My daughter made this snack herself in our nw divided plates. I helped with the tangerine ;)

Even though I seem to have given away almost all my cookie cutters, I found this one hiding in the utensil drawer and used it to make this apple themed snack plate.

Things I used to make the snacks and lunches above (contains affiliate links):

Little Red Gliding Hood - a Literary Lunch

This lunch is also posted over at The Little Crooked Cottage as a Literary Lunch. Head over to the fabulous blog of four children's book authors and check out the wonderful Literary Interviews with Mr. Pig himself! 

Little Red Riding Hood is one of our favorite fairy tales.We LOVE Tara Lazar's clever fractured fairy tale spin, Little Red Gliding Hood, illustrated by Troy Cummings.

In this sweet retelling of the well known fairy tale, Little Red uses her ice skates to navigate the enchanted forest and to skate to Grandma's every Sunday. Her skates are worn out and broken and she must win the Pairs Skating Competition to win BRAND_NEW SKATES. The only problem is: everyone in the enchanted forest already has a partner. This book is beautifully illustrated and the story is as sweet as can be. Can you guess who might help her compete in the Skating Competition?

I created an enchanted lunch in our Easylunchboxes, perfect for any winter fun:

• Organic MySuperCookie Honey Heroes competition spectators and, of course, brand new chocolate skates with sparkling sprinkles
• enchanted berry yogurt with chocolate wolf decorations
• a Little Red Gliding Hood jelly and chocolate sandwich.

Here are a few of the things I used to make this lunch (contains affiliate links):

Hand Picked Lunch

My son came to me this week and asked for more lunch in his lunchbox. I always have to smile when he comes to me with his very serious "we have to talk about your lunch box packing" face. Like all kids he goes through faces of very little or big appetites and it is hard to always know exactly how much to pack. I asked him to give me a list of foods he wanted in his lunchbox and then packed our Easylunchboxes according to his list:

Packed are:

• a Cliff Bar Zbar (cut in half)
• Pirates Booty
• a rice roll and
• three homemade onigiri

He came home happy and finished his left overs for snack. It is important to give our children input in the lunch packing! Include them in the choosing of the lunch foods and in determining how much food they need!

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

Everyone Loves Bacon - a Literary Lunch

This lunch is also posted over at The Little Crooked Cottage as a Literary Lunch. Head over to the fabulous blog of four children's book authors and check out the wonderful Literary Interviews with Mr. Pig himself! 

Do you love bacon? What a silly question, I know! Well, then you will enjoy the book EVERYONE LOVES BACON by Kelly Dipucchio and illustrated by Eric Wight! 

Since you love Bacon, you know, that he is very loved. So loved that Bacon started to love himself. A little bit too much. And he started to forget about the friends back home. Who felt sad without Bacon. Bacon had fans, he changed. He grew a mustache. He forgot even more about the friends he had and enjoyed the stardom. Will this book have a Hollywood Ending? Will it end well for Bacon?

To keep you from missing Bacon while you are out buying his book, I  made a lunch-on-the-run in Easylunchboxes that will make you guaranteed remember everything about... Bacon:

• Sweet apples wrapped in bacon
• Bacon Butter Popcorn*
• and a Waffle-Egg-and-Bacon sandwich (with sweet apple decorations).

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

Lady Pancake & Sir French Toast - a Literary Lunch

This lunch is also posted over at The Little Crooked Cottage as a Literary Lunch. Head over to the fabulous blog of four children's book authors and check out the wonderful Literary Interviews with Mr. Pig himself! 

Ever wonder what's going on in your fridge once you close the door? Find out in Josh Funk's new book LADY PANCAKE & SIR FRENCH TOAST. The book is beautifully illustrated by Brendan Kearney and painted the mysteries of the fridge perfectly. 

Lady Pancake and Sir French Toast are best friends until rumor has it that only one drop of maple syrup remains in the fridge. The friends race to see who would get to the syrup first and enjoy the last of the sweet treat. To find out who wins and if friendship wins over competition, you will have to read the book yourself. My kids love this book and it is a fun addition to our home library!

To celebrate this book, we packed what was in our fridge today in our Easylunchboxes:

• A Sir French Toast 
• A Lady Pancake chocolate sandwich
• the sought out almost empty bottle of maple syrup
• and some carrot, red pepper, green grape and home made chicken nuggets onlookers.

Tuesday Minion Lunches

I haven't posted lunches in a while and part of it is just the End-of-School-Year-Craze. We are moving at the end of the school year as well and with concerts, picnics, and special summer school days, there hasn't been much time to sit down and blog. We have 12 days of school left and I challenged myself to make lunches fun again and blog. Two and a half more weeks and then summer vacation, pool time, beach visits and a move are in my future and I am trying to savor the last days of our school year routine.

The apple lunch in our Easylunchboxes. My third grader is bored with packed lunches and most of his food comes home, so we sat down together this morning and picked a more exciting lunch:

• Crispy Green freeze dried apples
• Mott's tropical Minion apple sauce
• cucumber slices
• sliced apple
• and Applegate sandwiches on a stick.

I have to say, I am really proud of him for picking different foods. I love the Crispy Green apples and since they don't add anything to the fruit, I can be sure they are not loaded with sugar. My kids love the current Minion promotion from Mott's and even though there is added sugar in these, I am letting them indulge in the new summer flavor. If you freeze the apple sauce over night, they will be ice cold and refreshing at lunchtime AND keep your lunchbox cold!

This lunch for middle school is nearly identical to the one above - brothers always want what the other has, right? - and packed in Easylunchboxes as well. We added some delicious Applegate Provolone to the sandwiches on a stick and he picked the Crispy Green tangerines over the apples. 

My Kindergartner packed her Yumbox herself this morning and insisted that she doesn't need a sandwich today. She choose:

• cucumber slices
• mini peppers
• baby carrots
• popcorn
• apple slices and a caramel

Last but not least, another Easylunchbox. My son requested 

• a peanutbutter sandwich
• apple slices
• baby carrots
• mini peppers
• cucumber slices
• and a Mott's tropical Minion apple sauce.

Are you switching things up for the last days of school? Let me know what you pack to keep the kids happy in the last few days before summer!