Muffin Tin Monday

Today's Muffin Tin Monday theme is summer! Sand, sun and the beach is what I first thought of:

Our Muffin Tin is filled with:

• a home made Almond Streusel Banana Bread beach
• a chocolate spread sun
• a wild blueberry ocean 
• kiwi fruit
• a yogurt butterfly decorated with apple and chocolate chips and 
• strawberries

Enjoy this beautiful summer day!

Things I used to make this lunch:

Rainy Day Lunches

We are starting the week on a rainy, dreary and windy Tuesday. I decided to brighten their day with colorful lunches and pack all their favorites.

I packed our yumbox with a blueberry Chobani Champions tube yogurt, apple slices and kiwi, left over chicken, mini ice cream shaped peanut butter sandwiches and some baby carrots with dip. We packed milk today instead of water. 

For my second grader I added some sun with a funny Lunchbox Love Card, and packed his yubo with Pirate Booty and cinnamon almonds, puzzle shaped peanut butter and blueberry jelly sandwiches and vanilla yogurt with Naturebox Vanilla Macroon Granola and a few mini chocolate chips. He brought home made strawberry milk in our thermos Funtainer. Hope the sun peaks out for lunch!

My 5th grader brought lunch in his Laptop Lunches bento box filled with Pirate Booty and Cinnamon Almonds, apples (and mini chocolate chips for his yogurt in the mini container), vanilla yogurt and a nitrate-free salami sandwich on whole wheat bread. He packed some lemonade to bring summer to school.

Let's hope the rain goes away!!

Here are some of the things I used to make these lunches (the links contain affiliate links):

 

Mama and Daughter Lunches

Today's lunches are for my daughter and me.
We packed the boy's lunches and then some for ourselves as well :)

Mama's Lunch:

This post contains affiliate links

My lunch is packed in our Laptop Lunches bento box:

• a kiwi fruit
• left over fried rice with some carrot flowers
• left over chicken on a bed of spinach salad with mushrooms and some left over crackers ( I also packed salad dressing in a separate mini dressing bottle - not pictured)
• and carrots and celery sticks with a tablespoon of peanut butter

Girly's Lunch:

My daughter wanted lunch on her Innobaby Din Din Platter:

• mini cucumbers
• grapes
• an apricot
• Pirate Booty and 
• two mini heart shaped peanut butter sandwiches

Here are a few of the things I used to make lunch:

Kiwi Fruit and the Importance of Food Education at School

My kids had a special unit at school last week which included a mobile agricultural products laboratory and besides learning so many fun and important facts, each class won a case of kiwifruit for answering closing questions.

The elementary school classes won kiwifruit and ate them in class. And three very excited kids came running home that day full of things to share with me including that they love kiwifruit. I was stunned. My kids are not very adventurous when it comes to trying new fruit and since I love kiwi I have offered it before - with no luck. However, learning about the fruit in school and sharing a special "prize" with their teacher and class allowed my kids to try it away from home - and it was a full success. I wonder how many kids came home that day asking their parents to buy kiwi.

I think this is amazing and a great lesson to learn. We all know we have to keep offering our kids food they may be hesitant to try or taste but learning about food at school with a chance to try something in class has made a big impression on my kids. And now they love kiwifruit!

This is the lunch my first grader packed himself in his Easylunchboxes today:

• no bake energy bites
• strawberries
• kiwifruit
• carrots
• tangerine
• cereal bar and 
• a slice of starfruit

I helped him arrange the food so it would not get soggy and I cannot wait to see how lunch went today! Not only did they try a new food at school but they were open to pack some starfruit in their lunch as well to try.

My two older kids packed also no bake energy bites, strawberries, kiwifruit, starfruit and a sandwich. All kids also packed yogurt and ice water.