Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss

Happy Read Across America Day and 

Early Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

We love Dr. Seuss and all have our own favorite books. I asked the kids what they would like for Dr. Seuss's Birthday for lunch this year and this is what they requested:

The Grinch from How The Grinch Stole Christmas:

We packed pretzels, green eggs made from chocolate and Unreal chocolate candies, red and white apples to represent The Cat in the Hat and a peanut butter sandwich covered with a dye-free spinach tortilla shaped like the Grinch with fruit leather details. My second grader also brought a yogurt and ice water.

Green Eggs and Ham from the book Green Eggs and Ham:

For my fifth grader, I packed Somersault Sunflower crackers topped with a green egg made from chocolate and an Unreal dye-free chocolate candy, green egg pita rounds filled with hummus and topped with a piece of cucumber and a green egg wrap (green dye-free tortilla, ham and eggs). He also packed ice water.

Max the dog from How the Grinch Stole Christmas:

I packed more Somersaults Sunflower seed crackers topped with a green egg and ham chocolate, apple slices and Max the dog with pretzel antlers and fruit leather details sitting on a cereal bar. My youngest son also packed ice water and yogurt.

Well, and when I asked my four year old she could not decided which was her favorite so we did a compelation of The Cat in the Hat, One Fish, Two Fish, The Lorax and Horton Hears a Who:

We packed our yumbox with a cereal bar topped with fruit leather spelling out "unless" form the Lorax, goldfish crackers representing One Fish, Two Fish topped with green eggs, there is also Thing 1 and Thing 2 taking a bath in vanilla pudding, carrot tartuffolo trees, a Horton holding the speck sandwich and the Cat in the Hat with apple slices.

And with that I am leaving you with one of my favorite quotes from Dr. Seuss:

7 Days until Christmas

My Kids have started the last week before Christmas Countdown and it was time for some more Christmas themed lunches!

We packed a chicken cold cut and lettuce sandwich Christmas tree, a Gingerbread family and strawberries. Can you spy the little Santa chocolate I hid? We also packed ice water and a drinkable yogurt.

7 more days until Christmas - the kids are so excited!

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This is a ham and cheese grilled cheese on a English muffin with pretzels and strawberries. There is also a babybel cheese with a Christmas Tree cut out and a mini Santa chocolate :)

Last but not least, Candy Cane sandwiches decorated with organic fruit leather, candy cane pretzels and more strawberries. A little Santa chocolate is hidden in this lunch as well :)

With Love

This morning was hard. I sent my children to school with lots of hugs & kisses and I love you's.
And I am thinking of those who wish they could do the same.

I packed them a special snack in our LunchBot Trio with star shaped pretzels a mini chocolate snowman, half an apple with a peace dove cut out and some German Lebkuchen. I also added an "I love you" Lunchbox Love note.

Now I am just counting down the minutes until they are home today.

Day 3: Quesadillas

My kids asked for quesadillas for lunch today and I was happy to make them since they are fast and easy!

So here are our lunches from today:

I packed two slices of cheese quesadilla with a small gingerbread man quesadilla on top. I decorated the gingerbread man with cheese but it melted too fast so I added more cheese cut outs to make them stand out more. Also packed are pretzel rings and popcorn which reminded us of Christmas Tree decorations :) As always the kids also packed ice water and yogurt drinks.

I also made a Christmas tree quesadilla lunch. It has four quesadilla slices and the top slice is decorated with cheese stars and a star cupcake topper. They also have sour cream and salsa in Mini Dippers packed separately and popcorn and pretzel rings as well as ice water and yogurt drinks.

My oldest asked for a simple lunch and so he got 4 slices of quesadilla, pretzels, salsa, sour cream and a yogurt (not pictured). Like the others he also has ice water and in addition and small container with popcorn since he wanted the dip in his EasyLunchbox :)

Happy Tuesday!
And if you love the Elf on the Shelf stop by my Ultimate Elf on the Shelf Link Party!

World Animal Day Blog Hop

Today is World Animal Day and Bento Bloggers & Friends are having an exciting Blog Hop! 

We all picked a different animal to make today ~ click through the hop to see them all !

I picked a BEAR as my animal:

And here is the World Animal Lunch I made:

First I added some lettuce and my rice bear. The bear is made with rice and colored with soy sauce. I mixed about 1/2 cup of cooked rice with soy sauce until I was happy with the color. I added the rice to a piece of plastic wrap and shaped the head. I added thinly cut julienne style cucumbers with a tiny amount of salt and then folded them into the middle of the head of the bear. Then I made two small rice balls for the ears and added some white rice for his snout and also cheese and nori details to make his ears and face :)

I love the this tutorial from Moriazu on how to make a shaped onigiri! 

After that I added the details: straw-bear-ries, Italian cookies, Enjoy Life Chewy On-The-Go Bars Cocoa Loco -- 5 Bars, pretzels to make a fence and cheese flower to go with my soy sauce flavored bear. 

I hope you enjoyed my Bear Bento

 and now please click on the blog hop button to see what animal Obento Momma picked!

Happy World Animal Day!

and

This is also my 100th post! 

Thank you for all your support!

Things I used to make this lunch:

A Fast Bear Lunch

We were running late this morning and so I had very little time for lunches. It only took me about two minutes total to put together this lunch!

I packed Pretzel Goldfish, an organic applesauce, a strawberry yogurt cereal bar and a sunflower seed spread sandwich in bear shape. I used a cookie cutter to make the bear bread and added candy eyes and a chocolate covered sunflower seed for his face. The eyes contain a small amount of food color but my son does not eat them so this is still safe for him!

Kids' Lunch Pick

I love when my kids want to help make their lunches and we had a great time yesterday picking themes and decorations. It all started when my daughter found a bento pick that looked just like Miffy and wanted a "Princess holding Miffy" Lunch. You can see her lunch here. The boys were just as creative and we ended up with four amazing lunches yesterday.

The first lunch was designed by my 5 year old son who picked a steam boat, a dog, a boy and a saxophone.

He packed some watermelons with a steamboat pick, whole grain crackers with peanut butter with a dog pick and a big peanut butter and jelly sandwich with the boy and saxophone pick. He told me he remembered being on vacation this summer where he loved riding on the steamboat and visiting the free concert series at night listening to Jazz. The dog is for our dog :)

My 9 year old plays the cello and was excited to find a cello pick in my collection.

He packed a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with a cello and musical notes picks. He also picked cherries since they looked like notes and whole grain crackers with peanut butter with more notes. What a musical lunch :)

My 7 year old son had a great time picking through all my decorations and came up with a Safari Starwars Lunch.

He packed watermelons with a bear baran decoration, cheese crackers with peanut butter with a lion pick and a big peanut butter and jelly sandwich with a tiger and monkey pick, starwars light sabers and some cheese stars. The perfect Safari Starwars lunch :)

Last but not least my daughter's lunch:

She packed pretzels and cherries with crowns and a princess wearing a special dress holding a miffy doll. The sandwich is ham and cheese and the arms and stars are cut out of cheese.

I really enjoyed having everyone in the kitchen and watch their imagination as they sorted through my cake and bento picks.

I feel so lucky to have such wonderful kids!

Lunch Fit for a Princess

My daughter helped me pack lunches this morning before we went swimming. She picked her own bento picks and decided she wanted "a princess holding Miffy and some crowns" for lunch ;)

So we decided to make a ham and cheese Princess sandwich with royal cherries and royal pretzels on the side. She helped me make the stars for the dress out of cheese ( we used a mini star cheese cutter) and I cut the arms out of cheese for her to put on the sandwich.

We had a great time and now we are off to go swimming with a fun lunch in our cooler :)

Hope you are enjoying the summer,