TPLB PlanetBox Shake Test X2

Last week my tiny princesses only had 3 days of school. On Monday there was an ice day, and Friday was a scheduled no school day. This was a great opportunity to conduct another shake test! ♥

This time we chose the Planetbox! My tiny princesses LOVE their PlanetBoxes, as do I! I often wonder how they hold up to the tossing and turning that I’m sure they endure on their journey from home, to school lunch table? Well, today we get to find out!!

 

Here is tiny princess K’s lunch before….

Here is what she had…

• Cutie orange segments arranged in a blossom shape with grape center in a flower silicone cup. Her oranges are only piled 2 high.
• Cottage cheese with flower pick in the small lidded container that came with our Laptop Lunch Box. In this case, the pick serves no purpose other than just a fun decoration.
• All natural Trix yogurt with apple sprinkles in an EasyLunchbox Mini Dipper
• Mini sweet peppers
• Fruit roll up piece cut into a blossom shape
• Mini saltine crackers
• 2 slices of cheddar cheese cut into blossom shapes
• Very few veggie chips
• Mini graham crackers in pink silicone cup purchased from ebay
• Blossom and Snow White shaped nutella and banana sandwiches

Here is tiny princess A’s lunch before…

Here is what she had…

• Cutie orange segments arranged in a blossom shape with grape center in a flower silicone cup. Her oranges are piled 3 high. (you’ll find out the importance of this information in just a minute.) ♥
• Grapes with flower pick. This pick was just placed in the grapes. I did not spear it through any of them.
• All natural Trix yogurt with apple sprinkles in the PlanetBox little dipper
• Mini sweet peppers
• Fruit roll up piece cut into a blossom shape
• Thin pretzel sticks
• Mozzarella cheese chunks
• A few veggie chips
• Mini graham crackers in pink silicone cup purchased from ebay
• Blossom and Snow White shaped nutella sandwiches

Okay, who is ready for some results????

Just like with our previous shake tests, my tiny princesses and I shook these lunches inside, outside, and upside down. Once again we even played a good game of catch with them. We decided this time we would do it over a gymnastics mat that we have. I would have been so sad if one of our PlanetBoxes fell on the hardwood floors. :(

Here is tiny princess A and K’s lunches AFTER the shake test…

You will notice that the blossom orange did NOT hold it’s position in tiny princess K’s lunch. This is because it was only layered 2 high. Tiny princesses A’s orange blossom still looks adorable after the shake. This is because of how it was packed (3 layers high). The tighter you pack things in any lunch box the more likely your items are to stay put!

K’s cottage cheese still looks the same, but the flower pick in A’s grapes shifted and was somewhat hidden in the grapes. Had I pierced the pick through one or more of the grapes, this particular shift of items could have been eliminated.

As expected the sprinkles became one with the yogurt, but the peppers in both lunches still look good! A’s peppers shifted a bit more than K’s due to the size of the yogurt containers next to them. Naturally the more the containers and various items touch each other the less likely they will move about.

The fruit roll up flower in both lunches stayed put!

The top section that holds the salty snacks and cheeses shifted some as well, but I think it is still visually appealing and separated enough for our tastes. A’s cheese shifted more because they were smaller pieces and because there were more of them. I think that the shifting of these items could easily be avoided by adding some Japanese food baran, which is meant for keeping food items from touching.

The sandwich section of the PlanetBox still looks decent, too! A’s sandwich shifted a bit more than K’s, and K’s silicone cup of graham crackers tipped on it’s side.

The PlanetBox individual compartments really aid in keeping food from touching and if you pack it fairly tight the lid is close enough to your food items to keep them from shifting in each individual compartment. All in all I think this was another great shake test! and will hopefully put to rest any concerns about whether or not your fun lunches that you pack for your child in a PlanetBox lunch system will still be fun and remain intact by the time they make it to the school lunch table!!

 

Some things I used to make these lunches…

Wishing you lots of love and good fortune!

 

Happy Valentine’s Day!!

 

I must keep this short and sweet today! There are elementary Valentine parties to be had! Today both tiny princess are the same with the exception of the fruit choice. A got an apple. K got an orange.

Tiny princess A’s lunch packed in our new LunchBots Uno…

Tiny Princess K’s lunch packed in our new LunchBots Duo…

 

Here is what they had…

• Veggie Chips
• Trix Yogurt with heart and lip sprinkles
• Apple for A. Clementine for K. The Apples we picked up at the grocery store over the weekend just happened to both red and green. I used this to my advantage and cut the apple in half and then cutting out a heart shape from each half. I ate one half and then added the heart of the opposite color into the cutout hole onto the apple I included in A’s lunch. I also cut a heart from the peel of K’s orange and colored it with my red food safe marker to add a contrasting color effect.
• Leftover Lo Mein noodles with a few carrot hearts and sweet yellow pepper garnish
• Fruit Roll Up Fortune Cookie
• And of course some Lunchbox Love! I was super excited when I received my Lunchbox Love cards in the mail and realized there were a few blank cards… perfect for creating a special personalized message. ♥

How stinkin’ cute are the fruit roll fortune cookies?

♥ Here is how you can make your own ♥

I must say, mine didn’t turn out nearly as cute as the ones from She Knows. I figured out my problem, though. I just didn’t pinch them into the fortune cookie shape quite enough. I will have to do these again in the future to see if I can perfect the technique.

 

Some things I used to make these lunches…

Eat Your Heart Out!! & a shake test!

I’m not sure why, but for some reason I forgot all about purchasing any fun Valentine supplies to make our Valentine lunches fun! Luckily I do have some basic heart cookie cutters and my sweet husband picked up some cute ♥ day sprinkles to spruce up a few lunches!

By now, we all know that Wednesday is chicken sandwich day at school. I knew that full well when creating, what I thought would be today’s lunches. I thought, maybe, just maybe, I could totally WOW my tiny princesses with fun lunches and new boxes to make them say NO to hot lunch at school. I was wrong. Even my lunch box charm couldn’t pursued them in “bring your own lunch” direction. Oh well, they decided on eating them for dinner last night instead!

Tiny princess A’s meal was packed in our brand new LunchBots trio! This is of course my first lunch in a LunchBots, but I think I’m really going to love packing in these!

Here is what she had…

• chunked colby jack cheese
• hot dog on a heat pick (Now, we aren’t normally much of a hot dog family. Not for any reason other than that I think they taste yucky! :p I think that as parents we tend to try to force our like and dislike on our kids. Am I right? My girls really like hot dogs so when I saw this idea of slicing the hot dog ends just right to form a heart, it reminded me that just because I don’t like something, doesn’t mean my princesses cant! ♥)
• grape tomatoes on triple heart pick
• all natural trix yogurt with sprinkles
• a few sweet pepper rings in the yellow silicone cup
• the red heart cup hold s’mores mix (hold the chocolate because we didn’t have any)
• filling in the spaces of the top left compartment is a few clementine orange slices and a yellow sauce cup that hold BBQ sauce for hot dog dipping

Tiny princess K’s meal was packed in our pink Yubo lunch box and is the reasoning behind today’s blog post title.

Here is what she had…

• nutella fairy bread sandwich with letter picks spelling “Eat Your Heart Out” Make your own fairy bread by cutting a shape out of your top piece of bread and adding sprinkles to the middle. So fun and so yummy!
• heart shaped colby cheese in pink silicone cup cut using FunBites Luv It
• watermelon hearts in Goodbyn sauce cup
• sweet pepper rings in flower silicone cup
• all natural trix yogurt
• orange cutie I cut a slice in the top of the orange to aid in peeling and to add the fun cupcake ring
• I also included some LunchBox Love ♥

I decided since this lunch was a little more complex it would be the perfect opportunity for a Yubo shake test. Following the same pattern as before, we shook K’s pink Yubo, inside, outside, and upside down. Again, we even played a fun game of catch with it! :)

When we opened up the top lid and all inside lids here is what we found…

Tiny princess K and I were quite pleased with the results of this shake test. As you can see, a few of the inside containers shifted a bit, as well as the cheese in the pink silicone cup. The yogurt also got all discombobulated and the sprinkles dissolved quite a bit. This problem could totally be eliminated by using this idea from Molly’s Lunch Box, of including sprinkles in a small a lidded container or sauce cup so that your kiddos can add the sprinkles in themselves. The sandwich seems to have stayed intact really well and not even one of the sprinkles fell off at all!

♥♥♥ Tiny princess K gives the Yubo shake test 5/5 crowns! ♥♥♥

She is such a goof ball!

 

Now I want to hear from you….. Which lunch box would you like to see the shake test done in next? Leave a comment to let me know!

 

Some things I used to make these meals

The Tiny Lunch Box Challenge

If there is one thing I love about this lunch making stuff, it’s a challenge. My #1 challenge that I like to take on is seeing just how much food can fit into a very small space.

My tiny princesses get 30 minutes to eat their lunches at school. When you’re chatty, as they are, that’s not a lot of time. It’s so hard for me to believe that there are schools out there that allow less time than that?!?!  Sometimes when I pack a large lunchbox they find themselves not having enough time to eat or even sometimes that they are just too full to continue.

We have quite a few adorable lunchboxes, (we just got a few new ones yesterday! Yay!) that some would find way too small to pack a big enough lunch in.

I’m no stranger to this challenge. It’s actually quite fun for me. Technically this isn’t my first lunch in this series…..

Remember this lunch?

It was one of my favorites and the perfect example of how sometimes a small lunchbox can pack a big lunch! Or at least big enough for tiny princess appetites! Click on the picture to go to the post.

 

Today’s lunches are in completely different boxes, but contain mostly the same items.

Tiny princess A’s lunch is packed in our new cute little petite turtle container made by Melissa and Doug. Find the link for purchasing below the post.

Here is what she had…

• pretzel sticks
• orange cuties (YAY!! A new food like!)
• mini saltine crackers
• a few Mott’s Medleys fruit snacks in the pink sauce container
• 2 tiny flower shaped nutella sandwiches with cute frog face impression (I thought it kind of looked like a turtle!) ♥
• veggie chips
• tiny cheese squares cut using our FunBites Cube It. The cute little frog face on the top cheese slice was made by coloring on the imprint part of the sandwich cutter with food markers and then stamped on the cheese. I can’t take credit for that idea. It’s been done before. And done quite well I should add. Check out this tutorial from Dina of What The Girls Are Having, but don’t stop there… you don’t want to miss the amazing “Pooh” lunch from Cristi of Bent On Better Lunches!
• I also included some Lunchbox Love!!

I can’t wait for her to get home and let me know if this was enough food for her or if I need to maybe try a medium sized box next time.

 

Tiny princess K’s lunch was packed in a box she has had her eye on for quite sometime. She ADORES pineapple so when she saw the Dr. Sears Nibble Tray she knew she HAD to have it!! I mean seriously…. how cute is this?!?! I’m thinking that if K can’t cheer someone up today, her lunch container surely will! ♥

Here is what she had…

• cuties oranges
• a few Mott’s Medleys fruit snacks
• banana slices
• small cheese squares cut with FunBites and stamped with a cute little bear face in the same manor as above
• mini saltine crackers
• 2 small circle shaped PB&J sandwiches
• veggies chips
• lunchbox love card

I am almost positive that this lunch will be plenty for tiny princess K. Even though the portions are tiny there are a lot of compartments for a great variety!

 

Leftover love!

I tried to come up with a clever title for this post, but my mind isn’t really in a thinking mood today. I decided to go with the obvious. ;)

We had Pizza for dinner last night, so naturally today’s lunch includes some leftovers! YUM! Who doesn’t like cold pizza? Oh, wait a minute…. that’s right, I don’t. It’s okay, though. My tiny princesses, do so that’s all that matters. ♥

Here is today’s lunch packed in our Goodbyn sandwich containers…. This really is a great container for trying to fit a decent sized lunch in a pretty small space.

Here is what they had…

• pizza leftovers.  For tiny princess K I use my FunBites Luv It cutter to cut up the pizza and added a fun heart pick through the two tiny hearts that the cutter makes.  I used a small-ish heart cookie cutter to cut out the heart you see on top of tiny princess A’s pizza chunks. I also included a heart pick which I think looks a lot like cupid arrow! ♥
• a few Mott’s Medleys fruit snacks (I divided one package up between the two girls)
• heat shaped carrots with ranch for dipping in the cute little sauce cups
• applesauce with heart sprinkles
• peanut butter crackers (I tried making the top cracker a heart with a cookie cutter, but it didn’t turn out that great)
• the “Be Mine”  & “Text Me” rings are stuck into one regular sized marshmallow

I also included some Lunchbox Love from sayplease.com…. I think this one pretty much sums it up! Words to live by indeed. ♥

K’s Lunchbox Love card is just perfect for her ♥

Valentine’s day is coming. You still have time to make fabulous heart filled lunch for someone special in your life! 

some things I used to make these lunches…

This is a test….. it’s only a test….

Unfortunately you all have been missing out a little bit on some of the lunches I have been packing for my tiny princesses. I just can’t get my pictures to look the way I would like them to. I guess I’m going to have to go back to making lunches the afternoon before.

I did come across this late dance night snack/dinner, though! The photos still aren’t the greatest, but they are better than what I have been getting.

These meals were packed in our Goodbyn sandwich containers and were a test of sorts. A good friend of mine gave me the challenge of packing items in certain containers and then giving them a good shake test to see how well the food stayed in tact.

Here is the before picture…

I started with a really simple meal for my first “test”.  Here is what they had…

• cheese and crackers
• Disney graham cookies (direct from Disneyland)
• yogurt in the dip container
• fruit snacks
• peppered turkey

After it was all packed up, I let the princesses shake it up! They tossed in the air, they turned it upside down, they EVEN played catch with it!

Here is the result…. I did add the spoon in before we did the shake test.

Other than a little shift of the cheese and crackers…. (including on slice of cheese that got stuck to the lid) I think this meal held up to the test quite well. Everything stayed quite nice and tidy! ♥ Test success!

I hope to do a series of these types of tests as well. Using all different boxes and levels of complicated-ness. :) Be on the look out!

♥ Just cause you know there is always 2 of everything! ♥

Some things I used to make these meals…

Early Spring? What do you think?

According to Punxsutawney Phil this year spring is going to come early….. What do you all think?

When the tiny princesses and I looked out the window this morning, to see big white flakes falling from the sky we decided that the thoughts of an early Spring weren’t quite in our brains yet! We decided to give it a push by adding a little spring to our EasyLunchboxes! ♥

I was really sad that I didn’t participate in The Bento Bloggers And Friends Groundhog linkie, so I decided to make this “spring themed” lunch instead. After all,  Phil said Spring was coming early…. who am I to disagree?

My tiny princesses had….

• flower shaped cheese sandwich with flower cheese cutout on top
• Mott’s Medleys fruit snacks in the green sauce container. Did you know that Mott’s Medleys fruit snacks are all natural and are made using real fruit and vegetable juices? This mama for one, was really glad to find these! I need all the fruit and vegetable help I can get with these picky princesses!
• Brown Cow all natural maple yogurt
• a few goldfish crackers
• green beans
• raisins
• 3 frosted shortbread cookies
• packed in an EasyLunchbox

Some things I did to make these lunches special….

• used fun cutters for for the sandwich and cheese
• colorful sauce cups are great for things other than “sauce”
• sprinkles in yogurt are a great special touch and one of our favorites
• food picks are a great use for aiding to pick up bite sized food items
• silicone cups make keeping food separated a breeze

some things I used to make these lunches…