Soup for a chilly day

I really can’t remember which day theses lunches came from, but I do remember that is was chilly! Tiny princess K requested leftover potato soup and even though A likes all things potato, I can’t get her to eat this soup to save my life. Crazy girl! She had some snowflake sandwiches instead. ♥

For K, I added some potato soup to her littlest pet shop thermos and also filled up a sassy box with some shredded cheese, crackers, vanilla yogurt, and half a banana. She said this was her favorite lunch yet!

Want a fun tip on how to keep food hot in a thermos? Of course you do. Who wouldn’t? This is something that I used to do a lot for tiny princess A, but for some reason I forgot all about it. That is, until I discovered MOMables. What is MOMables you ask? Well, it’s awesome, that’s what it is, but I’ll get to that in a minute. First we gotta talk thermoses….. In order to keep your food warm throughout the day simply fill your thermos with hot water (boiled water works best, but I’ll admit sometimes I just use the hot faucet water), replace the lid, and leave it sit for a good 5 minutes and heat up your desired contents, dump the hot water, add your food, lid it up and your good to go! I can’t believe I totally forgot about that trick, but I’m so happy that I found MOMables cause they reminded me again! ♥

So, I think you asked me what MOMables was right? Well, to sum it up shortly, MOMables is a preplanned school lunch menu program (by subscription), that literally takes the guess work out of the age old question…. “What should I pack for lunch?”  But guess what? It doesn’t stop at menu planning. Each week’s menu also includes awesome recipes, fabulous photos of each recipe, AND, wait for it…… A shopping list to help you plan the week’s lunches! That right there is worth it’s weight in gold!! FOR SURE!
I purchased a 3 months subscription and only wish I would have gone with a longer one. Mine is just about up and I fully intend to renew! At less that 25 cents per day I’m not sure how I can go wrong! The menus are awesome.
Not sure if MOMables is for you? Try it free for week. Go ahead, click the link. You won’t be disappointed. :)   MOMables

Alrighty, now on to tiny princess A’s lunch. Silly non potato soup lover! :p

Here’s what she had….

• honey butter snow flake sandwiches
• sweet yellow peppers with cream cheese for dipping. She doesn’t really love these, but she tolerates them just to keep her mama happy! ♥
• vanilla yogurt
• start shaped pretzels
• chunked string cheese
• packed in a laptop lunch box

Here are some things I did/used to make these lunches speical

• fun cutters are great for sandwiches
• colorful sauce/dip cups add great flair
• add sprinkles to yogurt to make it festive
• food/cupcake picks are great to help with eating finger foods and adds such sweetness
• silicone cups are also great for color and keep food separated

Some thing I used to make these lunches…

Short sweet and to the point

Not much time to spare today, yet still a lot of lunches to share. ♥ I’m not going to be long winded today. (honest, I’m not!) All you get today is pictures. I’ll let the lunches do the talking. Have a question? Simple. Leave me a comment! :) I’d be happy to answer anyway I can.

First up…. today’s lunches. Packed in a Goodbyn Bynto and a GoGreen Lunchbox!

A couple lunches from last week…. Each tiny princess received the exact same items so no need to share each one. :) Packed in Planetbox Rover and Goodbyn Bynto.

Told you I could keep it quiet! That’s it I’m all done! Remember, if you have questions, just ask! ♥

All aboard for the BBF Holiday Ho-Ho-Hop!

Have you all wondered if I’ve still been making lunches this week? Don’t worry I have, but I decided not to post yet, as I used the last 3 lunches as an experiment to decide what to use for my very first BBF blog hop!! That’s right,  I am so, so, so excited to be participating in my very first Bento Bloggers And Friends Blog Hop! I mean who wouldn’t be excited to be a part of such a fabulous, talented, group, of fellow fun lunch makers?!

Out of my last 3 lunches, I decided that my 3rd lunch took the cake…… er, cupcake rather! :)
Are you ready for it? I have to admit I’m a little bit a lotta bit in love with this lunch! Our very favorite movie to watch and book to read at Christmastime is “The Polar Express”! I love the excitement it brings to my tiny princesses and the “belief” in their eyes!

So, here it is…. All aboard for our Polar Express Lunches! Complete with hot chocolate cupcakes and shiny silver bells….. can you still hear the magic? ♥

Packed in our Yubo Lunchboxes, these lunches contain…

• PB&J Sandwich for K. Turkey for A.
• A few veggie straws
• String Cheese cut
• Snowflake Ritz Crackers
• Hot Chocolate Cupcake
• Applesauce for K. Yogurt for A.

Here are some ways I made this lunch special…

• Train shaped sandwiches were made using one of our Lunchpunch sandwich cutter from the VRRRM set
• Small cutters to create the words “Polar Express” in A’s lunch and fun letter food picks in K’s lunch purchased from All Things For Sale.
• Various silicone cups to keep food tidy and separated.
• Cupckae/food picks to keep cheese from rolling around
• Sprinkles add a great festive touch to yogurt or applesauce
• Also included in this lunch is a silver ♪♫ jingle bell ♪♫ freshly fallen from Santa’s sleigh ♥

When I decided that I MUST make a Polar Express lunch for my tiny princesses, I knew that it HAD to have 2 things. A silver bell and some hot chocolate. For obvious reasons, I couldn’t put hot chocolate in their lunches. I though of maybe making some and putting it in their thermoses to take to school, but what fun is hot chocolate in a thermos and how could I make it look pretty to photograph with my lunch? Instead I decided to do some searching. Immediately cupcakes came to mind. Surely there was a recipe for hot chocolate cupcakes somewhere in the world wide web! I was right! Want to make your own hot chocolate cupcakes? Of course you do. Who wouldn’t? You can find the recipe here. I followed the recipe exactly. Except for the frosting. I cheated there and purchased pre made butter cream and then added the marshmallow fluff. ;) Before you run off to bake your own, check out our photos for some mouth watering inspiration!

While we are already on the subject of The Polar Express and since this post is already bearing book length and photo album qualities, I though I would share the awesome experience my tiny princesses got to have 3 years ago.

Did you know that the real live train that the Polar Express was based on is called the Pere Marquette 1225? Did you also know that it resides very close to my hometown in Owosso MI? In Dec. 2010 my sweet princesses got up close and personal with said train! It was supposed to be our engine that took us to the North Pole, but a week before our trip in went in for maintenance. We were a tad bit disappointed, but still had a fantastic ride and were very grateful to have been so close to an awesome piece of history. ♥

Here is a photo of my tiny princesses in front of the Pere Marquette 1225. They look so tiny! 

Okay, that’s it for me, but don’t be disappointed. Click the button below to be taken to the next lunch in the hop, made by Jackie of Loving Lunches!

somethings I used to make these lunches...

Brrrrr….. It’s cold in here!

This week has been filled with lots of “chilly” lunches, so I of course wanted to keep it going for today. Which in a way is kind of strange since it really isn’t even winter yet! :) Oh well, no worries!
My sweet tiny princess K is well into her second year of Daisy Girl Scouts! ((LOVE)) Her fall product sales included the cutest little dark chocolate mint penguins. I knew I HAD to have these to add as a special treat in the princess’s lunches every once in a while.

Last night while organizing some of my lunch making supplies, a brilliant idea popped into my head! Okay, so maybe not brilliant, but I thought it was pretty clever, so I grabbed my cube it Funbites tool and a couple of EasyLunchboxes and got to work! At first my idea seemed to not work out that great. My sweet husband told me I was crazy and that my idea looked nothing like what I wanted it to. He went to bed. I proved him wrong. ;)

Surely you can see that this is an igloo sandwich…..

Packed in EasyLunchboxes, both princesses received the same lunch today, except K had cheese and A didn’t. Their lunches were a bit smaller than normal since in order to make the igloo sandwich they each got more than just one. I’d say about 1.5 each. To make the igloo sandwich I simply just used my funbites cube it. I had to get a bit tricky with the rounded top by first cutting a circle sandwich, then I cut it in half, (one for each princess) and finally I placed the cube over top just right and cut down. Cute, right? My husband is eating his words this morning. ;) They also each received a mint chocolate penguin peeking out of the igloo, standing on a bed of freshly fallen marshmallow snow, a little “snow” on the side, some vanilla yogurt with snowflake sprinkles, (in our awesome leak proof EasyLunchbox mini dippers) last, but not least they each got a few holiday shaped gold fish crackers. Wish I would have had two of the fish shaped silicone cups. That will teach me to not order two of everything next time I place an order at All Things For Sale.  I even included one fish sitting outside of the penguin’s igloo so that he could have “lunch” before he was lunch! :D

Here is tiny princess A’s lunch with a  Lunchbox Love note and the lid on her mini dipper. I chose the blue lid cause I thought it quite resembled an ice cube. ;)

Some things I used to make these lunches…

Hoping for snow and craving Gingerbread cookies!

It’s been pretty warm here for the last couple days. Being December, in Michigan my girls are eagerly awaiting the first big snowfall and both have been asking when we will have our annual cookie making weekend!

I of course couldn’t give a definite day for either request they had, BUT I could incorporate them into today’s lunches!

Tiny Princess A chose the Gingerbread lunch. She had the following packed in an EasyLunchbox… A gingerbread man peppered turkey sandwich.  Vanilla yogurt in the cute gingerbread cup, (purchased from a local dollar store) flavored and colored with a bit of dark chocolate syrup.  I added a few sprinkles to create some gingerbread sprinkles, but per the great idea from Shannon of Molly’s Lunch Box I also included an individual cup of sprinkles that the princesses can add themselves at lunch time. The last thing in the large compartment of the EasyLunchbox was a few holiday shaped pretzels. The top side compartment has a yummy cookie that the girls made at Grandmas. (At least they got to do some baking) And last and probably least in A’s eyes some green beans.

Tiny Princess K got the same lunch with a snowman theme, (No chocolate added to her yogurt) and a peppermint cookie! :o)

Here is a shot of K’s lunch with the lid on her yogurt container! Isn't it cute?

Some things I used to make these lunches…

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas

I promised myself I wouldn’t start making Christmas lunches until December, but when my tiny princesses saw that our new Christmas Yubo faceplates arrived yesterday, there was no getting around it for today’s lunch!! We only got one set of the Christmas theme so I just divided the set up and left the other side of our Yubos white. :)
Look at all this Christmassy cuteness!!!!

Now, we only got one set, so I just divided them up between the princesses and left the other side of their Yubos blank.
Now onto the lunches! YUM! Both tiny princesses had basically the same meal except A got grapes and K got applesauce. Other than that they each had… Vanilla yogurt colored with a bit of green food coloring so that it matched the sweet little Christmas Tree cup, I picked up at the dollar store. The tree star and presents are salami sandwiches that I colored with food safe markers. They also each got a couple of tree shaped white chocolate covered pretzels, some gingerbread men shaped mozzarella cheese, and a few snowflake shaped ritz crackers.

  

Some things I used to make these lunches…