Missing our second home and how dance took over the “world”

If your just here for the lunches keep scrolling…. if you want to read the meaning behind them keep reading. ♥

Every year for the last 5 years we have taken an annual family vacation to to Florida to go to the happiest place on earth….. DISNEY WORLD!! This year was to be no different. We were all booked for the second week in January.

I know I’ve mentioned dance before. My tiny princesses ♥love♥ to dance. You may be wondering what dancing has to do with Disney and why I stated that we were booked for January? Well, this year not only one of my tiny princesses, but BOTH of them were asked to join the competitive dance team at our studio. Dancing competitively is nothing new for tiny princess A. She is going on her second year. It’s all new and exciting for K! And me? Well I am one proud mama!

Between the 2 tiny princesses we have… 1 technique tap class, 1 technique jazz class, 2 recreational tap classes, 2 recreational jazz classes, 2 recreational ballet classes, 2 recreational gymnastics classes, 1 recreational hip hop class, 2 competition jazz classes, and 1 competition tap class. Add em’ all up and you get… 14 dance classes, 4 days a week, 9 recital costumes, 3 competition costumes, 4 local regional competitions, 2 dance recitals, and 1 out of state national dance competition. Are you tired yet?  I am, but I wouldn’t have it any other way!

Last year we were minus 6 dance classes. The national dance competition was only one state over. Only about 2.5 hours away. Disney World was possible then. When we booked our Jan. 2013 trip we weren’t counting on tiny princess K being asked to join the competitive team. A wasn’t asked to join until she was 8. K is 6. The national competition this year is being held in Charleston, South Carolina. That’s over 14 hours away….. So now you know… How dance took over the “World”! (hey, I thought is was a pretty good pun!)
Now you are probably asking how this ties into lunch? Don’t worry go into to much detail.  I’ll let the lunches explain themselves! ;)

Since we can’t go to Disney…. I brought Disney to lunch!

Packed in our ever awesome Easylunchboxes the tiny princesses had the following…

• holiday shaped pretzels with cream cheese for dipping
• apple jacks cereal
• mozzarella string cheese cut up
• peppered turkey
• vanilla yogurt
• peanut butter crackers

Some things I did/used to make these lunches special…

• added a sticker to a fun sauce cup purchased from bento USA
• found the perfect lunchbox love notes from sayplease.com
• fun mickey and minnie food picks to help eat the cut string cheese and keep rolled turkey from rolling about
• various silicone cups to keep food separated
• fun dollar store christmas tree container perfect for yogurt since it has a lid!

Want to make a similar lunch? Start here…

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…

It’s getting chilly!

The weather is finally starting to drop where it should be and the tiny princesses are sensing that the first snow fall will be just around the corner! Hopefully Mother Nature will not disappoint! :)
I have quite a bit to post today, so I’ll get on with it. The first set of lunches are from Tuesday. I debated whether to post them or not due to the horrible pictures. Same with Wednesday’s lunch for the guy I love. I got off my soap box about the picture thing though and have accepted that my photos are what they are! So…. here you ya go!!

Tiny princess A and K’s lunches 12/4/12
Exactly the same, except A got grapes and K got applesauce. Have you all figured out yet that these are pretty much the only fruits I can get these girls to eat? UGH! It’s very frustrating!

Here’s what they had…

• Candy Cane Turkey Sandwiches
• Grapes for A. Applesauce for K
• Peppermint sugar cookie
• Holiday shaped pretzels with mini peppermint marshmallows
• A small container of Nutella for pretzel dipping.
• They also each got a Christmas LunchBoxLove note! Get your own here!
• Packed in a holiday cookie container found at Walmart! Proof that anything can be a Bento box!

I’ll admit it. I’ve been slacking on lunches for the guy in my life. He has been going into work sometimes at 4:30am. That is just waaaaay too early for me to get up in the morning! Don’t worry, he hasn’t been going hungry. Leftovers usually do the trick for him. This week though he had a normal time day so I was able to create him a fun lunch! Apparently this one was quite the talk of the lunch table at work! ;)

Just a hodge podge of fun colors and whimsical picks, and lots of love. here’s what he had…

• Mozzarella string cheese cut into chunks and skewered onto sweet heart picks
• Turkey and cheese sandwich. I found the fun bread stamp in the Target dollar spot. It came with two different stamps, but was actually $3 not $1. You still can’t beat though. How cute right? I colored the smiley face with some food safe markers
• A few peanut M&Ms
• Green grapes. Don’t you love the little tree trunk picks? You can find them here at All Things For Sale
• Red grape tomatoes made to look like balloons with the sweet little balloon tie picks also from All Things For Sale
• Silicone heart cup with some Gardetto’s snack mix. YUM! The little blue sauce cup has a little bit of butter to dip his snack mix in. (Yes, he has a major butter addiction)
• Packed in a PlanetBox Rover. Also included some LunchBoxLove!

Now onto today’s lunches. Once again they are the same except for the grapes and the applesauce thing. ;)

Here’s what they had…

• Small sauce container with a few princess fruit snacks
• Crackers
• Salami
• Grapes/applesauce
• String cheese chunks with a cute paper penguin pick
• Dark chocolate mint penguin. YUM!
• Vanilla yogurt in a snowman cup from a local dollar store. Now I now there is a slight penguin theme going on here, but I really though without the lid to the snowman cup the shape resembles a penguin quite well. :) I also added a few snowflake sprinkles to get that “chilly” effect.
• Packed in our Goodbyn sandwich containers.

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…