♪ Who lives in a pineapple under the sea? ♪

Sorry if I tricked you by my title. Nope! Today’s lunch does not feature that spongy under sea pineapple dweller…… It does, however include our ADORABLE  Dr. Sears Nibble Tray by ZAK! I just love this sweet little pineapple shaped food container and so does tiny princess K! She is obsessed with pineapples and by obsessed I don’t mean obsessed with eating them. (Although she does like to eat pineapple) Her obsession goes beyond a taste thing. She just loves pineapples. Pineapple pictures, pineapple figurines, and pretty much every pineapple thing she lays eyes on! ♥ Naturally when we first saw the nibble tray it was a given that we HAD to have one!

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I’m pretty sure the target audience for the Dr. Sears Nibble Tray are toddlers. It’s a pretty small box, but it’s perfect for my tiny princesses, who tend to enjoy small amounts of a large variety.

Of course it was K that had lunch in the pineapple! She had: Four small star shaped PB&J sandwiches. These four sandwich cut out are equal to one whole sandwich. Cut cucumbers, organic carrot sticks, sun shaped colby cheese bites, chunked strawberries, two Trader Joe’s yogurt stars, and some ranch dip for the veggies!

She couldn’t resist grabbing a bite of cheese while I was snapping pictures! ♥

A chose and EasyLunchboxes lunch.

She had: A honey butter fairy bread sandwich, carrot sticks, celery sticks, ranch for dipping, strawberry bites with a cantaloupe bunny on top, assorted red and green grapes, roasted vegetable ritz, and two Trader Joe’s yogurt stars.

 

Some things (or similar) I used to make these meals…

EasyLunchboxes for the birthday girl and friends!

Two days ago, my oldest tiny princess celebrated her birthday. Not just any old birthday, it was a milestone birthday. She joined the double digit club! It’s so bitter sweet to me. I adore watching her grow into a beautiful young lady, but I miss her baby days with all my heart!

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I don’t know about yours, but in our family,  you don’t just have a birthDAY….. No way! It’s a birthWEEK around here! What can I say? We love any chance we get to PARTAY!

Yesterday’s portion of the celebration included tiny princess A being allowed to have a friend spend the night. It was no surprise who she chose. A & S are FOREVER friends for sure. ♥  Tiny princess S was set to arrive right around lunchtime so I thought it would be fun to make up a few Birthday Bash Bentos!

Deciding which boxes to use was a no brainer! Fabulous EasyLunchboxes, of course! In brights! ♥♥ This way all the boxes were the same AND I was able to color coordinate them to each tiny princess!

First up, lunch for the birthday girl! Here is what she had…

• Honey Roasted Turkey and butter sandwich. I used the super fun cake sandwich cutter from our Sweet Treats LunchPunch set to cut the sandwich I added a few sprinkles “glued” with butter to the top and some super fun letter picks to spell out “Happy Birthday”.
• A few frosted animal cookies separated from the sandwich with a silicone divider.
• In the blue “cake slice” silicone cup I added some overly dry carrots that desperately needed to be be eaten up and two cherry tomatoes turned birthday balloons with our fun food picks from All Things For Sale.
• Pink sauce cup with ranch for dipping.
• Small silicone cup (hidden by the EasyLunchbox mini dipper lid) full of small Colby cheese chunks.
• The mini dipper contains all natural strawberry go-gurt that I removed from the tube. I also added more sprinkles…. cause what’s a birthday without em’?
• Baby grapes and apples in the third and final compartment of our Easylunchbox.

Tiny princess S (A’s friend) had a lunch consisting of all the same items. The only thing different was the sandwich. Her sandwich contained: Honey roasted turkey, mayonnaise, and mustard. (those are condiments that I NEVER get to pack for my picky princesses.) Since it wasn't  S’s birthday I decided to cut her sandwich using the cupcake from the same LunchPunch set. Of course I added sprinkles.  AND a mini pepperoni “cherry”.  Ugh! Those carrots look really awful. At least the girls didn’t complain. ♥

Last, but certainly not least…. Tiny princess K’s lunch! (Sometimes it can be really hard being the birthday girl’s sister) K’s lunch contained most of the same items as well. The few changes were as follows: Turkey and cheese sandwich cut with the cupcake LunchPunch, and her fruit side was a bit different too. She had raspberries instead of baby grapes with her apple slices. To be honest she doesn’t care for any of the 3 fruits I included. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, If I don’t continue to offer her these things she may never learn to enjoy them. She ate one apple slice, but that’s it. Babysteps.

All in all it was a lunchtime success! I even overheard tiny princess S tell Allison that she was going to ask her mom if they could pay me to make her lunches when school resumes in the fall! :)

The girls loved their lunches so much they even asked me to make some again today! ♥

Some things I used to make these lunches…

Breakfast on a stick with EasyLunchboxes… and a shake test!

 

Wow! It sure feels good to blog again. I’m still on an internet hiatus, but tonight I was able to grab a few minutes at McDonalds to use their wifi!

Last night we had breakfast for dinner. My tiny princesses LOVE breakfast food.  Morning, noon, and night! Put it on a stick and it makes the PERFECT school lunch!

Since I had some extra time last night, I decided it would be the perfect opportunity to do an EasyLunchbox shake test! ♥

Here is tiny princess K’s lunch before our vigorous shake!

Both girls lunches included basically the same items. The large compartment of our EasyLunchbox contained…. Homemade mini pancakes and fruit skewered on a long butterfly pick. K had strawberries as her fruit with one lone blueberry, and A had all blueberries with no strawberries. The flower silicone cup holds a smaller round lidded container that came with our Sistema lunchboxes. K’s container has syrup and A’s has whipped cream, bot topped with flower blossom sprinkles. I picked up the cute little ladybug containers from Target in their Easter section. They came pre-filled with candy, but I emptied the candy out of these ones and added some yummy sunflower seeds. ♥

The upper right compartment has a small container of all natural Trix yogurt and 2 small graham crackers that the girls can use to crush up as a yogurt topping.

The bottom right compartment consists of scrambled eggs with a few sweet peppers mixed in. (both girls gobbled up their eggs at dinner and agreed that sneaking some peppers in their eggs was a great idea!) I added a few small pieces of bacon around the eggs and threw in a flower pick to sort of tie in the spring theme. ♥

Okay, now what you all have been waiting for…… how did this adorable lunch look after the tiny princess shake test? Keep reading to find out.

Here is A’s lunch pre-shake….

Just like in our previous shake tests we put our EasyLunchboxes through the ringer! We shook it left, we shook it right, we shook it up, we shook it down. We even played a fun game of catch with it! Surely all that shaking made this lunch look a mess, but I beg to differ this lunch stayed put! Hardly any shifting at all. Don’t believe me? Just look for yourself…..

See?!?! I told you so! Everything stayed nice and neat! I find that that placing food on skewers or picks whenever possible really helps things stay put. The little ladybug only moved around a bit and even the sprinkles in A’s whipped cream remained on the surface! Our eggs stayed nice and not one piece of bacon strayed out of it’s space. This was definitely our best shake test yet!!

Tiny princess K’s lunch still looked great too! ♥ Her sprinkles got a bit mixed in with the syrup, but we knew that would happen, so no worries! Her bacon also shifted a bit more than A’s, but we think it still looks cute!  One thing I should mention is that EasyLunchboxes are not leak proof, (on purpose so the lids can be removed by little hands) so  you plan to pack yogurt or something equally “leak-ish” make sure you add it to a leak proof container first. I usually use the EasyLunchbox mini dippers, but since I already used the bigger compartment for the eggs I had to go with a different container that would fit. ♥

So there you have it! Another tplb shake test success! And I have to say I think it’s our best one yet! ♥

 

Some things I used to make these lunches…

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…

Mamas not doin’ so HOT!

I had just one series of simple tasks to accomplish this morning. Make two tiny princess lunches, take photos of two tiny princess lunches, and get said tiny princess lunches out the door and on the bus (with their rightful owners) ON TIME! 

Well, I managed the first, missed out on the second, and just barely made the last. By just barely, I mean I had negative seconds to spare. Our sweet bus driver may or may not have had to honk, not once, not twice, but three times as I hurriedly (and grumpily) put my camera down, practically threw our EasyLunchboxes at the girls and disappointingly admitted defeat. Some of you may not get this and some of you might, but I knew if I didn't redeem myself in someway,  I would be grouchy all day, and let’s face it, nobody likes an evil queen!

I decided since all my supplies were already out, and since it was due time I had a new blog post, I should make myself a lunch. So, I did. I was also encouraged by a great new linky party called Grown-Ups Gotta Eat hosted by fellow bento blogger Beth from A Boy And His Lunch! I really love this idea for weekly link party and hope to link up regularly from now on!

Here is my yummy lunch I am contributing this week…

 

Here is what I packed in one of our new EasyLunchbox brights containers…

• 2 heart shaped cheese quesadillas served over a bed of romaine lettuce. I included a taco bell hot sauce packet to use as a dressing for my lettuce and a dip for my quesadillas. I also think it was quite necessary seeing that my morning wasn’t all too “hot”! ;)
• Heart shaped hard cooked egg sliced in half and loaded with pepper
• frozen berries
• heart shaped carrots made using my FunBites Luv It
• a few raisins in the small blue sauce cup

I’m happy to report that this lunch was delicious! Yup, that’s right! I was so hungry, I decided to eat it for breakfast instead! ♥ 

Be sure to go check out all the other adult “happy meals” over at A Boy And His Lunch!

some things I used to make this lunch…

Sub zero temps outside, but it’s a hot summer day in our EasyLunchboxes!

When my tiny princesses came to me yesterday afternoon with this awesome idea for a lunch, we had no idea that school would be canceled due to the cold temps, but hey, we went with it! Plus it made for a fun blog post title!

My girls have had this idea in their heads for quite some time now, and I really wanted to save it for beach day at school, but they couldn’t contain themselves any longer, so I decided to give in and bring their idea to life!

Here is tiny princesses A’s lunch packed in an ever awesome EasyLunchbox ♥

She had….

• 2 bagel halves stacked
• grapes
• teddy grahams
• maple yogurt with a hint of blue food coloring
• carrots
• beach ball and shell molded trix yogurt. Tiny princess A asks for trix yogurt all the time! I’ve always told her no. Even though we have not eliminated artificial colors and flavors all together, we do try to limit them quite a bit. I have always just assumed that trix yogurt was filled with added unnecessary ingredients.  Guess what? While reading a recent blog post from Cristi of Bent On Better Lunches I learned that I was completely wrong. Trix yogurt is colored and flavored with natural fruits and vegetables.! A was so excited when she got home from grandmas and saw this yogurt in the fridge!
• BBQ chicken
• ritz crackers

Per her request here are somethings we did to make this lunch special…
In order to make the PlanetBox little dipper fit snugly inside the stacked bagels, we used it as a cookie cutter first to create a bigger holes in the bagels. We colored the maple yogurt with a bit of blue coloring to create the “pool”.  Each bagel has cream cheese spread and the top bagel is sprinkled with some crushed graham crackers to make a “beach”. So fun! ♥ She was very particular about what picks we used to create the summer scene. There is a little girl as well as a teddy graham having fun in the pool. She thought the flower food picks resembled life preservers quite a bit, so we added lots of them all around. The pink swirl candy pick became a beach ball and she was super excited when I suggested putting a “grape tree” on her beach. We also added some colorful silicone cups to keep food separated, and used a fun sauce cup to hold ranch for carrot dipping.

I wish I got a better photo of this, but I started to really loose light and my focus was off. At the last minute tiny princess A decided to look for a Lunchbox Love Note to put in her lunch. She found the perfect one…. as long as she added a porcupine to her pool! ♥

Tiny princess K’s lunch is much the same except she has no carrots and we swapped pineapple instead of grapes for her. Her yogurt molds are also different. She got a fish and a palm tree.

By the time I got to K’s lunch we were completely out of natural light. The photo quality really shows this.

A couple of funny things to mention about tiny princess K’s lunch. She is VERY definite with all of her decisions. Once she gets something in her head she rarely changes her mind. I tried really hard to get her to allow me to add just ONE grape for her tree. She wasn’t having it, and insisted I do a “pineapple tree” for her instead. I had to giggle silently, cause I’m pretty sure it resembles a lamp shade more than a tree. :) Oh well! Her lunch, her rules! Also, when we discovered this Lunchbox Love note she was very adamant that her swans remained on the  beach and stayed out out of the pool. Her bear was relaxing in a tube and apparently wanted a “splash free zone” ♥

In order to make these lunches school ready we had to do a little rearranging and all the swimmers needed to come out of the pool so we could put the “covers” on. Nobody likes a soggy bear! The girls were okay with this as long as I included extra teddy grahams so they could play with their food at school! Little did we know there wouldn’t be any school today anyway. :)

This photo also shows the other side of the Lunchbox Love Note. ♥

Some things we used to make these lunches…