Fun Lunch for a Fun Fair Day

Today is the Annual Fun Fair at my kids' school with a water dunking tank, face painting, bounce houses, a DJ and just fun fun fun!

Since my kids are always looking forward to this special day and I was sick last week and could not pack really any lunches I wanted to do something fun for today!

So, the lunch has grapes (or as my kids thought: healthy fruit snacks), watermelon and blueberies (like taffy), a brownie lollipop and a candy shaped sandwich. I made the sandwich with a circle cutter and cut the side with a knife. I strung a little bit of fruit leather around the sides and voila a Hard Candy Nutella sandwich :)

I hope it sweetends their day until it's time for the Fun Fair tonight!

Happy Wednesday everyone,

 

Lunch Wishes

My 5YO asked me the other night to make him a truck lunch. So we looked through our cookie cutters together and he picked a fire truck and a "Zoo" truck. He helped me cut out the bread and then we decided how to decorate the trucks together. I used Nutella and a icing bag to draw the details on the trucks :) It was so much fun to let him tell me what he would like and he was so proud of his lunch!

This lunch has veggie sticks, grapes and two truck sandwiches made out of whole wheat bread and Nutella. He also packed an ice water and a yogurt!

Since my cookie cutters were already neatly set out on the counter  pretty much all over the counter my 7YO also wanted to pick a lunch :) He handed me a snowman shape and requested a vampire. I kept looking at the snowman shape wondering why he had picked that perticuliar one for the vampire until he laughed and turned it around in my hand. Pretty cool!

And this is how the lunch looked with the Vampire sandwich:

This vampire lunch turned out really cute! We packed a Chobani Kitchen Blueberry and Milk Chocolate Chip Breakfast Muffin (recipe will follow) with a bat fruit leather, "bloody" starwberries and of course the vampire :) I used Nutella and an icing bag, two candy eyes and fruit leather for his mouth and teeth. We also packed a yogurt and ice water :)

I love when my kids get excited about lunch and I love when they want to be creative and help!

They were so proud of their lunches and needless to say, the lunchboxes were licked clean by the time they got home :)

Happy Thursday!

Dino Lunch

We made my Dad's famous German potato salad with German sliders for dinner last night and one of my sons asked to bring some of the potato salad for lunch. He picked his Dino thermos to keep the potato salad cool and asked if I could make the rest of his lunch match his thermos.

He is bringing a thermos with potato salad, an Easylunchbox packed with grapes, cheese crackers and two Dino sandwiches. One with a sliced up slider and salad and one with peanut butter for dessert ;) The Dinos have candy eyes and there are also carrot stars as decoration. As always he has ice water in a re-usable water bottle.

Happy Monday!

Finally Friday

Today is finally Friday :)

I found whole wheat bagels from our favorite bagel store in Boston at our local store and the kids all requested them for lunch today!

Lunch is a whole wheat bagel with lettuce and chicken salad on a bed of spring salad, veggie sticks and cut up carrots and cucumbers to add to the salad after the bagel is eaten :) The koala cup has a Balsamic salad dressing to add to the salad. As always the kids also brought ice water and yogurt :)

Happy Friday Everyone!

This was one long week ;)

It's not Friday?

All morning I had that spring in my step only Fridays can bring. The heaviness of the week had gone and the weekend was just one day away - or so it seemed. Until, I wandered too close to the kitchen calendar only to discover in shock and awe that today was only Thursday. Sighing and feeling like this week must have an extra day I started to look for bread to make lunch. Matching this morning I discovered that my bread had a hole - an air bubble - all through the bread. Right through the middle. But then it hit me. We could turn this day around with a little fun. And so the " What do you mean, it's not Friday? Bread" was created ;)

Lunch already brough early morning giggles from my kids! I packed Goldfish Adventure crackers, a yogurt and blueberries on garden bento picks, well, and of course our shocked bread.  

 

 Here is to a happy Thursday!

Rain Rain Go Away!

Even though we had a beautiful and sunny weekend it has been raining again for days. I am wondering when summer will actually finally make it's appearance!

To make yet another rainy day brighter I packed a summery caterpillar lunch.

I found this very easy tutorial for sandwich balls at Cute Foods For Kids and just thought it was a great idea to switch things up. The sandwich balls are made with whole wheat flax bread and filled with a dollop of Nutella. I tried one that broke in the making and have to say they are delicious and fun to eat!

The lunch is made up of three sandwich balls. The caterpillar head is a sandwich ball in a flower shaped silicone cup with candy eyes and a dye-free fruit leather mouth. The body is made out of two sandwich balls decorated with bread crust. There are also blueberry bento picks, crackers and peanuts and a yogurt decorated with dye-free fruit leather and dye-free sprinkles.

Let's hope summer comes soon!

Happy Wednesday,

Chobani Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Bars

I was wondering the other day what snacks to buy or make for my children this week especially since we all kind of had gotten fed up with the store bought ones. I went to Chobani Kitchen and found this great recipe for Cranberry Oatmeal bars. I did not have everything on hand so I improvised a little bit.

The original recipe for the Cranberry Oatmeal bars can be found here.

  

I followed the recipe and my only changes were that I substitued 6 oz of mini chocolate chips for the 6 oz of cranberries and instead of using 0% Vanilla Chobani Yogurt and the orange zest, I used the Orange Vanilla Chobani Champions Yogurt. I only substituted because I had everything else in the pantry and really wanted to make those. I also doubled the recipe because I wanted to make sure we had enough for the lunchboxes this week :)

Here is the adapted recipe for a casserole dish :

{Ingredients}

• vegetable oil cooking spray
• 2 C all-purpose flour
• 2 C quick-cooking oats
• 1 C packed brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 6 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted
• 6 Tbsp canola oil
• 6 Tbsp orange juice
• 2 2/3 C Orange Vanilla Chobani Champions
• 1 C sugar
• 4Tbsp all-purpose flour
• 2 large egg white, lightly beaten

{How to make them}

• Preheat oven to 325°F.
• Spray an 11 x 7-inch baking pan with cooking spray.
• Whisk together flour, oats, sugar, salt, baking soda, and cinnamon in bowl.
• Drizzle butter, oil and orange juice over dry mixture, stirring until moistened and crumbly.
• Reserve 1/2 cup mixture.
• Press remaining oat mixture into the bottom of prepared pan.
• Combine mini chocolate chips, Chobani, sugar, flour, and egg white in medium bowl, stirring well.
• Spread yogurt mixture over prepared crust.
• Evenly sprinkle reserved oat mixture over filling.
• Bake for 40 minutes or until edges are golden.
• Cool completely in pan on a wire rack before slicing.

When they came out of the oven it was hard to wait for them to cool because they smelled so good!

They are delicious and so easy to make! I really enjoyed the yogurt layer and my kids thought they were perfect for after school :)

We enjoyed this recipe so much I will make the original recipe with cranberries next week!

Happy Monday!

Waiting for Summer

It has been raining for days it seems like and we are all craving sun and summer!

So, I decided to pack a fun summer inspired lunch today! The kids all have watermelon balls, crackers and pepperoni pinwheels and an "ice cream" sandwich made out of whole wheat bread and decorated with dark and white chocolate. As always we packed ice water and yogurt to complete the lunch!

Have a very sunny day!

Chobani Champions Winner Announced! Updated!

And we do have
2 Winners!

Our first winner is Janice! Comment #44 :) I have emailed you, Janice! Congratulations!

Our second winner is Keeley from the wonderful  Keeley McGuire Blog! She was lucky comment #10! Congratulations! I emailed you, Keeley!

CONGRATULATIONS to both winners! And thank you everyone for commenting!

May The Force Be With You

Happy Starwars Day!

My kids love Starwars and so I could not pass up making a special lunch today. My 3 year old daughter was a little hard to win over but once I mentioned that Starwars has a princess even she was on board. Plus, she made sure none of the melted chocolate left overs went to waste ;)

I made Yoda, Princess Leia, Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader. All with melted chocolate, candy eyes and fruit leather.

The first lunch Anakin Skywalker. I drew his face on whole wheat honey bread with melted milk chocolate and added candy eyes and a small piece of fruit leather for the scar. Also packed are strawberries, crackers and two light saber picks with blueberries.

The second lunch is Darth Vader. He is drawn on whole wheat honey bread with milk and dark chocolate. Also packed are strawberries, crackers and light saber picks with blueberries.

The third lunch is a Princess Leia lunch. I drew her with melted milk chocolate and added candy eyes and fruit leather blush and lipstick. Also packed are strawberries and light saber picks with blueberries on crackers.

The fourth lunch is a Yoda lunch. This lunch is not dye-free since the chocolate I used contains green food coloring. I love Yoda and had to make him. I just found a great company that make natural food coloring so next time I would use white chocolate and add some natural color!

 I drew Yoda with melted green chcolate melts and mixed in melted white chocolate for the details. Yoda also has candy eyes :) As  above this lunchbox also contains strawberries, crackers and two light saber picks with blueberries.

As always the kids all have ice water and yogurt as well :)

And now please check out what my friend Lise from Veggie Bento came up with :)

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May the 4th be with you, my friend!