GreenPaxx Reusable & Eco-friendly Cool Straw and Cool Cap Review and Giveaway

A little while ago, Cindy from GreenPaxx sent us two Cool Straws and one Cool Cap to review (and some for YOU! Scroll down to enter my giveaway!) and we fell in love right away! We love making smoothies after school and these straws are not only reusable, eco-friendly and fun but also got some of my more reluctant kids to try some different smoothies because they loved to use these straws!

We have always made fruit smoothies but I wanted to try a green smoothie with my kids, too (There is a great Kale Smoothie video with recipe on the GreenPaxx website!) I did not make the exact green smoothie  because I wanted to ease my kids in to the idea of a green smoothie and therefore added some plain yogurt and a little coconut milk to make it not quite as green :)

Here is the test. What will they think?

They loved it and asked for more!

Everyone was home ~ I have 4 kids ~ when I served the fruit smoothie but we only had two straws. You can see why the two kids with the disposable straws were pretty upset and I had to make individual smoothies right after the picture was taken:
 Greenpaxx straws are bigger, wider, easier to drink from and well a lot more exciting then those flimsy other ones!

We also received a GreenPaxx Cool Cap and I use it a lot to carry my glass of water around the house. However, as you can see my daughter loves drinking water with the GreenPaxx Straw and lid, too, and I love that I can give her a regular glass with a top. I find this easier then trying to assemble some of these other sippy cups. It makes it also easy to just take your ice coffee, smoothie or water with you if you have errands to run, kids to pick up or are running late and have to turn your coffee into a quick to go coffee :)

I really like the Greenpaxx Cool Straws and Cool Caps because:

• They are reusable! We drink a lot of smoothies, water and kefir and we used to go through disposable straws fast! 4 kids + 2 adults! 
• They are easy to clean! Other re-usable straws we have tried before were always hard to clean       or there was residue left after washing, yuck. GreenPaxx straws come apart (see picture) and you can literally see if they are clean! Oh, and did I mention they are dishwasher safe! Win!

• They prevent spills! The caps are not 100% leakproof but have saved my car and laptop several times from spills which are just a reality when you have kids!
• They help the enviroment by keeping straws out of our landfills!

Overall, I have to say I love GreenPaxx and I will have to order some more straws!

And the best part is: You can win 2 Cool Caps and 4 Straws by entering my RaffleCopter below! Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Here is the fine print:

Please leave me an email address so I can email you. If I cannot contact you I will re-draw the prize. The winner has 48h to contact me or I will have to re-draw the winner. This giveaway is offered to US residents only. Please do not enter this giveaway if you have received free products from GreenPaxx within the past 3 months. GreenPaxx supplied me with two straws and 1 Cool Cap. All opinions are my own!

Baby Bird Onigiri Snack

 I made these cute Onigiri Snacks this weekend. They were so easy to make and the kids loved them!

I put about two tablespoons of rice on a small piece of plastic wrap and rolled the rice into a ball. I added nori details cut out with my nori punch and cut out a small triangle for the beak.

Happy Snacking!

Things I used to make this lunch:

Ruff-Ruff Bento

I had some rice left over from yesterday and decided to make bento boxes for lunch today!

I packed a rice ball shaped like a dog with nori accents and a carrot tongue, strawberry hearts and a jelly sandwich in the upper tier. In the lower tier I packed a cereal bar, cheese crackers and cinnamon cookies. I also packed ice water and popcorn today.

To make the dog I placed some rice in plastic wrap and shaped the head. Then I added the nori accents I had cut out earlier with sharp scissors. The tongue is a piece of carrot cut with a vegetable knife :)

Happy Monday!

Arrr Talk Like A Pirate Day Hop

Arrr, it's Talk Like A Pirate Day, Mateys! And what is even more exciting is that this is one amazing Pirate Day Hop! You can win amazing prices from All Things For Sale by hopping through this Blog Hop and collecting pieces of a treasure map to find our Booty! Every Blogger Buccaneer in this here Hop has a piece of the treasure map! You'll need to "collect" each piece and put them together in the right order to find the treasure! You'll want some parchment and a quill, to keep a log with each clue and each number, because there are 39 scurvy pirates running amok with 39 pieces o' the map to collect! 37 pieces will guide you to the hidden treasure (by spelling out the URL where you can enter to win!) and there are 2 bonus pieces with the "secret passwords" to get two chances to win some pirate booty!

Scroll all the way down to find my piece and Good Luck, Matey!

This is our pirate lunch! I made all the kids two ship shaped cheese quesadillas by cutting one quesadilla with a sharp vegetable knife and using it as a stencil for the others. I decorated the ship with seaweed cannon holes and a Nori steering wheel (best cut out with scissors) and a pirate ship sail cupcake topper. My kids also packed vanilla yogurt with a scary seaweed scull and a treasure chest full of gold coins. As always we packed ice water and I added a small veggie snack box as well with cucumbers and peppers :)

I snuck in some piratey lunch notes as well, arrr.

Here is my piece of the map, Matey! Grab it and find the rest. Hope your will find the big treasure in the end!

To continue your treasure map hunt hop over to Bentomonsters and find the rest!

Happy Talk Like A Pirate Day and good luck to all!

Birthday Bento

My son is turning 6 today! I cannot believe it!

Of course we needed a celebratory lunch and packed a chocolate sandwich (my Mom would pack those as a treat for me and my sister on special occasions), popcorn, some cookies and Unreal chocolate covered peanuts. He also has ice water, yogurt and a small veggie snack :)

Happy Birthday!

This lunch was really quick and easy! I had a cake shaped cookie cutter but it is just as easy to cut the crust off the bread with a sharp vegetable knife. I added the chocolate my Mom sent me but you can also use melted chocolate as a filling. It will harden and it is delicious :) I then piped the decorations with melted chocolate on the bread. It takes about 10 min in the fridge to dry. The candle on top is a cupcake topper and I packed freshly popped popcorn and some treats as well. Wish I could see his face when he sees it at lunch :)

G is for Gorilla

I found a cute Gorilla Omusubi set on Ebay a while ago and they finally arrived. My boys love them because they think the Gorillas look angry ~ to me they just looks like they have Unibrows. I'll let you judge ;)

Baby Gorilla is filled with Parmesan Couscous from last night and is packed in a coconut tree of chicken sandwiches, spinach leaves and two mini oatmeal cookies. I also packed apples and Goldfish crackers.

Mommy Gorilla (also filled with Parmesan Couscous) is nestled in Spinach leaves in between chicken sandwiches.  Packed also are apples and Goldfish crackers. 

Angry (?) Daddy Gorilla (too much Parmesan Couscous in his belly?) refused any kind of leaves and is just nestled in between a few SunButter sandwiches with a monkey playing in some apples next to Goldfish crackers. 

Happy Monday!

Choo-Choo and the new EasyLunchboxes Mini Dippers

Happy Friday! 

My kids requested a train lunch today! Choo-Choo!

I packed a 1/2 an apple with the letter T carved out for T-R-A-I-N, Enjoy Life trail mix, a chicken and lettuce sandwich with cheese and nori decorations and I used some pirate booty for smoke stack clouds :)

Did you notice the cute little container on the right holding my trail mix? It is one of the brand new Mini Dippers from EasyLunchboxes! They are wonderful! They are leak-resistant and up to three can fit in the big compartment of the ELB or one can fit in the big small compartment. I love them because they are easy to open for little kids yet make sending dip, sauce or yogurt spill-safe :) 

Check out what my friends are packing for lunch with the new containers:

http://www.bentoforkidlet.com/2012/09/friday-vlog-kidlet-makes-lunch.html

http://keeleymcguire.blogspot.com/2012/09/lunch-made-easy-dip-it-dunk-it-mini.html

http://lunchfitforakid.blogspot.com/2012/09/lunch-for-boy-9712.html

http://aboyandhislunch.blogspot.com/2012/09/come-sail-away-bento.html?m=1

Things I used to make this lunch:

A Fast Bear Lunch

We were running late this morning and so I had very little time for lunches. It only took me about two minutes total to put together this lunch!

I packed Pretzel Goldfish, an organic applesauce, a strawberry yogurt cereal bar and a sunflower seed spread sandwich in bear shape. I used a cookie cutter to make the bear bread and added candy eyes and a chocolate covered sunflower seed for his face. The eyes contain a small amount of food color but my son does not eat them so this is still safe for him!

Smoergasbord - or how we made lunch by having everyone add something to the lunch

I had no idea what theme to pack or what to pack for lunch at all this morning but my kids came to the rescue! They all helped pick one or two things to go in the lunchboxes and that is how we ended up with this kind of Smoergasbord for lunch, lol.

Today's lunch is apples and grapes, veggie sticks, four mini sunflower seed spread sandwiches, sunflower seeds and sunflower seed cookies in a muffin cup, a mini yogurt and a half a cereal bar.