Tea Party Rules - A Literary Lunch

Do your kids love Tea Parties? And Bears? Ame Dyckman's (author of Boy + Bot) new book Tea Party Rules is due to be released on October 3rd. And it is all about a Tea Party... and a bear cub!

From Amazon: When he follows his nose through the woods, Cub discovers a backyard tea party…with cookies! He is just about to dig in when the hostess of the tea party shows up. And she has several strong opinions on how Tea Party must be played. Cub tries to follow her rules . . . but just how much can one bear take, even for cookies?

Our lunch is packed in a Planetbox Shuttle and packed full of Tea Party food:

• There are cucumber trees and 
• forest mushrooms through which the bear cub walks following his nose.
• Of course, we packed a bear cub cucumber-and-butter tea sandwich (ear and snout details are apple pieces and bread crust),
• a tiny bucket full of home made sugar cookies,
• grape "candy" and sweet strawberries.

Now head over to The Little Crooked Cottage for an exclusive interview with the girl and the cub from TEA PARTY RULES on Mr. Pig Live! and see my lunch there, too!

Things I used to make lunch (contains affiliate links):

Lunchbox Love Lunches and {Giveaway}

My Mom used to add a little note to my lunches when I was little and I always loved continuing the tradition. No matter if you are in Kindergarten or the last year in High School you are never to old for a little reminder that someone cares about you! And that is exactly why we love Lunchbox Love!

There are so many amazing volumes of Lunchbox Love and even some for Teens & Tweens!

One side of the card has a lovely message and the other side a trivia fact. My kids look forward to lunch just to see what today's card says! The joke addition has a joke instead of the trivia fact and my third grader cannot get enough of them! They are printed on beautiful card stock and even though they are disposable and sometime to get wet or damaged in the lunchbox, my kids always try to bring home their favorites and hang them on our fridge:

Having a Teen or Tween at home can be challenging (believe me!) and it is nice when you can slip them a sweet note tailored towards their needs. I love the Teen & Tween Cards and we will be getting more of these. 

The messages are tailored towards older kids and struggles and on the back are quotes instead of trivia facts. Thanks to the simple design my Tween loves finding these in his lunch.

I love having Lunchbox Love in my house and having one handy no matter if it is to cheer someone up, apologize or simply tell them how much I love them! And since they are only $2.99 for a pack of 12 it is easy to have them handy. 

This is how our window sill looks like right now - full of favorites from this week!

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Giveaway is open to US Residents only. The winner will be notified via email. If I don't get a response within 24 h I will redraw a new winner. Good Luck!

Don't want to wait to see if you win? Use my code MAMABEL and save 15% today!

Starter Bento Lunch Kit {Giveaway}

In the last few month I hit 200'000 views on my blog and reached 2'000 Facebook followers and I wanted to thank all of you with a fun Bento Starter Kit Giveaway! *cue the confetti* THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR SUPPORTING ME! So I teamed up with my favorite brands and am bringing you this great Giveaway sponsored by Easylunchboxes and BentoUSA!

I made this with all the new goodies you can win! I packed our Easylunchboxes with a CuteZCute Panda sandwich, a Z bar decorated with cute Panda Picks, a mini silicone cup filled with Naturebox Cranberry Bites, strawberries in between two silicone dividers and mini peppers also decorated with panda picks!

So, What can you win?

--> THE LUNCHBOX

Kelly from Easylunchboxes is sponsoring a set of Easylunchboxes (color of your choice) AND a cooler bag (also color of your choice). If you are a regular reader of my blog you know that I LOVE Easylunchboxes! Plus they are the #1 best-selling lunchboxes on Amazon.com! They come in a set of four, are stackable, easy to open and simply perfect no matter if you pack a regular or bento lunch, lunch for the kids or you or simply want to pack take along meals for outings or car rides. You can get FREE SHIPPING if you order from Amazon.com or Amazon.ca as well! In addition, the three sections make it easy to pack a variety of foods and at the end of the day you simply put them in the dishwasher!! Wondering about the cooler bag? I recently reviewed the cooler and no matter if you are taking several ELBs with you or just packing lunch for one - these are great! They are roomy, washable (yes in the washing machine!) and ours so far have held up perfectly for two school years and counting! Well worth your money and with all the color choices available a must-have!

--> Bento Accessories

BentoUSA generously is providing the winner with one CuteZCute Deco Cutter, cute Panda Picks and these great silicone cups and dividers! I love shopping at All Things For Sale and get most of my bento accessories there. They have $6 flat rate shipping, always new stock and the best prices around. They are a San Francisco based online store, specializing in Japanese lunch box goods, bento accessories and cute kitchen tools! All products sold by bentoUSA are BPA free and made of food safe materials! They really go the extra mile for their customers and shopping is always a fun experience!

What are you waiting for? Come enter!

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Open to US and Canada Residents ONLY!

Angry Bird Lunches

My lovely friend Michelle from Creative Food sent me Angry Bird Lip Pops recently and naturally I had to make some Angry Bird themed lunches! She made some as well so check out her beautiful lunches at the end of my post!

post contains affiliate links

The Yellow Angry Bird Lunch:

The Yellow Angry Bird is packed in our Easylunchboxes. We packed:

• the Angry Bird sandwich (peanut butter sandwich, candy eyes and fruit leather eyebrows)
• applesauce and 
• cherry tomatoes

The Red Angry Bird Lunch:

The Red Angry Bird* lunch is also packed in Easylunchboxes and contains:

• an Angry Bird sandwich (cheese sandwich topped with red pepper, candy eye and fruit leather accents)
• apple sauce and 
• cherry tomoatoes

*I was told by my son that the Red Angry Bird is ROUND not triangular so I redid the lunch for him:

This more accurate Red Angry Bird Lunch is packed in our yubo and contains:

• a WOWBUTTER Angry Bird sandwich with candy eyes and fruit leather eyebrows
• strawberries and
• Angry Bird Cheese crackers

 The Pig Angry Bird Lunch:

The Pig Angry Bird Lunch is packed in our Planetbox Shuttle and contains:

• a turkey wrap topped with a piece of green wrap and candy eyes to resemble the Pig
• Angry Bird crackers and
• black olive black birds

And now head over to Creative Food to see her amazing Angry Birds Lunches!

Things I used to make lunch (contains affiliate links):

Look! Lunch! {Gluten Free}

Here are two recent gluten free school lunches. We are trying to keep one of my sons gluten free to determine if that would help with the recent bouts of stomachaches he has been having. I am very new to gluten free so we are still learning :)

Our yubo is packed with a gluten free lunch today:

• a Cocoa Loco bar from Enjoy Life
• Naturebox Cranberry Almond bites
• two tuxedo wearing onigiri
• applesauce and
• a gluten free coconut chocolate chip muffin - home made with rice flour

Our Laptop Lunches bento box is packed with:

• a gluten free coconut and blueberry muffin
• gluten free popcorn
• almonds
• a gluten free cheese sandwich and
• apple sauce

Goodbyn Bynto Review

When Goodbyn contacted me to see if we would like to review their Bynto lunch box I was thrilled. We started our journey of healthier lunches - waste free more then 2 years ago with three Goodbyn Originals.

An unsurprisingly we LOVE the Bynto.

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The Bynto is BPA and phtalate-free, dishwasher safe and 100% recyclable!

My kids love the clear lid. It gives you a great preview of what's for lunch today!

All my kids love this lunchbox but it is easy to open and close for my 4 year old which is one of the points I look for in all lunchboxes. It is also incredibly versatile! Shown here is a lunch with a Goodbyn bottle (sold separately - I still had ours from 2 years ago) but you really can get creative on how and what you pack for lunch:

        

We packed a lot of different lunches in our Bynto since we had it and I loved how spacious it was. I could pack a lot or a little. It fit our food pouches and silicone cups and over all it is easy to use and easy to clean (double points for us busy Moms!)

Stickers are available on their website and since the Originals came with stickers I loved that Goodbyn included these for us! We had such a great time picking our design and if the kids ever want to change it you can either redecorate (we had quite a few fun stickers left!) or buy more/different stickers. Endless possibilities and lots of sticker fun!

We also tried out their Blue Beast Insulated Lunch Bag and I have to say: I LOVE IT! It is incredibly roomy! We can easily fit our Thermos Funtainer, the Bynto, two ice packs and a snack box!

Overall, I would highly recommend this lunchbox, the insulated lunch bag, bottle and stickers! We have had our Goodbyn Originals for 2 1/2 years without any issues and even my three bottles are still going strong!

Pros:

• BPA and phtalate free
• dishwasher safe
• versatile
• 100 % recyclable
• easy to open
• 3 containers in 1 (Reduces use of plastic bags and saves up to $190/year!)
• lunch bag is very roomy
• lunch bag has pocket to hold ice packs
• lunch bag has a clasp strap handle (perfect for attaching to your backpack)
• lunch bag liner pulls out for easy cleaning!
• stickers are fun and dishwasher safe

Overall, A+

I really haven't found any cons to speak of besides the fact that the Bynto is not leak proof. However, you can purchase leak proof containers for dips separately.

Items used in this review:

Also available at your local Target! Find one near you HERE.