The Secret Files of Fairday Morrow - a Literary Lunch

This lunch is also posted over at The Little Crooked Cottage as a Literary Lunch. Head over to the fabulous blog of four children's book authors and check out the wonderful Literary Interviews with Mr. Pig himself!

Have you ever dreamed of living in a haunted house? This is what just became reality for eleven-year-old Fairday Morrow. Not only is she moving thousands of miles away from the life she knew, she is moving into the infamous Begonia House with a mysterious past. 

The Secret Files of Fairday Morrow by Jessica Haight and Stephanie Robinson will keep you at the edge of your seats until the very end. Strange music coming from behind a padlocked door, a secret room, an ancient mirror, a brass key, and a strange picture of a red-haired lady are the first in a series of clues that take Fairday and her friends - the DMS (Detective Mystery Squad) - on a mysterious adventure.

We packed a Mysterious Lady lunch in our Easylunchboxes to help you find all the clues:

• ancient mirror pretzels
• brass key mini peppers
• and a strange picture of a red-haired lady sandwich

What I used to make this lunch (contains affiliate links):

Jack N' Jill Toothbrush and Toothpaste REVIEW

My kids LOVE brushing their teeth. Well, almost all of them. So, when a package from Jack N' Jill arrived filled with Buzzy Brush Electrical Musical Toothbrushes and Jack N' Jill toothpaste, they were eager to immediately try them out. (And the reluctant brusher in the family was the first one to decorate and try his out!)

Jack N' Jill sent us one of each of their toothpastes and we love them all. My kids really love the mild taste and the fact that the tooth paste is clear! Plus, where else can you find Blackcurrant flavored toothpaste!

I love that they are:

• rich in Xylitol, 
• contain Organic Calendula to soothe gums, 
• only contain natural flavor,
• are Fluoride Free, 
• Sugar Free, 
• Color Free, 
• SLS Free, 
• contain no Preservatives, 
• and are Gluten Free and
• BPA Free.

The Buzzy Brush comes with a set of stickers that can be used to decorate the toothbrush. I really liked the added stickers since it helps distinguish which Buzzy Brush belongs to whom. The stickers are bubble stickers and lots of fun to decorate with! I also appreciated the beautiful packaging made with recycled materials and the fact that the toothbrush head is replaceable for continuous use! This brush is great for any child or adult 3+. It has a super gentle rotation action, soft bristles, and is free standing for hygiene! No more sticky toothbrushes in the sink!

A word about the musical part of the toothbrush:

I know many of you shy away from a musical toothbrushes because - let's face it - the kids will play the song over and over and over again. BUT, this toothbrush has 3 settings:

1. the song 
2. spoken instructions 
3. and silence 

And, I like the song! It is actually fun to listen to and if you'd like to know how it sounds, click HERE and you can read more about Buzzy Brush and hear the song.

I really love how well thought out the Jack N' Jill products are! Jack N' Jill toothpaste has an "opener" in the tooth paste lid! No more trying to peel that tiny piece of aluminum off! Just poke and you are ready to go!

In conclusion, we love Jack N' Jill products and had a great time testing the Buzzy Brush and the different toothpaste flavors. Everyone, from my tooth brushing lover to my reluctant brusher got excited about brushing teeth and it solved our "Before School" brushing dilemma. I had to remind endlessly before we used to leave the house. Now, everyone just goes off and starts the day with freshly brushed teeth and a fun song!

GIVEAWAY:

TWO winners will each receive:
1 Buzzy Brush and
1 toothpaste of their choice

a Rafflecopter giveaway

US Residents only. The winners will be notified via email and have 24 h to claim their prize before a new winner is selected.

Thanksgiving Lunch

One of my favorite things about Thanksgiving is Apple Pie. I just cannot resist a warm slice of apple pie with freshly whipped cream - no matter how much other food I already had :) 

And since my kids share my love of pie, today's lunch features:

• an apple and peanut butter "Apple Pie" sandwich
• a "pumpkin" tangerine and
• a fall themed side of celery, carrots, mini pepper and raspberries stuffed with roasted almonds

This Literary Lunch is featured as the Special Holiday Edition of Literary Lunches over at The Little Crooked Cottage today. It was inspired by Linda Ashman's new picture book, Over the River and Through the Wood. A more formal Literary Lunch and book review will be published soon as well.

What I used to make this lunch (contains affiliate links):

MySuperFoods REVIEW {and GIVEAWAY!}

We love healthy snacks - really who doesn't? - and my kids were thrilled to try both the MySuperFoods cookies and snacks after MySuperFoods sent us a fun review package. Scroll to the end of the post to win some snacks and cookies as well!

I love that MySuperfoods snacks are soft and yummy yet GMO free, made in a nut-free facility, has no additives, no preservatives and contains 10g of whole grains. Win for Mom and win for the kids!

For this lunch I served yogurt with a cinnamon apple stencil, apple raisin MySuperSnacks granola bites and three mini nut butter and jelly sandwiches.

I also used the Honey Heroes cookies in our recent Literary Lunch. They made fabulous spectators for my LITTLE RED GLIDING HOOD lunch (click the picture to find out more).

I already had to re-buy the Honey Heroes because my kids love them for school snack as well. Here I packed some MySuperCookies with a few grapes.

I am always looking for healthy options for snack since all of my four children need snack and it gets boring fast because I tend to always pack the same few things. My kids were big fans of the Chocolate Chip Granola Bites and I will be buying more of these as well.

Here is a summary of what we thought:

Pros:

• GMO free
• nut free
• artificial anything free
• full of whole grain
• yummy (your kids will love these)

Things to consider:

• Even though the cookies are available in a bigger package, the MySuperSnacks Granola bites are only available as individual packs. Since I try to avoid unnecessary packaging I wish you could buy them with less packaging BUT they are great for on the go and for brown bag lunches!

MySuperFoods has agreed to send one of you a variety pack of their snacks and cookies!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The Giveaway is open to US Residents only. Winner will be notified via email and has 24h to claim their prize.

MySuperFoods cookies and snacks are available at your local store and on Amazon.

Here are links to MySuperFoods on Amazon (contains affiliate links):

Disclaimer: MySuperFoods sent me a few snacks to review. The opinions in this post are solely mine!

This week in pictures: Nov 1 - Nov 6 2015

If you missed the lunchbox ideas I shared on social media this week, you cancatch up here on the blog. I shared some new and some old lunches and if you want to read more, simply click the picture to see the whole post.

A trip to Trader Joe's and a fun IKEA cookie cutter transformed this lunch into a fun treat.

My daughter loves Pandas and requested a Panda themed lunch. So cute, right?

Love peanut butter (or really any nut butter?) - then this lunch is for you!

We were stuck in a lunch rut, so I used some refridgerated pretzel dough to make lunch fun again.

My daughter made this snack herself in our nw divided plates. I helped with the tangerine ;)

Even though I seem to have given away almost all my cookie cutters, I found this one hiding in the utensil drawer and used it to make this apple themed snack plate.

Things I used to make the snacks and lunches above (contains affiliate links):

Little Red Gliding Hood - a Literary Lunch

This lunch is also posted over at The Little Crooked Cottage as a Literary Lunch. Head over to the fabulous blog of four children's book authors and check out the wonderful Literary Interviews with Mr. Pig himself! 

Little Red Riding Hood is one of our favorite fairy tales.We LOVE Tara Lazar's clever fractured fairy tale spin, Little Red Gliding Hood, illustrated by Troy Cummings.

In this sweet retelling of the well known fairy tale, Little Red uses her ice skates to navigate the enchanted forest and to skate to Grandma's every Sunday. Her skates are worn out and broken and she must win the Pairs Skating Competition to win BRAND_NEW SKATES. The only problem is: everyone in the enchanted forest already has a partner. This book is beautifully illustrated and the story is as sweet as can be. Can you guess who might help her compete in the Skating Competition?

I created an enchanted lunch in our Easylunchboxes, perfect for any winter fun:

• Organic MySuperCookie Honey Heroes competition spectators and, of course, brand new chocolate skates with sparkling sprinkles
• enchanted berry yogurt with chocolate wolf decorations
• a Little Red Gliding Hood jelly and chocolate sandwich.

Here are a few of the things I used to make this lunch (contains affiliate links):

Halloween Stromboli Lunch

Halloween is only 8 days away (my kids have been reminding me about 462 times a day) and it's time for some Halloween themed lunches in my house.

We love our Nude Food Movers Rubbish Free Lunch Boxes and used them today to pack a fun Halloween Stromboli lunch:

• a pepperoni and spinach Stromboli
• pizza sauce
• a monster kiwi

Strombolis are very easy to make and my kids love them. I don't add pizza sauce to mine but simply a filling like spinach or pepperoni and cheese. These are fail proof and easy and if you make enough for lunch and dinner you can take care of two meals at once! Gluten Free on a Shoestring has a great tutorial on her blog on how to make and fill these. If it has to go fast I simply use pizza dough from the refrigerated section in the supermarket. I use about 3 refrigerated doughs (the kind that comes in a can) to make enough for lunch and dinner for 6 people. 

And this cute Monster Kiwi was simply a peeled Kiwi with a kiwi peels kut into a monster mouth.

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

Halloween Mini RFLB

I am a Nude Food Day Ambassador this year trying to help keep plastic wrappings out of schools and to encourage others to use reusable lunch boxes. Using reusable lunch boxes is not only better for the environment but also better for your wallet. The average size family goes through over 500 plastic baggies a year, just for lunches, and the average school-age child generates 67 pounds of lunch trash per school year. Replacing disposable lunch items can save you up to $400/year!

some links contain affiliate links

We packed our Mini Rubbish Free Lunch Box with a spooky Halloween themed lunch today:

• Pumpkin Spice Mini Wheats (yes, they are as amazing as they sound!)
• apple slices
• and a "Scream Cheese" Cream cheese sandwich

Don't forget to enter my GIVEAWAY to win one of THREE Nude Food Movers prize packs!!

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Hand Picked Lunch

My son came to me this week and asked for more lunch in his lunchbox. I always have to smile when he comes to me with his very serious "we have to talk about your lunch box packing" face. Like all kids he goes through faces of very little or big appetites and it is hard to always know exactly how much to pack. I asked him to give me a list of foods he wanted in his lunchbox and then packed our Easylunchboxes according to his list:

Packed are:

• a Cliff Bar Zbar (cut in half)
• Pirates Booty
• a rice roll and
• three homemade onigiri

He came home happy and finished his left overs for snack. It is important to give our children input in the lunch packing! Include them in the choosing of the lunch foods and in determining how much food they need!

What I used to make this lunch (contains affiliate links):

National Nude Food Day 2015 {with Giveaway}

I am happy to say that I am a Nude Food Day Ambassador this year! Nude Food Day is celebrated every day during October this year and you can participate as well! I started my blog to journal our experiences with rubbish-free, healthy lunches. I am originally from Europe and being eco-friendly and earth consciencious is part of every day live where I am from. I love using eco-friendly and waste-free products and doing my part of keeping the landfills free of plastic baggies and disposables. I am proud to team up with Nude Food Movers this year!

Nude Food Day is a global initiative developed to encourage kids and parents to eat well and live well, and eliminate all unnecessary packaging and wrapping that goes into schools. Lots of schools around Australia have taking the opportunity to be involved. Nude Food Day has also launched in the UK and have secured Eco Schools, Keep Australia Beautiful, Wildlife Warriors and Australia Zoo as partners.

The official Nude Food day falls onto October 16th this year which also coincides with  Australia's National Nutrition Week and World Food Day. Using waste-free lunch containers is not just keeping your school rubbish free but also can save you quite a few dollars! Buying bigger containers of food items like yogurt will save you money in the long run, keep plastic out of landfills and help preserve wildlife.

Wondering how you can get involved? 

• Head over to Nude Food Day and register your school to participate in Nude Food Day 2015! 2015 marks the sixth year of Nude Food Day and to celebrate we are offering a MASSIVE $25,000 prize pool to six lucky schools!


• Share your favourite Nude Food Recipes/Photos/Events with us and our global community! Remember to share it with us by using #NudeFoodDay

• Enter to win one of three amazing Nude Food Prize Packs valued at over RRP $50 and containing: 

• Nude Food Movers Rubbish Free Lunchbox
• Nude Food Movers Coolskin
• Nude Food Movers Sandwich Box
• Nude Food Movers Snack Box
• Smash Sports Pop Top Drink Bottle
• Smash Stealth Drink Bottle 500ml

a Rafflecopter giveaway

This Giveaway is open only to residents of AUSTRALIA. The winner will be notified via email and has 24h to claim the prize!

Everyone Loves Bacon - a Literary Lunch

This lunch is also posted over at The Little Crooked Cottage as a Literary Lunch. Head over to the fabulous blog of four children's book authors and check out the wonderful Literary Interviews with Mr. Pig himself! 

Do you love bacon? What a silly question, I know! Well, then you will enjoy the book EVERYONE LOVES BACON by Kelly Dipucchio and illustrated by Eric Wight! 

Since you love Bacon, you know, that he is very loved. So loved that Bacon started to love himself. A little bit too much. And he started to forget about the friends back home. Who felt sad without Bacon. Bacon had fans, he changed. He grew a mustache. He forgot even more about the friends he had and enjoyed the stardom. Will this book have a Hollywood Ending? Will it end well for Bacon?

To keep you from missing Bacon while you are out buying his book, I  made a lunch-on-the-run in Easylunchboxes that will make you guaranteed remember everything about... Bacon:

• Sweet apples wrapped in bacon
• Bacon Butter Popcorn*
• and a Waffle-Egg-and-Bacon sandwich (with sweet apple decorations).

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

Van's Cereal Review {and Giveaway}

We love cereal at our house but finding gluten free cereal my kids love has not always been easy. Thankfully, Van's has a great variety of breakfast cereals and recently added TWO new varieties:

Blissfully Berry and Cocoa Sensation! We were lucky enough to be able to taste them both and I highly recommend looking for them at your supermarket. We loved the chocolatey taste of the Cocoa Sensation and I had to buy another package to take pictures while the kids were in school. If it is in the house, they will finish it in one sitting. We also greatly enjoyed the Blissfully Berry and especially I appreciated the fruity flavor!

No matter if you eat cereal for breakfast or...

...pack it as a healthy snack to-go, we love having two new varieties of Van's Cereals to choose from.

As always, Van's cereal delivers 17g of nutrient-dense whole grains along with 5g of fiber per serving!

a Rafflecopter giveaway
The winner will be contacted via email and has 24h to respond to claim the prize. Open only to the U.S.

Penny & Jelly - The School Show - a Literary Lunch

This lunch is also posted over at The Little Crooked Cottage as a Literary Lunch. Head over to the fabulous blog of four children's book authors and check out the wonderful Literary Interviews with Mr. Pig himself! 

This post contains affiliate links.

Have you met Penny & Jelly from the new book Penny & Jelly - the School Show by Maria Gianferrari and Thyra Heder?

Having a best friend to help you pick a talent for the school show is the best feeling in the world.

But what talent will they pick? Penny is having a tough time deciding on what talent she might have. Jelly, her dog, tries to help her decide. Penny tries out various talents—from dancing to unicycling, fashion designing to snake charming—with disastrous results. But in the end she finds the best talent of all. Can you guess what it is?

We packed a fun lunch to-go in our Kid Konserve Bento- perfect for snacking on during a school show:

•  a Penny Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich (pun intended)
• Peanut Butter and Jelly bars (because friends stick together)
• apple and cheese & chicken and cheese skewers (because stripes complement each other)
• and of course Jelly, sitting on a heart shaped cup of sweet dried banana chips (because friendship is sweet)