Lunch for The Boy: 8.30.12

The first day of school went really well, so here's to day 2!

Chobani Champions in the Easylunchbox for picture purposes, then put directly into the box, covered in saran, and strapped shut with large hair bands, just for good measure.

I received some Chobani Champions yogurt for a review & giveaway (coming soon!), so I've included some of it in the lunches today.  A note - although I have pictured the cup of yogurt in the EasyLunchbox, the lid doesn't close with it in there, so I opened the yogurt and scooped it into the container, and put a piece of saran wrap on top - although I've heard that Press-n-Seal works really well.

Scrabble cheez-its: 10g, apple: 4g

For snack, The Boy has some Scrabble Cheez-its and half a sliced apple, dipped in water with some Fruit Fresh in it to keep them from browning.

Pancake: 10g, yogurt: 14g, strawberries: 5g, banana: 30g, crackers & cheese: 10g

His lunch is a pancake (cut into strips and put into a Lego container), some Chobani Champions Vanilla chocolate chunk yogurt, a banana, strawberries, and some homemade crackers with some Cabot Munster cheese.

Lunch: 8.29.12

First day of 4th grade!  How did that happen?  That means I've been packing lunches for 5 years now... I haven't been blogging them that long, but still, it's a milestone of sorts, isn't it?

The Girl is pretty excited about the new school year.

Her snack is some apple slices, some NatureBox barbecue sunflower seeds in a covered silicone cup, and some raisins.

Her lunch is some strawberries, grapes, Scrabble Cheez-its, ham, a Cabot Cheddar single, some homemade crackers in the shape of buses, and a strawberry cookie brought to me from a friend from Italy.

Lunch for The Boy: 8.29.12

Back to School!!! 

For those of you who don't know, during the school year, I post The Boy's lunches and The Girl's lunches daily, in separate blog posts.  The Boy's lunches contain carbohydrate counts because he is a Type 1 diabetic, and the school nurse is able to check the blog to see what I packed for him, check it against what he has actually eaten, and give him the correct dose of insulin so he can go about his day.

On to the lunch!

I will likely not be making lunches this cute all year, but one of my past-times this summer was amassing quite a nice collection of gorgeous food picks (from my lovely Bento Blogger & Friends group... it's been like an addiction...)

But... today's is mighty cute!

Apple slices: 4g, Sunflower seeds: 3g, raisins: 8g

For snack, The Boy has half an apple (sliced thinly, because he is missing quite a few teeth right now, and chomping on big apple slices isn't easy!), some Naturebox bbq sunflower seeds in a covered silicone cup, and a few raisins in a new favorite of mine, a little Lego box.  Seriously, I am in love with these boxes... they also have a bigger one, and they both fit into my beloved EasyLunchboxes!

Watermelon: 5g, yogurt: 20g, Cheezits: 10g, carrots & ranch: 4g, fig: 10g, bus crackers: 10g, cheese: 1g, cookie: 8g

His lunch is watermelon, Scrabble Cheez-its, carrots in the oval container, with a strawberry cookie from friend who brought it from Italy on top, along with ranch for the carrots in a round covered container,  a NatureBox dried fig, some homemade crackers in bus shapes, a Cabot cheese package, and some homemade Greek yogurt with a frozen yogurt dragonfly - tutorial on how to do that here and here.)  I will try popping the yogurt into the yogurt tomorrow morning, because I packed some lunches with frozen yogurt shapes in them last night and they were completely melted and not recognizable by lunch time... here's for hoping!

Lunches for an Outing: 8.28.12

School is starting tomorrow, and I decided to take the kids on one final summer adventure (we will continue hiking into the fall - that's the plan, at least).

Today, we drove across the state to go to The Montshire Museum of Science and the Vermont Institute of Natural Science.  Our friend Lisa (from Explayration) came with us.

For lunch, Lisa and I had three mini sandwiches with Cabot bacon cheddar cheese - a car (made with this press), a butterfly (made with a press like this), and an acorn (made with this press) - carrots and cucumbers with ranch dressing in the container, watermelon (also cut with the acorn cutter), some Naturebox rice crackers, homemade Greek yogurt with an attempt at an apple shape made with frozen yogurt in a silicone tray  (which tasted good, but because I made the lunches the night before, the shape melted entirely before we ate them... I'll have to try that again with plopping the shape into the lunch in the morning), and a peanut butter & jelly cookie, all in our favorite, EasyLunchBoxes (which are currently sold out, but they will be back in stock by the end of September!)

The Boy had essentially the same thing as us, but with some NatureBox Bombay curry cashew mix instead of rice crackers, and only carrots, no cucumber.

The Girl had the same thing as The Boy, but with some tiny plums I found at the grocery store and a Naturebox dried fig instead of watermelon, which she isn't a fan of.

Summer has been amazing, but we are back to school tomorrow - I have a couple more giveaways up my sleeve... and many many lunches to come!!!

Giveaway: Naturebox - WINNER!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Congratulations, Lynda!  I'll get your email address over to the people at Naturebox so they can send out your prize box.  I hope that you enjoy it as much as I enjoy mine!

Stay tuned... school is starting tomorrow, and I've got even more reviews and giveaways coming up! 

Lunches for an Outing: 8.25.12

Don't miss your chance to enter my NatureBox giveaway!

It's been a while, but we got to do another great hike yesterday.  This time, the kids and I and a friend of mine went up Hunger Mountain, and it was a really fun one.  Lots of steep scrambles at the end, pretty vigorous, and I'm really proud of the kids... because it was not easy.

We were certainly ready for lunch when we got to the top, that's for sure!  Hunger Mountain lived up to it's name.

My lunch

My friend's lunch

My friend and I had some Naturebox Sunny Trails mix, a cheese sandwich, apple slices, Scrabble Cheez-its, some Naturebox Tomato crunch almonds, and a peanut butter & jelly cookie.

The Boy's lunch

The Boy had some Naturebox Zesta Fiesta mix, a Naturebox dried fig (in the green container), a cheese sandwich, Scrabble Cheez-its, apple slices, and a peanut butter & jelly cookie.

The Girl's lunch

The Girl had some Naturebox Lemon Pucker pistachios, a Naturebox dried fig (in the green container), a cheese sandwich, Scrabble Cheez-its, apple slices, and a peanut butter & jelly cookie.

I thought I'd recreate the Stowe Pinnacle cracker moment...

My friend had an addition to make.

Recipe: King Arthur Flour Rich Crackers - Alphabet Style!

Don't miss your chance to enter my NatureBox giveaway!

I happened to be off work this afternoon, and The Girl is on a playdate, so I decided to have a baking project with The Boy.  He is in love with all things letters and numbers, and a dear friend sent us a set of the Fred Letter Pressed cutters a while ago, so I figured we should use them!  (Oh, how I yearn for the number set!)

I wanted to make some crackers, but I didn't want to make cheese crackers.  I wanted something more versatile crackers, more like Ritz.  So - I popped onto the King Arthur Flour website, and clicked on their fabulous online chat with a Baker's Hotline representative.  I shared with her the cutters I wanted to use, and the type of crackers I wanted to use, and she advised me to try their recipe for Rich Crackers.  Since I didn't have any cream or half and half on hand, I asked her what she thought of substituting some of my homemade yogurt (thinned with whey drained from it), and she thought that would work out well.  I love the Baker's Hotline!  Did you know that you can ask them about any recipe, not just King Arthur Flour recipes?  So handy!

I did find that the crackers lost their definition some when they were baked, eve though I popped the pans into the freezer for a few minutes before baking.  These cutters would be improved by decoration - either with food coloring or icing (if making cookies).  I'll keep that in mind next time we use them.  As it is, we pressed them again as soon as they came out of the oven, and that helped a little.

The Boy had a good time helping me, and we even made some bus crackers with dough that was leftover after one round of the alphabet!

(To get to the recipe, click on the link)

We all love playing with our food!