Let's Go Swimming!!

Tomorrow my daughter starts swim lessons and since the swim school has a goldfish theme I thought it would make a super cute lunch for camp today.In fact as I took the tour of the school I had all kinds of lunch packing ideas floating through my head. I know I need help, right?

Anyway back to the lunch. I packed it in our Goodbyn Bynto. And if you haven't tried the Odwalla smoothie  boxes you should, they are really yummy!! My daughter loves them and they have no sugar added. There's enough sugar in the peanut butter cup ;) I also think the fish are perfect for summer picnics too! You could even add some goldfish crackers to make it more fishy.

                                                                  Have a great Thursday!!

                                                                              ~Jen

Time on My Hands

One of the comments I get most is "you must have lots of time on your hands". While the comment really bugs me, I understand where it's coming from. I will start off by saying like most moms I do not have enough hours in the day to get everything I would like to get done accomplished.You can tell this by my blog slacking lately ;) So like most of you I have to decide what's a priority for me and my family. One of my top priorities is making sure my daughter eats healthy foods.  Her lunches are a part of that and so I make the time to do them.

With that said most of her lunches take me less than 15 minutes from start to finish. That includes the mad scramble to find the right cutter or pik or any last minute requests! I make them in the morning before school while I enjoy my latte. I suppose I could do them the night before but that's family time as my hubby works alot so for us the morning works best.

As I'm sure you can tell from my lunches some are more detailed than others. And I don't make a "cool" lunch everyday and some days are more healthy than others. The point is you don't need to spend a ton of time to make it fun and healthy and get you kids to eat better lunches. For example, the other day I packed a snack of apple slices and a baby cuke for my daughter in a small bento box. At first it looked like this:

As I was packing it my daughter walked by, picked up a pink dog pik from the counter and stuck it in. It then looked like this:

I don't know about you, but given the choice I'd pick the snack with the doggy in it :)

So it doesn't really matter how much time you have or don't have even something as small as a dog pik can make a big difference. So start small but think big!!

                                                            Have a Great Weekend!!

                                                                     ~Jen

Oh the Thinks You Can Think!!

Today is Dr. Seuss' birthday and what better way to celebrate than with a fun Dr. Seuss themed lunch and blog hop!!  I think the possibilities are endless with Dr. Seuss as a lunch theme. I hope you follow the link at the end of this post to the next awesome blogger who has created a Dr. Seuss lunch of their own! If you follow all the links you will see over 20 different lunch ideas, Oh the Thinks you can Think with all those amazing ideas!! I know I am excited to follow and see what everyone has thought up!

For my daughter's lunch I chose to make the sandwich into the Lorax and the meat stick and cheese are the Truffula trees. I had to have red fish of course( swedish fish are a staple in our house,lol) and the cucumber stars are for the Star-bellied Sneetches ,which is one of her favorite stories! I packed it all up in our new PlanetBox, which so far we like very much ;)  She loved it!! It was also a great way to get ready for The Lorax movie that opens up today too! We are very excited to see it!

If you liked what you saw and want to see more, please follow this link to the blogger next door, I'm sure Keitha's Chaos has great things in store! ( Blog Hop officially goes live March 2nd)

Happy March is Reading month to you all!!

Strawberry-orange Jello Bites!

While cruising around Pinterest the other day, a place I visit too many times in a day,I stumbled upon some really cool strawberry margarita jello shots. I knew that these would make a cool lunch or snack item, all I had to do was remove the alcohol !! Easy Peasy! I used orange jello for mine but I think lime, strawberry or really any flavor you have would work as well.

To start I washed and dried my strawberries. Then I cut the bottoms flat so they could stand on their own. You only need to cut a tiny bit on most of them. I put the bits  I cut off  on my salad for lunch since I hate wasting! Then I used  my strawberry huller to clean off the tops and insides. It works great for this. If you don't have a huller a small sharp knife will work too. Next I made the jello and used a straw to easily get the jello into the strawberries. The I put them in the fridge. Once they were done I used sour apple Laffy Taffy to make the  "stems". * Do not put the "stems" in until ready to serve, the Laffy Taffy can get weird in the fridge*

My daughter who does not like jello, I know it's hard to believe their is a kid who won't eat it, even liked them!  I think they make a cute party snack as well and are perfect size for lunches!

I still plan to make the margarita ones for a Mom's Night Out sometime because even moms want a cool treat ;)


Jen

Dolphin Tale

This weekend my daughter will be going to her BFF's b-day party. They will be going to the movies to see Dolphin Tale. So when I stumbled upon a dolphin sandwich cutter the other day, I knew I had to do a lunch to honor her b-day.

I used the Goodbyn Bynto for this one. We have dolphin ham sandwiches for which I used my food writers to add eyes and a mouth. Fish butter cookies that have chocolate on the back for a treat, and a beach umbrella in the red peppers. I think it turned out cute.  Here is what the cutter looks like:

I found the cutter by accident at my local Wal-Mart store when I ran in for a few things. As we waited in the 10 items or less line I noticed some things hanging behind the counter by the cigarettes and low and behold they were sandwich cutters. I have no idea why they were hanging there, it's not like they are high ticket theft items, it was only $1.98!! And I am not sure how they go with cigarettes either, but it just goes to show you always have to have your eyes open for cool stuff!