The Holidays Are Upon Us!

It feels like I have been going straight out since Halloween!  I have been making lunches and I have even been photographing them.  I just haven't had the time to upload the pics.  I volunteer at D's school once a week and we have been crafting our brains out for the holidays.  I took the pics for our Christmas card and took pics for the grandparents' Christmas gifts.  Christmas shopping has taken up a huge chunk of time and so has gift wrapping.  We have all been sick and to the doctors' office during this time as well.  I am hoping things will slow down for us and get back to normal after the holidays....but no promises!

Days 142-144

Day 142 D has cold cut/cheese/olive kabobs, 1/2 banana and some chocolate chips.

Day 143 is a Ladybug turkey sandwich, with purple and green pepper strips and a kitkat.

Day 144 we have fun shaped cheese ravioli, orange supremes, strawberries,  a little container of marinara to dip her raviolis and couple of strawberry filled cookies.

D did not go to school on Thursday and today is a holiday (Veteran's Day) so we are laying low at home, being very thankful for all of the service men and women who sacrafice so much for us.

Rough week

I promise I fed my kids this week.  I have just been really sick and there was nothing fancy going on...so I didn't photograph anything...with any luck I'll be back to 100% next week.

Day 141

Yesterday for lunch D had a chicken sandwich with a cheese jack o' lantern on top and a jack o' lantern apple with some grapes.

Today she has a thermos of beef stew with some whole grain crackers.

Day 139 and 140

 Day 139 D has chicken/apple sausages, grapes, a couple slices of blueberry bagel, yogurt with blueberries.

Day 140 Lunch today is meatballs/pasta with red sauce, apples and caramel dip.

Day 138

Today D has potstickers, chicken meatballs, pea pods, carrot, red and yellow pepper flowers and butterflies, sweet and sour dipping sauce,  a small bottle of soy sauce and a couple of grapes.

Days 133 - 137

Day 133 is Pizza strips, milk, yogurt with blueberries.

Day 134 is Spinach ravioli with pesto kabobs, red peppers, yellow peppers, fresh mozarella, granola bar and some raisins.

Day 135 is an apple/cream cheese sandwich on maple cinnamon bread, yogurt and blueberries.

Day 136 Breakfast for lunch.  Mini pancakes, grapes and sausage with maple syrup.

Day 137 Fingers/toes!!  hotdogs, peas, grapes, fresh mozarella pearl "eyeballs" and some bloody ketchup for dipping.

132

Monday D had a turkey BLT, carrot sticks and a babybell cheddar cheese jack o' lantern.  Her sandwich is decorated with cheese, nori and gummy teeth.

And my great niece arrived safe and sound on 10/7/11.  Mom and baby are both doing great!

Days 127 through 131

What a week this has been!  It started on Monday with a migrating kidney stone...it didn't pass but has stopped moving.  So it's just in there like a ticking time bomb...good times!  Then 3 of us had Wellness visits this week.  Today my niece is in the hospital in labor!  Just a crazy hectic week!  I did manage to make lunch every day though!

For Monday D has rainbows & butterflies salad, meatballs and yogurt with blueberries.

Tuesday she had lunchmeat sushi, salami/cheese flower and grapes.

Wednesday she had peanut butter/nutella sandwich, yogurt with strawberries, cheese stick and grapes.

Thursday she had a lunchable, ham and bologna stars, bagel slices with cream cheese, carrots, grapes with cranberry cheddar cheese.

Last but not least today she has chicken salad pockets, grapes, cheese sticks and some cubed up Lara bar.

Day 126

D's lunch today is champagne grapes, strawberries, chicken/apple sausage and some cubes of cheese pizza.

I don't usually include her afternoon snack in my post but I was pretty excited about how it turned out!  I printed out a picture of hello kitty 1.5 in. by 2in. and just traced it with a tooth pick!

Day 125

Today D has a beef slider on a mini pretzel bagel w/ketchup, cucumber slices, a couple of grapes on the flower pick, milk, homemade yogurt with strawberries.

Days 122, 123 & 124

Monday D had chicken gyoza, dipping sauce, carrots, peas, cheese stick, mini strawberry candybar, milk, apple with biscoff and decorated with purple potato and cheese butterflies.

Tuesday she had bologna, fresh mozzarella, peas, grapes and watermelon there is a watermelon radish heart on the cheese.

Wednesday she had fun shapes raviolis with pesto, 3 cherry tomatoes, milk and homemade greek yogurt with strawberries.

Days 119, 120 & 121

Day 119

Slider burger (burger has shredded carrots and zuchini in it), peas, brownie, under the blue cap is some applesauce and a purple potato/cheese flower.

Day 120

By request D had lunch meat "sushi" again, pretzel crisps, raisins, grape heart, milk, sliced apples with some Biscoff for dipping.

Day 121

Pizza strip/turkey pepperoni sprinkled on top, cheese stick, grapes and mini "caramel" apples that D, A and I made using this recipe from Family Fun.

Day 118

This hamburger box really holds a lot of food, too much food for D's appetite.  There is a thin layer that I didn't even put anything in.  So the bottom bun has chicken/cheese quesadilla with a small cup of salsa, the lettuce layer has some grapes and a brownie. 

Recipe

I adapted this recipe from Vocalpoint for Breakfast Cookies.

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour or whole grain pastry flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup Apple sauce
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup agave syrup
 2 medium eggs, lightly beaten
2 tablespoons fat-free milk
1 1/2 tablespoons vanilla extract
2 T boiled cider
 2 1/4 cups quick-cooking oats
1/2 cup  raisins
2T Chia Seeds
 2 scoops chocolate Whey Crisps

Preheat the oven to 350.  Lightly grease a 9x13 inch pan.

Combine all dry ingredients in a large bowl.  In a seperate bowl mix all the wet ingredients until combined.  Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and stir until well combined.  Pour into pan and spread into an even layer.  Bake for 19-23 minutes or until a tooth pick insterted in the center comes out clean.  Allow to cool and cut into granola bar sized pieces.

Day 117

For lunch D has turkey/salami/cheese "sushi", grape heart, apple slices with some biscoff to dip it in.  Purple potato and cheese flower.  I also packed a pretzel rod but it didn't make it into the picture.

Day 116

For lunch today D has peas/carrots, muffaletta bean salad in the butterfly, chicken/apple sausage, chocolate soy milk, and 3 mini pumpkin muffins with cream cheese and hello kitty candies.

The Muffaletta Salad was adapted from a recipe by Shelly over at The World According To Eggface.

No lunch today :(

D has been dying to buy lunch at school.  Today's lunch was whole wheat pasta and turkey meatballs.  Our district has already done away with flavored milks so I figured today was a good day to let her get it out of her system.  I hope she didn't enjoy it too much!

Day 115

For lunch today D has 3 chicken & turkey meatballs, peas and carrots, grapes, fresh mozarella balls and 2 carob, spirulina energy bites from the health food store. 

I am having some issues with D's lunch/snacks.  She has lunch early and then has her snack in the afternoon.  I think that she is eating all of her snack type foods at lunch and not having snack or getting snack from her teacher (the teacher keeps animal crackers and goldfish in case the kids forget snack).  So I started to pack her afternoon snack seperately from her lunch..I was putting both in her lunch box.  So now I am packing 2 lunch boxes in 2 different sections of her backpack.  Yesterday was the first day for that but she still brought home the main part of her lunch (yesterday being the sandwich).  So I'm thinking maybe I'm packing too many dessert/snack type foods for her.  So today I tried packing a little bit less in her regular lunchbox and instead of a quick granola bar or something for her afternoon snack I stuck in a protein packed homemade greek yogurt.  We'll see what the lunchbox looks like when she gets home!

Day 114

Today I packed D's lunch in her 3 tier hamburger box, but in my rush to get it together I some how forgot to take a pic of the top layer!  It just had a pumpkin muffin in it.

Bottom layer (top picture) is a pb & j (yay her class is not nut free this year!!) Hello Kitty sandwich.  Middle layer is some baby carrots, grapes and grape tomatoes on Hello Kitty picks.

112 & 113

Crazy busy day on Friday.  We are all having trouble adjusting to our new schedule, but we'll get there!  D had a pizza "lunchable".  She had an angel fish and dolphin pizza crust, red container of sauce, cheese, mini turkey pepperoni and olives to put on top.  She also had some clementines.

Today she has a deli meat lunchable.  Ham and turkey flowers, cheese stars with little purple potato stars to decorate it, Kashi sesame crackers, 2 mixed berry protein/energy bar bites that we buy at our local health food store, milk, next to her milk is a Cliff bar for her snack and there is a squeezable banana/applesauce.

Also today I made some pumpkin muffins that will probably show up in the lunch box this week.

I started off with mini icecream cones.

I took a box of white cake mix added a can of pumpkin puree, 3 eggs and about 1/3 C water.  I also added 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 t cloves, 1/2 tsp nutmeg.  I put about 1 1/2 tsp of cake batter into the mini cones and baked them for 15 minutes.  I put a little bit of lightly sweetened cream cheese on top.

Cute right??  I think D will like them!

Day 111

D's lunch today is Smoked Chicken Salad, grapes, whole wheat pita pocket and a small chocolate tofu pudding.

With Hurricane Irene hitting us last week we lost power for a few days.  I was fortunate to not loose much food at all.  I did have a few things defrost and need cooking.  So, I put my smoker to work! 

I kept the chicken salad simple, just the smoked chicken breast, some green onion and mayo.  The tofu pudding is a package of silken tofu, 1/2 tsp Stevia extract, 1/4 c agave syrup, 1/4 c cocoa powder and 3 squares of unsweetened bakers chocolate, melted.  I just whipped it all up with my hand mixer till it was all well blended then I spooned it into the push pop molds and refrigerate till firm.

Day 110

Well it's here, the first day of school! I don't have a pictures of M's lunch today.  She has to catch the bus at 6:30 am so I made her lunch last night between class orientation, dinner and other first day of school prep.  She has a chicken wrap, cucumbers and a pudding.

I made D a lunchable.  She has ham, turkey and bologna stars, cheese flowers (garnished with watermelon radish flowers), 7 grain crackers, a little pumpkin candy, milk, cherry tomato and fresh mozzarella kabob and 2 grape skewers!

And here she is with her princess lunchbox, rockin the zebra print, ready for the bus!

Reality...

The reality is, this summer has been anything but routine.  I had high hopes of posting beautiful lunches all summer long.  Things rarely go as planned.  I decided to take the pressure off of myself and just take the summer off.  When the kids start back to school in September, D will be going to school all day and will need lunch and snack packed.  So on that note...I'll see you in September!

Days 108 and 109

Yesterday the girls had sliders, carrots and green beans.

Today they had cheese quesadillas, cucumbers and purple pepper/watermelon radish decorations.

Day 107

Dentist appointments and errands today so the kids just had a quick grilled cheese sandwich.  No pictures, but I'm trying to stay in the habit of posting!

Day 106

Today's lunch is "teeny weenies", purple pepper strips, baby carrots with ketchup and ranch dip for dipping.

Day 105

Another breakfast for lunch day!

We have scrambled eggs with turkey sausage and buttered toast.  Also carrot sticks, not pictured.

Day 104

Wow!  I am having a rough time adjusting to our new summer routine!  I am so much more busy and my day starts much, much earlier than I am used to!  So here is my first attempt for the summer!

D has a salami sandwich, carrots, yellow cherry tomatoes and cottage cheese with a cucumber and watermelon radish flower.  A has a shrimp salad sandwich.

End of the school year!

Wow it has been crazy with all the end of year activities going on.  I have been so busy that I manage to get a pic of snack but don't manage to get back to it for lunch or to post.  I won't bore you with the pics...how many pics of fruit can you look at really??  LOL

This week is the last week of school for both my kids so once we get settled into our summer routine I'll get back to posting regularly!

Day 103

For snack today D has granola balls and blueberries.  We made the granola balls a little different this time.  I used sunbutter which is a bit more runny than peanutbutter or soy butter.  So to compensate for that I added a tablespoon of chia seeds and 1/3 cup wheat germ.

D is having a friend over for lunch today so we are sticking with tried and true.  Pb & J, grapes and blueberries.

Days 101 and 102

Day 101

For snack D has 2 granola balls and some grapes.

Lunch this day was marinated/grilled chicken and mushrooms, pea pods, applesauce and canteloupe butterflies.

Day 102
I was in a mad rush this morning and didn't get to photograph D's snack but she had yogurt covered pretzels.

Lunch is ham/salami/string cheese/alfalfa sprouts roll ups, cucumber spears, strawberries with canteloupe flowers and butterfly.