A belated Faith & Ben Wednesday

Oops, forgot to post this one. It was a none too exciting Wednesday, full of leftover and more leftovers. Oh, and a bunch of stuff out of my freezer stash which does *not* look appetizing when it's still in the frozen state. For the record, the quiches and berries still have a bit of ice on them, not anything fuzzy! ;o)




Both kiddos had the same lunch again--a ham & cheese quiche (still frozen in the photo), the last bit of pasta salad, melons & berries (which are also still frozen in the picture), a half of a heart cake, and a few animal crackers to hold it all in place.

It was all eaten, so I assume it looked more appetizing by the time lunch rolled around.

A None Too Exciting Monday

Since I spent most of the weekend with a wicked sore throat and other varying illness effects, Monday was not an exciting lunch day. Thankfully, Shaun had made the kids mac&cheese and sausages on Sunday for lunch, so I had enough of that leftover to turn it into cold pasta salad. They both really like it, so no one came home with any food leftover.




Both kids have the aforementioned pasta salad, a half of a heart shaped cupcake thing (leftover from Valentine's Day), grapes/pineapple/canteloupe/honeydew, and (not picture) a container of vanilla yogurt. It was the best I could do under the circumstances, falling over and playing dead is just not a good option for mommies.

Faith on a Friday

Last day of the week for Faith and I decided, to ward off the temptation of buying fast food when I went to pick her up, I'd make sure to send her a lunch. She is the easier of the two kids (as in she eats everything I send her), so I poked in the freezer and fridge for a quick & easy lunch.


She had a chicken & veggie stuffed muffin, carrot sticks with ranch dip (note to self: out of most veggies), canteloupe & pineapple (and a lone grape), and some animal crackers. Easy, quick and all eaten!

More Matching Meals, but on a Wednesday

I couldn't come up with a good W word for alliterative purposes, so it's "M" once again.

I really think part of the catch to speeding up the whole bento packing issue is making the kids eat the same lunch. I can pack things much quicker if I'm not having to make two separate meals. The other part involves leftovers and/or freezer stashes.





For today's purposes, I combined same lunch with leftovers, leaving me with a very quickly finished lunch. F&B had grilled sesame chicken and cheese skewers (chicken leftover from a Thai restaurant the other night). Underneath that, thought it is hard to see, is a flat bread stuffed with roasted red pepper and white cheddar cream cheese. They also have carrot sticks, a mini blueberry muffin, a cup of mixed fruit (canteloupe, pineapple, honeydew and grapes), and a few cinammon goldfish to fill in a gap in the boxes!

Matching Monday Muffins and More

OK, the alliteration is a bit much, but I don't exactly have a more creative title. I also had less than creative ideas for lunches so I asked F&B what they wanted. High on the list was blueberry muffins because we have a nice batch of really soft yummy ones right now, so we started with those and expanded.



Each kiddo has a corn dog muffin (as always, yuck, but they love them, and at least I made them so they aren't chockful of ickiness), a blueberry muffin, grapes, blueberries and carrot sticks. Easy enough and they wanted bone shaped containers which *are* dishwasher safe, so an added bonus for me!

Single Lunch Friday - Faith

And just Faith needed a Friday lunch. As was evident in the last post, I no longer had deli meat to use in her lunch. I still cannot believe I left it out, considering I had a ton of other foods to put away and I put Ben's entire lunchbag in the fridge.

Either way, I came up with a no-meat Plan B, only to be informed that it was not nearly enough food for my starving 6 year old. Granted, she had breakfast at 7, a snack at 9:30 and lunch at 11, and I picked her up shortly after, but she's staaaaarving. ;o)



Miss Faith had the same pasta salad Ben did on Wednesday with her more cheese hearts, a blueberry muffin (yummy!) and a bunch of grapes. I really considered it more of a snack-lunch than a lunch, since she isn't in school for the afternoon.

Single Lunch Wednesday - Ben

Wednesday was hot lunch (pizza) day for Faith, so only Ben needed a lunch. Since his school celebrated Valentine's on Wednesday, he needed some hearts to be festive.

Ben has pasta salad (leftover from our dinner) with a skewer of deli turkey and some cheese hearts, a mini heart cup of cinnamon goldfish, and mixed berries (blueberries, blackberries and strawberries).

If I may make a suggestion to all, it is definitely beneficial to put the brand new pack of deli meat *back* in the fridge when you are finished instead of leaving it on the counter overnight. If you do, you end up throwing it out and mumbling about $3 down the drain for most of the next afternoon.

Monday Lunches & Bento Napkins

Alrighty, backdating these posts a little to find the right days, since I forgot to post this week. In my defense, well, I don't have a defense. Does sleepy count? :o)

I had another go round of matching Monday lunches. It does make my world sooooooo much easier if I only need one idea and two of each part.


Faith's lunch in her Strawberry Shortcake box, divider removed


Ben's lunch in a Spongebob box, divider removed

For Monday, the kids each had a homemade ham & cheddar quiche, a quarter of a mini bagel with the yummy parmesan and herb spread, a mini vanilla cupcake, grapes & canteloupe and apple slices.

But even more fun was Sunday's project. I've been wanting to get the kids reusable napkins for their lunches since they both seem to think that if a napkin has so much as a crumb on it, it must be crumpled up and thrown in the trash. This drives me crazy, especially since I can at least spray down the table and wipe it up with a napkin. So, out came the sewing machine and a bunch of scrap material. The result was a cute patterned side with a solid flannel reverse, and a bit of fusible interfacing inbetween to hold the shape.


I made two to start--ballerinas for Faith & Cars for Ben with solid white flannel on the back. As soon as I buy more interfacing, I want to make at least two more per kid since we tend to do three lunches per week per kid.

Just Ben Wednesday

Only the boy needed lunch for Wednesday, so I asked him what he felt like having. My darling little guy wanted a sandwich. ;o) But not just any sandwich, it had to be in shapes. Thankfully, he didn't care what shapes, so I didn't have to work too hard finding the right cookie cutters.


Ben has turkey/cheese/parmesan herb cream cheese sandwiches shaped like bears (4) and turtles (2), a few chocolate goldfish, lots of melons and grapes, and a container of vanilla yogurt. I am not noticing that the box divider looks a little warped, oops.

And another Monday

I figured, why not dip into my freezer stash? What's the point of doing all the baking and not reaping the benefit? So I did.

The only potential downside I see is that the corn muffin based entrees are a little low on the protein (the quiches are fine). However, F&B fell in love with this white cheddar & roasted red pepper spread that we bought at Kroger the other day, so a good blob of that on some mini bagel up the protein. It's a Philadelphia cracker spread and so yummy. We bought that and a parmesan and herb one!





They had matching lunches--a chicken & veggie stuffed muffin, a quarter of a mini bagel with a white cheddar & red pepper cream cheese, a ton of canteloupe/honeydew/grapes, and a little mini muffin cup with Valentine M&Ms. :o)