Halloween Lunches

I've been meaning to post these all week!

Here are a few of our recent bentos - lots of Halloween fun if you're looking for some inspiration today! :)

This lunch was packed in our Laptop Lunchbox. Andrew had a cutie with a little leaf pick so it looked like a pumpkin, ghostly strawberries, spidery ham and cheese, Scooby bones, cucumbers with ranch dressing for dipping and monster eyed popcorn. Adorable!

Andrew asked for a monster Oreo so he got a little treat this day. :) He also had stamped jack-o-lantern sandwiches highlighted with an orange food marker, an orange cup with spider webbed cheerios, BOO! berries, cucumber with dressing for dipping and yogurt raisins. I made a little pumpkin pick with a puffy sticker and a toothpick too. What a super easy way to dress up a lunch! This was all packed in the PlanetBox.

We made it to Halloween day! Whew!

I made little jack-o-lantern chips out of tortillas, a pumpkin cookie cutter and a few little pieces from this face making set. You could also just use a knife, but it was nice to have the help with the cutters. Andrew thought the monster face on the left was super spoooooooky, which he loved! Ha!

(Here's a link to a full tutorial on the jack-o-lantern chips. Caroline and I are having ghost chips for lunch! You can do a lot using this technique.)

He had ham rollups with a ghost pick, spider web carrots, yogurt with ghost sprinkles and raspberries with candy eyes.

And that's the end of our Halloween bentos for the year! I'm a little sad, but kinda ready to get back to normal lunches too. I've got some cute fall ideas and then maybe a Christmas lunch or two, but I don't want to get too ahead of myself. Ha!

Have a super fun Halloween with your little ones today! I can't wait to go trick-or-treating with my little skeleton and bumble bee tonight! :)

Andrew's Blue Bicycle

We really wanted to get Andrew a bicycle as a little moving/transition gift this summer when we moved to the new house. But you need to be super responsible and able to follow directions to ride a bike in a busy neighborhood, and we were worried that Andrew was a little lacking in the "able to follow directions" category this summer. Ha!

But getting back into a school routine seems to have helped a bit, so we went ahead and surprised him with a shiny new bike last weekend!

To say he was excited would be an understatement!

He was so fearless - hopping right on and peddling like he totally knew what he was doing.

He took a little direction from Brian, but he really figured it out on his own and has only fallen a few times. He's mostly been riding around in our driveway, which has the smallest of inclines. As long as he can use a space in the garage to get some momentum he can get right up that mini hill.

But sometimes he gets stuck and gets really frustrated. We're working on problem solving and calmly asking for help. :)

We also talked about what some of our bike riding rules should be, and he came up with:

-not running over his sister or the dog
-staying on the sidewalk and not going into the street
-always wearing his helmet

Not bad...I felt a little better about the whole thing when he started off with don't run over my sister.

And I think we've finally found something that is going to wear him out! It's a lot of work to peddle around for hours!

I'm a proud mama!

PS. Brian picked out the bike and crazy robot dragon helmet on his own, and I think he did an awesome job! Andrew keeps making up stories about robot dragons - I think that means he likes it! Ha!

Ghostly Bentos

Halloween style bentos are here! Sorry I'm a little late in sharing these, but you still have plenty of time to get your October creativity in gear! :)

You can also follow me on Instagram to see our lunches in real time. I don't post them all, but I do share quite a few. 

Tuesday, Oct. 1

Pumpkins! This lunch was packed in our PlanetBox and included a pumpkin shaped sandwich, carrots and hummus (which he didn't eat, but I tried), scooby snack bones, strawberries with a fall leaf pick and a few gummy snacks for a treat. The pumpkin was a little boring so I added the green leaf and a piece of green baran.

Thursday, Oct. 3

Caroline had ham roll-ups with pumpkin shaped cheese toppers, TJ's pirate's booty, apple slices and a mini cup filled with yogurt covered raisins. Her lunch was packed in this little apple box.

Andrew had another spooooooky lunch! He had turkey on ghost toppers, yogurt with two different kinds of Halloween sprinkles, apple slices and Triscuits.

Monday, Oct. 7

Monday mornings are crazy at our house and I bet ours is not the only one. This lunch was kind of a mess, but it was cute and Andrew was happy. He had a ghost sandwich with candy eyes, "monster" orange slices, strawberries, Truscuits and a cereal bar.

Tuesday, Oct. 8

Ahhh...much more together on a Tuesday. :) This lunch was packed in our two-tier panda box. Andrew had turkey roll-ups with a friendly fox pick, scooby bones, star shaped pumpkin spice bread in a star silicone cup, carrots and strawberries.

Thursday, Oct. 10

Caroline's little lunch was packed in our Yumbox. She had Hello Kitty sandwiches, pop chips and goldfish, carrots and apple slices and a few m&m's.

I sent Andrew with yet more scooby bones, a puzzle shaped ham and mustard sandwich, apple slices, celery and peanut butter in the blue cup with a few m&m treats in the PlanetBox.

Do you know the trick to keeping your apples from turning brown? Lemon juice! I think there are actually quite a few ways to keep them fresh, but I like to soak ours for a few minutes in a little bit of lemon juice water after I've sliced them. They'll stay nice and crisp and not brown for hours.

I gave a short talk on bento lunches last week at a friend's PTO meeting. I was embarrassed, and messed up the microphone a bunch, but other than that I think it went okay. :)

I'm planning to summarize my talk and put together a post on getting started with bentos - sharing my favorite boxes and where to start. Soon, I hope!

Making Time

Y'all, I've lost my blogging mojo.

I don't know what happened.

I think of all these topics I want to blog on and post about and then, I'm just not making time for it...

I started working out with a trainer back in March. She's awesome, and I feel great. So that gets a little of my time, but not much because it's such a super efficient workout.

I'm going to sleep earlier. That's helping me feel better too - more awake and aware. Don't get me wrong - I still need at least two cups of coffee a day, but I'm not yawning all afternoon anymore, so that's an improvement.

I'm spending what seems like hours sitting in the bathroom with Caroline while she tinkles just a squirt on her potty and then talks about tinkling and then sings about tinkling and then I finally chase her down and put a diaper on her and she says, "I tinkled. Change diaper?"

I'm not sure exactly what Andrew's doing during these long minutes I'm hanging out in the bathroom. Mostly building with his Legos or watching Scooby I think.

It makes me proud that he's capable of keeping himself occupied for long stretches of time without needing too much from me. I love the independence. It's one of the traits I most want to foster in my children. Which makes me worry I'm just neglecting them and not giving them every opportunity to grow.

Like maybe they need to be playing soccer and singing in the choir and going back to swimming lessons, which are all things we decided not to do this fall. Instead we're taking them to the pumpkin patch and the SMU Boulevard to tailgate before football games, and teaching them (well, Andrew) about fantasy football and why we love the Cowboys, and going for long walks in our new neighborhood, hanging out with our cousins and making new friends at tennis lessons on Friday mornings.

I'm also spending way too much time reading fashion blogs and thinking about my fall wardrobe which is just silly, but also super important to me because just because we're moms, in and out of preschool pickup and Target all day, doesn't mean we have to wear yoga pants if we're not going to yoga. I need some style.

I'm making a conscious effort to go through my closet and find things that I feel good in and wear them again, mix them up in new ways.

How are you spending your days this fall?

*All photos taken with my awesome, yet neglected 50mm and Canon 7D in our playroom in the natural afternoon light while my heart swelled with love for these two cuties who can occasionally play in the same room without screaming at each other.

Bento Lunches - Simple and Quick

These latest lunches are a wrap-up of the end of September and our transition into Halloween lunches. I also finally found Andrew's beloved Scooby snack crackers at Target again so you'll be seeing lots of those.

My kids LOVE watermelon, like they could eat an entire melon in a day or two. I'm so sad that its season is ending, but we are also enjoying the heck out of the apples right now. They are so crisp and perfect. I'm hoping they'll fill the void.

What foods are you loving right now?

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Thursday, Sept. 19

Caroline's little lunch was packed in our two-tier panda box. It's tiny but it's great for a little one. She had the beloved watermelon, cheese and ham, goldfish and a few mini crackers. She also got a fruit pouch. She ate all but the cheese - my kids have suddenly stopped eating cheese?? I don't know what's going on.

Andrew had mini ham sandwiches stamped with the school bus from this set. He also had apples, a cutie and pumpkin spice bread cut with these flower cutters to fit in the orange cup. This lunch was packed in the Lego box. I'm loving little sandwich stampers this year. They make a big impact, but are so quick to put together!

Monday, Sept. 23

This lunch in our PlanetBox totally ended up looking patriotic. I will remember that striped apple with the blue cup next Fourth of July!

Andrew had a CuteZCute kitty sandwich, apples with peanut butter in a sauce cup, grapes, pretzels and celery with a few M&Ms for a treat.

Tuesday, Sept. 24

Andrew had a very colorful lunch packed in the laptop box: ham roll-ups with ketchup, carrots and watermelon, a few of those scooby snacks and more pumpkin spice bread. I threw in a few fruit picks to jazz it up.

Thursday, Sept. 26

Caroline was home sick and I was in a hurry to get her to a doctors appointment that morning so Andrew's lunch was super rushed.

I kind of decided to go with a green theme. :) His lunch was packed in the Lunchbots Duo. He had ham roll-ups with ketchup in a green cup, grapes, cashews, a cutie in an orange cup, and scooby snacks in another green silicone cup. He asked for superhero rings too. The batman fit perfectly on top of the orange.

Monday, Sept. 30

This was so cute! It would have been even better if Andrew could read that it says Panda, but I told him what it said so I'm hoping he remembered. :)

This was packed in our panda shaped box. He had more ham roll-ups, celery and carrot sticks and two panda dipping cups - one with peanut butter and one with ketchup. He also had green grapes and pop chips. I spelled out panda with these ABC picks.

We're now into October and I've started some pumpkin/ghost/fall themed lunches.

I'll have them ready to share next week!

Welcome October

We were hopping out of the car when Caroline spotted the Halloween decor in the window at the little gift shop next door to the gym.

"Look mama!"

"Oh, I see all the Halloween decorations. What is Caroline going to be for Halloween?"

"Little monster!"

Well, that's not really what I had in mind for my beautiful little girl's third Halloween costume. A princess? Super Girl? Maybe a ballerina?

Andrew wants to be a skeleton. Ugh! Surely I can have one cute, sweetly costumed kiddo, right?

We've penciled in our trip to the pumpkin patch for the month. There's a fall fest at church on our calendar. Our new neighbors are already talking about what fun it is to trick-or-treat on our street and Andrew is so excited that Halloween falls on a school day this year.

I think October is the best month. I'm not stressed out about Christmas and its trees and presents yet. There are very few 90+ degree days and the mornings are cool and fresh. And there's candy and treats and parties.

So welcome October. I'm happy to see you, even if I end up with a little monster and a skeleton for my trick-or-treat companions.