I recently blogged about my discovery of Bento and all the impressive, inspiring lunches and snacks to be found online. Well I'm the type that once I'm inspired I want to gets started right away. Here is a progression of the lunches and snacks I've come up with since discovering how much fun I could have. Forgive the not so impressive photos, my kids love to eat and I had to just snap quick iPhone pics before they gobbled these up.
First "inspired" lunch: Trader Joe's Cinnamon Schoolbook Cookies, crinkle cut baby carrots, turkey and cheese skewers on the Wilton
"Add a Message Fun Pix" I found at Hobby Lobby, and a Peep with a special note for dessert. Upon presenting this lunch I was told "You are the best mom ever. This is the best lunch ever. I love you so much." And then Cali offered me full spa services in her room after lunch to include a back rub, hairstyling, hand lotion, sparkly lip gloss, pretend makeup and pretend toe polish.
First bento style snack: Half a
Cara Cara orange (pre-sliced then wrapped in Cling Wrap), baby carrots, Emeralds cocoa roasted almonds, Trader Joe's Oat n Wheat Bran Swirls, and a yogurt drink. While my
easylunchboxes were on order, I was happy to find these Sterlite brand locking top containers for only $2 at the big box store. This is one of the smallest sizes and it fits a surprising amount! This was for our nature center day where they play and play as long as they don't get too hungry so I packed a healthy variety.
This is the same snack as above, you can see there is plenty of room for food and even space for an ice pack on top thanks to the domed lid. I had to think hard whether I could keep the ice pack in there though and decided against it because I figured the condensation would make the crunchy snacks soggy.
Snack: Apple, half a peanut butter and honey sandwich, Trader Joe's Oat n Wheat Bran Swirls, and a salt water taffy treat. I was excited a whole apple could fit! Note these are very small apples though not just any apple would fit.
Weekend Lunch: Crinkle cut carrots, Cara Cara orange, cheese (they each have a preference), yogurt drink, and peanut butter w/ marshmallow fluff crackers.
Snack: Strawberries in baby food box, Scrabble Jr. Cheez-Its, granola bar. The picks were an Easter clearance find. I decided my boy wouldn't mind the flowers, and he didn't. They did tell me I should've written their names and a note on the back though. Had this in the car on a busy, hot day. Should've put them in an insulated bag because the berries got too warm and "yucky" and the chocolate chips in the granolas were all melted and messy.
Lunch for D, all by his request: Shelled pistachios, Cara Cara orange, Triscuits with reduced fat cream cheese, lettuce from the neighbor's garden.
Snack: Apples, crinkle cut baby carrots, fruit leather puzzle (see below) and Trader Joe's Oat n Wheat Bran Swirls.
Fruit leather puzzles. These are Trader Joe's brand, boysenberry flavor. These came about because I didn't have any cookie cutters that were small enough to fit within one strip of the fruit leather. I placed the two strips side by side, cut the boy and girl shapes then cut the strips in half to form two separate puzzles. The kids really thought this was fun!
A grown-up lunch! Turkey pastrami, spinach and mustard on an Everything Bagel Thin, tomatoes to add before eating, bottom of the bag Sun Chips, string cheese. 
Kid lunches, served as a backyard picnic. Tuna salad (by request!), low fat Ritz, crinkle cut cucumbers, fresh strawberries with chocolate sprinkles. My tuna salad includes Olive Oil Mayo, chopped dill pickle, black pepper, and feta cheese. 
Lunch for one, served at the table. Turkey pastrami, string cheese pre-strung because he likes that, pretzels, baby spinach leaves (aka bunny leaves), watermelon. 
New suppplies to use: forks from Michaels and turtle silicon cups from HL. Triple decker PB, honey & banana (because I only had 3 slices of bread), cheese, cucumber cubes, Cara Cara orange, Scrabble Cheez-Its. 
Favorite apples, goldfish, cheerios mixed with bits of dried pineapple. They had both asked for dried pineapple recently so they were pleasantly surprised by this snack. 
Apples, goldfish, and homemade "Powerballs." Powerballs are a mix of PB, honey, flax seed, oats, white chocolate chips and dried pineapple. These were a big hit! I will post the recipe in the near future. 
Apples, Powerballs, graham crackers.
