Fall Lunch to Go

We took a trip to one of our favorite places today, Longwood Gardens.  If you live in the Philadelphia area, you should check it out if you haven't already!  It so beautiful there, and so big that we can discover something new every time we go!  I knew we would be seeing lots of fall things today, so I wanted to pack a fall themed lunch to go along with our day.  I saw these leaves made out of apple slices on Pinterest (can't find the source, apologies to the original blogger!) and I've been wanting to try them!  I dipped them in orange juice so they would look just as nice when it was lunchtime (without the sour taste of lemon juice).

Leaf PB&J sandwich, pretzels, dried apricot and pretzel pumpkins, and apple slice leaves.

Nuts about fall

We took a walk today and discovered lots of acorns.  We gathered them, looked at them, took them apart, and talked about what they are and who eats them.  Then we had a ball throwing them into the creek!  I wanted to keep it going and incorporate acorns into lunch today.  My acorn cookie cutter is pretty small so I had to expand the scene a bit!

The tree is bread crusts and leaves cut out of a cheese quesadilla (on a spinach/garlic tortilla), the squirrel is an avocado and tomato sandwich, the grass is more of the quesadilla, and the acorns and squirrel's eye are cut out from a flattened granola bar.

Baby's first food!

I'm going to take a break from our regularly scheduled program to share with you my son, Brayden's first food!  He turned 6 months today and we celebrated with some avocado!  The first thing Gianna did was go into my cookie cutter drawer and brought me one to "make Brayden's lunch pretty." :)

We do Baby-led Weaning (BLW) with our kids, which means skipping purees and cereals and starting with age appropriate table food at 6 months or later.  We had a fantastic experience with Gianna, and we are so excited to start Brayden's BLW journey!  If you are interested in reading about BLW, I would suggest Gill Rapley's book, Baby-Led Weaning

The way I prepared Brayden's avocado was I quartered it lengthwise and peeled it halfway down.  This gave him a handle on the slippery avocado.

Whoooo's hungry?

We love owls!  I was trying to think of something I could make out of the mini pitas and I thought owls would work.  I can't turn down anything owls, they are too darn cute! Brayden (my almost 5 month old) is sporting his owl babylegs today and Gianna went and changed into her fleece owl pants after lunch ("to match her plate").  Speaking of owls, I came across this today and I think this will be making it's way into my house soon.  How could I resist?? {ridiculously cute owl toy}

Sorry, getting back on track- here is Gianna's owl lunch!

The owls are whole wheat pitas with roasted red pepper hummus inside, the decorations are apple, yellow pepper, and chocolate chips.  The tree branch is a fruit twist and the leaves are kale.

Birds of a feather

It was a dreary, rainy morning here.  On our way to preschool we saw some ducks in a big puddle, and Gianna decided ducks are her, "very most favorite bird." :) I decided to surprise her with a duck themed lunch when she got home.  She really liked it, and while she was eating she saw a robin outside.  She exclaimed, "Mommy!  Robins are my favorite bird!" .....oh well, I tried!

The ducks are cinnamon raisin peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with raisin eyes, blueberry water, dried apricot fish, spinach tortilla plants, and yogurt raisin clouds.

Lunch for a busy day

I got an e-mail from a reader (who found me on Pinterest, if you haven't joined- you should!) who asked me if I make scenes out of Gianna's lunches everyday.  Short answer is no!  We are pretty busy around here, between the toddler and the baby sometimes it's lunchtime before we know it with no time to make anything fancy.  Today we went grocery shopping and by the time we got home and I got all the groceries up a flight of stairs and put away, the baby was screaming and Gianna was whining for lunch (ahh! This mom thing is exhausting!!).  So I did a quick lunch, veggie pinwheels.  They are a great way to use up any fresh veggies that are in your fridge.  I mix some dry ranch dressing mix into cream cheese and spread on a tortilla, sprinkle some finely chopped fresh veggies over top (I used cucumbers and red peppers today) and some shredded cheese and roll it up! You can serve as is or chop it into pieces like I did.  I used some silicone muffin cups to put pretzels and blueberries in, and done!

I hope everyone is having a great start to their week!

Ba ba black sheep

Ok, well I guess it would be ba ba white sheep:) I had some white bread in the house which is rare for us, so I thought I would make a sheep today! Gianna liked it and ate it all up:) Preschool is sure making her hungry!!


The grass is celery, flowers are dried mango, sandwich is ham , cheese, and tomato, clouds are cauliflower, and sun is mandarin oranges.

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A day at the beach

It's still warm out, but that fall feeling is starting to hang in the air.  Before we get into pumpkins and leaves, I thought I would do a summertime beach lunch!  Gianna had her first day of preschool today, and she was so hungry when she got home.  Excuse the cell phone picture, but she dug in before I could get out the camera! 

Sand is a cheese quesadilla on a wheat tortilla, the crab is red pepper, the ocean is blueberry greek yogurt, the fish are cheese, the beach umbrella is a green bean chip, mandarin oranges and red pepper, and the sun is a dried apricot and cheese.

In the garden

Gianna has a fever today, so no time for fun food!  I thought I would bring up an older lunch that I hadn't blogged about before.  This was a fun one!  Gianna loved the little butterfly, and she keeps asking me to make more.  They are really easy to do, I just used a heart shaped cookie cutter on the cheese and then cut that in half.  I think I will try to incorporate a butterfly into Monday's lunch! 

Green bean chips, peanut butter and nutella sandwiches, green pepper, cheese, and grapes

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!!

A Breakfast Tree

I will use today's post to emphasize my philosophy that I'm not out to create perfect pieces of art.  Ok, that's a cop out.  It was early.  Before my coffee.  Gianna wanted to help me make a tree after looking out the window, "like the ones that are outside, Mommy."  So somewhere between morning craziness, we made a tree.  Not my best work, but we did it together!  That's what matters, right? :)

 

The tree is toast with cinnamon raisin peanut butter, watermelon flowers, and tortilla leaves and grass (there's not many green breakfast foods!) 

Two by Two

I hope everyone had a great holiday weekend!  We were so busy, lunches were grab and go.  Now we can get back to it!  Today's lunch was Noah's Ark.  Gianna fed all her animals parts of her sandwich as she ate, and then she told me she couldn't eat her friends:)  Oh well, I guess a lesson in compassion is better than eating a few pieces of cheese!

The boat is a grilled turkey, cheese, and tomato sandwich, cheese animals, pepperoni door and windows, apple clouds and apricot and cheese sun.

Prehistoric Pals

Lunch for two today! I was trying to think of something that both Gianna and her friend would like, and came up with dinosaurs.  Second challenge was not to use any dairy, which Gianna's friend can't have.  Cheese is my go to for a lot of things, so it was fun to come up with something new!

Cinnamon raisin peanut butter and jelly dinosaur sandwiches, raisin eyes, kiwi grass, apple clouds, dried apricot and carrot suns.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

5, 4, 3, 2, 1....

Blast off!


Rockets are a big thing around here lately!  Between the constant playing of Laurie Berkner's Rocket Ship Run CD and an obsession with a certain red rocket on her favorite show, I feel like we are always counting down to blast off!  Needless to say, she was excited for her rocket lunch today.  Her only complaint?  "Mommy, "R" is for rocket, not N...A...S...A."  Instead of trying to explain NASA to a 2 year old, I opted to make her an R.  Silly Mommy for spelling it wrong....:)

Ham, cheese, and tomato sandwich, carrots, yellow raspberries, and star cookies.