A Snail's Pace

I made the mistake of telling Gianna she was walking as slow as a snail on the way home from preschool.  She thought that was a fantastic game, "Look at me, Mommy!  I can walk slow like a snail!" And so we walked....very, very, slow.  And when we finally got home, she asked me, "can I see a snail?"  Since it was quickly approaching nap time and already past lunchtime, I told her I would make snails for her lunch instead of searching for some outside!  Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever seen an actual snail.  Have you?

The snails are tortillas with green fruit roll up antenna and pepperoni smiles, the snail shell is a cheese and turkey pepperoni roll up (she snacked on a few more roll ups while she helped me make lunch), the grass is green bean chips, the butterfly is green grapes and oranges (the rest of the oranges are on the side in a silicone muffin cup)

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!