Many Dino Lunches

 I love my Dinosaur sandwich cutter! It's so easy to make a 'cheat' lunch! I just add my Dinosaur muffin cup, a pick and some store bought biscuits and I'm done!

Gotta love a cute pick!

Here are some other Dino-Lunches the girls have been taking

Details of my tools & toys can be found on this page.

~J

Disclosure: This is not a sponsored post. This post was written for Loving Lunches. No product was received for this post. All opinions expressed are my own, based on my personal experience with the product. This post may contain affiliate links.

The Croods Eep

Miss M has been a bit under the weather and has had some time at home recovering. One thing she's enjoyed is chilling in front of the TV watching movies - don't we all when we're sick? Her current favourite? The Croods! So I made her an Eep lunch to help her feel better :-)

Mandarin and blueberry, sandwich with tortilla art, milk in her Juice in the Box, her favourite bikkies & dip, and an ANZAC biscuit.

Details of my tools & toys can be found on this page.

~J

Disclosure: This is not a sponsored post. This post was written for Loving Lunches. No product was received for this post. All opinions expressed are my own, based on my personal experience with the product. This post may contain affiliate links.

More Mushrooms for Mummy

 A couple more of the lunches and snacks that have sustained me through my working week :-)

Loaded potatoes, roast pumpkin, peas & corn

strawberry hearts with peanut butter-Nutella dip

Nibbles for the markets!

Chicken crimpy biscuits with gherkin dip - its there any better combination?

Apple slices with peanut butter-Nutella dip

Doubling up on the silicon cups to make a lid

English muffin pizza with dinner roll garlic bread

Spaghetti Bolognese with dinner roll garlic bread

Details of my tools & toys can be found on this page.

~J

Disclosure: This is not a sponsored post. This post was written for Loving Lunches. No product was received for this post. All opinions expressed are my own, based on my personal experience with the product. This post may contain affiliate links.

Happy Bento Book Tour

Have you heard the buzz? There's a new Bento book on the shelves! I've loved Anna Adden's work over at Becoming a Bentoholic for some time now, and when the opportunity arose to review her new book Happy Bento!: Lunches on the Go I jumped at the chance.

Anna clearly & concisely walks you through the basics of Bento - from what it is and 'tools of the trade' to techniques to help you achieve the types of lunches pictured in her book. Basic Bentos, Fun Bentos, Special Days, and Season Bentos are all accompanied by crisp and colourful photos with each lunch detailing supplies, ingredients and directions. Where needed photo tutorials are also included. I love that this book covers everything from simple basic bentos and techniques through to somethings that are more advanced and complicated. Something for everyone!

I decided to replicate her Super Mario Bros inspired lunch, not only because it is so cute, but because I've been wanting to make one in my mushroom lunchbox ever since I got it!

I replaced the hotdogs in the book with corndog muffins as we've just been to the circus and I can't get that side-show staple Dagwood Dogs out of my head! Following the directions in the book made creating the Piranha Plant a breeze, although I used regular spaghetti instead of angel hair pasta and didn't cut the small circles from the plant which wold have made it that extra bit cuter.

I bought cherry tomatoes instead of grape but I still think they look quite cute, don't you?

I love this lunch so much I'm taking it to work for myself!

(By the way, if you're quick there's a copy of Happy Bento!: Lunches on the Go up for grabs on Becoming a Bentoholic right now - and the giveaway is open world wide! Check out this post for details.)

Details of my tools & toys can be found on this page.

~J

Disclosure: This is not a sponsored post and no monetary compensation was offered nor provided. This post was written for Loving Lunches and Becoming a Bentoholic who provided an e-copy of the book to review. All opinions expressed are my own, based on my personal experience with the product. This post may contain affiliate links.

Science Week Solar System Bento

 Miss M is loving everything space and particularly Solar System lately. So much who she's actually borrowed this book from the school library twice! The Magic School Bus, Lost in the Solar System was just the push I needed to finally get around to making a solar system lunch!

The Magic School bus here is a Vegemite sandwich decorated with FooDoodlers and fun picks.

I know these planets are a little out of order, but that's the way they fit in the box!

Mars (deep red cherry tomato)

Earth (circle of pear with landmass carvings. Coloured with FooDoodlers)

Venus (marshmallow coloured with FooDoodlers)

Mercury (rice crackers)

The Asteroid Belt (star mini biscuits)

Jupiter (mandarin with grape 'Red Spot')

Saturn  (Smokey Cheese)

Uranus  (Onion & Chive Cheese)

Neptune  (kiwi fruit)

Pluto (kiwi fruit offcut)

Miss M took a yoghurt pouch for her brain break this day.

Details of my tools & toys can be found on this page.

~J

Disclosure: This is not a sponsored post. This post was written for Loving Lunches. No product was received for this post. All opinions expressed are my own, based on my personal experience with the product. This post may contain affiliate links.

Peek-a-Boo Beans Lunch

 Honey loves to play 'peek-a-boo' with her beans and these edamames are so much fun for her! I sent them with some leftover homemade chicken nuggets, strawberries, yoghurt, milk and a sandwich.

 Some cheese arms help her sandwich to get in on the peek-a-boo game too :-)

Details of my tools & toys can be found on this page.

~J

Disclosure: This is not a sponsored post. This post was written for Loving Lunches. No product was received for this post. All opinions expressed are my own, based on my personal experience with the product. This post may contain affiliate links.

Same But Different

 I've been trying to remember to pack some veggies into the girls lunch boxes. Today it was some leftover corn cobs.

Honey took mini pies with sauce, banana, corn, teddy bear sandwich, Gogo Juice, cereal trail mix and yoghurt.

Miss M took corn, yoghurt, teddybear sandwich, banana and Gogo Juice.


Details of my tools & toys can be found on this page.

~J

Disclosure: This is not a sponsored post. This post was written for Loving Lunches. No product was received for this post. All opinions expressed are my own, based on my personal experience with the product. This post may contain affiliate links.

Quick Travel Box Lunch Snack

Did you enter our Juuce in the Box Giveaway? I'm afraid you are too late now :-(. But the good news is the winners will be chosen today! Just as soon as I can get young Honey to have that ever illusive daytime nap. . . .

In the meantime, here's the travel boxes I made for the girls when we did a small road trip over the last school holidays. Our Decor Quarters contain chicken crimpies, square sandwiches, grapes and strawberries. Our Juice in the Boxes contained water.


Details of my tools & toys can be found on this page.

~J

Disclosure: This is not a sponsored post. This post was written for Loving Lunches. No product was received for this post. All opinions expressed are my own, based on my personal experience with the product. This post may contain affiliate links.

Lunch fit for a Queen

We celebrated the Queen's Birthday a few weeks ago and I though it the perfect opportunity for Miss M to try some iced tea. A very Queen-ly drink I thought. Turns out she doesn't like iced tea, but at least she tried it! I couldn't convince her to take cucumber sandwiches though, so I just added some cucumber slices to her lunch instead :-)

 Some jewels in the kiwi crowns :-)

And more in the crown sandwich.

And even more jewels in the crown treasury - grapes!

Would you like a right Royal prize? Check out our Juice in the Box GIVEAWAY in this previous post!  Do investigate in a timely manner, as time is running out!

Details of my tools & toys can be found on this page.

~J

Disclosure: This is not a sponsored post. This post was written for Loving Lunches. No product was received for this post. All opinions expressed are my own, based on my personal experience with the product. This post may contain affiliate links.

Twin Cats Lunch

 I mentioned yesterday that the girls both went to daycare last week which was wonderful! I still picked them up at their normal time but gee what a difference it made only having the one pick up stop! I'd managed to make some cheat chicken pies the first day they were so that's what Honey had of her sandwich alternative today. She also had strawberries, wafer biscuits, cat sandwich, yogurt, biscuits and dip and some juice in her Juice in the Box.

After Miss M didn't ask for her noodles to be cooked yesterday I thought I'd make them ahead of time like I used to do so they only needed to be reheated at daycare. She also asked for a lamington since she didn't get one the day before and passionfruit on her yoghurt. She also has bikkies & dip and juice in her Juice in the Box. They had juice today because I used it to treat Miss M's apple which she's started to ask for being peeled & chopped. Simple enough to do and dipping it in the juice of her Juice in the Box means that nothing is wasted!

Have you entered our Juice in the Box GIVEAWAY in this previous post?!  One week left!!

Details of my tools & toys can be found on this page.

~J

Disclosure: This is not a sponsored post. This post was written for Loving Lunches. No product was received for this post. All opinions expressed are my own, based on my personal experience with the product. This post may contain affiliate links.

Curious George Lunch Version Two

 Did you see Miss M's Curious George lunch in this previous post? This is what Honey took to daycare that day.

Her George certainly does look 'Curious', don't you think? o.O
Ham, cheese & nori sitting atop her sandwich.

She also had a banana (a must for every young monkey!), a yoghurt pouch, lamington, cherry tomatoes and milk in her Juice in the Box.

 This was in her first week of daycare and she was all over the shop with her eating. Most of her lunch came home but she was ravenous and proceeded to eat the vast majority of it for afternoon tea.

I suspected she was getting ill when she didn't finish her lamington though! I was suitably impressed by the lack of leaks from her Juice in the Box.

Curious? Head on over to this previous post and enter to WIN a Juice in the Box starter bundle for yourself!

Details of my tools & toys can be found on this page.

~J

Disclosure: This is not a sponsored post. This post was written for Loving Lunches. No product was received for this post. All opinions expressed are my own, based on my personal experience with the product. This post may contain affiliate links.

Curious George Version One

Both the girls have been loving watching Curious George on ABC Kids lately so I thought it would be great to make some lunches along the theme. Especially after I saw this gorgeous lunch pop up in my newsfeed somewhere!

Miss M's round Vegemite sandwich is topped with ham, cheese & nori cutting. Some tomatoes with monkey and yellow hat pick (OK, I know it's the wrong style hat, but it's all I had ^-^) and a lamington. There's a Sinchies yoghurt pouch under George too :-)

Her Juice in the Box had milk today.

Snacks were yoghurt and pepperoni/cheese/crackers.

Stay tuned for Honey's version of the lunch!

Now, be a good little monkey and visit this previous post for details on how you could WIN a Juice in the Box starter bundle for yourself!







Details of my tools & toys can be found on this page.

~J

Disclosure: This is not a sponsored post. This post was written for Loving Lunches. No product was received for this post. All opinions expressed are my own, based on my personal experience with the product. This post may contain affiliate links.

Soccer School Round Up

How are your school holidays going? Miss M went to 'Soccer School' last week while I worked and she thoroughly enjoyed it! I loved the opportunity to try out Juice in the Box in an un-refrigerated environment and put the Ice on the Box through its paces.

The first day I froze Miss M's Juice in the Box as well as her yoghurt pouch before putting her whole lunch in a cooler bag. She told me they were both still frozen at lunchtime!

Day two and we opted for black currant and cranberry juice for something different and some sandwich balls along with a large serve of fruit salad.

 These would have to be the worst soccer-sandwich-balls I've ever seen! At least Miss M knew what they were supposed to be o.O

I was chuffed to find some sports print fruit leathers but that afternoon Miss M told be she didn't like them. *sigh*

 Crunchy snacks to go with the yoghurt pouch and fruit salad today. And back to our favourite fruit juice in her Juice in the Box.

 Simple FooDoodler drawing on her sandwich too.

 There was only a small serve of fruit salad left but this time of the week so I ended up sending some pepperoni decorated with FooDoodlers along with rice crackers as a second snack. Again her favourite juice in her Juice in the Box.

Miss M and her coach were very proud of her efforts in executing a Ronaldo Chop so I decided that would be the theme for her last Soccer School lunch even though I had no idea how to make that happen. Until I remembered the Samurai swords I received in a Bento Bloggers & Friends car package! And a funny idea came to mind. And this is why I normally use the cheat cheese art method - my free hand drawing is certainly an area I can improve on!

With a frozen yoghurt pouch and a frozen Ice on the Box in a cooler bag Miss M reported her lunch was the perfect temperature in our mild winter weather (up to 27 C)

Would you like to WIN a Juice in the Box kit including not only the Juice in the Box  but also the Ice on the Box and a replacement parts kit? You can! All the details are in this previous post!



Details of my tools & toys can be found on this page.

~J

Disclosure: This is not a sponsored post. This post was written for Loving Lunches. No product was received for this post. All opinions expressed are my own, based on my personal experience with the product. This post may contain affiliate links.