PlanetBox preschool lunch: fantastic firetruck fun for my fabulous & feisty four-year-old

A couple days ago I had this fun lunch all ready to greet my youngest,Tyler, when he got off the bus from preschool. This little guy loves fire trucks a lot. And then yesterday that little guy turned 4. Four years old! I'm still wondering where the last four years have gone. Sigh. 


    
Packed in a PlanetBox:
- Fire Engine #4, a sandwich cut with the truck Lunch Punch. I fashioned a little ladder out of havarti cheese, along with the number four. The siren is a little organic jelly bean. :)
- waffle pretzels with a few firetruck cheese crackers (homemade recipe here).
- kiwi fruit and strawberries, with the helpful firehouse dog bento pick
- cucumber fire stations and a bunch of carrot coins
- the middle treat section holds some five-alarm spicy jalepeno almonds

Because I am afraid someone will ask: the tiny firetruck cutter is from a set of transportation vehicle mini cutters I bought several years ago from an online bento shop that is no longer in business. I haven't seen any similar in a very long time. :( The way they are designed makes them really hard to use on cheese (which I originally intended using them for), but they have been really cute for cracker making.


Supplies used to make this lunch:
   

   

Lunchbots bento boxes | a little of this & a little of that

These bentos are on the small side, but there is a lot of variety packed into these small spaces. 


This bento is in a Lunchbots Quad (divided into 4 sections):
- two mini blueberry muffins with some pecans tucked in the corners
- butterfly crackers with organic cream cheese
- mini BabyBel cheese and slices of salami
- grapes & strawberries with a couple cute flower bento picks


Packed in a Lunchbots Duo (made with two sections):
- deli roll-ups, made with Applegate all natural ham & havarti cheese*
- cucumber slices, cut with a flower shaped mini cookie cutter
- tiny strawberries in a small silicone corner cup, with a cute bento fork to eat them with
- wheat crackers with organic cream cheese
- pumpkin kernels in the little corner cup, topped with an organic yogurt covered pretzel
- a couple strips of turkey jerky
- a few organic chocolate teddy cookies 

I packed this Duo box with the wet stuff on one side of the divider, and dry foods on the other.  Within each of these sections I used silicone grassy baran to further separate some foods: the deli roll-ups from the cucumbers, and then the teddy cookies from the turkey jerky.

Supplies used to pack these bentos:
    

   

* Applegate recently sent me a variety of deli meat and cheese to try out and enjoy with my family. :)

Muffin Tin Monday - Nursery Rhymes

Welcome to Muffin Tin Monday!

Today's scheduled theme is Nursery Rhymes. :)

I totally phoned it in this week and whipped out this super simple muffin tin in mere minutes.
   


Top row:
- Little Miss Muffet's spider, creeping up on her tuffet zucchini muffin
- Jack & Jill's pail full of dry roasted peanuts
- Mary's little lamb, waving from the top of a grape heap

Bottom row:
- Baa Baa Black Sheep (olives)
- Old Mother Hubbard's bare cupboard. Poor puppy. :(
- Twinkling Little Star, up above the world so high 

Those are dye-free organic "M&M" type candies in the star cup, the globe is a little piece of chocolate wrapped in earth-print foil.  Both these treats were found at Whole Foods in the bulk bins.

My intent for this muffin tin was to have Paige guess what nursery rhyme each space represented. This was a huge flop as it turns out Paige doesn't know the nursery rhymes!!! What what what?!! I was flabbergasted. After talking a while about them, she says they sound "kind of familiar", but definitely not second nature, not by a long shot. Yikes!  I guess we have a summer project on our hands: Nursery Rhyme Boot Camp. 

Supplies used to make this muffin tin meal:
       

  
New to Muffin Tin Monday? Check out the MTM information page to read all about it. The schedule of themes can be found there too.  The schedule has been updated and themes are now listed through the end of July!  :)