EAT YOU VEGGIES before mommy breaks

Big A has been boycotting his veggies like the plague. He refuses to eat them. I can not figure out what the heck is going on with him. So, of course he gets them at every meal to try and prompt him to eat. No amount of dip dip and cute picks are working.
Grumble


For the past two days I have given him mixed veggies for lunch and dinner. Still no dice. What is a mom supposed to do, aside from forcing them in his mouth? And I am pretty sure that would be child abuse.


Thursday's dinner was cantaloupe, steak fingers, mixed veggies, and a cheese lion. He ate everything except for the veggies.

Eww mommy. He wouldn't even try the veggies

Friday's finger foods were basically Thursday dinner reheated. He asked for it, and it saved me time so I rolled with it. Steak fingers, mixed veggie kebab, mandarin oranges (babies), and rabbit and bear cheese.

It's a rabbit, promise 

I was planning on making Lil A a lunch as well, but he passed out in the car on the way home from the doctors. Guess I'm off the hook for that one!

Awww

I love how he sleeps with his arm behind his head. Too cute.

A blah Tuesday

I've totally been slacking with snack and lunch pictures, but it was oh so nice to hang with the kids without technology

Without further ado, here is Tuesdays lunch. He had a pretty hefty snack and he wouldn't let me add anything else to his lunch. Guess he wasn't that hungry.
It was a PB&J bagel sandwich, half a giant marshmallow with fruit leather, a cantaloupe slice and *homemade* grapefruit apple sauce with sprinkles.

I love making applesauce. I have jars upon jars in my pantry from my 40 lb of apples I got for only $15!!!

The husband man is working a crazy shift and is requiring both lunch and dinner bentos each day, so to save meat money, the kids get to pig out on finger foods.
For dinner they had fish sticks, mixed veggies, another melon slice, and a froggie made out of cheese.
The veggies proved to be a nightmare. This kid just started refusing them all of a sudden. It's driving me bonkers.

Bento love and it's starting to take over

My first exposure to bentos was when I was in High School and would watch Anime cartoons where all the cool kids would randomly eat bentos. I had no idea what they were called, but remembered the cuteness and that I would totally want one if I ate fish.
Fast forward a good long while and my eldest man child (Big A) was about to start summer camp and I had to pack him a lunch. EEK. What was I supposed to do?!? We feed our kids as unprocessed and natural as possible on a single income and packed lunches were anything but that. I mean, Kids Clif bars are candy to my kids, and melon balls are desert in the T household. How was I supposed to pack that in a brown bag ?
Cue the interwebs!
And then, after a ton of insanely complicated lunches, I found Bentos! After that, I never looked at a brown paper bag again.
So what exactly is a bento? Well my friends, a bento is a single portion of a meal in a cute little box and is uber popular in Japan. All the food groups are there, and everything is made in pretty shapes so your kids will actually *try* that cucumber or bell pepper you have been badgering them about.

They saved my life. Really, Bentos were a sign that I could keep my kids eating habits up at camp and not spend a gillion dollars.

What kid wouldn't want to eat a cute kitty sandwich for lunch? 

I'll go over what exactly you need in the next post, and I guarantee you you have most of what you need in your kitchen already.