One Lunch to Rule The Mall

[Title is a play on JRR Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings' One Ring. "One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them." Yes. I'm a nerd.]

On Tuesday morning we had GymStarz gym class, and I like to pack a lunch to eat in the waiting area, otherwise I crumble and take us to McD's on the way home. Since my sister had called in the morning and we'd arranged to meet at a local children's museum to play with Gramma Nayra and my nieces while Aunti Kayneen went to the dentist, I packed extra food. I used 2 of my EasyLunchboxes and put the broken bits from my preschool sliced apples, and the rest of the Skippyjon MTM apple stars into a compartment, filled the smaller one with peanut butter, and made PBJ and PB Honey sandwich rolls and used my new bento picks to keep them closed! (I'll post later about my uncontrollable spending spree stocking up on bento and muffin tin meal supplies, and the awesome deals I found at Daiso and TJ Maxx!) 

In my other box, I had carrot coins cut into flowers with the smaller end cut up and shoved underneath (using my new veggie shapers from Daiso!) the last of the puzzle piece cheese from preschool (with scraps shoved underneath,) a silicone muffin liner with whole olives and a long pick (Daiso!) and a Tupperware Smidget with Ranch dip. Not as full as the other box, but I couldn't think of anything else to jam in there that wouldn't be ruined if the olives dripped onto it.

She *LOVED* the olives and the pick. She meticulously placed each olive onto the skewer (rather than just stab it on) and then ate it off! Adorable! She pulled all the picks out of my sandwich rolls (I had had them color coded to know which was which flavor! Pink for PBJ, all others PBH) and kept calling them 'lollipops.' Ate a few bites of carrot flower, and some apple stars in peanut butter, but that was too messy for her, so she dipped the rest of her apples in olive juice. And then more carrots into olive juice. And some cheese into olive juice. Then her long pick into olive juice. Normally, our rules on 'dip' are that it's not food: It goes on food, and you have to take a bite of food and not just lick off the dip. But I'm not sure if olive juice goes in the 'dip' category, or the 'meh, who cares?' category, so I let it slide this time.

We packed up the leftovers, washed hands, and went to meet Gramma Nayra, Auntie Kayneen, Tually and Piwu. I had hoped she'd fall asleep in the car, but no dice. Found some cute clearance clothes at Target while we waited for everyone (a Carter's 4-piece 2 shorts/2shirts summer PJ set for $4! For next year, obviously. Also found a 3-piece newborn set for $3! GREAT for dolls! Can't buy doll clothes for that little! And a few Dr. Seuss T-shirts for $3 each.)

The girls had great fun at the Kids Museum, and Gramma and I managed not to lose or void the warranty in any of the totlings. Gramma had to leave before my sister came back, and I not only managed to wrangle them all on my own, but I wrangled them all at the water area, which is huge and open and pulls them in 3 different directions just to frazzle me. But it's their favorite part. After Tually's first time there, she talked about it for months!

Then Auntie Kayneen and I dragged the kids through Old Navy where we scored 10% off my sister's purchase by using my Old Navy card (and she wrote me a check, so I can pay it off before I get charged interest!) Then she left and I dragged Z to TJ Maxx, since I had heard that they had silicone baking cups.
Boy howdy! They had a set of light pink and blue ones for $5 (retails at $9,) and a set of 4 with CHICKEN FEET!!! for $4 (retails at $8!) I also found a bunch of Head Chef stuff for $4-$6 each (Spatula, Whisk, Turner and Ice Cream Scoop, plus a child's spoon and bowl (discontinued? Can't find a picture online.) Regularly $8-10 each!) Wahoo! Now to decide on some recipes to justify my splurge...