Booboo Butterfly Bento

For our final "Hell-Week" packed lunch, I actually had a little time before our first activity, so I was able to jazz it up a bit! I decided on a butterfly theme, since I just found some new sandwich cutters at Winco in butterfly, train and bat shapes... and hadn't put them away, so they were handy!

Top (her lunch): string cheese nibblets, PBH,
spinach with carrot flowers, apples w/PB
Bottom (my lunch): PBJ, Ranch, grapes, carrots, broccoli, green beans

My lunch: If you think it looks a lot like the lunch packed the previous day, you would be correct. I caved like a wet noodle when I saw a McD's on the way to camp the previous day, so we swung through drive-thru and I got a fish fillet and large Sweet Tea. As my punishment, I forgot to order my sandwich plain, so had to eat it with the tartar sauce and cheese. Blech.
But anyway, the PBJ has my home-made mango-strawberry jam, with a Tupperware Smidget holding Ranch dressing tucked on top. (I love my Smidgets, since they fit inside pretty much all my bento boxes, and are very water-tight! The downside is that they are hard to open and close, and hard to find. I got my yellow and blue ones at Tupperware booths at street fairs. They aren't available through traditional Tupperware parties; just as Hostess gifts or special fundraiser limited-items-selections.)
I ate every morsel this time!

Booboo Butterfly

I had forgotten when packing the lunches (and taking the "group shot,") but Z had just picked out some raspberry-yogurt-covered pretzels from the bulk section at Winco, and I had promised that she could have some in her "beautiful lunch." So I grabbed a few and tucked them in around her sammy after we were in the car.

Since I had time, I got out my food markers and drew a little (sloppy) blue butterfly on one of the string cheese nibblets, and a (much cuter) ladybug on one of the carrot flowers.

The bed of spinach leaves for the carrot flowers is actually more bounty from our garden! I keep forgetting to incorporate it more; the spinach was the first to produce anything, and has been supplying my little rabbit with lots of yummy afternoon snacks!
The butterfly silicone liner was bought on eBay, but Amazon has some other cute ones.

First we had swim class, where she went down the dreaded water slide by herself for the first time ever! (Without me having to force her down, holding my hand, or holding the teacher's hand.) For some inexplicable reason, she's been really keen on going to The Great Wolf Lodge, ever since I told her about it. So I've been telling her that we can't go until she was willing to go down the water slide at swim class by herself. We just booked our reservation for a weekend in October. Yay! [For some background, I've been wanting to take Z to Disneyland, but my husband said he didn't want to take her before she turned 3, since she wouldn't remember. So I've been looking forward to a Fall trip to Disneyland this year (since it's less crowded, the weather isn't so frickin' hot, and it's not like she's going to flunk her SATs for missing a week of preschool!) But then right before she turned 3, I got pregnant. And I would be waaaaay too big in November to be waddling around, or riding many of the rides. (I had wanted to go in November, since that's when they put up the Christmas decor all around the park, and turn the Haunted Mansion into a Nightmare Before Christmas version!) And since I had started contracting 2 months early last time, I might be grounded by then, and not able to fly, if it happened again.
So I decided I'd compromise for Great Wolf Lodge, since some friends with a little one the same age as ours (and very similar personality and temperament) went and loved it. But since she hated swim class so much, especially jumping in and the water slide, my husband was leery of going. So I described it to her, and told her there were water slides, but we could do them together. And she was gonzo to go! Every time I'd mention going to the park, she'd ask if we were going to the water park!]

After swim class we had only 30 minutes to change her out of her wet swimsuit, eat lunch, and race the 30-minute-drive to her last day of Little Gym "Paws, Fins and Feathers" Summer Camp...

...and find a place to stop to use the potty, since she hadn't gone that morning after waking up, and hadn't gone before leaving swim class. D'oh! Bad mommy! And then she tripped and skinned her knee and palms walking back to the car. Double d'oh! We ended up being 30-minutes late to camp, since the potty trek and triage took up too much time, plus I really needed a Large McD Sweet Tea after comforting her and applying "booboo medicine" (Neosporin) and band-aids to all afflicted areas.

On the way to camp, she ate all her veggies, all her yogurt-covered pretzels (no, really?) and some cheese nibblets. She was too upset, and her "hands hurt too much" to eat the sammie or apples.

After we got home, she wanted to harvest our one big cucumber that she's been monitoring for the past few weeks. I made her wait until Daddy came home, since I have no idea when they're ready. I've seen bigger, but it was certainly a respectable size for a cuke. (If it were a guy, he wouldn't be ashamed, if you know what I mean...)

Daddy decided it looked okay, so they harvested it.

She chose to peel it, rather than eat the peel. I didn't know you could peel by pushing the peeler away, so she showed me something new!

Sadly, it wasn't quite ready. The inside was kind of dry and more like a zucchini in texture. Boo! Oh well. We have a few more tiny ones on deck.