Ten Grouchy Groundhogs - Happy Groundhog Day!

She's been waiting a whoooole year for this lunch! I got the "Ten Grouchy Groundhogs" book right after Groundhog Day last year (our Scholastic order didn't arrive until then,) and I didn't want to "waste" a perfectly good groundhog lunch in March and end up having to do another one for Groundhog Day later. Or make it then and sit on the pictures for a whole year. 

But waiting worked out great for me, since I've gotten new gear since then that made this soooo much easier! The original plan had been to just theme a whole lunch on her favorite groundhog pages (the ones playing dress-up.) Or else do TEN lunches, each themed for one of the activites. Oy! 

My PlanetBox was perfect for this lunch, with all the little compartments and larger "floor" so that I could keep the different elements spread out nicely, while still packing enough food for a decent preschooler lunch.

I set them up going counterclockwise from the bottom right corner, where it both starts and ends.  

Ten Grouchy Groundhogs: These poor little guys are grouchy because they're sooo boooored. So they find different things to do, and one by one they peel off to go outside. 

For the ten groundhogs, I used a mini bear head cutter on some Colby Jack cheese to make ten little "groundhogs." [Shush! They are TOO groundhogs!] I've learned from past mistakes that it's hard to cut faces out from cheese if you want the cheese intact, so I left them alone.

Nine Grubby Groundhogs: Since they're all grubby from digging and expanding their den, I used a hard hat cupcake pick (from a bakery shop) to represent them.

Eight Graceful Groundhogs: A ballet slippers cupcake ring was perfect for these dancing groundhogs!

Seven Gabby Groundhogs: I didn't want to be carving telephones out of food, but these text message cupcake picks (from a bake shop,) were good enough!

Six Goofy Groundhogs: In the story, these guys are tumbling and doing gymnastics, so the bear and bunny... I mean GROUNDHOG circus animal picks were perfect!

Five Groovy Groundhogs: These rock stars are jammin', so I used some music note picks. [Hopefully I pointed them the right way. With three weeks of back-to-back plagues, I'm a wee bit sleep deprived.]

Four Gobbling Groundhogs: These guys are shoving their gobs full of all kinds of fast foods and junk foods. So I chose a pizza slice cupcake pick. And put it with some carrots!

Three Glitzy Groundhogs: These three are glamming it up, so some dress-up picks were just the ticket!

Two Giggly Groundhogs: These guys are running around in their tunnels, so I made an apple tunnel using half a cored apple, with the sides trimmed to fit in the box. (My apple corer has a plunger, so you can push the core back out!) I used Fruit Fresh to keep the cut bits from browning, but dipping or sloshing in any juice with Vitamin C will do.

One Grumpy Groundhog: For the last lonely little guy, I used my CuteZCute cutter on a sandwich thin, and some facial features cutters to make the face I wanted. The panda face cutter would have done most of that, but I didn't want the larger panda eyes and I didn't want to be fiddling with bending the bread to only cut certain bits at a time. I cut some buck teeth out of a thin slice of the string cheese stick. 

I had planned to use a Sharpie to draw on the foil of the Trader Joe's Honey Mint either a little groudhog checking out his shadow, or else just write "10 Grumpy Groundhogs." But I forgot, and then ran out of time. Oh well. You'll have to use your imagination. Or Photoshop...

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