Batty Halloween Lunches

 

10/31/13 - I made some simple lunches for the girls on Halloween, since quite frankly, I was a bit burnt out on creative ones. The girls didn't care that they were easy and didn't require a lot of creativity or effort on my part. They loved 'em!

Batty Big Girl

Leftover GF pizza bites, Pirate's Booty, Naturebox Lemon Pucker Pistachios,
dye-free UNREAL candies, leftover Cauliflower Popcorn, organic strawberries

I had some gluten-free Domino's pizza left over from one I'd had delivered to a birthday party Z had gone to. I love that there's an option like that. But I try not to abuse it regularly.
Pizza Bites are a really easy way to make cold lunchbox pizza fun, so I used a mini bat cutter to make it Halloween-y.

The Cauliflower Popcorn was made with purple and orange cauliflower and green Romanesco - perfect Halloween colors!

I stuck a bat cupcake pick in the strawberries, and hid some Pirate's Booty under a mini paper cupcake liner with a bat design. (Target exclusinve.) And I culled some UNREAL candy-coated chocolates for just the Halloween-y looking colors.

The Naturebox Lemon Pucker Pistachios are a favorite of both girls, and Z likes to shell them herself and share with her sister. But since she'd be at school, I didn't want her spending the entire 20-minute lunch period shelling nuts. So I shelled most of them, and left her a few easy-to-open ones to do herself. (Tip: for hard to open pistachios, use a half shell from a previously shelled one and wedge it in the crack and twist. It's strong enough to hold up, and the twist gives it leverage to crack the shell open!)

At GeekGirlCon, a local comic convention celebrating the female geek and strong female characters, we got each girl a copy of a zombie storybook Are You My Breakfast? signed by the artist, Dan Ault. So I brought them along to read in the car before Trick or Treating.

[This post contains affiliate links.]

Batty Baby

Leftover GF pizza bites; organic raspberries, sugar snap peas, and strawberries; Pirate's Booty,
Naturebox Lemon Pucker Pistachios and dye-free UNREAL candies, leftover Cauliflower Popcorn

The Beaba Freezer Tray makes a perfect portable muffin tin meal! I got the idea from Bent On Better Lunches. I've been aching to use it for a while now. Since E's pizza bites made with a mini moon cutter fit inside, this was the perfect opportunity. She mostly got the same stuff as Big Sis, but I added some raspberries and sugar snap peas to fill up the extra spaces. And she got way fewer nuts and chocolate candies. Don't worry. I supervised her with the nuts, even though she's really good with them. I was more worried about her getting chocolate everywhere!

She loved her lunch so much she winked at me!

All Hallow's Eve

We took the girls trick-or treating at a local outdoor shopping complex. Z does better at places like that, versus door-to-door, despite the crowds. She tends to get scared in the dark, and these things are usually indoors or start early (this one was 4-6pm.) Shops tend not to have "scary" decorations, another plus for us. 

And they don't care if you make eye contact or say "Trick or Treat" - or even wear a costume. So ideal for kids with social or sensory issues (unless the crowds bother them.)

There's a local shop that opens near where my mom lives every Halloween that sells new and used costumes and accessories. The girls picked out dresses and wings and I paid a fraction of the price versus new! Woop! They both refused to wear long sleeves under their costumes, or coats on over, so they froze their little buns off.
Since there was almost no chance of the stores having any "safe" candy, I brought a baggie of dye and artificial-junk-free candies; SurfSweets lollies and gummies, plus UNREAL candy unjunked versions of peanut butter cups, Milky Way, and Snickers. E had no problem swapping, but E was a harder sell. She wanted what was in the wrappers, darnit, and was not fooled by us swapping behind our backs!

Tools of the Trade