Animal Palz Pirate Batz for Wendolonia's 3 Tools Challenge

I've been a creepy stalker fan of Wendolonia and her bento lunches for years now, so I was thrilled to participate in her "3 Tools, 4 Lunches" challenge! Our assignment was to use a Planetbox Rover, the CuteZCute Animal Palz cutter set, and these alphabet picks. The rest was up to us! 

  

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I went with a pirate theme for my oldest, since it was pirate week at Little Gym camp. I let the girls choose which animal stamp they each wanted. I was hoping for panda... "pirate pandas" has a nice ring to it... But they both chose the bat. Oookay. Pirate Batz it is!

Pirate Batz Planetbox

Organic sugar snap peas, carrots, broccoli, cherries; GF PB w/blueberry jelly, organic sugar cubes

I had wanted to use fruit leather or something to make a bandana for the First Mate, but my kids had apparently been saving up a year's worth of antics to hit me with all at once. Instead of 10-15 minutes to prep and make lunch (including going downstairs to get some bread out of the freezer and digging through my disorganized bento stash to find all the bits I was looking for,) it ended up taking almost two hours to actually finish making these lunches. You read that right. TWO HOURS.
Cut one bread shape, pop it out, go comfort the toddler who just got pushed over. Cut another shape, pop it out, help older child download new app that she'd played on Dadda's iPad the day before and needed right now. Cut a shape, pop it out, confiscate iPad because she'd thrown it when the app wouldn't load because she lost her "good" iPad and has the toddler's really old one with an old operating system that the app won't work on. Seriously. By the end of the first hour, I had the bread cut and stamped, and the PB and jelly spread on. That was it.

To make an easy pirate bat, I used a pirate hat cupcake ring on one of the sandwiches. (Had I been sending this off with Z to school or something, I would have secured it with a big glob of peanut butter or pinned it in with uncooked spaghetti noodles. But since I would be in charge of carrying her lunch, I just set the ring in place before handing it over.)

Ever one for cheap tricks, I also used some skulls and crossbones cupcake rings for some easy piratical flair.

Be sure to check out the other fun lunches using the same 3 tools (plus some incredibly creative talent!) over at Wendolonia!

Batty for Little Sis

GF Pb w/blueberry jelly; organic tomatoes, carrots, peas, broccoli, cherries;
Happy Munchies rice cakes, dye-free gummy worm 

The toddler was excited to be part of the lunch making process. Usually I set her up in front of a show or else pack lunches at night when the girls are sleeping. She initially chose the "Lamby" imprint tool for herself, and "Batty" for Big Sis. (yeah. My kids are very creative with the names...) But then when Z agreed with the bat choice, E changed her mind. 
She wanted to help make them too, and I resigned myself to messed up imprints for my "big debut" over at Wendolonia. But after her first crookedy bat imprint, E was happy to scarper off with her batty bread exclaiming "I eat it. No pik-tchuh!" Leaving me half a sandwich short with no more thawed bread! Luckily I had a broken slice of brown gluten-free bread that I had initially rejected for use, which was juuuuust big enough to get one body shape. 

I used the egg mold part of the Animal Palz set to make a fun "cup" for some HappyFamily Happy Munchies blueberry and beet rice cakes. And since she doesn't do as well with hard candy, I opted for a dye-free gummy worm instead of the unrefined sugar cubes like Big Sis got.

Even though we were eating at home, I still packed E's lunch in an EasyLunchbox. It's no harder to wash than a divided plate, but the high sides make it easier for my little one to carry to the table without spilling. And once there, it's less likely to spill when bumped. Plus they take up less surface area on the little desk when I let the kids eat at their computer. Dinner and a show! (Yes, I know it's bad to eat in front of the TV. If it makes you feel better, then assume it's a once in a while treat. That would be a lie, but if it helps you judge me less, I'm in! But I've noticed that they eat way more veggies while staring mindlessly at the telly. So.) 

Tools of the Trade