BFF Shel Silverstein Blog Hop

Shel Silverstein's birthday is today. Bento Bloggers & Friends decided we should celebrate this day by having a bento lunch blog hop inspired by the wonderful, funny, creative, and heartwarming work of Shel Silverstein.

I asked Boogs to look through the Shel Silverstein books in his room and pick out a few to read to me. The first book he chose was A Giraffe and a Half. Boogs loved the silly rhymes and outrageous things that kept being piled on top of the giraffe. Eventually, the giraffe is able to get rid of the whale with a tail, a snake eating cake, a rat in a hat, and so many other things.

In the Laptop Lunchbox: pb&j giraffe sandwich, salami & cheese hat with a rat under it, fruit leather snake with yogurt pretzel cake, strawberry rose for his nose, pumpernickel pretzel flute for him to toot, pistachios, and salad.

The next day, Boogs decided to read A Light In the Attic. He put bookmarks by all of the poems he wanted turned into lunches. So here are a couple of them:

Hot Dog lunch in an ELB lunchbox: cheese toast with provolone HOT DOG PET letters, hot dogs for pets, cutie oranges, and salad.

Boogs chose these foods to put in his lunchbox because they reminded him of The Giving Tree. In the ELB lunchbox: spinach leaves to make a crown, tomato apples for eating, pretzel trunk for climbing, okra chip branches for swinging, Pringles chip branches for making into a house, 1/2 cereal bar trunk for making a boat, yogurt, kiwi, and ham.

Boogs laughed at the Batty poem from A Light In The Attic. The baby bat screamed out in fright, "Turn on the dark, I'm afraid of the light." We made this lunch full of the bright light that scared Batty. In the ELB lunchbox: pineapple sunlight, carrot stick sun beams, Pirate's Booty moon glow, dried mango lights under BAT graham crackers, cheese & ham bat sandwiches, almonds, and cottage cheese.

The next lunch is one I made last year for Boogs. I just recopied the parts of the post that were about Shel Silverstein's poem Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take the Garbage Out from Where The Sidewalk Ends.

I absolutely LOVED Shel Silverstein's poems when I was a kid. Boogs likes to hear them over and over again, too. My favorite poem in this book is Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take the Garbage Out. You can clearly imagine how disgusting the trash at Sarah's house is by the desciptive words used in the poem.  Of course I had to make Boogs a garbage lunch to go with this poem!

In the ELB lunchbox: garlic green baloney, chunks of cheese, gristly bits of beefy roasts beef jerky, cold french fries, withered greens salad, crusts of black burned buttered toast croutons, and peach pit plum pieces.

Now that you have seen the Shel Silverstein lunches I have made, click on the Shel Silverstein Blog Hop button the see the lovely lunch made by Sarah for Zoe's Lunchbox.

Be sure to check out the wonderful sites I link to on my sidebar! If you want to see more book inspired lunches, click on the "lunches" label at the end of this post or go to My Story Themed Lunches board on Pinterest. I would love for you to leave a comment to let me know you stopped by.

Lunches Sept. 15th - 18th

I have had laryngitis and was told by my doctor not to talk or whisper for several days this week. That made bedtime books a bit tricky. Luckily, we have a few books on tape at home. My husband read with Boogs a couple of night this week.

Boogs and I listened to My Dog Never Says Please by Suzanne Williams one night this week.

 Ginny Mae feels like she is being treated unfairly by her parents and brother. She noticed what an easy life her dog, Ol' Red, has.  Ol' Red can go barefoot outside, does not have to show manners when he eats, he doesn't have to clean up his doghouse. Ginny Mae gets so upset with her family she decides she would rather live with her dog. Soon, she joins Ol' Red in the doghouse. She quickly discovers that dogs have fleas, have to be outside during rainstorms, get lonely, and have boring food.

In the Laptop Lunchbox: strawberries, broccoli trees, doggy kibble almonds, rawhide chew  banana chips, pretzel sticks for fetching, chocolate chip zucchini muffin Ginny Mae, and ham & cheese Ol' Red.



We finished reading Floors by Patrick Carmen.

Boogs really enjoyed this book. Leo, the son of the maintenance man at the Whippet Hotel, worked very hard to save the hotel after Mr. Whippet disappeared. He followed clues and conquered the crazy obstacles set in his way. The lunch on top shows the part of the book where Leo rides a roller coaster to retrieve a special ring. Blop the robot gets lost during this task.

In the Laptop Lunchbox: salad, blueberries, salami & cheese robot, pretzel ring, nutella roller coaster car sandwich, and dried apricots.

By the end of the book, Leo manages to save the day.  This simple lunch shows the deed for the Whippet Hotel on top of pb&j sandwich, Pirates Booty, carrots with hummus, and plum slices. We have already checked out the second book in the series but are having to wait until my voice comes back before we can read it.

 
 Lunch in an ELB lunchbox: salad, cutie oranges, macadamia nuts, yogurt, Hawaiian roll, and ham.

Be sure to check out the wonderful sites I link to on my sidebar! If you want to see more book inspired lunches, click on the "lunches" label at the end of this post or go to My Story Themed Lunches board on Pinterest. I would love for you to leave a comment to let me know you stopped by.

Talk Like A Pirate Day Lunch

Arrrr! Well me matey 'tis that time o' year again, Talk Like a Pirate Day. Boogs and I read The Pirate Cruncher by Jonny Duddle in honor of this special day.

 

Captain Purplebeard and his crew heard tale of amazing treasure from an odd looking old fiddler. The fiddler appeared to have marionette strings above him. The pirates were so greedy they did not notice how odd the fiddler was. They quickly trusted him and boarded their ship to search for treasure. When they were far out to sea, the fiddler warned them about the Pirate Cruncher Monster of the Deep. Overcome with greed, the pirates did not heed his warning and they paid dearly for this mistake. Boogs thought this was a cute book. The illustrations are vibrant and detailed. We both enjoyed reading this book.

In the ELB lunchbox: salami boat with quesadilla pirate crew, snow pea monster tentacles, Pirate's Booty sun in the sky, macadamia nuts treasure, pirate standing on an island surrounded by berries of sea, and a salad with crossbones.

If you want to see more pirate lunches, head over to Bento Bloggers & Friends HERE.



Be sure to check out the wonderful sites I link to on my sidebar! If you want to see more book inspired lunches, click on the "lunches" label at the end of this post or go to My Story Themed Lunches board on Pinterest. I would love for you to leave a comment to let me know you stopped by.

What We Have Been Up To Lately

Boogs is really enjoying 3rd grade. He happily wakes up, gets dressed, prepares for the school day, and gladly walks into the school building. What a fabulous change from last year!

Our evenings and weekends have been pretty full. Boogs is still finding time to hang out with neighborhood friends. This has been happening a lot in our house:

 the stair slide

The last Friday before school started, Boogs asked if he could make a stair slide. We put a camping foam mattress into a sleeping bag for extra padding. Boogs can spend an hour going down the stair slide over and over again. Several of the neighborhood kids have come over to try it out. They go down the slide inside/outside/on top/backwards down the stairs. So far no one has been hurt. My husband said he does not mind if the stair slide loosens the carpet on the steps. He said he eventually wants to take the carpet off the stairs. That is good news.

Boogs' new passion is Tang Soo Do. He attends classes every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. This week he finally received his uniform. His size was on back order and took three weeks to come in.

Boogs absolutely loves going to class. He tells me he misses going on the weekends.

Boogs is still swimming on a year-round swim team, but has cut down to only one practice a week. Swim meets are only held once a month. This week, his swim coach used Boogs has an example for perfect head position and breathing during freestyle. Boogs had to swim a lap while the rest of the swimmers watched. He thought that was pretty cool.

This picture is of streamlining on your back, not freestyle.

We had a clean up day last weekend. Boogs put on a swimsuit to thoroughly clean his hamster's cage. This was the first time he cleaned it all by himself. Somehow, he managed to get completely soaked by the time the cage was clean.

Last Sunday, we took a family trip to Bussey's Flea Market in New Braunfels. We like to watch American Pickers on the History Channel. We thought we would try it ourselves at the flea market. Boogs was allotted $10 to spend at the flea market. He knew he had to make some smart deals with his money.

 Boogs did some wheeling and dealing and was able to buy an old Just Dance Wii game for $1.75.

Then, he found a Skylanders game. The seller drove a hard bargain. Boogs ended up taking some money from his own wallet to make up the difference in price. He spent $15 for the game, portal, and two Skylander pieces. It was a really good deal. Can you tell he is obsessed with his Wii?

 We had a great time exploring all of the stalls. We stayed until it become so hot the flea market dealers started packing up to get out of the heat.

Boogs read his Calvin & Hobbes books the entire time we were in the car. It is so nice that he now enjoys reading.

When we returned home, Boogs challenged me to play against him in a few Just Dance songs. His score beat mine more often I beat him.

The temperature has been in the high 90s all week and even hit 100 degrees on Wednesday. I had Boogs' swim suit in the car when I picked him up from school. We spent about two hours at our neighborhood pool all by ourselves. We did laps, had races, hunted for diving toys, did cannonballs, played chase, and spent some time seeing who could float on their back the longest. It was a great way to spend the afternoon. We still made it to Tang Soo Do practice on time.

Boogs decided to carry his kickboard on his head on the way out. He was able to balance it all the way to the car. It was an impressive sight. He wanted me to take a picture of it.

The neighborhood pool is open until September 30th. We are supposed to get a cold front this weekend that will bring our temperatures down to the high 80s and possibly only a high of 76 on Sunday. This might have been the last time for outdoor swimming this year. I am really looking forward to a weekend of rain. I hope the forecast for rain and thunderstorms is accurate.

This post is linked to:

Roald Dahl Day Blog Hop

Bento Bloggers & Friends are celebrating Roald Dahl's birthday with a Roald Dahl Day blog hop. By clicking on the Roald Dahl Day button at the end of this post, you can hop over to see the special Dahl lunch Astrid from Lunches Fit For Kid has made. The button will appear on each blog in the hop. Click the button on each blog's post to hop to the next one.

Roald Dahl's books are strange, wonderful, and slightly creepy. My son and I read a couple of new-to-us Dahl books during the past couple of weeks. Here are the lunches that I made based on the books we read.

Esio Trot

Mr. Hoppy is secretly in love with his downstairs neighbor, Mrs. Silver. Unfortunately, Mr. Hoppy is too shy to let Mrs. Silver know how he feels. Mrs. Silver seems to only be interested in one thing in her life, her tortoise. When Mrs. Silver confides that she is concerned about how little her prized tortoise is growing, Mr. Hoppy comes up with a scheme to make her think her tortoise is growing. Mr. Hoppy creates a set of words for Mrs. Silver to say each day to make Alfie grow. The title of this book is part of Mr. Hoppy's creation, Esio Trot is tortoise spelled backwards. Mr. Hoppy frequently replaces Alfie with slightly larger tortoises until Mrs. Silver feels he has grown enough. Mrs. Silver is overjoyed with Alfie's gain in size and gives all the credit to Mr. Hoppy.

In the ELB lunchbox: almond butter & jelly Alfie made with a FunBites cutter, cheese 7 for the perfect size replacement turtle, Esio Trot in cheese, Zbar grabber, raisins, kiwi, and salad with little radish hearts.

Danny, The Champion of the World

Danny lives with his father in a little wooden caravan next to their mechanic shop. One night, Danny found out about his family's long history of poaching peasants. Danny's grandfather had special names for the poaching methods he used. One night, Danny's father does not return from his poaching expedition in Hazell's Woods. Danny takes a car from their repair shop and drives it seven miles to Hazell's woods to look for his father. He finds his father at the bottom of a 12 foot pit with a broken leg. Danny is able to help his father out of the ditch and get away from Hazell's woods before they are caught poaching. Both father and son were so upset by Mr. Hazell's use of pits on his land, they decided to try and poach all of the pheasants in Hazell's woods. Danny came up with The Sleeping Beauty method of poaching - setting out sleeping pill laced raisin for the pheasants so they will fall from their high perches in the trees. The two of them try out this new method with great success. Unfortunately, their success is not complete. They took 120 sleeping pheasants from Hazell's woods and left them with the vicar's wife to pass out to the people of the village. When she started on her journey to pass out the birds, the birds were hidden in the bottom of her son's baby carriage. When the sleeping pills began to wear off, the birds began to wake up and fly out of the carriage.

Boogs, my son,  thought this must have been an amazing sight to watch those birds streaming out of the carriage. We decided that image should be part of his story themed lunch. In the Laptop lunchbox: pb&j baby carriage with pretzel wheels, pheasants made of banana chips with dried apricot heads & dried mango wings, raisins, salad with Sleeping Beauty radish letters, and Laughing Cow cheese.

Boogs and I enjoyed reading these Roald Dahl books. Boogs was rather concerned about the dishonesty and stealing in the books. We discussed that these were fictional characters and that he should not try to trick people like Mr. Hoppy did or steal from them like Danny and his father did.

Are you ready to see the next Bento Blogger & Friends Roald Dahl Day lunch? Just click the button to hop your way over to Lunches Fit For A Kid.

Be sure to check out the wonderful sites I link to on my sidebar! If you want to see more book inspired lunches, click on the "lunches" label at the end of this post or go to My Story Themed Lunches board on Pinterest. I would love for you to leave a comment to let me know you stopped by.

Lunches - Second Week of 3rd Grade

Boogs' lunches are usually inspired by the books we read together. Story time is part of our daily bedtime routine.  I usually post his lunches once a week. Click on the "lunches" label at the end of this post to see lunches from previous weeks. We like to pack our lunches in ELBs and Laptop Lunchboxes.  

Boogs is reading more chapter books than picture books these days. We are in the middle of reading Floors together. We may have several Floors lunches as we continuing this book. 

Floors by Patrick Carman

Leo lives and works in the most amazing and unusual hotel in New York City, the Whippet Hotel. His father is the hotel's maintenance man. Leo is often called upon to help keep the hotel in proper running order. The Whippet Hotel is owned and was designed by Merganzer Whippet, an inventor of wacky inventions. Mr. Whippet created each room with a special theme in mind. The Pinball Room actually feels like you are staying inside a giant pinball machine. As the story begins, the reader learns that Mr. Whippet has been missing for 100 days. Leo is busily taking care of the hotel ducks when he discovers a large purple box in the duck elevator. The box had a little tag on it that said, "For Leo." It contained a miniature version of the Room of Rings and a note telling Leo he was the only hope to save the Whippet Hotel.  Leo learned he had only two days to find and complete the instructions from four boxes. Leo's first task led him into the Pinball Room to collect a special ball.

Boogs and I are looking forward to reading what happens next.
In the Laptop Lunchbox: mango, broccoli covered with LEO radish circles, pb&j elevator door sandwich, Babybel Leo riding with the ducks on the duck elevator, and pumpernickle pretzel stick for Betty the duck.


The Tooth Fairy Wars by Kate Coombs

Boogs has another loose tooth. He has lost eight baby teeth and is leaning toward not believing in the Tooth Fairy. I saw this book at Barnes & Noble and knew Boogs would love it. 

When Nathan lost his first tooth, he knew he wanted to keep it. He was very upset the next morning when he discovered his tooth was missing and a dollar bill was in its place. As he looses each consecutive tooth, Nathan tries to keep the Tooth Fairy from taking his teeth. He builds forts guarded by army men, honey and itch powder traps, and hides his teeth in unusual places. Nothing works! He even tried writing a nice letter asking the Tooth Fairy to let him keep his teeth. The next time the Tooth Fairy came, she left him a letter informing Nathan "According to Regulation 8439-H, paragraph 7, should the dentulous relinquisher object to said transaction, he or she shall be referred to Office 11 of the Tertiary Fay Division of Rates and Exchanges, 15th League of Enchanted Commerce." The letter went on to say he could file a case and it might be 25,990 years before he heard an answer. This did not please Nathan at all.  He kept finding better ways to protect his teeth. Finally, the Tooth Fairy had enough and sent in a special squad to take care of Nathan and his mischief.  Nathan was prepared and took care of the special squad. Eventually, he received a certificate granting him exemption from the Tooth Fairy's service.

Boogs read this book several times this week. We are planning on making a few Tooth Fairy traps this weekend so Boogs can be prepared when his next tooth falls out.

In the Laptop Lunchbox: ham&cheese tooth sandwich with Tooth Fairy on top, pretzels & green bean chips for building traps, salad, applesauce for eating when you have a loose tooth, and yogurt.

A couple of the lunches I sent this week were just food put in a box. Boogs likes story themed better than these "regular" lunches.

In the ELB lunchbox: green bean chips, pretzels, granola bar, ham surrounded by cheese, pistachios, grapes, spinach, carrots, and tomatoes.

In the ELB lunchbox: pear, carrots with hummus, ham, pickles, 1/2 Hawaiian roll, and yogurt.



Be sure to check out the wonderful sites I link to on my sidebar! If you want to see more book inspired lunches, click on the "lunches" label at the end of this post or go to My Story Themed Lunches board on Pinterest. I would love for you to leave a comment to let me know you stopped by.