We Should Be Folding Laundry

I had every intention of using a different container today but Camryn wouldn’t hear of it. She said that her new purple box was her favorite and she did not want to use anything else.

I have to say that I’m really liking it too so far. It does take up quite a bit of room in the dishwasher so I’ve been rinsing it out with hot soapy water right when Cam gets home and so far that has been working well.

Today’s bento seems pretty self-explanatory. Once I got all the food in it still looked blah to me so I cut the sharp edges off of 4 toothpicks (5 yr olds and sharp points scare me) and stuck hello kitty stickers on them as well as on the juice box. Then I just stuck them in the blueberry muffins to cuten them up a bit.

Creepy hello kitty caterpillar anyone?

In today’s bento I packed green beans, Wheat Thins Sticks, and pineapple chunks in the bottom tier.

In the top, I used cookie cutters to make different sized heart shaped nutella sandwiches.

For lunch today, Camryn has a heart-shaped turkey sandwich with cheese stars on top, grapes, leaf-shaped carrots & Triscuit Thin Crisps. In the container on the right, she has vanilla yogurt with a few rainbow sprinkles swirled in for a tie dye effect.

Happy Monday!

I’m a little late posting today due to taking on a redecorating project in Cam’s room.

She used to have what I called ‘the wall of cubbies’ in her room that held most of her toys. Well, she rarely actually plays with toys. She spends most of her time reading or doing artsy and crafty stuff. So I thought why not go through all her toys, keep the  few she actually plays with, donate the rest, and turn that wall of cubbies into a place for her to do what she loves to do?

If you’ve ever really cleaned out your kid’s room or taken on a project like this, I’m sure you know that it can quickly get out of control to the point that soon after you start, you find yourself in a bigger mess that you could have imagined. And of course because you’ve dragged every single thing out, you should probably take the opportunity to disinfect it or dust it off.

Long story short – after a lot of work, the end result turned out wonderfully. It’s adorable, functional and most importantly, Cam loves it. The only thing missing is a chair so that she can actually use it. That will come soon.

Back to the bento.

We decorated our Christmas tree last night and Camryn spent a long time admiring each and every ornament so I thought it would be fun to make her a Christmas tree/green themed bento.

She had a chicken sandwich which I put on top of Wheat Thin sticks. In the other tier, she had celery slices, pea pods, and fresh green beans. She also had Christmas trees cut out of cheese.

Happy Friday! The little miss is home from school sick again today. We’ve been battling some nasty stuff here this week and frankly, I’m ready for it to be over with. I don’t think the two of us have slept a solid 4 hours in the last 2 days. Things are getting desperate over here.

In spite of all that, I went ahead and made her a bento last night in the hopes that she’d be well enough for school. Her Kindergarten Thanksgiving show was this afternoon… actually it’s going on right now as I type this. I really hate that she missed it but I don’t think anyone would have enjoyed her incessant coughing, moaning, and nose wiping throughout the performance.

I found this container when I was walking around Wal-Mart yesterday waiting for Cam’s prescription to be filled. It’s a simple plastic container with locking sides and is supposedly leak-proof, although we haven’t had the opportunity to test that out yet. I paid $3.47 for it. Another example of how you can use things other than actual bento boxes for lunch packing.

For lunch today, I packed her favorite little heart-shaped sandwiches filled with chocolate spread. Next to those are a granola bar cut into thirds. To the right of those are food picks with sliced grapes and celery. Underneath I packed fruit snacks and Wheat Thin Sticks.

Hope everyone has a happy and healthy weekend!

For lunch today I packed a heart-shaped chicken sandwich. I just used heart-shaped cutters to cut the bread and then made the sandwich.

Next to the sandwich is a silicone cup full of bite-sized pretzels. Before you drive all over town looking for these pretzels, I need to tell you that these actually came from a bag of Chex mix. Cam won’t eat the cereal part so I pull out the pretzels for her. Then I eat all the cereal and other tasty bits. It’s a win win.

I also packed some raw broccoli with little flower-shaped colby jack cheese pieces and some sliced grapes.

Today I thought I’d mention a little trick that always works well for me. If you are using any sort of cutter to cut shapes out of bread, meat, cheese, and even veggies and your edges aren’t coming out as neat as you’d like, try this: Press your cutter down firmly and rub around in a circular motion at the same time. Doing this on top of a cutting board works best. This will help to trim your edges so they look crisp and clean.

Also, if you’ve been looking for the teeny food cutters that are super popular in bento-blog land, try looking for fondant cutters in a baking or craft supply store. If you’re in the U.S. check out Micheal’s and Joann’s Fabrics. Quite often there will be a 40%-50% coupon in the paper on Sunday. You can usually find a set of fondant cutters for around $3-$4 after coupon.