Halloween Themed Bento!

Woohoo, two posts in one night! However, we just finished working on tomorrow's bento, and since I will be busy, I better post it now since I am here typing!

With Halloween just mere days away, we are in full Halloween mode around here. Usually my house would be dressed up for the occasion, but since I have decided there will be a move in the near future, I told the kids, not this year. So to make up for no decorating, I purchased several sizes of paper cups, some toothpicks (see bento before this one too!) AND cookie cutters!

Today's bento comes with tons of pictures, this is OUR best bento yet! Princess selected the kitty for her sandwich, let me tell you, those type of cutters are awful for bread! After a couple practice slices, you can see the finished product. I included the cutter so you could see what I used. I prefer the metal ones over the plastic, but they were sold out and I am lucky I found the ones I did... because I wanted to wait, blah. I had to cut each slice of bread and the bologna separately. A little dab of Miracle Whip light and viola, kitty sandwich! (and you can see the mess in the background from practicing, lol)

Since I purchased little cutters too, I was dying to see what I could cut with them. Princess gets her finickiness from me, so I can't fault her for not wanting this or that in her lunch. And she's become pretty adamant that each lunch have a sandwich, chips like something, fruit, and a treat. So... I was digging through the fridge and came across the apple slices I buy in a bag, great for on the go! I didn't get to use all the cutters, but we used at least 4! As you can see we made a skull, a moon, two cats, and two bats. She didn't think she'd like them at first, but when I was done, she was giddy over them. I also attempted food coloring... it didn't work how I thought it would, however we discussed we would try to color apples later when we had more time.

To finish off, we used our staple of grapes, matching paper cup and toothpick for them. Halloween black and orange M&M's in a smaller matching paper cup. I flattened out a larger paper cup and used it for the sandwich, another one for the apple slices, added a fruit roll up in the side bar, and topped it off with some Harvest Cheddar Sun Chips on the side. All and all I think this is our best one yet!

Princess Made Bento for Oct 24, 2007

Princess has made another bento all by herself. I asked her if she made it and she said, "No, mommy, WE made it." tee hee hee!!!

This one isn't as creative as some, however it was her ideas and we stuck to them. I helped a little, since I purchased the cup cake cups and matching toothpicks.

Princess doesn't really like crust on her bread and there are these awesome little frozen sandwiches called uncrustables. We place one in her lunch, and by lunch time it's thawed and yummy. A fruit roll up fit in there perfectly at the bottom! There is also our normal staple of grapes, but this time in a paper cup with the matching toothpick for Halloween. AND to top it off, there are black and orange M&M's in the Hello Kitty sauce cup. To finish the semi halloween theme, we used a black web napkin inside the box before I closed it up.

As for picture taking, Princess had a hand in how we took the picture this time. She wanted to show off her entire lunch, so can you see her chips and Capri Sun too. :P I took an additional picture to show how it looked closed, and since I hadn't uploaded an image of this box yet.

Princess Made Bento's #1 & 2

(due to my forgetting, I have re-arranged my posts ROFL)

Created: OCTOBER 23, 2007

My daughter not only loves eating the bento's, she has now decided making them herself is just as fun. So left on her own, she makes a sandwich, we all know that is a staple for her. I even sent her with ramen noodles once in her Barbie Funtainer, she came home and said never again Mom...

Per usual, we have a bologna sandwich cut diagonally in one sandwich box. In another sandwich box are silicone cups with grapes and gummy bears. Peanut butter cheese crackers instead of chips, and a hershey's stolen from the Halloween candy bowl, for a treat

Created: October 09, 2007

So, as you know my life has been insane and most of our bentos have been copies of other bentos or just plain boring. However!!! Princess made her very own, I am not much on details as I still need to blog about her losing her first tooth this evening and determining how much loot she gets! Without further ado...

Birthday Cake Bento

Princess' birthday was on the 12th, so for the 13th we had birthday cake in her lunch! This is in her new Hello Kitty box, I love this box so much we got three; blue, green, and pink! It usually has this little shelf inside, see Sept 07, 2007 blog post for more pix. However, since the cake had icing, we left the shelf at home and just shoved as much food in there as possible! Again we have a bologna sandwich, this time only half per request. Other normal staples of gummies and grapes in silicone cups/hello kitty shape cups. The flavor resistance is the cake, which I cut into slices to make it easier to eat! Oh and we can't forget the green Hello Kitty fork!

Another Uninspired Bento

With being sick this past weekend, I was in no mood to be too creative for lunch for tomorrow for Princess. So as per the norm, we have a bologna sandwich, gummy bears and purple grapes. I had added crackers this time and a HK bear rice mold to keep the gummy bears separated from the grapes.The box wouldn't close so I removed the mold and just placed the top on so to surprise her about the gummies! Then I tied a pink scarf in a bow around the box as it tends to come open.

Several Days Worth of Bento

I have been rather busy, so you get several days of bento!

AUGUST 31, 2007

Princess prefers bologna sandwiches almost every day. I can't say that's odd, I ate peanut butter and jelly, pringles, and chocolate pudding every day for lunch for years!!!

So my attempt at bento is shabby. I used the lunch box I got at a dollar store on sale for 50 cents, actually I bought like 5! It has a side slot for silverware, however on this day, it was a gummy bear holder. Grapes in silicone baking cups. Simple.

LAST NIGHT BEFORE BED... Sept 06

Last night I was definitely more creative, at least until now, as I am sick! Blah. Anyway, those are 100% Hello Kitty bologna sandwiches. Since I made them at night, I put some Miracle Whip in the Hello Kitty sauce cup. The knife is on the top half with the afternoon snack of Teddy Grahams. There is also, as usual, grapes in a silicone baking cup, pringles lower right and in the top center is a Hello Kitty rice mold holding Yo-go's. This lunch was a hit with Princess AND her friends!

AND ONE FOR ME!!!
Sept 07

Today I woke up after an awful evening of insomnia, feeling poorly and thinking I probably won't care much for going to lunch with my step-mom, (however I did anyway, her birthday and all.) So, out comes last night's left over Chicken Caesar salad from Chili's, it fit perfect in the bottom half of our new HK 2-tier bento. Top half is green grapes and red and green apple slices, also is the KH fork for my salad.

Viola the finished product!

Hello Kitty Snack Pack Bento to the Rescue!

Yeah, so I have slacked on bento's. I cheated, I purchased some lunchables at Wal-mart and Princess has been using them this week. It really was way cheaper that way, for a buck fifty she got a meal, a drink and a butterfinger bar! Tomorrow, we have to make a real bento, so make sure you come back and see what kind of fun things we create!

Now for today.

My step mom called and needed some IT help. Princess had her very first migraine last night, complete with vomiting so I let her sleep in... and so did I!!! Ultimately I didn't even have time for breakfast before I had to ship out. Princess got her lunchable and Mommy took the Hello Kitty Snack Pack. It was listed as a bento, but holy cow, you can't fit ANYTHING in it really.

So, off to put in something I like, I got 4 carrots, about 6 veggie wheat thins and some garlic hummus, and without further ado...


Fun thing is, step mom took me out for lunch, so I get this for tomorrow!

My Very First Bento!

(Small intrusion into my post, please go here and vote for my friend Brittany Beaulac, thanks!)

Pikko would be so proud of me today, I just wanted to say that first thing! Now onto the details.

Our morning started out with Princess deciding she didn't want to ride the bus, she wanted to spend that hour watching cartoons and hanging out on the couch. (We just recently acquired some hand me down white leather couches from my step mom, ultimate in comfort, they rock!) I told her since she got ready for school in record time I would take her for a dough nut and chocolate milk. We then proceeded to leave and we began discussing today's lunch menu at school. Princess' school was offering either Vegetable Lasagna or Ham & Cheese sandwich, she made "ikky" faces at both and we were in a quandry!

I thought... "BENTO!" I have used my make shift bento boxes before, but just as a leftover storage container to make leftovers more appetizing to the kids, however, today I had no leftovers! And being as it's the end of the month and I am short on cash, we had to make due with whatever we could find. Between being limited on supplies and little Miss Picky, it was tight!

We have bologna but no bread. DING, make shapes of bologna and she can eat them with a fork! She was all over that idea, especially since I used Hello Kitty rice molds (kitty, bear, bunny) to cut out shapes. Bologna is large enough to cut out two kitties from one slice, one bear and bunny from one slice. We ended up with two kitties, two bears, and two bunnies. I originally set them across the bento box, but that left no room for much else, so I stacked them. In the end, I placed the bunny cover for the rice mold over the bologna so it the bologna wouldn't move since it was lower in height compared to everything else and the lunch bag would make the container on it's side.

An idea from snack time a couple days ago meant that brightly colored goldfish crackers and gummy bears had a place. I originally used silicone baking cups for those and they ended up in rice molds! I used the Hello Kitty kitty for the gummy bears and the bear for the goldfish crackers, they were so cute!

Trying to determine what would go in next became a game, I was at the counter and Princess at the refrigerator and I offered up maybe grapes? She said sure and came out with a huge box of baby purple/red grapes, I picked off around 10 and dropped them into a hot pink silicone baking cup. She then decided the purple grapes needed to be in the purple cup, another change. We still had some room, huge green grapes were tossed into the hot pink silicone baking cup and then box was then rearranged.

Oh look, some more room! "Mom, can I have Miracle Whip too?" OH GREAT IDEA! I had just purchased some pink Hello Kitty sauce cups, filled it, closed it, popped it in, perfect fit. Since we were in the Hello Kitty theme, I removed the fork and spoon that comes equipped into the side of this bento and replaced them with a Hello Kitty fork! I eventually replaced the stock spoon because she could use the opposite end of that for a knife and spreader for her Miracle Whip.

While I was finished adjusting the box, Princess was putting refrigerated items back, and I asked her if she wanted green tea too?! She was all over that idea and I got to use one of those new drink containers I had gotten her from the dollar store, it was hot pink! Then we scrambled all over the house looking for my camera for I knew that Pikko would never forgive me for not memorializing my very first bento.

So without further ado, I present my very first bento!
(forgive the bad image, we were in a hurry, don't forget I made her late for school for this!!!)