Katatsumuri

Packed A a snail's lunch yesterday.  She informed me several months ago (while making her hands into a snail shape) that "snail" in Japanese is "katatsumuri"!  This is one of her favorite Japanese words for some reason.  She loved this lunch and the box came home empty (except for the curly lettuce which she informed me she didn't want to eat.  Goofy kid.

A's snails are made of Pizza Pinwheels and cheese dogs with the faces cut in before cooking using the blunt end of a cocktail pick for the eyes and a cool curved exacto-knife style tool I got from the Daiso.  They're held together at the base with cocktail picks (not pictured).  The girl snail is wearing a bow pick and the boy (who she informed me must be daddy because he is "the only boy") has a couple of antennae that I jimmied up from a couple of flag picks (just cut the flags off of them and voila!)

Also included in her snail lunch was a mikan, some lightly boiled broccoli florets, edamame picks, a few carrot flowers and an apple jelly.

School's In!

A went back to school yesterday from her winter break.  I packed her a bento since it was a Tuesday.  Excited to get back into my groove.  :)

I like this snowman more than I liked the one I made a month ago.  Isn't he kawaii?  A insisted that she have hot dogs spelling out her name, the way I did with "SNOW" last time.  Unfortunately her name is a little too long to have fit them in there in a cuter way, and the bits with hearts on them (which she also insisted on) had to go underneath.  The alpha-dogs are resting on top of a half of a mikon and three lightly steamed broccoli florets.

Here is her onigiri!  He's adorned with nori details, bone picks, and a scrap of deli ham for his scarf.  His earmuffs are made of nori and M&Ms - which I fastened to his head with a bit of dry spaghetti.  His head is propped up on a couple of baby carrots.

A completely loved this lunch - I think she was so elated to get back to her school day routine and have a bento again (I didn't make enough during the winter break because we didn't really go out anywhere - Okinawa has been having a colder winter this year than we expected) that she could hardly contain herself, to be honest.  She ate all of it (! - seemed like a ton of food to me!) and raved about it afterwards.  I loved it too, to be honest.  It was fun to be back in my kitchen playing with all my cool gadgets!

Happy Everything!

Good grief!  The last month just breezed right by.  Husband was home from work for the last half of December, and A was out of school.  When we're in our groove and everybody with obligations is going to work or school, I forget just how full our house can be when we're all home!  It gets downright chaotic!  And to think that I'm even considering humoring my husband with another baby at some point!  I MUST be crazy!

Husband's back and work now, and A will be starting school again on Monday, so it's time for me to get things back under control around here.  Can't believe just how quickly this place falls apart.

Happy belated Christmas and New Year!  I am just chock full of resolutions this year - in fact I seem to be coming up with a new one every hour or so.  It's already coming to the end of January 4 here in Okinawa, so we're nearly 100 hours into 2011...  ;)

I'll try and sort through some of my thoughts and goals another time.  For now I just wanted to pop in and send wishes for an amazing year to everybody out in blogland.  :)