Bento Post - the last one of 2011!

I'm WAY behind on my bento pictures.  Since last week my poor spoiled child has been taking Lunchables to school for lunch, since we're out of housing and all of my snazzy bento supplies are in transit to the UK.

Anyways, I thought I'd post a few photos of some of the lunches I missed posting last month when they were relevant...  Ooops!

This one's pretty old but I can't remember posting it before.

Cherries, kiwi, mini salad with cheese stars, mac and cheese and under-the-sea dogs: mini octo and crab.

This was C's lunch on a day when we were out and about running errands.  It's a mini-version of the same lunch A had that day - apples, edamame, ham and cheese wheels, grapes, and a pumpkin candy.

The A version included a cookie.

Simple onigiri, hot dogs, apples, edamame and a pumpkin spice cookie

Bunny love.  ;)

Actually really liked this one - it's an olive spider and ham and cheese sammy rolls that say EEK with carrots, apples, and edamame - in the view below you can see how cute the spider is.  Hehehe

Red-dyed spaghetti (she won't eat spaghetti sauce, but red spaghetti is cool) with grilled chicken and a heart shaped bread, carrots, kiwi-love, cherry tomato and a brownie bite.

Sunbutter and jelly jack-o-lantern on skinny buns bread, mini-weenie, grapes, cheese, kiwi, and carrots.  There is a story behind this lunch.  Ask me some day.

Boo sammy with apples, grapes, carrots and cookie

Mini-mummy pizzas, apples and carrot-o-lanterns

The laziest ghost onigiri ever.  Fortunately my kiddo is pretty indiscriminate about rice.  Plus this one came with sprinkles - which she LOVES.  Also had candy corn, edamame, carrot-o-lantern, and mini dogs.

And that's that.  I may have a few more photos but since we're operating in-transit now, those won't be uploaded at all till we are settled in at our new address.  For the moment, I'm on vacation.  ;)

Another Bento Catch-up

I really need to get myself into a good, solid routine.  With the upcoming move, though, I am fighting it.  Anyways my blog of course is the first thing to suffer - oops.  I have been bento-ing though and generally taking photos.  Here's another attempt to get the blog caught up on what A's been eating for lunch.

Sheesh.  I was SO intimidated on the morning I put this lunch together.  The day before, A had accidentally forgotten her standard lunch bag at school.  Which is technically not an issue since I bought her two different lunch bags that match her backpack exactly for this reason.  But this lunch box is a LOT bigger and I had bought the Pottery Barn Kids insert that fits inside of it to put her meal in.  I hadn't used the insert before so I was kind of concerned about how it was going to work out.  The box is way too big for a 5-year-old.  But I did manage to fit in her drink (Apple Qoo) and a pretty balanced meal in there.  Just, a lot of it came back.  She had cheeseburger buns, a cucumber roll (her favorite), carrot shapes, fruit jelly, and kiwi.  Not my favorite way to pack a lunch but I figured I'd document it anyway just for fun, since it was such a big deal at the time.  Here is a link to the container, if anybody's interested - it would definitely be a great box to use for an all-day outing - you could even stick something breakfasty in the covered space if you wanted to and have it separate.

HK onigiri and mini dogs, cucumber, carrots, strawberries, "cherry" tomatoes, cheese and a fruit jelly

Pizza wheels, edamame (on the animal picks), strawberry, banana, and carrots

Ham and cheese roll ups, cherry tomato, banana, carrots and jelly

Onigiri, broccoli, tomatoes, hot dog, apple and cheese

Banana, carrots, edamame, tomato balloon, and pizza rolls (crescent dough wrapped around pepperoni and string cheese)

C's mini-version of the pizza roll lunch

Under the sea - girly octodog, carrots, tomato, seal with olive, goldfish crackers, strawberry, and fish-shaped onigiri

Ham slices, diced peaches, tomatoes, carrots and olives with mac-and-cheese lion face

The first Halloween bento of 2011 :)

Mini mummy dogs - used lit'l smokies and seamless crescent dough - they're propped up on a banana and sharing space with a black cat sugar cookie

Mac-o-lanterns.  :)

Fresh fruits and veggies, leftover fried rice and gyoza with animal picks. 

Ok, that's all I've got.  Phew!  Here's to being caught up!  :)

Bundle of Bentos

Our external hard drive where we store our photos, music and videos filled up completely so I was unable to upload bento pictures from the past week and a half.  M did some transferring, so now we're back in business and I have a bunch of lunches to share.

Hello Kitty and friends onigiri with ham, carrots and apples.

Corn-doggies with attitude, carrot flowers, banana, baby corn and jelly.

Edamame, baby corn, rice, flower hamburger and bananas.

Macaroni Grill leftovers (by request!):  Broccoli, grilled chicken, pasta and a jelly.

Typical Monday hodge-podge disaster lunch - Anpanman sweet potato rounds, Hello Kitty mini dogs, jelly, baby corn, edamame, kiwi, oatmeal chocolate chip cookie and baby carrots.

Wise sammies - Carrots, ham and cheese owls and veggie crackers (underneath).  She had a sidecar box full of apples with this one.

The boy owl

The girl owl

Packed up nice and cozy in a window-box.  :)

Fun-fun-fun!  This catches me up for the moment.  Thank goodness my computer is functional again!

Kindergarten!

Holy moly, these past few weeks have been chaos.  I really am starting to feel like this move will never finally be behind us, and it is driving me crazy!  There has been some confusion regarding our passports and the move is being delayed as a result, much to my dismay.  I love Okinawa but I'm so ready for something new.

On the Tokyo Tower's Main Observation Deck

Let's see, where did I leave off?  Aha!  With my Before I Fall book review - it's funny, I finished reading that one and reviewed it and I didn't post my exciting news!  We went to Tokyo for a week - just me, the kids, and a couple of friends.  It was a blast.  We went to Sanrio Puroland (AKA Hello Kitty Land), Tokyo Disney, Roppongi and Hard Rock Café, Tokyo Tower (absolutely fantastic!), Ueno park and science/natural history museum, Build-a-Bear Workshop, and a few other sights.  We rode (and LOVED) the trains, we flew Space-A (military charter - basically free flights!), and walked all over the place.  It was a really awesome experience for the kids and me and I'm so glad we finally got to do it.  Unfortunately M couldn't take leave so he was super jealous.  He's been to Tokyo but not for sightseeing - he went directly after the 3/11 disaster and stayed at Yokota AB helping with relief efforts.  Needless to say, he didn't have a lot of time to spare.

At Puroland

So anyways, it's been hectic.  Tokyo, move processing, and A's first week of Kindergarten, two Labor-Day-weekend barbecues, A's first ever Girl Scout function (she's a Daisy - eeeeeek!), and a super crappy head-cold - all within about 21 days.  It's a wonder I've managed to even fit in reading.  I'm about halfway through my current book, too - The Memory Keeper's Daughter, which I'm enjoying.

Last week I sent my sugarpie off to Kindergarten.  It was bittersweet.  She is loving it but I find myself swirling around throughout the day trying to figure out why she isn't following me around any more.  I got so used to her being home in between pulling her from Yochien and this new school year, I don't know what to do with myself while she isn't around.  Luckily things haven't really calmed down consistently at all so my nest isn't too terribly empty, and now M is starting on two weeks of leave so he'll be home with me too.  Of course, we'll be busy.  I anticipate nothing but headaches for the next two months or so.  It's looking like our move won't be happening till December, now.

On the bright side, A's LOVING Kindergarten.  She's crazy about her teachers and she loves riding the school bus and that important sort of feeling that only comes with being a Kindergartner.  So I'm really excited that she'll have a few extra weeks in her current class.  We'll get almost to Christmas break before we have to transfer her, so I think that'll be really good for her.  She's got all sorts of things going on all of the sudden and it's so exciting and so intimidating.  I am not used to being the mother of an elementary school student!  It has been nerve-wracking but it's the sort of thing I think I might be content getting used to.  I love getting up and packing her lunch (miraculously) and making breakfast.  I love picking out her outfits for school, I love packing her backpack and buying school supplies.  I love that she has brought home green dots (good behavior) each day so far (knock on wood!), I love the book orders we shopped through this weekend, and the 100 book club tally sheet and the "shoe tying club" at school...  What can I say?  I'm a nerd.  I'm embracing it.

Anyways I figure one day she may very well be less enthusiastic about school so I may as well soak these times up while I still can.

And I've been bento-ing again, and loving it (for the most part ;) hehehe).

A's first day of Kindergarten bento!

She really loved this lunch - it was so sad though when I picked her up from school she announced to me that she hadn't had enough time to eat her whole lunch and she was SO HUNGRY!  Apparently, her school's policy allows for a 15 minute lunch session for Kindergarten students.  Not hardly enough, if you ask me - my kids are the slowest eaters EVER!  But she is adjusting to the art of speed-eating, and getting better every day.  The first day, she scarfed down her lunch in the car on the way home.  It was too funny.

ABC grilled cheese sammies, star-shaped carrot slices, a google-eyed strawberry and underneath it all she had some edamame.

Dessert, which I'd intended to fit in the same box, but had to use a sidecar because I had to free-hand cut the sandwiches and they turned out way bigger than I'd hoped.  Anyways it's an apple decorated mini-cupcake and some Cinnamon Toast Crunch (her favorite).

Second day bento - mini corn dogs with a Hello Kitty pick, apples and edamame.

Third day bento - macaroni and cheese with deli ham, Hello Kitty carrots, strawberries, and "cherry" tomatoes.

A's fourth day - Friday - was a half day.  So while I'd actually had something pretty neat planned for her lunch, I didn't end up packing her anything and she got home before noon.  So, she and C ate lunch together, which was nice too.  C had been missing her all week.

We're just about in a routine - we read two books each night and we get up early so that we have spare time in the morning which works out really well for us.  She is definitely excited to start her new school week tomorrow and I'm contemplating her lunch tonight.

Will try to update more regularly, but no guarantees!

So far behind!

I feel like I've been bento-ing up a storm lately but have not been keeping up with the blog side of it.  It figures, though, that if it's not one thing it's another.  The following lunches were all in the last seven days or so:

C's hot dog, carrot sticks, pesto pasta, and a "mini-banana split"

A's - same thing, but you can see her sidecar box in this photo (which was filled with diced peaches)

And the "Piéce de résistance" - Chocolate sprinkles milk!  They thought this was the greatest thing ever.

The next day we had a variation on this lunch with the leftover pasta.

Chocolate-dipped frozen banana (it has been HOT around here lately!!), carrot sticks, fruit jelly, pesto pasta and pepperoni bites.

On Sunday, M was out completing his scuba diving certification so I made the girls a bento for lunch while we waited for him to get home.

Cherries, kiwi, romaine salad with grape tomatoes and cheese stars, macaroni and cheese with hot dog crab and octopus.

And I think that about catches us up to speed.  :)