Happy Easter Egg Bento

This one almost didn't happen - I got a little distracted out shopping and got home late. Considered not bothering but pulled it out!

Strawberries with a flower pick, Annie's bunny crackers, a mini bunny sandwich, Easter egg sandwich and some carrots. I punched holes out of the egg sandwich then stuck a baking sprinkle in each hole (and for the bunny's nose).

See you tomorrow!

Easter Bunny Bento

My grand plan is to do an Easter bento all 4 days the kids will be in school/daycare this week so look for them! Of course my grand plans don't always pan out but I'll try my best.

It's always nice doing bentos on Sundays. It's relaxing, I do it in the afternoon, the light is good for the pictures.... When I'm doing it after work, in between dinner/bedtimes, it's a little more hectic!

I have 2 for you this week.

First the 3 year olds - she's my veggie lover and my dairy allergy.

She has: deli turkey with a bunny fork pick, a bubby made out cucumbers and carrots (hey, I'm very proud of that one - isn't he cute?!) melon with a few bunny grahams in a yellow cup and finally wheat thins with a bunny pick.

The 6 year olds. He's my sensory issues/picky guy.

He has: deli turkey with a chick and bunny picks, wheat thins with a cheese bunny, more pieces of cheese for his crackers in a side wrapper (more on that in a second), some bunny grahams and some melon with a sheep pick.

My awesome pod-mate at work brought me those side dish partion cups (the wrapper looking thing holding the extra cheese) from Vancouver. They are awesome, they fold open and you push down so there is a bottom and then you can stick things into them. Love it! I like the baran pieces for separating stuff but those are way better as there is nothing touching or seeping through at the bottom.

Well, see you tomorrow for round 2 of Easter lunches!

Easy Animal Bento

This was a quick and easy animal bento for the 3 year old from the beginning of the week.

Veggie booty with a bear baran (divider) peeking over, small animal sandwiches, her favorite raw veggies with a rabbit container of dip, melon with animal picks.

Enjoy the weekend!

Happy Heart Day Bentos

Happy Valentines Day! OK, a day early but you get the idea. I personally love all holidays, how could you not enjoy a reason to celebrate? I was quite excited that my daughter was born on Cinco de Mayo, can't beat a double celebration!

On to the Valentines bentos. The pictures are weak - but no natural light and all that, this is the best I could do.

The 6 year olds:

Strawberries with heart picks. Little heart cookies. Babybel cheese with a heart cut out. A little heart container with dried cranberries. Sandwich with a kiss and a hug cut out of fruit leather.

The 3 year olds is nearly identical. Due to her dairy allergy though, she has red peppers cut into hearts instead of the cheese.

 Spent tonight cutting hearts out of honeydew and cantaloupe and putting them on popsicle stickers for the 6 year olds grade one class. I'll try and remember to take a picture before they head off to school. He did remind me it was also pink and red day and informed me that there was no way he was wearing pink - so he's sticking to red.

The 3 year old is having red day but we are going rouge - we are busting out the heart ruffles. They are covered in hearts, can't get more Valentines than those pants!

Hope you have a great day with the ones you love!

Winner + Panda and Penguin Bentos

First a big congratulations to Bina, winner of the Sweet Lunch Punch set! And many thanks to Lunch Punch for donating those for the contest. If you haven't already, make sure you check out their website to see all the cool sandwich punches they have! I personally can't wait to get the puzzle one for the 6 year old and the princess one for the 3 year old.

On to tomorrows lunches. The 6 year old is doing a unit on penguins in grade one right now. It's pretty cute as their preschool buddies are coming to their class tomorrow to work on a penguin project with them. Soooo of course we have to have a penguin lunch, just a given, right?

We have a penguin sandwich with fruit leather, icing eyes and a cheese beak and a little cup of fish friends for him. A cup of applesauce with a penguin made out of fruit leather, icing eyes and a mini M&M I broke up. Way to maximize a single mini M&M, huh! Then melon with a homemade pick - I didn't have any penguins so I dug out one of the kids foam stickers and stuck it on a random pick.

Now for the 3 year old, I wanted to use up the fruit leather scraps so for her, I went panda.

I used a teddy bear cutter and added some fruit leather eye rings and for the nose, fruit leather on half a mini marshmellow. I still had some bread scraps so the panda got some babies. Then melon with pandas and little cups of veggie booty and mini rice cakes.

If you notice the 3 year old gets mini rice cakes and veggie booty alot, you are right. She is in that annoying "I don't have much time to eat" stage and I know if I put a little of those in there, she will definately eat those. And let me tell you, she is not a child you want to not eat - when she doesn't, she turns into a miserable mush.  I myself am in that annoying "Can't stop eating" stage and am a mush as result of it - haha!

It's a Gumball Lunch Party!

We are having a gumball machine lunch party - wanna come?

After my kids saw the lunch punches that made their ice cream sandwiches, they couldn't wait to have the gumball machine. Busted that one out for their lunches tomorrow, it looks so cute!

So we have the gumball machine sandwich with mini M&M gumballs. The little detail is fruit leather. See the animal pick? He's stuck in the "gumball" that was cut out. Then we have strawberries with hats - (hey, it's a gumball party!) and a babybel cheese with icing eyes sitting on top of a couple mini rice cakes.

The 6 year old wanted to know if I put gumballs inside the machine - I'm good... but not that good!

Don't forget to enter to win the whole set of 4 Lunch Punch Sweet cutters - enter via Rafflecopter on the post below this one!

Ice Cream Sandwiches!

I know, I know, it's been a bit of a dry spell around here! Trying to get back on track after the holidays, here's hoping!

So before Christmas, Kiersten, owner of The Lunch Punch, sent me the cutest sandwich punch set. Love it. Like, super love. It's the Sweet set and has 4 different sandwich cutter - a gumball machine, a birthday cake, ice cream cones and a cupcake. They come packaged in this sweet (get it? haha) little box, all ready to use! The best part is that they are awesome for boys and girls. I love princessy things and so does the 3 year old but I can assure you, the 6 year old doesn't want anything princess related showing up in his lunchbox. But ice cream - who doesn't love it?



Aren't they adorable? You will love them too! Wanna get your hands on them? Keep reading!

So anyway, this is tomorrows lunch - isn't it sweet? (I'm wearing that one out, aren't I...) Ice cream sandwiches with sprinkles, fruit with ice cream pics and a cucumber and red pepper cupcake.




On to the fun part! So Kiersten also sent a second set for me to do what I wished with, no conditions attached. We love that around here, don't we! Here is your chance to win the exact set I have!

You can enter below and can get up to 12 entries.

• Earn 3 entries by posting a comment on this blog post.
  
• Earn 3 entries for posting something about Bento Diva on Facebook (prior posts do not count)
  
• Earn 3 entries by tweeting something about Bento Diva
  
• Earn 3 entries by following this blog. If you already follow this blog, just add that you already follow into that box.
  

(I'm not a tweeter so you are on your own with that one! ha!) To start, either log in with Facebook or your name and email. Good luck! Contest ends on Jan 22, 2012.

(Please give rafflecopter a few seconds to load, it can be slow) a Rafflecopter giveaway

Sweet Snowman Bento - Happy Holidays!

Well, we are back from the Bahamas - trip of a lifetime. Enjoyed every minute and even though I said I wouldn't, I did pack lunches. They weren't cute though :)

I am packing lunch for the 3 year old this week, she's still in daycare until Thurs. The 6 year old is out of school and hanging with my mom so she is in charge of his lunch!

This is what my little mama got today.

Snowman - Ritz crackers and peanut butter cracker-wiches (is that a word?!). Raisins for the eyes and buttons, fruit leather hat, carrot nose and pretzel arms.

Then strawberries with a Santa pick, cucumbers and a red and green mix made out of veggie booty and cranberries.

Hope you appreciate the "snow" I added around the container for decoration - I'm just so artsy LOL

Dolphin Days Bento

This is my last post for a couple weeks as we are off to the sun and warmth of the Bahamas tomorrow! The 3.5 year old has talked non-stop about meeting her "dolphin friends" as we will be doing a dolphin experience while we are there. So it called for, you guessed it, a dolphin lunch!

Both kids got the same only the 6 year old got the cheese pictured below.

Grapes with penguin and seal picks, goldfish crackers (kind of a given!) , dolphin sandwiches and fruit leather fish on the heart sandwich and Babybal cheese.
Now, just to keep you interested and coming on back, I'll let you in on a little upcoming giveaway. It's some sort of awesome, let me tell you. It's a brand new product from lunchpunch - and here's a clue... it might look a little something like this:


You know you want to rock the gumball sandwich! Stay tuned - giveaway coming up when we get home!

Bagel Surprise

Sometimes I do lunches at night and other times, I wait until the morning. This never works out as well as I run out of time and am in a mad panic. This happened the other day when I got distracted looking at all the Black Friday deals!

So I had to throw something together quickly for the kids before I left for work. As I grabbed these mini bagels, I noticed that the middles kind of looked like mouths. (Yes, it's happened, I now see weird qualities in food products). It worked out well as all I did was shove some icing eyes into them, stick a flag in to make the orange segment into a boat and throw in some pretzels. Tada - a lazy persons bento! Even the mini bagels look horrified - haha!

Sweet Treats Bento

Been wanting to do this lunch for a while, I've been thinking about it ever since I got these pics that you will see in the fruit. They are so cute - they look like treats (ice cream, donuts, cupcakes) from the side but are animal faces if you look at them from the top. I like a good multi-use product!

Both kids are getting the same, the only difference is the 3 year old will get mini rice cakes instead of pretzels as she isn't a fan.

Cupcake sandwich with sprinkles stuck into the bread and a fruit leather cherry. Cut up a paper cup for it's... paper cup LOL. I'm most proud of my "cake" in the yellow container. It's just a chewy granola bar cut into pieces with a square of fruit leather with sprinkles pressed into it. Craisins in the blue container with a pick that holds messages. Strawberries with those picks I mentioned above and pretzels.

Peanut Butter Bear

I've been at home with this terrible cold thing. Kept the 3 year old home today with me as she is congested and it seemed like the best thing to do. It's become apparently however that she and I do not have the same thing. Mine is the "want to lay on the couch and recover" strain and hers is the "want to monkey around, get into everything and generally cause mayhem" variety. Let's just say the 2 are not compatible!

Anyway, with her being home, no packed bento today. I did pack a quick one for the 6 year old but it was pretty standard so no pictures.

Here's what she got though. She said she was going to eat every bite and surprisingly, she actually did.

Peanut Butter Bear using rice cakes (regular and mini) and raisins for the face.

Caterpiller (fail - she thought they were turtles) with cucumbers and yellow peppers, dip, a "haystack" of yellow peppers with a pick and melon boats.

She also got a Motts sugar free applesauce with a melon boat and a pick, which you can see in this picture:

After eating she said, "Mom, when I'm big, I'm going to make cute lunches too". I said "Yep, you can make them for your babies when you are big" and she said "And you can have more babies to make them for". Um, no. One thousand times... no. I said "I'm happy making them for the babies I already have". To which she said "But you don't have any babies...." and gave me *the look*. Errr.... right. Cause lord help you if you ever refer to her as a baby!

Lego For Lunch Bento

So I was lying on the couch - err.... doing something productive..... when I just had this compulsion to make the 6 year old a Lego lunch for tomorrow. Wasn't sure exactly how I was going to do it but it's usually easier to do girly lunches so when I have a good one for my boy, I'm all over it!

I knew for sure though, that it would involve this tool. I got this on a whim and man, I use it all. the.time! It cuts 2 sizes of little circles and an oval and white long thing pokes out what you've cut. I use it for eyes, the oval I use for mouths (cut one then cut another inside to make a smile)... it's very handy! You can get it at All Things For Sale for 4.99 - if you click the button on the left and order anything, I get a 5% credit voucher to use - just sayin' :)



Anyway, I got a little punch happy with it but knew it would be awesome for Legos!

For the sandwiches, I punched out circles out of the top piece of bread then little round tubes out of the cheese and stuck them in the holes.

Strawberries have fruit leather circles, as does the cereal bar. I cut up a Babybel cheese to look like a minifig and added eyes and a mouth with fruit leather - (remember the oval cutter above, that's how I made the mouth) I printed off some minifig pics to stick in there as well - you can see them better in the 2nd picture.



Pics are taken on our Lego table which I highly, highly recommend getting if you have kids that enjoy Lego.

Now if you think I was doing that again for the 3 year old, oh no - one time only deal! She got a flower theme (I know, it's like my old standby) with flower sandwiches with fruit leather detail. There are some carrot flowers, another mini sandwich in veggie booty and rice cake pieces and flower strawberries with flower picks.


In case I've never mentioned it, they get other things as well for snacks. They usually get their box plus yogurt for lunch. I don't take picture of the snacks because it's kind of boring. Usually a baked item (homemade muffins, granola bars or whatever), more fruit and something like sugar free applesauce.

Animals... Perhaps?

Catching up on last weeks lunches as today was a holiday and they had, surprise, surprise PB&J. I'll admit, every Sat/Sun for lunch, they eat PB&J. The 6 year old because his school is nut free so it's fun for him. And the 3 year old, because she believes peanut butter should be its own food group and served at every meal. I think she needs a peanut butter support group.

Anyway, you might have noticed the title of this blog post and the Perhaps? it because I'm not totally sure that this is an animal I made, ha! I told the 3 year old she had a kitty in her lunch and while she enjoyed it, she came home and told me she was pretty sure it wasn't a kitty. Whatever happened to getting credit for trying?!

I rolled up deli meat to make the "kitty" - s/he has goldfish crackers for ears, cucumber eyes, red pepper mouth and a piece of cracker for the tail. The bow is a pick. Then veggie booty, a variety of crackers and melon with animal picks.

The 6 year old who doesn't eat meat but does eat dairy got:

Crackers with animals cut out of cheese - I wrap these up these stacks before packing it all up so that the cheese doesn't dry out. Then a cup of sugar free applesauce, a few fishy crackers and a cereal bar. Finally melon with a strawberry and grape flower. He normally doesn't comment much on his lunches but apparently he thought the flower was "super cool".


The other day, I ran into Safeway to get something and saw this whole wheat pasta in the shape of bugs. Knew my kids would dig it so I grabbed it and made pasta salad for the 3 year old as that's her other obsession. The 6 year old had a sort of mac and cheese, bug style. They both eat *every bite* - AND *the 6 year old did not complain*. Holy crap, someone call Guiness, we have a new record. Plus, they thought it was hilarious to tell everyone their mom gave them bugs for dinner.

The 3 year old took leftovers for the next 2 days:

Tasty Transportation

The 6 year olds grade 1 class is doing a unit in transportation. Decided he needed a lunch to go along with it - well, actually they both needed a lunch to go along with it as mama only has so many ideas!

Used the big Lock N Lock container with the inserts from my square Lock N Lock.

Strawberry boat in a sea of grapes. Babybel cheese in a car paper cup. I cut out an extra I had to put on top. Fruit twists with truck picks. Crescent pizza "wheels" with rocket picks. And finally, a train sandwich on a track made of crust.

The crescents are a fun lunch item. I had an extra thing of Pillsbury Crescent Rolls in the fridge so whipped these up. Take them out of their packaging and pinch them so it is one long piece of dough (it comes perforated for the crescents). For the 3 yr old no dairy chick, I spread with pizza sauce, sprinkle with meat and chopped peppers and roll width wise. Cut little slices, put on a baking sheet and bake until the bottoms are brown (usually 10-12 minutes). For the 6 year old, I skip the pizza sauce and do peppers, meat and grated cheese. They can be frozen in ziplock bags to have on hand.

For the 3 year old's dairy free version of this lunch, I replaced the Babybel cheese with red peppers cut out like boats and like I said above, no cheese in the crescent "wheels".

Beautiful Butterfly Bento

So the 3 year old and I were shopping at Safeway the other day - something I rarely do as I leave that up to my husband and the kids on Sunday mornings! So going to the grocery store is kind of fun for me - I always get sucked into new and fun items. (Yes, this is probably why I am not allowed to participate on Sundays - ha!)

Anyway, she spotted this butterfly sandwich cutter by Evriholder and of course we had to get it. We always seem to luck out for cute cutters at Safeway - and frankly, for $2.99, I couldn't resist!

It's unique in the fact that it cuts it into two pieces down the middle, unlike the other ones we've had.

Tried it out last night so here is her butterfly bento from today. Normally I make the sandwich then cut it all but this time I cut both pieces of bread separately so I could do the holes for the jam to show through in the top piece. The middle thingy of the butterfly (whatever the technical term is for that) is a long strip of red pepper. She enjoyed it but she did say at first she thought it was licorice. Sorry, sister!

In the left corner is half a Kashi cereal bar. It had a line up the middle so I cut a fruit leather flower and let the line be the stem. Stuck a pick in to hold it.

Then, cantaloupe flowers and a little square of mini rice cakes, all packed in the larger rectangle Lock N Lock box.

Spoooooky lunches for yooooou!

Happy Halloween!!! OK, a day early but I'm the first to wish you that, right?

Here are the kids lunches for tomorrow - I'm sad Halloween will be wrapping up, it's been so much fun.

Here is the 3 year olds. Now, I know I don't usually send things like Oreos but I couldn't resist making an Oreo bat with fruit leather wings! I melted a couple chocolate chips in the microwave in order to stick on the eyes.

She also has a mini waffle sandwich (jam in between) - we get the Earths Best mini waffles. The stem is a piece of veggie booty and the face is fruit leather.

The boo is another mini waffle sandwich topped with a multigrained Ritz cracker with peanut butter and alphabet preztels to spell out BOO.

Then peach applesauce with a fruit leather pumpkin and a melon ghost with grapes. The spider is stuck into a piece of melon in an orange little cup as I had a space to fill!


The 6 year old is a lot of the same only he can eat dairy but his school is nut free.

So instead of the cracker/peanut butter, he gets preztels spelling out BOO on another waffle sandwich. He also got a Babybel cheese - I stuck a pumpkin I cut out of paper on top to make it Halloween-ish, and a pick to make the pumpkin stem.


Normally their snacks are pretty boring (yogurt etc) so I don't bother posting them. This one is cute though, so why not! I had left over plastic test tubes from a party favor we made so I used them in their lunch. I alternated raisins and Floridas Natural Fruit thingies (OK, not the official name) so it was (sort of) orange and black. Hey they are natural, they can't be THAT orange, right?


Can't wait to see what you made for Halloween lunches! Make sure you send them to me at kimineurope @ hotmail.com

Oh, and a shout out to new reader Rachel for posting a comment - love those comments and so glad you are enjoying the blog!

Happy Haunting Bento

The first Halloween bento! I decided I'd do at least 2, maybe 3 - because Halloween + bento = so much fun! So this is number 1 and both kids got the same thing.

Ghosty sandwiches cut with a cookie cutter with icing eyes and a Cheerio mouth. Spooooky, isn't it? You can buy a package of icing eyes at baking supply stores, they are cheap. I don't use them all time but my kids enjoy them as they feel like they are getting candy in their lunch.

Then, cantaloupe pumpkins cut with a small cutter and a black cat pick. A tip - I hide all the scraps under the cut outs so I don't waste it then layer the cute things on top.

Finally, had to have something orange and black so orange fishy crackers with black raisins.



I've got a few other ideas so I'll definitely make another on Halloween day and probably one more in between, depending on my time/energy/mojo/procrastination/laziness/general sloth like tenancies. Check back!

Just a small amount of cuteness....

Now, before you get any crazy ideas, not all of my lunches are cute. In fact, many are not so cute or even just plain boring.

This is the 6 year olds lunch from the other day. I was trying to throw his lunch together, leave for work and (oh crap, it's orange day) cover the 3 year old with orange stickers at the same time. Apparently no one in this house owns anything orange, who knew?

So I just try and add a little bit of cute on those days. Sometimes a little cute is better than no cute, right? I took whole grain alphabet pretzels (Blue Menu, from the Superstore) and pressed them into his sandwich to spell out his name. I added a hippo pick to his fruit and cut up his cereal bar so fishy crackers could swim around it. Quick, easy and done!



And speaking of orange day, Christine (who works at the 3 year olds daycare and is obviously much more organized than I am!) prepared this for her little boy:


Doing a one color lunch is always fun - or even a rainbow lunch!

Now, I need some comments on the following:

1) Halloween bento. Do I pack one on Halloween day because that makes sense or should I do it this week, so you can see ahead of time? Or maybe both? Let me know.

2) How the heck do I get people to post comments? I see lots of blogs and there are tons of comments so how do I get that happening? Do people not know how to comment? Or just too lazy like I usually am?? LOL I totally want this blog to be a network of sharing of ideas so I need to know you are out there! Random strangers, this means you too. Come on people, don't make me guilt you like this.

3) Finally, are there any themes you want me to bento? Any ideas? Tell me and I'll see what I can do. The rule will be I will only use what I have on hand so that I really have to use my old rusty noggin.

And what I did above is what one of the 3 year olds beloved teachers would call "the sandwich". Nice comment/yell at you/nice comment. HA! Is that not true, Krystal? And yet so fitting for a lunch blog!

The Pink Princess Pancake and the Blue Boat Bento

Doesn't that title sound like some sort of fairy tale?!

I wanted to make a princess lunch for the 3 year old - because what 3 year old girl wouldn't be into that? And if there is one thing we all know about princesses, they involve pink - lots of pink.

Her princess lunch consisted of blueberry applesauce with a princess ring stuck in it and watermelon with pink heart picks. The little containers have dried cranberries with a pink raccoon pick and a beautiful grape rose. At the bottom, tiara pancake (recipe below) sandwiches (2 pancakes with jam in the middle) adorned with raisins and fruit leather on a pink napkin.

The big highlight was the spoon. I got this set of 3 skinny spoons and forks the last time I was at Daiso and they have a seriously love for those little spoons, who knows why!



Now, I'm not a waster. I try and use all the scraps. So after I cut out the tiara pancakes, I had almost half pancakes left - but not really big enough to cut anything out of them. Sooooo, I trimmed them flat and they became boats for the 6 year olds lunch. I'm pretty sure he's glad he got boats instead of pretty, pretty princess.



I punched out fruit leather circles then punched out holes in the boats and stuck the portholes in. Little flags became the masts and you can't see it, but there are fruit leather waves.

Above, he has grapes with sea life picks and waffle mini pretzels with a cheese boat and fish, and more fruit leather waves. He enjoyed it but did file a complaint about his lack of ring!

On sports nights, we try and have some quick that we know the kids will eat and the night before it was pancakes, hence the leftovers. I always have a big container of homemade mix on hand to quickly throw them together.

Here is the recipe - now please note - this will make a big container - you will NOT use all this at once, this is to keep on hand! That could be mighty confusing!

Pancake Mix (to keep on hand)

4 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups whole wheat flour
2/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoons baking powder
1 tablespoon baking soda

Mix together and store in an airtight container.

Now, when you want to use it, combine 1 egg, 3/4 cup of milk and 1 mashed banana in a bowl. Whisk in 1 cup of your mix. If you choose, fold in 3/4 cup of blueberries.

Cook pancakes in lightly greased pan.

So good and better than buying a bag of mix.