Monthly Archives: June 2012

Jun29

Watermelon Feast!

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Watermelon Feast!

It was nearly 100 degrees today and the kids returned home from camp tired,  hungry, and just a little parched.  I had made a little dinner for the kids already and my husband decided to cut up some watermelon to go with it.  I think most kids eat their watermelon in chunks or maybe in slices… that’s what Girile prefers. I’d guess it is pretty unusual for a 3 year-old to prefer his watermelon served to him by the quarter-melon, but that’s just what Little Dude needed tonight!

He jumped up and took a bite before we could stop him, so we decided to just let him have at it.  There was no point in stopping him and I couldn’t help but record the scene to show him when he’s old enough to feel a little embarrassed by it later! Little Dude always makes noises when he eats, but he is even noisier when he is particularly enjoying his meal!

Do your kids go this wild for watermelon???

Also, I did not participate in the Bento Bloggers & Friends blog hop today, but if you want to see what my very talented friends made for their patriotic lunch theme, click here to start with Cristi from BentOnBetterLunches.

 

Jun26

Teacher Appreciation – DIY Vanilla Extract

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Teacher Appreciation – DIY Vanilla Extract

Camp has gotten off to a fantastic start for my kids.  Girlie loves her camp group and did a great job of picking a club that really suits her – nature!  She’s been able to pet goats and feed worms to a baby alligator!  At least, I think that is what she was telling me via FaceTime tonight. :)   I’m in Connecticut this week working on a Salesforce implementation and am missing all the fun.  Little Dude has a drop-off meltdown every morning due to his separation anxiety issues, but somehow going to camp with a driver and being delivered by this relative stranger to his camp group is a lot more bearable… go figure!

Anyway, I promised some random-genre posts during the summer lunch-lull and I’ll kick that off with a show and tell on a recent pinterest project: DIY Vanilla Extract! I pinned that to my gift ideas board a few months ago and finally got around to using the idea for end-of-year gifts.  The original post goes into more detail, but for me, the project entailed the following steps:

  • I ordered vanilla bean pods from amazon.com.
  • I bought oil and vinegar bottles from the dollar store.
  • I bought a giant bottle of vodka!
  • I took the lids off the bottles and washed them thoroughly.
  • I sliced the vanilla bean pods down the center and placed two sliced beans (4 segments) in each bottle.
  • I filled the bottle with vodka and put the lids back on.
  • I went to Michaels for scrapbook supplies and mod podge to decorate the bottle and make the labels.
  • I made labels with PowerPoint and printed them on my printer. I’ll send you the files if you want them!
  • I enlisted my husband’s help to cut the scrapbook paper and do a nice job with the mod-podging (is that a verb?).
  • I wrote a nice thank you note to each teacher and bought them Williams Sonoma gift cards (for baking supplies) and put that all together to give to them on the last day of school.

Ok, actually that sounds like a lot of work!  It really wasn’t though because it was fun and involved some shopping!  Here is the final product:

DIY Vanilla Extract in the Bottle I decorated.

DIY Vanilla Extract in the Bottle I decorated.

DIY Vanilla Extract Labels

DIY Vanilla Extract Labels

What do you think?  I made a bottle for our family to keep too and I can’t wait to try it.  Have you tried this recipe before?  Do you like to make teacher gifts?  I like to go hybrid when I can… something homemade to be thoughtful and a gift card for something practical.

Jun22

CAMP Bento!

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CAMP Bento!

Today is the last day of school for my kids and camp starts on Monday.  Their camp has lunches provided and this is the last lunchtime bento they’ll see for a while.  Of course, I’ll continue making bento meals for them throughout the summer because we are always on-the-go and their EasyLunchBoxes make a convenient car-seat meal en route to dance class, birthday parties, or the beach!  To celebrate the start of Camp, I made this CAMP bento for Girlie today:

CAMP Bento

CAMP Bento

She has a quesadilla that I turned into a tent.  My crazy drawing is supposed to look like two kids in their sleeping bags in their tent.  I used Trader Joe’s cinnamon alphabet cookies to spell CAMP.  She has peaches and grapes in the fruit compartment and yellow bell peppers with a laughing cow lite wedge.  I also slipped her a frozen go-gurt that should be nice and chilly at lunchtime.  I used food markers to color the tent and I have to credit Chef Corey for the cute idea about using the alphabet letters.  I loved her Pool Party lunch in our recent blog hop.

Well, this was a great school year that I am sad to see end. I love that I had never packed a lunch for my kids before the year started, and became a bento enthusiast by year-end.  What a journey!  I am excited to pick this back up in the fall and come back with even more fun ideas when school starts again.  In the 10 weeks until then, expect to see some random bento meals, posts on some of my pinterest projects, details on some of our at-home projects, and chronicles of favorite outings and events.  This is where I will really bring the random to “Rachel’s Random Ramblings.”  Have a great summer everyone!

 

Jun21

Piggy in a Blanket Bento

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Piggy in a Blanket Bento

Yes, these are veggie piggies!!! I cannot believe Girlie has been vegetarian for at least a month now.  She saw me putting together her EasyLunchBox this morning and immediately asked for assurance that they were Smart Dogs and not “an animal product.”  Here are their lunches today:

Piggie in a Blanket Bento

Piggie in a Blanket Bento

The piggies in a blanket are made with a smart dog, wrapped in crescent dough and baked per the crescent roll directions, and then cut into bite-sized pieces. I gave them ketchup in those cute heart containers.  They have hard boiled eggs made with the egg molds and placed in the flower cups.  Little Dude has pears and yogurt.  Girlie has pears, a plum, yellow bell peppers, and laughing cow light cheese.  She also has a green smoothie with fruit, yogurt and kale.  It tastes like berries and she loves it!

Did you enjoy our blog hop yesterday?  Please check it out if you have not already done so! Tomorrow is my last school lunch for the summer!!! This year has flown by!

Jun20

First Day of Summer Blog Hop!

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First Day of Summer Blog Hop!

Happy Summer Solstice!  My Bento Blogger Friends and I are having a Summer Blog Hop to celebrate the season, so please click on the ‘hop button’ at the end of my post to see what my friend Marie is up to and continue through the chain until you return here again!  You’ll be entertained, I promise. :)

This is my Summer Favorites bento for my 5 year old’s lunch today:

Summer Favorites Bento

Summer Favorites Bento

This lunch is all about our favorite things: floating in the pool, the beach, s’mores, and fireflies!!! She has a swimming pool sandwich surrounded by graham cracker sand! The sandwich is jelly inside and cream cheese on top.  I used food coloring on the cream cheese, and made rafts out of gummy worms for the gummy bears to float on in their pool.  The s’more is actually graham cracker, banana, and peanut butter – no camp fire required. She also has strawberries and fireflies made out of grapes, cheese, raisins and toothpicks.  We recently moved to the East Coast and fireflies are a real novelty for us.  They don’t have them in California and my family had never seen one before last week.  Now the kids are out chasing them every night!

Continue on the bento hop by clicking on our blog hop button:

 

Jun19

Mary Poppins’ Spoonful of Sugar Bento

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Mary Poppins’ Spoonful of Sugar Bento

Girlie and I took a trip to NYC last weekend to go see Mary Poppins on Broadway!  She’s taking musical theater this summer and has been begging to go see a real Broadway show, and I really wanted to go up to the city and visit my cousin Kelsey, so I bought us all tickets and we made a day of it.  We watched the movie to get a feeling for the story (Girlie kept getting the plot mixed up with Nanny McPhee) and discussed our exciting transportation plans, which included an hour-long train ride and a riding in a real NYC taxi cab!

Once we arrived at Penn Station, we met up with Kelsey and toured Rockefeller Plaza, the Lego store, and FAO Schwarz.  After lunch we saw the show, hung outside the stage door for autographs, and then did some more shopping in Times Square.   Girlie has been to Vegas and was not nearly as impressed with Time Square as the Vegas Strip!  However, she did enjoy the super-sized Disney store and the 3-story M&M store too!  We cabbed it back to Penn Station and then picked up some goodies from a bakery there and had a picnic on the train back home.  It was a great day.  According to my Girlie, her favorite parts of the adventure were (in this order):

  1. Spending Time with Kelsey
  2. Seeing Mary Poppins!!!
  3. Meeting Iron Man (her fave superhero), Spidey, and Captain America at FAO Shwarz!

Girlie with Iron Man and Spidey!

Girlie with Iron Man and Spidey!

In honor of our trip, I made Girlie a Mary Poppins Lunch.  We obnoxiously sang show-tunes while I assembled it this morning!  Her two favorite songs are ‘Spoonful of Sugar’ and ‘Practically Perfect’. Here is her EasyLunchBox today:

Mary Poppins' Spoonful of Sugar Bento

Mary Poppins’ Spoonful of Sugar Bento

I tried to make a cheese Mary Poppins with her umbrella and some M&M rain.  We bought a big bag of all different colored M&Ms at the huge store in NYC.  I gave her an actual spoonful of sugar (yes her teachers are sure to thank me later), strawberries, and grapes.

Dude's Tie Fighter Lunch

Dude’s Tie Fighter Lunch

Little Dude has a Star Wars lunch today with a Tie Fighter sandwich that I decorated with food markers.  He’s got grapes, strawberries and yogurt.  He got a peek at his lunch this morning and was so excited… He kept saying “My Sandwich!”  He wanted it right away, but he’ll be excited to see it again at lunchtime!

Here are the products I used to make this lunch:

Jun18

Bento by Dad

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Bento by Dad

Yesterday was Father’s Day gone wrong.  The kids woke up excited to give their dad his gifts, but then became cranky little monsters.  We tried everything we could think of to appease them, from the kids club at the gym (which they love), lunch at a restaurant (our kids usually like going out to eat), movie/rest time, and finally some wild water fun in the yard.  We bought them a new sprinkler and all four of us had a blast running around it and getting soaking wet.  By the end of the night, we were all exhausted and I was especially wiped out.

Poor Dad got no down-time, no golf outing, no fancy dinner, and not even our lame plan to drink wine and watch True Blood together once the kids were down came true.  What he got instead was a wife who fell asleep putting the kids to bed and at least some late-night peace and quiet to read a book.  When he finally woke me up out of Girlie’s bed, he had taken the opportunity to surprise me by packing the kids’ lunches and taking a picture for the blog!  He’s had most of the year to observe what goes into their lunches and this is what he produced:

Bento by Dad

Bento by Dad

Each kid has half a PB&J sandwich, torn into halves. They have a banana, strawberries, a heart cup of trail mix, and pirate booty.  How do you think he did?  I appreciate his effort!!

I was going to write about our NYC trip to see Mary Poppins and maybe even try to do a Poppins themed lunch, but I’ll just save it for tomorrow now. Stay tuned! :)

Oh and one thing that Nate did get to do on Father’s Day… a project for ME!  I ordered this inspiring quote from Etsy to remind us that we are all different in our abilities, but it is our choices that define who we are.  It is a message I really want to us all to stand behind and use to remind ourselves to make good choices.  We all now see this beautiful message when we enter our home:

Dumbledore Quote

Dumbledore Quote

I am looking to add more Harry Potter themed art to the home.  Does anyone else have an example they’d like to share? I’d love to see how other Potter fans decorate!

Jun15

Waffle Bento

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Waffle Bento

Girlie has a pizza party at school today, so I only had to pack for Little Dude.  I decided to give him a simple lunch that I knew he’d love.  Waffle in the Kotobuki Frog lunchbox!

Waffle Bento!

Waffle Bento!

He’s got a multi-grain waffle with peanut butter spread on top and eyes, nose, mouth, and hair, made from leftover gummy snacks I made last week.  His ears are trail-mix.  He has pineapple with a lion pick, and a small container of yogurt (not pictured).

Why the fascination with waffles?  Ever since my brother got us hooked on this weird video, we’ve been singing this song and overly excited about waffles!

I can’t believe that thing has 5 million views! Where did it come from???

Today is the last day of school.  The kids will be in a transition week next week and then they start summer camp.  This year really did fly by very fast.  Girlie’s drop off was easy and she was thrilled to give her teacher gifts to her amazing teachers this year.  She was excited to be at school and let me fly out of there shortly after.  She’ll be in the same building next year and we’ll still see those teachers all the time.  Little Dude’s dropoff was bittersweet.  It has taken him a while to get with the program over there, and he achieved the morning routine perfectly.  He put his lunchbox in the fridge, put his backpack in the cubby, gave me a kiss, and wandered off to play.  Sounds simple right??  Well it has not been that simple for him… he’s had a ton of attachment issues and was not cooperative for most of the year’s drop-offs. It has been somewhat miserable for me and I am extremely proud that he turned it around but also lamenting “why are you being perfect now that it is OVER???”  Oh well… that’s just how kids are.  I am very excited to see how summer camp goes and to see if we experience the post-camp exhaustion I have heard other parents describe.  I can’t tell you how much I’d love to see an early bed-time or even an on-time bed-time!!!!

I’ll do a post soon about the teacher gifts.  The came out really great and were inspired by pinterest.  Did anyone else out there try a p’inspired gift this year? I can’t be the only one!

Girlie and I are headed out to see Mary Poppins this weekend to celebrate the last day of school and graduation.  Anyone have a good kid-friendly NYC tip to share?  Also, any suggestion on how to dress comfortable for walking around all day and taking the train, but fancy enough to see a matinee show? Thanks!

Jun14

PB&A Wraps!

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PB&A Wraps!

Today’s EasyLunchBox is a simple PB&A wrap that was simple to make, but thrilled the kids with the cute design:

PB&A Wrap

PB&A Wrap

The wraps are made with 1 tortilla, crunchy pb, some diced apple, a little drizzle of honey, and cinnamon.  Girlie’s sandwich says “MOM LOVES YOU!” but the writing is not bold enough for this picture.  Little Dude can’t read so he got a heart. I used food coloring markers to decorate the tortillas. Girlie was a little jealous of the heart, but then relished the fact that her lunch was for a big kid. They’ve also got hard boiled eggs from an egg mold in a flower cup, pirate booty, and fresh pineapple. Girlie has broccoli with some ranch.  Little Dude has yogurt.  I gave Girlie a little tube of go-gurt in her lunchbox for a little extra dairy.

Simple and easy lunch with lots of fruit and protein. I know they’ll both love it.  Has school ended for you yet? We have one more day of “school” and then an “interim week” while the campus changes from a preschool to a huge day camp.   Then camp is the week after.  Lots of changes to come for the kids and our schedules, and our bento-ing!  I’m still working out what kind of publishing frequency I’ll aim for, but I know it will not be daily.  And I hope to bring in more of the random posts to fill-in for the missing bento ones.  Please let me know if there are any topics you’d like to see covered.

 

Jun14

Madagascar 3 – Marty’s Afro-Polka-Dot Circus Cupcakes

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Madagascar 3 – Marty’s Afro-Polka-Dot Circus Cupcakes

We have been tormented for weeks now by the building anticipation of Madagascar 3 coming to theaters.  The Polka-Dot Afro Circus song became a near obsession and we had no choice but to go see the movie opening weekend. :)

Taking our 5 year old to the the theater is always a fun treat.  Little Dude (who just turned 3 this month) is more of an adventure.  He loves movies, but often has a hard time sitting still or wants the film switched to Team Umizoomi or something similar.  We booked an early matinee on Sunday morning and just hoped he’d be excited enough by the animals to make it all the way through.  Truly, he almost did, and probably would have if not for “technical difficulties.”

We arrived with time to spare for the 10am show, picked up some popcorn and drinks, grabbed booster seats, and headed in to wait. And wait… and wait…. and wait some more.  After a few updates of “we’re working on it,” we were eventually told that we’d get free tickets to come back another day AND that we’d be welcome to see the 3-D showing of the film at 11am.  It was only 10 minutes shy of 11, so we decided to give it a try. We were excited about the upgrade to 3-D, but not sure that Little Dude could hang with the glasses.  Much to our surprise, he loved the movie and the 3-D glasses.  He giggled a bunch and exclaimed over a few of his favorite scenes (like the one with the lemur asleep in the car when it falls off the building!). Girlie was cracking up and totally into the movie from beginning to end.  Little Dude had enough after about an hour (which really was two hours for him from all the other waiting).  He needed to MOVE.  So, I took him out of the theater and let him run around the play area at the mall.  Neither of us felt that we missed anything, but Girlie and her Dad bragged about the Afro-Circus Polka-Dot Move It mash-up at the end of the movie.   You can click here to view it on youtube.

My friend Cristi commemorated the release of Madagascar 3 with these awesome muffins that are way more healthy than my cupcakes.  She found the zebra muffin cups and came out with a great idea that I just had to copy!  I found our zebra muffin cups at Michaels and then ran to the grocery store for cake mix (birthday funfetti), frosting (plain vanilla), and fruity pebbles.  Then I enlisted Girlie’s help to make enough of these cupcakes to treat her class today. Once again, she did most of the work and she’s 5… if she can make these and have them come out looking great, you can too! One more plug for Cristi – she’s a Bento rockstar and has lots of inspiring ideas… go check out her blog!
Here are our simple directions with pictures:

First, you make the cake according to package directions and pour into the cupcake liners in the muffin tin.  Bake as Directed.

Once cooled, spread frosting evenly across the cupcake top.

Then turn cupcake upside down and dip frosting into a plate of fruity pebbles to coat the tops.

Enjoy your beautiful cupcake or share with your friends!

I can’t wait to hear how her friends liked them! I think a lot of them have seen the movie already, so they should be familiar with this character and his song and dance. Tomorrow is their last day of school and they’re having a pizza party, so I figured today was the last good day to sneak a treat in.

Let me know if you try this and how they came out for you.  Here’s a cute graphic I made about it for the sake of pinning:

Marty's Afro Polka-Dot Circus Cupcakes!

Marty’s Afro Polka-Dot Circus Cupcakes!

Are you all as pin-crazed as I am?? :)