Tag Archives: parties

Nov20

Random Round-up: Bentos & Cookies!

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Random Round-up: Bentos & Cookies!

Girlie woke up with an exciting idea to make her own lunch.  I don’t need a lot of convincing, so I stepped back and watched her get to work! Here is her finished creation:

She used a critter cutter lunch punch to make a dolphin cheese sandwich and colored in the dolphins with smilies, using food markers!  She added a candy eye for extra cuteness.  She gave herself pretzel sticks, pears, and carrots, all packed in her EasyLunchbox.I love when she packs her own lunch because it is always creative and healthy.

Next is an easy and snacky lunch for Little Dude. He got PB&J Pinwheels, pretzels, cheese triangles, yogurt, and pears.  This lunch was very fast and easy to put together and features many of his favorite foods.

The kids had matching lunches on Friday of last week.  I gave them both this super protein lunch that features egg, cheese, peanut butter, and greek yogurt!  There is also crackers, apples, and mixed berries.  This lunch was very filling and they ate almost everything – there were just a few broken crackers left in the bottom of the lunchbox!

Next up: Halloween Cookies! We went to a Holiday Cookie Swap party this weekend, and my husband had the excellent suggestion that our Holiday could be Halloween (since I prefer it to Christmas anyway!) and that we could use our leftover Halloween Candy in the cookies! We had bought a huge bag of candy from Costco and then Halloween was cancelled by Frankenstorm.  Instead of buying chocolate chips for our recipe, we just chopped up a whole bunch of snickers, twix, and kit kats and had a blast putting a new spin on an old recipe! Girlie did most of the work, and sadly, I did most of the sampling! They were delicious!

Halloween Candy Cookies Recipe
Ingredients:

2 ¼ cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
½ cup granulated sugar
1 cup softened butter or margarine
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
12 oz Halloween candy, chopped

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Combine flour, salt, and baking soda in bowl and set aside.
Combine brown sugar, granulated sugar, softened butter or margarine, and vanilla, and then beat until creamy.
Add eggs and beat.
Add dry ingredients and mix well.
Stir in Halloween candy chunks.
Drop mixture by rounded teaspoonfuls onto parchment paper on cookie sheets.
Bake 8 to 10 minutes.
Recipe yields approximately 2 dozen cookies.

Do you still have candy leftover?  These cookies would be good to bring to Thanksgiving as well!  Let me know if you try it and like it!

Do you have any big plans for the holidays?  I am taking a much needed break and will not be posting next week. I should have some fun things to share when I return the week of 12/3!  Happy Holidays!

I used these products in this post:

Sep24

Happy Birthday Bento!

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Happy Birthday Bento!

My girlie turned 6 today.  What?? How?? Even though it feels like my life revolves around her and I have tried my best to take in every little moment, I still don’t understand how I could possibly have a 6 year-old in my life!  I know that this is a universal experience of time flying with your little ones, but I am just floored by it anyway.

We had a big BBQ party for her yesterday and there was a ton of leftovers.  To save time and ensure the leftovers were consumed, I packed the bento lunches as I put away the rest of the food.  I packed the kids in their Easy LunchBoxes and my husband got his Lock & Lock.

Here’s Girlie’s birthday BBQ bento:

She has this amazing pasta salad that my mom made with some cubes of white cheddar cheese.  I added picks to spell out the word SIX for her. I’ll have to do a proper six bento later this week, but this will have to do for now.  She was so exited to have a lunch made of “party food” as it was!  She has a fruit salad of pineapple, grapes, and strawberries and some veggies with low-fat ranch in a mini-dipper container.  This will be a healthy and filling lunch for her.

Little Dude’s lunch is similar. He has pasta salad, cheese and crackers, fruit salad, and 2 small slices of tomato pie.  I added some animal fork picks to give him a smile.

My husband got one compartment of the leftover burger toppings and a hamburger.  I threw some extra cauliflower in there too.  The other compartment has pasta salad, fruit salad, veggies, and ranch dip in a small heart container marked “XOXO.”

I was traveling the whole week prior to her party and did not have a lot of time to put together a big bash for her.  We decided on a simple BBQ, but it grew and grew until we ended up with around 50 guests!  Our plan was to have a Pinterest party and attempt some of the pins from our Birthday Parties board, but a lot of those got lost in the chaos of 17 kids running around like crazy!  The kids mostly played in the bounce house, beat up on the piñata, and did some arts and crafts I set out for them (painting and decorating building blocks and foam bookmarks).  The crafts were actually a huge hit and the kids were very creative with their projects.  I was impressed!

Some of the pins I had planned on never even got started.  I wanted to make these ice cream hearts and a star walkway to our backyard party.  I also wanted to do this simple trick with the water bottles.  I just did not have time leading up to or during the party.

We did try to explode watermelons, but all the big ones were gone and it didn’t seem like it was going to work on the tiny ones we found, so we abandoned that too.  I think the only pin we successfully re-created was the terra-cotta-pot-s’mores.  Here is a picture of Girlie with the man she has identified has “the love of her life” making s’mores together:

She is absolutely certain that she is going to marry him when they’re older! Here is my Little Dude going wild on the piñata:

All the kids had fun with that and the scramble for candy was intense!  Finally, here is a picture of my beautiful girlie basking in the glow of the Happy Birthday song:

Aaaaaah! I love how much she grows and changes, but I get very sentimental at birthday time.  I just could not keep my cool when I tucked her in last night, knowing she’d never be 5 again.  Of course, she hugged me and told me not to be sad and that she will always be my baby no matter how old she gets.  And she will.  But not like this.  Not like she is right now.  Sigh.  Oh well, I did sign up for this roller coaster!

She was so gracious at her party and tried to look after her guests and her little brother to make sure everyone was having fun. She loved opening all of her presents and even though we did so privately, she still oooohed and aaahed and exclaimed over each one and made sure take time to appreciate it all.  We take a picture of her with each present to include in thank you notes.  It adds a personal touch and we know the kids like to see their friend enjoying the present.

Girlie also loves passing out goodie bags at parties and this year was no exception.  The only change was that I picked up favors at Daiso Japan while I was in San Francisco last week.  I bought this huge stash of bento supplies and put together bento boxes for each kid:

I did not get a picture of the individual favor boxes, but they each had a yellow or pink 2-tier bento box, a cookie cutter, a fork and spoon set, and 2 bento picks.  I tied them with ribbon and attached a paper that explained our love of Pinterest and my profile name if they wanted to follow me or see more bento ideas.  The kids seemed pretty excited.  I hope they like them!  It was not a toy like they probably expected, but hopefully this will get used or at least not be stepped on by a parent at 2am.

And as soon as our guests were out the door and gifts were opened, I got right back to work on making the Madagascar 3 Afro Polka Dot Circus Cupcakes my girlie specifically requested for her school birthday treat!  We usually do rice krispy treats, but this  was what she really wanted.  The look of the kids faces when they saw them was priceless, they were laughing as they remembered Marty’s song and dance from the most recent movie. Thanks again to BentOnBetterLunches for that great idea!  These are easy to make and consistently come out great!

Do you go nuts over parties like I do?  This was a “small and low-key” party for me and it was still a ton of people and a lot of work.  Girlie actually asked me for something for her birthday gift and I said “NO! This party is your gift!”  She accepted it pretty easily, which helped my cause.  I’d love to say that next year’s party will be smaller, but I know me and I can’t help myself.  If you have any advice on managing this issue, please send me your suggestion! I need help!

I used these products in today’s lunch:

Sep4

First Day of School!

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First Day of School!

Today is the first day of school!  I can barely contain my excitement! Check out my cuties all pumped to start their first day:


Girlie is starting Kindergarten today and Little Dude is in the 3 year-old room at the preschool.  Girlie has been looking forward to school starting all summer, but Little Dude is more in-the-moment.  I don’t think he really understood that school was starting up again until I got out all the bento supplies to get ready for today’s lunch.  I was organizing everything yesterday and he came over and started going through all my sandwich cutters, cookie cutters, lunchboxes, and picks. He got very excited and asked me to make him a “choo-choo sandwich” with an “elephant decoration” (a pick) in his lunchbox for his new classroom. How could I say no?  I did my best to make it relevant to first day of school, by including the number 3 for being in the 3 year-old room.  I thought it was funny that the re-emergence of his lunchbox made school starting more real.  After he made his lunch requests, he could not stop talking about going back to school, and his drop-off was remarkably tear-free.  Girlie was much more laid-back and gave me creative license for today’s lunch.   She was much more focused on seeing all her friends.

This is my Girlie’s back-to-school lunch for kindergarten:


She has a K-shaped cheese sandwich, grapes, and a hard-boiled hello kitty egg in the large compartment.  She has pineapple, blueberries, and star-shaped watermelon chunks in the fruit compartment.  She has baked acorn squash that I mashed with some butter and cinnamon sugar in the small compartment.  It is like baby food, but everyone in our family loves it!

This is what I packed for Little Dude:

He has his requested choo-choo PB&J sandwich. which I decorated with cheese stars and a cheese #3.  The first number I put on came out perfectly, but it mysteriously disappeared after he came to take a peek.  This one was a little blurry, but he will love it anyway.  He also has grapes, blueberries, pineapple, and watermelon stars.  My kids love fruit! He also has the acorn squash mash.

While I was at it, I even packed for my husband!  This from our new Lock & Lock lunchbox set:

He has leftovers from our BBQ this weekend.  He’s got a salad of romaine, cucumber, and orange bell pepper with a Trader Joe’s chili lime chicken burger and some carne asada.  I gave him a small container with light ranch dressing.  A second Lock & Lock box (the bag holds up to 3 boxes, but I needed room for ice pack, napkins, and utensils) has blueberries, pineapple, and cantaloupe in one compartment, pretzel slims and cheese cubes in another, and celery with roasted peppers in the large space.

I already received glowing reviews of my husband’s lunch via text message.  I am excited to see how the kids ate at school… that’s usually the best testimony!  I am already plotting ideas for the rest of this week’s lunches. I am so happy to have my bento-obsession back in full-swing!

In other news, we hosted a birthday party for my one-year-old cousin over the weekend.  I was talking about wanting to make a fruit salad in a watermelon bowl and Girlie came up with idea of her own!  She wanted to buy fresh strawberries and make “hula girls” by placing a canned pineapple ring on top of the berry and adding a pick for the face.  I was very happy not to be asked to make rice krispy treats or cookies (knowing there would be plenty of cake and ice cream at the party), so I quickly agreed and added canned pineapple rings to my list! You can see both of our creations below:

Her hula girls are cute, right?  I was very proud of her creativity and more than a little pleased that my playing with food seems to be rubbing off on her a little!  Everyone at the party oohed and aaaahed over her creation and she was beaming.   She’s getting so big now and impresses me with her ideas all the time.

Did your kids start school today?  I’d love to hear any suggestions you have for keeping up the momentum for being excited about school.

Here are the products I used in packing lunches today:

Jul27

Beat the Heat: Spicy Margaritas!

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Beat the Heat: Spicy Margaritas!

I have a new favorite cocktail!  I discovered it in New York City a few months ago and was determined to re-create it at home.  After several batches and fine-tuning, I am proud to present you with the recipe to my masterpiece: Spicy Margarita!  YUM!!!

I am sure many readers have now fled this site in horror, but in case anyone is still reading, I will issue a disclaimer that this is not a drink for the weak of heart!  This yields a hot and sweet drink that I find very refreshing on a hot day, but few others in my world have been able to tolerate the heat factor.  If you like spicy foods and margaritas, then you absolutely must try this and let me know it makes you as happy as it makes me!

This is a two-part recipe.  First you must make the jalapeño infused tequila with this simple process:

  • Buy a bottle of tequila and 2 spicy looking jalapeños.
  • Open the bottle, pour a shot (to make room for the peppers), and have a shot in my honor!
  • Slice the jalapeños in quarters and stuff them into the bottle, seeds and all!
  • Wait.  Sample. Repeat.
  • When the tequila sample meets your criteria for spiciness and flavor (probably around 48 hours from the start), strain the tequila into another container, shake out the peppers, and pour the tequila back into your bottle. Consider labeling the bottle with a scull and crossbones to fairly warn off any sissies!

Here is a picture of my infusion in progress:

Jalapeño Infused Tequila

Easy enough, right?  I’ve tried with Jose Cuervo Gold and Silver.  I liked the Gold much better.  It had a very distinct smell that I loved and I thought the flavor was better too. In both cases, I thought the jalapeño brought out the tequila flavor and vice versa. Next time, I want to try a more expensive bottle and compare tastes.

Trader Joe’s makes an excellent margarita mix that I used with my jalapeño infused tequila to make a delicously hot and sweet margarita on the rocks.  It was icy and sweet, but with a lingering burn.  I followed the directions on the bottle with great success every time.  I am always craving that drink now!

I also made a version with the Crystal Light drink mix and that was a good low-cal substitute.

Finally, I received a gorgeous organic grapefruit from our CSA and decided to try to make my own grapefruit margarita.  I juiced it by hand and got a half a cup.  I added 1 Tablespoon of sugar to the juice to make sure it was nice and sweet.  Then, I added 2 oz of the jalapeño infused tequila and 1 oz of Triple Sec.  I mixed it all up and poured over ice cubes.  It was really delicious and tasted very fresh too!  I am definitely going to try the same recipe with blood oranges when they’re in season.

I am generally a red wine drinker, but hot weather just signals mixed drinks to me, so this has been a fun experiment.  I also tried making poptails, based on this recipe I spotted some time ago.  They turned out great! I have a whole booze pin board full of ideas that I want to try.  I’ll keep you posted on my progress!

What is your favorite summertime cocktail? I’d love to hear any new ideas!  In the meantime, the air conditioner has malfunctioned at our house and it is 5pm on Friday, so it is officially spicy maragarita o’clock for me! Have a great weekend!

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?? :)

Jun4

Dolphins and Waves Bento

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Dolphins and Waves Bento

Today’s lunch was inspired by the cinnamon twists I had leftover from Little Dude’s birthday party this weekend. I thought they’d make cute waves for a dolphin to jump!  Here are today’s EasyLunchBoxes:

Dolphins and Waves Bento

Dolphins and Waves Bento

They have nearly identical lunches today, which is a rarity.  They have cheese dolphin sandwiches (girlie got the extra heart sandwich), cinnamon twists, raspberries, pineapple, carrots, and hard boiled eggs (using egg molds).

Little Dude’s birthday was a big success.  We had a great time celebrating with our friends and family.  We spent the whole weekend treating him to fun stuff like the playground, riding bikes in the park, flying kites, ice cream at the dairy (he loves to commune with the cows there), movie nights with popcorn, tons of gifts, and a fantastic party, complete with a bounce house, pinata, and nerf-style rocket launcher!!!  Who could ask for more right??? Here’s my baby rockin’ his new shades:

My three-year-old!

My three-year-old!

I sent him to school with strawberries and whipped cream instead of cupcakes.  I thought that the fruit made for a better morning snack than cupcakes, but I hope he’s not to disappointed. He was extremely happy to have his cake yesterday!!! :)

Up next: Thank you notes!  What level of participation do you aim for with your kids?  Girlie is 5 and dictates the note for me and signs it herself.  Last year she also posed with each picture so the child could see her enjoying it (she hates that nobody unwraps gifts during the party anymore because she wants to see the kid’s reaction to her gift and she wants to ooh and ahh over her own gifts).  Little Dude is not very cooperative in general, but it is possible that I could get him to scribble on the note cards.  Is there any point? Or do I save the hassle and just hammer them out myself?  What do you do with your kids?