Tag Archives: pinterest

Jun6

Wreck-It Ralph Birthday Bash!

Posted on June 6, 2013 by rachel.beard

My baby turned 4 this week! I don’t normally go wild with party details, but this one was a big exception. With my littlest one firmly out of the toddler years and moving on to bigger things every day, I felt compelled to celebrate! A lot!

We’re huge Wreck-It Ralph fans at our house and Little Dude especially likes this movie and its music, so choosing a theme was easy. I had some fun ideas to start with, based on favorite scenes from the movie, and Pinterest helped me fill in the rest. It was far too hot for an outdoor party, so I had to move some of the activities into the first hour of the party and spend the remainder of our time playing in our water-slide bounce house, but the kids loved that just as much!

We kicked off the fun with a Wreck-It Relay! First we paired each little kid with a bigger kid. The little kids each started with 15 cardboard bricks that they had to deliver to their big-kid teammate. The big kid built a brick tower that the little kid got the satisfaction of wrecking! We even had Wreck-It Ralph fists available for punching the towers down. Next, we tried to flip it around so that the big kids were the runners and the little kids were the builders. This was (as expected) a total failure, but luckily a few parents stepped in as builders and the big kids got their turn to smash too. Some kids took the liberty of multiple smashing turns after the relay ended!

Next up was the punch box! This project was painful. Pinterest made it look oh-so-simple, but it was time-consuming and cost more than a piñata after the purchase of a $25 circle cutting tool, on top of the poster board, tissue paper, and tons of tape. It also is not as re-usable as I had believed it would be. On the other hand, the kids LOVED it and it kept us from the long piñata line where the little ones take several futile swipes until a bid kid comes along and beats the thing to smithereens. It also fit our wrecking/punching theme perfectly. We stuffed our punch box with medals, whistles, and mini bubble wands. I found the instructions for the punch box on a blog called Celebrate the Big & Small.

Next up was decorating rice-crispy race-cars to look like Vanellope’s racer. My sister-in-law made the rice krispy treats and several batches of colored frosting in piping bags that she also made herself. We let them go nuts with frosting and sprinkles. It was a sticky mess, so we went right from that to cake. And oh the cake! It was an ice cream cake from our local dairy, Tanner Bros. It was amaaaaaazing. It came already decorated with sprinkles and his name, but I added some Wreck-It Ralph cake toppers I had already purchased online. All together, it was a perfect birthday cake!

While my husband got the bounce house ready to go, I helped the kids make soda volcanoes, just like in the movie! We did this with coke and mentos! The kids were very impressed with this, even though the mini-cokes did not actually spray all that high! It was enough to distract them while the bounce house inflated. I found this idea on A to Z for Moms Like Me along with inspiration from her own Wreck-It Ralph party.

The bounce house fun went on for at least an hour or two after we set it up! We fired up the BBQ at that point and enjoyed the rest of the party as the day finally began to cool off! It was a lot of fun to watch the kids enjoy the bouncer and then to watch Little Dude eagerly unwrap his gifts! During the holidays, he still didn’t quite have the attention span to go through multiple packages and appreciate all his gifts. 6 months later, he attacked each parcel with enthusiasm and even remembered who gave him certain gifts by the wrapping paper! He was also able to stop and take a thank you picture with each present. We have a tradition of sending a thank you picture to each friend (along with a short note that I write). I like this tradition because it the kids like to see that their fried enjoyed the gift and it also causes my kid to pause and appreciate each gift, instead of just speed-tackling a giant mountain of presents.

All in all, it was the perfect birthday and I was really happy with the way our party turned out. It was a very special day that I hope Westley will remember for a long time! Happy Birthday to my sweet little boy!!

I used these products in my post:

Apr16

Mixing Up the Bento Boxes

Posted on April 16, 2013 by rachel.beard

Mixing Up the Bento Boxes

Ouch! Life has been extra busy and I haven’t made time to post our lunches. I now have a nice backlog of lunch photos to post and am going to attempt to group them into small themes. Today’s is simply, variety!

This Kotobuki Frog box has a cheddar cheese and vegetarian bacon stuffed crescent roll, sugar snap peas, grape tomatoes, cantaloupe, grapes, and strawberries. I also sent in a pomegranate yogurt with granola that Girlie picked. Both kids LOVED the yogurt and rest of the lunch too.

The lunch above is the Kotobuki panda. I love this lunchbox for its ridiculous cute factor, but it is a little bit small, and it always annoyed me that it came with a plain black bento strap. Since it sits at headband position, I always felt like it should be red. Well, my daughter and I got hooked on Rainbow Loom recently. She’s been making bracelets, and I’m cranking out bento straps!! I’ve made some for the EasyLunchboxes too and I’ll show those off in another post! It looks so great on our panda and keeps the box held together snug. This lunch has a CuteZCute panda, some Trader Joes rocket crackers, plum slices, and strawberry. He had a yogurt on the side.

The above lunches are both from Girlie’s Hello Kitty Collection (lids pictured here) and both contain the vegetable soup she helped me make. We took a visit to the farm store and she selected lots of fresh veggies that she thought we go well in her recipe. We used my homemade veggie stock and added her choices of carrots, celery, leeks, zucchini, broccoli, green bell peppers, red bell peppers, and green beans. We made a huge pot of soup and ate it for days! She loved it and definitely felt proud that she participated in both the shopping, preparation, and cooking. She was a great help!

The lunch on the left has star and flower cheese sandwiches with rocket crackers, oranges, banana, cucumber slices, soup, and milk. The lunch on the right has cheesy tortilla pinwheels, pirate booty, cactus pear, oranges, grapes, and soup.

This bento is from our PaperChase set (picture of lids here). Girlie has 2 of my bento scrap french toast muffins (made with cranberries this time), carrots, celery, a small container of lite ranch to dip with, and a power smoothie made with berries, banana, oranges, Greek yogurt, and kale. Delicious and healthy!

This Goodbyn Bynto has strawberries and cantaloupe, crackers with star and flower cheese slices, trail mix, and pirate booty. I’ve been asked before how I deal with bento scraps. There generally are not a lot of bento scraps, but whatever is not used in the lunch gets re-purposed in some way. Cheese scraps can go into a small container and will be used like shredded cheese in other lunches or in quesadillas. Sometimes they get melted on top of broccoli. They often get fed to the dog, who is generally sitting at my feet, begging for scraps. Veggie scraps go into my freezer bag of soup stock scraps if they are usable and into the compost, if not. Fruit scraps can go into freezer for smoothies, pancakes, or bento scrap muffins, and anything unusable goes into compost. There is very little actual waste. You can see below how I store the cheese scraps as I’m cutting it. In my next post, you will see these same scraps get used like shredded cheese!

What do you do with your scraps? I love all the innovative ways I see my bento blogger friends re-purposing scraps! I just added a new pin board to keep track of all of their recipes and ideas. You can click right here to follow it.

These are the products I used in my post:

This post is linked to:

Mar21

4 Fun PlanetBoxes

Posted on March 21, 2013 by rachel.beard

4 Fun PlanetBoxes

Last night was “Taco Night,” a family tradition since we moved to Pennsylvania. I cook a giant batch of this awesome chicken taco mix in the crockpot and my parents come over and let us host for once! We all hover over our tiny kitchen table and make our own tacos (crispy and soft). Even though the eating seems endless, it is relatively healthy (low-fat ingredients and lots of veggies) and there is always a lot left over!

Girlie took a little burrito made with fat-free refried beans and low-fat cheese and she has lettuce, tomato, cucumber, and a little dipper of low-fat sour cream on the side. She also has some cheese shapes, strawberries, golden plum slices, and a bit of my mom’s sopapilla dessert. Delish!

This lunch is full of fruit and dairy goodness. She has a large serving of fruit salad, composed of strawberries, blueberries, and pineapple. She also has mini peppers, cheddar cheese tortilla pinwheels, a yogurt-covered pretzel, and a Chobani Champions yogurt tube.

I can’t resist packing Cute-Z-Cute sandwiches in all of our lunchboxes. She had a frog that was surrounded by blueberries. She also had mini peppers with a laughing cow lite wedge, grapes, a chocolate quarter, and a Chobani Champions yogurt tube.

This lunch was a leftover from Pi Day last week! She had a slice of apple pie, strawberries, grapes, cheddar stars, mini peppers, and tortilla and cheese pinwheels.

I like the versatility of the PlanetBox because it has sections of varying sizes and shapes, which naturally causes the layout to be dynamic and fun. Even though I pack relatively similar ingredients within the same week, the lunch always looks different. It looks neat and clean and the stainless steel makes the food color “pop,” which gets my kids more excited to eat a variety of foods.

Do you have a PlanetBox? What dishes do you like to pack in the big dipper? I’d love some ideas on how to use it!

Here are the products I used in this post:

This lunch is linked to:

Mar6

4 CuteZCute Bento Lunches!

Posted on March 6, 2013 by rachel.beard

4 CuteZCute Bento Lunches!

Have you tried the CuteZCute sandwich cutter yet? It has been out of stock on Amazon.com, but it is now back! To help celebrate its triumphant return (they are made by a mom-friend of mine), I have been making CuteZCute lunches all week! I made one of each animal. Check them out:

This one is an all-time CuteZCute favorite. I used the frog template and then cut bones out of white cheddar to make a froggy pirate flag. I added blueberries and cheese for the border. He has strawberries and some leftover cookie from the huge batch I baked over the weekend. I wish I had captured Little Dude’s face when he saw this thing! His face lit up and he was jumping up and down. And then, of course, it was some kid’s pizza-lunch birthday at school and he didn’t get to eat it there. Fortunately, he hated what I made for dinner that night (some quinoa casserole) and he got to eat his lunch then instead!

For this CuteZCute pig I packed for Girlie, I dyed some of the cutouts with beet juice that I had left after roasting beets for dinner. I dipped them in the beety goodness and then left them out to dry overnight. They were probably too dry to eat, but they sure looked cute! He also had cheddar and jack cheese cubes, sugar snap peas, strawberries skewered with heart picks, blueberries, tomatoes, and cucumber.

Little Dude’s new favorite trend is asking for two sandwiches every day. He wants a peanut butter sandwich and a cheese sandwich. Today, he has a CuteZCute cat PB&J sandwich and a tiny flower cheese sandwich that was cut out from Girlie’s sandwich (which will be featured in my Lunch Punch winner announcement, coming soon). He has a mini-dipper of trail mix, strawberries, and pineapple. I added some cute picks just for fun. Little Dude helped me pick the pineapple at the grocery this weekend. As we were going through the store, he held it and kept talking about “Spongebob’s home.” I let him help me chop up the pineapple chunks this morning and I tried to reinforce knife safety: “When is it OK to use a knife, Little Dude?” And instead of answering something about having a parent to help you to be safe, he answered “when you’re cutting up Spongebob’s home!” Gotta love preschool logic!

This last lunch is a CuteZCute panda in a Panda Kotobuki bento box. He has the Panda, cheese slices, a strawberry and blueberry flower, and a Chobani Champions yogurt tube. Cute, fun, and easy to make!

Do you have a CuteZCute cutter yet? They are only $9.99 for the set of all four animals I showed above. They are very cute and easy to make. They will produce a lot of leftover bread, but you can use that for bento scrap muffins, egg in a hole, breadcrumbs, and endless other recipes that don’t end up wasting too much food. For more CuteZCute lunch ideas, check out this pinterest board!

Products used in this post:

This lunch is liked at:

Mar5

Random Roundup: 3 Simple Bento Ideas

Posted on March 5, 2013 by rachel.beard

Random Roundup: 3 Simple Bento Ideas

A quick reminder to enter my Lunch Punch Contest, which ends today: click here for your chance to win a set of Sand*Wishes cutters!

I have so many different lunchboxes and I keep trying to mix things up for the kids. Here are some fun ideas I’ve used in the last week:

This is a Planetbox and I packed leftover Shamrock Ravioli (from Costco and made with Irish cheeses!), cucumber and red bell pepper, strawberries, blueberries, a Chobani Champions yogurt tube, and a small valentine chocolate.

This lunch was a special request from Girlie for MOMables School Sushi! We used our homemade bread, which crumbled a bit more than I’d like, but still came out ok. She has applesauce, cucumber, tomato, and a berry/yogurt smoothie (not pictured). I also gave her the sistema utensil kit, so she could use chopsticks for her sushi, a fork for the veggies, and a spoon for applesauce. These are the fun little touches that make her day!

Little Dude used his Kotobuki frog lunchbox for a simple cheese and crackers bento with grapes and a Chobani Champions yogurt tube. It was Teddy Bear Pajama Party day in his preschool class on Friday, so I cut his cheese into teddy bear shapes, using a cookie cutter. He loves when his lunch matches a school theme!

So, these are 3 lunches, all which can be made in just a few minutes and are composed mostly of natural ingredients. All 3 were completely devoured by the kids. They love the extra-special lunches that they get when I have a wild idea and want to put something really fun together for them, but these simple ones are just as effective at getting them to eat healthy foods and remember my love while they are at school.

My lunches really revolve around cheese and fruit, but I’d like to continue expanding the veggies and vegetarian proteins my kids will eat. Do you have any suggestions? I started a new Pinterest board called Vegetarian Food For Kids. Come check it out and if you have good kid-friendly vegetarian ideas to pin there, let me know and I’ll add you as a pinner. Thanks!

Products I used in this post:

Feb27

Bloggaversary Lunch Punch Giveaway!

Posted on February 27, 2013 by rachel.beard

Bloggaversary Lunch Punch Giveaway!

Happy Birthday to RachelsRandom.com! Today marks the one year anniversary of when I started blogging and I can’t believe how far this little adventure has taken me already. I can say that this hobby means more to me now than I ever could have imagined last year when I wrote my first post. I’ve made great friends, contributed to an awesome cookbook project, hosted a few giveaways, and saw my site stats rise from a couple dozen views each day to nearly 200 a day, on average. My site had over 30,000 page views in its first year, and Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram are helping spread the bento love to friends, family, and strangers. I love all the feedback and inspiration I receive and I am always happy when I can give something back as well.

The great folks at The Lunch Punch have generously given me a Sand*Wishes set to give away. We’ve had ours for a few months and it has inspired a lot of fun ideas! I especially like it because it is a fun way to get the kids involved in planning and packing their lunches. This morning, both kids worked together on their own lunch boxes and it was great to watch them collaborate and help each other.

My 3 year old packed this doghouse sandwich using a Lunch Punch from the Critter Cutters set and some food markers. He was able to cut the bread and pop it out on his own. He got started on the marker work, but his sister finished it off when wandered off. He has a cheese sandwich with pirate booty, sugar snap peas, yogurt with frozen berries mixed in, and cheerios mixed with craisins. He was so proud of his lunchbox today and all morning long talked about taking it to school to eat. He was extra cheerful this morning, which helped the whole day!

My kindergartener also has a cheese sandwich, and she chose the fairy Lunch Punch today. This particular punch is a little trickier to use and I sliced our homemade bread a bit too thin, causing the fairy to fall apart a bit. She actually took this in stride and commented on how the sandwich was also now a puzzle! She had a great time coloring in her fairy’s body, wings, dress, and face. She has a thermos of tomato soup, a Chobani Champions yogurt tube, and an apple we sliced and then rubberbanded back together (idea from this pin). She is conducting a scientific test today to see if the apple browns less when held together this way. I’ll report back with her findings.

Thank you to everyone who reads my blog, pins my images, and comments here and on Facebook. I appreciate all the interaction and the inspiration I receive from this community every day. I love being part of this era where ideas can be exchanged far and wide and we can all help each other learn and grow. Thank you! Please use my rafflecopter widget to enter my giveaway and win a Sand*wishes Lunch Punch set of your own!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Here are the products used in this post:

This lunch is linked to:

Feb26

Totally Tortellini!

Posted on February 26, 2013 by rachel.beard

Totally Tortellini!

The kids have a new favorite dinner and it is tortellini! I made an entire package for dinner on Sunday night and intended for them to have leftovers, but there was not much left for lunch. I was looking for some creative ways to serve the remainder in small portions and this is what I came up with:

Girlie’s lunch was served on heart picks with a small container of tomato sauce in her little dipper. She also had sugar snap peas, strawberries, blueberries, a Chobani Champions yogurt tube, and a small Valentine’s Day chocolate. I got the skewered tortellini idea from this pin, but tried it with red sauce instead of pesto. Please take a minute and use this link to vote for me in the Planetbox photo contest. I’d love to win another one for Little Dude to use!

Little Dude is also tortellini-crazed and he had his leftovers in his EasyLunchbox Mini-Dippers. He also had strawberries and blueberries, including a heart-shaped strawberry in his yogurt. We found these great new rocket crackers at Trader Joe’s this weekend and he was happy to have those in his lunchbox as well.

I’ve mentioned before that I am looking for new meal ideas for my vegetarian kids. I’ve seen a lot of people having success from group boards on pinterest. I just created a new board called Vegetarian Food for Kids. Comment or e-mail me if you’d like to be added as a pinner. I would love some broad new ideas. We are really stuck in a mac-and-cheese / quesadilla rut. What is your most common dinner entree?

I used these products in my post:

Jan18

New Planetbox & Pinterest Craziness

Posted on January 18, 2013 by rachel.beard

New Planetbox & Pinterest Craziness

There is something really scary going on in my house. I’m in a Pinterest frenzy! I’ve been cooking up a storm and organizing stuff and making things…very out of character for me. I did not nest like this when I was pregnant, but somehow taking care of a sick Little Dude all week really brought it out in me. It was a busy week juggling caring for a sick baby, my crazy workload, and this crazy compulsion to make things. The arrival of our new PlanetBox only fueled that fire and I had fun making new foods in a new layout!

Wednesday’s PlanetBox had a zucchini tot with a small dipper of ketchup, mango and kiwi, blueberries, fried rice, and a Chobani Champions yogurt tube.

Thursday’s lunch was a cheese-filled crescent roll, mango & kiwi, granola, Greek yogurt with berries mixed in, veggie kabobs on heart picks, and a chocolate quarter.

Today’s lunch was edamame, mango, kiwi, and blueberries, trail mix, a Chobani Champions tube, and a pasta salad made with tomato, red bell pepper, and white beans.

I am finding myself more and more jealous of Girlie’s lunches (and Nate’s too when I pack them). I kind of want to start making my own lunch in advance instead of trying to rustle something up between conference calls. Good idea, right?

Here is a list of crazy stuff I made from Pinterest this week:

White Bean & Sriracha Dip

Beet & Yogurt Salad with Yogurt & Mint

Slow Cooker Thai Chicken Soup

Baked Brie (Served with Apples & Grapes)

Breakfast Cookies

Cheesecake Bars

Slow Cooker Sesame Chicken

Zucchini Tots

On top of all of that, I also cooked a giant pot of soup to eat all week and baked some delicious cinnamon raisin bread in my bread machine.

I also had Girlie help me with a Pinterest craft of DIY Air Freshener! She was actually very handy with a hammer and nail!

So that about catches me up on my week. This is the first day this week that everyone is at school or work and nobody got sent home sick from either. Well, it is only 4pm, so I may be pushing my luck by stating that!

Are you as pinterest crazed as I am? If not, what do you do when you’re cooped up at home with a sick kid?

Here is a link to an PlanetBox on Amazon, if you’re interested in learning more:

Jan16

Weekly Round-Up

Posted on January 16, 2013 by rachel.beard

Weekly Round-Up

I finished last week’s goal of a different lunchbox every day of the week for Girlie! I cannot believe that she has 10 different styles of lunchboxes now. Clearly, I am a bento addict! Luckily, she appreciates my mania. It was fun to keep mixing things up all week and trying new foods too!

Thursday’s lunch features a whole lot of pink! I roasted some beets for myself and kept some of the beet juice to dye a hard boiled Hello Kitty Egg and to mix with cream cheese for super pink cream cheese and jelly pinwheels. I also gave her strawberries, grape tomatoes, a slice of beet, and Very Berry Chobani Champions. I was proud of her for tasting the beet slice, but I was not surprised that she did not like it!

Friday was a Hello Kitty fun day! Girlie had yogurt mixed with berries and a side of granola to sprinkle in. She also had a cheese and veggie bacon crescent roll, red bell pepper, sugar snap peas, cucumber slices, and ranch dip in a mini dipper. I also gave her some milk in her Hello Kitty thermos and put all of it in her Hello Kitty lunch bag.

On Monday, we got back to our tried and true EasyLunchboxes. I made these ridiculously delicious cheesecake bars over the weekend (primarily made from crescent roll dough and cream cheese) and they were a huge hit with Girlie, so I included one in her lunch, but with lots of fruit and veggies to balance it out. She got a pattern of carrot, sugar snap peas, and grape tomatoes in the large compartment. I added grapes and blueberries in one small compartment and greek yogurt in the other.

Yesterday’s lunch was a simple PB&J, but made with the cinnamon raisin bread I baked in my new bread machine. I served that with grapes, blueberries, cucumber, yellow bell pepper, some low-fat Ranch in a mini-dipper, and an Orange Vanilla Chobani Champions. I added her glass water bottle for the photo – it is a Lifefactory bottle and this is what she brings almost every day.

Little Dude and I have been sick off and on and he’s barely been at school this month. I’ve been keeping him busy with TV, games, and cooking projects. He’s back again today, so let’s hope he doesn’t get sent home with another fever! Does you have any kid-tested immunity boosting recipes to recommend? I’ve been trying to force liquids and vitamin C, but the colds just keep coming. I’d love any other ideas you can share!

Here are the products I used in this lunch:

This lunch is linked at:

Jan9

Shaking It Up (a little)!

Posted on January 9, 2013 by rachel.beard

Shaking It Up (a little)!

Like the rest of the world, I am doing my best to start the New Year right. I have cleared out all the holiday treats and I’m back to trying to eat as cleanly as I can and encouraging the kids to do the same. I am lucky because I have full control of one of their meals every day. They are required to sit at their lunch table and eat. I cannot get the same result at home sometimes! This week, I am introducing smoked gouda and parsnips! Girlie also got to try out a new lunchbox set that I received as a gift from my friend Shannon at BentoLunch.net.

Monday’s new foods included carrot chips (which were a huge hit) and a heart sandwich baked on bread from our new bread machine. Girlie helped with both projects and I think that helped a lot with her wanting to eat the carrots in particular. She also has sugar snap peas, tangerine, blueberries, and trail mix.

Tuesday’s lunch was packed in this adorable new bento set from Paperchase. I included granola bites, tangerine and blueberries, vegetarian bacon and cheese crescent rollups, yellow bell pepper, carrots, and 2 small wedges of low-fat smoked gouda. she also got a frozen smoothie, packed in a ball jar. This was Girlie’s first taste of smoked gouda and she said her first reaction was “yuck,” but then “YUM” and ate the rest of it! Now I am scared she will turn into an addict like me! She also loved her new boxes with their adorable and girlie design!

The lids have adorable girls in kimonos and the boxes came with a strap. We used the smallest three boxes yesterday and here is how it all looked in her lunchbag, with the smoothie, cloth napkin, reusable spoon, and a straw. I included a note to say “I love you my little cub!” because this week’s word family is “-ub.”

Today’s lunch features a CuteZCute pig with two types of cheese on my homemade bread. I also put some pinto beans that I cooked yesterday with the sandwich. The other side of this kotobuki panda container has carrots and parsnips that I sauteed with a little bit of butter and cinnamon and then glazed with maple syrup. Yeah, it was more like candy than vegetable, but it was her first time tasting a parsnip and she loved it! I am excited to have given her two new foods already this week! I also packed the largest of the Paperchase containers with strawberries and blueberries and I included Chobani Champions. I am a little jealous of her lunch today.

So, I am 3 for 3 on mixing up lunchboxes for the week and I’ve introduced 2 new foods and carrots prepared in two new ways. I ran to the farm store by our house and picked up even more fruits and veggies for the rest of the week. I am not sure what new food I will try next, but I know I am going to keep mixing up lunchboxes for the week and make sure she gets a different style each day. Any suggestions on a new food to try?

Here are the products I used in this post:

This lunch is linked at:

Rachel's Random Ramblings

Bentos and My Adventures in Parenting!

Tag Archives: pinterest

Wreck-It Ralph Birthday Bash!

Mixing Up the Bento Boxes

4 Fun PlanetBoxes

4 CuteZCute Bento Lunches!

Random Roundup: 3 Simple Bento Ideas

Bloggaversary Lunch Punch Giveaway!

Totally Tortellini!

New Planetbox & Pinterest Craziness

Weekly Round-Up

Shaking It Up (a little)!