The End of the Refrigerator and Pantry

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Today, the theme was “Mom didn’t go grocery shopping.” We are down to crackers and cheese… literally. This is what we had in our pantry! We definitely have carbs covered (yes, I did put in both crackers and a couple of pretzels!), protein (the cheese and a yogurt stick I added in there too) and at least some fruit (in a separate container, we had grapes). Right after dropping off the kiddos today, I went straight to the grocery store, I swear!

Snacky Things Cheese, crackers, pretzels, dried blueberries in the little container, pistachios. Additionally (not pictured) yogurt & frozen grapes.

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Field Trip Day!

Today the Kindergarten Kiddo had her very first field trip, for which I was chaperoning. Although they didn’t have to bring a bag lunch, they were required to carry their lunch bags with them all day long and I knew that was just asking for it to get lost. So I made a special lunch bag to take on the field trip with everything being disposable, from the plastic container (a re-used deli meat container) to the paper cupcake cups (which actually were not very good at keeping the food apart this time, but the pistachios and the crackers were dry so it wouldn’t have been such a bad thing if the kiddo hadn’t accidentally dropped water into the container! Oops.) And I thought to keep it simple since it was such an exciting day already. I did take my creative impulse out on the lunch bag but alas, she didn’t notice the bag really– too much excitement from her first ride on a school bus and being at a zoo with her school friends. Ahh well. Here is our simple lunch:

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And here is the lunch bag. I admit I was inspired by this guy; I just did it my own way.
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Sandwich Almond Butter and Jam (we’re getting fancy!) cut with a butterfly cutter.
Sides Goldfish crackers and pistachios; little box of raisins.

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New Mushrooms! And spores.

So, remember when we grew mushrooms? Well, we grew some more! Back to the Roots sent us another pack of mushrooms to grow and it became really eager to grow because it started sprouting before we were ready. So we opened them up and dunked them in water and then a week or so later, it really bloomed! And I let them go for a bit to let the smaller mushrooms catch up to the bigger guys. And then I kept finding a find dusting of white powder on my kitchen counter. I thought someone had gotten into the flour? Maybe the preschool kiddo. I cleaned it up and then later on  I found another fine dusting.  Hmm… then I saw it… the mushrooms were sporing! So I thought it would be interesting to photograph it. Here are our sporing mushrooms!

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After this, we picked them and they’re ready to eat now. These are huge compared to the other ones we grew and we can’t wait to eat them!

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Doodling

In another life, before star shaped sandwiches and knitted baby beanies, I was a graphic designer. After the kids are grown, I’d like to get back to that. Because I’ve become more interested in illustration and becoming more proficient in my drawing skills (and because it is actually something to do with jobs I’ve had in the past and an aspect of design that I’m interested in pursuing), I’ve started doodling more! I think eventually if I really get into it, I’ll make them into prints but until then, I’m just practicing. I made my mom a Mother’s Day card:
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and last night, I really wanted to draw a turtle, for some reason, so I did a sort of turtle pattern “sampler.”

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All just sharpie drawings (despite the “better” illustration pens out there, I actually really love the feel of sharpies).

Many more to come :)

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Teacher Appreciation Week

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This week, no bentos :P I spent the time trying to do other things this week, like keep my house in semi-decent order. We are emerging from sickness this week and I just wanted a little bento break. More to come though!

It was teacher appreciation week this week though and I wanted the teachers in the preschool and at kindergarten to know that we truly do appreciate what they do and wanted to include a homemade gift. We have previously canned blackberry jam from fresh summer blackberries from last year (made and canned by my awesome husband and picked by the kiddos) and so I made up a label for them to hand them out today (with a little gift card from Starbucks too — gotta buy some bread for that jam!). I hope our teachers like it! And I hope they know that they are so amazing and instrumental in caring and helping our children.

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Monarch Butterfly

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Ahh so many butterfly bentos. Truth is, I like butterflies. And so does the kiddo. And this unit is insect week at school. So a monarch butterfly bento, meant to look like a real butterfly more than just a pretty one. I’m not sure I’m really psyched about how it came out. There are better bento-ers out there than me at wielding the food-safe markers! Anyhow, it should make a the kiddo happy, as I also let her take a very delicate set of dried and mounted butterflies to school today — so this is a treat!

Sandwich PB&Jam on wheat, as usual. Lines of butterfly done with food safe markers and the little dots with Marshmallow Bits. Raisins for the body.
Sides Orange flower with a raspberry middle; bluebberies and green grape stem.

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Leopard (Cheetah?) Bento

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Last night, I asked my kindergarten kiddo what she wanted for a bento today. She thought about it and said that we had never done a cheetah before. So I took the challenge. Cheetah it was… and I knew what she was thinking — a leopard print. I couldn’t convince her that cheetahs only have spots, so while I call this a leopard lunch, she says it’s a cheetah. Whatever, I hope it’s yummy ;)

Sandwich The usual PB&J on whole wheat. The spots are drawn on with food safe markers and the little grass on the bottom is just sushi grass.
Sides My kiddo loves these little cutie oranges and so I’ve been trying to use them up because we bought something like 8 pounds of them! So a “cutie” orange leopard with sprinkle eyes, M&M nose and marshmallow muzzle. Spots drawn on with edible marker. In the little container, shelled pistachios because pistachios are just awesome.

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Frog Kingdom

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Today’s theme is frogs :) I’ve honestly been lacking motivation lately as we are on our fourth or fifth cold of the season. It’s been crazy! However, whenever I loose inspiration, I tend to use my supplies to inspire me, whether I need to start using up a certain food so it doesn’t go bad or use a cookie cutter that I haven’t used in a while. Today, it was the latter :)

Sandwich PB&J on whole wheat, as usual. Crown and eyes also made with fruit leather. Eye highlights are made with marshmallow bits.
Sides Clementine orange with sprinkles for eyes and a fruit roll up for a tongue. I also put in grapes and a strawberry to look like a flower with a fly on it (raisin with almond sliver wings).

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Hello Kitty

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Ok I admit it — I got a Hello Kitty sandwich cutter and I absolutely HAD to use it. It helps that my kiddos are deep in the love of all things Hello Kitty so this one is a no-brainer.

Sandwich PB&J on whole wheat. Strawberry flower bow (I cut a large strawberry in half and used a circle cutter to get the shape of the bow). The cutter makes holes for the nose and eyes but to keep them colored correctly, I put a candy coated yellow sunflower seed for the nose and some raisins behind the eyes. The whiskers are done with a food safe marker.
Sides Clementine orange flower with strawberry middle. In the little condiment case is a handful of shelled pistachios.

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Caterpillar

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Today, we had a no-bread crisis at our house so tortellini it was for lunch! I will forever struggle with making tortellini look good so I decided to make the “side” a bento instead. So, to go with yesterday’s theme, a caterpillar garden it was.

Sides A caterpillar made of vanilla crackers and pretzel antennae as well as candy eyes (I’m kinda loving the candy eyes right now). The little guy is eating strawberry flowers and is surrounded by craisins.

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