Keeping it Super Simple

It seems like this week has gone on for a month. Whew! We've spent a whole lot of time with doctors this week. A-chan's asthma has gone haywire so we're tackling that day by day. But the pediatric cardiologist that we spent the day with yesterday assured us that A-chan's heart is okay :) Yay!!!!! My little girl didn't bat an eye at the EKG or the ultrasound, in fact she was fascinated and kept asking questions. She was thrilled to get to see her heart on the ultrasound monitor and said the whole experience was very cool.

Today's bento is super simple simply because I haven't had time to get to the grocery store this week and am just using up whatever we had leftover from last week. The terrible truth is that I have no provolone. How did I let my bento supply run out?! I don't think that I had realized how much I rely upon cheese slices as a staple in our bentos until yesterday when I had none :)

In the bento: Garlic basil couscous with diagonal lines of green peas, baby tomatoes with cheese blocks on Pokemon picks, a huge pickle that is mostly covered up by other things, an apple bunny, two carrot stars and two spears of baby corn.

Three Little Pigs

Rice is such a wonderful food. We love rice so much that we typically buy it in 20 lb bags. You can do so much with it, including color it pink and shape it into piggie heads! These aren't the 3 little pigs of the famous story however, they are a mama and papa and baby.

In the bento: pink rice onigiri, lemon slices, a veggie stirfry on a bread bowl, raspberries, and a pick of cheese cubes.

The piggy faces noses and ears are made from soy turkey, eyes are made from provolone and nori. I used the bread as a bowl under the stir fry veggies to catch all the sauce underneath and prevent the sauce from getting onto the fruit and cheese. That seemed to work pretty well but I think it confused A-chan :)

Horribly busy day ahead and I'm already running about an hour behind - I must run and try to catch up!

Wisteria and Butterflies

A-chan does not often specifically ask for a theme or a character in her bentos, but for this one she requested butterflies. With the arrival of spring she has been waiting with as much patience as a six year old can muster for the beautiful array of butterflies that normally swarm our yard. My favorite spring flower is Wisteria (technically a flowering vine, I guess). I love the graceful drapes of purple that remind me of Fairy bowers. I tried to combine both of these things in a bento, but I'm not pleased with the Wisteria at all. That just means I get to try it again, right?

This past Saturday was summer camp registration. What I thought would be a 30 minute trip to sign A-chan up for camps turned into an ordeal of many hours. It wasn't all bad, though - while we waited in the never ending line I got to meet several very nice ladies. I enjoyed chatting with them a lot! Even though the sign up process is extremely tedious, it's worth it because our county has some great camp themes. We managed to get A-chan signed up for the Star Wars gymnastics camp (she is so excited about it!). The Fairies, Elves and Dragons Art camp that she wanted was all full up so we're on a waiting list.

In the bento: Spaghetti noodles that have been cut into small sections for ease of eating, purple potato wisteria, butterflies cut from bread slices, a large piece of broccoli on a pick (inspired by Happy Little Bento), baby corn, baby carrots, raspberries, another butterfly cut from soy turkey and some tiny purple potato flowers.

The wisteria was cut out of thin slices of purple potato using a petal shaped cutter. A different cutter style might have gotten the look that I want, but it was already done so I just went with it :) The bread butterflies were cut using a tiny butterfly cutter after I rolled the bread slice flat. The broccoli 'tree' is something that I have seen several times over at Sherimiya's blog, Happy Little Bento. Every time I see it in one of her bentos I want to use it in mine, it's such a nifty and creative use for this pick!

Hello Kitty to the Rescue

After another week of craziness I am so happy that Friday has arrived. Not that Friday means the busyness will stop, on the contrary my next three days are filled to the brim...but it's the weekend so somehow it's got to be better, right?

Yesterday one of our kitties went to the vet to have a tooth extracted and ended up having four teeth removed. Yikes! Then when we arrived home after dance class the entire neighborhood had no power. Let me tell you, hand feeding a very unhappy cat in the dark with a flashlight held in the crook of your arm is an interesting challenge. Yeah, sooooo glad it's Friday. And it's April Fools which A-chan is enjoying immensely. So far she has 'fooled' me by pretending that she needed to go potty, pretending that she had finished her drink at breakfast and needed more, etc. I can't wait to see what she comes up with this afternoon, lol.

In the bento: The blue tier holds sesame carrots, baby corn, steamed broccoli and cauliflower and a baby tomato. The orange tier has lots of raspberries and a lemon wedge, some frozen blueberries in the heart container and a piece of fuji apple. The yellow tier has pink rice and a Hello Kitty face made from provolone, nori, lemon peel (for the nose) and a purple cabbage bow.

On mornings when I just can't seem to get my brain in gear, Hello Kitty comes to the rescue. It's a no-brainer. HK is a design I'm so familiar with that I can make it happen even when my brain is sleep fogged and overworked. Not to mention the nifty tools that make all the cutouts easy for me! I definitely recommend having something in your bento repertoire that is held in reserve for these kinds of days, it really can be a rescue.