WFLW - Hangin' With My Peeps!

This week I did two bentos for Tuesday! One for Little Z and me to take to gym (which didn't end up happening. We were running so late, we would have missed over half the class. So I took her straight to an indoor play area we had planned on meeting other mommies at after gym and ate in the car.) The other bento was Monday night leftovers from dinner at the mall for my husband!

Hangin' With My Peeps

PB celery, Hard-boiled egg, PBHoney sandwich,
crunchy peas in chickie container, broccoli and carrots, apples and blueberries.

We just restocked our celery, and The Princess is actually able to chew it up now, so I'm trying to remember to use it more. Plus it's yummy with peanut butter!
I originally only had the one little ducky pick in the hard-boiled egg (the last egg from my recent batch. Need to look up the directions again and make more!) but Princess grabbed the transparent pink and green chicks and jabbed them in too. The little container is a sauce container, but I put salt in it for the egg.
I just bought some crunchy 'baked peas' from an Asian market (along with the ducky sauce container, large chick sprinkle container and the transluscent chickie picks) and put some in my new chickie container. Her Majesty didn't like them. There's a disposable Ranch container from McD hiding under the broccoli, and a caramel dipping sauce one under the blueberries.
All in my new 4-compartment Lock-and-Lock container, also from the Asian market.

 

Year of the Bunny

For my husband, I packed his leftover teriyaki chicken and fried rice into an EasyLunchbox. I jammed some fried rice into my new rabbit rice mold (bought Sunday at the Asian market) and placed a pea where the eye would go. The containers in the top left compartment contain: (orange square with bunny) Sriracha hot sauce, (green bunny head) roasted sesame seeds and (pink bunny bottle) soy sauce. And a cute bunny pick to top it all off. I couldn't make it all too cute, especially as he whined and moaned about having to drag the containers on the bus to work and back and told me not to bother.

Super Bonus Bento

I made this bento in my Sassy On-the-Go box  for Z to eat in the car on the way to my sister's house last Wednesday.

PBH bear sandwiches, apple slices, cheese curds

Random other bento last week.

PBH sandwich, string cheese stick, baby tomatoes, carrot sticks,
apples and blueberries, with Ranch in the little blue container below.

Dollar Store Craft - My Crafty Valentine

I love the foam stickers and shapes, pompoms, chenille stems, table scatter, and other craft items that regularly rotate through the Dollar Tree stores. Super cheap, so I don't mind sharing them with random other kids friends' kids, cousins, etc. Or letting Little Z 'waste' them (by using them, of course!)

Little Z's preschool lets us exchange Valentines, in the kids' cubbies above their coat hooks, if we want to. Last year, one of my friends made little heart-shaped crayons (click here for my crusty attempt,) and another friend made awesome, yummy goodies! So I wanted to do something clever and creative too! But with less effort!

Luckily, the Dollar Tree had everything I needed to make a fun DIY Valentine craft for her school chums!

Valentine Picture Frame Craft Kit

Materials:

• Foam shapes (they have circles, rectangles, 8.5"x11" sheets, various seasonal shapes throughout the year) - $1 per 12-24. Enough for 1 shape per child (or cut larger sheets into enough shapes.)
• Foam shape stickers - Valentines mix. 1-2 bags, $1 each
• Foam letter stickers - 2 baggies for a class size of 15-20, 4 baggies for a class of 30. Or enough of the 4-sheet packs of larger letters to pop out letters for each child's name. - $1 per pack/bag
• Glitter Valentines Table Scatter. 1-2 bags, $1 each (Optional)
• Pompoms. 1-2 bags, $1 each (Optional)
• Chenille stems, 1 bag, or spool of ribbon. $1 for either (Optional)
• Packs of 4 squeezy glue - enough for 1 per kid. $1 per 4. (Optional) 
• -Or- Glue Dots (available from craft stores, or if you have them on hand. Price varies. Optional) You can also just assume that everyone has some Elmer's at home, or else just stick with the stickers and not bother with the glueables. Especially for kids under 3.
• Zip-top sandwich bags or cellophane Valentines bags - $1 per 24. Enough baggies for 1 per child.

Tools: (Optional)

• Circle cutter 
• -Or - Scissors and small circle or heart-shape (computer printout, jar or cup, stencil, cookie cutter, etc.) to trace and cut
• Hole Punch

Valentines foam stickers, glittery heart table scatter,
foam circles

Halloween foam letters, large year-round letter stickers
large Spring letter stickers, Easter letter stickers

Chenille stems and pompoms from throughout the year

Large and small Glue Dots from Oriental Trading Company

Step 1 (Optional): Use circle cutter or trace and cut out circle or heart shape from center of foam shape. You can skip this if you don't want them to be picture frames.

Step 2 (Optional:) Using hole punch, punch a hole in the top center (or 2 holes at the top, evenly spaced from center.)

Another option, in lieu of punching a hole and giving each person some ribbon or a chenille stem, would be to cut up a thin flexible magnet sheet into little 1" squares for people to glue on, 1 to 2 per person. I use free magnets with ads on them that come in the mail, on the Yellow Pages book, freebies at fairs, etc, and save them with my craft supplies.

Step 3a (Optional): Sort stickers by color and shape (and letter.) I chose to do this so that one kid wouldn't get a clump of, say, all red doves, but no hearts. And also to avoid putting dark purple stickers in with the dark purple circle frames, and ditto with the dark pink, since they are the same shade and just blend in.

Step 3b: Divvy up the stickers (and glitter table scatter, pompoms, chenille stems or ribbon, etc amongst the kids' craft kits.)

Step 4 (Optional): If you are putting letter stickers in for each child's name, choose the stickers for each child. I put them immediately into the baggies the whole craft would be going in, so that I didn't lose any or get them mixed up later. You can use a permanent marker to write each child's name on the bag, or have a paper Valentine inside with the "To" and "From" filled in. Sorting the letter stickers helps here, to avoid getting a clump of all one color in a name, and to avoid letters that match the foam background shape! Also so you aren't sifting through the same ones over and over again for each subsequent name.

Each kit should have a baggie with 1 foam shape base, Valentines stickers, letters for that child's name (optional,) 5-6" of ribbon or a half or whole chenille stem (optional,) some glitter Table scatter (optional,) and pompoms (optional.) Also a glue dot per pompom and table scatter piece (optional,) or a glue tube (super optional.)

Finished product! 

I ended up giving each child 1 foam circle frame, 1 each of the Valentines foam sticker shapes (dove, heart, flower, plus 2 X's and O's,) the letters in their name (for names with common nicknames, especially when I hear them called both by their parents, like Daniel/Danny, I put in "daniel" and added an extra N and Y in case they opted to put "danny" on instead.) 3 large glittery table scatter shapes (2 large hearts and 1 smaller double heart shape per kid,) and 2 white and 1 red pompom from the Christmas mix (red/white/green/black,) plus a chenille stem to use as a hanger with the hole, and 6 Glue Dots (for the 3 pompoms and 3 Table Scatter shapes.)

My little craft kit Valentines.

Additional Ideas/Tips:
You can jazz it up by putting in some pony beads for them to string onto the chenille stem hanger, which you can also get at Dollar Tree, for $1 for a good-sized little baggie of them.

You can also type up a little blurb to go in each bag, telling them that they can cut the foam shape into a heart, or cut a picture frame hole out of the center, punch a hole or re-use free magnets for hanging, or suggest other items they might have at home to glue on, like noodles or pompoms or whatever and save yourself a bunch of the steps/materials.

This craft can be as cheap as $2 if you already have Sandwich-size zip-top baggies at home, and just get the foam shapes and a pack of Valentine stickers, for a class size of 24 or under.
If you get a little bit of everything and a glue for everyone, it can be as high as $24 for a class of 30 (2 packs each of foam shapes, pompoms, chenille stems, baggies, Table Scatter, Valentines stickers, 4 bags of foam letters, and 8 4-packs of squeeze glue.)

Also a great, cheap, craft activity to do with a preschool or Sunday School class, moms group, or a family gathering with a bunch of Oompa-Loompas.

I will be submitting this to Dollar Store Crafts and JDaniel4's Mom's Virtual Valentine's Day Party

Muffin Tin Monday - Eats, Shoots And Leaves

This week's Muffin Tin Monday has no theme, and I had a list of awesome themes tucked away, but never got around to doing one this week, and thought this one up late Sunday night, when I realized that it was Sunday night and I'd have to bang one out early Monday in order to have anyone actually see it this week!

The Panda Bear Eats, Shoots and Leaves

"Shoots and Leaves," PBH sandwiches, Panda cookies,
Colby Jack bears, Greek Yogurt w/honey, Banana bears

I just got these cute panda bear picks from Japan (via eBay) and was excited to get to use them finally!
I also got 2 sets of mini sandwich punches, each of which had a bear.
I used a mini bear veggie cutter from Daiso for the cheese and bananas. I had to cut the bananas lengthwise in order to get a surface large enough to make bears.

The panda cookies I got at a local Asian supermarket (Uwajimaya) in the International District on Sunday, after having Dim Sum for brunch [instead of doing my MTM. Oops!] Little Z was super excited to have Dim Sum, since we got a fun book from my sister for Christmas, Dim Sum For Everyone, and she's been asking for sweet pork buns, turnip cakes and sweet tofu, like they eat in the book. So she ate a sweet pork bun (my favorite!) and we tried turnip cakes for the first time! We didn't get around to sweet tofu, since we were kind of stuffed after getting all our favorites, plus trying a few new dishes.

I used a heart liner for the yogurt, since this muffin pan was used for cooking, so it has some brown residue from the nonstick spray. And if she has Greek honey yogurt, it MUST have honey on top too! In fact, that's how she says it every time. "Honey yogurt with honey on top."

And my favorite part? The PB celery! At the dawn of time (ie: before giving birth) I used to go to the bookstore. A lot. One time, I came across this book, Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. I love punctuation and editing, and despise sloppy spelling and grammatical errors (in other people. I do it intentionally, for comedic effect!) Basically, if you add punctuation in the wrong place, you distort the meaning. For example, as in the title of the book, if you add a comma to "The panda bear eats shoots and leaves," you get some gangsta drive-by panda. So I had to incorporate this into the meal somehow, and I was thrilled to find celery in the veggie drawer! (I was going to settle for a few torn lettuce leaves that she wouldn't eat.)
I haven't read the book yet, since, at the time, I was poorish and couldn't just afford to buy any old book I wanted. And now that I can, I just don't have time to read books that don't have a mouse, a ducky, or tips on how to get your child to sleep! But I really, really want to read this book someday!

Pointing out all of her favorite tings in the lunch
(she pointed at each item.)

Licking off the panda pick before moving it to
the celery with the other one. Then she took
the first one out of the celery and
moved it to the yogurt!

Aaaaand she found the third pick
I hadn't used and put it in the bananas!

WFLW - Bento For Daddy - or - Hey, Nice Balls!

This is actually a bento I did last year, the week after Christmas. But I forgot to post it, and this week I didn't end up doing a bento. The one I had started for after gym class on Tuesday got aborted when we stayed home because her nose was all snorky, and then we got invited next door to have lunch with her friend (grilled cheese and clam chowder! Yum!) so I didn't just feed it to her at home later.

I had gone out to dinner with my sister (Auntie Kayneen) and our mom (Grammelena) after a monumental clearance clothing shopping spree at a local outlet mall. We chose Thai, since we all love it, even Little Z! I had some of my Swimming Rama left over (ordered with mixed veggies instead of spinach, since I hate soggy spinach leaves.) I decided that since my hubby would be taking it to work the next day to eat for lunch anyway, it would be fun to make it into a bento for him!

Rice balls, string cheese nibblets, Swimming Rama, red pepper flakes

I would have put red pepper flakes into a cute little condiment container, but my husband had just bought a bottle to keep at work to jazz up leftover pizza, so I packed that with it. I did use a cute fork from Daiso's bento section, a silicone cup to hold the cheese, and nori (dried seaweed) faces on the rice balls, using my new face punches I got on eBay. [Teehee. Face Punch. I'm going to have to think of clever ways to get all punny with that for next time!]

I made the rice balls using the same technique as my sandwich balls. (Rice, sandwich baggie. Fill, shape and twist.)
My husband thought it was silly thoughtful, but we ended up getting snowed in the next day, so he ate it at home. Ah well. I'm sure I'll have more opportunity to embarrass him create fun lunches for him again!

Tried-It-Tuesday - Extreme Makeover: Blog Edition!

Notice anything... different? No. Not a haircut. Lost weight? Probably not, thanks to McDonalds No, but thanks for asking!
My BLOG! That's right! I finally sprung for a professional to update my graphics. And by "sprung" I mean "downloaded for free" and by "professional" I mean "inept novice" [ie: me.] I burned the site's FAQs and tutorial videos into my retinas and somehow managed to mostly hash it all together. Where did I find these wonderful [free!!] graphics, you might ask? If you look in the top left corner, you'll see. Shabbyblogs.com. Or click this button to go to their site!

I even downloaded some tags and buttons and fun stuff, which I'll get around to installing eventually. If someone [you know who you are!] ever learns to fall asleep by herself so I can actually do something at night that doesn't cut into my sleep time!

So expect to see more little (or big) changes here and there as I try different styles or add fancy graphical tags (like 'Follow' 'About' etc.)

So this is the new thing *I* tried this week... Link up or comment on something new you've cooked, done, or tried since last Tuesday!

MTM - Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!

This week's Muffin Tin Monday theme is "Muffin Cups and Liners Only!"... I'm assuming 'only' includes food too! :) I'd been sitting on an idea for a "Let It Snow" meal, along with my "12 Days of Kimmens," so I made them fit the tools themes, rather than ignoring the themes or dropping my ideas altogether. I had to change some of my plans last-minute, due to the theme, lack of specific foods, and lack of certain restaurants being open on Sundays.

Eggman, Icicles and Pebbles (Apples and Blueberries,) Snowflake Nuggets,
Cake Snowball, Snowdrift (Ranch,)
Umm... Snowy Branches (fries,) More Snow (yogurt,) Pine Needles (green beans.)

Since Sunday was pretty much my last chance to get this done in time for Monday's linkup, and I forgot to do it for lunch, I decided I'd do it for dinner. Plus Unka Seesee was gone for the day, so I wouldn't be ruining his dinner plans for us. My husband was headed to Taco Del Mar to get dinner for us growned-ups, and I got started on her 'beautiful dinner.' After deciding which liners and cups I'd be using, scooping out the yogurt and peeling the hard-boiled egg, my husband called to say the Taco Del Mar near us isn't open on Sundays. D'oh! So he went to McD's which was across the street from TDM.

My original plans had included rice balls, a Fluffer Nutter sandwich (PB and marshmallow creme,) and celery with PB (ants on a log, but with marshmallows over the raisins to make them 'snowy logs.') 

I aborted the Fluffer Nutter sandwich (in a snowflake shape) and got out my mini snowflake cutter to use on the Happy Meal nuggets instead. 

I was all out of celery, so I used green bean 'pine needles' again. Ah well. They're on their last legs anyway, so it's probably good to use them up now.

I had planned on making apple snowflakes too, but due to time constraints, I just used the McD apple slices. I tossed on some blueberries just 'cuz we had them. 

The yogurt is Greek honey-flavored yogurt, and I forgot to put the honey on top before snapping my pics and placing it in front of my child. Which is probably for the best, since even though I had planned on attempting a snowflake design in honey, it still looked like 'yellow snow' if you know what I mean.

I've been saving that last white chocolate cake ball for this MTM theme too.

Let it Snow...Nuggets!: I used my mini Wilton snowflake cutter from a 40-pc set I got super cheap at Joann's the weekend after Thanksgiving ($6 for 20 mini and 20 regular holiday-theme metal cutters!!!) I only made one snowflake shape because McNugget breading is super tough.... I mean, the other nuggets were too small for my cutter.

Frosty the Egg-Man: You've seen it before, I'm sure, but I've been planning for this ever since I first bought the hat cupcake picks from Bake It Pretty! I used my Neon Food Writers from Wilton to make the black 'coal' eyes and mouth and the orange 'carrot' nose. I had wanted to use the green and blue hat with a snowflake on it, like Melissa did, since it fit the 'Snow' theme better, but Z said she wanted the green one.

The muffin tin is just my regular scuzzy metal tin. I had originally planned on using my Wilton snowflake pan, but abandoned it to follow the theme.
I used white silicone cups from some dude in China I bought on eBay (colors were random, but I got green and orange with them too.)
The light blue ones (came with light pink too) I got from Marshall's or TJ Maxx (same parent company, so I don't bother trying to keep them straight!)
The mini dark blue ones came from Kitchen Collection (along with red.)
The nuggets and fries are in ultra cute paper liners turned inside-out (so you can see the graphics better!) that were made by Wilton for Target. I got them super cheap on clearance after Christmas. These ones also came with matching picks, but I forgot wanted to follow the 'cups/liners only' theme.

Step 1: Nibble on cake 'snowball.'
Step 2: Nomnom all the honey off the yogurt.
Step 3: Eat face off of snowman egg. Demand Ask mommy politely to draw on another face. Eat that face too.
Step 4: Swiper Mommy's fries, ignoring ones in muffin tin. Refuse to share ketchup with Mommy.
Step 5: Espy box of peppermint candy Daddy put on table earlier while clearing kitchen counters. Grudgingly nibble molecule off a green bean and apple slice and pretend to misunderstand what 'eat ALL your beans and apples' means in attempt to get peppermint immediately.
Step 6: Peel breading off nuggets. Eat all 3 denuded chicken nuggets. Attempt to cadge peppermint again.
Step 7: Try to trick Mommy into eating all the green beans and apples so 'she' can have a peppermint.
Step 8: Agree to eat beans later if peppermint can be had now. Surprisingly, follow through on promise to Mommy. Allow Mommy to eat cake ball in exchange for said peppermint.

   

The Food Writers were crazy cheap at Walmart. The neon ones were $6 and the basic colors were $5! Joann's has them for $10 or $11, and I had used my 50% off coupon to get the Neon ones before Christmas. Auntie Sha got me the Betty Crocker basic colors ones for Christmas.

Super Secret Bonus Muffin Tin Meal:

Apple slices, more apples, cheese scraps, sweet potato fries,
cake ball, Ranch, ketchup, more sweet potato fries,
nugget, nugget, veggie medley, more veggies, bento fork (she insisted.)

We stayed home Thursday, and The Princess decided she'd like a "byoo-fuh shnak" for breakfast. She said she wanted 'nukkets an fiess an kechshup an Wanch.' So I nuked up some frozen sweet potato fries, Foster Farms nuggets, and a little bit of some kind of veggie medley that Unka Seesee had in a freezer bag (he used the rest for stir fry that night. Asparagus, green beans, carrots, mushrooms, maybe other stuff.) Cheddar and Colby Jack cheese scraps from the 3 Little Pigs lunch, and leftover apple slices from McD's. (Yes. The holidays broke my resolve. I'll post all about My Shame later, when I have time in between horking down fries and sweet tea and weighing my lardy thighs.)
She went into my cabinet and found my little $1.50 tackle box currently housing my baran, sauce containers and bento forks and spoons (the forks and spoons will need to find a new home soon... or the containers will. It's stuffed to the gills.) She chose the blue bunny fork. I also let her peruse all my muffin tins, and she chose... my crusty red silicone one. Whuuuuck?
Not the metal snowman/mitten one? Not the trees? Snowflakes? Pumpkins? Ghosts? Flowers? Hearts? Stars? Not the Nordic Ware butterfly or (made by Wilton for Target) metal snowman one I just got on clearance at Target? Not any of the weird flimsy flower or butterfly ones imported from China (via eBay)? Not even the weird large Ghost, Pumpkins or Gingerbread Man 'mini cake' pans that I got tricked into ordering on eBay, not knowing that they were twice the size of muffin tins?
No. My baking-spray-stained plain red one. *Sigh.*

After snarfing down the cake ball and complaining that she doesn't like 'potato fries' (what we call the sweet potato fries,) she ended up eating all the fries, some nuggets, some cheese and some apples. Maybe some veggies, but I wasn't holding my breath. (Well, I was, but for a different reason: I don't like asparagus, and microwaving it makes the whole house smell!)