BENTOS AND BIRTHDAYS!!!

I think I am obsessed with reading blogs! It is quite irritating to me. Now that I am at home all the time I can spend a whole day on the computer. I just get lost in it. I find something to focus on and I'm gone. It is even worse than the tv or a novel for me!!!


The other day it was BENTO. Have you heard of bento? This is from http://www.lunchinabox.net/.

What is “bento”? Is it the style of packing? Is it the box? Is it the food?
A bento lunch is a compact, balanced, visually appealing meal packed in a box. Historically, it’s a Japanese box lunch, similar in concept to the Indian tiffin, the Korean dosirak, or the Filipino baon lunch. In Japanese, “bento” or “obento” refers to the packed meal, and “bento-bako” refers to the bento box itself. See the Wikipedia entry on bento for more details.


Ok, so I was on this for a whole day. It all started because I decided that I was not going to buy Skyler school lunches this year. I was going to pack lunches for him. Last year it seemed like every time I turned around I was forking out $50 for lunch tickets... we would get behind, I would owe the school money... they would send home notes. . . so I decided to send packed lunches this year. Then the question is what do I pack for him that is nutritious and yet something that he will like and eat? I could send peanut butter and jelly each day but really how good is that for him? And how much fun is a pb&j? And squished peanut butter and jelly is just ugly. So my quest began. Now a lot of bento is made up of sushi, and or rice. Skyler looks at sushi and gags so you know that wasn't an option. I decided to take some of the things I saw on all these different web sites and blogs (and let me tell you I saw a lot, obsessed I tell you) and put them into my own little creations! It turns out it is kind of fun. It does take a couple more minutes to get it all together than just throwing in a sandwich, but I am having a lot of fun with lunches. I even ordered some cute animal picks, little sauce containers, and egg molds!

So here are a few pictures of some of my cute lunches I have been sending with the boys (I make David a lunch to take to preschool on the days he goes, and on the days he doesn't I still make him one to eat at home, sometimes it is easier to do two at one time.)

This was the first day. I made star tortilla, cheese and salami sandwiches, pasta salad, cantalope stars, and put in some pumpkin cookies. I used the foil cupcake papers to seperate everything. Skyler likes tomatoes and mango, David likes strawberries.

So it worked like a charm. The first day they ate everything! Here are a couple more cute lunches. . .

Leftover chicken, fruit kabobs, pirate bootie (white cheese popcorn), grape tomatoes, and a mint double stuffed oreo for desert! I got the little halloween toothpicks at Target.

This one is salami with cream cheese, strawberries, cheese cubes, mini strawberry newtons, and mini chocolate and cinnamon rice cakes.

For the most part these lunches have been a hit. I usually give them chocolate milk, juice or water with their lunch, depending on what they request in the morning. More often than not most of the lunch is gone when they come home!

So enough about my quest for the cute lunch! What else is going on. This weekend was our fall festival at Skyler's school. We are so lucky that we live across the street (diagionally) from the school. I stand out front in the mornings and watch him walk to school. I am the Room Mom for Skyler's class. That means for the fall festival we were responsible for a booth and ours was pizza. I am so grateful we got such an easy booth. I got volunteers from the parents in the class to man the booth and my other job was to decorate the booth and make a sign/banner. The banner really turned out cute. It was black with pizza, three tickets, the teachers name, and then all the kids in the class made little slices of pizza and decorated them with bats, pumpkins, ghosts and haunted houses. I will take a picture today or tomorrow so you can see (I forgot to take my camera to the fall festival! Too much going on that day!)

Let's see what else. . .oh

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JULIE!!!

Today is my cousin Julie's birthday. I hope you have an excellent day, a wonderful year and that everyday is filled with happiness. This is a busy birthday month. Julie, then my Mom, then my Sister!!! Too much fun. I better go so I can go buy cards and get them sent out!!!

Happy Monday!

Love ya,
Shell

MONKEY DANCE. . . . aka Wednesday Post #3

I can hardly believe that the tiny little baby that I brought home from the hospital almost five years ago turned five last Thursday. I have such a hard time thinking of him as five, but he is getting to be so big and amazes me daily with how smart he is.

Skyler's school was having a fund raiser for their Parent Teacher Association at Pump It Up on Thursday night so we took the boys to that. There were a lot of kids there, but I think they had fun. Afterwards we took the boys to Rosemary's Ice Creamery. They both got mint chocolate chip ice cream. The next day we took cupcakes to David's preschool (he goes Monday, Tuesday, and Friday) and then when Shannon got home from work we opened presents. He got so many nice things. I sometimes think that Skyler thinks they are for him. We have to remind him they are David's presents, but he does get to play with all of them. We then had the meal he had requested. Cheeseburgers and macaroni and cheese. We had talked about going to Chuck E. Cheese to let the boys play games sometime over the weekend (they love it there), but they were playing so well with all the new toys that we never went. Maybe this weekend.

Well, it is time to put those boys to bed.

Maybe more later!!!
Love ya,
Shell

HOW OLD ARE YOU? (aka Wednesday Post #2)

Me: David, how old are you?
David: five


Me: David, how old are you?
David: Five Mommy

Me: David, how old are you?
David: Five

Me: David, how old are you?
David: Five

Me: David, how old are you?
David: FIVE, MOMMY, FIVE!
ME: Oh my goodness you are so big!

and of course his five friends!!!

Wednesday ~ Post #1

OK, Uncle Tom called me out!!!

So the last time I posted I mentioned that I would post some pictures that weekend if I could find my camera. That was some time in September, it is now sometime in October and I did find my camera, but have not yet posted! I got an e-mail from Uncle Tom today asking if I had found my camera so I thought I would do a couple of posts and try and catch you up on what we have been doing.

These three pictures are from the end of August. If you click on the pictures they get bigger.

The first picture is of Skyler. . .
Skyler started the first grade on August 19th. When I picked him up from school on that Friday he had this card saying he had lost a tooth, a sticker and his tooth in a tooth container hanging around his neck. He was so proud!

That same day we drove over to San Luis Obispo because Shannon was taping an event. We went over to spend some time over there in the trailer. It was at the Veteran's hall in SLO, and they had a museum there with a tank and a cannon in the front area. The boys had a lot of fun climbing on the camera. We also got to spend some time with my cousin Steve and his family. Steve and Helen are so nice, and their children are getting so big. We went over there both Saturday and Sunday and it was really nice to visit.