Super fast running out of the house bento

Sometimes bentos are not pretty or super interesting. Sometimes they are fast and easy! We needed to go, and Bentobaby needed to eat. She has sharp cheddar cheese, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, clementines, and crackers.

BentoBaby's adoption!!!

Can I just say how blessed we are with this case? We waited for Bentobaby for 2 years. But ever since we brought her home we've had such an easy journey. And now, a few days away she will be ours. Forever. Our daughter. Its so amazing, and even with an easy case such a weight off our shoulders. We are so blessed, so thankful, to have such an amazing kid!

Last week's date night

Since I'm behind in my posts and this week will likely be date night free, I'm playing catch up.

Last week we had a lazy (relaxing) date night.

I picked up a treat at the grocery store while doing my weekly shopping. That night I sent bentobaby and hubby out for soda, and a redbox.

Sorcerer's apprentice redbox rental $1
Box of brownie bites $5
2 liter of coke $2
Total $8

The brownie bites were a bummer. Hubby and I had a few but saved most of them. We've been slowly nibbling on them all week. Hubby made my coke special by adding a splash of (sugar free) vanilla syrup. Yum! He even put my coke in my favorite reusable Starbucks tumbler. What a great way to make a regular coke more special without spending a penny.

Expensive date night

Hubby and I were lucky enough to be able to sneak away for a date several weeks ago. Bentobaby was sleeping under Grandma and Grandpa's careful eye. She didnt know we were gone! :) Hubby and I headed streight for the movies.

Two movie tickets $21
candy, soda, bottle of water $13

Total $34! OUCH! It would have cost more if we had to pay for a baby sitter.

That makes my (usually) $10 or less dates look wonderful!

What is this? A Bento? WOW.

Bentobaby and i were making a trek to see my parents. This requires bentos!

Bentobaby has frozen carrots, peas, hummus, cheese, blueberries, peanut butter, and cookies.

Mama has hummus, turkey, cheese, carrots, and pieces of a granola bar. Yum!

Free sensory activity

If you are lucky enough to live somewhere cold, snow can be a great sensory activity. We get very little snow. When we did, Bentobaby was not pleased with the crunchy white stuff. It took her a while to come around to it. Even so she wanted a scoop to play in the snow, she didn't want to touch it with her glove. The crunch from walking was a problem for her but eventually she became able to handle it. We scooped it, crunched it, threw it, and poked it! She had fun and it didn't cost a penny.

Date night, candy tasting

One day hubby and I were driving for a few hours. We had a box of chocolates in the car without the paper telling us which chocolate is what. We had the best time laughing and eating these chocolates. Hubby thought another box of chocolates would be fun. What about the pomegranates? I found out to my surprised that hubby has never had a pomegranate. I loved these as a child, my mom would purchase them all the time. Hubby had to have one!

Box of chocolates $8

1 Pomegranate $2.50

2 Fantas from the coke plant .50

Total $11

Unfortunately this was not a very yummy box of chocolates, plus it had just 4/5 varieties. That is not fun for our purposes. We have more then half of it left over. The pomegranate was fun, but very messy. Its not a very um, seductive activity to spit seeds in front of your partner. We enjoyed it but save this for someone your very comfortable with. After we ate our pomegranate hubby and I played several rounds of our favorite Sorry Revenge game.

We had a great night together, laughing and joking. At one point my pomegranate exploded out of my hands and showered seeds every where. It was awesome. I was able to spend some time focused on my husband, have a few treats, and enjoy hubby without spending a fortune or needing a baby sitter for bento baby. Success!

Operation Christmas Child.

I was introduced to Operation Christmas Child through money saving mom. She posted about filling shoe boxes frugally. I had never heard of this ministry before, but i was definitely intrigued. I love giving. Its my favorite part of Christmas! When my church mentioned collecting shoe boxes I jumped on it. We planned to pack just one box because we donate to many other causes at Christmas. However hubby and I had big eyes, and we ended up with more then enough for two. I had set myself a budget of $40.

Box Number 1 cost $13.91

Box number 2 cost $12.83

Total $26.74

We were able to keep it in budget by using a few free items, a few multi packs from the dollar store, and a decent toy sale. My husband says the lego car 'rocks'. :) $26.74 + the $14 donation asked for, means we spent $40.74. Just slightly over budget.

If your able there is still time to pack a shoe box. I would encourage you to watch the videos on the Operation Christmas Child website. The video from Oksana Nelson really touched my heart. Adopting from an orphanage is personal to me, and her study of hope made me bawl.

Date night, nerd style.

My husband was elated to find this brand new Trivia Pursuit Star Wars game at the thrift store. For a mere $7 (his spending money) he walked away with this treasure. And started pestering me to play it. I greatly dislike Star Wars. And hubby is quite a fan. There is no way I will win against him. Did I mention he's super competitive too? I agreed to play 1 round of his game on date night, IF its followed by a game of Scene It Friends. (we went without cable for 2 years but i had all 10 friends seasons. They were played ALOT) We had our activity all set but snacks were still in the air. A quick trip to Grocery Outlet gave us our munchies.

Mondo bag of my favorite popcorn $4

Dagoba (star wars, for real) chocolate for hubby $3

Chevrai Bruschetta goat cheese (1 pound) $3

3 (not pictured) cans of soda from the Coke plant .75

Total $10.75

You may ask why i didn't include dh's $7 game. Because it wasn't purchased for Date night. My playing it on Date night is a gift to my husband. If we included his game we would also have to include my $20 game that was purchased years ago. This week's date night is all about snacks! :)

Kicking myself

I finally get BentoBaby and myself to Walgreens to do our weekly coupon run. We buy $25 worth of stuff for $11 and walk out with $5 in register rewards. I'm pleased. Bentobaby has a freak out in the parking lot. Poor girl is terrified of cars. She freaks out every time we are in a parking lot. I'm used to is. But even so i managed to leave our purchase in the cart. I'm so bummed! I had two fruit and nuts bars in there. I did call to see if someone had turned in our purchase, but alas no one did. I truly hope who ever kept our items needed them! Thankfully i have chocolate upstairs. :)

Baby and Mama bento lunch

Yesterday I was looking at all my pretty bento gear. I felt bummed because I never bento anymore. Well, that is something I can change! I'm low on bento food. Plus my cheapo thrift store rice maker is broken. Its took me forever to find that thing!

BentoBaby has green beans, sharp cheddar cheese, onigiri, and sliced grapes.

I have onigiri, carrots, sharp cheddar, grapes and hummus.

Weekly date night

Hubby and I knew tonight was date night. Our plan was to play Mario Party on the wii. Its my favorite game. We used to play it regularly before we became parents. We haven't played it since. However last night we were both too worn out to do anything besides veg. That is so sad! Too tired to play a game? Sad! Now we had to come up with alternate plans, and fast.

I looked through the available stand up comedy titles from Netflix's instant queue. Hubby made us Mimosas using the $11 bottle of champagne from this post. In a matter of minutes we had an improvised date night together. Thankfully we had orange juice in the fridge. We never did find a new super funny comedian but we still had fun flipping through the different ones.

Netflix comedy shows $0
Champagne $11
Orange juice $0 already in fridge

Date night total $11

$6 sensory rice toy.

When I knew BentoBaby was going to need at home sensory activities I had to think about how I was going to present them to her. The sensory table was out. And our big ball pit box works great for large, easily cleaned up items. Small items, like rice would be a major pain to clean. I decided to put her smaller items in individual boxes.

Empty herb shaker $0

Measuring toy spoons we already had $0

Snack cup we already had $0

Toy spoon we already had $0

Toy truck we already had $0

Fake spider rings huge pack for $1

Sparkles we already had $0

Rice we already had and we don't like $0 (this is brown rice, with a little dyed green rice mixed in. I like short grain rice)

Plastic box to hold everything $5

Total $6

What if you do not have toy spoons or a toy truck no one is using? Thrift store. I picked up a TON on small toys at the thrift store. A sandwich bag full was .45. But I should tell you, Bentobaby's favorite toy is the shaker. She loves it.

Freezer stock up

I haven't been devoting much energy to stocking the freezer. It is almost empty. I did find a huge 10 pound bag of frozen chicken breasts for $20. That is $2 a pound, the top of my buy price for chicken. However prices have gone up and I have been unable to find chicken breasts for $1.76 a pound. chicken is the main protein of our diet, its a must!

Sand and Water table $60

We had to purchase Bentobaby's sand and water table new. I could not find any used ones. Since 'sensory' tables are far outside of our budget (but man they have some cool ones!) we went for a toy store's version. BentoBaby LOVES her table. She giggles and laughs while playing with it. When we walk past it she yells 'Splash!' trying to pull us over to it. And she can't use the extra features yet. She's too short to play with the toys that attach to the lid. Here is our sand and water table. Some brave souls keep their tables inside, I am not that soul. I did place it on our covered porch so Bentobaby can play even when its raining. The day hubby and I were heading to the store to purchase her table we received a coupon for $10 off a $75 purchase. Since I was planning to buy her a bunch of my favorite on the go fruit snack anyways we used the coupon to get our two koosh balls ($8) for her ball pit for free. Awesome!

Variety ball pit for less then $45

This is Bentobaby's ball pit. The container sells for $14 at Walmart. It is designed to slide under a bed. Since the sides are low my toddler can climb into it and sit to play. When she caught her first glimpse of the ball pit Bentobaby laughed and yelled 'fun!' We purchased a big pack of regular plastic balls, designed for a ball pit. $9. This was my incentive for bentobaby. She loves plain plastic balls. (i used less then 1/4 of the big bag, this could be easily split with another family) At first we didn't have such a variety of balls in the pit, i've slowly added them. Mainly from the dollar store or the dollar section of bigger stores.

She has a soft squishy dog ball (with squeaker) $1, a 3 pack of water bombs $1, a loofa $1, a 3 pack of waffle balls $1, an orange squeezie ball $1, purple spikey ball $3, two Koosh balls $4 each $8 total, 3 pack tacky balls, $1. I gave her a shoe box $0, a halloween bowl $1, and a plastic box $1 for scooping and dumping. $28 in play supplies plus the $14 for the box. $42 total. Am I done adding things? Nope. I could be, Bentobaby loves her ball pit the way it is. But like to challenge her.

Sensory toys on the cheap

My daughter has sensory processing disorder. A relatively mild form of it, thankfully. She does have tactile defensiveness. It took her forever to touch stuffed animals, and she rarely chooses to play with them. She is in a playgroup for kids with special needs. Its wonderful to have access to occupational therapists. However they only devote 15 minutes a week to sensory activities. 15 minutes. That will not do, its not nearly enough time. I had believed the playgroup would devote more time to sensory and was not working (specifically, sensory is everywhere though) on sensory activities with her. Its time for Mom to step up. There are many wonderful products designed for kids with SPD. I may even purchase some of them. Like our sand and water table that is now stationed on the porch. (allowing Bentobaby some playtime even when its raining) My goodness she loves that thing. But she also loves some of my homemade toys. I'm going to share my ideas with you. I'm not an occupational therapist, a teacher, or an expert. I'm just a mom, who wants my sweet daughter to learn and have fun without breaking the bank.

My $2 wreath attempt

I saw this post on Centsible savings. I'm not very skilled in the crafts area. However this wreath looked so simple I figured I could do it. I didn't want brown coffee filters since our living room is brown. I bought the foam circle and white coffee filters from the dollar tree. The ribbon was leftover from another project, so free. I think its pretty cute but it came out totally different from the one on Centsible savings. I like her wreath better. I might try and re-do this, for a different room.


We had guests last night. I asked if they could tell it was made of coffee filters. My guest (who would tell me) said she could not tell. However once i asked her that, she could see them. :) i have plenty of coffee filters left so a second wreath would cost me $1 plus the cost of ribbon.

Weekly date night

We kept date night low key and simple this week. Some weeks we're so tired that all we want to do is crash on the couch. A little snuggling, some soft warm blankets and a comfy couch were just what we needed!

Netflix rental (Backup plan, so funny) $0
Frozen chocolate silk pie $8
2 liter of Cherry Coke $2

Total: $10

Lets say you don't like frozen pies, and you don't have a netflix account. First of all I would recommend at least the minimal netflix account. One movie out at a time is $9 and you get unlimited streaming movies on your computer and XBOX or WII. Worth it.

However if you don't use netflix, check out a redbox dvd. $1 a night with free codes available online. Just take it back the next day! You can also make your own pie or cake for a lot less money then $8 if you watch sales. Same with the coke, we had to buy it at convenience store because our grocery store was out. They had a good sale going on.

The point of date night is to do something special with your spouse on a budget. If you don't like chocolate pie, buy what you do like. If hubby has to have soda, then find a good deal on it. customize date night to be what YOU want it to be. While on budget. :)

Bentobaby's bento lunch

My poor daughter is so angry. So hurt. She spent most of the morning venting her pain. 2 hours of screaming takes an emotional tole on her and me. Poor BentoBaby. To soothe myself while she sleeps I decided to make her a bento. This was after weeding and dead-heading my yard. I'm so blessed to be bentobaby's mom but her pain is not easy to handle.

This was made in her Dora bento box. She has raisins, cheese, blueberries, peas, a peanut butter sandwich, and tiny cookies. Bentobaby hardly every gets cookies, this is a real treat for her.

I pray the lord grants me strength, patience, and wisdom to help my daughter.

Freezer stock up

Our freezer now holds:
8 bags of frozen veggies $1 each = $8
2 frozen turkey breasts $5 and $6 = $11
1 bag frozen biscuits (I have been unable to make a good biscuit) $4
1 bag chicken breasts $5.62
2 packs ground turkey $2.50 each = $5
Total $33.62

Our freezer is still far from full but its starting to build up slowly. Losing everything from the freezer has shown me how convenient it is to have a deep freezer. I depend on it far more then I was aware of! I'm thankful the freezer did not break but was simply unplugged.

I have budgeted $200 to help fill it. I will still look for good deals of course!

Frugal date night

My hubby and I determined to have a special night once a week. We don't use a baby sitter. Which means our dates have to be at home, fun, and affordable. Yesterday's date night was one of our most fun to date!

Our most recent date night cost us $11. We laughed and teased each other the whole night.

We spent $6 on Sorry Revenge. This is our beloved game and the 3rd copy we have purchased. It is an amazingly fun game. I hate math, but i adore this game.

The other $5 went to a treat. We splurged on 4 Auntie Anne's cookies. This was a huge treat for me. I love Auntie Anne's cookies and rarely treat myself to them. Homemade cookies would be cheaper but Auntie Anne's cookies were more fun.

Thats $11 total. Our 6 dollar game was an investment purchase (assuming we can find this copy again!) that will bring us tons of fun.

Date night reality

Hubby and I live in a very rainy part of the country, our outdoor plans were cancled last night. We made our smores over candle light. Not quite what we had planned, but when does life go exactly how we plan? The champagne will wait, and bentobaby will be more then happy to help drink the orange juice. Eventually we'll have our Mimosas around the fire pit. In till then, smores over candle light sounds pretty fun to me.

Date Night

What is a couple to do when they don't use baby sitters but still want to have a special time with each other? We use date night. Frequently this means a movie, popcorn, and a treat. The treat is usually cake or ice cream bought on sale. Usually its not something I have to bake myself because that is not much fun for me. Sometimes its a cheese plate, chips and dip. Something we do not eat often that is a splurge. Tonight i had a different idea. Today we bought:


$2.50 orange juice
$11 bottle of champagne (huge splurge, we never drink!)
$3.50 bundle of wood (all of ours is wet!)

Total $17

Plus smores fixings leftover from dh's camping trip. We plan to sit outside around our fire pit, roast smores, and sip Mimosas. We can relax alone (away from the 7 animals, while baby is sleeping) but still be there if BentoBaby needs us (via baby monitor). Sounds like a perfect evening to me!

Few convenience items for the freezer

I'm not a HUGE fan of convenience items. However I recently became a mom to an active toddler. Its been a huge adjustment for everyone, and a few quicky items in the freezer are still cheaper then the drive through.

$3.50 frozen pizza (on sale from $7)
$3.29 bag of frozen ravioli.

Accidents

They happen sometimes, don't they? We do not mean to do something, but we do. And sometimes these little problems cost money. A speeding ticket, over draft, late bill, library fines. We've all been there.

Last week my husband finished painting our home. It was a long over due project! I was so excited! This Tuesday I walk outside to my back porch. I need a bag of veggies from the deep freeze. I reach inside to find everything very defrosted. Apparently when my husband finished painting he did not plug the freezer back in. The contents of the freezer are useless. What a blow! That is where I keep my carefully stocked up frozen meat. That i just recently restocked. Thankfully our freezer is small 5 cubic feet. But its still a loss. At a time when money is unusually tight no less.

Will you join me as i restock my freezer as carefully as i can? I'm starting with a blank canvas, and a super tight budget.

Mama and baby bento

These bentos were not made to go, they were for lunch at home. Because of that I did not fill them completely full. I left gaps. It feels weird to have gaps in my bentos!

Bento baby has banana slices, cheddar cheese, raisins, and onigiri. I use a seaweed, sesame furikake. I thought bento baby wouldn't like it, but she loves it!
Mama's bento has carrots, hummus, banana, and two yummy onigiri. Typing this makes me want onigiri! Unfortunately I'm out of the right kind of rice. Sad.

Fast, fast bento

I couldn't tell you when this bento was made, or who it was for. Seriously. Life is CRAZY here.
The top box holds strawberries, pb&j, carrots.
Middle holds a granola bar, yogurt raisins, crackers, and toddler puffs.
Bottom box holds carrots, cheese boats.

Simple but yummy bento.

This bento was even for me! It contains bbq chicken, carrots, crisp grapes, and home smoked cheese. It was very, very yummy. Making a bento for myself is a treat now! The good thing is being unable to bento makes my bento supplies seem new and cool. I even found a few things I had forgotten I bought and never used due to Bentobaby's arrival.

Another Man Bento

My sweet hubby BBQ'd a whole bunch of chicken for me. This makes my meal planning a whole lot easier. Our main protein is chicken breasts. And in the summer its way to hot for me to hang out at the stove. 100 degrees and a hot kitchen? Don't think so! While I was making dinner for my family I whipped up a bento for my husband.

He has yogurt covered raisins, blueberries, dried berries, dried mango, ranch, sugar snap peas, carrots, Herb de provance BBQ chicken, and cheese. YUMMY!

Man Lunch

Hubby has been on his own for lunches. He found it really hard to put together a lunch when we weren't home to cook. Leftovers started looking like jewels in the fridge! :)

Whenever I make fried rice I make a big batch. And I always cook extra potstickers for his lunch the next day. Throw in some carrots, and blueberries and its a complete meal!

Bento lunch for Mommy and Baby

This was a super quick lunch, frantically whipped up as the baby was waking up from her nap!

I have a pb&j, strawberry, and cheese. Very exciting :)

Bento Baby has a small pb&j, strawberries, cheese, kiks, rasins, and dried apricots.

Still here! :)

Bento baby is doing wonderfully. She is dealing with some highly justifiable anxiety and so needs my attention all day. It makes it a little hard to get anything done (like blog posts) but she is such a joy to me.

This bento was for hubby. He has a sandwich, strawberries, almonds with chocolate chips, pretzels, cheese and carrots.

Baby Bento

The past few weeks have been such a blurr I'm not sure when she had this bento. I've used this box so often for her that if she sees it, she expects food inside. My baby is an excellent eater!

Almond butter and Jam sandwiches on whole wheat. Toddler crackers, cheese cubes, strawberries and blueberries. I haven't been able to get her to eat a blueberry yet. I'll keep offering them to her. Eventually she will eat one, right? lol.

Mama and Baby Bento.

I had to throw together a fast bento so baby girl and I could head out. She has a PB&J, bananas, and strawberries. She didn't eat any of the fruit. She was busy!

My bento has a turkey and cream cheese sandwich, bananas, strawberries, and blueberries below. I also have carrots, and sugar snap peas. I was able to eat some of my sandwich but I did have to share. :) I'm getting used to not being able to eat my whole meal, a good portion goes down bento baby's tummy. And I LOVE it!

The sandwich bento box is new. I enjoyed it but the latch is a little hard to work with an active little one.

BentoBaby's first homemade bento lunch!

My first opportunity to pack BentoBaby a homemade bento. (our foster daughter has been nicknamed 'BentoBaby' by some wonderful friends of mine)


J's bento and mine.
J has two mini pb&j sandwiches, yogurt covered raisins (gap filler, only use with a cooler these things melt easily) avocado, ravioli, a baybel cheese, strawberries, sunflower seeds with chocolate chips, almonds, and goldfish. I have the same thing without nuts and seeds.


BentoBaby's bento.

She has ravoli, strawberry pieces, avocado, and a pb&j. She tried the avocado but spit it back out, lol. She didn't want anything to do with the strawberries even though she loves the freeze dried kind. BentoBaby ate her little sandwich (given to her in small pieces) and her raviolis, she also ate one of my sandwiches, a pureed fruit squeezie, freeze dried fruit, and a few goldfish. We'll keep offering her strawberries and avocado and maybe some day she'll eat them.

While at lunch i took a moment to watch my husband and baby eat the bento I had made for them, sharing and laughing. It was a moment of pure joy, long awaited and I cherish it.

Baby's First Bento!

Check it out! Baby girl's first bento! I haven't been able to use it yet, but I will soon!

eventually I will be making bentos for her daycare but that will be in a few weeks. I'll have time to find out her appetite and likes and dislikes. We're so excited to finally have her in our home, and I cant make her bentos!

Tomorrow

Tomorrow everything changes, or nothing changes. There is no halfway. Tomorrow we find out if our lives will be forever changed or go on the same. Tomorrow we find out if we will welcome a baby into our foster-to-adopt home. What an amazing day.

My lunch Bento

I went ahead and made a bento. I'm glad I did, I found the process soothing. Plus I finally used the furikake I had purchased a month ago. I'd tried a different type of furikake that I didn't enjoy but this stuff was GOOD. I ate the other rice ball that wouldn't fit in the bento, and I still want more. Yum!

Top tier has raspberries, carrots, strawberries, raisins, and two chocolate chip cookies.
Bottom has turkey onigiri (i tried to put a nori face on there but it didn't work, so I sprinkled a little furikake on top) turkey, carrots, and a furikake rice ball. YUM!

Waiting

Still waiting to hear back about the foster baby. The upside is my house is CLEAN. Now if I can summon the energy to maintain this level of clean I'll be all set!

Sorry no Bentos! Maybe i'll attempt one today, of course that would interrupt the day long couch fest I was looking forward to. After a week and half of getting ready for the worker's (hour long mind you!) visit, I'm exhausted!

Bento for big and little, and me!

A week ago we took hubby's little out for the day. It was a long tiring day and I wanted to make sure we had a filling lunch. Plus perfect time to try out my new bento supplies! I ran short on time, my very manly husband actually placed the nori faces on the food. That is love!


Little's bento, and mine. We both have turkey cheddar sandwiches, goldfish, strawberries, and a piece of Sin Dawg.

Then we have turkey stuffed 0nigiri, pot stickers, and carrots. Hubby's little is 9, and he made a BIG fuss about not liking rice. So I purposely packed onigiri for lunch. The kid devored it, he loved eating the nori face off his rice. It was awesome!

Hubby has the same thing with a broccoli addition.

No bento lunches.

Sorry everyone! We're getting our home ready for a caseworker's visit. We've never had one want to come visit our home before, they were always just going to hand us the baby. Its a big deal and I haven't been making bentos. Lunch on a plate is just not as interesting.

My bento lunch

Well we're still waiting to hear about the foster baby. In the mean time I'm having a horrible time focusing. I made hubby a big tiffin and forgot to take a photo of it. Thankfully I already have another photo.

On the left I have turkey cheese sandwich, carrots, grapes and ranch. On the right I have pretzels, yogurt covered raisins, granola and raisins.

My lunch Bento

Hummus carrot sandwich, grapes, carrots, and chicken strips with a ranch cup.

Fruit and Veggie bento

I often use bento boxes to hold my side foods if I'm eating a sandwich. Something about the box makes me want to stuff it with fresh, healthy items.

Grapes, ranch, carrots, and strawberries.

Simple Dinosaur bento

Hubby and I had some outlet shopping to do out of town. We would be gone all day so I wanted to make sure we had a hearty lunch.


Hubby's Bento
Strawberries, turkey dino sandwiches, cheese, grapes, nuts, yogurt covered raisins, and carrots under the dinos.

My Bento

Grapes, strawberries, raisins, turkey dino sandwiches, yogurt covered raisins, and carrots under the sandwiches.

I liked having the carrots below the sandwiches because it was a space saver. However the bread was a little soggy and next time I'll add a plastic wrap barrier between the carrots and bread.

Sorry!

We received another foster-to- adopt call and it always throws me for a loop! We said yes to the child and have been waiting to hear back for several days. I find it so hard to function while waiting, I have a hard time doing anything at all. But I'll have a new post up with bento goodness in a little while.

Tiffin Dinner for husband.

I love to use the tiffin when we need a pack a lot of food. Bento boxes are excellent but when its bulky things or a big lunch the tiffin comes in very handy. Last time hubby needed a dinner tiffin I did not pack enough food. This time I may have gone over board! :)

Top left bowl holds hubby's 'UnLunchable' Carrots, turkey, cheddar, and a lion cup with crackers. Top right bowl has turkey spinach roll ups, carrots, and chicken kabobs. The bottom bowl holds raisins, strawberries, grapes, and yogurt covered raisins. The side cup has crackers. And there is a yogurt container to fill out the meal! :) That is a lot of food.

My lunch Bento

I thought it was time to use my old strawberry shortcake box. It was one of my first boxes, from the Dollar Tree no less! As you can see my bento fruit for this week is strawberries, and grapes. I added half a spinach wrap, and two cutie animal picks. I adore these picks! So cute!

My lunch Bento

Yummy!

Popcorn chicken, carrot, hummus, and pretzels. The bottoms has cheese, carrots, raspberries, and raisins. Easy but very delicious.

New bento equipment! Imported!

I did a bad, bad thing. Okay so it wasn't bad, but it was extravagant. Now ya'll know I don't think special equipment is necessary to bento. I love it, but you can totally do without it. I desperately want a special bento box made to hold sandwiches, but so far am baulking at the price. I was hoping my newest purchase would work for sandwiches. Since i was already importing items from Japan (how cool is that my first imported box of stuff!) I figured I'd buy some items I couldn't find locally.



I was so excited to see this awesome box on my door step when I came home! Look at all those stickers!




Open it up to see:

And finally, everything I bought.

The panda box is made specifically to hold Onigiri, and did not work for sandwiches. Guess I'll be making more onigiri! I've been trying to find nori face punches for months! I'm so excited to have these! And the shape cutters that are super common for bentos. The other item I've been looking for is the picks on the right. You can make balloons, flowers, umbrellas, so cute! The seller included the picks on the left. They are very useful picks, and also super cute! I'm SO happy with my order!

My lunch Bento

Top tier holds carrots, popcorn chicken, and ravioli. The bottom has carrots, sugar snap peas, cheddar, raspberries, and cucumber flowers. I had a ranch cup for dipping.

My bento lunch

Yummy! Leftover fried rice in the top tier. Bottom tier holds carrots,hummus, raspberries, and cucumber.

Bento food: Fruit.

One of the things I love about bento lunches is the box encourages me to eat fruit and vegetables I might otherwise skip. I'm fanatical about vegetables for dinner, but have had a harder time adding them to lunch. And fruit has always been a snack to me, not a meal component. Bento helps me with both of those issues.

I see a lot of bento makers add apples, banana, and oranges to bento. While those are commonly found in our home, I don't particularly like them in my bento. I like to buy 1-2 'special' kinds of fruit for the Bento. Something we don't eat constantly that is more of a treat. Our treat fruit includes: mango, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries (we don't BUY those lol) pineapple, grapes (if not in season) clementines, blueberries, and cherries. Because we're also a frugal family I pick the fruit by what is on sale. Last week I was able to get raspberries buy 1 get 1 free. Those have been in my lunch all week. The week before it was strawberries. Buying 1-2 special (depending on dh's current food loves, right now its not berries) kinds of fruit keeps our bentos interesting and different without breaking the bank. Plus that is about all we can use up before they go bad! And wasting food is never frugal.

I love this box!

The Happy Noodle box is SO CUTE! Unfortunately, its also too small. I'd have to pack something else to go with it. But I'm willing to do that. And eventually it will probably be a really nice box for my (unborn, not yet adopted) daughter. :) In the mean time I used it for my lunch.


Top tier has raspberries, cucumber flowers, sugar snap peas, soy nuts, granola and raisins.
Bottom holds a chocolate bunny, cheese, raspberries, cucumber, ranch, and a few more sugar snap peas.

So cute!!!

Awesome blog giveaway @ Adventures of Bento Making.

Pikko on Adventures of Bento Making is doing an amazing giveaway! Usually I read her blog in bloglines and hardly ever comment. But I had to comment today! She also mentioned she had a book coming out, I'm not sure how I missed that but am looking forward to seeing it! Go check out her blog and leave a comment!

Dinner Tiffin

Hubby had to work one of those funky shifts where he is gone for dinner. I packed him what i thought was a ton of food but apparently he started eating a lot sooner then I planned on.


Top bowl has a trail mix with almonds, raisins, chocolate chips and coconut. I put cottage cheese in the small container, and half an orange. The next bowl holds two eggs, a biscuit sandwich, and a small purple container holds pickles. The bottom holds leftover stir fry in a silicone container so it can be microwaved, baby carrots, and a bottle of soy sauce.

Quick snack bento for car trip.

I threw together a super fast snack for a car trip. It ended up being quite handy as we were in the middle of no where!

Yogurt covered raisins (theses things are good! Just a few is enough for me they are quite sweet) regular raisins, pretzels, and some raw almonds.