And so...my journey begins....

Hi there, I’m Laureen!  This whole blog thing is all so new to me, but I am intrigued and eager to get rolling and learn as I go., please bear with me!  I am a married mother of 1 adorable and very opinionated 4 year old who just started going to full time 5-day-a-week Junior Kindergarten this year!

About a month ago, I saw a great post on facebook from a friend.  She was having so much fun packing her daughters lunch, and it included a picture…..that awoke a beast inside of me that was longing to get out! (I can’t say she didn’t warn me though).  She introduced me to the art of Bento Boxes!  I started to research online; got some GREAT inspiration from this blog and of course my friend.  You can visit her over at Mudpies and Melodies.

Starting out was pretty easy to be honest.  With just the baking supplies I had at home I came up with some pretty cute designs on my own.  There really isn’t a real need to order tonnes and tonnes of supplies to get started on your Bento Box adventure.  Using simple dollar store rings, small trinkets, and basic cookie cutters you can come up with some pretty cute things to jazz up your child’s lunch.  

I was getting comments right from the start on the fun lunches.  People asking just how much time I spent making her lunch every night, and Teachers were saying how they were using the lunches as show and tell every day!  Little did they know that it really doesn't take much time at all to compile a cute lunch, it’s all in the display.  A few extra cuts, arranging and of course cute cutters is all you really need.

I did however dive deeper into Bento land, ordering myself a few extra food picks, cutters and of course some great Boxes to assemble in.  One of the BEST purchases I made was the CuteZCute Sandwich Cutters .  This set is so fun to play with, pretty cheap, and gives you SO many options to jazz up sandwiches.

    

A key purchase was a proper lunch kit that would carry the boxes properly (upright and not laying down and shaking all over) until she opened to reveal her daily surprise.  There are many designs available online: Ebay , Amazon, or my favorite online Bento store All Things For Sale, but I ended up just purchasing some very do-able sectioned containers and an upright lunch kit from Walmart.

My daughter has always been a decent eater but I loved this idea because it makes the lunches so fun for her and her friends to see every day.  At her school she has two “nutrition breaks” instead of 1 lunch, so I tend to pack 1 container with snacks for her first nutrition break at 10:40 and then a larger one for her break at 12:40.  

One of the very first boxes I packed was for her 4^th Birthday!  She was so excited; I had to make it special.

Birthday Box: Star shaped cucumbers with pomegranate seeds, Cheddar rice cakes, swiss cheese crackers, #4 cheese shapes, jello jigglers with #4 fruit leathers, #4 sandwich with fruit leather and sprinkles on top, carrot sticks, fun marshmallow sticks, and sprinkles in her mixed fruit!

When I receive her monthly calendar of events for her class I get VERY excited  now because they have theme days.!  The most common theme day so far has been a weekly “color” day!  The colour day co-insides with what they are learning that week.  Kids are asked to wear that color of clothing for the day and of course I go the extra mile with a color coded lunch as well!  So we have fun brainstorming and then heading to the grocery store together on a mission to find that color in foods!  

Here are a few fun ones so far:

Orange and Black day (week of Halloween):  Orange slices, a pumpkin shaped sandwich with a cheddar cheese open face, cheese curls, carrots with cutout stars, blackberries, cheese nipps with mini choc chips (with a cute orange and green frog creeping in),  and a cutout BabyBel Cheese to finish it all off.

Green Day: Cucumbers as flowers, Spinach Tortilla Frog Sandwich, veggie crisps, snap peas and celery (with ranch to dip of course), pickles and her favorite green grapes…can you spot the green frog in there with black spots?

I also had a TONNE of fun the week leading up to Halloween….she didn’t know what to expect every day when she opened her lunch.

Spiders! Mixed fruit, mixed veggies, spider hot dogs laying on a spider web, a pumpkin Babybel, ketchup to dip her hot dogs in, mac n cheese with an invader!

Mummies! Fruit cup with pumpkin face, a few fruit, orange jello, witch broom sticks made from mozza string cheese and pretzels, a provolone faced mummy sandwich, cute mummy hot dogs, and of course a mummy juice to cap it off.

Ghosts! Cottage cheese in a cup with raisin eyes, mixed fruit, mixed veggies with dip, marble cheese faced sandwich, cheese house, marshmallow ghosts and some pomegranate seeds.

Trick or Treat! A little man dressed up in his pumpkin for trick or treating, some cheesies, cheese string ghosts on a bed of mixed fruit, carrot slices with a pop or eyeballs, trailmix with cheerios, cheese nipps, and raisins.

                It has got to the point where she asks to see her lunch every morning because she can’t wait until her nutrition break to open!  The other day she requested a “kitty cat” lunch….so here is how it came out

Hello Kitty sandwich, goldfish in danger of being eaten by the cat, mixed fruit, jello in a cup, flower cheese slices, flower cucumbers with carrot centers.

                You can find inspiration anywhere and you just have to remember to dress it up and have fun.  I have found she is having just as much fun as I am with this, and she is eating more because its fun to eat!  I have parents telling me every day that I will get so tired of packing lunches , but I really doubt that.  I plan to keep it fun for both of us, I truly enjoy this!  My husband just shakes his head as he hears me giggling away as I’m making the Bento Boxes every night……

Do you have any fun Bento Box tips, hints, suggestions to pass on?