Roooaar! The Dinosaurs are here!

Today I was issued a challenge....well, I don't think the teacher's realized it, but they sent home a challenge for me! In Lynden's monthly newsletter they let the parents know what they will be studying and learning about this month......DINOSAURS.  Perfect!! Now, how will I pull off a Dinosaur Bento box, with no dinosaur anything in my house?.......How will I do this? with a little dash of fun and a sprig of creativeness of course!

First I started off by (hold your breathe for the geek in me coming out) tracing how big my slices of bread were on a blank piece of paper!  I then continued on to draw out a dinosaur (to the best of my abilities anyway) on the paper.  I cut it out as a stencil and then went to work on cutting my bread, meat and cheese to match......voila, just that easy and we have a sandwich!

A dinosaur has to have trees of course, so add in the snap peas with the tree holder picks I have.  Then with some creative searching online, I found another cute idea.....A dinosaur mama and her little blue dino egg of course! I boiled the eggs then while still hot I cracked the shell and then put it in food coloring for a bit (could have stayed in there longer though, the coloring on the egg is really faint, but it leaks through where the shell is cracked and makes a cute little cracking pattern on the egg).  A dinosaur mama and her little blue dino egg of course! This is too fun and really coming together easily (at first I was kicking myself for not buying the dinosaur cutter I saw in the store about a week ago!)

For her first nutrition break box I put in a few mixed veggies (carrots, snap peas, red peppers and cucumbers), a few blueberries and the banana-chocolate chip loaves she helped me make the other night (recipe below).

So here you have it...Bento-a-la-dinosaur:

Here's to her learning all about the dinosaur land this month!  Thought I might as well kick it off with some fun for her (and her class I am sure, as they laugh at how crazy I am).

Banana Bread

2 cups flour

1 1/4 tsp soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 2/3 sugar (or any sugar substitute of your choice)

2/3 cup margarine (I used coconut oil substituted 1:1 instead)

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 1/4 cup mashed bananas (about 3-4 bananas)

2/3 cup sour milk (put a bit of vinegar into your regular milk to sour it a bit)

- Cream sugar, marg/coconut oil, eggs and vanilla together in one bowl

-  Mix your flour, soda, salt and sugar into another bowl.

- Add bananas to the wet ingredients and mix well.

- Add dry ingredients alternately with sour milk until well blended

- Bake at 350 for 40-50 minutes for large loaf, 25 minutes for muffins, and 35 minutes for mini loaves

- use toothpick to check that center's are cooked completely through

* you can add yummy nuts or chocolate chips in the mix before you bake, or sprinkle just on top instead, and I also sprinkle cinnamon on the top before baking too, YUM!

ENJOY!