Sailing with Elton Jagger???

Today our food play was for breakfast and lunch...

SAIL AWAY

For breakfast we had Miss A's favorite cheesy scrambled eggs...so here you have a sea of cheesy eggs and a tortilla ship with tortilla sails. The yellow tomato sun with tortilla strip rays is shining down....hee hee. The ship is headed to an island with a palm tree that Miss A constructed out of blueberries and grapes! She made fun of my sun so I made fun of her palm tree...yeah yeah...I am supposed to be the adult here but seriously...that sun kicks butt!! haha. Just kidding.

ELTON JAGGER

So this mac and cheese girl had potential and then it went downhill somehow. Miss A is obsessed with glasses for some reason this week, so we thought we would put glasses on this little girl. So we have mac and cheese golden locks, an oven roasted turkey face with provolone cheese glasses, nose, and mouth. Blueberry eyes and a fruit roll up bow. Somehow this little girl looks like an offspring of Mick Jagger and Elton John...I know that is not quite possible but I am sure you can see it too!! Can't you???? Anyway....even Miss A admitted this was a funny looking one, but it didn't stop her from eating everything but two pieces of macaroni, but that is only because they fell on the floor!!!

So today was not a perfect day, just a fun creative day that we learned it is all about having fun, not so much how it looks. Have great one!!

Aesop's Fable and a Librarian...

So day two of Miss A being home with me and the newborn Mighty Max...my dad has changed Mighty Max's name toBig Max. At 5 weeks he weighed 10lbs 14oz...yeah...apparently he is eating and growing well. ANYWAY...so I am trying to keep her busy and strangely enough planning her lunch or dinner takes up adequate time! She knows her nursery rhymes well so I thought I would read a few of Aesop's fables. I used to love those.

THE LION & THE MOUSE:

So her lunch was based on the Aesop fable The Lion & The Mouse. We have a turkey lion sandwich with olive and cheese face. The lion mane is a small bag of cheez-its. Hee hee. The mice are strawberries and although the story only has one mouse...ummmm you can't just eat one strawberry so we have three. So the famous fable mouse is the one in the middle and the two on the sides are his brother and sister; at least that is what Miss A made up!! haha. They have blueberry eyes and a fruit roll-up tail. Some people use icing and glue on chocolate chips or something else for the eyes. I try to use the minimum amount of ingredients because I don't like to waste. Sooo if you cut the blueberries in half the natural stickiness of the juices will help it stick just fine!

LIBRARIAN:

Sooo I call this little lady the librarian because of the bun in her hair, Alexa just thought it was a mom....OUCH! We have spaghetti as the bun with a spinach hair piece. Mommy and daddy had a whole spinach salad with balsamic vinaigrette so the spinach leaf in her hair had some dressing...and much to my happy surprise she ate about 6 spinach leaves with the dressing!! Can't get any better then that! She tried something new and healthy and loved it! We have some cheese french bread for the face with olive eyes and carrot nose and mouth. The other olives and carrots on the bottom are her shirt.

Sooo not a bad day. I survived. I really do not know how those amazing stay at home moms do this day in and day out. I barely got one load of laundry done! Have a great week everyone and until tomorrow!

Food Fun!

So Miss A is out for summer and has two weeks before her next summer camp sessions start. Sooo sadly that means no Bento's for us. :( BUT...we are playing with our food and just having fun with breakfast, lunch and or dinner!!! We do this quite often depending on what we are eating. Like for instance when we have cereal...yeah...not much to do with that one! BUT...like this morning we had bagel and Miss A always makes a face or uses it as a boat for her grape family...really quite amusing. So this morning we took a mini-bagel with cream cheese, blueberry eyes and mouth, and a grape nose! Then for dinner we took the pasta and created a face and added yellow tomato eyes, a raspberry nose, and cheese for his smile and ears. We also added a party hat (not really sure why...hee hee) out of hamburger meat and the decorative pom poms on the hat are also raspberries. So there you have it....just having fun with our food! We will play with this for awhile and see how it goes!! Kind of nice to have a full plate and also some new food items that we don't have to worry about tasting good cold in her bento lunch!

A Lovely House...

Miss A is that prime age where drawing is a huge part of her everyday activities. She loves to draw animals and houses. So last night as she was drawing she said she wanted to make a house. We had white rice last night so while it was still hot and steamy last night I set some aside and molded it in a house cookie cutter. That way today I just flipped it over and there you have a rice house! She did cheese roof, and a door and I cut the windows. She of course arranged everything. Actually Miss A wanted to do a whole apartment complex but I told her we did not have a bento box big enough! Plus she would have to eat all of it and that would be a lot of rice! I don't know where she comes up with this stuff sometimes. Anyway...we have turkey and ham alternating as the driveway, a small paper grass divider (you can buy these like 200 in a pack for 3 dollars. They are the ones you see in take-out sushi at the grocery store). We used pirate booty cheddar puffs for the clouds and the pink sugar cookie..well...that's just there because it's a sugar cookie!! haha. Tomorrow she wants to use them as flowers, but sadly we will not be staying at school for lunch, so perhaps for dinner tonight she can create her plate with a couple of sugar cookie flowers and I will take a picture of it! Have a great one everybody!!!

Stegosaurus for a boy-osaurus!!

So Miss A has ventured over to Dinosaurs lately. She has been watching a lot of NickJr Dino Dan and also said one of the boys at her school really loves dinosaurs so she loves them too. Good gravy...have I ever mentioned she is already boy crazy at the age of 4 1/2!?!?!? Anyway...so we have some of her favorite broccoli rice leftover from last night, some chicken rocks, and a provolone stegosaurus. We added some mandarin oranges and some peas! Yummy!!!

Slick Juggler

So yesterday we went to see a juggler at the library called Slick Juggler. He is in the Guinness Book of World Records 2011 for longest time juggling...12 HOURS!!! The longest "anything" I can do for any length of time is sleep and that is only about 6 hours. Other than that if I can stick to something for an hour that is a record! So of course today we wanted to do a silly juggler and she also asked for a jelly sandwich. Not exactly the healthiest thing some would say, but it is summer and every once in awhile is just fine. So we took our gingerbread man cookie cutter and made a jelly sandwich man with cheese eyes and mouth. I would have suggested fruit roll up for the face but Miss A really thought cheese would go nicely with jelly. Yuck! But it is her lunch so be it. I added some sticks with turkey and string cheese. We have some grapes and blueberries as our juggling balls! This guy juggled everything under the sun yesterday and after the show he had balls or scarves to purchase. Miss A really wanted to learn to juggle and was so inspired, so I got her the juggling scarves. Especially because she had such a great day at Ooey Gooey Camp and is ready to go back today! Of course if you notice in the second picture the scarves are not getting used exactly for juggling...they are accessorizing her many Barbies...oy vey! haha. Gotta love her!

Old Mother Hubbard's Doggie...

Last night while Miss A was reading nursery rhymes to Mighty Max and she started talking about the nursery rhyme Old Mother Hubbard. She truly felt sorry for that doggie when the cupboard was bare. So this morning we found our doggie and bone cookie cutters and made little sandwiches for her Bento this morning. So we have a turkey bone sandwich and a doggie shaped sandwich. Provolone doggie with american cheese spots. She was very particular about having a spot around this dogs eye. The eyes are black olives as suggested by Miss A. We also have some green beans and some blueberries and grapes!!! This week Miss A is at Ooey Gooey Science Camp and I must say she was not to thrilled of getting all gooey with all sorts of ooey things. This is the little 4 year old princess who her idea of a picnic is actually driving to the park, sitting in the car, and rolling back the sunroof. Now when I say rolling back the sunroof, I do not mean the glass part just the cover so she can see the sky. That way no bugs fly in!! Yeah...my sister her Auntie taught her at a young age that "nature is dirty". She really really believes her! Haha. No I can't blame my sister, Alexa has been this way for a long time. As Lady Gaga puts it...I was born this way. She sure was; we don't touch bugs, we don't like dirty shoes or clothes, and we just started to like finger painting! So let's hope this week at camp goes well and we can actually do something fun in her Bento that is both ooey and gooey. Doubt it but here's hoping. Hope everyone has a great week!!!

Daddy Day!!

Well this weekend was all planned out starting on Friday and somehow life gets in the way and it all snowballed into preparing for Father's Day in one day...today...on Father's Day! So we started early and finished up the cookies Miss A wanted to make for her amazing daddy trophy cookies that tell him he's #1! When you prepare cookies in a hurry sometimes there are a few set backs. Lesson #1 - Store bought icing never works out as planned, so just go ahead and make homemade icing. Let's just say to get it the right consistency I added so much water it tasted like...well...syrup water. Ick. Lesson #2 - when decorating cookies do not dry them on a collapsable bakers rack next to a sink of soapy water!! haha. Yeah as you can see in the pic we lost a few. Sadly for a quick second when I reached in to pull them out I immediately thought I could just rinse them off. Haha...yeah...dork here. I decorated a few which are the #1 and DAD cookies. Miss A of course always decorates her own. The picture with 3 cookies are hers. She really does an amazing job for a 4 year old. She outlines and fills in the cookies all by herself. The first cookie you can actually see the H and she tried a 1 on the bottom, the second one is #1 and a D for dad, the third one is filled in all blue which she knows is her daddy's favorite color. She made many more but these were the 3 she picked to showcase! Happy Father's Day everyone!

Simply Charming...

So this week has been about keeping things simple I must say. Not by my choice, but by Miss A. Apparently Art camp has taken the creative juices out of her in the morning. Haha. This morning, she decided on Mac n Cheese in her new Hello Kitty thermos so it stays nice and warm! Then for her other items of choice we were going to make a face but she said..."Maybe just put something like my name...yeah...my name would be fine". So there you have it. Blueberries, black olives, edamame (protein baby!) and her name cut out simply out of fruit roll up!!! That was easy!!! I need that Staples button this week!! Next week is Ooooey Goooey Science Week. She is not looking forward to getting dirty...hopefully we make it through!!! Happy Friday, hope you have a great weekend and for those daddy's out there...Happy Father's Day! We will be making cookies so hopefully we will have a weekend post!!

Art Camp this week!

So Miss A has been in Art camp this week...due to visitors, dance rehearsals, and maintenance men in our new home she sometimes stays for lunch and sometimes not. So that is why we do not have Bento's every day. Although our lunches are sometimes funny here at the house...perhaps I should start showing those off. Not exactly Bento's just funny people and face food. haha. So today Miss A wanted to do an artist palette and a blank canvas she can play with at school! I don't even want to know what she plans on doing! She said something about using the grape skins to make a person...yuck....but creative!!! haha. This is technically the second artist palette because I left her to change Mighty Max's diaper and she ate it! Goofy girl. So we have two sandwiches, one is the square canvas with turkey, cheese and a cheese gold frame. The second sandwich is an artist palette and provolone cheese that has been tinted with the edible food writers. The green bean is supposed to represent the paint brush. Then I packed in some extra turkey because...well...that is her favorite! Then she has some green beans, grapes, and blueberries. Have a Terrific Thursday!!!

Tea for Two

Tuesday Tea for Two! Miss A was digging around in my cookie cutters and found my teapot cookie cutter. We have some bowtie pasta with alfredo sauce on the bottom and a cheddar and provolone tea pot and two saucers! We also have some cherries and cheerios! Very simple and very easy today. Miss A did all of it herself! I just scooped in the pasta!

Your 2010-2011 NBA Champions!!!!

Well...of course we had to do a salute to the NBA Champions....the Dallas Mavericks!!! While I worked on the cheese homage to the Mavericks, which is their logo, Miss A worked on her lunch. She got new picks from Shop Minoya in Plano that are all hearts so she did hot dog rings on the 4 different heart picks. They are reusable, $4, and have 16 in a pack so even if you lost a few you are good. We have one bread slice cut into triangles as a border and base. We have some green beans as requested by Miss A since she has not had them in a while...what a great girl! Some mandarin oranges in the shape of a flower and a bing cherry center. We also have some Queso Fresco which is this Mexican cheese that Miss A is totally addicted to right now! My mom got her hooked on it...haha. Congratulations to the Dallas Mavericks!!! Like Alexa said when they won..."In your face!!!!"

Up, Up and Away...

Hhhhmmm how do I start with this one. Sooo it is a little more abstract then Miss A and I thought it would be. It is a hot air balloon made out of bread squares (1 slice I cut into 4 squares) and then the outline of the hot air balloon has a layer of ham and cheese on top. Then the middle is all cherries and raspberries. We padded the sides with fig newtons and yogurt pretzels. The little man in the basket was a last minute addition out of cheese and oddly enough his eyes are those little confetti sprinkles from Miss A's cupcakes. We found some along the perimeter of the plastic casing that were not on the cupcakes and all soggy!!! Hee hee...yes we really do use any and all resources! And perhaps we also had mini cupcakes for breakfast...but come on...is it really any different then donuts? Hee hee...

Betty Spaghetti

With the new baby; Mighty Max; and some other family health concerns it sure is nice to have a small break to assure I spend some time with Miss A. We had some leftover spaghetti noodles from last night so we just lathered them up with some parmesan and butter and made hair for this little girl with the broccoli bow and turkey face with cheese eyes, nose, and mouth. We added a few toothpicks with raspberries/cheese and tomatoes/cheese. I made Alexa throw in some carrots for good measure and told her she doesn't have to eat the broccoli but the carrots are a must!! We will see how that goes!! She usually only eats carrots shaped as flowers but all I had were the mini carrots. The threat of broccoli should get her to eat the carrots though! Ha!

Lego Camp!

Well Miss A had a fabulous first day at Summer Camp. Again their theme this week is Lego's!! She could not stop talking about it! So of course I had to TRY to do a LEGO Bento lunch. So we have mini Lego block sandwiches and two cheddar cheese lego blocks. We also have some chips and some cherries. Not the best but hopefully you get the point!!! She took all her lego's to school so we used her larger legos that she played with when she was younger as molds. They are bigger so it worked out great! And YES I washed them before we used them! Okay okay...Alexa reminded me to wash them before I used them! haha. She could be part of that Scooby Doo Mystery Machine team...I feel like I am always saying; "I could have gotten away with it, if it wasn't for that nosy kid!!!" haha!! Have a great one!

We're back! Summer Camp baby!

Well...Miss A is still super excited about being a big sister, thank goodness that has not worn off yet! haha. Little Super Max is growing and growing. I am in full swing maternity leave from work (boy does this feel weird...no emails, no phone calls, no meetings). I have been a full time mom for 2 weeks with a 4 1/2 yr old and a newborn. I must say the trickiest part is not the newborn it is the first born! Keeping them occupied, not letting Alexa poke him in the eye to get out an eye booger, not trying to pick him up to burp him, not turning his head so he can see on tv the commercial of what toy she wants for her birthday!!! Good gravy! BUT...today is a grand day...she heads off to Summer Camp!! Each week at her school they have different themes. This week is lego week!!! She has not done a Bento in awhile so she wanted to use her little animal cutters and cut out cheese shapes! One of her favorite little tools that I bought online for about $3. So here you have some leftover fried rice, sweet and sour chicken cut in pieces with a bunny pick to eat easily, raspberries with a bear pick, and cheese animals cut out of provolone and american cheese!