Bento Boxes!

Well hello there. No, I haven't posted in a while. Yes, I thought I might have. But you know how it goes. Christmas was wonderful and now we're back to normal, almost. I'll say Happy New Year to you but I'm not listing anything, and I'm not complaining about how bad last year was nor how I'm glad to see it go. It was a great year and it helped my family grow into who we all are today, and good or bad events aside, it was our life. So I'm blessed and thankful and I've grown because of it.

But let us get to the good part of this post. There were many wonderful things received for Christmas and we've been playing for weeks now. But these gifts, for the girls? Awesome fun for me too. The girls' uncle Steve and his girlfriend Kelly got the girls Bento boxes and accessories. (They have given us all these accessories, but the some of the chopsticks before this Christmas). Look at this stuff, and forgive the flashy flash:

How awesome are those? And that panda bear--those eyebrows on the band slay me. So I've been packing the girls lunches and snacks in these boxes and they L-O-V-E them (just look)

and I'm getting addicted to seeing what I can do with these, really. So I've been looking online at other blogs, getting ideas, recipes and just getting way too excited about packing lunches! I want to see what I can pull off here. Maybe all our meals in Bento boxes! Maybe birthday cake Bento boxes! Maybe I can even get Derek to do lunch in one! Would it be enough? Could I lose weight this way? Wait, that's off topic.

But really, look at some of these sites. Biggie writes the Lunch in a Box blog and is in San Francisco and has all sorts of menus, packing ideas, food safety ideas, tips, and even forums.

Just Bento also has tasty looking ideas, and seriously, this Day at the Farm theme, with the sheep and bunnies is too cute.

Laptop Lunches has Americanized Bento box menu ideas, but with a healthy outlook.

One of the things I've been trying to change in our menus is getting away from what is traditionally eaten when. For instance, eggs are "breakfast food." Well, they can be. But they can also be for lunch or dinner. Seeing the menus on these sites are really inspiring to me. You don't have to have a sandwich for lunch. Have steamed asparagus and blueberries with some cashews and a hard boiled egg. Have noodles with fruit and spinach.

So, I'm having a great time thinking about this, about feeding my family healthy food and about playing with it! I totally need to get some small cookie cutters so that they'll fit in the boxes though. I have a bazillion cookie cutters and most are too big. I used a shot glass today to cut the tortilla and cheese slices! ;) Really, that's why we have shot glasses around.

For more Bento box fun, check out the flickr group. Cute stuff!

One last thing to share, because it's been 4 years in the making, at least. My Christmas Cactus bloomed!! Finally! On New Years Day! Poor confused little cactus. But it sure is beautiful, and I snapped this pic on my phone today, as the sun was shining and big fluffy snowflakes fell.