Spring Birds

We woke to couple inches of snow this morning and it's still snowing. But I couldn't let that derail the spring theme bento I wanted to do as I'll be away for work the next three days (and would miss the official start of the season_ even though spring doesn't really start here until May 20, really)

M ate every.single.bite but the sunflower seeds - so I KNOW he was full ;)

In the box: broccoli, sunflower seeds, Dove chocolate eggs, PBJ robin sandwiches with red sugar for the breasts, cauliflower, strawberry, grapes, blueberries, carrots, ranch dip.



Peace out ~Kristin

Woof Woof

M decided this bento was an Animal Crossing one, though that wasn't my intent. But he was most pleased, so - imagination, FTW!


Inside the Lunchbots Eco box: jerky beef, baby carrots topped with carrot cut-outs, brown rice puppy dog onigiri with cheese ears, a clementine, red grapes, strawberry heart, ranch dressing in the chick cup, broccoli, and perfection in a 3 inch circle - otherwise known as Potato Chip Cookies from Smittenkitchen/Emeril's recipe.

The puppies theme was motivated by Bento Blogs Network's: Bento of the Week 24 - Dogs.
Peace out ~Kristin

Bear buddies

M's comment on this one? "Creative and healthy!" Then said, "I rate this one 'E'...

"E?"

"E for 'extra' creative and 'extremely' healthy."

And he eat it all, plus a milk with vanilla protein powder. So that's a win! The bear motif was inspired by Bento Blogs Network: Bento of the Week Theme 23.

Ciao!
Kristin

"it's a love garden!"

...so said M when he opened this lunch :) Aww.





It's packed in a box from Old Navy, of all places. Top tier holds some Greek yogurt with sprinkles and mini heart nutella sandwiches. Bottom tier is a strawberry with a mini froggy bottle holding a little bit of sugar to sprinkle in, celery-peanut butter "ants on a log", pink critter is holding sunflower kernels, kiwi hearts, carrots and ranch dip, dove chocolate heart, and red grape skewers.


Happy day <3

peace out, Kristin

a digi dare

for the challenge here: The Digi Dares Fifth Anniversary . If you cannot tell - my word for 2012 is HARD :) and I chose to scrap 5 motivations I am thinking on right now. And it certainly was a quick and dirty effort, getting home at 7:00, using CS4 (instead of 2) for the first time (oh how I rely on my (missing) preferences, and uploading by the deadline of 8:00. But, I did it - exercised creative muscle. I hope to get that ball rolling again. I need to.

Supplies: Gina Miller Designs's The Bliss Project and based on a template by Amy Martin Designs (Hoppy Birthday).

Peace out ~Kristin

Melt my bento-lovin' heart

Mark, the 8 yr.old, just said, "I think we should do bento lunches again. Like 3- no, 4 days a week?"

aww, that's all it took.

I {heart} U. and autumn

Nothing like blogging makes you realize how fast the days whiz by. You log in and see - It's been almost two weeks since my last post? a month before that?? a year?! haha.

anyways... life certainly is full, but about all I can handle lately to document is snapping a cell phone shot of the latest bento before it bounces out the door... and then not get back here to the blog to post any...

This bento lunch is from Thurs Oct 6... a day both M and I stayed home sick and it was made to cheer us both up. and it worked. Bentos are powerful things!

The details... Packed in a Lunchbots Uno ... sealed sandwich with leaf cheeses, an icing owl, jerky beef, carrots, ants-on-a-log celery, Hershey kisses, red grapes, strawberry, yellow cherry tomatoes.

Whooo!

A little snack for the road trip to the scout camp-a-ree (or whatever it's called) today that the husband & M are headed to. It's 120 miles of empty country between here and there, so I know food is called for ;)

In the Lunchbots box: owl sandwich (cheese, chocolate chips and candy corn for features), grape tomato pumpkins, pumpkin marshmallows, strawberry, and jerky.

Posted to the Bento of the Week 3 Theme: Pumpkins for a little blog fun. :)

The back story...

April 27, 2011

I started bento-ing, in the sense of a take-away boxed lunch, sometime after Christmas break for my first grade son. After christmas break is when I started sending a packed lunch- and at some point it morphed to bento. Sending lunch was a result of realizing the answer to the question "what did you have for lunch at school today?" was NOT the same as "what did you literally eat out of what they served at school for lunch today" . So the first half of first grade, (and what about kindergarten??) when I thought "what was for lunch today" was a list of what he ate, who knows how much he was eating. The pivotal conversation day? - he'd only eaten the peaches.

It had been a constant, seven year battle to get Mark to eat enough-literally, his whole life. I don't know where my head was that I was thinking he went to school and just started magically started eating all of what they were serving?? So, I had to bite the bullet and make it a priority to send a lunch *ev*er*y*morn*ing* . Bento was a natural attraction and it made it fun for me to pack and appealing for Mark to get more calories/better nutrition than the easier route of school lunch.

I had known of bento for some time, thanks to the wonderful world wide web :D, but more as a curiosity/interest and an art form (seriously, google bento and surf the images!) It wasn't in my realm of considering it as something I'd do on any kind of regular basis. But coinciding with beginning our packed lunch routine (surfing to find an alternative to sandwich idea, probably) I clicked on this blog: anotherlunch.com and it jelled with what I was doing for Mark, and started us on our bento journey.

I did not take any pics until the lunch of April 27, when I'd posted on Facebook that I'd made onigiri for the first time, pictured above. That lunch consisted of jerky bites in a silicon cup heart, cookie dough protein bar cut in half, strawberries with leaf picks, red grapes with panda picks, steamed carrot flowers and the onigiri with fruit leather features, all packed in a Lock & Lock brand square box. He would have had milk or yogurt packed alongside.

The rest of our bento story will be continued...

Ciao! ~Kristin

Is it September...or February?

A little of lunch love for M's bento lunch today...



In the box-, uh, pokeball... rice ball onigiri, beef sausage bites, strawberry... carrots, cheese-filled celery, grape tomatoes, red grapes... greek yogurt with sprinkles.

Grace, ~Kristin

Thank you, Sonoma Bento

Earlier in the summer I won this cool little set from Sonoma Bento's blogiversary... 'twas my first 'real' bento box :) . Above you see its debut.

Mark treats it like an unfolding treasure box- very fun to see. Took me this long to post since the pics were in my camera and not my phone. HA.

Note to self: Refrain from ever again saying 'I never win anything'. Yay!

Ciao! ~Kristin

present - living - be

Something my friend Terra said "Living = enthusiastic response in the positive" in explanation of using it as a one word affirmation has been running through my head ever since.

Scrapped with Rachel Young Designs:
Water Colored Craftiness
So You Think You Can Chevron Paper
Lovely elements
Lovely alphabet (recolored)
With You Elements (clouds, stitching)

extras - CD Muckosky Random Type, Lookie Here, & Painty Fancy Spot.

tfl :)

Grace,
~Kristin

Thinking

"When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, 'I used everything you gave me.'" -- Erma Bombeck

Lilypad Blog Hop

A lovely thing is happening this weekend. The Lilypad, digital scrapbooking store extraordinaire, is opening public forums. With chatting and hanging out. Challenges. Galleries. And did I mention chatting and hanging out? Woot!

And to celebrate, we are having a blog hop. You have arrived at the ninth blog stop, mine :)
I have this awesome quickpage to share with you, created by the fabulous and talented Rezika: Thank you Rez!

*Download here*

To continue on to the next blog, Go here: Valorie's!

If you need to start at the beginning (there are a total of 14 blogs, each with a little gift) or want to read about the prize for collecting and using all 14 gifts, visit this blog (Amy M's).

And don't forget to come visit the forums and join our little pad :)

~Peace, Kristin

TGIFriday...

Is there even possibly any other kind of Friday than a TGIFriday? :)
This morning as I was leaving for the office and our youngest son (5 years old) was concurrently waking up, I said to him,
"iiiit's Friday!"
And he replied with "What's that mean?"
"Well. It means, there's no school (for the older siblings) tomorrow. There's no going to the office tomorrow..."
And he says:
"I like the sound of that!"
Oh, so do I :)
Bring on the weekend, and the family time and the home time.

It's new release 'Froggy Friday' at the Lilypad:

Click to view larger and see supply credits.

Ciao! ~Kristin

it's a new week

I'm ready for the optimism that is Spring. image via designgeist.org

Cookbooks

I have collected cookbooks since I was a teenager and cooking in 4-H. (an aside: I had to laugh as I looked up that link, that when I was a teenager cooking, there was no internet to look up. How weird it is to say that. How weird it is to think about that!) Some five+ years ago, in reorganizing our home and life for child#3, I boxed up all but 3 and stored the box, reasoning that when I cooked, it was faster/easier/handier to look up the recipe I wanted on the previously-mentioned internet, even one I knew I had, and that is what I was doing. Exclusively. I hadn't even purchased a cookbook, probably since Rosie's Bakery All-Butter Fresh Cream Sugar-Packed No-Holds-Barred Baking Book. So, that was valuable space to be gained.
Now, fast-forward to the last year. I have rediscovered cooking for pleasure, not just sustenance. And related to that, I found a whole new world of food blogs. And related to that, I have come full circle: because of the internet, I find myself drawn to the cookbook aisle in the bookstores. Specifically, because of these blogs especially: Smitten Kitchen, and French Laundry At Home, and 101Cookbooks. I would have came home with French Laundry recently, when I came across it unexpectedly at Borders, but it was $55 and it was two days before Christmas. And I didn't want to cook with it, haha, just read it.
But now, it is after Christmas. ....And because of that, I don't have $55 dollars. HA. and Borders is 99 miles away and it snowed. But anyway... I just read this Smitten Kitchen blogpost. And amazing Amazon will deliver to me on January 7th for only 14.98 the hardcover version of said cookbook. Click. Log in. Confirm. And I have just bought my first cookbook in at least 8 years. I am so looking forward to many more :).

Contentment

Thinking on this today:

Be content with what you have, rejoice in the way things are.
When you realize there is nothing lacking,
the whole world belongs to you. ~ Lao Tzu

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PrimaHybrid is back!

public service announcement :)