Yellow Haired Girl and Butterfly Bento

Days pass by so fast indeed! Imagine, it's Friday again...which means that the 1st week of school is almost over. The past 5 days have been contrary to what I expected. Because it's Cherlin's 1st week in Kindergarten, I thought that the morning rush will drive me crazy, but it didn't. Since Monday until this morning, everything was so smooth. By 7:10a.m, Clarise and Cherlin are both dressed up and ready to go to school, and the good thing is, they are always wearing their sweet smiles...which means that they are always excited to go to school. We even had the time to take pictures, so I guess there's really no morning "rush" around here...

...and the bento making (that I thought would be hard) turned out to be just like the ordinary packed lunch preparation I used to do for Clarise before. (The only difference is the added creativity and style that I put into it!) But since I have to prepare packed lunch for 3 now (including Ryan) I have to wake up 30 minutes earlier than before. But waking up at 6a.m. is just fine. After 5 days, I'm kinda used to it now. And I'm telling you, I am now addicted to making bentos! I just love to see how much my girls enjoy them! It's an added work to me, but the joy and excitement they bring to my daughters make me feel so good! The first thing I check when they get home are their lunch boxes, and seeing them empty gives me some sort of fulfillment! It just proves that Clarise and Cherlin loves the bentos I prepare for them, and I believe that's enough reason for me to keep on enhancing my creativity to come up with cuter bentos. :)

Here are two of the bentos I made for the girls this week. I made bento for them everyday but the other three are almost the same as the ones I already featured here. These two are my new creations, so to speak! I found them really cute. Clarise and Cherlin agreed with me on that, so as some of their classmates who saw these bentos! Check them out!

Bento #12:  Yellow Haired Girl Bento 

What's in it: Mac & cheese, sweet ham, mozarella cheese, carrots
cantaloupe and grapes

This is my homemade mac & cheese that I decorated with sweet ham (face) and mozarella cheese (eyes and lips). I cooked it the night before then just heat it up in the microwave the next morning. It's supposed to look like a smiling yellow haired girl, but I wasn't able to define the hair that much. I added some rolled sweet ham, carrots and mozarella cheese mini kabobs. And for dessert, Clarise requested for cantaloupe and grapes kabobs while Cherlin just had grapes. I used the cute music notes picks that I got from Fit JP Store in Houston. For the girl's face, I used these cutters:

I used the bear shaped cutter for the face...I trimmed the ears though. And for the eyes and lips, I used the blue cutters.

Bento #13:  Flowers and Butterfly Bento 

What's in it: Butterfly shaped cheese sandwich, flower shaped sweet ham with julienned carrots, cantaloupe and grapes

For this bento, I made use of these cutters:

• Heart shape cutters - for the wings of the butterfly
• Wiener cutter - for the body of the butterfly
• V smile cutter - for the antenna of the butterfly
• Flower shape cutter - for small flower shaped sandwiches

To make the wings of the butterfly, cut 4 slices of bread and 2 slices of American cheese using the big heart shaped cutter. Then cut a heart shaped hole into 2 of the heart shaped slices of bread using the small heart shaped cutter. (Am I using the word heart shaped cutter too much? Sorry, I just want to make my instructions clear.) Put the wings together: whole heart shaped slice of bread at the bottom then heart shaped slice of American cheese in the middle and the heart shaped slice of bread with heart shaped hole on top. Trim the bottom point of each heart sandwich, move them close together and put the body of the butterfly on top. I used black sesame seeds for the eyes and mozarella cheese for the white body stripes.

For the flower shaped ham, this is what I did:

I fold the ham crosswise then cut the center part into strips . I made 2" julienned carrots, put about 8 pcs. of them on the ham and then rolled the ham over. I secured each flower with a bento pick. Easy hah! :)

These bentos put smiles on my daughters' faces...I'm sure it will do the same to all the little girls out there!