Max, the King of all Wild Things, Bento

Paige asked for a Where the Wild Things Are bento because she saw Anna the Red’s amazing bento tribute. If you haven’t seen it yet, you have to check it out because it is truly a work of art and looks yummy to eat! I told Paige that I could probably manage to make a version of Max, but the rest would be way too difficult for me to do. I was pleased that Paige was very happy to see her Max bento this morning. Paige’s bento included cold udon with mochiko chicken and julienned carrots and cucumbers. Have a great weekend!

Bears with Mochiko Chicken Bento

It’s been a crazy morning for me already. First of all, our ice machine is making hollow ice cubes and is slowly dripping water to form a huge iceberg in the ice tray. Then when I pulled out the bowl of chicken in marinade, that I was going to cook for Paige’s lunch, I accidently overturned it. The bowl was still covered with plastic wrap, which luckily kept the chicken contained, however much of the marinade leaked out in the fridge. Yuck, raw chicken marinade. Then I left the house this morning in a scramble because we were running late and our car alarm went off when I opened the doors. Of course it would happen that I couldn’t shut it off because the button on the alarm’s remote was hopelessly stuck and had to run back in the house to look for the spare one, which BTW I couldn’t find. By the time I returned the alarm thankfully went off, but I still couldn’t open the doors without setting the alarm off again. By this point I was laughing at all of the craziness, said a prayer, and when I pressed the remote again, the alarm obediently turned off. I guess we have those days once in a while.

Paige’s bento today included bears cut out from an egg sheet, mochiko chicken, a vegetable gyoza, and a few fruits and veggies. The noses and tummies of the bears are cut from fish sausage and I used a couple of crown picks for the top of their heads.

Happy Birthday Paige!

Today Paige turns 7 years old!  How time flies, I can still vividly remember the day the God blessed us with her beautiful life.  Paige is a kind, loving, and thoughtful little girl. Mark and I are always amazed by her desire to please others.  Okay, okay… I’ll stop being the bragging mother, but I really can’t help myself.

For her birthday, Paige wanted (more than anything else) to have a birthday party in school with her friends.  Mark took the day off and we brought lunch and cupcakes to school for her class.  It was a good thing that Mark took the day off because I sure needed the help.  I woke up at 5:30am to make bentos for 20 people which included carp sushi, fish SPAM musubis, mochiko chicken, fried noodles, and BBQ beef maki sushi.  It was a lot to cook so I cheated a little and bought the noodles and BBQ beef sushi from Fukuya’s.  

Cupcake cake from Safeway on Kapahulu.

Potluck Bentos

Paige’s class had a potluck lunch today, celebrating spring and the beginning of spring break! Her contribution were these small musubi and mochiko chicken bentos.  I made 19 (including one for Sean) of these mini bentos.  It was pretty easy because I used the precut nori that I bought from Marukai and added decorative flag picks to the chicken.  Paige said that they had a ton of food for lunch including pizza, chili, chicken, spaghetti, SPAM musubis, brownies, almond float, donuts, juice, and a few others that she said she could not remember.  After that they got to watch Madagascar 2, which by the way is one of my favorite movies!  I love those penguins…they are just too funny.  

Don’t forget to get those entries in for the Kid’s Bento Contest by March 31st.  Thank you to those who have submitted their entries so far!

 

Sean eating his bento!

Bears, Best Friends, and the Tooth Fairy

Paige’s best friends, Avi and Amalia, got to hang out with us today.  They are the sweetest girls and always treat Paige like she’s their beloved little sister.  I love to listen to them playing as well as listen to all of their wonderful stories and games that they make up.  Kids have such great imaginations.  We made bear bentos for all of the girls which included a bear musubi, a bear teriyaki SPAM musubi, mochiko chicken, and mini bears made out of kamaboko (Japanese fish cake).   

       

 

Paige also recently lost her second tooth and was visited by the tooth fairy.  She got a lot more money than I remember receiving as a kid!  The economy must have been much better back then because I think I only got a quarter.  Paige was really sweet though, because she tried to give some of her tooth money to her Dad and me.  She’s also insisting that she has another tooth that is loose and wiggles it constantly as if to hurry the process along.    

Cars

The cars in today’s bento were made using the car shaped musubi mold that I bought from the Dillingham Marukai store.  I sprayed one of the cars pink with Color Mist to add a girly touch for Paige and decorated the car with nori and used bologna for the wheels.  She was actually very pleased with the cars and showed them off to Sean (my two year old) who kept chanting “Mine, mine, mine!!!”.  The rest of the bento included mochiko chicken, cucumbers, and grapes.