Mothering Corner

My kids love Toy Story 1 and 2 and they have been looking forward for Toy Story 3 for many months! It will only be shown in Thailand next month, so they have been asking us to bring them to the cinema since they saw the poster. On top of that, they requested Woody and Buzz Lightyear bentos too, which I’ve tried my best to squeeze out some time on Monday to fix it.

I was having a long weekend, so I made good use of my day off to fix the egg sheets and cutting the details. Everything was frozen until last night. I could have done the preparation yesterday, but we were out and about. Hey, it’s my long waited day off, thus I wanted to check out some clothes and lingerie at Paragon too.

Anyway, here are the bentos:

Woody Bento for my boy

My initial plan was to fix a smiling Woody, but I gave up on cutting his mouth. That’s why I just replaced it with nori. LOL!

My gal prefers Buzz Lightyear.

I think my Woody looks kind of weird. Maybe he’s too simplified.

I had a bad incident 2 days ago, and I felt like the stupidest mother in the world. Of course, nothing seriously bad really happened but it might. So, one important lesson learned. Never never ever leave your kids in the car alone, even if the air-conditioning is on, or off with windows open or what-so-ever. Just drag them along no matter how tired they are or just forget about how urgent things needed to be done and drive straight home.

I tell it, it’s really NO JOKE. I had almost wanted to smash my car window yesterday if I could grab hold of anything big, or if I’m in safety gloves, I might also try punching it. Of course, I will only end up hurting my wrist instead of breaking the glass!

But still, at moments like this, it’s best to stay calm. I’m so glad that my kids are alright.

It’s another crazy working week for me, so I could only come out with one kyaraben. For the rest of the days, I only packed plain looking bentos, which my kids have no problem taking them either. But of course, I know that they wish to see something nice in their meals, and they already told me what they would like me to fix.

Again, their wish bentos are so complicated! Anything that requires tracing and cutting multi-colored egg sheets is complicated and time consuming to me. However, I shall just try my best to squeeze some time out if possible.

I better clear some of my blogging job, paper work, customer requests and etc this weekend. I probably won’t have time to get the video card nor the iPhone today as well. Sigh…

If you haven’t known it, my boy dropped my phone, AGAIN. This time, the cover gets loose, and I have to use a tape to secure it. Sigh…But then, my N95 has been serving me well for 4 years? So, it’s time to let it go.

My hubby has never into fashion, cars or gadgets. I’m not sure if I should be happy about this, but that means that he hardly spends much. I’m thinking of grabbing him some working shirts and mens ties during this end of season sale as he has not update his wardrobe for some time. As for trousers, he will need to try them out to fit the length.

I wonder if it’s a guy’s thing that they hardly care much about their look? But my brother is quite the opposite. He dresses quite well. The same goes for my hubby’s young brother. Funny la, I do wish my hubby is keen into men fashion. Not the fancy cars please, they are too expensive!

I hardly print photos, especially after purchasing my first digital camera. Furthermore, I snap a lot of photos previously, like I can’t miss any tiny step of my kids development, so I should have thousands of photos in my disk storage now.

Last week, I decided to print my gal her first photobook, started from the day she was born. My boy has one, which I left back home. I would most probably bring it here if I go back next time. When I was designing the photobook, I realized that I don’t have all her babyhood and toddler-hood photos, but then, I could see how much she has grown up over the years, and how much I’ve enjoyed walking down the memory lane.

If I have the time and budget, I might use her photo and get her one of those custom tote bags by AH. Again, this busy mommy needs time to do it, maybe before her next birthday. I think she will really love it.

I might need to fly back for a few days to fix my visa, and guess what, hubby said I can just go back ALONE! I haven’t booked my flight yet because I’m quite worried leaving the kids here with him, and there is no one to help out. He will still be working, and who’s going to pick up the kids after school? Where will they be going?

Hubby said that can be arranged, and it sounds like a piece of cake to him. Men, some times, the way they think is so different from women.

I do agree that I can easily get things done if I go back by myself. But still, the worries are there. However, this trip back home is very much needed as I need to get some proper documents done for my business. I haven’t made a great fortune or rich enough to buy gold coins every month, but I’m getting the hang of running the biz now. So, I’m very serious about it.

Oh well, I still have a few more days to think about this.

Firstly, I can’t remember to snap the Doraemon cutter mold and puncher set, which I can’t even remember which store I bought it from.

Anyway, I guess you know which set I’m referring to, and I used the set for today’s bento. I prepared the egg sheets yesterday, by separating the yolk from the white. I mixed some blue food gel to the egg white before frying it. As for the yolk, I didn’t add any color into it. I needed a piece of yellow egg sheet for Dorami and some tiny details.

Please refer to how to make egg sheets if you are interested.

The cutting part is not hard as I used the cutter and mold to cut the details and sandwiches. You can give it a try. That might save you some time in tracing and cutting with exacto knife. Of course, the puncher is a great help too, it saves me a lot of time in cutting straight nori lines!

So, here are the bentos:

The sandwiches are topped on 2 pieces of corns. I packed some fruits in the bento too.

My gal will have Doraemon and Dorami in her bento.

My initial plan was to make a zoo bento, but then, due to my crazy workload this week (mommy’s out of breathe soon), I could only fix a simple giraffe.

This is what I did this morning:

I boiled some mini wieners and a quail egg.

Cut off the end of a mini wiener.

Do the same for another piece, but cut it off diagonally.

Cut the quail egg into halves.

Join all the pieces together with spaghetti strips.

I secured the wieners onto the sandwich (to prevent them from moving around) with 2 bits of spaghetti strips. I added 2 food picks as its tiny horns.

Then, I proceeded to add some nori and more details on the giraffe. So here are the bentos:

My boy’s little giraffe. He said the nose area looks like a smiley face. O.o

This is for my gal.

Actually, I thought of wrapping the wieners with egg sheets first so that the giraffes will have the right color. But oh well, you may give it a try.

I pack after school bentos for my kids 4 times per week, but I don’t do kyaraben all the time. Some times, it can just be a plain looking bentos of sandwiches, Japanese sweet potatoes, corns, fruits and some protein like eggs and processed meat. I’ve always wanted to do something with sweet potatoes, besides cutting them with cookie cutter. To do so, you can’t over steam the potatoes. I would normally set my steamer to 20 – 30 minutes so that it’s not over cooked.

But this morning, I purposely steamed the sweet potatoes for 50 minutes so that they were totally soft. You can do so with a microwave which might save you some preparation time.

I smashed the potatoes when they were still hot, and gently formed a few potato balls and joined them up with spaghetti strips. I bet the spaghetti strips would be totally cooked and soft too in the hot potatoes. LOL!

So, here are the bentos:

My gal’s froggie sweet potato bento. She had some fun rolling the leftover potatoes and ate them too.

I did the same thing for my boy but decorated it as a teddy bear.

Here’s the complete bento, with corns placed in the lower tier.

Too bad the color of smashed Japanese sweet potatoes is not as nice as those purple potatoes or normal potatoes. But then, my kids love the taste.

I’ve just written the cheque to renew my car insurance, for the second year. It’s been 2 years since we have the car, and so far so good, it’s not giving me any problem except the day when the battery was totally dead. I thought that I would have a day off that morning, but who knows, hubby called the mechanic to our house and got the car repaired! Then, the first thing he said over the phone was, “dear, now get back to work.”

I’m not sure if I’ve got the best car insurance deal as SIL handled the quotation for me. It seems like this price is cheaper than the previous quote. Before I moved here, I won’t even think about getting the best car insurance, or if the car has to be sent for auto service and such. We highly depended on FIL’s ex-driver to settle our cars back home. He would come and bring the cars for service and repair if needed, and he would even get the best car insurance deal and renew for us.

Throughout those years, I had never even opened the bonnet of our cars to check the battery water level, let alone bring them for annual service! But now, hubby and I have to do this on our own. No joke driving a car which is not performing well on the busy roads in Bangkok!