Mothering Corner

I admit that I like buying stuffs for my kids. I’m a shopaholic, so it’s pretty easy for me to grab a few stuffs just on a 10 minutes shopping trip. But I’m trying my best not to spoil them, and I won’t buy expensive toys for them, unless they “earn” it. We have a reward chart for the kids, which they will be rewarded with stars, if they finish their meals, sleep through the night by themselves (oh ya, my kids still get up in the middle of the night and drag us to sleep in with them), or behave well. Upon reaching a certain number of stars, they can pick a toy or a book as a reward.

As time goes, the toys are piling up in their playroom, but I am happy to see them “digging” out some old toys and playing with them from time to time. My kids get bored with their toys quite fast, if the toys are not interesting enough. But if they dig out the old toys and play with them once a while, I won’t feel that they are “wasting” the toys away.

So, today’s theme is one of those ugly old toys, such as a teddy bear with a lost eye which is very worn off and dirty.

The color and texture of sweet potato makes the teddy bear looks quite worn off huh? There are corns, a black plum, some dragon fruits, and strawberries too.

Here’s my boy’s bento. I slipped in the cheese as teddy’s arms and legs, and one of the legs is broken. It’s a very old teddy bear. I packed some mangosteens for him, instead of dragon fruit.

Hopefully, my kids will continue to appreciate what they have as not every child in this world has the “privillege”.  There are some kids who are going through hunger, or fighting with illnesses and staying at hospitals for long period of time.

But then, we should not forget the wonderful and dedicated mothers who are always there for their children. I’m one of the members of MyMomsBest, and I used to be an active one. But since I’ve stopped breastfeeding, I seldom log on the forum anymore, and I lost touch with some of the breastfeeding mothers there.

Nonetheless, I’m glad that Christene informed me about Mothering Mothers 2009, which is a project of giving out presents to those mothers of the terminally ill children at UM Hospital. So, if you are interested to make a pledge, please check out her blog, and also Chanel’s and Ros’ blogs for more information.

BTW, do you have kids who refuse to finish their meals? Hubby found this video and since he showed it to our kids, they are more keen to finish their dinner. Check it out ya?

Ten little frogs, sitting on a well,

One leaned over and down he fell,

Frogs leap high and frogs leap low,

Now only nine frogs sitting in a row.

(continue on until last verse…)

One little frog, sitting on a well.

He leaned over and down he fell.

Frogs leap high and frogs leap low,

And now there is no frog sitting in a row.

OMG! I forgot my nursery rhymes! LOL! I think it sounds like this, and please correct me if I’m wrong. It’s one of my kids’ favorite songs, and thus I decided to fix them a frog bento.

On top of that, I’ve just received the quail egg cutters from Bento Market, so I wanted to try them out. This set of cutters come with a booklet, and there is a frog shown on the front page. Even if the instruction was not shown, but I have a better idea on how to fix a frog from a quail egg.

The quail egg cutter set

I prepared 2 quail eggs and some kamaboko (the pink part was cut and kept away)

I made a small cut on the quail egg with this cutter.

Cut a small piece of kamaboko with this yellow cutter which looks like a “B”.

Gently slip the kamaboko into the quail eggs.

These are the punchers used for the details of the little frogs.

Then, I proceeded to decorate their sandwiches. My kids cut the bread for me last night, and I just had to spread the jam for them.

I used this round cutter (from the same quail egg cutter) to cut some circles from kamaboko.

Pin the small circles into the bread with spaghetti strips.

Add some nori to the frogs. In order to form a bigger mouth, I joined the nori together to form a bigger smile. You may use some jam or butter to paste the nori onto the bread.

So, here’s the end result:

My boy’s bento with froggie sandwiches, a little quail egg frog, some corn, strawberries and grapes.

Here’s my gal’s bento.

I tilted up the bread for photo shooting, but I “pushed” them all down before closing the bentos. I think the frogs will look better if they are green. BTW, this set of cutters come with a nori puncher too, but my puncher was not working well. It gets stuck after a punch and I have to push it back in. So, I still prefer the Carl’s punchers!

I decided to be lazy today. LOL! I bought some sushi yesterday, and I packed some for my kids.

My gal’s bento with sushi (decorated as pigs), strawberries, grapes and pineapples.

My boy doesn’t eat pineapple, so I replaced it with apple.

In short, it’s a speedy bento, and I got an extra 30 minutes of beauty sleep. LOL!

I prepared some spam sandwiches for hubby this morning, so I might as well pack some for my kids.  I have never done any bentos with cars, but since we were having hotdog buns, they are perfect to be cut as cars. I cut the hotdog buns last night because I knew that I would be spending some time frying the spam and fixing hubby’s sandwiches. So, this is what I’ve prepared last night:

I cut a hotdog bun into halves.

I removed a small part of the top of the bun before storing them away in a food container.

This morning, I woke up early to fry the spam and fix the sandwiches. After that, I continued with fixing the buns into mini cars. First, I spreaded some jam between the bread. Then…

I pinned some mini wieners onto the buns so that the cars have wheels and steering wheels.

I used a cutter to form the “eyes” of the cars. You can use any oval or round cutter of your choice.

I punched the eyes and mouths of the cars by using this shoe puncher.

Here’s the mini cars.

Then, I proceeded to decorating the spam.

These are the cutters I used to cut the spams before frying them.

I added some cheese and kamaboko to the spam. Actually, I wanted to fix My Melody for my gal, but I noticed that I didn’t use the right size of oval cutter, so it didn’t turn out nice.

Here are the Carl’s punchers I used for nori.

After that, I slipped the spams into the cars, and packed some fruits into the bentos. So, here’s the end result:

My boy’s bento with a teddy bear “driving” a car, and some fruits. I bought some Hello Kitty chocolates from Aki-ko, so I packed some for my kids.

Here’s my gal’s bento with My Melody and Hello Kitty (the chocolate candy).

Too bad my gal’s My Melody doesn’t look like My Melody.

Some Japanese bento bloggers like Akinoichigo and Yukiko have shared a few bentos featuring cars before, so if you are interested, please hop over their blogs for a peep.

Today’s bentos are speedy and simple. Each bento has steamed sweet potatoes, corns, heart-shaped rose apples, mangoes and strawberries.

My boy’s Tomica lunch box.

My gal’s My Melody lunch box.

 Don’t you agree that cute picks are always great in bento-ing?

BTW, thanks for all the wishes to my gal.

 I’ve finally had my own time at the office, and I was pretty busy for the first week. After resting for a month, I need some time to get used to this routine again. Even if I’m just back at the office, my mind has already started thinking about cancun vacation packages and Airasia’s flying to Taipei soon! LOL!

But since our kids’ school term will start in a few weeks, having a vacation is out of the question. I better try my best to get used to my work, instead of thinking of another holiday trip! Ah!!! I better get back to work!

It’s my gal’s 3rd birthday today, and my boy and I planned to fix her a special birthday bento. Actually, the initial plan was to have hubby playing with our gal in the playroom and my boy and I would fix her bento last night, but hubby was busy to look after her. Thus, she joined in the fun as well.

My kids helped me in cutting the bread in circles, which we planned to decorate as birthday cakes.

My boy cut the bread with these round metal cutters from Daiso.

The birthday girl took part in fixing her bento too.

 Hubby came home shortly after, so my kids left the table and I took over everything. I cut the cheese and stored them away for today’s bentos. An early preparation always makes things easier for me in the morning rush.

Besides that, I saw a cute strawberry girl illustration yesterday, and thought of giving it a try.

I prepared 2 strawberries and cut an oval cheese for each of them.

Here’s the nori punchers I used. If you have been reading my blog, you might have seen a few cute faces bentos, and here’s how I decorate them.

I would normally cut the flower nori (got this puncher from Daiso) into halves and use them as fringes.

Then, I added the eyes. The eye lashes are punched by the sad face Carl’s puncher.

And then, I added a smile to the face. This smiley puncher by Carl’s is my all time favorite!

Here’s the sandwiches prepared by my kids. I added some decorations like candles and flowers.

And here are the bentos…

My gal’s Happy Birthday bento. She’s turning 3 today, and there are 3 candles (it’s strawberry biscuit sticks by Hello Kitty). I packed a black plum, some rose apple and oranges for her too.

I didn’t give my boy a “candle” and he insisted that I add one for him after snapping the photo. LOL!

 If you are wondering how I close the lids of the lunch boxes, I would leave some gap behind so that I can carefully lie down so of the details without spoiling them. But some bento boxes, like this Pikkachu lunch box has a gap between the top cover and the tier, so the food won’t be smashed.

In short, Happy Birthday to my gal.

My kids have swimming class at school today, so I think they will be very tired after school. Some times, they will just doze off in the car, and can’t get up for dinner. Even if we manage to wake them up, they may not have the appetite to eat and they will just take a little. It’s very hard to drag them to the dining table, as if their little bodies are made of steel buildings. LOL!

Thus, I packed some bolognese spaghetti and chicken nuggets for them today. Hopefully, they will take the nuggets as they are pretty picky with frozen meat.

My gal’s bento with spaghetti (the sauce is hidden beneath) and two pieces of nuggets. I packed her fruits in another bento box.

Here’s my boy’s bento.

I’m using the thermal bento boxes today, and I might reheat their meals since the lunch boxes are microwavable.

Today’s bento is clearly not my idea. Actually, I’m having mental block due to lack of sleep, and I can’t think of any new ideas. But when Justin saw Susan’s book on my office table yesterday, he quickly took it and browsed it through. He found a bento with dinosaur, and he wanted to fix one today. It’s supposed to be his own work, but my boy couldn’t wake up in time! LOL!

So, to make things easier and speedy, I used a dinosaur cutter to cut the white bread. My boy picked this set of dinosaur cutters when I bought him to Daiso once, and the lady at the POS systems was smiling at him, probably thinking what would a kid do with a cookie cutter.

My boy’s bento with a dinosaur (peanut butter sandwiches), strawberries, kiwi and sapodilla.

I know that he wanted to have something like Carnatosaurus , but it’s way beyond my capability. LOL!

As for my gal, I use a smaller dinosaur cutter (comes in the same set) to cut her sandwiches.

I think her dino looks more like a lizard or some reptile. LOL!

Anyway, she couldn’t be bothered about the reptile as she was totally cranky. She fell on her face on Sunday night, and her nose bled. This morning, her brother accidentally hit her face when they were playing and she had nose bleed again.  Sigh…

I should fix her something nice this week, especially on Thursday.

My kids start their summer camp today, and it’s another “struggling” morning for all of us as we need to get up early and rush out of the house like normal school days. But I think we will all get used to it after this week.

So, I’m back to preparing simple tea bento for my kids, which they will take after school at 5pm. I decided to pack some peanut butter and strawberry jam sandwiches for them, and decorated the bread as Mickey and Minnie with these tools:

The Mickey cutters really make things easier for me. I used the cutters to cut the bread and cheese. You can use one of the cutters to cut the facial details too, but I preferred to stick to nori.
Here’s the end result:

My boy’s bento with peanut butter sandwiches, apple, some smoked chicken wiener, oranges and grapes.

My gal wanted to use her Minnie bento box today, and it fits today’s theme pretty well.

Mickey and Minnie will look nicer if I fixed with ears with nori, but I was running out of time. So, it’s more like simplified Mickey and Minnie, but my kids still like it.

BTW, I’ve just received a parcel from Susan today. Thanks Susan, for your wonderful prizes.

I’m in cloud nine to have your book, Susan!