allthingspurple

Ashley's tweaked mini album

2011-04-01T09:36:00.003+08:00

Seems like I have been doing nothing but mini albums. I just can't help it, cos my kids likes them! And I like making them for friends and relatives !!

Be that as it may, productions are slow in coming cos sometimes I leave the project halfway for weeks and only got back to it when I have a lazy weekend like when we balik kampung to spend the weekend at my FIL's town. And during the weekdays, half the time, we don't even get home till after 9pm, so it's kind of hard to find time.

Anyhow, this is another mini album.

This was supposed to be a mini album to put Ashley's photos. She has been complaining that while her jie jie has rows and rows of photo album adorning the study room, she had none. Not a single one. So I thought I print some pictures of her and make a mini album for her. I have not printed any pictures since she was born. How bad is that?

This is the cover. The paper is so pretty I didn't want to do anything to it. But I probably will mist some flowers or add some prima flowers and blings to it later.

It's a enve album made after I stumbled upon the Paper Trail's tutorial on how to make one.

This is the first page.

There's a flap on the left where you can slot journaling cards into, and the left page fits a 4R photo. The right side fits a 2R photo and there is a good size tag behind the flap where I thought I could add another photo or journal on the back of.

These are the following pages, all with pages for 4R photos on one side and 2R photo on the other and flaps on either side for journaling or more pics.

More flaps, more tags !

This is the last page. It has a pocket which I put a tag with AShley's name on it.

The pink journaling cards inserted between every page are gessoed and distressed with my new toy, the Distres-it-all.

You probably would be wondering why this album is devoid of embellishment or photos. Well, I had thought that I will probably embellish it more after I slot in some photos and make it look more "busy". But before I could do so, Ashley has already claim it for her own and started slotting her paper dolls inside. She also slots bits of stickers and pretty winx club cards.

She now carry this with her when she goes for car ride or when she goes to her ballet school. She would then pull out dolls with their shoes and clothes to play with them when she is bored. So much for a mini album. It has been so tweaked into a paper doll storage album!! *grin*

There is still so much to learn about scrapbooking and I am loving it everyday! Even if I don't get to create, I am happy just to blog hop and get inspired !!

You guys have a great week ahead now! Happy scrapbooking !

I got mail !!

2011-03-10T21:52:00.015+08:00

I am no longer thrilled by fluffy mails, since my Ashley has long been toilet trained. But I strained my neck nowadays watching out for parcels of scrapbooking goodies from the postman. Well, technically, from the Pos Laju man, since all parcels are now channeled to them for delivery. I hardly blog about parcels, but this one is worthy of mention.

Firstly, this parcel arrived scarcely one week after I ordered it online! I ordered it on the 28th February and I actually received it on the 8th March, which was 2 days back!! Now is that fast or is that fast? I simply love ordering from this store, collage stuff! They are always so efficient and quick!!

Okay, second reason why this parcel is worthy of mention!! *drum roll please* These are the new stamps from Tim HOltz's CHA 2011 !!

I keep asking our local stores when they are going to come in and they said sometime in March. I supposed having waited for so many weeks since December, I can't wait out that one more month, so there my fingers goes on the keyboard *grin*.

Look at these beauties !!

I really really like this one, The Wild wild west.

Adverts !!

And this one is my absolute favourites. Papillon! Lots of butterflies. My girls are going to love this stamp.

Curiosities. I think this one will work well with the scrapbook I am going to make of my mom and her journey in life with my dad.

Anyhow, this is basically just to share this fabulous site, www.collagestuff.com that has really good customer service and efficient and fast delivery. I am not affiliated to them in any way. Just sharing good stuffs. *grin*

Hand bound books!

2011-01-18T23:09:00.024+08:00

I chance upon these pics of hand bound books that I made sometime in October last year and thought I sweep some cobwebs in my blog today by sharing those. It was getting rather dusty in here, wasn't it? *grin*

I have always been fascinated by bookbinding. As a child, I use to sew signatures into pages and bound them into notebooks. I used to beg off pieces of cloths off a paternal aunt twice removed and glue a piece of each as covers for the notebooks. Then I would doodle and paint on those pages. They were my most treasured possession back then, until I got to know the world better and discard those "childish" hobbies. Who would have thought I would venture into these again at this ripe old age?

It all came about when I discovered that my 10 year old loves doodling and drawing. She would draw on stray pieces of papers and old discarded school exercise books. So I thought I make a nice handmade one for her so that I can keep her drawings and scribbles for memories. Handmade stuff has always held its charm to me. Hence my search into "How to bind a book".

My search took me to this blog by Layhoon who had learned bookbinding from a workshop taught by Little Syam. I was fascinated by those hand stitched bound books in LIttle Syam's blog!! Hence my first venture into bookbinding, which in turn led me to my new fascination with scrapbooking and mixed media !

These are some of the books that I learned to stitch. The coptic stitch, the Japanese stab stitch and kettle stitch. I really enjoyed doing stuffs with my hands, and we don't count fingers flying across the keyboard drafting causepapers, sitting in front of that laptop !

This is the coptic stitch.

This is the kettle stitch, which is one of my favourite, cos it's so decorative and archaic looking. And this here below is the hemp stitch, the simplest of all.

I bought some ribbons and frills to dress up the notebooks but didn't get a chance to do it till I got home.

Sasha will probably recognise these ribbons *grin* Most of my minibooks and albums has some of her ribbons on them.

I brought some more supplies from Little Syam to practice at home. Unfortunately, those are still sitting at my shelves. Haven't found time to do any more yet. But I had found making a hand stitch bound book a satisfying pursuit.

My 10 yr old Kimberly always carry one in her backpack when we go out nowadays. She has a handmade journal and a scrapbooked notebook. I think she has gotten into the habit of scribbling thoughts and reminders in school and dooddling and drawing in them when we are out. She also stuck ephemera that she found around her room into her scrapbook, like a letter from her friend, Misha received 2 years back, of which she was too lazy to think of where to keep, so she simply glued the envelope onto her scrapbook. Will share her 2 handmade books later if time permit.

For those with kids who like to scribble a lot, these are very good options for a child to nurture his or her inspirations if you don't fancy buying a store bought sketchpad.

You guys have a great week ahead now. Happy Thaipusam to those who are celebrating!!

My very first layout

2010-12-05T15:05:00.012+08:00

I thought I would make an attempt to do a layout after a bout of making nothing but tags and notebooks and mini albums. I had not attempted one before because of thought of filling out a 12 inch by 12 inch empty space to make it aesthetically easy on the eyes seems so intimidating!!

I had prepared myself for a mind block and a 2 hour task. Suprisingly, it wasn't that daunting after all. I was pleased that for a first attempt, this took me less than an hour, about half an hour perhaps? Once I got going, things just seems to flow.

This is Ashley on her kindergarten concert doing a Korean dance in her Korean costume.

I love how she obediently cast her eyes down demurely the whole entire performance (almost) just because their teacher instructed them to. I had thought that this was so adorable.

And I just love the rolling camera, the "Take one, cut" board, the negatives and the film strips. I cut the rolling camera, the negatives strips and the take out board out from another patterned paper and paste them on here. And doesn't those reading scripts just tickles you to bits?

Her original stage has flowers and picket fences in front. So I cut out a fence with Tim Holtz's "on the fence" die. If the paper looks familiar to you, it's the paper backing that comes with the packaging on which the prima flowers are glued on.

Since I cut off the flowers on her stage from her photo in order to fit the page, I added back some flowers and floral elements wherever I could to enhance her stage. The glitters from the ribbons gives an illusion of glamour on the stage.

On another note, my darling 9 going to ten Kimberly made this birthday card for me with the help of Teacher Jessy. Isn't she adorable?

She told Teacher Jessy that it was my birthday ( a few days back) and she wanted to make a card for me. Wasn't that sweet of Jessy to help her?

a Shabby Chic book

2010-11-12T00:29:00.045+08:00

My next project after Kimberly's notebook was another notebook out of scrapbooking materials for my "baby" sister, Cecilia. She is bubbly, funny and compassionate and is truly a beautiful person inside out. I made a shabby chic one for her.

She loves shopping and travels a lot.

So, shoes and handbags for her..

..with postcard and stamps....

She can adhere photos or notes of importance on top of the pages.

I thought it's also a good idea to provide lots of pockets, slits and folds that she can stuffs receipts and stubs into.

So I attached a paper clip on top of this page....

and made a pocket here...

and here ....

I made some bookmarks for her to mark pages with.

This one above has a postcard bookmark in the pocket.

This one below is another pocket made out of tags. I slot another bookmark with tassels and a distressed look inside the tag.

Made another fun tag for her out of left over scrap papers.

More pages for her to stuff any ephemera that she may want to keep. I add an elastic band on this page for slotting tickets or stubs.

This is the back of the same page.

This page was supposed to have an envelope with a closure which she can keep things safely. But I thought this looks prettier without the envelope hiding the pretty shoes, so I left it blank.

Lastly, I added several pages of kraft papers for her to scrawl on.

I finished this yesterday at 3 a.m and had ink stains all over my fingers. I hope she likes this when she receives it.

Halloween crop party!!

2010-10-23T19:45:00.051+08:00

Kimberly and Ashley attended a Halloween crop party for kids last week at Scrap-N-Crop !

I have been looking forward to this for ages, ever since Val suggested to Rose a few months back that Rose should conduct one for kids for Halloween!! And if it's led by Rose, I just know that there will a lot of goodies lined up for kids! *grin*

Rose Lynch is an experienced teacher who is very very good with kids AND who has been scrapbooking for more than 30 years. And did I mention that she is very good with kids?

Ashley wanted to dressed up as a princess *what else?”.

She chose her favourite red velvet and satin Disney princess gown over the Ariel mermaid costume, pink Piglet costume, the tiger stripey suit with the tiger’s hood, the moo cow suit with the moo cow hood and her school concert’s elaborate Korean dance costume.

Kimberly’s costume was easier to decide.

She has only to choose between her red satin sequined top and matching red satin Arabic pants from her school concert, Aladdin, of last year, and Disney’s costume, a Princess Jasmine costume.

She chosed to dress as Jasmine, the Arabian princess, complete with her Arabian pointy satin pink shoes.

There is a couple of witches .....

and a bear cub.....

(snitched these from Rachel's blog )

But all the other girls who came for the Halloween party ALL came as princesses too! So what else is new? Hahahahaha!

The kids came away with this cool album which had their pictures on them.

Kimberly completed hers in no time, all thanks to Rose’s foresight that kids won’t have very long attention span and she had actually stuck double sided tapes all ready on most of the embellishment to ease the path for the kids !!

The event surpassed my expectation. Rose keeps dishing up treats after treats!!!

Halfway through, the kids get cool treats of skull candies, nougat and sweets in a pumpkin mini trick or treat carrier.

Here's a clearer skull.

There is a tag hung on every chair for every kid, to hang on their door, on their chair, or to decorate their room with. Kimberly hung hers over the handle of her backpack, Ashley hung hers around her neck.

There is a little notebook on the table where the kids can add on more papers and use them as a notebook to scribble stuffs on. Well, at least, that’s what Kimberly did with hers.

And placed on the table, each kid get their own scrap-n-crop kit.

The closure on the kit is a cute little pumpkin jingle bell with maple leaf. Rose told the kids that that can be used as an embellishment for the completed album on the album cover. Now is that cool or is that cool?

On every table, there are also scattering of laminated characters that kids get to take home to work their imagination on. Kimberly used hers as bookmarks after attaching ribbons on them.

And the kids even get to take home a party pack which is another complete set of scrapbooking kits which they can set to do on their own at home! How cool is that?

They were served cupcakes, breaded sausages on sticks, mini samosas, hmmm…I can’t remember. All I remember is this 3 tiered tray with kids friendly finger food. Haha! I was busy finishing up those cupcakes which Ashley licked the icing off!

Needless to say, after the workshop, the kids spend the next 3 hours playing games, chasing after each other, playing hide and seek and literally screamed the place down, after they demolished the cupcakes, of course!

Despite the racket, they were a rather well behaved bunch too. Nothing on shelves got jostled or tumbled down. Haha! But I was still apprehensive about my kids everytime it got too quiet, like when they asked from Valerie or Valerie's mom permission to play upstairs. It's a mom's thing. If it get too quiet, you get worried.

After the party, they get to bring a pumpkin home each.

Both Kimberly and Ashley had fun!!!

They were so exhausted that they dozed off in the car on the way to meet Chinnee, Zara and Zaria's mom , Hui Nih and Syn Dee ...sorry girls that I fong fei kei.

Back to parties, I heard that Rose may be leading another event for kids this coming Christmas as well. I sure hope so. If there is, I sure am looking forward to that one. *grin*

Ashley's notebook

2010-09-26T01:40:00.023+08:00

Hi guys! It's weekend again! Don't everyone love weekends? Nowadays I look forward to weekends as a mean to get to create something out of scrapbooking for the kids.

4 1/2 yr old Ashley didn't want to be left behind. So she asked for a notebook as well.

I made this for her, but haven't time to work on the inside pages yet.I have only added some pink coloured papers for her to draw on. She carried her notebook everywhere she goes and scribbles on them a lot. She drew, she played tic,tac, toe and she coloured on them. Besides the papers, the only other thing I added is a transparent pocket on the back cover and insert some paper dolls for her to play with. I will figure out what to add to her notebook later and share it when it's completed.

As mentioned in the earlier post, I made some fun stuff for Kimberly to play with. These are what's in the rest of Kimberly's notebook.

In the first divider, I affix a simple small tag with a brad. I figure with her being so generous, she would want to give someone something out of her notebook to make their day. My Kimberly is sweet that way.

In the 2nd divider, I add a library pocket and insert 2 tags with her name stamped in for her own use. Added a white rose, some ribbons and a pink flower on the tags.

Another tag on the 3rd divider... I didn't distress them cos she said she like them clean-looking.

I added some post-its on the last page that she can tear out to mark her homework pages with. If you turn the flap over, there is another library pocket where she can put stuffs in. I forgot to take a picture of that.

I have been asking Chinnee and Jo-N where to get A4 size sticker papers from. Chinnee asked me what I need them for. This is what I used them stickers for, Chinnee! I print her photos out and add them to her notebook for her to play with.

This is also the back cover of her notebook. I forgot to post them earlier. I added sturdy plastic covers on both front and back covers so that the notebook stays clean.

So that's the lot! Have a great Sunday ! To those who are celebrating Mid Autumn over the weekend instead of on Wednesday, have a great Mid Autumn celebration!

Scrapbooking a notebook !!

2010-09-15T20:32:00.015+08:00

I had some free time over at FIL's house over Hari Raya. Although MIL is staying with us now, my husband still bring her back to FIL's house over every alternate weekend, or whenever there is a long holiday since she missed her own house. And having nothing to do there, it not being MY kampung, it is such a perfect time for scrapbooking. You can only do so much reading and swimming! ha! ha!

I gave Kimberly the gypsy one that we did at Val's workshop but she says she doesn't like it. She wants something "prettier" and with "prettier colours". YOu would have thought that for a 10 year old who thinks leather jackets and black leggings are cool, she be all over the gypsy album. Not so! Just as well, cos I want it for myself.*grin*

Hence, the pink theme for the forthcoming scrapbook project!

I have very limited resources and have to make do with the 3 pieces of pink acid free papers that I have. When I ran out, I use some of the pink ones that was a freebie off a scrapbook magazine.

I cut out the title from another 12 x 12 patterned paper with like logo prints. The pink flower was a leftover from cutting another die cut.

I merely stick a number 10 sticker over the pink flower for contrast.

This is the back page of the cover.

The birdcage would have look gorgeous if I had cut it out of chip board for a 3D effect, but being such a newbie, I only have one chipboard on hand, and I already used that for the cover, so had to make do with using some scraps that I have. I have so many materials that I need but have no time to go get them.

I figured that for a notebook, Kimberly doesn't need my expensive acid free papers to write on, so I cut out plain A4 papers for her to write on. Scrapbooking tools really make it easy for one. I use my dreamkutz to cut them papers and they were all straight as it can be.

I had to admit scrapbooking even 2 pages took me awhile to cut, adhere, embellish, but I don't plan to rush it. I figure that I am going to scrapbook whenever I need to wind down. Despite scrapbooking being so time-consuming, I have to admit that it is greatly soothing for the soul, and I found it oh-so-relaxing, and fun!!

It is a really great thereupatic way to spend a lazy afternoon instead of shopping! And the kids had fun making cards while I am scrapbooking.

I added some fun stuff for Kimberly to play with in her notebook and will share that in my next post.

You guys have a great Malaysia Day now, and Happy Scrapbooking, guys !!

My very first scrapbook!

2010-08-31T22:10:00.031+08:00

I have not been blogging lately.

Mostly because my 10 year old has deemed herself too matured to bring kawaii bento to school, so she has mostly been bringing speed bento. As for my 4 1/2 yr old, her new kindergarten seems to discourage her from it. I am half minded to speak to her teacher about it but that on top of all other issues in her new kindergarten, I decide to just let it go and will pull her out of that kindergarten when the year end instead.

I still bento on a regular basis cos it seems such a waste not to. What with all those tools in my kitchen.

Mostly I bento when we go for long car rides, when we go for outings at waterparks or the bird park, the zoo. Or just simply because there isn't time to buy food, and the kids need to eat in the car on the run from this class to the other. And we are talking about running to and fro 2 kids different daily schedules. Since I have mostly been doing speed bento, there doesn’t seem much to share.

However, as with when you found something interesting, you feel the urge to share. And this actually spurs me into blogging again !

I attended a scrapbook workshop 2 weeks back. Valerie, the owner of the scrapbook store, Scrap-N-Crop , taught us how to make this gypsy album !

It was my very first scrapbooking experience and I am so enthralled with what scrapbooking is all about!! I mean, I have read about it, goggled up on it, admired albums made by my colleagues back in year 2000, but I have never the urge to do more than admire.

After attending this workshop, I have totally gone crazy! Ha-ha! Bought my pink cuttlebug, my pink dreamkutz and pre-ordered a pink zutter. They even sell cute pink pliers to cut wires. That’s how you can tell the spouse’s pliers from the missus.*grin*

And this is what we came up with at the workshop! Isn’t scrapbooking just so amazing?

I don't know if I may be able to spend much time with this new interest, since it may take up a considerable lenght of one's free time. If you compare, a speed bento took all of a 15 minutes. Haha!

I mean, in working on another new scrapbook notebook for Kimberly, it took me quite a while just to trim, adhere and stamp those itsy bitsy bits. My amateur fingers need some adjusting to the skills of trimming and adhering. So far, I probably could just do a page or two in whatever free time I have at any one time.

And being a newbie, I have yet so much to learn, distressing, sanding, inking, not to mention different techniques, materials and so on and so forth. And when I said newbie, I meant that I am so new I am raw *grin*

Be that as it may, I have found scrapbooking intriguing. And will probably be on this for awhile. Just hope that I will have more to share in the future. To all fellow bentoers, have a great bento-ing week ahead! And to all scrapbookers, Happy scrapbooking !

Kampung Chicken Fillet Bento

2009-07-29T12:09:00.017+08:00

Nope !! Didn't go jogging this morning. Don't have that kind of energy EVERYDAy !! haha! Just occasionally..

As usual, I put the rice in the rice cooker the moment I woke up. For just in case I like to do a rice bento for the day.

So, today is one of those days. Which is just as well, because I forgot to bake a loaf of bread last night. Was exhausted and totally forgot. I normally put the ingredients in and put the breadmachine on timer, so baking a loaf of bread everyday wasn't too much trouble.

This is Ashley's bento.

Bento #124

It's rice onigiri with fried free-range chicken fillet on the side.

Added some cherry tomatoes to fill the gaps because its the only vegetable I have left in the fridge. Haven't been doing grocery shopping lately. You can tell looking at husb's bento below. haha.

Anyhow, Ashley's rice onigiri has crab-stick filament on its bottom half. I love it's radiant red colour.

As mention, because of the sparse fridge, husb's bento is merely sushi.

Bento #125

It's the first time I am using a plastic mat instead of a bamboo mat. So the sushi don't look so good. Edible anyhow. *grin*

The top half tier is sushi with pickled radish and zucchini.

The bottom half tier is spam with , what else, pickled radish again.

Told u fridge is bare today!

Will need to go to the supermarket tonight, much as I hate to waste time there.

Husb complained not much protein in there but I had thought with the spam so high in sodium, I had better tone the spam down. Didn't fry hubby some of those chicken fritter because I didn't think to pack a bento meal for him till the last minute. So, didn't have much time left.

I knowwwww !!! I need a new changgih camera. Noted your many reminders,Hijackqueen ! *grin*

Short post today again, cos need to get lots stuff done this few week.

Have a great week ahead, all, and Happy Bentou-ing !!

Homemade Fishball Floral Weiner Bento

2009-07-13T10:16:00.012+08:00

It's Monday again. How time flies. But things has been heavenly around here.

Because...

We finally send our maid away.

The biadap maid has been with us for about 13 months or so. I don't think any of us could tolerate her one day longer, much less for the rest of her contractual 2 years.

Even before her 6 months term of pre-paid salary is up, we already knew that she is too dishonest and lazy. She does everything her way absolutely refusing to follow our instructions which means that nothing is done the hygenic way, the safe way or the clean way. Gates were left unlocked upteened times and she hurt the kids physically in her total neglect to be reasonably careful around the house. She also slept from 8am to 4pm the moment we step out of the house till we get home. But of course she lies to cover everything up when confronted or "jeling" and slam pots and pans in the kitchen when she is caught red handed.

So instead of waiting out the 6 months, we send her to my in laws for the rest of the 6 months, away from our kids.

She continues with her wilful ways at in laws, refusing to close her bathroom door when she takes her showers at father in law's house, and changing her clothes at my in law's backyard instead of in her own room. Seriously, she needs help. Those who have seen her would never dreamed this in her. She is a total Jekyl and Hyde personality. In my 10 years experience of engaging maids, she has to top the list for being the worst ever !

Anyhow, we are finally glad to send her away. And everyone including my mom and in laws are breathing easier. I sure hate to talk about maids. haha. And I sure could do so much better without them, as per the preceeding 2 years before this biadap one come along.

Anyhow, enough of the unpleasants.

Happy Monday, all! It's a glorious morning today!

I went jogging at 6am and came home feeling good, and just in time to get Kimberly ready for school. Didn't fix Kimberly a bento meal today though.

Fixed this for Ashley's bento instead today.

Bento #123

I barely have time to do much because hubby had already got up and would leave with Ashley any moment.

So I threw some fishball which I mince and shaped the night before, into the deep fryer and made a furikake rice ball with the rice I cooked for just in case before I left for jogging earlier in the morning. "Just-in-case", because I don't ever plan my bento. I usually fix them spur of the moment with whatever food is ready on hand.

Then I cut up a weiner and put it in the pot to boil, together with some oborotsuki (stuffed fishcake), and then got Ashley ready for school.

Those floral carrots were my frozen stash of pre-cut steamed carrot stored in the deep freezer. When fixing for one bento meal, I would usually cut up the rest of the floral carrots in batches and store them for convenience.

The white and pink kamaboko is from my frozen stash as well.

And that's Ashley's bento for the day.

Happy Bentou-ing guys, and have a great week ahead !!

Salted Egg Chicken Bento

2009-06-29T09:16:00.006+08:00

Bento #122

I am reminded by a few people that I forgot to update my blog now that I am free *grin*. Truthfully, I have more time now. Sometimes pending evenings at the gym and whenever time permit, jogging in the morning. And having time on my hand, its time to start posting again.

This is husband's bento. As with most Malaysian men, he isn't one who like to bento for work. He doesn't mind an occasional breakfast bento, but he prefers to eat lunch with his cronies or business associates instead.

This is a lunch bento. At least he obliges me for this one. haha. I fixed him this lunch bento because I woke up too early and felt like cooking salted egg chicken, and so I made him take it for work. haha.

These are the deep fried salted egg chicken.

This is the kids' leftover fried fish fillet from dinner the day before. I fried some onions in soy sauce and kicap pekat and stir fry this to combine.

Some regular apples and seedless grapes.

Packed them in this thermal bento container.

A short post to get me started. haha. Have a great week ahead guys, and happy bentou-ing !!

My purported claim to "fame" - grin

2009-06-19T20:47:00.014+08:00

This was published in Malay Mail, uhhh..around 2 months back or so? My apology for the dormant blog. Certain events has taken up much of my time. But now that things are somewhat settled, I will be spending some time blogging again.

Sasha helped me with the printscreens and stuff, and taught me a thing or two about templates in the process. It doesnt take much to figure out that I am template challenged and IT challenged. ha! ha!

I only bought one copy of the paper though. And my office staff bought one to show the rest. That's about it.

If you have had to squint your eyes to read, here's the link to the online version.

http://www.mmail.com.my/content/lunch-box-%E2%80%93-mom-love

So, that's my first claim to fame ! Just kidding!

Happy bentou-ing, guys, and have a gurreaat weekend !!!

The visit at UM Hospital

2009-05-10T12:06:00.023+08:00

The collection was an awesome success. I have been chasing time purchasing more than 79 gifts and collecting more than 20 donated gift parcels the last 4 days precedent to the day of the visit.

I stopped counting at one point and just purchased gifts based on the donation banked in as and when because donation were still pouring in on Friday itself. I had been out most days and hadn't time to put up a notice to state the last day of donation. So as at 9pm I was still purchasing last minute gifts but fortunately, had them all wrapped just in time by Saturday.

I can't thank Nancy, the gift store's owner, enough for helping wrap most of them without any service charge. She says it's her contribution to the charity. She also gave 20% off all wrappers and went down as much as she can on the prices of some of the gifts I purchased from her store.

We grouped at the entrance of Menara Timur at UM Hosp at 9.30am on Saturday morning.

When Ros came and unload her other 100(?) odd parcels and donated cupcakes from her 4 seater, and adding some more gifts that the volunteers brought along, it came to this awesome pile. This is amazing considering that the project were initiated only 10 days before. Some of the parcels which we thought weren't substantial enough in term of appearance, we combined 2 parcels into one.

.

The datuk pengarah of the hospital, Professor Ikram Shah, came out to have a look and we took this group picture together, although picture taking wasn't the main priority of the visit. This group picture is probably the only one most of us volunteers have for the visit.

My apology if some of the faces were blurred out. I distorted the features of the volunteers at their requests.

The volunteers who turn up to assist in handing out the gifts besides Ros and me were Salwa, Montessorimum, Sofhib, Geok Hong, Shamira, Wai Han (home birth consultant), Wai Leng, Suzette, Pauline, Gladys and Ellena.

We split into 2 groups. One for the ICU and pediatric ward, and one for the maternity ward. Although I have assisted My Moms Best forum in purchasing and wrapping gifts before, I have never made trips to the ward to hand out the parcels. Ashley was still very young then and I had been maidless for 2 years before this.

So this is my first visit. Nothing prepares me for the heaviness in my heart resulting from these ward visits. At our first stop at PIC One, (ICU Ward One), we were greeted by heart wrenching cries of a child. The cries sounds tired. The child must have been crying for a long time, and consistently. It echoes through the corridors. I imagine the child must be in extreme pain or in constant discomfort, and I imagine the mother of the child and the nurses must be offering the child the best comfort in whichever way they knew. It was a shadowy beginning which accompanied us throughout the rest of the rounds.

We weren't allowed into ICU One, although we were allowed in the other wards. We chosed the best gifts among them ie. those Russ Pillows valued RM52 which Nancy, the gift store owner had obligingly reduced to RM28 being her further contribution to the project, some Hello Kitty pillow unsnapped into blankets, some bolster unsnapped into pillows and other gifts of higher value, (of which the higher value were made affordable from Lilian, the founder of My Mom's Best's bigger cash contribution for 5 gifts) and the nurses pushed the trolley into the ward to distribute among the mothers.

We were instructed to just hand out, wished the mothers a Happy Mothers Day and proceeded along. Even then, it took us till noon. During the round, I note one child of around 3 years old wearing a mask over his face while cruising around his bed. It was thick and it looks heavy, like those scuba diving mask, except it covers the whole face, including nose and mouth? It was heavy enough to compress into his tender young skin. To have to endure constant discomfort at such young age, isnt that sad?

On the next bed, a wisp of a little girl of about 5 years old with puffy white skin all over her face, her neck and I presume, her whole body.

I had thought that it was calamine. On second look, it is the colour of the skin. And there is a layer of skin like tight plastic sheen over her skin. It looks as if any accidental poke or tear in her tight white puffy shiny skin would result in a spray of body liquidy. Very tender and fragile looking. She has only one hand and someone had placed an old worn out bath towel over her handless shoulder. Her other hand, peeping out from under the blanket, is terribly swollen, deformed and hasn't any fingers.

This is the most heart-wrenching experience I have ever encounter. She was labouring to breath. And her mother had stepped out during the child's nap, I suppose to run some errants. I note that under her closed eyelids, her eyes were bloodshoot, a line of red running along her closed lid. Looking at the little one, I felt this tightness at my throat. The little girl's suffering haunted me till today. I wish I could do more for her and her mother than just handing out a donated parcel and a cupcake.

We ended about 12.30 noon and had a drink to quench our thirst downstairs at the deli one floor below before bading each other goodbye. I know I haven't added the links to the above-mentioned names yet. It's my sister's wedding today and there will be stuffs to do. will add them as soon as time permit. And will upload the links of the others' blog soonest possible as when they have time to post.

Anyhow, all in all, this is a leadladen-heart experience, of which although I had prepared for it, I still have a hard time dealing with. I would still visit again the next project though.

But, thank you, all, for all your kind contribution ! And thank you to Lilian and Ros for initiating this project again this year.

May the next Mothering Mother project be as successful. Have a great Mother's Day today, all !

Mothering Mothers 2009 at UM Hospital - update

2009-04-29T22:26:00.029+08:00

Some bloggers and friends have msn me to ask why my blog has been so quiet the last few months.

Not by choice, really. Lots of stuff which makes time scarce and things hectic. Kids sick, me sick, kids sick again, me sick again, its a vicious cycle. Then my sister was admitted to the hospital, then it was Ashley. And that is coupled with extra workload, datelines, trials and hearings, and being maidless.

Phew, it is exhausting just running through these. Haha.

Now that things are somewhat settled, I have to schedule some time to coach the kid her revision for her coming exams and get the guest room cleaned up for my brother who is coming back from Miami for holiday with his wife. So, for the moment, bento posts may still take a back seat.

That aside, the main reason for today's post is more important.

Many of us love our kids from the bottomless pit of our hearts. They are virtually our whole universe, our sunshine, our everything.

Just imagine, "if" one's own kid is terminally ill. And the kid may never ever live long enough to celebrate Mothers' Day with his or her mother on this coming 10th May, or the many many 10th May to come. How does it feel.

However, Mothers Day is probably the least issue on a mother's mind when their child is labouring to breath, or when their child is growing weaker and weaker by the day with tubes stuck all over its tiny little frame.

Lilian of My Mom's Best ("MMB") , a breastfeeding forum, has on many occassion initiated the Mother's Day do, Mothering Mother, at the UM Hospital for those courageous mothers of the terminally ill children.

I, along with other MMB forum members, had the pleasure of helping out 2 years ago with purchase of gifts, wrapping and collection of gifts from pledgors. When Ros asked me again this year, I am more than willing to assist, since I couldn't gather as much funds as Lilian or the other MMB members and this is the only way I could assist. We have some volunteers but we may need more. This year, it is not restricted to MMB members. We welcome all volunteers.

But more importantly, we need more contributors for the presents for the mothers.

I will cut and paste the details from Ros' Blog

"Mothering Mother 2007"

How you can contribute?

1. Gifts
As much as we love to have each contributor to put their own personal choice/touch to the gifts, we are aware of certain matters regarding sensitivities related to religion, belief or taboos. Breakable items and perishable food are also not suitable. So we have come up with the following list of gifts:

"Mothering Mother 2005"

Non-perishable food/beverage
Toiletries
Journal / Diary (better the one without rigid dates daily)
Photo album
Framed painting /pictures of landscapes, beautiful moments, etc
Mini cushions (for hugs)
Mini fancy containers / boxes
Small elec. appliances
Comfy slippers or socks
As for others: mini card + dry fragrant flower, scarves, aromatherapy candles, magnetic decorative item and sarong can be put as side gifts if contributors like.

We tried not to have cash last time, but we receive it on the basis that some volunteers did the buying and packaging.

For those who interested to contribute in cash, you can make your number of pledges in numerical order in the comment box below and pay the money to the account the a.c. number as follows:

RHB Bank a.c. number : 2140-71000-98939
(and please leave a comment to let us know how much each of you have banked in on which day and we will email you with an email address for the printscreen, if any).

Packaging

Normal shoe-box size, but not so rigid - size should not be too big or small as we don't want people to think we do double standard. Not necessarily in shoe boxes, some mothers came with nice paper bags etc depends on their creativity. Make sure they are properly wrapped or tied for easy transportation. We agreed that the price per gift should be under RM20.

2. Be in the hospital
Due to some reasons, the event will be held on Saturday a day before Mother's Day 2009. More info as follows:

Venue: Menara Timur, UMMC

Date: May 9th, 2009

Time: 9.30 am to 12 pm

3. Picking up or dropping off

Volunteers to do picking up or offer a place for dropping off. Keep the pledges coming in and pass the words. Feel free to ask any question.

Please take note each gift will be RM20, so it is up to you how many gifts you want to contribute.

Current Number of pledges:
1. Mama23beas: 5
2. Moo Mommy: 10
3. Lavender: 3
4. Geok Hong: 2
5. sofhib: 5
6. Eydd: 10
7. Charine: 5
8. Christene : 5
9. Chanel :5
10. Lyza: 5 (at least)
11. Eida: 5
12. hui-wearn: 5
*updated*
13. Misha Paris's Mum - 5
14. Jacss - 5
15. Amy - 5
16. Jessytai - 2
17. Eve - 2
18. Anggie - 3
19. Michele Soo - 3
20. Elaine - 5
21. Hijackqueen - 2
updates :
22. Pek Imm - 3
23. WCP - 2
24. NST - 2.5
25. Sqkiki - 2
26. Javapot - 6
*update*
27. Lilian - 5
28. Annieq - 3
29. Adrine -5
30. Wai Han - 1
31. Redbabe - 1
32. Eva Razali, Delliah, Liza Masrina and Ninuk – 10
Update*
33. Sheryl Hen – 3
34. JO-N : 5
35. Vedis – 2
36. Pohling – 2
*update*
37. Shamira - 5
38. Zainab - 4
39. Inbha - 3
40. Salmiah - 1
41. Suzana - 1
42. Nalini - 1
43. Alina Grace - 3
44. Suzette - 2
*update*
45. chinnee - 3
46. Arthur chu - 5
47. GiddyTigerS - 5
48. 5xmom - 5 pledges
49. Elaine Lai - 3 pledges
50. Janice Loke - 2.5 pledges
51. Karen Yiaw - 5
52. motherly journal - 2
53. Kerry - 3
54. LJW - 5

total : 208 (and Big Pumpkin - contribution for petrol)

Thanks to Lildanzell and MyLovelyA for contributing 60 foldable recycled bags (Linda Linda Envirosave Eva bags) as carriers of gifts. We have decided that instead of using it as carriers for gifts, we will add them to some of the gifts to make it more substantial and the balance will be split between volunteers to be dished out for particularly deserving mothers as an extra item during visits.

Keep the pledges coming in.

note : As you pledge your gifts, write down in the comment box below in numerical order and we will update accordingly time and again)

Drop-off points
Thanks to Lily of UmmikuSayang and Vivian of Fabulous Mom :

1. AlimKids Bookstore, 6-1 USJ 9/5Q, Subang Business Centre, 47600 UEP Subang Jaya.

2.Fabulous Mom Sdn Bhd, 2A, Jalan TK2/1C, Taman Kinrara, Seksyen 2
47100 Puchong, Selangor, Malaysia (First floor, corner unit, above Shanghai Coffee Shop) Tel: 03-80765262,Fax: 03-80765562
Email: info@fabulousmom.com

3. Kota Kemuning, Shah Alam - email Elaine at dragonmummy@gmail.com for instructions

Ros is waiting for confirmation from 2 more drop-off points, and will update it here.

Volunteers at UMMC (limited to 12)
1. Mama23beas
2. Sofhib
3. Geok Hong
4. Shamira
5. Eydd
6. Christene
*updated*
7. Elaine (Montessorimum)
7. Wai Han
8. Redbabe
9. Yan nie

Please confirm your participation with Ros. Due to the hospital regulation, there is a limit of 12 participants in the visit. Those who are coming can bring their gifts on D-Day, but we need the number of pledges so that we can plan better. For example which wards to go if we have extra or what to do if we have less, number of trolleys that we need etc.

Please also check Chanel's blog for any additional updates.

Each pledge is for a gift of RM20. To quote Ros, "Keep those pledges coming in".

Each additional pleadge will brighten up an otherwise dreary day of one more preoccupied harried exhausted mother of a terminally ill child.

So, in the name of mothering mothers, LET US TAKE OFF FROM HERE !!!

a simple Tea Party Bento

2009-03-18T22:40:00.007+08:00

This is a quick post.

I find it easier to post bento meals that are more recent so will post this first. The outstanding ones that need some recollection on what food goes underneath which food, I will post as and when time permits and slot them in between recent posts instead.

This is a bento for Kimberly's school tea party. It is a tea party organised by their English teacher following the class' subject topic on the Mad Hatter's Tea Party in their textbook.

Each time the kids have a party, my contribution of either trays of jellies or skewered weiners cum grapes cum fishballs cum tomatoes would came back half full.

I thought this time I make a smaller portion of food, since the kids always have to much leftovers.

Wise choice, cos this time, Kimberly's containers came back wiped out.

As usual, when I have unplanned bento meals to pack, I fall back on the tried and true and famiiar items.

so, this was her tea party bento.

The top tray has kamaboko-s stuffed with raw carrots and raw zucchini, some furikake riceballs, heart shaped weiners and nuggets to fill the gaps so that the food won't jiggle around in her schoolbag on her transport from home to school. Added some swirly kamaboko around for colours.

The 2nd tray has some rice cubes, some with sakura denbu on top, and larger heart weiners cos this is one with cheese, since Kimberly likes her weiners with cheese in them.

Added some strawberries and halved mini pears and halved mini plums wherever I could to fill the gaps. Also slide in nuggets wherever I could to pack the food tightly to avoid the food moving around.

I got away with cheese faces on top of the nuggets. Although Kimberly doesn't like "icky melting cheese" as she calls it, on top of sliced oranges or apples or other fruits, she doesn't mind them on top of savouries. And since cheese on nuggets is okay with her, I figured whichever kid chanced upon her tray won't mind them either.

I was glad that both trays came home empty.

I did say this is a quick post, didn't I? *grin*

So, have a great day today, folks, and happy bentou-ing !

Calling all diaper addicts Part III

2009-03-13T22:40:00.005+08:00

Following the earlier post, some girls have been dropping by my place for more dipes and these are all I have now. All the goodmamas are sold, most PUL sold, most L sold. Only left these and woolies. My apology for not being able to post them earlier cos those buyers were actually here to pick up those posted ones but saw the others on chance and took them.

These are for those who ask to post first so they can have a look before I get around to checking the price. So here goes.

swaddlebees organic fitted Large size in pink velour

bumgenius fitted with velcro size large

newborn bib in minky cow print. It's reversible with cow boy print on the other side in cotton. (sold)

Dream eze fitted with snaps in size XL. Lavendar.

Ruffled wool skirtie with pant bottom in sunrise. Custom knitted from USA. The yarns are purewool and are in 4 ply, that's about as premium as you can get. The person who made those longies had to get them dyed specially from a very good yarn maker in USA. This is size 3T, but I guess could fit a 2T toddler. Brand new.

The real colour.

Just to show you guys the pants underneath.

Minky blueberries in dalmation print. One size. (sold) Cyan (sold) Camo Pink (sold)

Found this. I had wondered where they got to. It's an M size trainer pants by Blueberries. (sold)

organic fitted Loveybum in XL with snaps.

newborn bibs in cotton camo print.

It's reversible with minky pink on the other side. It's a strong shade of pink. Like the swaddlebees fitted pink colour above. This was captured at night, when I couldn't get a good light.

Happy Heinys fitted bamboo with snaps. Size L

Baby Beehind bamboo fitted with snaps in pink. I was told by Brenda of Babysashanmom that this is a discontinued colour and that there are no more pinks. (sold)

Wool longies custom made by the same knitter, wool as before, 4-ply wool from the famous yarn maker. Brand new.

This is knitted to fit a 4T. But since AShley was toilet trained at around age 1 1/2, she is not likely to need this at all.

Close up

This is knitted to fit a 3T to 4T, its longer than Llamajama 3T. Will need to check measurement for those interested. Also 4ply from same yarn maker and custom knitted by the same online store owner.

Close up.

Wool skirtie by Sweet Seats.

Close up.

Wool skirtie by Babysoftlandings. This one has pants underneath to keep baby's bum clean from the occaasional bums on the floor.

Close up.

Llamajama in 3T.

Just Ducky fitted size XL with velcro and minky inner. (sold)

Wonder works PUL one size with snaps. (sold)

Will add more later when time permit. And add the prices later and hopefully when I get home.

Those who wanted the details earlier can just leave a comment for me to get back to you on individual items, okay?

Have a great cloth diapering journey, guys ! And have a great day today !

Forest Animals Bento

2009-03-04T09:39:00.013+08:00

Bento #120

I have a little time today so, feeling guilthy, I thought I catch up on some bento posts. Haha!

Ernestly, I have since given up on figuring out which bento is which, having the lack of time to post bento posts in the recent weeks due to sudden avalanche of workload.

Bento meals were packed everyday, cos kids got to eat, (to quote a fellow blogger who also seems to slow down in bento posts in recent months. haha) but sometimes some of my packed bento meals are not taken pictures of for the want of time. Not all are kyaraben anyhow *grin*, cos there are days when I am not spared an extra 10 minutes. The last month has been nothing but hectic !

This here was Ashley's Forest Animal Bento.

It's all protein food and fruits.

I have been packing nothing but protein food for her lately. She ate rice in school but sometimes doesn't like the side dishes that they serve. So her packed meals are accompaniment to her lunch. Whatever she didn't finish for lunch, the teachers will bring it out again during tea time for her.

So, having a little time after fixing Kimberly's bento, I thought I top up Ashley's bento with some cheese figures.

Using cheese is way easier than cooking eggwhites or boiling kamaboko for the cutting out faces and shapes. Using cheese is just one-step. It's only a matter of taking out the cheese slices from the fridge and cut.

Using kamaboko and egg whites? Two to three steps, cos I need to either slice the kamaboko, or seperate the egg whites from the egg yolks, then cook, then cut. It takes a whole lot more time.

And it's no secret that Kimberly had warned me that she finds melting cheese all over her fruits icky, so I will not even attempt that over fruits, sliced up or otherwise. p.s. She loves cheese, but only on bread or ham or likewise savoury food, just not on top of slices of oranges or strawberries or melting on top of sweet stuff.

But since Ashley's bento meal has fishcakes on it, I thought I could get away with sitting cheese on top of them.

Hence, Ashley's Forest Animal Bento.

I thought I do some possums and bunnies.

Okay, they may not look like possums without circles under their eyebags but humor me, okay? *grin*

Ashley's bento has deep fried kampung chicken pieces at the bottom.

In most of my kids' bento meals, my nuggets are usually kampung chicken deep fried in nugget size or bite size, or fresh fish like kurau or cod cut up into even sizes and fried coated with batter.

I try not to buy processed food for my kids, save for spams and weiners, of which I try to get good ones from deli-s.

Being quite picky about my kids' food, my kids has also been having home made juice and home baked bread as long as they can remember.

Anyhow, I divide the chicken pieces with slices of zucchini, which Ashley likes.

On the other side of the zucchini wall, I slot some fishcakes slices for Ashley, cut into teddy bear figures. On the left are some carrot sticks, raw, since she is into raw carrots nowadays.

Filled the gaps with sliced up pears and some strawberries. As usual, and as with the traditional bento box meals, my kids' bento meals need to be tightly packed to withstand jiggling in the schoolbag during the kids' transport from home to school.

Those pink kamaboko flowers are from my pre-cut frozen stash. All I had to do was heat them up.

The thing about kyaraben and oakakiben bento, for the faces and shapes on top of the food,you can't figure out what food goes underneath them.

I find that I need to spend some time trying to remember what goes on underneath those faces and shapes. It's much faster posting more recent bento meals. So, I probably will just post whichever seems easier and faster in the latter posts. Haha!

So, happy bentou-ing guys !! My apology for the long absence in bento posts. Will try to make it up soon.

Have a great weekend ahead !

Calling all diaper addicts Part II

2009-03-02T18:07:00.025+08:00

Following the earlier post on diapers, I have such overwhelming response that some girls has been arranging to meet out and asking to see the remaining diapers that I haven't posted up.

In the premise, out of Ashley's balance diapers of about 120, about 90 has been sold and there is scant little left. So this will probably be the 2nd last post, the last would probably be accessories and other items that is not so popular with Malaysian cloth addicts, like wool skirts or wool knitted pants, boosters, pre folds etc.

These here below are mostly in size Large.

1. This is tots bots original in yellow. Selling at RM48.90. Sold.

2. Thirsty pink fitted in velco. RM41.30.

3. Swaddlebees blue PUL in velcro. RM52.50 - sold

4. Swaddlebees organic cotton velour fitted in pale peach. RM66.75 - sold

5. Happy Heinys cow print size Large. PUL with velcro. Comes with insert. RM61.60. Sold.

6. P'tite Desous fitted pink in bamboo from www.babykind.co.uk. RM78.40. sold.

7. Fitted bamboo Ptite Desous in blue. RM78.40. (sold)

8. Fuzibuns pink florals PUL medium with snaps. This was reserved for a fellow blogger last year but I couldn't find them. Now it turned up. There is also size Large in the same print. RM53.20. Medium sold. Large sold. (sold)

9. Tot Bots orange fitted diaper in velcro at RM48.90. Sold.

10. Swaddlebees one size organic velour fitted in butter, with snaps,RM72. (sold)

This is how its like on the inner. It's sewn at one end so that the insert will be attached to the diapers for ease of convenience.

11. Mummy Touch in PUL with snaps. Leopard print. one size. There's a better photo here at the below link. RM47.95. Sold.

12. Blueberry minky one size PUL in Tanzanite. RM70. Sold.

13. Liners from Bellabottoms. Pending info from Brenda sold.

14. Liners from Miabambina. 50% off . Sold

15. Boosters from Bellabottoms. Pending info from Brenda. Price longtime forgotten. sold.

16. Boosters from rainbow tots (Tots Bots) brand new. RM10. (sold)

17. Booster topped with fleece. (sold)

There's 4 of these. RM16 each.

These are all used very rarely. If you consider rotation with about 160 others or so, you get the idea. Most are used less than 5 or 10 times cos during Ashley's cloth diapering days, MIL used PUL more than fitted. These are mostly going for 30% off save for new items which shall be 15% off and save for the liners stated at 50%.

There's a few more size Large diapers (maybe about 8 or so) including Baby Beehind in hot pink that I haven't loaded up, and will put that up in the latter post.

Will put up the price as soon as I get this last submission out of the way. I need to file this submission by today. Sorry guys.

Meanwhile, you guys can check online and then let me know which one you are interested in. My humble apology for such inconvenience. But will get to the pricing as soon as possible, hopefully by tonight after kids had gone to bed.

I have some in size XL which Ashley won't be needing so many of cos she would only need them for the occasional road trips for just in case. She has been night trained for the past one year and more and does not use them save for once every few months or so while we are on the road where rest house are too far in between, so will be posting some XL together with inserts and wools later.

Check out this link for unsold items too.

Have a great cloth diapering journey guys !!

p.s. Edit this to add prefold for the benefit of a few who like to view them. Will get to the details later and move them up to a new post later.

pink and purple sherpa prefold medium size. 4 of these in each colour. (3 each sold. one in each colour left)

butternut, pink n lavendar sherpa newborn size. (lavendar sold) (pink and butternut reserved 3 days)

robin egg and tangerine sherpa prefolds XL size.

P.P.S. Will load the rest when I manage to find them later.

Flowers Overloaded Bentos

2009-02-27T04:15:00.007+08:00

This is one of Kimberly's bento from last month. I have since given up trying to figure out which one is for which day, so I will just go in chronological order instead. Fortunately laptops has those auto named function for folders so I can just go by "New Folder 6".... "New Folder 7" consecutively. *grin*

This is Kimberly's bento.

Bento #118

It's rice balls secured with yellow and orange lunchsheets strips and topped with turkey spam.

Those red flowers are the red filament off the crab sticks cut outs. I topped them on top of the spam for contrast.

The red flowers were done the night before when I added crab sticks to stir fry vegetables.

I secured each spam topped rice ball with a foodpick so that the food stay in its place.

Since Kimberly likes lettuce, I lined the bento box with lettuce and opt for simplicity instead of cluttering the box with sliced zucchinis or other fruits.

I am actually suprised to learn that more kids than less don't really like lettuce. Most of my friends' kids do, and for the longest time ever, I am so used to seeing children nibbling on raw carrot sticks or steamed asparagus for snacks (as with both my kids when they were toddlers). Whenever we dined out, Kimberly and Ashley would pull the lettuce that lined the chicken or pork dishes out from the chicken/pork pieces and nibbles on them.

However, those with kids who don't touch lettuces or green, fret not, I rather think it is because kids are alos creatures of habit. There was a time when I did not introduce lettuce into their daily meals and for a time, they did not take to lettuces. But fortunately, after re-introducing greens back into their daily meals, they are now back to greens again. You may want to start with raw crunchy vege instead of cooked or steamed ones cos most kids like to crunch.

Anyhow, this here below is hubby's bento.

Bento #119

Hubby is not one for bento but he would obliged if I fix him one for breakfast. He would say "no" to a lunch bento, though. He rather eat out with his cronies.

Hubby's staff actually phoned me to exclaim over this one, haha, because I normally don't do ornamental touches for hubby. This is normal for us bento-er but non-bentoers are usually fascinated by those little details. haha. That goes to speed bento packers like hubby's staffs too, who also pack bento meals most days for their lunch.

Anyhow, hubby's bento is fried mee hoon with spams. The little green leaves are zucchinis. That's a boil egg in the divider container.

In the other divided container, there's 2 slices of oranges, 3 slices of apples and 2strawberries.

Over on the far left, that's 4 steamed shiu mai for added protein. They were supposed to be for Ashley's lunchbox but I have decided to give Ashley some soy braised kampung chicken for school instead.

Ashley's lunchbox nowadays are just protein food (seafood or poultry) packed in lettuce so I dont think it qualify as a bento, and did not take pictures of those.

For Ashley's breaktime food, I packed these for her.

It's also..*grin* what else? spam ! Yea, spam for the whole family that day.

Ashley has star shaped moulded rice on the bottom, star shaped spam in the middle and pink and white kamaboko , cut out .yea..haha..in star shaped to top them off.

I didn't put a foodpick over hers to secure them cos the food hit the roof of the bento box when I strapped it up. So I know they won't be jiggling about.

I didn't have time to take picture of Ashley's packed bento meal though, cos I had need to go to court for a decision and I was already late. And hubby was already out of the door with AShley in his arms. He took Ashley to kindy that day.

So hope this long post made up for the long absence *grin*.

I should be free of heavy datelines 2 or 3 weeks later and hopefully, can post more bento posts by then, and/or hopefully, can revert back to my earlier daily posting by then. Haha.

Ena and those waiting for CD posts,I will be uploading them at the next post. My apology for the delay.

So, Happy Bentou-ing ! And to those who cloth diaper their babies, Happy CD-ing too !!

Have a great week ahead !

Flower-Power Car Bento

2009-02-25T11:45:00.005+08:00

I saw a pretty floral car a long time ago and knew that Kimberly would love it. I can't exactly remember how it looks like, but a vague image would be a car with flower scattered all over it. So I attempted to create one for Kimberly.

So Bento #117 is a Flower Power Car Bento.

It's a cheese sandwich at the bottom. And since it's home made bread, I sliced them thick to fit the height of the bento box.

Added 2 floral ham at the wheels position for Kimberly so she have more protein.

The yellow base is made of egg. I whisked some salt and pepper into them and dunked them in the microwave oven. Those white wheels are made of the white part in the hard boiled egg. The rest of the hard boiled egg goes to my breakfast. Good thing this time one egg makes 2 wheels. This is a larger egg. Most times it's 2 eggs for 2 wheels. *grin*. Most bento leftovers are my breakfast, and I guess this is the norm for most bento-ing moms.

That's a cut out quarter from a circle of ham tucked underneath the car's white windows.

Those red flowers are made from the red parts in crab sticks. It would be prettier to use pink but those kamaboko comes by in RM9.90 for only that little bit of pink at the top portion of the kamaboko. So it doesn't make sense to use them so often. For those who doesn't have access to pink topped kamaboko, you can dab a minute speck of pink or red into egg whites instead of using kamaboko.

The red flowers were pre-cut from previous bento packing when I had leftovers crab sticks, and stash frozen in the deep freezer. I took them out thinking I could use these instead of my pre-cut pink kamaboko flowers.

Packed them into this transparent Tomica Bento box that I got from NST. Not clearly seen from the above pic, yea?

This is an easy peasy bento, isn't it? So, let's power up, Bento mommas!!!

Now who was that who says girls don't get car bento? *ducking from bento boxes thrown*. Haha!

This car bento could be made prettier if you use a larger bento box and added some greens or some lettuce at the side to divide them from the fruits, and add some red based (tomatoes, strawberries, water apples) or orange base fruits (kumquats, carrots, yellow cherry tomatoes) for side dish and for colours.

But because I wanted to spend some girl-time with Kimberly when she get back that Friday, and take her out for lunch, I didn't pack a big bento meal for her. I know that I have been neglecting her for Ashley who needed more attention from me, and Friday is the only time I could make it up for her.

I am just going to get those after trials submissions out of the way first, so, will try to load more bento meals next post.

Have a great day today, guys,and happy bentou-ing !!

busy weeks !

2009-02-18T15:46:00.005+08:00

Hey there, I was asked why there isn't any updates on my blog recently. My apology. I should have put up a notice here. I have had some trials, hearings and close datelines lined up all at once over the last few weeks and these past few weeks have been crazy ! What with the kid's exam coming up. But will get back to posting after the 24th where datelines leaves more breathing space.

Have a great week ahead, guys ! And happy bentou-ing !

Flower Girl Bento

2009-02-07T09:33:00.004+08:00

With so many outstanding bento posts, I have lost track of which bento is which day. So I shall just go by the week. Haha. This is one of last week's bento.

Kimberly likes the little flowers in the bento so much that I did this over and over again for her through the next week. So you will probably be overwhelmed by little flowers in the forthcoming posts.

As usual, speed is of issue. Even in kyaraben bentos.

Since I have always wanted sprinkle my bento with little flowers, I had those little flowers cut out and stashed in the freezer for when I need them quite sometime ago. I know Kimberly would absolutely love them. Each morning, I forgot to make use of them. And when I do remember to , I can't find them in the huge deep freezer. So when I found them again, together with my frozen stash egg sheets, I store them in the freezer in the refrigerator instead of the deep freezer for easy access.

So Bento #116 is peanut butter sandwiches with kamaboko flowers. I filled the gaps with grapes and heart shaped weiners.

The peanut butter sandwiches were cut out from a kaiser circle cutter.

On top of the peanut butter sandwiches, I lay a slice of cheese so that the Flower Girl can stay in place.

I made use of CP's cutters used below used on the bento below to make a cheese face.

Kimberly did the hair on the girl *grin*. She calls it "Flower Girl".

Instead of the cutter's regular hair shape and cloud-bunches ponytails, she had wanted to give the girl a flower tiara.

The flower tiara doesn't work cos the cutter was too big. So we added bunches of flowers at her nape to even out the space and hope that it could pass off as her hair. Kimberly was a tad clumsy with the tweezer and I helped position them back into place.

BTW, if you didn't know already, the flower hair were made out of CP's orange lunchsheets. Even with the kamaboko flowers ready made, I found that I took a good 20 minutes with this bento too, because I had needed to cut out the flowers from lunchsheets and place the flowers carefully on the face with a tweezer. That took time !!

That cutting out of little cheese heart to adorn the heart weiner took a little time too.

To keep the little pieces of floral hair in its place, I dab some mayonaise on them and also cut out a mini square shaped food grade plastic to lay it on top of the Flower Girl.

I tested it by taking the mini clear plastic sheet off again to see if the flowers still sticks to the girl. Satisfied that it, I strap the bento box up.

As bento-ers are aware, with the Halloween, there will be an onslaught of halloween themed bentos from Japanese bento bloggers, and with Christmas, snowman and Santa themed bentos. Now that the moo cow craze is over, I see some Japanese sites featuring Valentine bento contests with bento meals complete with a loving couple (a girl and a boy, Mickey and Minnie, you name it) and lots of hearts. Now let's see if I can up myself to get into the spirit of things by fixing a Valentine bento as well.

Anyhow, that wrapped up last week's bento. Now for this week's bento. I am far from catching up, aren't I? *grin*

Have a great day today, guys, and Happy Bentou-ing !!

P.S. Edited to add this picture.

Milly asked me which cutter I used for the girl's hair. It's a cookie cutter. It's an old one. I probably got it from one of the cake supplier store in town.

It's the white one at the bottom far right.

It's the same as the one I used for the green flowers in the Tulip Bento below.

Hope that helps.

Tomica Car Bento

2009-02-05T07:31:00.022+08:00

I have some time today after lunch and thought I post a quick one today. This is one of last week's bento.

I probably did this bento in about ten minutes in total, excluding the time I left kitchen to tend to other things. These speed bento works for me when I don't have time to spare, as with most of my bento meals of last year.

As some of you may know, last year (and the year before last) was a hectic year for me cos I was maidless since Atin left. To top it, Ashley as a younger baby was clingy throughout the wee hours in the morning cos she has eczema and wants to be nursed for comfort all the time.

I can rightly guess that most bento moms around here, as with myself, have learned a lot of ideas from those Japanese bento moms, but no time to implement them. For me, it could meant that the bento box may not get to school in time with Kimberly.

On that note, kudos to bento moms who took so much time to plan their bento and to go through such tedious intricate details. It's admirable. But I guess at 6am in the morning, sometimes I have other priority than kyaraben bentos. Plus, if you need to go to court that morning itself (or perhaps for some moms, a meeting or a presentation?), you probably rather run through the the issues and the facts on hand in your head rather than which size nori puncher for eyes and nose goes better than which size teddy bear cutter..*grin* I know I did.

Definitely, there are certain days where speed bento works better for me. I like kyaraben but on the practical side, I prefer to look out for pretty effects in the shortest time span possible i.e cutters rather than the intricate time consuming ones.

Cutters and punchers are the fastest tools that I know of *grin*. It sure beat tracing back the picture in the wax paper onto the cheese and then cutting out the picture meticulously with a toothpick, like this tutorial by this famous Japanese bento-er here . Lots of bento moms in Japan follows her ideas diligently. You would probably see her ideas popping up at every other Japanese bento blogs *grin* .

By the way, that tutorial link is also the link that you wanted for the bat, Brenda . Hope you find it useful !

I probably won't attempt this "wax paper trace on cheese with toothpick to cut" method unless I am free, especially since time expanded in fixing bento meals usually includes retrieving the right size tools from the drawers. But for those who doesn't mind the time, this is a good site to learn from.

And no, I am not going to wake up earlier than 6am, thank you. Ha ha.!

However, I will still do kyaraben when I can afford the time for it. Since my little girl took such delights in little girls and flowers and everything pink.

So, Bento #115 is simply prawn fritters (the last of the lot in my deep freezer, carrot stuffed kamaboko and apples.

As with most of my speed bento, I had needed to multi-task (ie run in and out of the kitchen to check). Someone I met at One Utama who read my blog (sorry I didn't catch your name, dear) asked me how I make it in time with getting to work and getting the kids ready for school particularly last year in my maidless days since I also need to clean up the kitchen.

I'll run through what I did with this bento on how I cover the shortest time possible for myself instead, okay?

Hope that will help !

With this bento box, after getting myself ready with all my files and stuff readily stowed away in the car, together with Ashley's school stuff, I put those frozen prawns in the fryer. Those were ready coated before frozen by MIL. Then I dumped the kamaboko in the pot over the stove and scoot upstairs to wake Kimberly up and get her ready for school.

I still tend to the kids myself despite having a maid now. Feeding, bathing, cooking, dressing etc. Most maids nowadays aren't reliable. With mine, something is bound to go wrong or omitted or damaged or not done safely or hygenically. So it's way faster and safer to tend to those things myself.

After dressing and tying Kimberly's hair, I went back down the kitchen to dish out the prawns fritters from the fryer and the kamaboko from the stove. Took out a carrot and cut it into strips and stuffed them inside the kamaboko, raw. If you like, you could heat it up in the microwave with a bowl of water and it would soften somewhat.

Then I took out a whole apple, cut two thick slices out and press out car shapes with the Tomica cutter. Stuff everything into the bento box. Easy Peasy.

These Japanese are so smart. They can come up with such convenient tools for creating visual delights in mere seconds. And those Japanese bento moms are so creative! Some of them even post tutorials on how to cut out cute characters, complete with pictures of the specific cutters and punchers they used, or suggest alternative tools like using straws instead of cutters, toothpicks instead of knife, tweezers instead of fingers. Unfortunately I don't have time to surf the net often, although I very much like to.

Well..haha...so much for a quick post....yea yea...I know... as usual, my short post tend to go on and on. haha !

Okay, pen off now. Have a great day today, guys, and happy bentou-ing !!!!

Tulip Bento

2009-02-04T21:44:00.012+08:00

Bento #114

This is probably the last bento that I made before CNY, cos I can't locate any others in my laptop * sheepish grin* save for those I made after CNY.

So will post this first.

This is a speed bento.

I cooked the baked egg in the oven. It's really simple and quick. Just beat up an egg or two with salt and pepper and place them in a ceramic bowl and bake till cooked through. If you intended it to go with bread instead of rice, you may want to add some cheese or cream in them.

This was Kimberly's bento for Friday. Ashley stays in daycare till 4pm or 6pm most days but Kimberly is back by 12.30 on Fridays, as Fridays are half days. I went home to wait for her, picked her up and brought her to work with me. She ate this on the way in the car, as with most Fridays when she has to go in with me.

If you are wondering if Ashley is missing out, actually, she is missing out on regular bento, since her teachers wanted her to be part of the lunch crowd. They also mentioned that they wanted to avoid the teeny weeny little ones (Ashley is in a class of 3 to 4 years old kids) feeling dissapointed that they didn't get the same bento meal as her. I totally understand, cos I would be sad too if my kid wanted something that her mom doesn't have a clue about what the child is trying to tell her.

However, I do try to pack a bento meal for her every now and then, to remind her that her mom is thinking of her while she is spending those long hours in daycare. To be honest, my heart often feels a pinch whenever I am reminded of my 3 year old having to stay back in daycare while the other little ones gets to go home. That's why I often try to pick her up by 4pm and then set my alarm at 3am to finish up the workload.

I also try to make sure that Ashley isn't missing out on her nutrient and try to make it up by packing her to school with a protein food or two to go with her lunch.

It's usually a dual combo mix of either mincemeat balls, chicken chops fried with breadcrumbs, braised drumlets, honey & soy steamed chicken drumstick, carrot stuffed kamaboko, fishball, or whichever protein food I happened to pack for Kimberly on that day.

Anyhow, will stop digressing now.

Kimberly's bento is a simple lunch of rice, spam and egg.

I lined the bento box with vegetables first, in this case, lettuce. Then I pack the rice in.

Topped the rice with a slice of spam cut out in equal size to the bento box. As you may have noticed from my old posts, I usually use the bento box itself to cut out spam or bread to fit the box. But in this case, the lettuce took out some space so I used the circle cutter to trim down the sides to get the spam to fit.

Then I got the baked egg in.

To get the baked egg in , I turned the ceramic bowl that the egg is baked in, upside down over the bento box and stuff it to fit the bento.

Ashley has the same lettuce, spam and omelette as Kimberly, but minus the rice, packed to school with her so that she can have them to go with her lunch.

There is an uneven patch over the middle of the baked egg, so I cut a circle out of the egg lunch sheet I got from CP to cover it.

The Japanese moms advise that you should beat the egg and then strain it to achieve a smooth finish, but I only have ever done that for the Hatching Chicks Bento and the Field Trip Bento.

I thought that with the tulips covering the top, the eggs needn't be that smooth. Besides I haven't got the time.

So the baked egg were topped with tulips. Thats a spam tulip and a red pepper tulip. I sprinkle the gaps with some flowers cut out from the spinach lunch sheets.

I did warn you to expect liberal use of lunchsheets in forthcoming bento-s. Haha.

Anyhow, seeing that CP warned me that there may not be forthcoming orders of lunchsheet coming in, I had dump the last packet of lunch sheet in the freezer to preserve it longer.

Sigh.. I have found them so useful and would love it if CP would bring in more later. Those who purchase more than one lunchsheet packet from CP may want to consider doing the same, preserving them in the freezer till needed, cos you probably would have to sparing with them to make them last till she manage to get some more in.

The red pepper tulip atop the egg was cut out the day before when I cooked stir fry red pepper, tomatoes and brocolli for dinner the night before. I had left them in a lock and lock intending to use them the next day for bento. These little preparations can sure speed up a bento.

To pacify our Queen , haha, who complained about me not having tutorials, I posted here below tools I used for this bento instead.

I used that Kaiser circle cutter to cut out Ashley's egg into neat circles (since Ashley usually spend some time examining her bento box before eating) and to trim down the spam to fit the box. The green stems of the tulips were cut with the crown cutter. I laid a slice of cheese between the tulip and the stem so that the stems would stay in place. The small round cutters is to accentuate the spam's petals.

Hope that helps you guys too.

So that's Kimberly's bento rounding up bento posts from the week before last.

Now if I can just get out last weeks' bento posts, I will be well on the way to regularising my posts. Haha.

Wanted to post a few more bento meals together but this post is already too long, since I digress so much.

So, have a great day today, guys, and happy bentou-ing !!!

How-now-brown-cow Bento

2009-02-03T11:07:00.005+08:00

Bento #113

I don't know if you guys are tired of cow bento. I know I am *grin*. Every Jap moms' blog I surfed the last few weeks has been nothing but cow bento-s. And they all look similar in one way or another. After all, a cow is a cow. Haha. I promise this will be the last cow bento for awhile Haha.

I think this was the bento made the Monday before Chinese New Year. My memory failed me, since I am all but 2 weeks behind in bento posts. haha. Its a moo cow again. A brown one this time.

This was Kimberly's breaktime bento.

It's a chicken sandwich tied up like a present and topped with a cow character.

I cut the cow shape with a round cutter and trim the sides so it doesnt look more like a pig than a cow. Haha. The cutters and puncher for the ears, horn, nozzle and eyes were the same tools as before .

Laid the moo cow on top of a round cheese which in turn is placed on top of the spinach lunchsheet for easy transfer.

Since Chooi Peng warned me that the expiry date for those lunch sheet is coming up, I have been liberal with them with the recent bento meals.

I tied the chicken sandwich with a strip of carrot lunchsheet so it looks like a box of present and bind those "ribbons" with mayonaise.

That green flower is also made out of spinach lunchsheet. I wasn't sure if Kimberly would be eating them but I thought I pretty it up for her anyhow.

Kimberly has not been eating much fruits over the last few days, so I thought I fill the rest of the box with fruits. But I have only green grapes and purple grapes left. Fill that in and hoped that it would do. I didn't want to stock up the fridge cos we would be spending a lot of time at FIL's over CNY. Kimberly ate all the purples and left all the greens.

And she ignored the spinach lunchsheet flower as well. haha. She opened it though. Probably just out of curiosity, cos I didn't stop to check on her after I left her bento box with her. I had needed to go to her school's registry to top up the money in her smart card, pay for her rythmic gymnastic and then run to work in time cos a client is coming to go through some witness statements.

So that's slowly catching up on bento posts. Will try to post as much as possible over the next few days to regularise the posts.

Have a great day today, all !! And happy bentou-ing !!!

Hatching Chick Bento

2009-01-21T11:41:00.013+08:00

Bento #112

This was last Thursday's bento. There isn't any bento meals on Wednesday because I was late for court. I had to go in office to get some stuff so had to leave the house really early and left the kids to hubby's "good hand". They both made it to school ..haha..it was a relief to know. Besides, Kimberly would be having pizza from her school's lunch anyway so she is bound not to "starve".

Kimberly didn't get a bento Thursday because she requested to buy from the canteen like her friends does.

So, this is Ashley's bento.

Because I know that she hasn't been having much protein in school lately, I thought I top it up with some of her favourite prawn fritters for her lunch instead. They would be having fried rice, which Ashley doesn't fancy, so I gave her some white rice for lunch.

I topped the white rice with a hatching chick for her viewing pleasure. Haha.

The hatching chick is really quite simple to make. Just segregate the white and the yellow from an egg and put both in seperate ceramic bowl and dunked it in the microwave or the steamer till its just cooked. Then cut. haha.

Ever since I set eyes on this cutters that I got from CP, I knew that I wanted to do a hatching chick bento.

Isn't this cutter just the perfect shape for egg shell?

It even come with an instructions book on how to make faces !! Kimberly would have love these little girl faces !!

The cutter didn't offer the inner shape for the egg yolk, so I use a cicle cutter and trim it down the sides to fit the eggshell.

CP's cutter has this puffy little cloud shape too, which I just love, hence I fix Ashley one little Ms cloud to accompany Little Chick.

Oh yea, be mindful not too overcook the eggs, else it will curl up like Ms Cloud's tail ends over there. If you use a smaller bowl, you get a nice thick egg white, but I hadn't wanted to dig out the small bowl since the larger one was within reach. The egg white didn't turn out nice and thick, but long and thin. I had to top them up double instead.

I sat them both on cut out pieces of lunch sheet for easy transfer and to distinguish the whites from the rice.

As usual, I topped the bento meal with cut out carrots, since both my kids are those for carrots. Instead of scattering my usual teddy bear carrots on top, it's little bunny carrots this time. The teddy bear cutter was the only cutter I have small enough for carrots *grin* till bunny cutter came along. Got those bunny cutters from 100yen shop a few weeks back. Man, I was happy when Chooi Peng told me about them. Grab one for myself and one for CP and just as well too, cos they were all sold out like the next 2 days itself.

Once you get into bentou-ing, you have an idea of what kind of food you can fit into the shape you that wanted to create on your bento meal,and it keeps getting easier and faster. If you check those Japanese mom's blogs, its always the same stuff, ie, egg for anything yellow or white, (unless you colour them), vegetables for any trees or plant creations, quail eggs or any round food for characters. After awhile, you catch on and you get to know what you can create out of a character or an object. The ideas are more or less the same. The only modification is that you suit your pantry and the stuff you have in your fridge to fit into them. Sounds simple, yea? *grin* It is, truly. Haha. Hope this will get you guys on the track to kyaraben bento every once in awhile. It really is only another 5 or 10 minute's extension of your time.

Happy bentou-ing guys !! And have a great week ahead !!

Moo Cow Bento 2

2009-01-20T14:27:00.010+08:00

Bento #111

Well, I did warn you about an onslaught of moo cow bento-s!

Not happy with the earlier moo cow, I did another one again soon after. And didn't stop there either *grin*.

This was last Tuesday's bento. There wasn't any bento on Monday cos I woke up late. haha, and of course if I woke up late, everyone is late as well. I am their designated alarm clock around here, besides the designated slave, driver, errant runner and so on, as is with most moms.

I had some time on Tuesday cos I let Kimberly sleep in till 7.30am. Kimberly slept late the night before. I got her dad to send her to school ten minutes before her classes starts at 7.50am. It's only 5 minutes drive from home to school.

So, having a little time, I decide to top the bento box with a hopefully, prettier version of the earlier moo cow.

Kimberly's bento is a thick crust butter sandwich topped with a slice of cheddar cheese and a slice of smoked ham. I had wanted to sit the cow on a thick cut ham but it would take time to take out a can of spam, fry it and cut it, so a deli smoked ham it is then.

The bread is home made, so I slice it the height of the bento box. The thing about home bake bread, you can slice it as thick or as thin as you like. But you can get those thick sliced bread at supermarkets as well.

I added two chicken drumlet on the side for her. Segregated the greasy drumlet from the sandwich with some cherry tomatoes.

Filled the gaps with crab stick stuffed kamaboko (fishcake) and minced meat filled kamaboko so that the sandwich doesn't move around. As usual, the lettuce helps cushion the sandwich and keeps it in its position.

This cow shape is created with the same teddy bear cutter I used earlier, except that I trim it a bit with a sharp knife to make it more rounded at the side and flatter at the top. I have seen a yellow teddy bear cutter at CP's site which is the perfect shape for the cow with some minor trimming, but I dont have that one, so I made do with this existing one that I have and trim it a little bit more.

Instead of lunch sheet, I use cheddar cheese slice this time for its noose and horn. Use a different puncher for its eyes and nostril as well. Jessie had asked for a tutorial. Kawan, as usual, in my haste, I may not have time to take pictures, so will just show you the cutters and punchers I used instead.

I used that small tupperware to cut out the bread, the cheddar cheese and the smoked ham. The blue cutter for the cow, with some trimming, and the yellow cutter for the noose and horns. And that's the puncher for the eyes. Hope that helps.

Have a great day today, guys ! And happy bentou-ing !

Moo Cow Bento 1

2009-01-19T02:55:00.015+08:00

Bento #110

Boy, am I late in updating my posts, haha.

It has been a busy weekend. We spend Saturday sending Kimberly to her various classes, and with the limited few hours we have left, we attempted to get a dishwasher from the Harvey Norman sale. There isn't any washer, so hubby ended up getting an LCD for his dad.

After dropping off the huge box back home, we had to quickly run over to Eu Yan Sang at SS2 to get a hamper for hubby's friend's housewarming party and fortunately, did not turn up too late for the occasion. And it is such a lovely house too.

I also had the occassion to meet a lovely young girl, Yishen (hope I spelt it right), at the housewarming party, who recognised Ashley and Kimberly and told me that she read my blog. It is so flattering to know that you do actually meet people who read your blog. haha. If you are reading this today, it was nice meeting you, dearie.

After the housewarming party, we took another 3 1/2 hour drive back to FIL cos hubby had needed to settle something at the branch office.

We got back here past midnight from FIL's place just now and I have just finished unpacking and getting stuff ready for the kids' schooling tomorrow. Sigh..these few weeks has been hectic. Sometimes, I find myself setting my alarm clock at 3am just to get stuff done.

Since I am still wide awake after getting back from FIL's, I thought I post this up before the little one frets for me in her sleep again.

This was last Wednesday's bento.

This is my first moo-cow attempt. In later posts, you will see that I have tried plenty last week.haha, just bcos moo cows are so adorable! Will post them later when time permit. Sorry for the bento backlog, guys !

It's Kimberly's bento. It's 2 pooh bear moulded rice beneath the moo-cow.

The moo cow is made of cheese (what else? haha) and patches of seaweed over its eyes. Egg sheets made up its horns and its noose.

The eyes and nostrils are seaweed cut free hand. Just simply snip a cicle into half for the eyes and elongated triangles for the nostrils.

The moo cow was supposed to be sitting atop 3 equal size spam slices but Kimberly had strolled into the kitchen and plucked them off the chopping board to eat them without my awareness. So I had to cut out an orange coloured lunch sheet that I bought from CP to sit the moo cow on. haha. I tried a bit of the lunch sheet. It taste slightly salty but not much flavour otherwise.

There are 3 other spam slices on the right hand side beneath the cherries.

I added her favourite fruit of the moment, mandarin oranges, adorn them with more lunch sheet cut outs and slot some grapes to fill in the gaps.

Kimberly ate everything except some lettuce and I kind of suspect she shared some with a classmate. However, I don't mind since I like her to have some space in her tummy later come lunchtime 3 hours later.

Okay, going to hit the sack now.

Hope its not black monday tomorrow ! haha.

Have a great week ahead, guys !!

Sandwich Flower Bento

2009-01-15T13:40:00.007+08:00

Bento #109

This was last Friday's bento. Have some time today so quickly post this up.

This is a pretty quick bento. I think I did this in ten minutes flat, maybe less. hee hee. But you should have seen my hands flying over the sandwich with the cutters.haha.

Good thing the lettuce and cherries were taken out, washed and dried yesterday and left in the fridge for fast removal, and the red pepper cut out and left in a lock and lock.

I peeled the carrot, sliced them and leave them in the steamer while I go wake Kimberly up and dressed her, tied her hair and got her to brush her teeth and wear her shoes.

It's Kimberly's bento, that means her bento box has to be ready by 7am to get to school with her . haha.

It's peanut butter sandwich at the bottom and plain butter sandwich at the top. I top them all off with slices of heart shaped cheese, heart shaped steamed carrots and heart shaped red pepper.

Added red cherries (the last of the lot) at the side and off she go. That was a fast one. ha ha.

I had wanted to add a floral cheese at the centre of everything but she was already late. So all I had time for is just to quickly press the food down to compact it so that it doesn't jiggle around and strap it up. The lettuce helped keeps the position of the sandwich in place.

That was a small portion, as is customary with most of my packed bento meals, but my kids are known for being small eaters. Besides, it works for breaktime. I don't want to fill her up so much that she won't touch her food comes lunchtime 3 hours later.

Kimberly ate everything except some of the red pepper. I think she must have taken a bite or two before deciding she didn't like them and ignored the rest. It is not a familiar item for her so I wasn't suprised.

Will try to post up this week's outstanding bento posts soonest possible.

Have a great day today all. Happy Bentou-ing !!

Goldfish Bento

2009-01-09T11:59:00.011+08:00

Bento #108

I packed bento for Kimberly on Tuesday and Wednesday, but didn't have enough time to take pictures of the one on Tuesday. Couldn't load up Wednesday's bento cos it's in the other laptop left in my office, so this is Thursday's bento.

It's a goldfish bento.

I wanted to do this goldfish thing a long time ago but didn't have the opportunity to fix it. Whenever I am minded to, the quail eggs are either out of stock or they are not sold at the stores I went to. That's also probably why quail eggs chickies are never prominent in my bento posts. Ha ha.

Finally got some quail eggs the other day and decide to fix this bento.

I fried some noodles again my breakfast and hubby's breakfast. I thought Kimberly can try noodle for her bento that day and decided to top the goldfish quail eggs on top of it.

As some of you may have noticed, kyaraben bento is probably just a 5 to 15 minutes extension of a normal bento, depending on how much details you put onto it.

Mostly, all you have to do is fix a character on top of the whole food, or on top of a portion of the bento box; be it ham based, weiner based, kamaboko based, vegetable based, egg based. Whichever food you can make character out of, really !

In this case, it's quail eggs.

Simple, right?

Instead of plain quail eggs and plain round carrots, just use a heart shaped cutter and cut out the fins. Then cut out a similar shape in carrot and replace it over the eggs to make the fin.

Cut another heart from a carrot circle in a bigger size and place it behind the quail eggs for the tails. Secure the fish's tails with foodpicks.

Add nori eyes and hey presto, you got goldfish. It's really fast work if you use a cutter and worth the extra 5 minutes considering the effect it has on my otherwise visually lacking bento.

This is my first attempt, so the sides off the goldfish's fins are kind of thin and stretchy. You may want to place the cutter over a thicker part off egg white instead. I didn't realise that egg whites on the side I cut was that thin.

Kimberly's fried noodle was topped with snap peas bits. Since I ran out of lettuce, I lined the noodles with slices of zucchini.

Kimberly had liked the mandarin oranges that I packed for her the day before, and she asked for it again. I added a slice of cucumber and a Hello Kitty print carrot on top of the orange because I had already done the nori eyes and mouth as ornamental touches on the orange the day before. The carrot was going to be a fish shaped carrot but she asked for a Hello Kitty print.

Added cherries on the side cos it's the only other fruit I have in my fridge right now.

By the way, if you are going to be packing mandarin for your kid's bento box, it pays to ask the grocer where the mandarin oranges are from. My fruit grocer told me not to get those from the province, if I am not mistaken, pronounced in Cantonese as "Har Moon". Apparently there are some issues with the mandarin oranges over there. Hope that helps.

It's Friday again, and weekend is around the corner. Will try to post Friday's bento soon.

Meanwhile, have a great weekend, all !! And Happy Bentou-ing !!

Mushroom Men Bento

2009-01-05T10:03:00.012+08:00

Bento #107

I could barely drag myself out of the bed today. The kids are back to school again after a 6 week long school holiday. After enjoying a bento break, it's now back to setting the alarm clock at 6 a.m. It was bliss having to be able to lie in the last few weeks, though.

Ashley didn't get a bento cos she slept late last night and won't be going to school today. Good thing too, cos being the first day, I had needed to send Kimberly to school and sort out her school stuff.

I asked hubby to mind Ashley while I send Kimberly to school on her first day for the year. Located her classroom and since I was there, showed her her locker, shove her art block bag and Mandarin class folder into them, put a lock on them and attach her locker keys on her smart card's tag, then went over to the reception area to top up her cash in her smart tag for just in case she needs them. I even have time to go over to the bookshop to get her some extra exercise books and to catch up with some of the moms before I leave. That's how late Ashley slept in today.

I had a little time to blog when I got home cos Ashley was still asleep. haha.

So, this here is today's bento.

It's Kimberly's bento. It's a cheese sandwich bento.

At least, that's a cheese sandwich beneath all the Mister Mushrooms. Since I have weiners and cheese, I thought I do some mushroom mens. You can use halved cherries, halved tomatoes besides weiners for the top and weiner instead of cheese for the stalks as an alternative.

That's weiners for the Mr Mushroom's tops over there and cheese stix for the bottom. Cutting those were fast. Just half the sausage circles and cut short the cheese stix, easy peasy.

Those white spots, however, takes some time. These white spots are boiled fish balls. I boiled the sliced fishballs with the weiners and the chikuwa earlier this morning.

I used a short straw (as I have seen most Japanese moms do) on the fishball as a cutter and then poke them circles out with a foodpick. Then use a food tweezer to place them stragetically over the mushroom tops. That read, in other words, time consumingly. Haha !

I secured those spots with some mayonaise and hoped that they stay. That being said, I carried her bento box for her today (gingerly and at level, haha), so that they don't move too much. I guess those food ornaments should have stayed intact.

I stuffed some zucchini into the chikuwa and added some cherries on the side for her bento.

Oh, shoot, Ashley woke. I guess I will just send her along to school then. I thought she would be up only by eleven or so, instead of this early. Just as well anyhow, with her being in school, that will give me some time to finish off some work in the office.

Heck, it's already year 2009 !!!

May the economy turmoil go easy on all of us and despite the odds, may the greater success be yours! and remember, if life serve us a lemon, make a lemonade!!!

Have a great year ahead, guys !! And and to those who bento, happy bentou-ing, my fellow bento-ers !!!

Miss Bunny Sandwich Bento

2008-11-27T21:01:00.008+08:00

Bentou-ing has slowed down the last few days in view of the school holiday. I must admit it has been grand being able to sleep in till 8 everday instead of waking at 6 to fix the kids' bento. It was because I had needed to get Kimberly ready for school and her bento box, if any, need to be out by 7 too. And Ashley's bento was packed at the same time although she needn't be out of the house that early but might as well while I was at it.

However, since Ashley is now enjoying having the same food as her schoolmates, I didn't want to be a killjoy. I decide to pack bento her only occasionally and for out and about instead. And perhaps for lunch.

Bento #106

This is Kimberly's lunch. During the school holidays, she had needed to go into the office with me every now and then and it makes sense to pack her a bento meal instead of spending time ta-pauing and pouring them out on plates or bowls.

Encouraged by the earlier Miss Piggy bento, where I have discovered that cutting out details didn't entail that much time after all, I decide to fix some features on her sandwich as well. This took me an extra 5 minutes only, but doesn't the extra 5 minutes make a huge difference to her otherwise normally featureless bento!

Kimberly is having 2 large prawn fritters and 2 gyoza (also fried, to ease the workload. I added some carrots in the steamer while frying the food, and cut out the bunny sandwiches.

Those are cheese bunny sandwiches. I figured the cheese can make up for the lack of dairy in her diet the last few days.

Her Miss Bunny has nori sparkly eyes, carrot nose and cheese hair bow.

Since Kimberly likes carrots a lot, I topped the bento meal with a few more floral carrots.

Added 2 strawberries for fruits.

It is rather pleasurable to see the kids' expression of enchantment when they open up their bento boxes, particularly after their Miss Piggy's bento. I probably will endevour to pack more kyaraben bento for her from now on, with time's permit, of course.

Happy bentou-ing, all ! Have a great week ahead !

Miss Piggy and Mr Meatball Bento

2008-11-25T14:57:00.002+08:00

Kimberly will be going to my mom's place today. My mom wants her to stay the night so that she can coach Kimberly on her mandarin but I wasn't ready to let her spend the night out of home yet. haha. So we shall see if my mom won the battle or me.

Kimberly has been excited about spending the day at her cousins' place and has been packing her clothes, books and toys whole night. And..haha..junk food too.

I know she won't starve at my mom's but I packed her a bento meal anyhow.

Bento #105

This is Kimberly's bento lunch. It's rice with a huge fried mince pork meatball on the side. I shape them big so that they fit into bento box better. Those tiny ones tend to roll all over the place taking up level surface.

I also added some baisho chikuma stuffed with carrots and beans. I love these stuff. It's really nice and crunchy when you roast them in the oven. I didn't roast them this time but boil them instead cos Kimberly has a painful ulcer in her mouth and I didn't want to encourage too much fried food. That fried meatball is heaty already in itself.

Since its school holiday and I have time on my hand, not having to rush for the 7am out of home bento box, I have some fun with ham slices and carrots.

I finally made use of the punchers and cutters I got from Veronica of NST. I got them as early as March and have never made used of them. It's been 7 months now. Time to brush the cobwebs off them. haha.

I made little piggy faces with the ham and use steamed carrots for the little dresses. Added a carrot ribbon on top of Kimberly's Miss Piggy and a cheese flower on her little carrot dress.

Stuffed some strawberries at the side to fill the gaps.

Bento #106

This is Ashley's bento lunch.

Ashley has a pooh bear moulded rice with blanched brocolli. And one lone mince pork meatball. I added a carrot hat for her meatball and some sparkly eyes.

Added a cheesey smile on top of Mr Meatball to accompany her Miss Piggy. The hat keep falling off so I had to secure them with a food pick. Fortunately Ashley wasn't one who fiddle with foodpick as heard of other kids. She would pluck them off her food and put it outside the bento box. So far so good, I haven't lost any foodpicks yet.

Ashley's Miss Piggy has squinty eyes and a cheese heart adorning her little carrot dress.

I gave Ashley only one strawberry cos she didn't like them as much as Kimberly does.

I love having time on my hands. You can do so much ornamental little touches to a bento meal.

Happy bentou-ing guys ! And have a great week ahead !

Bento #104

2008-11-24T13:41:00.006+08:00

The contractor is here fixing the plumbing. It is a major fixing up. Our next door neighbour is equally affected. And this from a reputable developer some more !

Sigh..this is going to take a whole week !!

Anyhow, in view of contractors walking in and out of the house, I will be working from home the whole week. It is rather disconcerting with the drills, but what to do.

Kimberly has been complaining whole day. "I can't hear", she yell in frustration when she can't hear the t.v. She shouts, "Abang, can you keep it down already?" over the roars of the drills, with me shushing her in shame of her lack of manners when she tried to talk on the phone with her Ah Kung. Just a few seconds ago, she ask, "Uncle, how long will this take?" The lau pan laughed and say, "this is only the first day".

Sigh.... the poor kid.

And the maid, she has been playing eyes with the Indon workers whole day, walking out and about and around them, busying herself with irrelevant tasks. Sigh.. nothing is getting done.

I send Ashley to daycare for the whole week so she could nap in peace in the afternoon.

Having time on my hand, I decide to fix Kimberly a bento instead.

Bento #103

It wasn't supposed to look like this. It has 4 kamaboko on top covering all the vacant spaces. But Kimberly couldn't wait and ate 2 before I returned to the kitchen with my camera.

Hence the sparse top.

Kimberly's bento lunch is 2 teddy bear moulded rice with water apple ribbons. I segregated the moulded rice with slices of zucchini.

Thare's 2 fried chicken drumlet wrapped in Hello Kitty aluminium foil at the bottom. I filled up the gap with thick chunks of water apples and top them with 4 kamaboko. Now left 2. haha!

This was going to be a quick post, so will pen off now.

Aarrgghhh..drill..drill..drill..will it ever end? And this is the first day, no less !!

Anyhow, happy bentou-ing, folks !

Weiner flower bento

2008-11-21T15:12:00.004+08:00

I have been wanting to do the weiner flowers for a long time now. Finally had the chance to do it today. I have always been dumping frozen wieners into the pot to boil instead of cutting patterns unto them. On the days when I have the presence of mind to take it out for defrosting, there isn’t time due to waking up late or time used up in other stuff like frying or cutting.

Today I have plenty of time to take them out for defrosting … hee hee …it being school holiday… so, today’s bento-s meals are flower weiners bentos.

This is Kimberly bento lunch. Kimberly’s bento picture first because her wieners turned out better. Haha.

Bento #102

Kimberly has her weiner flowers in criss cross cuts.

She also has a deep fried baby shark nugget at the side, with some carrots (raw, cos sometimes its nice to crunch) and 2 tomatoes.

She has rice to go with them.

I stenciled a Hello Kitty print on top of her rice with sakura denbu cos Kimberly likes pinks. I am thinking that pink looks too pale, so perhaps I will use a deeper coloured furikake next time instead.

This is Ashley’s weiner flower bento meal.

Bento #103

Hers has a star shape in the middle. It didn’t turn out so well. I cut them too deep and the weiner branched out too wide.

Ashley has a deep fried baby shark nugget too, with a lone hash brown at the side.

I fried 3 hashbrowns and was thinking of just giving her hashbrowns and fruits instead of rice but change my mind and gave her riceballs instead. Hence, I only put one hash brown instead of all 3. Hers wasn't tightly packed so I carried the bento boxes level to the car and placed them on the car seat while I was driving instead of dumping the bento boxes into their backpacks like I usually do.

Ashley has some raw carrots at the side too. Sometimes the kids eat carrots raw while I was chopping up vegetables to stir fry for dinner.

Kimberly and Ashley had their bento meals in the car after I picked Ashley up from school cos both kids followed me around running errants today.

Kimberly already had breakfast at the Toyota service centre this morning when I send in the car for mobilisation.

The service centre usually have nasi lemak, curry puffs, doughnut and biscuits and the usual coffee, tea and milo for waiting customers. One woman snatched up all 8 doughnuts for her lonesome self while I was standing in line behind her. Gee, can't she leave one for my little girl? I had to wait awhile before they replenish the food so Kimberly could have something to eat. Should have packed a bento meal for her before servicing the car instead of afters cos there isn't any food place for miles around.

Anyhow, I gave Ashley a bento meal today just in case she didn't eat a lot for lunch in school and so that I needn't have to run around looking for food for her while running errants.

She doesn’t take much protein or fruits in school and would pick up any protein food from her bento box in the car when I offered them to her after picking her up from school. I usually pack fruits and protein food for her instead of carbo, unlike today.

I prefer to feed the kids in the car cos they are more minded to eat them for lack of things to do.

The only trouble with feeding in car is, I need to vacuum the car very often and shake out the seat mats after every meal. It’s worth the trouble so long as they get food in their tummy.

It's Friday again..the week past by so fast and I haven't even gotten much work done. Time flies by so fast as one gets older. Or is it just me?

Both kids are tuckered out and are taking their naps. It is hard work tagging along their mom running countless errants...cos they practically had to run after me on the sidewalks to catch up. haha.

Have a great weekend all, and happy bentou-ing !

Bento #101

2008-11-17T20:15:00.007+08:00

Today is the first day of Kimberly's school holiday. It was grand being able to sleep in till 8am instead of waking up at 6am to get Kimberly to brush her teeth,tie her hair, dress her etc.

Ashley, on the other hand, is still going to school. Kindergartens usually have different holiday schedules.

Anyhow, I fix this bento meal for Ashley today.

Bento #101

It's turkey slices and bread roll-up, and edamame on skewers.

With chinese New Year around the corner, teeny weeny mandarin oranges have started making an appearance.

To give the kids a break from their usual apples, pears and grapes, I got some mandarin oranges and jambu air (water apples) for a change instead. Those seasonal fruits don't come by every day.

The jambu-s are really firm and sweet, not to mention huge. That's just half a fruit up there!

They were quite unlike most that I have tasted before. And a lot better than those you get in Bidor or stopovers at the highways. They don't come cheap either. RM9.90 for 5. But they are totally worth it. I don't mind getting them the next time they came along.

Gone are the days when we were able to just pluck jambu air from the neighbouring blossoming jambu air trees saddling on our bicycles. Sigh..

Anyhow, as luck would have it, Ashley's teachers did not open up her bento box. I think they probably forgot since I have not been regular in packing one for her on a daily basis in recent weeks. Probably would have to let them know from now on whenever I fixed her a bento meal.

Ashley has already ate lunch in school and was not hungry, so Kimberly ate them instead when we picked Ashley up from school. She has been tagging along when I send Ashley to and fro the school.

Can someone give me some ideas on where to park your schoolgoing kids during the holidays? Kimberly refused to go to her grandparents, and I really don't want to bring her along to the office with me every morning. I checked out some places but they cost liks RM100 to RM120 per day for basic things and they only last 5 days. Some other holiday camps are not practical for her age. Any suggestions? I welcome any feedback at all.

Worse come to worse, I will just have to pile lot of revision workbooks in front of her and leave her in the office conference room while I get some work done till it's time to pick up Ashley.

Anyhow, have a great week ahead, all. It's a breeze on the road with less traffic now that the school holidays are on, isn't it?

Bento #100

2008-11-14T21:26:00.008+08:00

I have been late with the bento posts. It has been a hectic week rushing for datelines. Finally finished all the datelines on Thursday morning and letting out a sigh of relief.

The streamyx in my area has been down the last few days as well. That's why I haven't been bloghopping around, nor post any bento posts.

This is a catch up post on last week's bento meals. It's my 100th bento post.

Bento #100 came and went without much fanfare, although I am reminded by GiddyTigers that it's a milestone. But unfortunately, it fell on a Wednesday, which is not a good day for me. I have a lot of datelines to complete within a short span of time and did not fix a kawaii bento as initially intended.

So Bento #100 is a nondescript one. It's not even a toddler's bento or a kid's bento, like those I usually prepared.

But it's a rather good meal,nonetheless, for hubby. Bento #100 is hubby's bento.

It has all his favourite stuff in there, ie. meat, meat and more meat. Or rather, fish, meat and more meat.

I wasn't going to fix any bento that day but hubby asked for one. And I tell you, it is a rare moment when he does, because he usually rather eat out.

Having not planned for any bento today, I dug out all the frozen stuff. (Not that I don't dig out frozen stuff even when I do plan them. haha !)

We have unagi from grocery shopping the day before. And I almost always have frozen homemade meatballs in my stash. So I took out a few meatballs and simmer them with unagi sauce till cooked through. Then I simmered down some frozen store bought gyoza and pan fried them.

Realised that there weren't any vegetables, so I took out some store bought frozen vegetables and heat them up. Those are mushrooms under the vegetables.

Added my old faithful stand-by, the grapes, and a kiwi from the new box of kiwi from yesterday's grocery shopping. I wasn't planning to buy anymore kiwi for awhile but Kimberly wants them. I suppose I better had do some research and see what's the side effect of too much kiwi, if any. Or else I had better space them out for Kimberly 3 days apart for each. She could take 2 in a day if I don't stop her.

The white rice looks kind of lonely and I didn't want to add any furikake, cos it would be much too high in sodium with all the sauced based food, so I top it with raw carrots instead.

There isn't any bento on Thursday for both kids because I was preparing Kimberly's contribution of party food for her class party. And Kimberly didn't go to school on Friday since the last day of school is only parent-teacher conference day. Ashley would be having bread (food she would eat) for break in school so I didn't pack her a bento meal either.

Well, that's the milestone came and gone. Sigh... so much for a kawaii bento !

Have a great week ahead, all ! And happy bentou-ing !

Fish Fingers Bento

2008-11-11T23:03:00.012+08:00

Bento #99

This is Monday's bento. It's Ashley's bento.

I haven't time to do much but put 2 fish fingers in the fryer. I have already cooked rice that morning for my lunch bento, so I decide to make use of the rice for Ashley's bento.

So, Ashley's bento is a simple bento of riceballs and fish fingers.

And a lone tomato!

I like to keep her on the tomatoes now that I have discovered that a lot of my friends' kids don't take to tomatoes very well.

Since she has caught the habit of eating tomatoes from Kimberly, who is the sort who doesn't mind plum, peaches, berries and tomatoes as oppose to sweeter fruits like apples and watermelon, I didn't want Ashley to go off the fruit. Oh, er, vege, haha!

I took Ashley off school on Tuesday to catch Kimberly's school concert so there isn't any bento meals on Tuesday.

Kimberly had her school concert on Tuesday and Wednesday. I have absolutely forgotten about her concert. If not for a phonecall from her classmate's mom, Sue, the day before, you can bet I would have completely and totally missed the concert.

Kimberly is one of the lantern girls in the Mulan performance. Will blog about it in my other blog when time permits.

Didn't pack for Kimberly on Tuesday either cos it didn't seem practical, with her not being in her class most of the time. I told her to eat the school's lunch and gave her some cash for breaktime food instead.

Ashley's teachers has been encouraging me to let her have her break time food with her schoolmates, and I think it may do well for Ashley to learn to be not so picky with her food. I can always top up on her nutrient at dinnertime or tea time.

I probably may be more inclined to pack bento meals for Kimberly from now on instead. I mean, when school starts.

She seems to be getting lankier and lankier right before my eyes. I have been neglecting her.

I probably will just do a bento meal for Ashley for outings instead, or every other day or so. That will save me the morning rush every so often.

The daily 6am wake to pack bento meals is just about taking its toll. I would love to be like some other moms, packing meals at their leisure instead of rushing for the the 7am timeframe.

That would make packing bento more fun and not to say, decorative, cos the "ornamental" part takes time. haha. Hope to have more time for that soon, since I could now delegate the washing up and cleaning of kitchen to the maid, who seemed to have improved a bit. Still slow, but at least the maid is not reading magazines, writing letters, watching tv and/or napping in the toilets anymore. So we shall not be terminating her for now.

Happy bentou-ing , folks !

Shu-mai Bento

2008-11-07T17:16:00.006+08:00

This is Thursday's bento. It's for both kids.

Bento #98

It's 4 steamed shu mai, some grapes and a tomato and steamed corn. Because Ashley prefers carrots in fingers compared to cartoon character prints, I cut hers into strips.

This is Kimberly's bento meal.

It's almost the same, 4 steamed shu mai, some grapes, a tomato and steamed corn. Except that she gets a kiwi instead of carrots.

I had thought that we had finished the last of the kiwi but found a lone one hidden behind the yogurts and sliced that for her as well.

Kimberly finished all her bento food but Ashley came back with some of the shu mai and some of the grapes. I guess it's too much food for her anyway. It's more than I usually pack for her.

Further, she also eat the school's breaktime food it it appeals to her.

There isn't any bento on Friday cos we celebrated Ashley's birthday in her kindergarten and I was late with packing the party packs.

Kimberly didn't get a bento on Friday either cos I let Kimberly off school on Friday.

She was so curious about Ashley's party, I brought her along.

They were not having classes anymore anyhow cos they are practising for their concert performances.

Kimberly,as usual, played the big sister, helping Ashley to hand out the party packs. Sometimes it's an advantage having kids whose age gaps are so far apart.

I blogged about Ashley's birthday over at my other blog where I normally post family related posts. It was a simple do. Check out the cupcakes that Nancy of Yozoranitesky baked for her as party packs over there! Those fondant swirls are oh-so-pretty !!

Have a great weekend, all !

Bento #97

2008-11-05T21:54:00.006+08:00

This is Ashley's bento for Wednesday.

It's honeydew and tomatoes with quail eggs and weiners for protein.

I cut the honeydew in my favourite cutter again. The Marie-the-cat cutter, cos I like the edges all around it. I could have used the Mickey cutter but I prefer this one. I could have used Mickey baran dividers and go for a Mickey theme, but I much prefer lettuces.

By the way, Cherilyn, you asked about cutting honeydew lenghtwise.

This is how you can cut your fruits if you are using large cutters.

But I don't normally cut honeydew lenghtwise.

I normally just cut them the normal way with just a slight slant because even with cutting the normal way, you can get a longer lenght than usual than you just slant a bit.

The rest, you can cut them all out for convenient sake.

But I normally only cut out the first slice and store the rest in a tight huge lock and lock and stow them in the fridge to cut out the next day for the next day's bento.

Or else, you could use a mini cutter and cut out lots of heart shapes for a mini salad.

Like this.

You could also cut your carrots lenghtwise to accomoate larger cutters. Like this.

Those that are too small to be cut into shapes, you can just do julienne. Like this.

Hope that helps paint a clearer picture, Cherilyn !

I forgot that it's mighty hard to swallow eggs without soy sauce, so added some soy sauce in a pink soy sauce container for Ashley.

Have a great week ahead, all !

Bento #95 and Bento #96

2008-11-04T23:44:00.012+08:00

This is yesterday's bento. Boy, am I slow this week in catching up. Just loaded yesterday's and today's bento into photobucket earlier this evening. As long as I have loaded them up, the rest are speedy.

Bento #95

Monday's bento is Ashley's bento.

Ashley normally don't take much protein in school. Feeling guilthy about her protein intake, I pack a bento meal for her today.

Fried her some fish nuggets. Those are store bought frozen ones cos we are out of home made ones, but it's not too bad. Not much fillers (breadcrumbs/flour) in there and more meaty than most.

Also gave her some green and red globe grapes. One lone tomato because I didn't want her to go off tomatoes by neglecting to offer her them on a regular basis.

Those leaves in the bento box are part of my mesclun salad. There isn't any lettuces in the fridge so I thought I made do with those leaves.

You know, those green grapes are normally sour? Especially those seedless ones? But suprisingly, I found those particular ones to be particularly sweet, even sweeter than some of those red grapes. I am wondering if there is a particular name for this one, so that I will get the same type next time.

I got them from the fruit and vegetable store down the road from my house. They sell really good fruits. Nothing came out from their stores are bruised or soft. The fruits are alway crunchy and fresh. I love getting fruits from there.

Those that MIL bring back are sometimes bruised, and we end up having to throw them away, or juicing them for us adult's consumption.

MIL buy fruits every first and 15th of the Chinese lunar calendar month. I suppose the fruits that she gets aren't so good because she got them from supermarkets? She doesn't usually go to the wet market unless she wanted to buy fishes or chicken to stock up for us.

I gave Ashley some pear slices as well to encourage her eating habit of fruits. She doesn't take to fruits as well as her chieh chieh. I didn't want to add any carbo meals cos I know for a fact that she is more inclined to taking carbo food in school.

Packed a banana for her as well cos FIL brought some over the other day.

This is a huge banana holder. The banana is a regular size, but I think the banana holder can easily hold a pisang raja with space to spare. Not that anyone would eat pisang raja raw anyhow.

Bento #96

This is today's bento meal. It's for Kimberly cos, haha, I need to show her every now and then that I am thinking of her.

I thought I make use of the new Mickey Mouse cutter that I got a few months back. I really got to utilise all those kitchen gadget that I bought. Sometimes I forgot about them and would reach out for familiar items. Like the Marie the Cat cutter, which I am so fond of? It's the perfect size for apple and pear slices, where I could minimise the leftovers.

I gave her some butter sandwiches (cos we are out of cheese) and some apple slices (cos we are out of her favourite pears). So much for showing her that I am thinking of her.

I slot some tomatoes and grapes around the sandwiches and apple slices to keep the sandwiches and apples from moving around. And that's the last of those red grapes. I guess we won't be doing any red grapes for awhile.

Put sliced kiwi in a silicon sup to stop any possible kiwi juice from spilling over to other food. At least we have one favourite item here, kiwi. Haha!

That's the last kiwi as well. I really got to fill up my sparse fridge soon. But, man ! That box of 8 kiwis and that box or red globes goes a long way.

Happy bentou-ing, folks ! Have a great week ahead !

Bento #94

2008-11-03T22:50:00.008+08:00

I am catching up on last week's bento post. This is Friday's bento.

Bento #94

This is a pasta bento for Kimberly. I think she wouldn't like the fried mee with minced chicken offered in school that Friday. So I thought I do a pasta for her instead.

Also, she wrote in her diary that " I even know my momma doesn't love me more than she loves Ashley. She even think I don't know".

Isn't that just heartbreaking? So I thought today I let her know that I am thinking of her.

I know, I know, bad momma for reading her diary. I will stop when she is older. But I needed to know for now if she is happy or not.

It takes a lot not to reprimand her everytime she leads her sister into mischief, or rough play that could injure her little sister. And I am so quick to say, "do your homework" whenever I see her watching tv and it's so easy to smile back at Ashley who is constantly beaming up at me.

I don't love Ashley more. I just love them in different ways, that's all. Perhaps I will spend some time with her this weekend and ask her dad to take Ashley off my hands for once.

Anyhow, I put her bento meal in her favourite bento box. The one that had gotten missing before on the day she came home without her bento box. I had thought that I will just keep it for family outings instead since it's her absolute favourite. She has this thing for this Japanese girl's anime group, Love and Berry.

Kimberly's bento is pasta cooked with cheesy sauce. I stir fried some garlic and small slices of chicken, then add the milk and the cheese. Then stir in the pasta to combine.

I thought I put a smile on her face by displaying her name on top of her meal. I made use of the alphabet cutter I got from Chooi Peng. I have been wanting one of these forever but after getting them, hasn't a chance to use them till now.

Even though I packed the pasta meal tightly, I am sure the alphabets are going to go askew in transport. So I added a sheet of anti bacterial sheet over her name to make it stick, so that when she open her bento box, she would still see her name displayed on top.

Jacss asked me about the anti bacterial sheets before. So I have put up a pic of it for you, Jacss . Hope that helps.

I added Kimberly's favourite fruit, kiwi, at the side and fill up the gaps with grapes and cherry tomatoes. I didn't offer her too much pasta cos I know she is a small eater. Both my kids are small eater. I am so pea green over moms with kids who really can pack it in!!! Makes life so much easier when you don't have to constantly worry over their diet.

Ashley ate her pasta for breakfast at home so I didn't pack a bento for her school.

Besides, her teachers and her school's kakak is so pleased with her progress in eating the school's food, I try not to pack bento everyday. Perhaps every other day or so.

I normally cooked the elbow pasta and the shell ones for Kimberly cos she specifically asks for them. I thought I cook the teddy bear shapes for Ashley today (in a different pot)

Kimberly's classmate's mom, Sue has so kindly got these teddy bear shaped pasta for me when she saw them while shopping, knowing that I would definitely like them for my kids' bento meals. haha!

Ashley got up early today. Thanks for the tips, LZmommy and Sue !! She didn't wake up in the middle of the night last night. I woke her up slightly earlier over the last few days and shorten her nap time. I am hoping she will get back to her routine.

Happy bentou-ing, guys !

Bento #93

2008-11-02T22:19:00.007+08:00

This is catching up on last week's bento posts. I hadn't load any of them up till now cos I couldn't locate the wire thingy that download the pics from the digital into the laptop. Ashley played near my work station the other day and must have taken it somewhere. Found it in her toybox today stuffed inside one of her backpacks.

Ashley didn't go to school on Wednesday because she got up in the middle of the night and refuse to sleep till like 5 am. So she slept in till about 11am on Wednesday.

It's been like that the past few days. Help ! Can someone teach me how to get her back into her old routine?

Anyhow, these are the kids' Thursday's bento meals.

Bento #93

It's a quick one cos majority of the time was taken up putting different food in different cooking gadgets , and popping and skewering the edamame.

Fortunately mankind invented the fryer, the steamer and the gas stove. haha. Cooking different food at the same time sure help speed things up.

I popped the sliced carrots and bun in the steamer and the fishball and edamame into different pots to boil.

Then popped the remaining last 2 fish nuggets into the fryer while I take out bento boxes and silicon cups, and washes the grapes and cherry tomatoes.

Silicon cups sure are time savers.

MIL usually buy fishes for us, cut and packed them, and bring them frozen to us. The fishes that she buys sure beat those around here. So much fresher too.

The nuggets in the kids' bento meals are of odd size. It's because MIL cut out these 2 nuggets in the bento boxes from one whole fish, a Kurau fish, I think. The bigger portion is from the middle portion of the fish and the smaller portion is from the tail end.

It's the last two, that why one kid only gets one. I made up for the protein in fishballs. Those fishballs are store bought. Actually, pasar malam bought. haha!

Because the food is more than the kids' usual portion, I put them into this 2 tier bento boxes. They came with chopsticks.

Not that any of my kids are going to put those chopsticks to use. They are still on trainer chopsticks.

But having them with the chopsticks makes them look prettier, doesn't it?

As usual, Kimberly gets her pick first and she gets the pink one, the Marie Cat.

Ashley gets the red Miss Bunny. But I like both of them. They come in their own tie string lunch bags. Will put up pictures of it someday.

So that's Thursday's bento. Now to top and tail both kids and them to bed. Will see if I have time to upload the rest of the bento pictures by tonight into photobucket.

Happy bentou-ing, guys !!

Deana's Gifts !

2008-10-30T20:32:00.003+08:00

Deana came down last week. We were suppose to meet at Midvalley so that I could pass her those diapers, and perhaps have coffee and a quick chat. As luck would have it, she is only in Midvalley for 2 days and I couldn't make it on the first day.

She mentioned that she would be leaving the next day itself. I didn't expect her to be leaving so soon. So after sending Ashley off to school, I drop by Boulevard to meet her.

There isn't time for a chat , only for a quick hello!

Deana is such a lovely girl to talk to , and her baby !

I tell you, I can't stop gushing over her baby ! Earnestly I have not seen such a pretty baby girl for a long long time !! Her photos at her blog doesn't do her any justice at all.

She has this "I am such a cutie" written all over her !!! And gurgly laughters, to boot. I think she could charm anyone if she is minded to. haha !!

For such beautiful babies, I think you should have half a dozen more babies, Deana ! Just kidding !

Anyhow, Deana, the sweetie that she is, not only collect those dipes, she also bake my 2 little girls those cupcakes ! How did she know that my girls absolutely have this thing for cupcakes and pretty decorations adorning cupcakes ! Probably the fact that I rave over every cupcakes my little girls enjoy has something to do with it. Ha ha !

Aren't these amazing?

And they are in lavendar, right up my little girls' alley ! Especially Kimberly, who loves all shades of purple!

They each have one on that day itself and the second piece were saved for another day in the fridge.

Those who don't know, Deana takes cakes orders. She is from The Land Below the Wind aka Kota Kinabalu ! Check out her cakes at Deanacakes !

The sweetie also gave my little girls these bento boxes ....

One pink and one blue!

and complete with straps ! Kimberly likes the bunny one but I like the red floral one. haha.

These are lovely, aren't they? We don't have these in our 100yen stores in KL !

Thanks Deanna !! Lurve you lots !!! Muakkk !!!

Hope we can have that coffee and chat the next time you come down here for a holiday !!!

Car Sandwiches Bento

2008-10-23T14:10:00.012+08:00

Kimberly has a field trip today.

With her last field trip , the kids were asked to bring their backpack along, so I had made sure that her backpack is as light as possible. With this field trip, Kimberly informed me that they will be leaving their backpacks in the bus, so I gave her a bento box instead.

I thought I take advantage of the new cutter I got from www.nst.my.

It's a Tomica vehicle cutter. I had baked the egg yesterday night and put it away in a lock and lock in the fridge to ease the morning rush. Also cut out some nori wheels but had to fry the nuggets and boil the weiners in the morning.

Got up ten minutes earlier than usual, sliced and put turkey spam in the oven, nuggets in the fryer machines and frozen shu mai in the steamer and weiners in the pot. Then pressed out the bread with the cutter while waiting for the food to be cooked and cooled.

There was supposed to be lettuce, which I had remembered to lay out on the table but didnt have time to arrange cos I was like having only 5 minutes left after arranging the cars sandwiches. Was supposed to cut the weiners into flowers too. But had to abandon both the lettuce and the cutting of the weiners.

Bento #90

There are 3 sandwiches in there.

The on on top is one layer of bread and one layer of turkey spam with omelette window, nori wheels and cheese spokes.

The yellow car was supposed to go to the top for colour coordination but because I didn't have time to tie all of them sandwiches, I just layer them with clear food safe plastics and put the one and only tied one on top, which is the brown one.

The yellow car is one layer of bread with a layer of omelette, spam windows and cheese spokes on nori wheels.

With all the preparation the night before, arranging tiny details on a little sandwich still take a little time. So I forgot to snap pictures of them sandwiches before I wrap them. I had to hastily made do with snapping pics with the wrappers on, so it is kind of blurry.

The last car is 2 layers of bread sandwich between one layer of cheese with omellete windows, nori wheels and cheese spokes.

Filled the gap with my trusty fridge "staples", the grapes ! Shown at the above pic, not here.

Sorry for the bad photography. Had to strain your eyes, didn't you?

This is Ashley's bento

Bento #91

Ashley's sandwiches are tuna sandwiches roll-up and wrapped like a candy.

She gets the same food as her sister. Shu mai, nuggets, weiners except that I added some apple slices for her instead of grapes.

I put them apples inside a tomica print food wrapper to seperate them from other food. Those who like Ashley's sandwich Hello Kitty wrapper and Tomica food wrapper can get them from Veronica cos I got those from her as well.

There isn't any bento for Ashley on Tuesday and Wednesday cos to give credit to Ashley's teachers for easing her into having food with her classmates, I thought I lay off her bento meals for a few days.

I edit this post to add this picture cos Amy doesn't know what I am talking about.

I had asked Veronica , HijackQueen and Chooi Peng if they could bring in these lunch sheets. If they can, it will be bliss preparing colourful bento's, cos you dont have to cook tomagoyaki and colour them and cut them egg sheets for sandwiches.

For example, you can just cut the yellow ones into car shapes, contrast them with green wheels or orange windows and layer them on top of cheese or sandwiches instead of having to cook the eggs and colour the eggs (speaking of which, I still haven't gotten around trying them out yet).

You can even use these as a edible baran divider, tie them into ribbons to adorn your food or wrap your weiners,asparagus or other food with them. It's yellow for egg, orange for carrot, and green for spinach. Let hope our girls bring them in,yea?

Hokay, editing this again !! haha. to add the link !!

Aren't we a lucky lot ??!! Chooi Peng is bringing them in !! I have just been informed by her that she had just put it up at her market hall. Fast fast hop over to her market hall make your pre-order, okay ? Isn't she such a darling for bringing them in?

Happy bentou-ing, all !

Toddler's Prawn Fritters Bento

2008-10-22T09:40:00.003+08:00

Bento #90

I was so tired being up most of the whole night last week carrying a fretty feverish toddler and mopping up vomit spills, changing bed sheets and duvets, that I couldn't get much sleep. It was pretty bad. Ashley threw up like 3 times a night.

So I thought I sleep in instead of packing bento meals for hubby or Kimberly. So there isn't any bento last Thursday and Friday.

Ashley's fever last a whole week ! And feverishly high too, at that!

I was running through all the possibilities in my mind, dengue? Went to google up on dengue. But how come the fever didn't receed? She hasn't any appetite over the week and she throw up until there was nothing to throw up but pleghm. Finally breath a sigh of relief when her fever went off on Friday evening. She had missed a whole week's school. Not that I expect her to learn a lot in school, but I was concerned that she might not want to go back after one week.

Come Monday morning, Ashley woke up cheerful and sunny, and told me, "Momma ! Tie my hair, I want to go to school!" Phew !!

Back to bento packing on Monday!

This is Ashley's bento.

It's prawn fritters with 2 riceballs and cherry tomatoes. I mixed the riceballs with egg furikake before shaping them.

Ashley's teachers has informed me in no uncertain term that I need not pack her any meals anymore, since she is now minded to join her classmates in eating breaktime food and lunch.

But I guess I would still pack for her every now and then. Out of habit and routine, for one thing, but also because if I can, I still rather she eat some protein and fruits for break than biscuits.

I had wanted to pack her fruits instead of rice balls, but because I didn't plan her bento meal the day before, I didn't relish digging through the vegetable compartments for fruits. With the rice already cooked that morning, I figure I take advantage of it.

Finally I am more or less up to date with bento posts. Haha.

Happy bentou-ing, folks !

Fermented mustard Pork Belly Bento

2008-10-21T01:58:00.011+08:00

Bento #89

Wednesday's bento was my bento. I packed some leftovers from dinner the night before in a lock and lock and heat them up the next day in the microwave before packing them into the bento box.

It's fermented mustard and pork belly from my frozen stash. I usually cook a large batch over the weekend and stash them into 3 equal portion in equal sized containers for freezing. When come dinner time, I would take one box out to defrost and heat up, cook only one stir fry vege and some soup in the pressure cooker.

I put aside a portion of the frozen stash for wednesday's bento the night before. Fermented mustard and pork belly is just about my favourite lunch time food ever ! I cook these whenever I can, but as Angeleyes says, it's so difficult to get good fermented mustards nowadays.

Just when you thought you found the perfect one that suits your taste, one that is not too salty, not too "crumbly" ie with the right "crunch", the next time you went back for it , found it different, the tau geh soh will say,"oh, that's from a different batch/supplier. We dont take from the previous one anymore". Sigh.

I thought the pork dish looks dull so I slid some sliced carrots at the side for some colours.

Added a boiled egg for more protein cos just that fermented mustard pork isn't much.

On the other 2 side containers are fruits and veges. They are sliced up kiwis and apple and zucchini slices layered with each other.

For all the soy sauce mini containers lying around my drawers collecting dusts, I forgot to pack some soy sauce for the egg. Lucky thing I have 2 half bottles leftovers from before in the fridge in the office. Else I would have a hard time getting that egg down my throat. haha.

So, that's last Wednesday's bento. Will try to update the rest soon.

Have a great day today, all !

Bento #88

2008-10-20T12:45:00.006+08:00

Ashley's sorethroat and flu graduated to fever over the next few days, so I let her stay back at home the whole week. She hadn't gone to school the whole of last week.

My own sorethroat has graduated to flu and fever as well. It was annoying having to deal with datelines with a sniffling runny nose and dizzy head, so, fortunately, by the 3rd day, I got better.

If there's one thing I dislike, it's getting sick. Nothing gets done smoothly when one is sick, does it? It can really tamper with all those "to-do" list that you have to complete by so and so date.

So, since Ashley is off school, hubby or I get a bento instead. This is last week's bento. Will try to load up here as many as I can.

Tuesday's bento

This is husband's breakfast bento. He appreciates a breakfast bento but would not have lunch in the office. He much prefers going for lunch with his lunch cronies around his workplace or his business associates.

Husband's bento is a thick cut ham sandwich. I layered the ham with slices of red peppers and yellow peppers, zucchini and carrots. Because hubby doesn't like chewing on vegetables, I usually take advantage of a sandwich bento by slotting in as much veges as I can.

Added some green grapes and purple grapes. Grapes are staples in my fridge cos they make such handy bento gap fillers and they also make speedy bento packing cos you save time on the peeling, slicing or cutting.

I thought that little apple wouldn't taste so good cos of the skin, it's like not a pretty colour? But suprisingly, those small apples can be so sweet.

Okay, not to upload Wed's bento pics in photobucket and see if I can post that up today too.

Happy Bentou-ing , guys !

Hello Kitty Overloaded Bento

2008-10-16T10:56:00.003+08:00

Came back from court early today and thought I catch up on my backlog bento posts. The Shah Alam High Court is really quiet nowadays with the shifting of the lower courts to another building. But parking is a breeze now.

Ashley did not go to school on Monday. Since MIL is here, I figure she could stay at home instead, cos with her sorethroat and her flu, she will be more comfortable at home. MIL came over on Sunday. Phew...just in time.

Kimberly had asked for a Hello Kitty sandwich Sunday night. I showed her Pooh Bear cutter, and asked, "How about Pooh Bear"

"I don't like Pooh Bear"

Showed her My Melody cutters.

"Nope, I like Hello Kitty better"

Showed her the whole box!

She glanced at them, then she said, "I think I still like Hello Kitty"

Sigh.....I think I better sell off all my other cutters.

Okay, so the bento meals these few weeks is Hello Kitty overloaded ! And here's another Hello Kitty sandwich bento meal.

Bento #87

They are all cheese sandwiches. The cheese is the only protein in there. Used the bigger Hello Kitty cutter for the bigger sandwich, and use the smaller Hello Kitty cutters for the leftover bread around the edges. The bread were just about utilised very nicely. Not much leftovers. The cheese, too. Not much leftovers there.

I tried to colour the features in with a food writer. However, because of the texture of the bread, the colours couldn't stick very well. But at least some colours got in. Didn't have time to cut out real food for the features, cos real food would have gone together better. But not that day.

The steamed carrots were imprint with Hello Kitty faces.

The apple slices were in Hello Kitty shapes as well. But too many Hello Kitty faces staring up, so I slid them sideways. Add some tomatoes for fruits.

Now to go get myself something to cure this persistent sore throat of mine. If there's one thing I dislike, it's sore throat. I have been known to have sorethroat so bad I lost my voice, ever since I was a kid. This persist throughout my life, at least twice a year. Twice I even had to ask for an adjournment for a trial because my voice box was broken.

I can't scold the kids, I can't get things going. It's rather annoying, actually. I don't even yell at the kids so much that I get my voice box broken. It is just me.

Hope it gets better by tommorrow. And when it does, you bet the kids (in particular, Kimberly, I may note), for all their disobedience, these last few days in taking advantage of the situation, get to hear me roar !! haha !

Have a great day today, all !

bento #85 and bento #86

2008-10-14T02:28:00.007+08:00

Friday's bento meal is merely pasta with weiners and tomatoes.

Friday's bento is a speedy one because I had needed to drop Ashley off to school as early as I can and get some work done in peace in that 4 hours' time before it's time to pick up both kids. MIL couldn't come down this week and I have scarce time to prepare for the trial coming up on Monday and Tuesday.

Bento #85

The pasta was cooked the night before and the cheese sauce cooked and combined in the morning.

Boiled some weiners while I got the kids ready for school. Didn't have time to use any of my bento accessories, so I only cut the weiners into bite size.

I thought to add some extra calcium in there for Ashley's benefit, being a non formula-milk drinker. So cut out some teddy bears to adorn the otherwise lame looking pasta.

Both kids get the same bento meal to make their momma's life easier.

Ashley took hers on the ride out to school. I was told that she took a hearty lunch in school as well when I picked her up later that afternoon from school. Apparently, the school's kakak cook a mean long life noodle with ABC soup and ikan bilis stock.

So, I only packed a lunch for Kimberly.

I took both kids to the office with me on Friday cos I had needed to work late.

This is Kimberly's bento lunch.

Bento #86

Packed her some homecooked fried meehoon. Have I ever mentioned that my kids like their noodles white? They don't ever take kon low mee or char kuew teow, or any noodles brown or dark in colours. Hence I always have to cook noodles at home for them. Wouldn't it be so convenient to buy hawker stall noodles and just pack them in instead. That would save me a lot of work.

Anyhow, the noodle was fried with ginger, garlic, carrot and prawn. The brocolli was blanched with salt water.

Decide to dress up the plain bento meal with a carrot face, and a brocolli ponytails with red pepper and yellow pepper ribbons.

Packed some rolled turkey slices on the side for her as well. And some more brocolli and carrots on the other side.

If you ask me, I rather have my meals plain, like so ....

..... without a face staring up at me.

But I suppose kids find them fascinating, cos Ashley leaned over to study the carrot face and plucked it out of her chieh chieh's bento box to eat it. Lucky thing her chieh chieh didn't mind and found her amusing.

This is Ashley's snack in accompaniment to her chieh chieh's lunch. Some protein in chicken nuggets, and some grapes and sliced zuccini for fruit and vege.

She already had bits of brocolli and carrots while I was packing for Kimberly so I don't think she would want a second helping of the same stuff. She also snitched most of the prawns I cooked for Kimberly while I was packing the bento.

Needless to say, her snack didn't hold much interest for her on the drive out cos she was already full.

So that's last week's trial. I mean, bento. What am I saying? Haha.

Will post up Monday's bento after Tuesday, cos after Tuesday, I would have some breathing space. Heck, I don't know how my mom and my gran cope with 8 kids respectively !!! I can hardly manage my time with just 2 kids.

Have a great week ahead, all, and happy bentou-ing !!

Bento #84

2008-10-10T22:15:00.000+08:00

Thursday's bento is everyone's bento but Ashley's.

This is husband's bento.

It's inari with various furikake topping, including the sweet sakura denbu just for colours.

I added some flat lup cheong for protein, divided with carrots and zucchini slices. We loves lup cheong but try not to have it too often cos the sodium content is just so high.

My sis brought over some green grapes the other day. Being single, she hasn't much clue that kids don't really like green grapes compared to its purple counterpart. So I slot as many as the space premits in the divider container for their dad instead.

Added some leftover carrots slices in there as well just so as to fill in the gaps.

Hubby is not one for vegetables and I try to make it up with sliced fruits for him when he gets home from work.

I just don't get it. Some guys do eat vegetables. In fact, my elder brother advocate cleansing the body's toxic with just fruits and vege and he goes on this diet every once in a while. Why just won't my other half eat some vegetables?

On the other hand, his first born has always been one who loves fruits. Kimberly usually go through like one whole sliced apple in the morning (if she's home and not in school) and perhaps one kiwi or another apple or pear, or some melons, or a bunch of grapes in the evening. I wish Ashley could eat fruits like her. She does eat them but only in smaller quantity and always in thin slices or itty bitty pieces.

Anyhow, Kimberly had asked for fruits the day before. And chocolate chips cookies that we baked last Sunday. I shaped them cookies into pretty small rounds so that they fit into bento boxes better.

I checked Kimberly's school's menu and found that the school would be providing chicken rice with roasted chicken. So it sounds good to have fruits after that. The menu's "fruit of the day" always sound dubious. It could be papaya which she doesnt take, ever. The school's canteen usually tropical fruits like these, and watermelons. I hardly see any variant.

So Kimberly's lunch box for Thursday is just fruits and chocolate chips cookies.

Ashley slept till 11.30 a.m. She woke up at 3 am the night before and went back to bed only at 9 am. So I thought I let her off school.

So no toddler's bento on Thursday.

This is my bento. It's the same as hubby's bento, only smaller in quantity.

It's 3 inari with the same toppings. But loads of sliced carrots and zucchini. I am more a meat person but vegetables laid out in bento boxes seems more palatable than usual. So I took advantage of the visual gratification.

Will post today's bento if the kids go to bed early today.

Have a great weekend, all !

Smudgey Hello Kitty bento !

2008-10-08T15:16:00.003+08:00

This is today's bento. Pardon my untidy handiwork.

Knowing that I may not make it in time for Kimberly's bento, I shouldn't have attempted this. But Kimberly has requested for a Hello Kitty face like Ashley's lunchbox. So I thought if I could have the nori face punched out and laid out the night before, I may just about keep in time. Unfortunately the nori pieces were not as neatly cut out as before. But I failed to observe that yesterday.

Anyhow, here's a smudgey faced kitty bento!

Bento #83

Kimberly is having pork chops for her school's lunch today. So may as well get her more carbo on her bento meal today. Kimberly has a Hello Kitty moulded rice and her bunny companion moulded rice, both with a carrot ribbon. Between the 2 moulded rice are some honeydew melon cut outs in heart shape, and some steamed carrot cut out in heart shapes.

Since this is a 2 tier bento box, I gave her some heart shaped cheese sandwich for laters, if she wants them.

The white bread are store bought and the inner whole meal bread are home made. Kimberly's classmate's mom, Sue, helped me got these multi size heart shape cutters from the Daiso in Singapore and I have been wanting to use them since forever!

They came in like 6 sizes and is more useful than my 3-size star shape cutter which smallest one is rather large. These one has a much more smaller cutter for the inner. I could cut the inner shape with the smallest cutter and not waste the inner cut outs.

Between the cheese sandwiches are steamed corn. This is one of Ashley's favourite. Since I packed this for Ashley today, Kimberly gets some too.

This here is Ashley's bento

Bento #84

Steamed corns !

Heart shaped cheese sandwiches !

With some grapes cos Ashley prefers grapes over honeydew.

Now to wait for Kimberly to get home cos both kids are going into office with me today for some late work since MIL couldn't come down this week to mind the kids and I have a 2 day continuous trial on Monday and Tuesday.

Happy bentou-ing, all !!

Bento #82

2008-10-08T14:32:00.007+08:00

I have enjoyed sleeping in the last whole week, not needing to get up at 6 am to get Kimberly ready for school. Had a hard time lifting my eyelid open Monday morning.

It had been bliss, the last whole week. Doing nothing much but visiting, eating, taking the kids out and about. I was supposed to spend the whole of last week doing revision with Kimberly for her exam. But we ended up going visiting Muslim's friends over Hari Raya, going to Genting, making a trip to the zoo, and going for a boat ride at The Mines.

I dare not attempt a kawaii bento on a schoolday and on a working day in want of time. So for a lazy Monday morning, this is a simple toddler's bento.

Monday's bento

I was suprised to see the grocer down the road still selling fresh dates now that the Raya is almost over. I knew those skins were tougher than apple skins but I thought it makes a handy fruit to pack for hubby's bento anyhow.

With the sparse pantry and fridge, not having gone for grocery shopping the last whole week, I had to pack this for Ashley's bento. Good thing she usually just nibble around it and discard the skin.

At the back of the fresh red dates are some home bake buns with sesame toppings. I usually use the bread machine for the dough. These are soft only on the first day cos I dont use bread improver. But that's fine cos we normally finish the whole loaf in 2 days. For hubby and my breakfast, for the kids bento and for the kids' supper.

For protein, Ashley has baby shark fritters, one of her favourites. I have an easy mind packing this for her bento meal cos I know she is going to finish them.

Now to upload today's bento on flickrs. Ashley didn't go to school yesterday because she was having a bad bout of eczema. I thought I keep her at home so as not to aggravate any further bleeding cos she would scratch herself raw if I don't stop her (ie. if I don't scratch for her)

Sigh.. sometimes I spend a whole night just doing this and applying moisturiser on her so that she could sleep.

Anyhow, have a great day today, all ! Will see if I can post today's bento by today.

Hello Kitty Bento

2008-10-04T12:12:00.006+08:00

I should call this one time-on-my-hand bento instead of Hello Kitty bento cos the only thing Hello Kitty over there is the moulded rice. Ha Ha!

I have been meaning to utilise the Hello Kitty rice mould sets but in want of time, I usually skip the tool, cos those placing of nori eyes, whiskers and nose takes time. And as you may know, 15 minutes is about all I can spare for the kids bento meals on a normal weekday before getting them ready sending them off to school and getting myself ready for work.

So, without needing to get Kimberly ready for school on Monday and without having to go to work on Monday, I fixed a kawaii bento for Ashley. Ashley still goes to kindergarten during the Raya week although Kimberly has the whole week off school.

Bento #81

Ashley's Hello Kitty moulded rice has a red pepper ribbon on top of her head. It's more ornamental than anything else. I hardly think she is going to touch that.

On the top are some ginger marinated fried chicken strips. I love these ginger marinated ones. It's a favourite with the kids and hubby too.

I cut the chicken into thin strips, marinated in loads and loads of ginger mince and ginger juice and some soy sauce. Leaves overnight but I usually leave them frozen with cornflour coating. Whenever I need any, I took a few strips out and deep fry them in a wok.

As usual, the bento meal sits on a bed of lettuce leaves if there's some in the fridge. It's because we do a lot of lettuces at home and there's always some in the fridge. My kids like to wrap their fried rice around lettuce leaves so MIL tend to buy these a lot.

I thought these coral leaves are so pretty and got these for a change. While Kimberly munches on hers, Ashley pulled a funny face and abandon hers. So will probably just get these for hubby's bento only in the future.

On top of the moulded rice is a ham flower. Been meaning to do this for months, ever since I spotted them on some cool Japanese mom's blogs. But not having bought ham for sometime, have been delaying them till now.

On the side of the Hello Kitty moulded rice are loads and loads of grapes, and 2 yellow cherry tomatoes and 2 red cherry tomatoes.

So, this is Ashley's Monday's bento meal.

Happy Bento-ing, folks, and drive safely travelling back to KL after the Raya holidays!!

Calling all diaper addicts !!

2008-09-30T17:24:00.003+08:00

Ashley has since Chinese New Year been potty trained (at 27 months). We only use one diaper on her for bedtime now. Sigh..I had love cloth diapering so much.

Cloth diapering moms (aka addicts) will understand how it feels like. Instead of being happy about kids being potty trained, we let it go reluctantly. haha !

So, it is with heavy heart that I am letting some of her stash go. Anyone who is interested in gently used diapers please send in your email at the comments area and let me know what you prefer.

Am also letting go of some of her wetbags and mini wipe bags.

And trust me, they really are gently used, cos I rotate them with definitely more than 80 over other diapers. Some are unused. I stopped counting at 80. There !!! The cat is out of the bag !! Just dont faint, allright? 2 other moms operating online cloth diaper stores has more than I do. I suppose them being CD online store owners justify having that many though, while I dont. Got carried away..hee hee. Good thing CD has re-sale value.

As for loading them up here, I will do that when I have time later. I just have to settle some trials and hearings due this month first.

But in a nutshell, these are roughly what the gently used items are :

For diapers :-

Drybees pocket, swaddlebees fitted, swaddlebees PUL, swaddlebees cotton velour fitted, swaddlebees organic velour, swaddlebees hook and loop OV pocket, Berryplush AIO by jamtots, Ella's house AIO, snugglehugs fitted, kissaluvs fitted, p'tits dessous bamboo fitted (love them bamboo, got heaps of those p'tit dessous) , Tot Bot's organic, Tot Bot's original cotton, tot Bot's bamboo, just ducky fitted, nanipoo fitted, loveybum sherpa fitted, loveybum organic fitted , itti bitti dlish, itti bitti boo, blueberry, motherease fitted, wild child, happy heinys PUL pocket , Happy Heinys fitted sherpa, Fuzibuns pocket, mummy touch, Bellas Bottom, cloth diaper exchange, cloth thoughts, imse vimse, bumgenius, Baby Beehinds, Mums Bums, cute tooshies hemp and cute tooshies bamboo, Green Acre Design, KND (perhaps one or two that brands i may have forgotten, need to go through my drawers),

For diaper covers :-

Swaddlebees wool merino, imse vimse, blueberry minky, Llamajama longies in 2T and 3T, Kozydesign longies and shorties, Sweet Seats skirties, Babysoftlandings custom knitted skirtie. I am saving 3 others longies, skirties and shorties for just in case.

Some of the pictures are in this link in my older posts.

So, new moms with growing babies okay? I only have "L" size, "XL" size and one-size left though. Have sold all my mediums and smalls.

Also, not selling any boy colours cos I promised them to my sister in law in Perth who is due to deliver soon. She is having a baby boy. Although, I don't have many boy/unisex colours.

As a precaution against spammer, I wont be publishing your posts containing your email address.

When those email stopped coming, I will be putting them up at the various CD forums and up on other online stores where they are bought from as gently used items.

LET IT RIP !!!

Some of the cloth diapers ...

2008-09-30T16:55:00.048+08:00

These are some pictures lying around in my laptop the past 6 months which I have not gotten around posting at diapering forums for sale. Will put up the rest gradually as I take pictures of them.

My apology, Bonnie, Pu, Mei, Madzuen and Adiniah, for taking so many months/weeks over this.

Drop your queries at the comment box for the price or if you need to clarify anything. I will be absorbing the shipping charges from Aust or USA. But as in usual practice, you will need to absorb the delivery charges from me to you, okay? And as per usual practice for gently used products, goods are as per as is basis and is non refundable.

I have slot in the deducted price in some items. When I have some time, I will check out the rest and edit it here.

1 . Motherease multi-fit one-size applix fastening, fitted (sold)

Got it from www.nipnap.co.au at AUD$21.95 (RM59.72). Selling at RM45. Fits from newborn to 3 years old. Hardly used.

2. Drybees L size, PUL (sold)

Got it from www.miabambina.com. Probably worn twice only. Selling at RM49.

3. Bamboo fitted by P'tits Dessous (sold)

Got it from www.cottontail.com at USD20.80 (RM71.71). Selling at RM50. Worn less than 10 times.

Size 2 can be used as a "one size diaper" fits approximately 11 to 35 pounds.
Size 3 fits approximately 26 -44 pounds.

This is size 3. The blue one below is size 2.

4. yellow minky wrap cover by Blueberry. L size (sold)

Got it from www.lildanzell.com at RM82. Selling at RM69. Washed and never worn.

5. Imse vimse one size fitted (sold)

Got it from www.miabambina.com. Selling at 30% at RM44. Hardly used.

6. Bamboo fitted by Petite D'sous size "M". (sold)

Got it from www.cottontail.com at USD20.80 (RM71.71). Selling at RM50.

This is Size 2. Can be used as a "one size diaper" fits approximately 11 to 35 pounds.

7. Wool cover/longies by Llamajama size 2T to 3T

Got it at US36.00 (RM124.30). Selling at about 35% deduction at RM80.

close up

Also have them in dark pink no flower in size 3T at same price. Will put them up when time permit.

8. small regular inserts (sold)

Got them from www.miabambina.com. Selling at about 30% at RM6.50. Hardly used. More suitable for newborns.

Also got some rainbow Tot Bots coloured inserts, GAD inserts, Blueberry new and used inserts etc. But will post later.

9. Swaddlebees applix merino wool wrap/cover in L size - sold

Got them from wwww.swaddlebees.com with a bunch of other cloth addicts (you guys reading this know who you are *wink*) at USD27.95 (RM96.39). Selling at 20% at RM77. Worn less than 4 times.

10. Just Ducky L size. Letting go at 50% cos this is a favourite. Worn a fair bit unlike the others which are fairly new. (sold)

Got it from just ducky's site but will go along Brenda's (www.babysashanmom.com)price at RM88. To round up the 50%, will let go at RM40.

11. Happy Heiny velcro wetbag

Got this from www.babysashanmom.com at RM59. Selling at 30% off at RM41.30. Round off to RM40.

12. Imse vimse cover sold.

Got this from www.miabambina.com. Selling at 20% off. Hardly worn. Probably less than 5 times. Sold.

13. Flower with purple velour L size. Nanipoo diapers (sold)

Got it at USD14.00 (RM48) Selling at 20% deduction at RM38. Worn less than 5 times.

14. Mermaid fitted L size Nanipoo diapers
Got it at USD17.00 (RM58.62) Unwashed and unworn. Selling at RM55. Sold .

15. Jamtots minky jaguar all in one (sold)

http://www.jamtots.com/BerryPlush-All-in-Ones-or-Covers-C41.aspx

Got it at USD21.85 (RM75.27). Selling at RM60. Hardly worn.

16. Just Ducky L size, fitted diaper. (sold)

Got it from www.babysashanmom.com. It's a limited edition of Just Ducky at limited edition price of RM90. Selling at 30% at RM63. Round up to RM60.

17. one size Mummy Touch fuchsia, PUL. (sold) Fits from newborn to 3 years old. Selling at RM40.

Also have this in light pink. (sold)

18. one size Mummy Touch Jaguar print, PUL.. Fits from newborn to 3 years old. Selling at RM48 sold .

19. Fuzibuns L size, PUL

Got it from cottontail at USD19.95(RM68.77). Selling at RM48.

20. Blueberry minky Tanzanite, one size.

Got it from Grace at RM103. Selling at RM68. Hardly worn. Also available in other colours. Can't remember. Will check and upload.

sold.

21. Blueberry minky Emerald, Training Pants. Got it at RM80. Selling at RM50.(sold) Also available in Tanzanite. (sold)

Those drybees below are probably worn once or twice, in that one week sometime in March when MIL is here, cos she didn't know that Ashley was potty trained. She couldn't find any drybees and she didn't know that I have already sold all of them by then since Ashley was only using one diapers per day by then. So she dug out a few new ones from the boxes to wash and use cos she prefers velcro and PUL .

After a few dry diapers, she asked about it and only then, use it for naps and bedtime for that week before I put it away again. I prefer fitted and snaps.

So these am letting go at 15% at RM49.

22. Drybees PUL size L (sold)

23. Drybess PUL size L (sold)

24. Drybees PUL size L (sold)

Also letting some new wipes go. Just let me know, okay? Will put up the rest of the diapers as and when time permit.

Have a great Raya holiday, everyone !!

*editing this to add this*

For wetbags, wipes and future diapers posts, please go to the Market Hall at my other blog at www.allthingspurple.my.

Mushroom Fritters Bento

2008-09-27T01:08:00.006+08:00

Friday

I just know that Kimberly is not going to eat that fried noodles and bubur cha cha provided by school for breaktime meal. She doesn't like "brown noodles". My kids like them "white". Even fried meehoon has to be white around here.

So today she has Hello Kitty kamaboko, Pooh Bear imprinted carrots and mushroom fritters for her bento.

Kimberly has always love mushroom fritters, ever since she was a toddler. As for Ashley, I think Ashley is just somewhat influenced by her chieh chieh who always exclaimed loudly, "Mushroom FRitters !! Mah Favourite !!!"

I didn't get a chance to take a picture because yours truly woke up late. I had time to fry mushroom fritters but no time to take pictures..sigh.

But we do have Ashley's bento. Cos I send Ashley to school. That's why I could take my time with the pictures.

Unfortunately, the little one took one look at the Hello Kitty Kamaboko and says, "Yeeeyack !!! Ah doh want dis wan !!" and picked them gingerly out of her bento box slice by slice. I think she didn't like the dark lined eyes and mouths on her food, even if its on a cute Hello Kitty kamaboko face.

Then she proceed to eat all the Pooh Bear imprinted carrots.

I offered her the mushroom fritters, thinking, since she was ploughing through them halfway, might as well finish the whole lot.

But she raised both her hands above her armpit and says, "Pau Pau" , wanting to get down from her high chair. "Ah am full, Momma !" Sigh...that little bit of carrots and she claimed to be full.

Not wanting the fritters to go to waste, I improvise it a bit and send the bento box off to school with her anyhow.

Bento #80

So Ashley's bento for Friday is mushroom fritters sitting on chinese lettuce. MIL usually buy these cos the kids like their fried rice wrapped in lettuce like popiah skins.

I just take advantage of the leaves cos I didn't buy any lettuces.

The colours are actually really really light green, almost chartreusse. But my camera somehow makes it looks dark and wilted.

Anyhow, to replace the carrots, I slid some raw zucchini slices between the fritters.

Add some cherry tomatoes to fill the gaps. Ashley likes these a lot lately. She calls them "moon skirter" (moon squirter) as in Lola and Charlie's VCDs.

She would bite them and ask me, "Did it skirt (squirt) yet, momma?" The silly kid.

Hokay, now to publish this and pack for tommorrow.

We are leaving for FIL's place early in the morning , as in 5 a.m. haha, so as to beat the traffic. It's a long Hari Raya break next week and there is bound to be heavy traffic on the high way. Just coming home tonight from the office took me ages !!! I had to detour here and there a lot just to skip the heaviest traffic.

So, Selamat Hari Raya everyone !!! And drive safe on the road, okay? Better be late and safe than anything else !!

Have a gurrreat week ahead !

Speed bento v Kyaraben and Oekakiben

2008-09-26T07:44:00.008+08:00

Thursday's Bento

Boy, am I glad I close my case today. The judge would not be happy if I didn't, since it was a year 2002 case. Good thing all the witnesses turned up today!

And with that over (for the moment anyhow), I have a few days free over the next few days to go through Kimberly's revision with her. I have been working late the last 2 weeks and the poor dear's work has suffered cos by the time I got home, she was already in bed.

I think we parents' lives all revolved around our kids. Around their exams, around their school hours, their classes, their birthday parties invitations etc. If it's not that, its their homework, their weekly spelling, their school projects, their daily diet, honouring promises to do their stuff that had to be done that day itself because "now" is the only vocabulary that exist in their world.

What I give to have some time for myself !

I would love to be a stay at home mom and not have to worry about datelines, causepapers submission, preparations for hearings, trials, but spend my time preparing beautiful kyaraben bento-s or oakakeben bento-s with inari babies on cots, floral ham, cycle weiners, chequered apple skins, hello kitty kyaraben bento, and all the wonderful ideas learned from those fabulous Japanese moms' bento sites.

Did a ham flower fold like this with carrot flowers all around carrot mixed onigiri for Kimberly yesterday but didn't have time to snap picture cos her transporter was already here. What did that tell you? These things are time consuming.

( Edited this to add the 2nd pic in cos a fellow member of the bar, Rachel, text me to say she don't understand how the first picture (the sideway one)can end up like a flower).

But truly, it's not practical with having to rush the kids to school and rushing to work in the morning. But boy, do those Japanese moms' churn out such fantastic ideas.

No energy to churn out kyaraben or oekakiben bento for the kids. Perhaps once in a month if I don't have to spend my weekend cooking up dishes for frozen food dinner stash to last the weekdays, haha. but phew, sounds exhausting. I mean, just take a lot at this !!!

THIS TAKES A LOT OF TIME, OKAY?

These are not mine, ar? In case you are just about to fall off your chair *grin*

But wow, all the careful cutting of itsy bitsy details, cooking of different food for each tiny detail, strategically placed nori eyes and mouth, slow and careful folding of cut lenghtwise ham and egg so it won't break.

But I still love to drool at those kyaraben(character bento) and oekakiben (bento with cute figures and themes) bentos anyhow, even if I don' have time to churn it out myself. ha ha.

In all earnesty, I can only afford roughly 15 minutes for the kids and my own bento, coupled with getting both kids to brushed their teeth, tie their hairs, dressed and ready for school, and getting myself ready for work within that 6am to 7.15 am time frame.

I love to give credit to the Japanese moms who create these wonderful bento above but I usually just cut and paste the pictures for reference without storing the links. If I stumble on her again, will share her fabulous link here. There are lots of other cool links, will put them up at the sidebar when I have time.

Yukinko mama and other Japanese moms whose pictures these belong to, please leave your links here if you chance to see your pictures here okay? so that others can share your wonderful blog.

There's lots of others, particularly this cool Japanese mom's blog , Ikuyama whom I tried to show her wonderful pictures to Angeleyes, but I can't save her pictures somehow. Ikuyama (hope I got her name right, cant remember) has those beautiful Cinderella ones that I love to fix for Kimberly one day when I have time.

By the way, Angeleyes is a work-at-home mom who has has a creative touch for her cupcakes. She fixes pretty amazing bento for Darrius. Just in case there are cupcake lovers out there.

Speaking of time, I promise I will put up the cloth diapers and the nursing wear here soon. Am so embarassed, Bonnie and the rest of the cloth diaper addicts who asked about it, for the long delay. Been having lots of trials and hearing lately. Will find some time to fix up a markethall and put them up in my other blog.

okay, enuf feasting on your eyes. Back to earth now !

This is MY bento. this humble practical one ! hee hee... did I hear a loud thud. yea, what a let down. Hee Hee..

A speed bento because I need to speed off to an outstation court today.

Since Bento #66 went down so well with the kids, I thought I do a furikake riceball bento again. For some reason, inari and sushi doesn't go down well with my kids. Furikake riceball is the nearest to Japanese finger food carbo that they would take.

Bento #79

Fried some nuggets in the deep fryer while I get Kimberly ready for school. Not home made nuggets, although I prefer them to eat home made kampung chicken nugget. Steamed some carrots for veges. Didn't have time to cut into appealing shapes for them cos I have to leave extra early today. So it's just strips.

Hope its substantial for Ashley cos I need to pick her up late from school today. Kimberly, the street wise one and being older, can always buy food from the canteen.

Got a chance to use these bento boxes I got from Toys R Us. They are a good deal at RM13.90, and came with bento straps and fork and spoon. Wait a minute, or was it RM19.90. Anyhow.

By the way, speaking of speed bento, working moms may want to check out Lunch in a box . She has such wonderful ideas for speed bento-s.

Happy Bento-ing, folks !

p.s. This is a late post, left in my laptop yesterday unpublished.

Tuna Sandwich Bento

2008-09-23T15:27:00.005+08:00

So, it's tuna sandwich bento meal again today. Kimberly had asked for more this time because there isn't enough "to share" yesterday. Haha.

She asked for 2 Pooh Bear and 2 Hello Kitty sandwiches but I could only fit one Pooh and 2 Hello Kitty shapes in there.

Bento #77

I didn't want to fill up her tummy during breaktime with the bento meal because the Primary school kids will be having rice with tofu and chicken ball today for lunch. I think those are food that she will eat.

So, only a few grapes and cherry tomatoes accompanied the tuna sandwiches.

I have ran out of most fruits and vegetables anyhow, save for some fresh red dates. But the skins of those little red dates fruits are too tough on little ones and I am hesitant about putting them out for Kimberly.

Ashley would have bit them into half, then nibble around the flesh and discard the skin, cos that's the way she is with unpeeled apples and pears. But Kimberly would have chomped them down since she is more minded to eat fruits with its skins now, but with fresh date fruits, she would then spit it back on the table and goes, "phoeey ! Momma , the skin is too thick !" But the red dates probably have to make an appearance in tommorrow's bento since I am all out of fruits but won't be buying grocery tonight.

Ashley gets to stay back from school today cos her gran is here to mind over her. She woke up late today.

Bento #78

This is hubby's bento of today.

Hubby's tuna sandwiches are more substantial.

The tuna sandwich is layered with cheese, zucchini and carrots.

I got a chance to use my sandwich box from the 100yen store. I got it at a good deal for RM4.90.

I love using this cos I don't have to squash the sandwich inside. I only need to place it in the middle and then click all the collapsible wall together to connect. The sandwich stays fat. haha.

I see some Japanese sites using pretty rose motives wax papers for the sandwiches, but not having wax papers, not even the plain white ones, I made do with clingwrap instead.

Also, there is a lower seperate compartment that you can put wetter food. I gave hubby half a pear to go with the sandwich, and some carrots, to tempt him into munching them. He is not one for vegetables.

Isn't this sandwich box neat?

Hokay, now that my 20 minutes self-allocated break time is up, I had better get back to preparing my cross examinations.

Have a great day today, all!

Kid's Bento and Husband's Siew Ngor Bento

2008-09-22T22:26:00.003+08:00

It's weiners for Kimberly again. She just had it on Friday. Guess I got to lay off weiners for the next few days.

Kimberly had asked for tuna sandwiches, but there were only 2 slices of bread left. So she gets only one sandwich.

Bento #75

She had asked for kiwi, but I didn't want that one lone sandwich to get wet, so I got her weiners again.

Slipped some grapes in a Cinnamoroll mini ziplock bag and hide it behind the Hello Kitty sandwich.

She complained that it wasn't enough to share with her classmate Vicky and asked me for more sandwiches tomorrow. So I guess tommorrow its going to be tuna sandwiches again.

Didn't have time to pretty it up for Kimberly since hubby asked for a lunch bento today. He is rushing some work and does not want to step out for lunch.

This is husband's bento for today.

It's siew ngor (vegetarian 5 spice beancurd sheet) bento today.

Bento #76

On the lower container is 3 sheets of siew ngor, with a soy sauce container wedged in sideway for a boiled egg that I place on top of the rice with furikake much later cos I was waiting for it to be cooled before peeling it.

MIL helped fry those siew ngor. Glad she had soaked them with up with paper towels, knowing that I usually does that for her son. haha. MIL loves to drown everything in oil, be it sweet and sour fillet, stir fry vege or tau yew bak.

My mom, on the other hand, is one who abhor unhealthy fats and I had picked that up somewhat from her. Even till today, my mom still chides me for putting on weight. sigh..Mothers being mothers, she never fails to remind me to be careful with my diet each time she sees me. I told her its not my diet but my lack of sleep but she won't have that as an excuse.haha.

Anyhow, back to bento, I stir fried some snap peas, carrot and firm tofu with oyster sauce. MIL tend to fry them way too soft and ummmm...messy looking? although she's great with tau yew bak (soy braised pork) and dishes like red wine chicken. I think elderly her generations just like their vegetables cooked through and through.

So I usually stir fry myself cos I like my veges to be firm. That's the tofu and stir fry vege in the upper container of hubby's bento.

I got hubby a new bento box. It came with a thermal bag. Hubby likes his food warm and he sometimes forgot to bring his bento box home.

This here below is my bento.

It's similar, save for the ommission of tofu.

I added an apple for my breakfast.

Snitched Kimberly's bento box cos mine are all from 100 yen stores and none are them are large enough. Most of mine are only about 530 ml capacity or so.

This one is easily more than 720 ml capacity cos its quite high and long.

Now that's today's bento.

And now to see if I can catch up on my tag homeworks.

Good night, all!

Bento #74

2008-09-22T18:36:00.005+08:00

This is Friday's bento.

I thought I haven't use many of my character cookie cutters save for Kimberly's favourite Hello Kitty one, so I dug out a few on Friday.

This is one of the un-utilised cookie cutter. I figure Kimberly won't much like those with Pooh or Mickey's shape, but she probably will like My Melody.

She had asked for a bento meal on Friday, which is encouraging, because she has been saying that kids are staring at her lunchbox, and I thought she is a tad shy about having bento.

Perhaps that explain why she had only shared her bento meals with a few selected schoolmates, Claudia, Elizabeth, and I think, Alexis or was it Alexa. Those were the ones she said liked her Hello Kitty shaped peanut butter sandwich, her Hello Kitty shaped carrots and home made chocolate chip cookies.

I slip some cookies in a cinnamoroll mini ziplock bag for her as a treat sometimes if I chance to bake some over the weekend. She said her friends claimed it is exactly like Famous Amos. And she goes around telling my friends, "My mother knows how to bake chocolate chip cookies like Famous Amos". It's kind of embarassing sometimes. If I were so good, I set up a stall already, haha.

Anyhow, Kimberly's bento are peanut butter sandwiches. She had also asked for apples and carrots, and weiners.

"Those with cheese in it", she had specified.

I usually just cut the carrots in strips but since I have steamed carrots leftover from yesterday's bento, which saves me time, I use her favourite Hello Kitty character cutter for it instead. Apples in likewise shape, save for one, just so that it could fit in the available vacant slot.

Ashley didn't go to school on Friday because I would be in court whole day that day and didn't want to have to worry about picking her up on time. Besides, with MIL being here that particular week, I could take advantage of not having to send Ashley to school. Ashley's gran would be feeding her porridge with steamed white pompret instead.

So that's catching up on the week's bento. Couldn't post today's bento cos I left the camera at home and haven't load it up. Now that Friday's trial is over, I am taking advantage of MIL's presence here this week to prepare for my upcoming trial fixed on next Wednesday and Thursday. These are the only days I could work late without having this niggling doubt about my kids' well being.

Happy Bento-ing, all !

Toddler's Bento

2008-09-21T00:52:00.006+08:00

This is Thursday's bento.

I thought I make use of these 3 sizes in one circle cookie cutters that I got from The Cake Connections.

Ashley had liked the cheese sandwich with the star shapes , so I thought I use circles this time.

She goes, "ha? bread doughnut, momma?" The silly toddler, haha !

She was with me in the kitchen and I had made another circle sandwich for her to chomp on while waiting for me.

Bento #73

Beside the cheese sandwich are 4 skewers of edamame sitting on a bed of Chinese lettuce. Ashley likes those edamame. She calls them "peas".

Kimberly also likes them, but more for the fun of squeezing them out of the edamame pouch than to eat it, I suspect.

I scatter some halved fishballs and sliced weiners at the bottom of the lettuce bed cos I don't think the bento box is going to fit a lot of those foodpicks. I only skewer 3 sticks of cherry tomato, weiner and fishball sticks for her. Good thing too, cos the bento box fit those existing ones just nicely.

Since Ashley hadn't had weiners close to two months already, I thought should re-introduce it back into her bento meal in case she goes off it. Actually, fat chance kids will go off weiners, yea? But I don't want to take the chance anyhow.haha.

Kimberly has weiners every now and then though.

One thing useful about having posting daily bento posts, you get to keep track of your kids' diet. Ha ha.

Some moms doesn't like the idea of feeding their kids processed food like weiners, but I have no qualms about it. It is rather handy for speedy bento packing. And in time of need, rather to have her eating weiners than no protein at all.

With my first born, Kimberly, all food has to be closest from the earth. Not peanut butter but peanut, no strawberry jam but strawberry, no candies, no chocolates, no processed foods, vege and fruits has to be organic and so on and so forth. With my 2nd born, I have relaxed my regime somewhat. Heck, who am I kidding? I have relaxed my regime a whole lot !

Anyhow, to go back to bento, I steamed some carrot slices for Ashley. As I was cutting out 2 shapes with the Hello Kitty cutter, I know that the food is going to be a tight fit. But I thought I give it a shot anyhow. Only one goes in there. It's looks more ornamental than to play a part in the 3-2-1 bento proportion. Ha Ha.

So, stuffed the rest of the steamed carrots in a lock and lock container and stow it away in the fridge for tommorow's bento instead.

Will try to post Friday's bento soon. Have a great weekend, all !

Bento #72

2008-09-20T17:19:00.002+08:00

Wednesday was a holiday and the kids are off school.

Since I have time on my hand, DH gets a bento meal instead.

Fixed DH a bacon sandwich. Fried some bacons and layered the bacon with red peppers, yellow peppers, cheese, zucchini and carrots for the sandwich.

Bento #72

I also add 2 fried eggs at the side with more zucchini and carrots.

Notice that the orange silicon cup is placed sideway? I thought it would act better as a barrier from the sandwich against the grease from the eggs. I suppose I could use a baran divider but since I was already holding the silicon cups in my hands….. I also place another silicon cup beneath the eggs to catch the grease.

Since DH is not one for vegetables, I try to slot in as much fruits as I can. I added some pear slices and kiwi at the divided containers for him. Slot some lettuce and cherry tomatoes wherever there are gaps to stop jiggling during transport.

Everything goes into this bento box.

This is hubby's favourite bento box. I am hoping to get one of these thermal ones for myself. Hubby says it could keep his breakfast warm till he's ready to eat them. He is one who is more inclined to bento for breakfast but not for lunch. He prefers to have lunch with business associates or his cronies.

On that note, living in a hot climate like Malaysia, I am sure that most of us are already aware that bacteria breeds in hot environment.

Try to eliminate the right component for bacteria breeding, cool food before packing them. Bacteria thrives and multiply their breeding on hot environment. The food in its existing hot temperature (right after being cooked) is bound to be already too warm in itself to begin with. Bacteria multiply with the right component in lenght of time, heat, existence of food and bacteria.

Also, never leave your bento box in a hot pantry, in a school locker, inside the car, near the window within sunlight etc. Always try to keep them in cool or shady places. It helps if you pack a chilled or frozen drink or an ice pack with the bento box. Although I got the kids some ice packs, I have not seen the necesity to use them yet.

Ashley's teacher laeves her bento box in the kitchen, which I have checked, is cool (if not cold at times when it rains) because the whole school premise is air conditioned, including the kitchen. It wasn't a big school.

Kimberly's classroom is air conditioned as well. Besides, even if she leaves her bento in her schoolbag in her classroom, I have always made sure that her food are cooled before I packed them, and I try to add chilled fruits to go with it.

Hope that helps those who has been asking about bacteria related food safety. If anyone has more to share, I would love to know more, since I bento every day for myself and for my kids.

Kid's Pasta Bento

2008-09-19T01:42:00.008+08:00

Tuesday's bento is a pasta bento.

I didn't want to spend too much time on Tuesday's bento as well cos even though I only need to go into court at 2 pm, I thought I go in the office awhile for some stuff before I go to court.

So this is another no-frill speedy bento. Save for the teddy bear cut out, I didn't have to do much. Didn't even segregate the kiwi for my little ones like I usually do.

Bento #71

It's Kimberly's bento.

I have been checking out Kimberly's meals at her school. While they serve over the counter food that Kimberly likes, I have found that the new canteen operator's meals is not as appetising as their first few weeks.

Ashley woke up late and had breakfast at home. So I hadn't needed to fix her one. On top of that, she is more minded now to eat food that her kindergarten serve nowaday, lifting some pressure somewhat out of my shoulder.

Anyhow, Kimberly's bento is creamy pasta with stir fried chicken. This is from one of my frozen stash. I took out 2 muffin cup-ful and heat it up. Add some cheese teddy bear cut outs for her, cos Kimberly loves cheesey stuff.

The coleslaw was the also from my bento lunch stash. I fixed 2 portions on Monday night. But decide not to bento for myself today. Scoop a teeny weeny portion out for Kimberly's bento instead. Since she ate 3 spoonsful of it last night, I am hoping to establish this into her bento menu. Scattered some carrot rounds on top so it don't look too pale.

The coleslaw is cabbage, carrot and apple sliced julienne. Then I heaped lots of mayonaise on it. The actual recipe calls for salt, sugar and vinegar but I prefers them without. It look a tad wet though. Probably didn't dry the vege enough before I sliced them.

Kimberly came home with a soaking wet lunchbag. Lucky I gave her that waterproof Princess Disney lunchbag.

Took this picture out of my bento post #53.

She didn't touch the coleslaw at all, sigh, although she ate all the kiwi and half the pasta. The coleslaw probably put off her appetite.

Crossing that out of my bento list. Yea..hee..hee..I do keep a bento food planner. It is divided into protein, carbo and fruits/vege. Very useful for looking through just before bedtime.

Oh, and a few people asked me for my pasta recipe before from my earlier pasta bento.

It's over at my dormant kitchen blog, Christeneskitchen which I used to keep for making a record of food that Ashley, my non-formula-milk-drinker, would eat, when she was a baby.

Sorry no photos there, cos it was during one of my initial maidless days, which was quite chaotic.

Hope the recipe helps though.

Bento #70

2008-09-17T21:47:00.003+08:00

Monday’s bento was fixed in like 5 minutes. All I had needed to do was snip!

Because MIL fried some roti canai for DH’s breakfast, I took advantage of the ready cooked food. Otherwise it was going to be pasta with meatball and kiwi. MIL had came over on Saturday so that I could go in the office over the weekend to do some work in peace, to make up for the backlog last week when Ashley was sick.

I had a full day trial on Monday and didn’t want to spend too much time packing a bento.

To expedite, I also use this bento box that I got from 100 yen store for RM4.90. I also got the compartmentalized boxes for RM4.90. Such a good deal, yea? With this, I don’t even need to dig out my silicon cups !!

I thought I give Ashley a change from the usual pink bento boxes! So I use the stripey beige one instead of the dotted pink compartmentalised one.

I cut one of the roti canai into triangles and sprinkle them with sugar.

At the side is some jelly mooncake that the girls’ 3rd Kau-Fu bought over for them on Saturday night because we couldn't make it to my mom's for family dinner. It was Mooncake Festival Day on Sunday.

I had to work over the weekend and came home quite late.

But isn’t it nice of their single and young Kau Fu to think of them when he saw those jelly mooncakes?

I love how the mooncake maker makes those orange balls to looks like egg yolks as in the traditional single yolk mooncakes. I was told those are home made. Made by our neighbour next door. My mom's neighbour,that is.

My kid brother bought them 4 different flavours. There are dragonfruit flavoured one, coffee flavoured one and bubur cha cha flavoured one. But Ashley prefer this over the rest. This is corn and orange.

I added some grapes in the bento box for Ashley.

I am pleased to note that she has graduated to eating grapes with its skins on.

Those are seedless. But where they are with seeds, Ashley would bite a teeny bit off the top, then dug her finger in to pick the seeds off before popping them into her mouth.

I wonder who taught her that? Maybe a teacher in school? Or perhaps she observed someone in her class doing that? But I thought I was the only mom who packed a bento box or a lunchbox in her kindy, so where did the grapes in school come from then? Anyhow, will make a note to ask her teachers.

I added a Hello Kitty anti-bacterial sheet on top of the food to stop the sugar from the roti canai from scattering over to the mooncake and grapes, not that it matters anyhow, since all 3 are relatively sweet food.

She ate half the roti canai but finished all other food.

I guess roti canai won’t be in the list of my favourite bento item.

Not just because she didn’t like it enough to finish it, but also because it is ghee laden.

So that’s Monday’s bento.

I was half minded to scoot off to court without having her going to school, so that I don't have to worry about her food and save time on bento. Her gran would see to it that she eat throughout the day in my absence. But I'm glad I didn’t take her off school on Monday. The little one would have been oh-so-bored at home.

Will catch up on the rest soon.

Have a great week ahead,all !

hardly a toddler's bento

2008-09-12T23:03:00.007+08:00

Bento #69

I didn't take a picture of Ashley's Thursday's bento box cos I left my camera upstair somewhere and couldn't locate it. Haiyoh !

Anyhow, it was steamed plain man tou with watermelon and home made mince meat-balls.

No bento on Friday either since Ashley didn't go to school. She woke up in the middle of the night at 3 am and didn't get back to sleep till 6 am. So I thought I let her sleep in today and did not step in the office in the morning. She woke at 11.30am, giving me a good solid 4 and a half hour of quiet for working from home.

Since today is Friday, Kimberly gets home from school at half day instead of her usual 4pm. I have to be home by half day to receive Kimberly and I can't leave her alone at home, so on Fridays, I usually don't work in the afternoon.

However, I have a sambung bicara on Monday and Tuesday and had to prepare for the defendant’s cross examination since my interpreter to the Plaintiff's witnesses told me at the last minute yesterday evening that she can't make it on Monday and all other interpreters that I knew of are taken up.

It's just in case the court allows us to proceed with the defendant’s witnesses instead. Unlikely, but need to be prepared anyhow. Ashley has been sick the last few days and with MIL not here this week, I haven't had much work done.

So the moment Kimberly got home, I bundled both kids into the car to the office.

Packed this for our lunch in the office. It’s one bento box for a big lunch for 3 of us instead of 3 individual bento boxes. Usually, I would just place the bento boxes in front of the kids when we get there and they eat themselves but it's hardly a toddler's bento today so I had needed to de-bone it and feed Ashley myself.

This is today's bento meal.

Bento # 69

It's kampung chicken marinated in worcestershire sauce. I marinated them yesterday and this morning, add some salt, pepper and lots of chopped up onions, and some olive oil. Smeared some barbeque sauce on it and shove it in the oven.

I had chopped up those stuff yesterday and store them in the fridge in a lock and lock, so the roast chicken is a speedy affair. I added some honey 5 minutes before its cooked.

But I thought the dish look too dull by itself, so added some zucchini and carrot shaped teddy bears and cherry tomatoes.

The carrot shaped teddy bear is all the name of tempting my little ones into eating!

Someday I will just take out a cane, crook my arms on my waist and give my kids a threatening,

" Now, EAT !! or else !!!"

haha. It has got to be easier than this !

I made the sushi in no time at all. Well, what little time it took, it sure beat the time it took me to get Ashley ready for school, cajol her to take some breakfast, drive over to send her to her kindergarten, drive back, drive over pick her up and drive back wait for Kimberly. Sounds times consuming !

Anyhow, it's daikon, zucchini and salmon sushi.

Put them all in this old bento box belonging to Kimberly. It's the only big one that I have. I found it at MIL's house where I used to store Kimberly's old stuff.

Bento boxes has came a long way, yea? Those of Kimberly that I have before are nowhere as pretty as those that I got now.

While Kimberly ate her sushi obediently (in my presence), Ashley unrolled it and peeled the rice and zuchini off the seaweed to eat it, making quite a mess. I am trying to ease the kids into eating sushi with seaweed.

So that's today's bento. Have a great weekend ahead, all !

Bento #68

2008-09-10T16:16:00.006+08:00

I took time off work today because Ashley didn't feel like going to school. She is still sniffling and coughing.

So having some extra time before Kimberly goes off to school, I packed a bento box for Kimberly instead. I figure she could have a break from school's food today.

It's 3 bite-size battered fillets dredged in flour and fried. Quite large pieces too, this time.

I added a new food item for her. Peppers ! I layered the battered fish with slices of red pepper and yellow pepper. I am hoping that she may be tempted into taking a bite of them.

I also gave her some green grapes and purple grapes. Layered the green grapes with slices of carrots, one more slice of yellow pepper and one more slice of red pepper.

At the bottom is a small ear of corn, steamed in the morning. See, when you don't have to rush for work and/or rush to send the toddler to kindergarten, you even have time to fry fish and steam corn. haha!

The fish fillets were cut and frozen by MIL. She normally would buy fresh fish from the market, cut them into bite size and freeze them in little containers for me. It's usually 6 fillets in a box, just enough for the 2 kids or just enough for dinner dish. MIL would prepare about 3 boxes of these at one time.

If it's whole fish, MIL would skin the fish's innards and freeze the skinned ones in containers for me as well. She knew that I couldn't skin a fish to save my life. Sigh..I had only learn cooking sometime last year when Kimberly came back from MIL to live with me to start her Primary One here.

We had housekeepers cook for us during our childhood and I had never thought to learn cooking then.

But now that I have kids,I have to learn, by hook or by crook. BIL's wife taught me how to stir fry vegetables, MIL taught me certain dishes like Tau Yew Bak, an aunt taught me braised chicken, and other bits and pieces I learned from books, the net etc cos my mom don't cook.

Anyhow, I took a box out last night to leave it to defrost in the refridgerator. I normally lay out all the stuff I need the night before as well, flour, bowl, salt and pepper, ready on the kitchen table so that all I need to do is shake those flour into a bowl to dredge for frying.

Kimberly finished everything except the green grapes and the red pepper. The red pepper, I understand, because it is not a familiar item to her.

But the green grapes, I don't understand. She has always been the type who would eat berries, cherries, peaches and green grapes without qualm. Quite unlike my Ashley who would only eat Asian savoury dishes and sweet fruits like rambutans and watermelons.

Kimberly said it was too much food. I guess it was. I have always been minded to pack small portions for both kids, but got carried away today, in view of my ample time to spare. haha.

I love those little flag foodpicks. Got them from the bento gathering last Saturday. They were also long enough to skewer quite a number of food. I could skewer several grapes on one skewer for Ashley this morning.

So that's the bento for today. Have a great day today, all !

Bento # 67

2008-09-09T16:12:00.007+08:00

This is Ashley's bento meal of today.

She is not feeling well today. She has cough and flu, so I thought I wait till she wakes and see whether she feels up to going to school. Work is out of question today.

Ashley usually loves school and would ask to go even if we didn't send her over.

She woke at 9.45 am and wanted to go to school. I figure that by the time she gets to school, her school's break time would be over since we are going to school late today. So I fix her this breakfast bento meal for the drive out to her school instead. It's a good 15 minutes drive to her school.

Its honeydew melon cut out in tulip shapes, with slices of cheese between ginger thins biscuits.

She loves these mild cheese from the Ikea cafe. I suppose its because its full of eeny weeny holes and she finds it fascinating?

She only ate the biscuits by the time we got to her school. So I close the bento box and gave it to her teacher for her to finish in class. Then scoot over to Jessie's workplace to download pics into my laptop, minum teh with her, and got back just in time to pick Ashley up.

You can imagine how long we can chat! My, I have just discovered what a gurreat cook she is. She knows how to marinate satay, she can make mooncakes from scratch, make the mungbean paste herself, the red bean paste herself, the whole work !! Her chicken paste, chives, prawn stuffings for tofu pouch ....sigh..I was in gastronomic heaven just drooling over her pics. What pics? Those pics she had in her thumbdrive, lar. I had the liberty of scrolling through them with her explaining how it get done. Wow....am still wowing..ha ha.

Anyhow, I thought I picked Ashley up from school early today since she is not feeling too well. Went to Ikea, which is on the way home, for lunch with her, of which she ate nothing but brocolli. Sigh..she is feeling worst than I thought. So I left most of the food untouched and brought her home for her medicine and her nap instead.

Now that she is taking her nap, I figure I quickly load this up and send it out.

Have a great day today, all !!

Bento #64 and #65

2008-09-07T13:15:00.005+08:00

We are at FIL's over this weekend and having loads of time on my hand, I thought I send out all the backlog bento posts in my draft box !

Bento #64

This is Ashley’s Tuesday’s bento.

No bento on Monday cos Monday was Merdeka holiday and we spend the weekend at Genting. Will blog about it later. Genting is our usual getaway over the weekends. The kids love the theme parks.

I figured the kids hasn’t had nuggets for close to a month, so decide to fry some nuggets for Ashley’s bento box.

Added a few slices of pear for her, and some steamed carrots.

She ate it on the way home cos she had her school’s breaktime food and her school’s lunch time food today instead of the bento meal.

Ashley usually comes home early from school if her granny is here with us over the week. MIL is here this week to help me with the kids so that I could stay longer hours in the office finishing up pending works.

Had to work my schedule around the kids all the time so had to rely on MIL to come down every forthnight or every 3 week or so to help out. Got a trial and some hearings lined up next week and needed some time to complete my preparation.

Hope my dear MIL know how much I appreciates her !

Bento #65

This is Wednesday's bento meal.

Ashley didn’t go to school on Wednesday.

Actually, she didn’t go to school from Wednesday right up to Friday. I figured she could stay at home this week and she can afford to sleep in late since her granny is here to oversee everything this week.

From the age of 2 1/2 year old, the poor dear had to wake up early every day to go to school, so that her mom could get some work done during the hours she is at school. I plan to be a SAHM when and if I do get a 3rd kid. No sign of good news anywhere for now.

Anyhow, with Ashley at home, packed bento for myself this week instead.

It’s fried ikan kurau with unagi sauce. Slot some red peppers and zucchini at the sides for vege. In the little silicon cup is some tofu leftover from last night.

The rice is cooked this morning because I don’t have any leftover rice. Top the rice with some furikake and some extra zucchini.

Haven't use this bento box for awhile so I thought I wipe the dusty cobwebs off it. Just kidding.

Okay, now to move this draft to a new post and publish it.

Hokay, and now to retrieve my kids from their cousins' house next door. FIL's sister lives next door and their "Koh Poh" has 3 grandkids around Kimberly and Ashley's age. So the kids spend their time next door a lot whenever we at at FIL's.

Have a great weekend, all !!

Bento #61, #62, #63,

2008-09-05T17:48:00.013+08:00

Bento #61

This is for catching up on last week’s bento meals,

It's Ashley’s Thursday’s bento box. It’s 2 mini home baked buns with 5 cubes of cheese. I use the bread machine for the dough, shaped them into 18 mini buns and shove them in the oven. Reserve half for this morning’s breakfast and froze the rest.

On the right divider is 2 slices of apple from half an apple, and 3 cherry tomatoes and 3 grapes.

Bento #62

This is Ashley’s Friday’s bento.

I have asked her teacher to persuade her to eat the broccoli and siew mai with her rice in school today because Ashley will need to go in the office with me today and I didn’t want to have to worry about feeding her later.

I normally either work half days on Fridays or bring both kids to the office with me cos while I could leave Ashley in school, I couldn't leave Kimberly anywhere when she gets home at 12.30. Kimberly's school is on half day on Fridays. That particular day, I had needed to go in, hence both kids goes with me.

Anyhow, back to bento.

The broccoli was stir fried in oyster sauce and is from a leftover dish from yesterday’s dinner.

I added 3 fishballs for just in case , 2 cherry tomatoes and some star shaped toasts.

She ate the brocolli, tomatoes and the fishballs, turning up her nose on the rest. I figure it's because siew mai is not a familiar item in her bento box, and she prefers the school's lunch of rice over my toasts.

Kimberly finishes school at 11.30am last Friday because they are having Merdeka Day celebration in school.

They were encouraged to wear national costumes to school that day, so she went in her cheong sam. There weren't any classes going on that day. Only colouring contests and stuffs like that.

But, any reason to get those cheong sam out of the closet, really. Considering that those chinese costumes only get worn once year, I am glad that I have another kid of the same gender to take over the hand me downs. haha.

Seriously, Kimberly refused to wear anything except Chinese costumes during Chinese New Year and we got her like 6 to 7 pieces each year to last that first 3 days of CNY.

Anyhow, since she gets home by 11.30 am that Friday, I did not pack her any bento meal. On Fridays, her school will provide food for their break time instead of lunch time.

Bento #63

This bento is Kimberly’s lunch bento. Since Ashley had lunch in school, Kimberly would have to eat hers later in my office. Her break time in school on Fridays is at 9.20 am, so she is bound to be hungry by the time we get to my office.

My entourage of 2 kids and 2 bento boxes need to follow me wherever I go at all time if they are not in school. haha ! Although, ashley didn't exactly get a bento box. It's more like a fruit snack, comprising of honeydew and apple slices. Didn't take a picture of that.

Kimberly's lunch bento is rice with furikake and roasted chicken. Didn't want to shape the rice in moulds in case Ashley sees them and wants them. I think having rice in school is more than enough. She needs that space in her tummy for protein, preferably from a portion of the chicken out of my lunch bento box.

The chicken pieces were marinated in soy sauce and oyster sauce and roasted in the oven.

I had the same lunch as Kimberly's for my bento except that mine were just topped clumsily on top of my rice without furikake and not prettily arranged for want of time, so it wasn't picture worthy.

Added 3 tomatoes for her because Kimberly loves tomatoes; and 4 grapes for fruits.

I had to help her debone the chicken, but it sure beat having to lug 2 kids out to eat and fighting for time.

Ashley likes the chicken too, and she snitched a little from Kimberly here and there. She prefers those out of Kimberly's bento box than those out of mine.

I will probably include this into her bento meals next time. De-boned, of course.

So that’s last week’s bento.

Will load up this week's bento soon, now that streamyx is up and about. Have a great weekend, folks !

Bento #60 - toddler's bento

2008-08-29T14:26:00.004+08:00

Since Kimberly appears to be happy with the canteen food nowadays, I only need to pack a bento meal for Ashley. This is Ashley's bento box for the day.

This bento is packed in compliance with my priority for speed. I had to spend a good part of the morning sourcing for Kimberly's project material. It's her Bahasa Malaysia project this time. Yesterday's was for her English project.

Wednesday

Bento #60

Ashley bento is simply star shaped cheese sandwich. I thought it's high time I put the different sizes star shape cutter to good use. Been meaning to do this forever but keep skipping them to make way for available space in the bento box to slot other allocated food.

In the divided container are slices of Japanese pear cut into star shapes. I seperate them with baran divider for her easier picking with her tiny fingers.

Slot them fruits into a silicon cup to keep them in place. It was a huge pear and those are from half a side of the pear.

Her teacher didn't open her bento box today because she likes the break time food of the day. They usually offer her the bento only if she rejects the break time food or their lunch time food.

So I offered her the bento meal on the ride home. The angel that she is, she usually finishes all her food on the drive home.

Perhaps, leaving a slice or two of a fruit or a cucumber.

So that's Wednesday's bento. Will try to catch up on the rest soon.

Have a great weekend, all !

Bento #58 and Bento #59

2008-08-27T15:08:00.008+08:00

I had to spend a major portion of my limited wee hour in the morning sourcing for Kimberly's English project material instead of packing bento. So today's bento meal is a simple one.

I know I was suppose to source for Kimberly's project material earlier but I hadn't much time over last week. When I finally found some time over the weekend when we went to FIL, I realised that I have not brought my laptop along. Hence the eleventh hour rush again.

She tried to surf the link I gave her over the school holiday, but the pictures she came up with were really small pictures, which I felt wasn't what her teacher wanted.

Anyhow, this is Ashley's toddler bento meal of the day.

Tuesday

Bento # 58

Bento #58 is one teriyaki chicken drumstick cut up and skewered. It looks really little, yea? But it's one whole regular size drumstick,no less.

On the upper portion is two bunny shaped onigiri. I took them out from the freezer and steamed them in the microwave. I made them ready with the eyes and nose so it was a pretty speedy affair. Stuck a baran divider between the two onigiri so that they don't get stuck together.

On the side of the onigiri are some zucchini slices and 2 cherry tomatoes. I try not to pack carbohydrates as I know Ashley is more minded to eat biscuits, rice and noodles in school nowadays.

Bento #59

I think I won't be packing much bento box meals for Kimberly in the near future. She came home from school yesterday to tell me that the school's new canteen operator serve terific food.

She also told me she ate a major portion of her school's lunch that day.

Her school has been having some issues with their canteen operator of this year. Lots of kids are skipping their lunch and is buying other food from the counter instead.

I am pleased to hear from my little girl that she likes the food served by the present operator. I had started packing bento food for Kimberly because she seems to be eating the school's lunch less and less as the year go by. I spoke to one of her classmate's mom and she, too, told me that her son told her that he likes their food now.

Anyhow, back to bento.

This here below is not Kimberly's bento for Tuesday. I found this picture lying around my laptop and remembered that this was the bento box I packed for her last Wednesday when she went to the baking class at The Cake Connection .

She only ate a small portion of it before the class because she was so excited about checking out the store. But she finished it on the ride home cos she was famished.

Bento #59 is 4 boiled cheese weiners on the right. That's skewered steamed edamame and 2 cherry tomatoes in the middle. On the left, that's her usual peanut butter sandwich cut out in her current prefered cookie cutter.

Will load up Ashley's Wednesday's bento soon.

Have a great week ahead, all !

She made better cupcakes than I do !

2008-08-26T08:17:00.007+08:00

I send Kimberly to a baking class during the one week school holiday. Before Ashley was born, we have a once weekly baking session, where Kimberly would choose a recipe, and we would go about buying the ingredient and set aside one day to bake. Just the two of us.

After Ashley was born, there never seem to be any time for Kimberly. Ashley is always clinging to me. Even now.

Kimberly has been wanting to have a baking session forever.

I am not even a good baker to begin with, but I made do.

Sometimes I get sprinkles for her to decorate, and sometimes, she would pipe icing on cakes and cupcakes.

But in dire straits, this is how our cupcakes usually turn out to be.

Plain !

So, Kimberly went to a baking class at The Cake Connection at Jaya One, PJ during the school holiday.

This is not a substitute for mother and daughter bonding time, but it will tide things over till we have some time for baking together.

I came to know about The Cake Connection from Nancy . Kimberly is always asking to check out Nancy's blog for the cupcakes. She calls it "the chieh chieh's blog with the flowers and butterflies".

Good thing she hasn't discovered Alice's blog yet. Else between both these blogs, she would be hogging the laptop whole night long !

Anyhow, when I took Kimberly to the baking class, she positively love everything in the store. The sprinkles, the ready made fondant figurines and petals, and everything sugar and pink and nice !

Kimberly came out from the baking class with 6 cupcakes.

There's 4 left now cos one went into her tummy and the other went into Ashley's tummy.

She made better cupcakes than I do. ha! ha !

These are the kids hard at work.

The photos are courtesy of Nancy and Shymala of The Cake Connection.

Under watchful eyes.

High Five !!!

The proud little bakers !

This is her sitting around waiting for me to pick her up.

While waiting , she helped herself to a cupcake.

Thumbs up for the baking class, Kimberly says.

Seeing her hair like that always makes me resist the tempation to reach out and tuck her hair behind her ears. If she is in front of her peers, inevitably, she would go, "MOMMA !!!" ever so loudly !

Anyhow, Kimberly ask to go for baking classes again if there is another one coming up over the next school holiday. She keep telling me, "Mom, I will teach you how to make cupcake!"

If she is going to be baking better cupcakes than I do, I would be more than eager to drive her around for her baking classes, haha.

Bento # 56 and Bento # 57

2008-08-25T11:29:00.008+08:00

It has been wonderful being able to lie in bed till 8 am or 10 am everyday for the last few days !! It was school holidays last week! And I need not have to wake up at 6 am everyday to pack a bento meal for my picky eaters.

Now that the one week break is over, it's back to bento-ing again !!

This here are both kids' bento for today.

Monday

Bento # 56

Bento #56 is turkey slices with cherry tomatoes and grapes sitting on a bed of lettuce. Both are topped with fish shaped steamed carrots.

I love my new itsy bitsy cookie cutter. Yozoranitesky has so kindly gotten me this stash. She says it's for the kids and refused to let me pay her back.

I have been wanting to scatter carrot/vege cut-outs on top of the kids bento meals since forever, but haven't any cookie cutters small enough for the carrots. Yozora and I have been talking about visiting that bakery supplier store in Kepong that has itsy bitsy cutters.

I was overjoyed when Yozora gave me these 2 weeks back !!! She had gone to Singapore for a short trip a few weeks back and had popped into Daiso for a quick grab!

I had told her that she only need to get them if it wasn't imposing on her, but the sweet soul that she is, she had made time to drop by despite her busy schedule.

I had wanted to use them earlier but I hadn't time till now.

Don't they look pretty? Those little fishies swimming around on top? ha ha.

In Kimberly's blue bento box, there's peanut butter sandwiches. She just won't have butter sandwiches, egg sandwhiches or any others.It has to be peanut butter sandwiches. For now, anyhow.

On top of the sandwiches is one kiwi,sliced up and divide with baran for her easier picking. She just loves kiwi. I couldn't find any of the yellow ones here though. Rachel's mom and LZmommy had commented that those are sweeter and doesn't sting the tongue so much. I would love to get some if I can find some here.

Ashley's bento is just plain bread cut out. Instead of kiwi, which she doesn't fancy, I gave her a tube of cheese stick instead.

Bento #57

Last but not least, MY BENTO ! ha ha ! Which consist of leftovers.

It's bread pudding with leftovers from cut out carrots, leftovers from the middle portion of the cheese stick, leftovers from cut out bread, leftovers from the outer layer of the turkey slice, which I normally dont give kids.

I scoop them all into a ramekin bowl, beat up an egg and add some milk, pour over them, didn't wait for it to soak out, but just placed them in the oven outright !

I timed it for 25 minutes while I go get Ashley ready for school.

Packed them into this bento box with my new bento strap!

And that's the bento for today, folks !

Happy Bento-ing !

Ashley's Toddler's Bento #55

2008-08-19T15:16:00.009+08:00

Friday

Toddler's Bento# 55

Ashley's bento for friday is simply one Kiwi fruit sliced up and peeled. I had stashed up some mince meat with mushroom and carrot wrapped in tofu skin, so I cut one in 3 parts for her and push those leaves foodpick through each one so it looks like a flower.

Sandra got her sister to send her those bento stuff from the Daiso in the states and ask if any of us want to tumpang. Of course we do. ha ha. Thanks Sandra, been wanting those tulip and balloon foodpicks forever !!!

And just take a look at those kawaii musical notes cutter and those tiny little ones ! Perfect for itsy bitsy eyes and arms and stuff. All my cutters are cookie cutters that are way too big to do much with. I was so thrilled when I received the parcel.

Anyhow, back to the bento. That's some toast cut into tiny star shapes at the back of the mince meat over there.

I think her teacher forgot to unpack her bento that day, or perhaps she was eating the school's food. Anyhow, I opened it up for her to eat on the ride home. She ate all the 3 pieces of tofu wrapped mince meat, the star shaped toast (soft by now) and ate only one slice of the kiwi.

However, Kimberly finished it up for her when she saw me placing it in the living room for Ashley to finish it up when we got home. Kimberly could eat 3 whole kiwi fruits in a day if I don't stop her. Her tongue gets stung if she ate too much kiwi.

Kimberly has a food fair in school Friday. She went to school with a bottle of water and RM20 for buying food she would fancy at those food stalls. She came home telling me 3 times that she had a terrific time. She also came home with a cookie for her little sister. I thought that was so sweet of her to have thought of her sister. Good thing she only spend RM5. I have been worried about her being spendthrift.

So that's catching up on last week's bento posts.

Have a great week ahead , all !

Kids' Bento #53 and Bento #54

2008-08-16T20:45:00.004+08:00

Wednesday

Bento #53

This is not exactly a bento.

It's a treat that Kimberly ask for her breaktime because one of her classmates likes it the last time, and Kimberly promise to bring it the next day for sharing.

It's biscuit fingers, divided into 2 zip lock mini bags. Two mini jar of chocolate spread (I use Dove's brand) and some sprinkles for coating the chocolate coated biscuit sticks with. Those sprinkles are what I usually use for cupcakes but I also let the kids dip their chocolate coated biscuit sticks with these at home sometimes for a treat.

On the upper tier of the bento box is one cut out slice of pear and 4 cut out slices of apples. Why so farnee, wan? I can hear you asking. Ha! ha !

Kimberly woke early and got herself ready earlier than usual so she was with me in the kitchen. She ate those cut out pears as fast as I could cut them. I have ran out of pears by then and had to use an apple instead. So that's why there's only one cut out slice of pear and 4 slices of apples.

As expected, the bento box came back messy with sticky sprinkles all over. Fortunately, with that foresight, I had placed the bento box inside this lunch bag.

Good thing too, that the spilled sprinkles were contained in the bento box and did not even mess up the lunchbag.

I find this lunchbag really useful. It's waterproof with a velcro opening, and it could contained droplets from frozen bottled homemade juice really well. I sometimes pack some in these for long drives out to FIL's place.

Bento # 54 - Thursday's bento

Both kids have the same bento meals.

Bento #54 is rolled ham slices, cheese cubes, cube zucchini and yellow cherry tomatoes secured with foodpicks. I figure they both haven't had ham slices for about close to a month already so I packed that for the day.

For Ashley, I added 2 grapes at the side and for Kimberly, I added 2 cherry tomatoes. At the side is half a Japanese pear cut into sticks.

For some reason, Ashley prefer Japanese pears over normal pears. Perhaps its because Japanese pears brings out more juice than normal pears.

That's catching up on some of this week's bento posts.

Have a gurreat weekend, all !!