Your kids have nerdy parents when..

I was beyond excited to get Star Wars bento accessories, and over the moon when I found the cutest Star Wars box the other day. I knew I had to use them for Monday Madness.
I don't have any Star Wars cutters, that needs to change, so I had to work around that. Hopefully it works. The husband approved and even told me how he wanted the sandwich decorated ;)


Big A has
Cream cheese and jelly death star
1/3 organic pop tart
Sausage link
1/2 fruit cup
Chocolate granola crunch thing
Cheese sabers
Cucumber stars
and a few fruit snacks

I am in love

I couldn't help but use that fabric. This totally makes my day. I think after this I shall geek out at least once a month. Sounds good right? 

Last Friday in July. Almost fall right?

It's July in Texas, and it's hot. Like fry an egg on the sidewalk hot. The last thing I wanted to do was hang out in the kitchen and put together a bento for tomorrow.
Soo I did this lickity split and hightailed my self out there as fast as I could.

This is what I ended up with while sweating and cursing the placement of the air vents.
I threw some boat stuff together and really hope it looks awesome enough for Big A to eat.

He has
Jelly and cream cheese cut in half to fit
vanilla filled cookie
3/4 cereal bar with fruit leather cut outs
1/4 meatloaf muffin
Vienna sausages
and
Grapes
in the first box


Watermelon
&
Oranges in the other box

Hopefully he eats it all. He should, but it's really too hot for me to think about that right now.

Excuse me, I must go take a bath in ice water

Gettin ready to cool down in the pool!

Octopus Hot Dogs!

Since it's Monday madness, I basically make all the cute stuff I want and hope it works in a lunch . And this week I wanted to do something cute with hot dogs. 

Enter the octopus hot dog. Super easy to make, you just need to time it right because they take a hot minute to cook. I like to cut them and let them cook while I am making the bento fillers and then doing the dishes. Makes me feel like less time is wasted 

I used my new Goodbyn box from Target and decided to go nuts. A really wanted a hot dog and I really wanted to make a soot sprite sandwich. We both won. He also got some applesauce and left over birthday cake in the 2 cup container. In the main is the hot dogs with ketchup to dip, grilled cheese sandwich, heart cucumbers, and mandarin oranges.

See that grilled cheese? Totally used all the cheese scraps that have been accumulating in my fridge. 

See? Leftover as it's finest. Lil A got the scraps from cutting the sandwich for his lunch. Double score

Now, on to hotdogs. 

You will need

- Hot dog(s)

- Sharp knife

- Pot of boiling water

First, you are going to cut the hot dog in thirds. You could also do halves. Whichever

Then, take your ends and cut them about 2/3 of the way up into fourths. Confused? Me too. Here's a picture. 

This is what we are going for

Then, you are going to cut each section again. You can either cut from the bottom or the top. I like going from the top better. When I cut from underneath one of mine had 9 cuts. No clue how that happened 

Over 

Under 

Now that the cutting is done, we have to cook the hot dogs so the legs curl and look cute. 

You can do this in 3 ways. 

You can pan fry them - with or without water

Boil them in a deep pot

Deep fry them in hot oil - This works best for me, but I don't have a deep fryer anymore ;(

 Pan with water - takes FOREVER 

Boiling in a deep pan. Takes about 5 - 7 minutes 

So when your hot dogs are done, they should look something like this, or even a little better. 

I took the middle of the hot dog and cut it into slices to lift the pretty ones up in his lunch. 

I was in a rush to get them done so I only boiled them for about 3 minutes. We had a date with the horsedog and our backyard this afternoon. 

Go conquer the octopus hot dog and see how amazed your kids are. 

 Lil A hanging out in the backyard

Big A hanging out with the horsedog that we were watching this weekend!