Tips of the bento trade

Just like all skills and crafts, there are tips that will make your bento life much easier and save you from tearing your hair out.

First - Pack that sucker (box) as high and tight as you can. You don't want teeny items rolling around in your box, you want it jam packed so things don't get all messed up. This is where the right box comes in handy.

Second - Get creative with your decorations. Big A really wanted a firetruck once and I was all "how the heck and I supposed to decorate this?!?". My best lunch at summer camp reputation was on the line and I had to do some fast thinking, it was 10 minutes to out the door time.
Solution? I used a hot sauce cap for the wheels and cut strips of cheese and cucumber peel for the decorations, and a food marker for the ladder.

Don't judge, I can't cut straight for beans

Third- Prep, prep, prep. All those fruit and veggies  you just bought on your shopping trip? Cut, wash, store/freeze. I like to do a combo of straight cubed shapes and balls/start/hearts that way the kids don't get bored. If there is a awesome sale on berries, buy tons and freeze for when the price jumps in the winter. 

By chopping and cutting right when you get home, you save tons of time when actually assembling your lunches. No need to ball a whole melon when you can grab a portion and be done with it. 

** I don't like using plastic baggies, but for the juicy fruits I like them better than plastic containers. Little boys like to open containers in my house. To reduce waste I label and wash then reuse the baggies for the same fruits. 

A weeks worth of cantaloupe all ready prepped 

Fourth - Use as many leftovers as possible, or as much as the same fruit in the same week. Sounds counterproductive to getting your kids to eat new foods, but that cut melon isn't going to last forever to pack it in every other lunch. If you waste it, you might as well throw money directly in the garbage. Have two types, and one is a kind your kid/husband/gerbil doesn't like? Make a fruit salad! Have extra hamburger rolls? Make a fun sandwich with it instead of using bread slices. 

I got lucky, the husband always takes leftover dinner for lunch, so I only have to worry about using fruits and veggies. 

*All those scraps from cheese shapes and cutting cucumbers? Make a salad for your own lunch or dinner. I reuse the cheese in the morning scrambled eggs or grilled cheese. Once it's melted no one will ever know it was a cat that you failed miserably at cutting. 

 Left over bread for eggs in a basket!

Left over rolls from a BBQ for sandwiches 

Fifth - Have fun! Cutting fruit into shapes is not exactly the most awesome thing in the world (totally is to me!), but imagine the look on your kids' faces when they open it up at school. Their little wide bug like eyes. I never let Big A look at his lunch (unless he sneaks in the kitchen) and his teachers always tell me how excited he gets! If you can't think of ideas, GOOGLE some. There are tons of parents who blog  their kids lunches. *See! I'm not weird*

 Try out different things, from pizzas to sandwich sushi and enjoy the bento cult adventure. 

Not my best work

That's better! Using leftovers and being adorable! 

Plan ahead and save your sanity

I might not work, but I wear many hats in the T household.
- I am the chef
- The laundry mat
- The warden
- The nurse
- The calender
- The taxi
- The Drill Sergeant
- And many more that I can't think up cute names for

With all those hats, I (and my hair) get a little frazzled by about 4 o'clock. What comes after 4 o'clock? Dinner time. When the husband and I were both in the Army and kidless, we could buy as many groceries that we wanted and I could cook whatever I wanted for dinner or just order out. But now I have kids that for some reason expect me to cook for them, like 3 or more times a day! They are soo needy.

What's a girl with tons of hats and fabalous hair to do? Make schedules of course. I have one for my dinners, and one for the chores that I *should* be doing along with everyday picking up. I loath cleaning with every fiber of my being.

Let's talk menu planning. What works for me is I pick a meat and stick it with it every single week. You might think it's gets boring, but do you know how much you can do with chicken? We can go a good 2+ months without repeating a single chicken meal, unless it's a favourite. 

So why is planning like this worth it? Well, I sit down at the end of each month and plan the next months, an entire months worth of meals. And then on the 1st of that month I shop for all the meat and frozen/canned veggies/fruits and sides that I plan on using that month. And I am done! No guess work, no thinking required. I look at the calender, pick the matching recipe card and become a zombie in the kitchen. And I don't have to drag the kids to the store for weekly shopping trips, if we run out of milk or cheese I simply go by myself in the evening and pretend that I am having a vacation. 

Meal planning like that might cost more money up front, but think of what you will save when you are not buying all those extras on your weekly shopping trips. Tons. I think I shaved over $100 on my monthly grocery bill doing this. $100 people! That's like 5 pedicures. 

But, but, but. What are we supposed to do about lunches and snacks for the kids? Well, I bet you already have boxes of snacks in your pantry right now. So just stock up at the beginning of the month and that's all you get. It might take a while before you stop blowing through 50 cereal bars in a week, but you will get there. You can better monitor your kids' eating habits this way. 

Speaking of which, you know what  I do instead of buying a crap ton of prepackaged snacks? Well, I'm gonna tell you. I make a stupid amount of snacks and breakfast foods (usually on Sundays) and freeze them. That way when my kids are hungry, I can pop a homemade muffin/granola bar/waffle/etc in the microwave and BAM 30 second healthy snack. 

And now for my least favourite thing on the planet, chores. I hate hate hate cleaning, but I also hate having a single toy out of place in my house. It's a loose-loose situation. Grumble. 

Since I kept putting off laundry to the point where I had to wear the husband's unders (don't tell him!!) I decided that I need a set schedule to get all the crap done that comes with having a home and kids. 

You know what? It's doesn't seem do daunting as it did before. I know what days I have to do the kid's bathroom and I suck it up, promise myself a candybar as a reward and get to scrubbing the toilet of a potty training boy and I don't have to think about it for a whole week. Or I don't have to feel guilty about putting it off. 

These things might not work for you, but I encourage you to try and find a system that works for your lifestyle and see how much stress is lifted, you might not even know you were stressed in the first place! 

How I made the charts

I found some thin corkboards at a big box store and used some heavy scrapbook paper that I had laying around and after playing with the sizes of the paper I use one as a template and went cutting crazy. 

Write your menu/chores in with a marker and you are good to go.