**Thanks for the anniversary congrats - and Angie, I posted a wedding photo a few years back at the big 1-0. You can see it here if you want!**
We recently spent a day at the zoo with friends and took lunches to eat there. It was the first time most of our bento boxes got used - which was fun.
I took photos before I finished packing them up, wanna see?
Here are Princess and Thomas' bentos all ready to go:
Princess: homemade macaroni and cheese, hard-boiled egg (we tried to use an egg-mold to make it a heart shape but next time we need to try with bigger eggs), raisins, and animal crackers.
Thomas: hummus (with tortilla chips packed separately), raisins and graham crackers
And here's mine and Monkey's:
I had multi-grain crackers with laughing cow cheese, blackberries from our garden and graham crackers. Monkey had plain pasta, a fresh orange tomato, blackberries and animal crackers.
Not perfect nutrition-wise, but probably better than if I'd just packed PB&J sandwiches. I think I make more nutritious lunches bento/muffin-tin style. Also definitely not very traditional bentos at all - but I'm okay with that, I just think the containers are so very cool.
I loved filling these. Probably because I don't have to pack my kids lunch every day (another benefit of homeschool). Bentos make you think differently about lunch. If any of you have done the muffin-tin lunch thing, it's a similar kind of planning, really. My kids LOVE lunches like this.
Bentos look small, but you can fit more than enough food in there and they're so great for non-sandwich meals and for using up leftovers. I love that they're reusable, so they are way less wasteful than other ways to take your lunch (individually packaged snacks, etc.).
Not to mention how cute they are.
But the cutest thing (though not as cute as the baby giraffe - holy cow that little guy was adorable) was when my kids + their friends all broke out their bentos at the zoo. Gotta love that!
So, I thought with school starting some of you moms might like some lunchboxinspiration for kiddos. Check these out:bento flickr group - there are several bento flickr groups - so cool!
laptop lunchbox flickr group - Laptop lunchboxes are similar to bentos, but are an Americanized way of doing it.
Laeroport - A's first day of school lunchbox looked so yummy.
Amber's laptop lunch set - her kids lunches are always so carefully prepared
Now one of these days I'll whip up some little cloth napkins to keep with the bentos... then we'll really be all set!