I played with my cutters collection once again to create today's sleepy friends bento. It was fun to make these sleepy fellows because I didn't need to use X-Acto knife to cut out the shapes that I wanted. Plus in a busy week like this, I'm really not into the mood of making something with a lot of details for my kids' bento. Added the lace baran and Korilakkuma picks, it is just the easiest way to do. BTW, I love those silicone lace baran. I haven't used those for a while. They are totally safe to use for your bento.

Kids have been busy too since last week with their school project, homework and everything. Especially Big A. She even has to join the trial-out national exams every Saturday at school from 8-11AM. It started 2 weeks ago and will continue until the end of April. This is something that we can't avoid because the trial out is compulsory for all students in Grade 6. And I couldn't believe that the teachers kept giving different projects for them to do in groups or individual. Oh yeah! I'm the one who are pulling my hair right now and I don't even go to school anymore *faint*. I hope Big A doesn't get stress out too much. I'm worried, she has been unorganized lately. Too many things to do in so little times, that what I feel.

Inside the box : rice, braised five spice chicken & egg, cherry tomato, and stir fry veggies & enoki mushroom.

I found this UFO shape cutter from my tiny cutters collection last night. I didn't have any idea to use this cutter last night until this morning when I finished cooking. Suddenly I remembered the leaf picks that I have and the idea to make this pink plants just came like that in my head. I dyed hard boiled egg and cut it with the UFO shapes cutter, added eyes and swirl mouth, put the leaf picks on the top. Whoalah ... easy right? I also made some tiny flowers but the pink color is too soft. I hope you can still see them in between the pink plants. If you see the green swirl in my tamagoyaki, that was because I put scallions. So no special trick needed. It was just a coincidence when I cut it, came out like that :) 

Inside the box : rice, tamagoyaki, braised chicken in coconut milk, stir fry chayote with red chili and wood ear mushroom.

Some new bento books have been published. I haven't got the copy yet because they are not available yet at Kinokuniya bookstore here. But I have put those bento books in my wish list. I put the links here, so if you are interested you can order them. They are in Japanese though.

(1) Maki Ogawa | Check it here and here.
(2) Akinoichigo | Check it here.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY EVERYONE!

This morning started with a huge disappointment for my kids. They planned to bring some homemade chocolates with cute shapes to share with their classmates. I melted the chocolate last night and filled it into some cute chocolate molds. Turned out that I bought wrong chocolates type and a disaster happened this morning when I tried to get them out from the mold. They were too soft, so no way I could get them out without ruining the shapes. The only thing that I could do was to pop them in the fridge after the kids left for school. Anyway, I promised the kids to make something else for sharing this week. If they still want to bring chocolates then I will have to run to the baking supplies store tomorrow and get the right chocolates.

For today's bento, I made Tenorikuma - one of the Sanrio characters. Actually, Tenorikuma is a group of racoons who run a coffee shop called Tenorikuma. They are so small, only 4cm height so they can fit in your palm. The one that I made called Latte. He is the unique one with red heart on his left ear. We don't have many merchandises for this character here. In fact, I haven't found any of Tenorikuma's merchandise from any stores that I usually visit. I saw this character from the Sanrio site and thought this would be fun to make for the kids' bento.

Hope you all have a great way to celebrate Valentine's Day! As for me, I will always celebrate love everyday in my life :)

Inside the box : rice, beef stuffed with veggies - cooked with bulgogi sauce, cherry tomatoes, quail eggs cooked with Indonesian yellow spices, and stir fry Chinese cabbage & mushroom.

Little A was feeling really sad and lonely on Monday because his sister was in a school camp. Being the youngest one in the family makes him so attached to Big A. They are very close to each other although sometimes they are also like other kids ... They still fight (not physically though) and often argue about something and nothing. Hubby is still in his business trip to Argentina, so only me and Little A at home on Monday. He had an exception to sleep in my bedroom. Big A returned from the school camp yesterday evening. I know Little A couldn't wait to see his sister because he kept asking when she would come back.

Big A, on the contrary, was pretty excited about her school camp. She already made a check list for things that she should bring from many days ahead. I kept telling her so many things for her to remember that I wasn't sure she would remember all. Just me, as usual, being worried about her sleeping outside from home for the first time. The school camp was kind of ritual for Grade 6 students as they will have the Government exams in few more months. So this camp was about motivating and boosting their confidence. Hopefully, they all can give their best to do the exam. I hope Big A will really get the benefits and purposes of this camp.

The past 2 days, the lunch bento for Little A was about soup and fried rice. I didn't add cute characters inside the box so I didn't have any cute bento to post. Today, I only made 1 bento for Little A because Big A has 1 day holiday. She has to practiced a group music performance with her friends for tomorrow's music test. I dropped her this morning to her friend's house and she will finish before lunch time. I used heart shaped rice mold, small cutters to make heart couples. Need some inspirations for tomorrow's bento :)

Inside the box : rice, stir fry veggies, and braised soy chicken with baby potatoes.

Friday is here. I wish everyone a good weekend! I don't have any plan in my mind yet for this weekend. But sure we will look forward to enjoy our relaxing weekend. I might need to re-organize the kitchen and dining rooms cupboards. It has been a while since I did that. Probably I will find some 'treasures' in those cupboards. I love to buy cute props but sometimes I forgot about them, especially if I put them in the upper side of the cupboards :p Last night I took out some cute chocolate molds from ….. reading room. I'm ashamed! My stuffs are all over the house. I think I have to stop shopping these cute stuffs. 

Today's bento was inspired by Little A. Love letter bento for my kids. It would be a nice surprise for them to see two 'love letters' inside their bento bag today. Hope they will always remember that we love them very much.

Inside the box : round shaped rice stuffed with sauteed pork & tofu inside, stir fry veggies (carrot, cabbage, spring onion), tamagoyaki, and steamed thinly sliced pork belly with ginger.

Yesterday was great! Me and Mr. Bentolicious had a great time together. We had a romantic lunch date at one of the Chinese restaurants. I arrived first and few minutes later hubby showed up with a sweet bouquet on his hands. We gave each others gift & card at the restaurant and really enjoyed our lunch for two. My card was bought at the last minutes because I couldn't find an anniversary card at the mall near our house. After lunch, we headed to a cafe and had a chat there for about 2 hours before we went home. Usually we had a celebration at night. But this time we would like to avoid bad traffic jam after office hours, so we decided to celebrate over lunch time.

Love is still in the air, so for today's bento, I made brown doggie with heart-shaped balloon. After saw the picture, I realized that I should have put more details on the eyes. I'm sure my kids wouldn't mind though. Little A asked me whether I could put a 'love letter' inside his bento bag. What??? I put a small note inside his bento bag long long time ago. And he wanted me to do that again. Oh boy!

Inside the box : rice, braised soy sauce middle wings, carrots, fried quail eggs, and veggies stir fry (Chinese cabbage, carrot, big red chili, ear wood mushroom).