Happy Birthday Stan Lee!

The legend Stan Lee turned 90 today. o honor him a few Bento Bloggers & friends have collected their bentos honoring his great comics and movies. For the adventurous kid in all of us here's a few we made. I apologize if they aren't as magnificient as the others they are from our very first month at school when we were just learning how to make bento lunches.

Spiderman - Open-faced jelly toast, cheese web, cucumber spider, apple slices cut to spell S and M.

The Avengers -Ironman open-faced PB&J, oreo cookie eyes, babybel captain America Shield on Ritz cracker, Hulk Honeydew melon with spinach shorts, and Thor's hammer lil smokie on baby carrots.

"With great power there must also come... great responsibility!"  - Stan Lee, Amazing Fantasy #15, Aug. 1962

Now hop along to see what Bento for Kidlet, Bent on Better Lunches, and What's In Our Lunch Bags are up to, and check back on Bento Bloggers and Friends as more jump in.

Dave An Unexpected Elf Journey - Finale

Day 29  - Dave hid out in the kitchen making Q-tip snowflakes... took the monkeys a long time to find him too.

Day 30 - Dave's Travels...after crashing his tinker toy plane the savage Legos have taken him hostage...

Day 31 - Merry Christmas! We hope you've enjoyed our elf Dave. We love him very much. before he left with Santa to go back to work in the toy shop until next Thanksgiving when we meet again, he left the monkeys a grand party and a farewell note.

So long Dave, thanks for all the laughs, tears, and messes and most of all.....spying on our kids to get them to behave for a month :)

To see his whole month of adventures here's the previous weeks:

Dave in 2011, 2012 part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, After Dark Special Edition

Dave - After Dark Exclusive

Christmas is almost here, and while the kids may be dreaming of a white Christmas, or have visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads, the elves maybe be planning what to do on the after Christmas vacation. Sure sure they do their job each night tattling to Santa all the mischief that goes on around here, but who watches over them? C.E.A (Central elf agency) or maybe its the FBE (Federal Bureau of Elves) or maybe its us moms. Thos other feet you hear going pitter patter in the night. That's right Elf on the shelfs we've been watching. We're ok with you playing with our stuff, and making manageable messes but ... some things we really didn't want to know, and thank god the children were sleeping.

So one night after a little too much eggnog Dave got a little fresh with baby girl. "Hey baby, I come from the North Pole. Should I check the list to see if you're naughty?"  Go home Dave you're drunk!

Apparently she was on one of those dating shows, 25 elves...you know the deal. ...he has invited baby to a luxurious bubble bath. Will she choose him to be her elf, will she give him the mistletoe...stay tuned.
Work the small talk Dave. Lots of questions and keep those eyes of yours above the bubble line. Gentle-elves always behave. 

Perhaps dating isn't meant to be a cattle call experience. Maybe it was too much pressure for one elf on top of his spy duties. Whatever it was Dave took a turn from naughty to worse...Bad elves Bad elves whatcha gonna do...."Put down the straw sir you're coming with me", "What it's just a little snow", "Destruction of property, and operating a train while snowed. You have the right to remain silent...seriously the kids are in the other room...you have the right to an attorney...." Dave was sentenced to 11 months hard labor in Santa's workshop.

Oh Dave you will need to work much harder to get off parole and get back on the Nice list...Christmas is coming...Santa Claus is coming to town...

Dave An Unexpected Elf Journey - Part 5

Holy cow 5 weeks of this little dude have flown by. Hard to imagine there only being a few days left before he heads back North for 11 months.

Day 22 -Dave had high aspirations of taking over for the big guy some day and rode our Stocking centerpiece as a sleigh and had the teacher reindeer gifts pull it across the table. Everyone has to start somewhere I guess.

Day 23 - Dave must have know that the boys wanted him for Christmas as he leapt into one of their stockings, big kid could not have been more excited it was his stocking Dave chose.

Day 24 - Since my kiddo decided to sleep on the couch, Dave decided to sleep in his bed, it is so soft and snuggly.

Day 25 -The life of a secret spy elf can be very exhausting, so Dave drew a little bubble bath in the boys bathroom sink to relax and pamper himself. I know Dave most days of watching these boys have me screaming for Calgon to take me away too.

Day 26 - An elf after my boys own hearts, caught staying up late playing in their legos.

Day 27 - Thank goodness for helping hands, it was a long night getting all the party favors together for 3 classes of kids. Elves really are good workers when they aren't being silly.

Day 28 - Dave is a one elf rock band! Play on little dude, but if you wake the kids you better run...I'm not joking. The boys loved this one and had fun joining his band in the morning.

Have you been keeping up with our little friend? Did you miss some of this thrilling saga? Here's some links back to previous weeks.

Dave in 2011, 2012 part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4

Twas the week before Christmas break...

Whew we made it to our Christmas break ( wups "winter" break pardon my lack of PC-ness) the last party was today and now the monkey will run a muck for 2 weeks, oh I mean .... This week was a pretty light week as bentos go but heavy on the classroom crafty stuff so I thought I could thank the wonderful bloggers of Pinterest for our holiday foods.

Friday  - Green monkey bought lunch as usual but since he got the uber cool Hobbit Hop lunch I made Blue monkey a quickie LOTR lunch for our picnic at school. Here's the Eye of Sauron over Mordor PB&J, a ring of grapes, and our hobbit/golom snacks carrots and fish.

Sunday - Christmas party! We were delighted to be invited to our friend's party and as it was pot luck I hit up my idea engine, good old pinterest :)

 Veggie tree - carrots, spinach, tomatoes, cucumbers, and broccoli

Sorry the picture won't rotate even though saved correctly on my system

Wreaths - Cheddar cheese, Havarti cheese, summer sausage, and spinach and carrot for bows.

Santa Hat brownies - mini brownies, vanilla frosting, strawberries. Inspired by Following in my shoes.

Monday - Green monkey got Jungle bell rock...stars turkey and cheese, a Santa hat brownie and salad with wreath garnish of cucumber carrot and spinach.

 Blue monkey had his first class party at a free preschool he goes to once a week so we brought reindeer candy for the kids and a 3-2-1 Cake! Reindeer for his teacher. He also got a lunch because after that it was off to a bounce house with our moms group. So he got a candy cane and stocking PB&J with fruit leather and teddy grahams, a Santa hat brownie, carrots and strawberries.

 Reindeer ornaments the monkeys made for their teachers and a magnet on the back to attach it to the jars. The 3-2-1 cake! recipe is incredibly easy and comes from Duncan Hines. We used angel food cake and butter fudge cake mix then added mini marshmallows so they had toppings to enjoy at school. We loved this idea since they get a ton of mugs year after year this gives them something to put in those mugs, only requires water and a microwave, and will keep for a long time so they can save it for after the holiday sugar rush wears off. Plus the kids made the ornaments which is a fun reminder of their students.

Made a total of 25, 12 for the 1st class 13 for the other

Made a total of 14 of these between all 3 schools

M&M reindeer party favors for his classmates were super easy and there's a ton of pins on pinterest for them. This is round 1 I couldn't remember how I used to make them in grade school so I just used a folded pipe cleaner, a clothes pin, a red ball, googly eyes, and a marker. One example I saw was from Kids Activities blog.

Tuesday - Little Big Planet Ham and cheese, spinach continents tossed on after he didn't like the ham continents I had on originally because they weren't green, smart kid, had to give him that one. Grape rocket again requested by the kid love his ideas. Santa hat brownie, and wintery ants on a log using yogurt covered raisins.

 Blue monkey got R2-D2 on Tatooine ham and cheese with grape suns/planets, Santa hat brownie, and wintery ants on a log.

Wednesday -Spongebob Christmas Special - Ham and cheese spongebob with string cheese arms and babybel hat on top of holiday goldfish crackers, square cucumbers, and a peppermint peep and apple tree for our partridge in a a pear tree.

Thursday -Blue monkey had his 2nd Christmas party this week , this time at his Mother's day out school and our party item was grapes so I made red and green grape trees in cake pans. His 2 regular teachers, 2 special class teachers, and 2 directors all got reindeer 3-2-1 cakes, and his class got M&M reindeers. Bummed I forgot to take a picture of them because round 2 was much cuter I added little bells, hand written tags, and cut the pipe cleaners to make cuter antlers, but by now I'm going crazy making all these things, and shopping for class teacher gift baskets for both monkey's school.

 Class treats M&M reindeer ornaments - this time I added bells and tags, and cut the pipe cleaners to make branched antlers.

Green monkey was still all about Spongebob's Christmas special so here's Patrick the red nosed reindeer ham and roast beef and cheese with sprinkles (babybel wax for the collar)and pretzel antlers, on top of holiday goldfish crackers, 2 babybel snail reindeer, star cucumbers on salad, and an orange octopus.

This was also the day the Bento Blogger's and friends launch week 3 of 3 of their Ho ho holiday hop series featuring fabulous lunches if you missed it you can start at my submission and hop through here. Missed the other weeks? All 3 links are on Bento Blogger's and Friends blog. I was so honored to be able to participate, they are a truly gifted group.

Friday - Last day! Party #3 as the room mom I got to come and run the activities in the classroom as 3 classes rotated through different themes, ours was voted the best hands down. We had a bean bag toss, a snow table using magic snow, made paper snowflakes, and snow cones! I got 2 moms to come help, and our teacher took our class on the party hop. Once again I organized the teacher gift, and this time put together all the food for the party.

 Snowmen - Inspired by Bent on Better Lunches I used powdered sugar donettes, mini chocolate chips eyes and mouth, M&Ms noses, hershey kisses hats, and candy rings for scarfs(apple and melon flavors).

 More Santa hat brownies

 Christmas frosted sugar cookies (not homemade but cute)

 Fruit tray - watermelon, honeydew, and yogurt raisins

 Snow cone syrup - Tropical punch and lemon lime made from a recipe I found at  Deep South Dish

 More grape trees

I neglected to photograph the items unpacked at school like the mini cupcakes, yogurt covered snowflake pretzels, holiday goldfish, capri suns, and chex mix ( in the red cups). We made plates of everything for each so that they could just sit and eat after recess.

For his party favors we made reindeer noses and gave them a bag with a tattoo, a small notebook, and a holiday pencil. The printable for the reindeer noses came from Kate Hadfield Designs
we used 8 whoppers and a cherry sour candy.

20 party favors, 8 more reindeer jars, teachers, office, and bus, and teacher basket from the class.

I hope you all had a wonderful week, albeit more than likely exhausting as ours was, but worth it :)

Ho Ho Holiday Hop - Week 3 of 3

The Bento Bloggers & Friends are holiday blog hopping!
But we're doing things a little different this time - we're spreading the bento love out over 3 weeks - both to keep the fun going, and to keep the hops a little shorter, since our group has grown so big! This is week 3 of 3 so if you missed week 1 or 2 please visit the link above and hop through those as well they are fantastic!

 The holidays are drawing near and while for most of us that means a to-do list a mile long. In all the hustle and bustle, shopping, wrapping, stamping, mailing, and elf on the shelf moving, it can down right make the season a little Grinchy.

No matter what this time of year means to you and your family I hope that you will enjoy hopping through all of these fabulous bento artists and spread some magic too. Keep hopping until you land back in our stocking. You'll find the link at the end of this post.

It's no secret we're TB and movie junkies, and Christmas is no exception. For the last few weeks I've been sneaking our favorite movies into the monkeys lunches.

A Christmas Story - It's just not Christmas for me until I watch it, and this year the monkeys watched it with me over and over.

Here's my lunch: Fra-gee-lay it must be Italian! On top of my usual tuna salad I added a 2 cheese leg lamp, a piece of toast and used a cookie cutter painted with food gel for the title, and of course fragile pretzels. I couldn't resist a little Ohh Ffffudge for dessert too.

 Of course Green monkey is only in kindergarten so he got a more G-rated scene here's Flick stuck to the flag pole. He was on a bagel kick that week so it's a jelly and butter bagel, babybel cheese, fruit leather, marshmallows, a strawberry tongue, a pirouette pole, and some holiday tortilla chips in the background.

So what are the kids watching this time of year when not indulging me? The ABC family 25 days of Christmas movies. Which bring us to The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. On top of holiday tortilla chips, a spinach and herb tortilla with turkey and cheese Grinch with fruit leather and cheese hat, tree watermelons, and carrots for the reindeer.

This week we added a new Christmas special to our repertoire Spongebob squarepants.

 Santa Spongebob ham and cheese, string cheese arms, babybel Santa hat, holiday goldfish backdrop, square cucumbers, and a peppermint peep partridge in an apple pear tree. Took a few liberties there :)

Patrick the red nosed reindeer - Ham, roast beef and cheese, pretzel antlers, babybel snail reindeer, holiday goldfish, star salad, and orange octopus.

We've been doing holiday lunches since Thanksgiving so feel free to click back through previous posts after the hop for more ideas from Festivus to Rudolph, and I'll have new ones up tomorrow from this week.
Week 1, Week 2, Week 3 Follow me on Pinterest here.

Now please click the link below and see what Obento Momma! has been up to. Happy hopping!

Thank you Bento Bloggers and Friends for inviting me into your group and making this a wonderful year for me. I wish everyone a healthy happy holiday and New Year!