Can't wait for school!

E starts up with preschool (better known down here as "Mother's Day Out" or MDO) this week and I cannot wait! It's partly because I'm excited to have a couple days to myself (thus the term, "mother's day out"), but mostly I'm just excited to use all our new bento stuff to make her lunches!

I got these little sandwich cutters that I've been dying to try. Usually, I just use mini cookie cutters, but from the picture on the packaging these appeared to be specifically for sandwiches. They even have a stamp, so that you can stamp the outside of the bread. So neat!

Anyways, I took advantage of our trip to the aquarium last week to do a little test run. E is really really into making her own sandwiches. It takes about 20 minutes to make one sandwich, but I figure it's worth it since she actually eats the sandwich when she's done (as opposed to wasting it, which was her previous MO). She LOVED cutting out the shapes and stamping the tops. So much so, that she's been asking me to make them every day since. Of course, I wish these didn't result in so much waste since I can only get 4-5 shapes out of a full size sandwich, but for now it's a price I'm willing to pay.

So here's a picture of her lunch, packed in the cute new giraffe bento box I picked up in San Francisco last month. The box turned out to be a bit smaller on the inside than I anticipated, so I ended up having to pack the pretzel sticks in a separate baggie. That partly defeated the purpose, but I was in a hurry to get out the door. Next time I'll try to be more strategic. Stay tuned for more bento lunches!