Spaghetti Balloons Bento (281)

I am ever so slowly closing in on Bento #300 and I still don’t have a theme yet. I have one more day for a bento and I have to try to squeeze in a Christmas theme in there somewhere. I don’t know about everyone else but Christmas just totally snuck up on me and I can’t believe it’s in like 3 days. Me and my brother are pitching in for a plane ticket for my mom to come home for Christmas. She wanted to go to the Hawaii Bowl, but in the end we really didn’t feel like spending Christmas stressing out over the kids at a football game at 3 in the afternoon. The heat at that time of day is total murder.

I made spaghetti last night with “hapa” noodles, which the kids ate quickly since we ended up eating dinner late. On Friday I caught a really horrible cold from someone in the office and it was magnified by the freaking frigid A/C at work. We all feel like popsicles today, it’s not even funny. I heated up my bento today and a minute later it was already lukewarm.

I ended up using one of the new toys I got in from Ichiban kan, which Erika was so kind to ship to me after I sent it to her house, since she already had the Japan stuff she got me to send over as well. This packet came with flower stems, balloon strings, ring… rings, drumstick bones, and umbrella handles. I can’t wait to use the rest of it! I used tomatoes for the balloons and bell pepper for the flowers.

On Friday, I went to lunch with my high school friend Jean and we walked up to Manoa Valley and ate at this Chinese restaurant called Asia Manoa. The Friday special was Mapo Tofu:

Very yummy, though the downside is I ate it all. That’s a LOT of food! Thankfully I didn’t eat all of the rice. Lately I have been trying mapo tofu everywhere, it’s like my new nabeyaki udon. Last week at Curry House I had mabo tofu curry and oh. my. god. That was good stuff. I’m definitely getting that for a while now. I didn’t have enough stomach to eat it all, but my mouth was very happy.

I made it though the Christman goodie bag flurry alive, thankfully. I had to make a total of 34 bags for my two kids and the ones for Baby Girl ended up having the Star Krispies. I put 3 in each bag along with a few knicknacks. Baby Girl asked, “Why am I only giving Rice Krispies, Mommy?” and I had to clench my teeth not to snarl my answer back. Goodie bags bring out the worst in me, seriously. The next holiday to vex me will be Valentine’s day, but I’m going to go with stickers and cards. Easter is the biggest killer by far. Once kindergarden comes around, I’m done! Party platters, okay. Individual baggies? Buh-bye!