Personalized Butter Toasts

Oh boy did Raine surprise me today! When I went down to start preparing their food, she was already there at the dining table having her breakfast. And that was like, 5:30 am! What a very welcome surprise for me 🙂

I planned to make them something light and crunchy today. What better way to show each child how special they are by cutting out their name as their snack? Raine helped me brush on melted butter, making sure all surfaces are covered. ( she acted as my quality control) Raine also sprinkled on some sugar on the bread. After that, we sent the letters into the toaster for some crunch time.

P.S. please pardon the bed hair… Hahaha 😜

I love you!

It’s been awhile since I updated my snack blog. I have been thinking of ways on how to improve my childrens’ snacking habits and so far, they seemed to have grown tired of Mom’s snacks..boohooo… So there, more challenges for me. I have been aiming to clean out my pantry before I buy new snacks for them. Bling! New lesson learned, choose the snacks you buy from the grocery well and don’t buy too many! I need to keep up with my nutrition content and visual creativity. For today I wanted to surprise them with an edible love note.

These sandwiches are filled with nutella and are surrounded by sweet seedless grapes for a hassle-free snack! I topped off these hearts with pre-made cupcake toppers just to make them cuter for these babes of mine. I really hope that Raine and Joshua will smile upon opening their snacks today. 😃

Mandarin flowers

I saw some orange wedges that were arranged to look like flowers so I attempted these for today. It wasn’t so easy as it was hard putting them together to look like petals and at the same time some juice was already squirting! Maybe I need to be more gentle and relaxed next time. Who ever thought that making snacks for my sweethearts would entail skills and relaxation techniques required of yoga or ikebana? Focus and don’t rush even though you know that the kids should be up in 10 minutes!

Today the kiddos had Mickey Mouse chicken nuggets, some baby oranges called Kiat-kiat, and purple yam (ube) hopia ( pastry). I hope they enjoy these! 🙂

Starry Starry Snacks!

It’s going to be a starry starry fun with snacks today for my cutee patootee kids. I made them some star peanut butter sandwiches with star eyes and a smiling cashew mouth, pomelo pieces, some chocolate wafers, star cheese slices, banana, and sweet seedless grapes. 😀
I hope they have fun eating their snacks today because Mommy definitely had fun playing with their food. Who said it’s illegal? 😜

Sleep Tight Baby Bear

Today’s Joshua’s birthday! I prepared a super quick snack today and it’s also so adorable. My aunt sent me a picture of this design and I just followed the inspiration.
I molded some rice into a ball for the head, made two smaller balls for the ears and fashioned it into a bear head lying on its side. Then I put some more rice near the head to serve as its body. I then scattered some pork floss around the head to make its pillow. After that I covered the body with a soft blanket of scrambled egg to make it warm and cozy. Some finishing touches on the ears and face with some nori and there! We already have our sweet looking baby bear tucked in his sleep. 🙂

Hidden Valley

Last Sunday, my husband and I went to Hidden Valley, Laguna with our Chinese friend. He was here for business and we took the opportunity last weekend to show him some beautiful places in the Philippines.
It was also my first time to visit the place. Upon reaching the resort, we were greeted by beautifully lined coconut trees.

We then proceeded to going up the trail to see some Century-old trees. These trees are so majestic! I can’t help but think of what these trees became witnesses to. Perhaps they witnesses our country evolve from its very roots.

Continuing on the trail we enjoyed seeing many fruit bearing trees and as we reached our destination, we could hear the rumbling of the Hidden Waterfalls… After a little hike, we saw the waterfalls. It was so beautiful and pristine.
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After that hour-long walk, we had a buffet lunch which was good and filling. I could say that the staff was also
good and courteous. As we dined, we were serenaded by a group of singers. That was so lovely!

Then came the best part. It was time to swim! We started with the calm Lover’s pool, then we went to the Soda pools. Finally we went swimming in the Warm
pools. That’s my favorite of all. But what I loved most about the experience was to be surrounded by nature. Imagine swimming in a pool surrounded by the forest. It is just so refreshing. 🙂

Quickstart for Snacks

It’s been quite a challenge to wake up early this morning. We just had a long weekend from school because the kids didn’t have school from Saturday to Monday. Then, today we had to leave school an hour earlier because Raine’s class will be sponsoring a Mass celebration. So it was harder for me to wake up even earlier until I thought of making their snacks. It was enough to make me jump out of bed!

Today I prepared some easy snacks…since I’m still quite sleepy. 🙂 For Raine’s morning snack, I made her some cream cheese bear sandwiches, bread sticks and orange slices.

For her afternoon snack, I fixed her some butter wafers, grapes, cashews, and a cute bunny cheese friend. 🙂

And for Joshua, I made him a super cute car treat with nutella, I am sure that he will love these!

Tomorrow will be a special day because it’s Joshua’s 5th birthday!

Chirp chirp!

I’m loving the reactions of my children to their bento snacks so far. Even Raine’s teacher gets curious about her snacks everyday!

Raine and Joshua even tried cutting out cheese penguins on their own yesterday! Too bad it was all gone before I got the chance take some pictures. 😃

For today, I ventured into a vegetable cutting. I put in little cute carrot birds as the garnish to their snack. I found that it has a crunchier texture so one has to be careful when cutting out these delicate shapes since they tend to break easily.

Today, my little kids are having green apple slices, dried cranberries, rice crackers, corn cereals, orange slices, sausages, and a little treat of chocolate-covered pretzels. I realized a simple guide that could help me in planning their snack. One fourth should be carbohydrates such as breads, cookies, potato and the like, another one-fourth for meats or protein like egg, sausage, or ham, and two-quarters for fruits or veggies (in case I get lucky and find a vegetable to insert in there.☺).

Nina’s snack

Raine’s morning snack

Raine’s afternoon snack

Joshua’s snack

Snack for today!

Snack for today includes egg omelette rolls, apple slices, dried mangoes, and sailboat strawberry sandwiches!

There’s also golden kiwi for Joshua. It’s his favorite fruit!

The best part about this snack was, even though they weren’t able to finish the snack in school, Joshua and Raine would eat the rest of the snack after school! So, goodbye snack leftovers and unconsumed soggy sandwiches! Joshua loved the boat sandwiches most especially while Raine, enjoyed the fruits!

Food Fun!

As the summer drew to a close and school opening was just around the corner, I was getting frantic as to how I was going to prepare my childrens’ snacks for school. Just to give you a background of my childrens’ eating habits, Raine, my eldest– is a picky eater…she just would not try anything new! Joshua, on the other hand– is more of an absent minded eater..just as long as he’s having fun, he will just eat anything 🙂 And Nina, well Nina is another story…she just wouldn’t eat. So given the three different eating habits of my kids, I was scouring the internet for ideas on how to feed them and voila! I discovered the fun way of presenting food for kids– the Bento Box!
For the first day, I was very nervous on how to go about it, like apprehensions of how to pack the food, spoiling the food, etc…I’ve given it a try and this is the end product.

How’s that for a beginner? The real reward came when my kids told me that they enjoyed their snack and they were already involving themselves in the planning of the next meal I’m going to pack for them. Plus a very sweet ” Mommy, I love you!” Is enough to motivate me to make even better bentos!