bento? what's a bento?

in case you haven't noticed... i've been mia. why you may ask?? well we've been very busy sending this boy,

to KINDERGARTEN!!!

and along with the joys of starting school has come the joys of making lunch each day (except wednesdays because that is pizza day and bubbie is excited about that).

we bought this lunch box: (the one on the left), but that's not really ours, that's the one from the pbk's website, ours is red and blue to match our uniform.

the first week of lunch making went fine, except i noticed all those pre-bagged snacks i bought weren't being eaten. i asked him why and apparently he can't open them and no one has helped him. i was inspired by bento lunches before but thought they looked too hard, too much work, but while at wally world last night i found the perfect plastic box to fit in his lunch box (and it fits to a T!) so i thought i would give it a whirl.... here's what i came up with

dinosaur pb w/ honey sandwich on raisin dirt, with pretzel trees, whole grain goldfish and some cookies. i couldn't do any wet fruit yet because my silicone cupcake liners haven't come in from amazon.

so what's a bento you ask? well mine is as bare bones as it can be, but a bento box is a really tightly packed, cutely presented lunch. there is tons of inspiration online to get good ideas. here are a few sites i have found:

http://bentolunch.blogspot.com/

http://bentoforkidlet.blogspot.com/

http://lunchboxlimbo.blogspot.com/

have you made bento lunches? i would love some inspiration, so please share your links and ideas! check back I will post some more as i get a little more daring and creative!