Woof Woof Says My Oreo Dog Bento!

A&D has joined the Bento bandwagon but still not quite... I've bought and collected more than enough bento tools but I've only done bento only a few times. And so I was so happy that the #SoMoms had a workshop with THE Bento Mommas!

 The awesome mommas behind The Bento Mommas!

I've done simple bentos for Y for her baon and breakfast but I haven't done a full bento until this workshop. I've been wanting to attend a workshop for the longest time but it's always not the right time so I was so happy this workshop fell on a holiday! And it was made special because it's a Oreo Bento Together Workshop!

 

So happy to be with fellow mommies and kiddies!

Our very own bento kit! I'm so giddy just looking at my new bento tools!

This looks intimidating right? But it was not that hard naman pala!

Kaye did the demo for the bentos that day. Bento is all about making food more fun to prepare for us moms and for our kids more fun to eat!

Even when preparing bento, we moms must remember to add healthy food like veggies, meat, pwede naman ng occasional hotdog or spam, fruits, and some treats like sweets. Just like what our first bento!

Tadaaaah! This is my first full bento!

The bear is made of brown rice and white rice. The eyes, nose, and ribbons are made of nori (punchers and tweezers are essential!). Then there's corn and broccoli for veggies, chicken, apple and Oreos as treats!

Molding the rice was easy, even cutting the nori is not hard. Doing the deco on the apple slice was the hardest! Give me a scissor and paper, no problem! But with a knife and apple, it's hard! But I was able to finish my chckered apple! Tip: Dip your apples in 7-Up or Sprite to prevent it from oxidizing.

Our next bento was an Oreo challenge! But first Kaye showed us how to bento-fy your sandwiches!

As you can see, the sandwich is made of chocolate bread, ears are made of open face original Oreo, eyes and nose are made of the Oreo cream with chocolate chips, whiskers are pretzels!

As for my bento challenge, I got a dog to make as my bento and the challenge was to incorporate Oreos into it! I thought it was easy because it's just a dog! Nooo.... I ad a big question mark on my fez!

Does it look like a dog? I felt like it looks like a cow. Haha! My dog is made of chocolate bread and plain bread. Y said she wanted me to use Strawberry Oreos hence the pink eyes and nose. Plus more Oreos and marshmallows as treats and grapes!

The other SoMoms nailed their bento challenge! Tina and her daughters won the challenge and won themselves a bento book which you can buy from The Bento Mommas!

The phenomenal momma Tina and the Bento Mommas!

Check out the other bentos by the SoMoms!

MFO's A for effort Oreo bears!

 Mish's super cute owl! You can check Momma N' Manila for her step-by-step on how to make an owl bento!

These were  the bento in our table.

Clockwise: Dog Bento by me; Bee bento by Didi; Lady Bug Bento by Candy and Cat Bento by Tina!

With these kinds of bento, I'm sure picky eaters like Y and Kris's M, will surely be enticed to eat their food! Thank you so much to Oreo, Bento Mommas, and BYS for coming up with #BetterMe sessions like this!

Y's Birthday Series: Hi-5 Parties

Note: This is a lengthy post! If you just want to see the decors, scroll down to the bottom. If you want to know my encounter with Hi-5 Parties, sit down, relax and prepare to be bored. LOL! Haha.. I just want to share my experience! That's all.

Services I got from Hi-5 Parties were the decors (ceiling, backdrop, and centerpieces), candies for our giveaway, kiddie tables and chairs, and the dirty ice cream cart.

I really saved this blog post on Hi-5 Parties the last. We had a different party planner/decorator at first. I canvassed from three planners, mind you. I didn't get to confirm on our first party planner which made me panic and sad because it was two weeks before the party, I really wanted to get them and I didn't have a decorator anymore. So I had to contact whoever is available to do my decors and Hi-5 was the only one that was available on our date. We agreed to have a chat on YM to discuss what I wanted. I chatted with Kathleen dela Merced that same night, asked her if she's done decors in Mann Hann, showed her some pegs, our theme, that I wanted to have pompoms and lanterns as decors, and what we wanted her to do.

After chatting, we agreed to meet personally and discuss some more. Hubby was with me when we met up, she discussed how she'll decorate Mann Hann, what kind of balloons she'll use, how many balloons, lanterns and pompoms she'll use. For the centerpieces, I bought small plush toys to be used for the centerpiece, and I instructed her to use them. Her assistant or one of her co-planners, Sheila, was also there with her during our meeting and she quickly drafted the estimate cost of the decors, which I liked and gave us a good idea on how much we'll spent. They gave us two options with decors and also two options for the cost. Another things that I liked about Hi-5 Parties is that they sent us a digital layout of how the centerpiece or decors would mostly look like and giving us options! They mentioned what they did before was set-up the decors at 12MN in Mann Hann. After discussing with them, I felt relieved that decors for the party will be ok. That night or the night after, they sent an email on how the decors and centerpieces options.


For the centerpieces:

We chose the third one with the balloons.

Here's what we got for the decors:

• 20 pieces Pom Poms ( orange, white, and aqua blue)
• 15 pieces Lanterns (rental - orange, white and aqua blue)
• 150 pieces balloons in Balloonderitas
• Custom Styro (rental - 5 feet tall and 8 feet wide)
• 2 pieces Link-o-loons wall (as pictured)
• 12 pieces centerpieces ( flying balloon and custom base option only)

And here's another option they gave us for the decors. But we opted for the above.

During our meeting I asked them if they have orange and blue candies since I knew they also make dessert buffets for parties. It took a lot of follow-ups by SMS before they got to reply on my request on the candies. We met another night for the contract signing, me giving them the plush toys, and getting the 5.5 kilos of candies from them! Kathleen told me that on the day of the party, Sheila will be there to see over things. At this point, I was happy and lax since I had nothing to worry about until the day of the party. NOT!

Eto na ang climax...
At 10:30PM the night before the party, Mann Hann's manager texted me to call them. So I did. They said that Hi-5 Parties was there at Mann Hann ready to set up, and they don't allow that. They told them to come back the next day at 7AM to set-up. I was freakin' panicking a day before the party. If you follow me on twitter, you would have read my live tweets. GOSH. If Mann Hann didn't text, I wouldn't know about it. So I called Kathleen to check, she said they were "making pakiusap" because they were already there and she already paid the workers who'll set up the balloons. I was the one who had to talk to the manager and the manager to their boss and convince him to allow them to decorate for at least an hour. After a few more calls, they allowed them to decorate, but if they exceeded the one hour they gave us, I will charged for a set-up fee. I WAS CHARGED for Php1,500. I can't get mad at the manager because he was just doing his job. Hi-5 Parties didn't inform Mann Hann that they'll be setting up that night, they didn't coordinate with them. It was partly my fault too as I was supposed to inform Mann Hann pala (based on Hi-5's contract), I only assumed because they've done decors at Mann Hann before. I was a bit disappointed. But! They did a GOOD JOB decorating the ceiling! I loved it. I arrived around 2:30PM at Mann Hann, they were still setting up the backdrop and inflating balloons for the centerpieces. I liked the backdrop too, they copied the Tiger! Yay! Sheila was there, she helped me set-up the dessert buffet, she also checked everything. Another thing that disappointed me that the ice cream cart came late! Oh well. But nevertheless, I liked how it turned out!


Oh, and our dirty ice cream cart came an hour late! But I didn't bother to complain anymore. I was ngarag already from all the preparations and entertaining guests, I couldn't care less anymore. Sayang lang ang daming leftover and we weren't able to take it home. Anyways!


Here's how the venue looked liked.

 

They did well!


Guests even got to take home the lanterns and some balloons. Oh well. Pikit-mata na lang ako nagbayad sa Mann Hann ng extra charges. All in all, I love what they did with the decors. They are affordable! I would get them again on my next party (baby#2's birthday or maybe when Y turns 7!), I would just make sure to check everything!



Hi-5 Parties
Kathleen dela Merced
http://hi5parties.multiply.com/
https://www.facebook.com/Hi5.Parties
+639178950017
ask.hi5parties@yahoo.com

Y's Birthday Series: Mann Hann, Little Baguio

I started planning Y's party around April, I had a few venues in mind but it's either far, rent is expensive, or the place just doesn't feel right. You can read about one of the venues we went to see here.

When I was finally settled with the venue I wanted, it was booked on the date we wanted! Oh fudge. I kind of panicked because I had to look for another one! And then I stumbled upon Lucky Janie's blog post on her son's birthday party, I showed it to the BOS and we went to check it out the next weekend we were free.

We loved the place! High ceiling, spacious, white chairs, big long tables, big windows, nice and clean! We talked to their manager, Cherrie Tan, she was very nice and accommodating. She showed us a private room on the second floor, it was a bit small, it can fit about forty to fifty people. It was a good thing that it was being set-up for a party so it gave us an idea how it would look like, but I said it was small, and we were expecting around seventy to eighty guests. So we opted to reserve the main dining hall, the thing is, it is only available from 3 to 6PM (their off-peak hours).

2nd Floor Function/Party Room

For the food, they have menu packages that you can choose from. There's Php400, Php500, and Php600, and you can mix and match from the list of menu that they will give to you. Food selection depends on your package.

We got the Php400/pax which includes:
-Yang Chow Fried Rice
-Birthday Noodles
-Lechon Macau
-Fish with Broccoli
-Salt & Pepper Squid
-one glass of Lemon Tea

A day before the event, they re-confirmed our menu and the total headcount (this time I talked to Bernie, another manager, he's also nice!) I asked them to make for 70pax, we had lots of leftovers pa. On the day of the event, Cherrie asked us to give her a signal as to when to start cooking the food, so it won't be cold when the guests starts eating. Cherrie also updates our host so he can continue to entertain our guests while food is not yet ready. Food was good! I personally love the Lechon Macau and the Fish! :) There were lots of servers, they were nice so I had no problems with that. Service was also good. We had a little bit of miscommunication with the decorator and them but other than that, our experience with Mann Hann was great!

 

A really BIG thumbs up for Mann Hann Little Baguio and to Miss Cherrie and Sir Bernie! Notes:

- There's no rental fee for the place.
- They have corkage fee of Php500/outlet for any food cart/photo booth, sound system that would have to use their electricity.
- They didn't charge corkage for my chocolate fountain station, face painting station, and the desserts I brought in.
- They can provide tables and table cloths for your gift/dessert tables.
- They really have a high ceiling so your decorator needs a scaffolding if you want your decors up high like we had. - They allow the decors to be set-up as early as 7AM on the day of your event. Please coordinate with your decorator/party planner and Mann Hann. (This was where we went palpak)
All in all I was happy with Mann Hann's service! They really did a great job!

Mann Hann (Main Branch)
233 J. Abad Santos St.
Brgy. Little Baguio
San Juan City

Tel Nos. 723-2917; 723-2918

Snippets from Y's Party

A day after Y's party and I'm not feeling well.. headache and body ache. Post-party stress?!


Yesterday was a tiring but fun day. It was Y's Christening and Birthday party in one! She cried almost all the time in the church. Maybe because of the closed space and unfamiliar faces (her ninongs and ninangs). But at the party, she was fine. Happy and giddy!


I don't have the "official pictures" yet. Maybe in two to three days I'll be able to post some and blog about supplier's ratings. (I have a story to tell! Problems with the decorator at 11PM before the day of the party!)


Here are some snippets from Y's party!

Thank you to all the people who came! Family, friends, ninongs and ninangs! Y had a blast! :) More pictures to come! :D


Y opening her gifts last night (with help of mommy)!

What to open first?

Texting Ninang G for the very big gift!

Thank you again! :)