School Lunches

It's no surprise that one of my least favorite things to do is pack school lunches. Over time, though, I've come up with a few tips to keep myself organized & ahead of the curve. Having a template for lunch & snacks helps also. For lunch, I pack one main thing that has protein, one savory thing, one sweet thing, and a drink. For snack, I try to pack something with protein but it doesn't always work out that way. I don't mind it so much since it's just a small part of their daily food. I include a drink for snack, but they also take a refillable water bottle each day.

One day last week, I took some photos of the kiddos' lunchboxes to remind myself what our tried & true favorites are. 

Avery will be practicing opening plastic packaging over the course of the next several weeks, but until she's proficient at it, I open the plastic packaging a bit and stick it in a sandwich baggie for her. She is in a "no sandwich" mood so she usually gets crackers for lunch and a yogurt smoothie with a straw, a Koolaid jammer & usually a pack of cookies. For snack, she usually takes an applesauce & a snack cake with another Koolaid jammer. 

For Noah on this day, he got a pb&j, chips, a Yogurt tube & a drink for lunch. For snack, he had another pack of chips or he could pick a pack of crackers. He doesn't usually eat everything that we pack for snack, but I try to give him choices since his snack time is early & his lunch time is late. 

I've also found it helpful to put a fabric label with first and last name on the outside of their lunch boxes & a label with just their first name on the inside. Mainly the inside label is for my benefit when packing lunches to keep the boys' lunch items in the correct box since the inside of the boxes look so similar. 

I went ahead and labeled the inside of Avery's bag as well, and all 3 inside labels have come in handy when packing three lunches simultaneously!

In Michael's lunch, I packed a sandwich (with carb count), chips, drink, cookie pack & 2 Babybel cheese rounds. His snack on that day was a pack of crackers & another Koolaid jammer. 

I pack the kids' lunches the evening before school & stick them in the fridge. The morning of school, I'll add a fun colored ice pack (with name written in Sharpie) to their lunchboxes and stick everything in their backpacks. 

This system works well for us and saves us time in the mornings!

Until Next Time,

Much Love, Reba