Making Lunchboxes Awesome

We are officially in the school year and at first I was kind of excited. I mean, I’ll be honest I do get a little sad sending my little one off to school, but I also love that she gets to learn, make new friends and the big one, I won’t be hearing “I’m bored.” As much. One thing that still isn’t fun for me, however is packing a lunch. For one, we have never done school lunch for a few reasons, but this year she’s at a charter school where school lunch isn’t offered any way. I had no idea that lunch box ideas could be so annoying! Or they were, but Mott’s®. has inspired a few ideas in me. Making lunchboxes awesome just got easier.

I remember when I was in school and it was all about the new snacks, fruit by the foot, kudos, individualized chip bags and chewy granola bars were all the rage, but my mom also gave us soup in a Thermos (remember how they never really stayed hot and would spill? Ugh.) I always came home famished and ready for another snack, plus after lunch in the classroom was all yawns and lack of concentration. Hello, we weren’t eating well!!

Now, school does work up quite the appetite no matter how well you eat at lunch, but we are bound and determined to set our little one up for success, so we are thoughtful about her lunches so we can try to give her body and mind what it needs to stay attentive at school and learn what she needs to know. We’ve been trying to create yummy snacks like, But, it’s getting old and we are only a month into school.

It’s so hard to think up delicious and healthy foods. I’ve kind of started to find that while I love to create homemade deliciousness I also don’t have time to make fresh snacks every day, and I start to run out of ideas. SO! Here’s my awesome solution and I just know you are going to love it too.

The Secret

The secret to awesome lunches, theme months. I know, it’s a little kooky, but guess what, our little one looooves it! September is all about back to school and fall so I’ve been concentrating on anything that makes sense for Back to School (give a teacher an apple, apple season, peach season, back to school supplies like fruit leathers as paper and carrot sticks as the pencils.) I try to make something delicious like homemade apple granola (as pictured), or an over the top sandwich like triple layer turkey sandwich bats for Halloween since she has caught the Halloween bug and cannot wait for it to get here. Cookie cutters to the rescue, and yes, I refuse to waste the crust so the extra pieces get chopped into bite sized pieces for “bat food”. Haha! Then I work on pairing the homemade food with store bought snacks I can stand behind for nutrition like, Motts. Motts has awesome products likeMott’s®. that are delicious and nutritious; and they’re the perfect convenient snacks when you’re on-the-go. Great for lunchboxes and to throw in your purse or perfect for her to take out to recess for a snack as the day goes on. Plus, there’s Mott’s®. which means I don’t have to deal with washing a water bottle every night and they get 100% daily value of vitamin C in a variety of flavors, conveniently packaged in on-the-go juice boxes.

I love that packing a lunch is becoming something that brings us together and gets her thinking too. We talk about the coming month ahead of time and start to plan great ideas for lunch box ideas and because she loves Motts we do end up sticking the apple juice or apple sauce in the mix somehow. I mean, you do bob for apples at Halloween parties! Plus, I’ll have her help me in the kitchen to make granola bars or fruit leathers after school and she’s happy to do it because its time together and she knows it will end up in her lunch tomorrow!

I’d love to hear what your kids love in their lunch boxes and how you think up great lunch box ideas too!

Thank you Mott’s® and Technorati for being sponsors of this article. All opinions expressed here are my own.