School Lunches {Packed} With Love!

Another few days of school (and toddler) lunches for my girls! They often get roughly the same amount of food despite their size and appetite differences. That's because Z's lunch is restricted to 20 minutes, minus time opening bags, opening lunchbox, and sitting there waiting to be dismissed after cleaning up their space. E on the other hand, gets an all-access nibble tray all afternoon. Neither of them usually ends up eating everything. As you'll see later, I often roll leftovers from a previous lunch into someone's lunch the next day. Or eat them myself after school!

Wednesday, 3/5/14 - Sandwich Skewers

Z's Lunch: PB on GF cinnamon-raisin bread, organic carrots and apples

Just a simple PB sandwich, brought out of the doldrums with some (gluten-free) cinnamon raisin bread and cut into bites and stuck on a with {Love} skewer!

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E's Lunch: PB on GF cinnamon-raisin bread; organic peas, carrots, tomato, blackberries, blueberries, and apples

E got a few sandwich bites on a Yum skewer. The veggies with a mushroom pick and cut with tiny butterfly cutters had gone uneaten in Big Sister's lunch the day before.

Thursday, 3/6/14 - Sandwich Bites

Z's Lunch: PB on GF cinnamon-raisin bread, Naturebox Ranch Peas, organic apples

Hearts have been a major go-to theme for me this year, not only because they're easy, but also because I made a goal for myself to include a heart in every lunch her Kindergarten year. So I used a mini heart cutter to cut her sandwich into little hearts.

E's Lunch: PB on GF cinnamon-raisin bread; organic apples, blackberries, carrots, and sugar snap peas

Little Sis got one heart sandwich, and some of the bread scraps turned into mini sandwich bites.

Friday, 3/7/14 - Smoothies!

E's Lunch: Organic apples, PB Popps, frozen smoothie, leftover brown rice, organic cauliflower and mushroom

I had made a batch of smoothies and packed them into various reusable food pouches and froze the ones we weren't going to consume right away. The girls like them slightly thawed but icy, so I packed the frozen one in the morning and it was perfect by lunchtime! This one is packed in a Squooshi (Check out my post on packing smoothies for lunches over at MOMables!)

Z's Lunch: PB Popps, frozen Happy Family breakfast smoothie pouch,
organic blackberries, furikake, GF soy sauce, leftover organic brown rice

For this superstar lunch, I froze a pre-made breakfast smoothie pouch. I had one that I got on clearance a while ago, but it has dairy in it, so E and I couldn't have it. Might as well use it up, so the toddler didn't get it on accident! I froze it overnight, so it would be thawed but still icy by lunch. It was a big hit!

For the leftover rice, I packed some seaweed furikake in a shooting star sauce box to sprinkle over, plus a mini sauce squeeze bottle filled with gluten-free tamari soy sauce. Also a huge hit!

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