Preparation

I've realized now, after last weeks near fatal disaster in the lunch department, that I had better prepare for this week so I won't feel stranded at the last minute. Also, Tate likes to pack his own snack for school (he only packs a snack because he's only half day), so I've decided to be better prepared for that too.

Here is my plan:

I put two areas in my refrigerator, one for fruits and vegetables and one for 'snacks'. As it happens I have a drawer in the refrigerator labeled 'snacks' which I have used mostly for this purpose but now it is SOLELY for this purpose. I have included in this drawer: crackers of varying types (i.e. I used snack sized sandwich bags and portioned out ritz crackers, I also have Annie's crackers and bunny grahams, I will probably also add small bags of Annie's Honey Bunnies cereal too), mini muffins (I just made Carrie's muffins and they are good!) and string cheese. In the fruit and vegetable bowl (I used a bowl that I hardly use for anything else) I placed raisins, grapes, Fruit Crisps, apples, applesauce, carrots and Stretch Island Fruit Leather (raisins, grapes and carrots already portioned into snack size bags). Also, I'm aware that not all of these things need to refrigerated but I wanted only two areas, not many, so I put them in with the refrigerated items.

So when Tate has to pack his snack for school he has to choose one item out of each area, then I add milk and he's good to go. When he goes to school all day then we will add a third component for sandwich, wraps, leftovers, or whatever great recipes we all come up with.

This will also help me on Thursdays when I have to pack a lunch for all of us, a lot of the work will be done, and I just have to make the 'main dish' so to speak. It will also make it easy for snacks to be grabbed on the other days, for both the kids and I, because we will have healthy snacks ready to go.

I'm so looking forward to more ideas to come out. (Thanks to Steph and Carrie for the ideas so far. Carrie - I've tried the Turkey Chili too - big hit!)

I plan to try a few things to make on my own. One is yogurt. Holley and I have scoured the store shelves to find a yogurt that is not too much for the kids (by too much I mean that I usually don't give my children an entire carton of yogurt because even one carton to me seems to have too much sugar) and one that didn't have high fructose corn syrup in it. We haven't found that around here anywhere. So, my option is to make my own and add to it what I want. Should be interesting and I'll let you know how it goes.

The other thing I want to do is start making my own bread. I figure I can make it on the weekend (I've even found a no-knead whole wheat recipe that I can't wait to try) and we'll have it for the week. Since I'm trying to do this in small steps it will probably take me a week or two to try these, but I'll post the results!