Unfinished business

So a lot of you said that lunch time was difficult for you as well so I rounded up a few suggestions to get you (but mostly ME) started. I found so many ideas but many of them seemed unrealistic to me. Carter would laugh at me if I asked him to eat a wheat pita with tomatoes and sprouts. Consequently, most of my ideas are not gourmet or fancy at all. They are things my kids will eat and things I can make in less than 5 minutes. First though, I have a few ideas that I think will help.
1. Plan. I do this for dinner, but not really for lunch. Make a list of foods for lunch so you can just look at it and choose something if you're in a hurry. (ideas following)
2. Make it fun and special.
I bought place mats and kid cafeteria trays on clearance for 25 cents at Target and the children love them. There is a section for everything so your food doesn't touch.
Rename your food. Call it pirate abc soup and find letters as the burried treasure. Call them princess nuggets and eat them with your pinkie in the air. Kids really love this stuff. They really get into presentation too.
3. And lastly, my kids will eat almost anything on a toothpick or with sprinkles.
Ideas:
PBJ Butterfly and alien/spaceship
Make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Cut in half diagonal. Touch the outside corners together in the middle of the plate - these are the wings. Decorate with fruits and other foods. I like to string some string cheese and use that for the body and antennae's. Then I will add sliced bananas and/or raisins on the wings to make a design.

For the alien spaceship, I cut the sandwich into four squares and place them around the outside of the plate. String cheese and have it coming out towards the bottom - add banana slices and raisins for "buttons" and "lights".

There are so many things you can do with pb. Try these:
•Sliced bananas
• Brown sugar
• Honey
• Bacon
• Sliced apples
• Raisins
• Grated carrots
• Wheat germ and honey
• Fluff or marshmallow creme
A few more ideas to get you started: Try to keep a few things on hand and keep a list handy when you're in need of a quick idea!
- Fill a pita with veggies and meat - or even something sweet like fruit and yogurt.
- Mini pizzas-yummy on an english muffin
- Soy dogs/soy corn dogs
- Chicken tenders (even better shaped like a dinosaur-thank you Costco)
- PB and jam or cream cheese and jam sandwiches
- Soup with grilled cheese
- smoothies: 1/2 c. yogurt + 1/2 c. cold juice. Let kids shake it up and enjoy!
- sandwiches cut with a cookie cutter into fun shapes
- fruit or cheese kabobs, skewer with thin pretzel
- fill celery with cream cheese dyed blue with food coloring and goldfish on top
- make faces on your bagel or sandwich with raising, dry cereal, grapes, etc.
- string cheese rolled in a piece of deli meat with a toothpick

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Kaboose Lunch Ideas
Family Fun Lunch Ideas

One last tip. Have a schedule. Kids love a routine. Eat your snacks and lunch at the same time every day. Most of all, remember that I am not an expert at all. I took a Nutrition class in college and have 3 kids. Those are my only credentials.

Second matter of unfinished business: I really like my shape-up shoes. They are very comfortable. I have noticed less back and leg pain, better posture, and slightly more toned calves. I have lost 2 lbs, but I don't know that that was because of the shoes. I say, give them a shot if you need new shoes. Buy them during a 'buy one get one 1/2 off' sale with a 20% coupon from Famous Footwear. They are at least worth that.