Fun with Food...

I love getting creative with school lunches. I am always on the look out for fun cookie cutters, unique lunchboxes (This is a gingerbread house) and foods that are begging to be tried and made tiny or shaped in some way.

Condiment containers are a mom's best friend! They offer a whole new variety without having to send a large amount of dips, yogurt etc! I use them for fruit snacks, ranch, yogurt dip, granola, walnuts and so much more! The uses are really endless!

I love to very up lunches as much as I can. No 2 lunches are ever the same! The best part is, that it never takes me longer than 15 minutes to do lunches and this is making 3 lunches!

These small containers from Ziploc are another of my favorites! They come 8 to a pack and even come with Box Tops! Mom is in heaven! (oh wow, I can't imagine college me EVER saying that!!) I use these to make large containers of yogurt and such into small snack-sized ones. This is MUCH cheaper than buying individual yogurts and is so much more friendly for the environment.

There is ALWAYS a note SOMEWHERE for my little ones, half the fun is them finding it! It's never hard to do and sometimes can be done with just masking tape! I love letting my little ones that I am always thinking of them.

Another Ziploc container that offers an AWESOME lunch opportunity is this divider container. They are so fun (box tops too!) and they are a way for this mom to give the kids a healthy alternative to those lunchables they are always trying to throw in my cart!

I save to much and this plastic cupcake container is just another thing that helps make snack time fun! This one came as a cover for a pack of disposable cupcake tins that I needed for a school event. a variety of food can be offered for very little hands and great for portion control!

Apple cars are always a fast favorite that get loads of compliments! The boys request them all the time and even like looking at the pictures of them! haha!

Serving up food in creative ways always has them eating and looking forward to trying new foods! Add in a lazy susan and some fondue forks and everyone was smiling!

Box Tops used for EDUCATION!

 I'm in the middle of counting up some more Box Tops, because many have that pesky June expiration date! I'm hoping to get them in the mail this week and decided to get my 3 kids involved in the long process! I decided to really turn this into a TRUE educational Box Tops experience! As I cut them down to the perfect square (saves on postage you know!) and put them in our Box Tops purple bucket! I got the younger 2 involved in another way!

My younger 2 are learning to count to 100, so we pulled out our hundreds chart and I gave them the purple bucket of Box Tops that we had cut down already and they placed them on the numbers 1-100! I colored the 50 box and told them when they reached there, they popped them in a bag and continued on. My oldest daughter already knows how to count to 100, so she would take the sealed bags from the boys and double check the count and make sure there were 50 in there! A fun way to teach and get stuff done, all while hanging out together!


As we worked this evening, we had Bach on the radio!

Button Snakes

I'm obsessed with buttons! I love the colors, the sizes, the shapes and even their ages! They all seem to have a story to tell! I wanted to let my kids in on my obsession with some of my newer buttons (the non-vintage kind!!) and found the perfect activity!

I gave my youngest son a pipe cleaner and let him have at it for the first time and he sat so quietly, it allowed me to finish emptying the dishwasher! Next, we worked on colors and rainbow order, so I gave him direction on which to put on the pipe cleaner. He loved this and even clapped for himself! After we were done, he asked me if I would wear it as a bracelet! So, I plan to accessorize my outfit for BTU Chicago tomorrow with this new handmade bracelet!

Linked up to Tot Tuesdays!

Box Tops!

Box Tops University is coming to Chicago and I'm going! Anyone else planning on attending the April 1st event?

I am the box top coordinator for our school, are you? Share your tips and blog posts concerning box tops!! I am hoping to remind everyone to keep on collecting all through Summer, so that we can come back with a bang!!