French Toast Sticks and My 100th Post!

Hey! Hey! Today is post #100!What better way to do a 100th post than for back to school!We have just one week until school starts here. Just one week! A couple of the kids are excited, a couple could care less. I am torn. I am somewhat glad they go back in a week and somewhat sad. My oldest is a senior this year and that makes me very weepy. My middle girl starts Middle School and that makes me a little weepy also. My babies go to fourth grade. So they are still my babies for another two years.

Life has been really busy with all the back to school shopping and preparation. I have been shopping six times! I still have to grab a few last minute items this weekend. Then make another trip next week after I find out what the oldest girl needs in addition to what I have already gotten. I also have to tag everything with names. This year I will also be using waterproof labels to keep track of all of our lunch gear and I still haven't done that yet. Procrastination. Naw! I have just run short on time! LOL

Today I started stocking the freezer with breakfast foods for convenience. We have decided to stop buying and eating any food that has the following. High fructose corn syrup, Artificial dyes, Artificial preservatives or just plain old artificial ingredients. That means I will be doing a lot of baking and cooking. So for the preparation of hectic mornings I made: Four gallon bags of French toast sticks,(about 130 sticks) Two gallon bags of waffle sticks(about 60) and twenty waffles that can be popped in the toaster. After I had all that done I whipped up a batch of homemade Shake n Bake for chicken and popped potatoes in the oven to bake. The oldest girl did clean-up for me. Which I was sure grateful for because this mama was worn out.

I served up warm French toast sticks with syrup, apple slices and ham roll-ups for lunch. Yummy!

Hey, I had to have them do a taste test to make sure all my work wasn't for nothing! They loved them.

Later this week I plan on making dough for all my homemade crackers so I can just pull one out the freezer, thaw, cut and bake. I am all about healthy eating being convenient. If I have to utilize my freezers, So be it. Have a great start for back to school.

Summer Lunches!

We only have a little under two weeks before we go back to school here. I decided to make the kids a cute bento to get back into the swing of things. I made two really quick lunches today for my youngest two kiddos. Here are our Summer lunches.

The boy has a Star Wars lunch today. He has P.B.&J. sammies, low salt chips and a clementine orange. I also gave him a cute Star Wars napkin I made myself!

This was what was left after lunch!

 

This is lunch for the youngest girl. She has a turtle peanut butter sandwich. I also used up the bread that was left by making these tiny flower sandwiches. She also as fresh cherries, apple slices and low salt chips. I also gave her a cute little turtle napkin that I made!                                               

 

I hope you enjoy the rest of your summer!            

Bento Storage!

Have you ever wondered where in the world do all those people who make bento lunches store all of there STUFF? I know I have. Before I got into bento I wondered lots of things. Where do they get all of that cool stuff and where in the world do they put it after they get it? I had to come up with a way to organize all of my bento gear once I started getting supplies. Here are a few ways I store some of my things.

This is how I store all of my cookie cutters, presses and sandwich cutters. These are plastic shoe boxes. They were very inexpensive and work very well to house the cutters. They are stackable and that is a huge plus.

 

  I also have these very large plastic drawers. I have two. I keep my containers in these. They fit nicely on my wire shelving unit.

  These are stackable ornament boxes. I took two sets of these and clicked them together so they were easy to carry. These boxes are also inexpensive and are just the right size for food cups!

 

This is how I store my food cups. Nice and neat.

 

 

This is a smaller version of the box above. I have two sets of these. I store food picks and small cutters in these sets.

 

 

Here is what it looks like inside.

 

I know a lot of people are always looking for ways to organize. I know I am on a search for the best and easiest way to home my families belongings. I hope you found a few tips. These boxes work well for lots of things. School supplies, crafting, kitchen use or just about anything that will fit.

Lunch Ideas For Back To School!

Happy Friday! Today I did a quick round-up of a few easy lunches to get you started for the new school year. These were a few favorites from last year and summer. All of these were packed in my favorite go to lunchbox. EasyLunchboxes! Usually I grab one of them and start packing. I love this box and the kids do too! My mom even packs her lunch in them. They are great for any age. Here's the lunch round-up!

  To make a cute bento lunch all I usually do is grab a lunch container, grab a sandwich cutter and a few silicone cups to go in the box. Then I cut the bread with a cutter of my choice(or the kids choice) and assemble the sandwich. I build the lunch theme around the sandwich. I put lots of fruit and veggies in and usually pretzels or a snack mix. Lastly I find a few cute food picks to match my theme. That's it! You have a cute bento lunch! I pack four lunches everyday. I usually only spend twenty minutes packing all four lunches. Hope this post gave you a few ideas. Have a great school year.

You can get some of these supplies from the links below! The cute food picks can be purchased by clicking on the All Things For Sale link in the top right corner of this page.



*This post may contain affiliate links.

Back To School!

Every time I say the words Back To School I hear Adam Sandler singing in my head. It might be because when I say those words my hubby sings it out loud in his best Adam Sandler voice. Ha! Ha!
My kids go back to school in September so I have a little time left before my house is once again quiet and clean. Now I know what my grandmother meant when she said that silence was golden. It sure is. It is dang near priceless.
Today I want to share some of the things I use to pack lunch. The most important is a great lunchbox container(I have a few faves!) Also a durable lunch bag, silicone cupcake cups, a few cookie cutters and sandwich cutters. Sometimes I throw in a Lunchbox Love Note. Especially on the days I think the kids could use a laugh or a little encouragement. This year I also purchased two Thermos Funtainer food containers for the two older girls so they could have hot foods for lunch. My two younger children have access to a microwave so they don't need them yet. Let's get started.
Here are a few of my favorite lunch containers.

  These are my top picks. I use these the most when I pack lunch. The names of the boxes are from left to right. EasyLunchboxes, Authentic Japanese bento boxes, PlanetBox, LunchBots and the Goodbyn. At the bottom of this post I will give you links to each lunchbox. I have many lunchboxes for the kids and they love them all but these a definitely my go to lunchboxes.

 These are our new Thermos Funtainer food containers. These babies will keep foods piping hot for my girls on a cool day. I decided to go with plain pink but they come in many colors and lots of kid friendly designs.

 Now I have oodles of silicone cups from all kinds of places so these are just a few that we use regularly. They are a good size. About the size of a standard cupcake. They make packing a bento super easy and way cute.

  I also have hundreds of cookie cutters. (I make cookies too!) These are a few that I have had for years. The top cutters are LunchPunch sandwich cutters. These are super cute for any princess. They have several different designs to choose from. You can buy sandwich cutters from just about anywhere.

 

Here is a lunch I made this summer in a EasyLunchbox. I used my sweet new Cuddle Palz sandwich cutter.                                                                                                                                                      

 

Lunchtime doesn't have to take forever. You can pack a healthy and cute meal in minutes. I usually pack four in around twenty. That's with no prep work. My kids love these lunches and YES they do eat better since we bento. YES they do try new foods that they wouldn't try before! NO it doesn't take loads of time to make a lunch like this one. If you can use a cookie cutter and a knife you can make a cute bento lunch. Not that a cookie cutter is necessary for a bento lunch. Putting foods together to make them look appetizing is the only real skill you need.  As for that famous saying sweeping the internet" Ain't nobody got time for that.", that's rubbish because guess what? I am very busy and I can find 20 minutes in my day to pack a cute and healthy lunch. That is one thing I do have time for. I hope you found a few back to school ideas from this post. As always, Come back and stay tuned for what happens next!                  

 

Links to products:

             

All Things Homemade!

Last week I had a request for homemade pretzel bites. I was happy to oblige. I also decided to serve up crockpot applesauce and fresh snapped crockpot green beans. I made a homemade cheese sauce for dipping and served it all with hotdogs. Our yummy dinner boxes looked like this.

 

Cooking in the crockpot made dinner super simple. The pretzels were a little work but once we got them going we were done in no time. The applesauce was so delicious. Before I blended it I topped some vanilla ice cream  with the warm applesauce. Oh my goodness. It was just like eating apple pie a la mode. Except it was much better for us. The green beans were a huge hit too! What a yummy home cooked meal!                                                                                                        

 

You can get the EasyLunchboxes here!