Happy, happy Thursday! I love Thursdays, I am not sure why I love Thursdays but I sure do, maybe its the anticipation that the weekend is coming, or maybe knowing that I have survived the week so far! Yay me! Yay you that is reading this!! It’s Thursday! Okay, back to business! I have five children that go to school, and four of them are in elementary school. They bring cold lunch to school and a snack every day. Every day I have to make lunches and snacks for them and I am not going to sugar coat it. Sometimes I don’t feel like doing it. Sometimes, I feel like ugh, so tired of making snacks and lunches everyday! So I decided to change it! First, I try to have the kids help make their lunches. AND I decided to make the whole process easier. Especially with the snacks. Little background about me, I grew up in a family of 13, we were poor and I never had snack in school. I was always hungry at snack time so I do not want my kids to be hungry! Actually I don’t want any kids hungry! Even Mike keeps snacks for those students who don’t have money for snacks. He is such a great guy! Anyways back to snack ideas! I wanted something easy that they can just grab and go. I love the idea of those little bags you can buy, but have you seen how expensive they are! They come in packs of 12 usually. For our family that would only cover two days worth of snacks and leave two bags leftover. That would be too much money to do that week in week out. That idea is out, so I decided well I can just make my own snack packs! That could work! And it has been wonderful! Now once a week, I get two boxes of snacks, like cheese crackers, animal crackers, or pretzels. I will also pop some popcorn, the kids love that snack and you know I love it too! I always use two varieties, I grab my snack size bags (HELPFUL HINT: the dollar store is awesome for bags!) and go to work! From a box of crackers ,etc I usually get about Fifteen bags!! I shop at Aldis and the two boxes in this post, cheese crackers and the animal crackers, only cost me $2.29 for both! BARGAIN!! So I have like 30 bags of snacks for the week for only $2.75 (if you include the cost of the bags)! That is awesome for my budget! I put the bagged crackers in a little basket and it stays in the pantry. Now the kids can just grab a snack bag, even Charlotte knows where the snacks are.
Grab some crackers and some bags. HELPFUL HINT: bags are awesome at the dollar store or if you know someone who works at Johnson wax :)
Start bagging! This is a great opportunity to have the kids help. Just sit around, chat and bag some snacks! Great times!
I keep all the snacks in a basket in the pantry. Easy to see and easy to grab! I also have a box for the fridge for snacks like apples and carrots…. but that my friends is next week! So come back and check it out! Look! about 30 bags of snacks for less than $3.00!!
It has been really helpful and I love that it is a little work in the beginning of the week, but lasts the whole week! It is also fun to have your kids help! They can do this! Charlotte helped me with these and she is three! It is so wonderful to work with your kids, I love the conversations that happen and the feeling of togetherness that comes along with doing things together! I also will bag up carrots and apples, but that how to will be next weeks post! I have apples that stay fresh all week, cut in your fridge!!! So check back! AND let me hear from you! What are your favorite kids snack ideas? Do you have a favorite cold lunch that your kids just love? Share!
HUGE hugs,
Lara
P.S. don’t forget I am on instagram! http://instagram.com/myfabulouschaos, and facebook http://facebook.com/myfabulouschaos
Do you use the bagged microwave popcorn, air popper, or make your own microwave popcorn? As you know we can’t use peanut butter, but we do sun butter now. Sam doesn’t like it though :)