How to set up a lunch and snack station!

(Part1)

You know I love to show you ways to make life easier on yourself.  Setting up a lunch and snack station will do just that.

First a little backstory to why I decided to do this. Awhile back I read a book called Flourish.  It really inspired me to take my business to another level. (I have several business but they all kind of float under the Adventures in Mindful Living, but the one I am really focusing on growing is this one).I knew to do that I needed to really get organized and I needed to run my days much better.  One of the things she has you do in the book is record what you do all day. This allowed me to take a good look at my routine and see where I could really tweak it to make it better for us during this season of life. (Very mindful, huh?!!) In the book she also encourages you to help your kids become more independent.

One of the steps I decided I could do was make breakfast,lunch, and snacks much easier for my son to make for himself (or for me to grab). I’ll go into breakfast on another post, but today I wanted to share with you how I set up and maintain my lunch and snack stations.

First I decided some basic snacks and a basic lunch that my son could make for himself and his sister. He decided that he really wanted to be in charge of lunches and snacks this year for him and my youngest. My oldest daughter was in charge of lunches but with her switching to public high school this year she was obviously unable to help with this anymore. In my family we all work as team so I try to get each child to really take responsibility in something  that will help our family run better. Lunches and snacks sounded like a great way that my son  could do that. Plus he was excited about it and it made him feel special and important, so it was a win-win.

Now please keep in mind that I will still make lunches and snacks for my kids.But having it all ready to go helped my son take on more responsibility when he was making lunch and it made it easier and quicker for me when I had to make it. We work as a team in this house, or at least that’s our goal!

Or basic lunch was a sandwich ( PB&J), a fruit, and a packaged food. Each day he knew he needed to get his and my daughters lunch trays out and pull everything out and serve it. Their lunch trays are just 3 section trays I could at our local dollar store. I keep them on top of the microwave which is perfect for us becasue  they are out of the way but still easily accessible.

For the first week I made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and froze them so all he would have to do is pull one sandwich out for him and one for his sister. If you are packing lunches for kids I would highly recommend making freezer Pb&Js. You can put them in a container or you can put them in a baggie and by lunch they will be room temperature. My kids like the really cold sandwiches so they love the freezer sandwiches. This is where I first heard of freezing Pb&Js. The next week he asked if he could just make them each day. He said it made him feel like a chef, so I made some up and put them in the freezer for our crazy days and let him make the sandwiches each day.

For the fruit part I bought some small containers that I could load up with grapes, watermelon, applesauce, and mandarin oranges.  I found mine at our local grocery store. I think I paid $1.50 for a pack of 4. I bought several packs so I could have a wide variety of fruit for him to choose from. Buying the containers let me save money in the long run becasue I could buy big cans or jars of fruit and then just split them up.

I also found some smaller containers that I used for yogurt (which I also told him could use in place of a fruit). Using these small containers let me buy the bigger tubs of yogurt and save money that way too.

This is what my “fruit” drawer in my fridge looks like when I have it all loaded up. I put a dish towel in the bottom of the drawer just in case anything gets knocked over or leaks.

For the packaged food part of the lunch I made up several choices for him. I called them packaged foods because I put them in little baggies. Some of the things I put in were popcorn, pretzels,sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, and trail mix. I put all of these in a large bin in one of my cabinets. I bought the bin at Walmart for $5 during one o f their back to school sales. Love these bins by the way. I use them all around the house.

Everything is at levels that he can reach and it is all easy for him (or me) to grab.

That is how I do our lunches most days. Some days we do eat leftovers or if its the weekend I will make something special or make one of these ideas. It just keeps everything nice and easy. It allowed me to set one hour a day aside for my business to get things done like answering emails, scheduling posts, and writing more content for this blog. Once I get completly healed up ( I had to have some emergency dental surgery) I am hoping to use this hour for exercise time since I also have office hours in the afternoon.

Putting all of the lunch items together  takes me about 30 minutes from beginning to end but it saves me so much more time throughout the week! What actually takes the longest is making up a couple of batches of popcorn  and making sure they are cooled down enough for me to put in the bags.

Something else I will address is the lack of vegetables in this plan. My son has some sensory issues and getting him to eat veggies is not always a easy feat. To overcome this I  make all of my kids smoothies everyday that are loaded with veggies like carrots, pumpkin,kale,spinach and beets. Do you need a good smoothie recipe? Try one of these. Don’t want the mess everyday from smoothies? Make these then! I also give my kids these super cool gummies. All they are is fruits and veggies. I love them so much that I actually sell them as a distributor for this company (one of my other business)!! If you have any questions about them or how to get these for free for your child feel free to shoot me a message on FB or to my email.

Ready to see how I set up snacks? Thats in part 2!

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