Pokemon...a friend recently gave my son a Pokemon card at school and ever since then we've been hearing and seeing a lot of these little critters. Neither one of my boys has seen the cartoon, but they seem to have picked up on all they need to know via the trading cards. Each of the boys had just a few cards until Easter Sunday when Mr. E.B. (a.k.a. Easter Bunny) left a few packs of brand new cards in their baskets. I knew they would be excited about their baskets, but I had no idea they would get as excited as they did over those little packs of cards! They were ecstatic and we had to put the Easter egg hunt on hold while they opened and sorted through their new cards. They spent most of the morning comparing cards, trading cards and battling their critters against each other. They eventually went back and finished the hunt for eggs but as soon as it was over they went right back to their cards.

I found thesecookie cutters on-line and thought they would be perfect for my little Pokemon loving boys! Today's Pichu lunch includes: peanut butter and sugar free honey (use sunbutter if peanut allergies are a concern), strawberries/blueberries, cauliflower, cajun cheese curds, granola bites (I substitute natural p.b. for the almond butter, but you could use sunbutter if nut allergies are an issue. I also use sugar free honey in place of rice syrup.)

Can anyone guess what the weather is like up here in the north woods?! You guessed it...COLD and SNOWY. Yes, you read that right...SNOW...on the 27th of April with a high of 43 degrees. All I can say is that we are going to appreciate the warm, summer months more than ever after the winter we've had. Luckily I was able to give the boys a glimmer of hope this morning by showing them the 7-day forecast which shows signs of temps in the 60's! That seemed to offer a bit of relief but there were still moans and groans when it was time to put on the winter gear as we headed out the door for school. Please, please, please let this be the last time the kids have to wear winter coats this year!

Today's cold weather lunch includes: ham and cheese panini squares, lettuce salad, honeydew melon & blueberries, celery, pumpkin muffin with cream cheese frosting (ranch dressing for the salad and celery is in the little blue container with the lid...that container is from Laptop Lunches).

Something we find ourselves reminding our boys often is just how lucky we are to have all that we do. It's hard to explain to an 8 and 5 year old that the mere fact that they were born in the United States secures them a spot in the world's richest 20% regardless of how hard they work. We sponsor two boys in Nicaragua and Mozambique so we are often using the conditions in those developing countries as a comparison to how we live here in the United States. A few weeks ago we sat down as a family to watch one of our favorite TV shows, The Secret Millionaire, and during the introduction my son asked in which country the show was filmed. It took a moment for me to realize that my he didn't associate the images he was seeing on TV as something that could be a reality here in the United States. We seized that opportunity to explain that people in developing countries aren't the only people in need. Again, we did our best to help the kids understand how some people fall on hard times even here in the United States. We found ourselves doing a whole lot of talking but felt like it might be better to do something as a family to give the boys a better sense of what we were trying to explain.

A few days after this episode, we met with a group of friends and one of them suggested getting all of our families together to make sandwiches for a homeless shelter in Minneapolis. It sounded like a wonderful way to involve the kids in doing something to help people in need locally so we jumped at the chance. Our friends Scott and Leigh hosted the sandwich making party at their home last night and the kids made quick work of putting together a whopping 100 sandwiches.

After all the sandwiches were packed we took the boys downtown to deliver enough sandwiches to feed 100 people which made them both pretty darn happy. They said they wished we could have taken everyone one of "mom's lunches", but they both agreed this was a good start.

Today's "100-themed" lunch includes: roast beef/lettuce roll-up, hard boiled egg, peanut butter/chocolate muffin (baked in a donut pan just for fun), string cheese, orange

I don't know about you, but I find parenting to be wonderful yet extremely overwhelming when you consider the lasting impact parents have on the lives of their offspring. Wow, talk about pressure! My husband and I have a lot of dreams and goals for our children but something that drives many of our parenting decisions is the fact that we want our children to grow up to be hard working and self-reliant men. Working hard is something we try to model to them not just as a means to an end, but also as a source of happiness. Imagine my delight when I saw this sign as I was driving down the road the other day:

I'm not suggesting hard work is the only way to happiness, but it is certainly a contributing factor in my opinion. Whether it's schoolwork, teamwork, community involvement, whatever it might be we want our children to give the best of themselves. We don't want our children defined by how smart they are or how good they are at sports; instead we would much rather have them known for their work ethic. This trait will serve them well as they learn to take responsibility for themselves and will continue to provide them with a sense of accomplishment and happiness throughout their lives. This concept is so important to us so you'll find the words "integrity", "self-reliance", and most importantly "hard work" displayed in various forms around our house to serve as inspiration and motivation for all of us.

By now I'm sure you're asking what this long, drawn out post has to do with healthy lunch boxes?! Good question! If I'm being honest, I was so excited about the sign I spotted and really wanted to share it with someone which is how it landed here. However, the more I thought about it the more I realized that there is a correlation between the sign and this lunch box project. The process of changing 35 years of bad eating habits for both my husband and I has been HARD WORK. Re-learning how to cook and grocery shop has been HARD WORK. Getting our kids to try and eat new foods has been HARD WORK. Guess what...from all of that HARD WORK CAME HAPPINESS. The benefits we've gained from the effort we've put into making this transition are indescribable and I would do it all over again in a heartbeat.

Today's quick-and-easy lunch includes: egg salad sandwich, plum, broccoli and ranch dip, homemade chocolate granola bar, spelt pretzels and cheese

There's no school today and the weather is still gloomy so I've planned a special surprise for the kiddos! They don't know what it is just yet, but I told them I'd give them a few clues throughout the day. This bunny breakfast was the first clue...I'll come back after lunch to show you all clue #2. Then we'll see if you all can guess what we're doing today! :)

I served this bunny breakfast along with a bowl of steel cut oats topped with strawberries and blackberries. As much as my boys love vegetables, serving carrots for breakfast would be pushing it just a bit. The carrot on the plate was for decoration only...at least until lunch time. ;) The bunny is an english muffin and a not-so-scrambled egg which I then cut out using a circle and bunny ear cookie cutters. The whiskers, eyes and teeth are made with white American cheese.

Update with CLUE #2: It didn't take long for my boys to figure out where we are going this afternoon...I'm sure most of you will get it in no time. :)

Golf is to my youngest son what hockey is to my oldest boy. My little five year old absolutely LOVES the game of golf. He has been out golfing almost everyday since the courses opened a few weeks ago with the exception of a few snow days here and there. My husband kept telling me I needed to go out and watch our little golfer in action, so the other day I bundled up and decided to hit the course with them. Watching my little guy set up his tee, take a few practice swings, and then play through the hole carefully selecting the appropriate clubs was quite an eye-opener. There's no denying the passion he has for the game that's for sure! I loved watching him play, but I especially loved seeing how much of a kick the older/retired guys get out of watching my son tackle their course.

Today's golf themed lunch includes: ham/white American cheese sandwich, small piece of string cheese rolled into a tiny golf ball, almond flour cupcake with green shredded coconut and and almond bark golf ball (poured almond bark into a golf ball chocolate mold), grapes, peas, carrots, string cheese and spelt pretzels.

<Cue "It's Raining, It's Pouring" music> "It's not raining, it's snowing and we are just ignoring..." Yes, that's right...it's SNOWING here in Wisconsin on the 2oth of April! This winter has been brutal to say the very least and my boys are definitely over the snow. They used to get so excited when they woke up to a fresh blanket of snow on the ground. These days, on the other hand, they just moan, groan and mumble about how all they want to do is play ball in the grass and ride their bikes without their snow gear on...I can't say that I blame them! This morning I tried to make a game of it by singing my own little version of the "It's raining, It's pouring" song with my own little twist. As you can see from the lyrics above I was encouraging the boys just to ignore the snow. Instead I said that today we should imagine that we are far, far away somewhere nice and toasty warm. The boys decided we should be in Mexico! It sounded good to me, so that's where we are in our imaginary world today...we are sitting on a warm beach in Mexico with the sun beating down on us right this second. I think our little birdie friend wishes he could join us, but I think he's at least thankful we're providing him with his own little lunch.

Before I get to today's lunch I put together for our little Mexican vacation I want to take a second to talk about last night's episode of Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution. One of the main themes running throughout this episode was the current epidemic of Type II diabetes in the United States. Rememberthis post where I explained that 1 in 3 children born in the U.S. after the year 2000 will be diagnosed with Type II diabetes before they are 50 years old. Watching his show last night and seeing how much resistance he's being met with by the L.A. public school district makes me wonder just how much sugar and other junk is packed into those school lunches?! It's a scary thought!

O.k...back to today's Mexican-themed lunch includes: homemade taco cups (instructions below), taco meat (grass fed beef & Trader Joe's taco seasoning mix which is gluten free for anyone with gluten allergies), taco fixings, cajun cheese curds, strawberries.

This lunch is packed in a large Lock and Lock boxand 4 small Lock and Lock traysand the taco meat is in this Thermos which is the best one I've found to keep food warm! Here's a little trick I use for keeping food from spilling during transport. I fold up a napkin and place it on top of the food that doesn't sit close enough to the top of the lid to keep it from spilling. This tends to do a pretty good job of keeping food in place.

Taco cup tutorial:

1) Use tortilla of choice (I prefer Joseph's Flax, Oat Bran & Wheat Flour Tortillas)

2) Use a circle cookie cutter or biscuit cutter to cut the tortilla

3) Place the circles into a mini muffin tin and spritz with olive oil and sea salt

4) Bake for 7-9 minutes at 350 or until cups are crispy

This weekend was a hockey-packed weekend for us which inspired today's lunch. My son played in two hockey games with his Minnesota Showcase team and the NHL hockey play-offs were on tv (a very big deal around here)! We are so fortunate to have my son's best friend live directly behind us so our two boys spend a great deal of time together. They usually take turns watching the big hockey games at each other's houses and yesterday they were camped out in our living room watching the Rangers and Capitals face off. As I watched them analyze the game, cheer for the good shots, and fist pump through the fights it made me realize that they will likely do this for many years to come. I imagine the scene 10 years from now will be very similar...I'll just have to do a lot more cooking and we might need bigger furniture. Ha!

Because the weekend was jam packed with hockey, I thought it was fitting to create a hockey themed lunch for today: turkey, cheese & lettuce bagel, cherry tomatoes, kiwi, homemade granola bar

Wow, wow, wow! That's all I have to say after watching my blog stat counter over the past two days. The last two posts seem to have generated quite a buzz out there in the blog-o-sphere. It is so incredibly encouraging to me knowing there are a lot of people out there searching for information on healthy kids' lunches!

Today's lunch is in honor of all of you who have spread the word about this blog and who continue to come back time and time again, but most of all...it's for those of you who have started to make changes in how you feed your own families! I know all too well how hard it is to break old habits and remember exactly how overwhelmed I felt when trying to come up with a strategy for feeding my family healthier foods. To all of you who are feeling that way right now..just remember to take baby steps. Making little changes over time will make the process a lot easier and a lot less stressful. I'm here to tell you that all the effort you are putting into establishing better eating habits is well worth it!

The "You Rock" lunch includes: docking station is a p.b. lavash bread/sandwich, ipod is a turkey/cheese sandwich with white american cheese and pepperoni accents, plum, homemade crackers, pesto hummus, cucumbers, & apeanut butter cookie (if peanut allergies are an issue, substitute sunbutter for peanut butter on the lavash bread and swap out the p.b. cookie with a sunbutter cookie)

The lunch box note in the bottom photo is from the Pretty Girl Shop on Etsy.