I cannot believe that the first week of school is next week! Where did the summer go!
This year we have a lot of firsts happening. It will be Juliet's first year of school and both Ainsley and Juliet's first year of full-day school. This means, that I have to put together snacks and lunch for the girls everyday.
I don't know about you, but I remember hating lunches at school. They were always so boring. There are only so many times that you can eat a sandwich before you never want to eat one again. Also, here in Toronto, all our schools are peanut free so there goes the staple of peanut butter to mix things up. I am determined to provide a variety of yummy and not monotonous lunches for the girls this year. The first step: Menu Planning.
I have always been a menu planner. Last year during the school year, I would plan loosely for breakfast and lunch and then I would always make a clear plan for dinner. When I mean loosely, I would jot down lunches where we were going out and then make sure I had staples on hand such as mini pizzas, Kraft dinner, hot dogs and sandwich ingredients. This year I am taking it to a new level. I want to make sure that I am packing healthy and delicious lunches and snacks.
I sat down on Thursday and created next week's plan. I did all my shopping on Friday so I was ready to go for this week. I find that planning ahead makes things so much easier. I have on hand all the healthy food I need and I don't have to think about what's for lunch this week (or dinner or snacks).
Here is the plan:
As you can see, all meals are planned and to the right is my shopping list. This way I can make sure that I am mixing things up regularly and if I'm really stuck one week, I can go back to a previous week and pull from them.
I hope everyone has a great first day of school. At least I know my girls will like their lunches :).
