First Day of School and other stuff

Today was a happy day! My first two babies were off for there first day of school. For my son it is his first full day of school, as he is entering first grade. For my daughter it's her first day of kindergarten. I have two children in school now! Of course I still have two at home also, but this is a big deal to me! My babies are growing up.

Now that Aden is in school full time, I've had lunch planning on the brain. It should be no surprise that I would be this weird about planning his lunches. I do it with dinner! Why not my kid's lunch!!

So with some minor research on the internet (really, every time I sit down to this computer lately I'm interrupted by one of the kids! I CAN'T get anything done!) I found a lot of helpful tips that hopefully will aid in planning out his meals for the school year.

The first tip, which I will talk about today, was a lunch chart. Martha Stewart has a chart here on her website that you can print out. Her project is meant to be printed out on magnetic sheets, but I know in my house that those little magnets wouldn't last a week! I opted for a DIY dry erase board to make mine.

 I asked Aden what kind of things he would like to eat for lunch, so we could avoid any major "I don't like its" over what I pack. I doubt this will be a big deal considering my children never and I mean Never have anything fancier than left-overs for lunch everyday, so anything that has not been reheated is a luxury! That's sad isn't it?

Next I went out and bought some of those lunch items he said he would like to eat for lunch. I created my own chart (thank you Martha Stewart!) with every day of the school week that allowed him to decide what sandwich, fruit/veggie, snack and dessert he'd like for that day. Here's where you can get mine.

This is simply my template, matted and framed.

When it's all filled in it looks like this:

Dry Erase Pen on the glass

Now when he gives me attitude about what's in his lunch box I can simply pint to the chart and say, "Hey, you picked it!" Gotta love that!