Back to school means packing lunches!!

Normally this is one of my least favorite things about school. I know it's weird, but it just gets tedious for me. Because we are a gluten free household it also poses another issue of finding foods that we like & that aren't processed to the gills. So, I make a lot from scratch & get very creative. Not everything in our lunches are the heathiest, but I try to do as much as I can!
My other issue has been trying to stay "green"-ish. We haven't used baggies for lunches in a long time, but it makes my cupboards a total mess. So, I decided to try something new this year. And I'm actually excited about lunch making! We'll see how long that lasts :)
Anyway, I found these great bento-ish boxes at the dollar tree & went from there. They are similar to the ones you see all over pinterest. They have one big compartment & one smaller. As the school year starts. I'll share some of my lunch ideas, until then...here are some links to great & healthy lunch ideas:

Family Fresh Cooking

Out of the Box Food: This one does great comparisons with your typical kids' lunch items, with homemade or healthier alternatives. (like lunchables, fruit roll ups, chicken nuggets, etc)

The other cool thing I found on a blog (which I'm very bummed to say I didn't save or follow) was these silicone ice pop molds. These are so cool & have so many uses! Basically, just fill & freeze. I plan to do my own "gogurts", smoothies, apple sauce, etc. So much you can do with them!!!

Here are a few more things that I purchases to make my lunch making easier & a little more fun:

    

I don't plan to go crazy & make a hello kitty sandwich or anything like that. But, I need to keep it fresh, for me & the girls :) They love hard boiled eggs in their lunches, so I thought these egg molds were so cute & fun. They also love rice balls with a little nori or furi kaki. So these little silicon molds are fun. I bought a different plastic type of rice mold last year & they were just messy. So, I'm hoping these will be better. Those little soy sauce containers we use with the rice balls or I sometimes put a tiny bit of salt in them for their eggs. And we needed water bottles & these were so cute & cheap & easy to fit in their lunch boxes.
I'll be sure and post some pics of our first week of lunches! I would love to hear of any great ideas y'all have!!
I hope the beginning of school is a great time for your families! I always love the excitement of a new year, new school supplies, first day outfits and now school lunches :)
Have a great year!!