Dollar Store Storage Solution

I found these interlocking drawer organizer containers sold in sets of 3 at Dollar Tree. They perfectly fill the space in my kitchen drawers!

Perfect for all those little cookie cutters & silicone cups! There were also rectangular ones - I put our used Lunchbox Love notes in one, most of the time they're still good for another few uses :)

Want to see the rest of my drawers? Click here: A Place For Everything

Pickle's Pick & Sandwich Cutter Storage

Pickle has been making some of his lunches himself this summer! He's been enjoying taking as much time as he wants picking out a sandwich cutter, most of which are stored two deep in a drawer with a spice rack insert:

For this lunch, Pickle chose one of the dinosaur sandwich cutters, and put them in a Dyno Dips snack box, with some apple wedges:

Pickle didn't want to pour yogurt in the dinosaur dip well like I thought he would, he wanted to fill it with apple wedges. He's asked for apples several times now, but he has yet to actually eat them. Still, I don't like to say no when he asks for a food he doesn't usually eat - one day he may surprise me! This was not that day though - the apples went uneaten, and he asked for a Go-Gurt after finishing his peanut butter sandwiches. Ah well, maybe next time :)

Stuff Pickle used to make his lunch:

Making Meal Time Fun

Sometimes, getting my family to eat a healthy meal feels like a job that I'm not very good at. And from the way my sproutlets occasionally act, I'm guessing they feel like they're the ones who have the tough job of eating those healthy meals. Who wants meal time to be a battle? Not me! But I also don't want them leaving the table with not so full tummies and not so healthy bodies. What can I do to make my family's dinners both a good time and good for them?

Well, like Mary Poppins said, "In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun. You find the fun, and - SNAP - the job's a game! " So, I've been on the lookout for ways to find the fun in eating a balanced meal. Here are a few healthy eating games & activities I've found so far:

The Rainbow Kit from Today I Ate A Rainbow - Challenge your kids to complete their rainbow of fruits & veggies each day. We have this one, and the friendly competition with their siblings has encouraged my sproutlets to try veggies they had previously refused!  The website also has a cute song and videos, and links to more healthy eating fun & games.

The FREE printable Family Dinner Kit from Family Day – A Day to Eat Dinner with Your Children features menu planners, a recipe book, activity & colouring placemats, family mad-libs & other word games, and more! I haven't tried this one yet, but only because we are out of printer ink :)

Crunch a Color - The Healthy Eating Game card game, and free printable reward chart, conversation starters, and more from Crunch a Color. Another one I haven't yet tried but plan to! If your family has tried this one, I'd love to hear about it if you want to leave a comment or post on my facebook page!

The Garden Heroes Food Nutrition Kit from Learning ZoneXpress makes nutrition fun with game sheets, stickers, an activity book, plush Garden Heroes veggie characters, and downloadable activities.

And here are a few tips for making healthy meals go more smoothly:

Let the kids help! Whether it's with the shopping, menu planning, or even meal prep/cooking, kids are more likely to want to try a food they were involved with getting to the table. I've seen this work with my own sproutlets. I admit I have a tendency to just do it all myself because it's quicker and less messy - but I really should let them help more.

Keep offering foods again and again - even if they've been refused again & again. It might take many tries before a child is ready to accept a new food (and many could mean 12, or 20 or more, depending how resistant your child is... don't give up too soon)! I've been told this from Pickle's speech pathologist, read it in many a nutrition publication, heard it from other parents, and seen it prove true at my own table - eventually :)

Bella trying beets!

Eat with your kids, and eat what you want them to eat. Let them see you enjoying your meal, and the time together as a family. Comment on your meal and how good it tastes... but be aware of the Phrases that Help and Hinder!

I found a bunch more great tips here: Be a Healthy Role Model for Children - 10 tips for setting good examples. I especially like the idea of naming a food that a child helps make! At least that child might be more likely to try it :)  

Disclaimer:  This post has not been endorsed by any of the companies associated with any of these products, and other than receiving a Rainbow Kit to review (though not for this post, for an upcoming post) I have not been compensated in any way. I just think they seem like useful and fun tools and wanted to share them :)

A Place For Everything...

A reader recently asked (on my Facebook Wall) if I'd written or photographed anything about how I organize all my cutters. I have taken photographs, but I think the only ones I ever posted are the ones of my sandwich cutter drawer - since I'm so in love with all my Lunch Punches! And since it would probably take less time to just take new pictures than to search through the 10, 000 or so photos on my macbook looking for the old ones, that's what I did :)

My Lunch Prep & Storage Station

Ha ha, Sailor Boy would laugh if he heard me call it that! I don't, I'm just being silly :) That's kind of what it is though...  Anyways, here's the corner of our kitchen where I keep my lunch-making supplies:

The cupboard above holds all our containers and muffin tins. Also the shaker of Fruit Fresh and packets of Lunchbox Love notes. There are a few things not pictured (at least one Easy Lunchbox, and a blue Sassy box for sure)  because I took the photos in the middle of the day on a school day ;) 

ETA : In case anyone was curious, the papers affixed to the door are the school's hot lunch menus & lunch money account online access info :)

The little green cutting board on the counter goes on top of the tackle box of mini cutters & picks in the drawer below the pull-out cutting board. That drawer also holds my muffin cups, egg molds, and various mini cutters and small tools. I keep Post-It notes in there too - sometimes I'll stick a note on a container at night to remind myself the next morning what I planned to pack in it. It can be pretty hectic at our house in the morning; I don't have time to stare at an empty container wracking my brain about what to put in it!

Ah, my sandwich cutter drawer. Mostly Lunch Punches ♥
I can't wait to add the new Sweet set!

This pic is from this older post, but I forgot to take a side shot, and you have to see this drawer from the side. The tiered shelves were meant for spice jars, but I repurposed them :)

Cookie cutter drawer! I bought Wilton's 101 Cookie Cutters set, and with the ones I already owned, that adds up to a lot of cookie cutters. Storing them loose would make finding the one I need a waking nightmare, so I sorted them into categories and bagged them into labeled Ziplocs.

I rotate the bags so those most appropriate to the season are on top. It also helps that the Wilton cutters are somewhat color coded - the Hallowe'en cutters are all orange, spring & Easter shapes are yellow, numbers are blue, etc - so it's really easy to find the one I need, and quickly - as long as my husband put it back in the right bag if he did the dishes!

Lastly, our Built NY Gourmet Getaway neoprene lunch totes and our Nalgene Grip-N-Gulp cups.  There were several of each out in use when I took this pic. We also have an EasyLunchbox cooler bag, which Bella had at school.

So there you have it, my super organized lunch stuff storage system :) If only I could keep the rest of my house in such order!