If you’ve been skiing, you know that buying lunch in the lodge gets expensive fast. So I try to pack our lunch as much as I can. For ski lunches I try to pack in a bit more calories than I do for a regular school lunch. They are very physically active out in the cold, so they burn a lot more calories. I will include more carbs, and even a chocolate treat, in every ski lunch, to just help keep them fueled up for the day. 

I made a big batch of English muffin pizzas on Sunday - enough to pack for one lunch, plus extra for another whole lunch and a snack or two. They are practically a perfect lunch food - easy to make, store and freeze great, and the perfect kid size. Having something like this made just makes lunch packing so quick and easy. These lunches took me just a few minutes - with the pizza already made, I just had to throw in a veggie and a fruit, and a little extra treat on the side. Done. 

We'll just call this a Mexican themed lunch day, with each lunch being slightly different. I was using up some leftovers, and just trying to make all the lunches as similar as possible. 

This is just a simple lunchable style snack box with lots of little goodies. They all have some kind of cheese, a strawberry, an orange, and some rice crackers. Two have a rolled up slice of turkey, and two have mini hot dogs. Three have tomatoes and the fourth child that doesn't like tomatoes has some yogurt covered raisins. 

ScheduleThis is what I sometimes call deconstructed nachos. Basically, its all the ingredients for - nachos, the chips, cheese, beans, sour cream - but not all toasted and melted together. If you have chips and cheese in your house, you can make this. This lunch honestly took me about 5 minutes to make. 

Pancakes. Breakfast for lunch at its finest. My basic goal for this lunch was to make it a little fun, without making it a lot of extra work for me. And what's more fun than tiny pancakes?

I made pancakes last week, and I always make extra.  Making some mini pancakes is super easy. All you have to do is take your regular pancake batter and thin it with just a little extra milk, and put it in some kind of squirt bottle or icing bag, or really anything that you can squeeze equal amounts out of.  

If you're really paying attention, you might know that I usually pack breakfast for lunch on Wednesday. But I'm mixing it up a little this week, and I'll be packing the breakfast for lunch tomorrow.  Instead today's lunch is an easy snack box - or what some people call a homemade "lunchable". For this type of lunch I just try to focus on the basic groups - protein, vegetable, fruit - and make sure they get a little some of each. 

As I mentioned in yesterday's lunch post - my theme this week is about simple and easy. Quesadillas are one of my favorite fall back lunch ideas. They are easy to make and easy to eat. Personally I love quesadillas that are filled with all kinds of stuff.  But kids are simpletons by nature, so I keep theirs more basic. 

They are also easy to make ahead - I often have a bag of leftover quesadillas in my fridge, and my boy will go looking to grab a slice for an easy snack.  So if you are making one, why not make extra, and save them for snack. 

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If I have leftovers from the week I try to send leftovers for lunch on Friday. It helps me get the fridge cleaned out for the weekend, and makes for very easy lunch packing.  Last night I made a big pot of macaroni and cheese for the kids for dinner. They usually devour it, but we had been at a holiday party earlier and I think they all had too many snacks. So there was tons of mac & cheese leftover. Perfect for lunch! 

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