Me? I see a sink full of dirty dishes and well.... it's a sink full of dirty dishes. Usually not a lot of spiritual thought revolving around that (though I DID have a fun perspective change last week, while staring at a sink full of dirty dishes. But I'll share that another time).
So, why write a blog? Well, a little over a year ago the population of our household increased about 43%. The year prior to that our household had increased 75%. The way we did life had to change. My top concerns were: laundry, grocery shopping and meal planning, carpool, and sanity. I had NO idea where to start, but I knew I needed a plan. So I began to google things like "large family logistics" and "mega families". Thank goodness that there are pioneers out there, others who have large families with the same logistical concerns I had. Except these people had found some really great solutions, and they had decided to write books and blogs! I poured over their material and started to make a plan. I am SO thankful for their resources!
I am by no means an expert in this arena, but a little over a year later we have settled into some pretty good routines. There are always things I would like to see go better. Some areas I have not even begun to tackle. But some are working quite well and until recently I had not given it much thought. Then I posted this picture on Facebook
In regards to lunch packing, I almost always do it the night before. To say I am not a morning person is a huge understatement. I'm a bear. Huge props to Ray, who tackles breakfast duty every morning (I'm talking french toast, pancakes, biscuits and gravy, etc.) He rocks.
I assemble lunches the night before. To start the school year off, I had my two teenage girls learn about the food pyramid (which I now know is called MyPlate). They are responsible to pack their own lunches, and I wanted to make sure it was balanced. For accountability, they each had to pack a younger sibling's lunch as well. Which left me to pack the other four kids' lunches. It worked well for the first semester and the girls learned to make healthy food choices, which was the main goal. But it really wasn't saving me any extra time. Packing 6 lunches is not any harder than packing 4. So this semester I let them off the hook. They just pack their own lunch now.
Uniformity is key, so right off the bat I purchased these lunch boxes from Amazon. The brand is easylunchboxes.com. You can purchase separately the soft carrying case. Each child has a different color, so if one goes missing, I know who to ask about it. Lots of things in our house are color-coded to a specific child. Cups, towels, toothbrushes. Makes life easier (unless we have a guest come over who doesn't know the system and tries to give Gretchen's green cup to Kristina! But the kids all know the routine well enough, usually they just adjust.)
Common foods you would find in my kids' lunches:
Deli meat with crackers or whole wheat tortillas. PB and J.
Yogurt and cheese.
Raisins and craisins.
Always some kind of fruit. Often: clementines, strawberries, apples, blueberries, blackberries, applesauce, peaches, bananas, bell peppers.
Tomatoes, carrots, edamame. I have I much harder time with veggies. If you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them! If they don't have a veggie at lunch, we have at least one at dinner.
Maybe once a month I would give them a cookie or chips. But rarely.
There aren't typically enough leftovers for me to send in with the kids, so often the teenage girls will eat dinner leftovers for lunch the next day. Or Ray and I will.
School lunch is over $2/day so it's very rare they eat at school. I try to keep each person's food consumption between $3-4/day per person. You do the math on how much that is a month! But for a family of 10, it's low. One trip to Starbucks can blow your food allowance for the whole day, so we have to be careful.
So, what do you pack in your kids' lunches?
My little ones eat so much food its ridiculous! I can't complain too much though - its mostly healthy fruits and veggies but then again that's why it gets to be so expensive! How do you keep everyone out of the fridge and snacking? My kids live in the fridge and are constantly eating... I have put up a baby gate to the kitchen when it gets too out of hand.
ReplyDeleteI usually pack applesauce, cheese stick, pretzels and peanut butter, and a fruit like strawberries or an orange. Keeping it simple.
I like that everyone has their own color and those lunch boxes are awesome! I think I may get some too.
Crystal, my kids know that they need to ask to have a snack. I guess it's always been that way so I haven't really had to "teach" them. We always have a snack after school, and that's about it. Besides that it's meal time eating only. Of course you have two little ones who are home with you all day. When it was just me at home with Asa and Gretch, we would have one morning snack and one afternoon. Again, it's kind of always been this way so I guess they just got used to it. We always sit up to the table or kitchen counter to eat, which may be another reason they don't raid the fridge. They know they aren't allowed to walk around the house with food or drinks! Anyway, that's just the way we've done it. I decided early on that I wouldn't battle my kids over food. They could choose to eat, or not. But I don't offer alternatives at meal times. Snacks were kept to a minimum so they wouldn't learn that they could skip a meal but fill up on a snack an hour later.
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