I received coupons and other supplies to facilitate this post. All opinions and text are 100% my own.
Can you believe the back to school season is upon us?! This year, Rock the Lunchbox with simple tips, lunchbox inspiration and downloadable coupons from some of your favorite brands! #rockthelunchbox #ad
As many of you already know, my kiddos started back to school last week. We're still working on getting back into the swing of things. *sigh* Summer always seems to fly by and we have so much fun - and a pretty loose "schedule." Then bam, it's back to reality before we know it!
If you're a mom, you know that getting kids ready for school is no simple task! It's a constant battle with getting a good breakfast into them, getting them dressed and getting them to school on time .... amongst all of that, you have to get lunches ready ... that's not even counting the million and one other things we do daily as parents.
This year, we have three of our children in school. Even though I homeschool, we face many of the same obstacles as children who go to public or private school. This year, Isaac is an 8th grader, Thomas is a 7th grader and Gabriel is a Kindergartener. Everything is new to Gabriel. I thought it would be fun to have him draw me his favorite lunch ... and then make a wholesome lunch with him for his first day of school. 
As a mom, I think he did a pretty good job hitting some of the food groups on his own! And, I'm glad he didn't put a huge pile of candy! Ha! As you can see, he wanted (orange) juice, a carrot, berries, a ham and cheese sandwich and candy. I thought it was a pretty good starting place for our little bento box!
Instead of a ham and cheese sandwich, we used 97% lean cubed ham and cubed cheese. He loves picking food up with his fingers, so I really wanted to focus on finger foods, playing off of the things he wanted! Instead of candy, I gave him some Annie's Homegrown Organic Bunny Fruit Snacks. With no artificial flavors, colors or preservatives, I can feel better giving this to him versus candy! ;)
Raspberries were on sale ... so we added some raspberries. He would be happy with any berry - he loves them all!
Trying to add some color to his lunch, I gave him three kinds of veggies. Of course, I gave him the carrots he asked for - and added celery sticks and cherry tomatoes. We added some Homemade Ranch for him to dip his veggies in too.
For the grains, we used Annie's Homegrown Bunny Grahams ... I love that they're made with organic wheat flour and have no artificial flavors, synthetic colors or synthetic preservatives. A serving also contains 8g of whole grains!
Instead of orange juice, I gave him an Honest Kids Super Fruit Punch Organic Juice Drink. It's sweetened only with fruit juice and has 40 calories per pouch. It has 100% of the daily recommended value of vitamin c. 
Did you know that variety when packing a lunch is the biggest challenge for parents? According to online surveys conducted via SurveyMonkey in March 2014, 51% of parents surveyed struggled to come up with new ideas ... this was the top challenge for parents. 53% of kids reported the items in their lunchboxes were the same everyday!
For plenty of lunchbox inspiration, be sure to stop by rocktheluncbox.com. You can also find Annie's Homegrown, Applegate, Honest Kids, Organic Valley, Stonyfield and Rudi's Organic Bakery on Facebook! Social media makes it easy to stay up to date on new products, news and special offers! :)
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