Every time my kids have gone off to school, I’ve salivated at the promise. The promise of hours of uninterrupted time to work or do other things I’ve been unable to do for the last 3 months without a constant shadow trailing me. The first time I sent my daughter off to preschool I was thrilled to have five hours with just one child each week. Today when I dropped the kids off at school I counted up the hours, 35, and died of a heart attack on my way back home.

I also realized on that walk back home I am now going to be packing about 340 lunches over the next school year. My daughter will gladly eat peanut butter sandwiches every day but my son is a more adventurous eater and I’d like to encourage his healthy appetite.

I’m loving the Kraft Lunch Box Builder, the recipes are still incredibly quick and simple but they jog your brain for something a little different and all the sides you can easily toss into the lunch bag. I’m not kidding myself this year into thinking I’ll be preparing gourmet lunchbox cuisine for my kids. I still want them to have reasonably healthy foods although I have promised my daughter at least one Lunchable, maybe I’ll make it the new improved one.

I also spent a few hours putting together this magnetic lunch chart for the kids from Martha Stewart. I made just one for now, since like I said, my daughter wants peanut butter and jelly every single day for the next 9 months of school.

Unlike some of Martha’s projects, this was exceedingly simple to put together.

But since my husband doesn’t want anything to clutter up the fridge, I outfitted a cupboard with a magnetic board.

I also printed out a batch of these lunch labels on card stock to tuck into the kids lunch boxes. You can also print them on label stock but I prefer making them into notes for the kids.

My first day of freedom is nearly half over, I must run. Come back Thursday for another post.