Back to School

Since we live in Hades (otherwise known as Arizona) we do things a little different than the rest of the country. We don't have daylight savings time (who needs more hours of scorching sunlight) and we go back to school in July. Not all of the schools start so early but we are on a modified year-round calendar. We have seven weeks of summer and then two weeks in October, December and March. It works out quite well. This year I have a little man starting kindergarten and I was pretty sure he did not want to deal with the intricacies of the cafeteria. So he will be taking his lunch a lot. His sister is in the 5th grade and she prefers to take lunch but will settle for hot lunch if it's something she likes. In an attempt to be environmentally friendly I decided against using plastic bags. I also wanted something to keep their lunches cold that was not made up of weird blue goo. Sounds like a job for The Container Store. I love The Container Store. So many containers. I even made the 80 mile round trip so we would have the lunch stuff by Monday. OK I am aware that driving 80 miles is not environmentally friendly but there's only one Container Store here and it's far away. We took the kids (mistake) and ended up purchasing several lunch items and an Elfa storage system for Emma's clothes. She is complaining that her room is too small so we're trying to move the furniture around for her. I really like these:



Everything fits in the little compartments and nothing has to touch! I also bought these and fill them with juice and then freeze:



Today is our first experiment with these so hopefully they will thaw by lunch. At least their food will be cold. I also bought a little chip and dip container for carrots and ranch. I think we'll have plenty of options for at least the first semester! I may start googling lunch ideas if they start complaining. But at least my husband will eat the same thing every day, without fail.