Packing a lunch for daycare

We have recently been having problems with daycare over Gevevieve's diet.  I will go into that situation in another blog, but here I wanted to show off her new lunch box and explain what I sent today.

I have been looking for lunch solutions for Genevieve for the last couple of weeks because we are starting to feed her more table food.  The problem I found is that most lunch containers are designed for large portions and dont really work well for toddler meals. I also needed a way to transport her food to daycare and ensure that it stays cold and contained.

Solution:

Sistema Plastic Containers and Rubbermaid LunchBox containers.   I found the Sistema containers at At Home, TJ Maxx, and Bed, Bath and Beyond.  I have purchased the Small Split, and a few other small sizes.  I found the Rubbermaid containers at Kroger (and I saved on them using a Kroger coupon and and Ibotta Coupon). I purchased the LunchBox for Kids and a couple of the Snack containers.

Her new lunch bag is from Pack It and I purchased it at Bed, Bath, and Beyond, although I did see some other styles/colors at TJ Maxx after I bought it.  I chose the Freezable Carryall, because I liked that it was long vs tall, so I thought it would work well for more carried sized container.  We have the print "ziggy."  This bag is super cool because you dont have to use ice or ice packs, because its designed with liquid inside the bag (you freeze the whole bag!).  It is supposed to stay cold for 10 hours!

I know that her bag needed her name on it, but I didnt want to ruin the bag with sharpie and my desire to get her a embroidered lunch bag was out the window because the Pack It lunch bag linings are full of liquid. So I wrote her name on the back of some ribbon and used fabric glue to make a loose band around the strap.

Whats Inside:

We are required to provide food that meets all the crazy requirements of the USDA School Nutrition Program (which is horrible, but I wont go into that here).  Genevieve hardly eats anything, so most of this will probably come back home, but they cant say that I didnt send it!  And this bag holds a TON of stuff!

• Shredded Smoked Chicken and stir fried carrots
• Cherries (pitted of course) and a kiwi
• Puffed Rice
• Celery Sticks
• Raisins
• 1 Plum Organics baby food pouch
• 1 toddler spoon
• A stick of cheese
• Her diaper bag also included three 6oz servings of Hipp formula (toddler and infant mixed 1/2 and 1/2).