A little holiday cheer and some baby steps!

These were supposed to be today’s lunches, but since a certain mama completely forgot that today was chicken sandwich day at school, they ended up being last night’s dinner instead. And to think, I was so proud of myself for pulling these together yesterday afternoon to achieve some natural light for photos AND to be one step ahead of myself this morning. Oh well, since what was to be today’s lunches was also last actual dinner it worked out just fine in the long run. ♥

Lately, it’s been weighing heavy on my brain that my tiny princesses don’t get enough fruits and veggies in their diets. It’s not that I don’t try, or that they don’t try for that matter. We just can’t seem to find many that are appealing to their tastes. Both seem to deal with a mild food texture issue. Sometimes, they enjoy the taste of something, but can’t for the life of them swallow it down. :(

I decided to try adding some frozen fruit to their yogurt in this meal to see if they would go for it. I figured they could try the fruit and if they didn’t like it they could just take it out leaving a nice natural flavor to their yogurt. Well, upon trying it, both tiny princesses couldn’t stand the texture. K couldn’t even swallow her raspberry, but A gave her best shot and got down a blueberry. We discussed whether they liked the flavor or not and both decided that they did, but they just didn’t enjoy chewing the “chunks” of the fruit. I think next time, I may try adding the fruit to the food processor first and then adding it to the yogurt. ♥babysteps!

Packed in our EasyLunchboxes here is what they had….

• Bowtie pasta
• Meatless spaghetti sauce for dipping
• Parmesan cheese
• Semi-homemade oversized garlic croutons
• Brown Cow all natural vanilla yogurt
• Holiday shaped pretzels drizzled with bit of milk chocolate

Some things I did to make these meals special…

• Used a small cookie cutter as a stencil to make a parmesan cheese Christmas tree in the spaghetti sauce. I’m not quite sure if this was an epic fail, or not? Tiny princess A knew just what it was. Tiny princess K thought I was crazy. :)
• Added a cute themed pick to the pasta. This is both a fun and fun and functional way to make a lunch special.
• Before baking the bread for the oversized croutons I used a Christmas tree cookie cutter to match the theme of this meal.
• Fun and colorful cups add a great touch. Go a step further by adding a themed sticker to the lid of you cups
• Sprinkles in yogurt are a fantastic way to add a pop of coordinating color.
• And of course you can’t forget your Lunchbox Love note from sayplease.com

Some things used to make these meals…