The Lunch Idea:

We are getting ready for our Thanksgiving holiday vacation (don't worry, somebody will be housesitting and taking care of the cats!). Packing to take 6 people out of town for 13 days is no small task.  So my lunch plan for this week is: make it easy and take shortcuts wherever I can.  Fortunately I had some pizza rolls in the freezer still - the last of them, so I will make more when we get home.  I don't buy a lot of pre-packaged snack thingys, but I do like them for airplane rides. Target had a bunch of stuff on sale - buy three get one free - so I while I was getting airplane snacks I also picked up a little extra to get me through the week with some easy lunch options.

What's in the Lunch:

• Pizza rolls: two kids have rolls with meat, two are just sauce and cheese
• Babybel cheese
• Dried cranberries
• A little dried fruit twist thing - all natural, basically like a fruit roll up, but a stick.
• Three have tomatoes, one has dried bananas

Tips and Questions:

• I don't buy much of this kind of little packaged snack stuff (aside from cheese), but not because I'm all righteous about it, or think I'm too good for it or anything.  I do try to minimize our waste, and these things do have a lot of packaging.  But the biggest reason that I don't buy more of this stuff is that stuff is expensive!  It's one thing if you're feeding just one kid, then a pack of fruit snacks or granola bars might last you all week or even longer.  But with four kids, we can go through a box of snacks in one sitting.  I just can't afford to buy it on a regular basis.  But for convenience, on a super busy week, or for travel, it's worth paying a little extra occasionally. I looks for the ones that are on sale, but still try to focus on the more natural options as much as possible.
• I packed these pizza rolls yesterday, straight out of the freezer.  They were thawed by this morning after overnight in the fridge, and they will be eaten at room temperature for lunch.
• Lunches are packed in EasyLunchboxes.