Flower Peanut Butter & Jelly sandwiches

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Horizon and Santa Cruz. The opinions and text are all mine.

School will be back soon… very soon! It’s time to start planning and packing. It’s time to get a little creative (not too crazy, just enough so the kids will be excited about what you pack and they will eat it all). It’s time to get foods that are good for them, too.

My favorite lunch tip:

Pack healthy foods for lunches, because they have no other options, so they will eat it. If you pack healthy foods, they will eat the healthy foods – if you pack junk food, they will eat the junk food. Save the cookie or junk food item for a special treat at home. Send healthy foods to school (help them focus & retain energy), but make them fun foods that they love, like peanut butter crackers:

You can make any food fun- just get creative!

I try to stick with brands that we like and if I can find organic, even better. I choose foods with no antibiotics, no growth hormones, no pesticides, Non GMO foods. Horizon and Santa Cruz Organic are a few of my go-to foods (and drinks) for this reason. Just call them the heros of the lunchbox. They kids love them and I love what goes in them.

You can grab any of these foods at Target (You can even save save 20% on Horizon with Cartwheel and go in-store for savings on Santa Cruz Organic products 8/6-8/26. They are easy to find:

Now that I know that I am starting with healthy foods, I can make them fun. I make our daughter pb&j flowers with a cookie cutter. You can use cookie cutters to create fun shapes from fresh fruit and veggies, too. You can make stars, flowers and hearts out of sliced cucumbers, apples & other healthy snacks.

It’s so simple: Grab your bread and cut a small hole out of ONE side using a lid or a little medicine cup.

On the other slice (without the hole), spread your peanut butter & Santa Cruz Organic fruit spread.

Put the hole-slice on top of the other slice:

Use a cookie cutter to make the flower shape. I use cookie cutters often to create fun shapes from bread, as well as fresh fruit and veggies. You can make stars, flowers, hearts & more. It makes simple snacks like sliced cucumber, sandwiches and apples much more interesting.

Once I have my sandwich cut out, I put it into a sandwich box and stick it into her lunchbox.

I add some other foods that will make a well-balanced meal to keep the kids focused for the rest of the day:

They love when I pack the Horizon milk – it’s such a fun treat for them and I love that they get milk in the middle of the day.

Plus, the kids love reading the package:

A few more fun lunchbox packing tips from Horizon, Santa Cruz Organic & Chef in Disguise are below:

• Consider a lunch box that is divided into compartments, that will help keep things separate and will prevent fruits and vegetables from making the bread soggy. If you don’t have a lunch box like that or need smaller compartments use silicon molds, paper cups or little plastic containers as dividers. They add color, make anything you put in them more appealing and help you keep different items apart.
• Little fun details will make your kids look forward to their lunch break, a few stickers turn a good old boring sandwich into a fun and appealing one
• Make the best out of seasonal ingredients, they taste better, they look better and they are better for you.
• Allow your kids to choose what goes into their lunch boxes and help pack it. They are more likely to eat it if they chose it and helped in packing it.
• Add a little note. It could be something as simple as a piece of paper with a hand written “I love you”, “I miss you”, “I am proud of you”.
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