Back-to-School Lunch Box Idea Revisited

The following is a repost, in honor of the fact that my daughters will be starting school next week (!) This means that the number of lunches I've made has changed.  (And by changed I actually  mean increased.)  What hasn't changed is the awesomeness that is the lunch box smoothie.  Enjoy!

My older daughter just started sixth grade.  That means, not including this year, she has been in school for six years.  At roughly 180 days per school year, that comes out to 1080 days that she has spent in school so far.  And the number of times she has bought her lunch in those 1080 days?

Once.

That's right, I made the other 1079 lunches.  Her sister, who's in second grade, has also bought only one time, bringing her homemade lunch total to 359.

Needless to say, I'm always looking for ideas to spice up their lunches.

So I was intrigued when I happened upon this post from Jessica at Stay at Home-ista:  One Week in Kindergarten Lunches.

I love her lunch ideas and recommend that you go over and check them out.  I was particularly intrigued, however, by her choice of packaging.  She packs many of her daughter's snacks in Ball Freezer Jars, the type of jar one uses when making freezer jam.  

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I sent her an email asking about it and this was her reply: "I love the ball jars since they are dishwasher, microwave, freezer safe and they keep things from getting squished."

Well it just so happened that I had some freezer jars tucked away from a little freezer jam experiment of yore.    (Did you know that I have a peach tree and that the peaches all tend to ripen within a four week period?  And if you don't pick those peaches they go splat all over your patio?  Well they do.  And thus, my moderately successful attempt at making freezer jam.  But that's a post for another time.)

And those little jars got me thinking.  They're so... cup-like.  And that made me think of drinks.  But these are cups that you can freeze, so that got me thinking about frozen drinks, like smoothies!  (Because my daughters' school really frowns upon Pina Coladas...)

And that's when it hit me:  I could make smoothies, freeze them in the Ball jars, put them in my daughters' lunches in the a.m. and they would likely be defrosted by lunch.

Yesterday was my maiden run.  

My smoothies include Greek yogurt, OJ, frozen berries and bananas.  I would give you measurements if I had them.  I tend to eyeball it.  One Magic Bullet's worth of smoothie fills two 8 oz. Ball jars.  I made two batches and sent each girl to school with a smoothie. 

The verdict when they got home?  An enthusiastic thumbs up.  Both smoothies were perfectly defrosted by noon and my girls were the belles of the lunchroom.  

So--what are your favorite lunch box ideas?  I'd love to hear them.

'Cause by my calculations, I still have over 3000 lunches left to go...

(I had to include pictures of both lunch boxes.  Fairness is everything...)