New Schedule

James is now in preschool 3 days a week. That's caused us to have a slightly new schedule. This has led to Kaylee falling in love with her snack cup! She seems to be eating more. She'll have a snack while waiting to get J from school and still sit down and eat lunch with us.
And the "fun" lunches have been cut back. The good thing is that J seems to come home hungry (even though they give them a snack) He now likes peanut butter and banana sandwiches and bread and cheese and pickle sandwiches. A monkey (use your imagination!) A pig and a bear with some bear friends. Halloween is coming - I have lots of ideas! (we'll see if I can get into the groove of this new schedule and find the time)


As for calorie options: Kaylee had raviolis (gerber toddler ones) and we added butter to the top.
James has started eating hot dogs (cut into bite size pieces) inside a hotdog bun with ketchup and mustard. He will eat 2 buns, 1 hot dog for lunch this way. *But be sure the ketchup is on the bottom! haha*
We've been snacking on cubed cheese (colby jack). They like it with crackers or veggie sticks or just about anything! And apples with peanut butter or caramel dip. Fried apples are good and you can top pancakes with them but the kids aren't really fans. I bought some mini muffins at the store (little debbie maybe?) and they both like those in the morning (So do I) I must get myself a mini muffin pan asap!! The fall baking season is about to start!

Still fun!

Kaylee's still small, but doing well! James starts preschool this week! Where is all this time going? His school is nut free, but thank goodness he doesn't eat lunch there. His favorite right now is peanut butter sandwiches. Almost every day he asks for a PBand J with no jelly. Who am I to say no?! I am not sure what I'll feed him when he has to take a lunch and it's a nut free school....Guess I'll start doing my research and testing now!
Still doing the fun lunches - he eats it up. And when I do bento style lunches (small portions of several different foods) he loves that too. I may just have to purchase an actual bento box set. Here's some of our fun foods:

A strawberry mouse with a banana tail, and some blueberry "bugs" with banana wings and antennae.
Buttered bread with marshmallow teeth, marshmallow and chocolate chip eyes. He ate this with a bowl of soup.
A raspberry and blueberry flower with pretzel stick stem. Strawberry and cracker butterflies with blueberry eyes.
Dog Pb&J Minus J. Cracker ears, marshmallow eyes, scooby snack crackers and a splitz yogurt.

Grilled cheese fish sandwich with some small cracker buddies.

And just so you don't think Kaylee gets left out: Though the fun in her lunch is dumping the entire plate onto her tray. (she has wagon wheel noodles with butter that I cut up for her, deli chicken - Boarshead everroast mmmm - and some cheese.)

As for the high calorie aspect of these lunches: We add double peanutbutter to his sandwiches, butter to his soup, butter to the noodles, I put butter on both sides of the grilled cheese and double the cheese and then he dips into mustard or ranch or ketchup... We've also had "brinner" alot. Thats breakfast for dinner. Bacon and pancakes or banana pancakes with a side of hashbrowns and eggs. Or french toast. If you want to add extra calories to those just use heavy cream instead of milk. Top with syrup, whipped cream, yogurt or jelly (or ice cream topping) We had fried apples on top of pancakes two weeks ago to get into the fall season. It was so good!
I can't wait to start doing my fall baking!

High Calorie Drinks

While we try to avoid letting our kids have a totally liquid diet, we do give shakes as a snack after dinner. They're an excellent way to get extra calories in and they don't have to be totally junk. You can use yogurt or sherbert or milk. Here are some of our favorites:
Oreo Madness:
Milk
Packet of chocolate or vanilla carnation instant breakfast
Crushed up Oreos
Ice cream - vanilla or chocolate
Hershey's syrup or fudge
Blend and enjoy - ok so this one has a lot of "Junk" in it, but it's so good!

Strawberry:
Milk and CIB Strawberry or vanilla
Ice cream - we like vanilla with strawberry chunks
Cut up strawberries

I have so many of these drink recipes it makes my head spin. I will post more in upcoming days!