This is a sponsored post in partnership with Staples. All opinions are my own.

Nothing puts the fear of back-to-school in parents like the thought of the every day grind of making lunches. It starts off easy enough. You end the summer on a high note looking to get back into a routine. You convince yourself that this is the year that things will be different. Then it's one month in and you're back to the morning scramble trying to throw something together with three minutes to go before you leave the house. The good news is that it doesn't have to be that way! You have already taken the first step toward school lunch success by visiting my blog because I have tons of fun lunch ideas to help guide you this year!

The next step is also good news because you're reading this blog post. I have been doing this lunch thing for awhile so I have learned quite a bit along the way. As you scroll down you will see some of my favorite tips for making school lunch packing easier. The great thing is that you can pick up most of the supplies at your local Staples. I hope that these tips help your school year go smoothly and that your kids come home with empty lunchboxes!

1. Dips are your new best friend.
Have you ever tried to get your kids to eat more fruits and vegetables? Have you ever failed miserably? Join the club. We have found that including dips in your kid's lunchbox can make a huge difference. All you need are some good dip containers, like these Rubbermaid TakeAlongs, and a few simple ingredients. Greek yogurt and honey, nut free spreads with granola, hazelnut spread, and ranch dressing all make easy and tasty dips. Don't laugh but my youngest even loves dipping his apples in ketchup!

5 Back to School Supplies That We Wish We Had Growing Up

This is a sponsored post in partnership with Staples. All opinions are my own.

Growing up in the 80's and 90's I was always excited for the first day of school. Although we didn't have a ton, I always had the necessary school supplies and a new t-shirt to wear when summer was coming to a close.  I used to love throwing on that No Fear shirt (I never was able to get a Hypercolor one) and opening up that new binder and fresh pack of #2 pencils. Well today my kids don't know how good they have it with everything that's available at their local Staples during this time of year. Here are just a few of the school supplies that I wish I had growing up!

Jansport Digital Burrito

This digital burrito (play the video above to understand why it is a burrito) is everything you would want going back to school. It helps keep all of your cords, earbuds, chargers, stylus, and more organized...and it rolls up to become one of the greatest foods in history! When I was growing up in the 80's do you know what we had to use to organize our stuff? Yellow paper folders with generic high school sports stars on the front. Who remembers those? 

6 Kinds of School Supplies You Should Always Have on Hand at Your House

This is a sponsored post in partnership with Staples. All opinions are my own. 

It's the time of year where you get to enjoy the smell of new crayons, the excitement of first day of school outfits, and the exhilaration of having all of your back to school shopping done. The problem is that this is the beginning of a long school year and it might be possible that your kids will lose something, break something, or use an entire bottle of something before the year–or the first week–is over. That is why us as parents need to be prepared. School supplies aren't just something useful that you buy at the beginning of the year, they are survival tools that you need on hand at all times. Here are my top choices for the gear you will need to make your parenting life easier.

5 Must See Tips to Get Your Family Ready for Back-to-School + Bonus Ideas

This is a sponsored post in partnership with Staples. All opinions are my own.

It's that time of year when summer is cruising along, you're having a great time, and then you realize that all of a sudden it's August. You look at your list of family goals for the summer and you've crossed out exactly two of them. Those happened the first week when you were extremely motivated. You then scroll to the bottom of the list and you realize that you had committed this year to start planning for back-to-school by the third week of July. This planning included school supply shopping, searching Pinterest for how to build the most efficient homework stations, and also stocking up on creative bento box school lunch recipes.

So that didn't happen. If you are like my family, back to school normally involves scrambling around attempting to piece together a first day of school outfit, trying to make sense of emails from the school district, and going shopping for school lunches—all in the span of about eight hours. However, this year the stars aligned and we were able to get ourselves pretty organized. We found five key tips that have helped tremendously, so I thought I would pass them on to you. Parents have to stick together and if we find something that works let's share it with everyone else, right? Besides the tips below, I also partnered with Staples on the video below to highlight some bonus ideas that we love to put into practice every year. Here's to surviving summer and sending your kids back to their teachers learn new life skills!

1. Get in the habit of prepping food for school lunches at the beginning of the week.