Healthy lunches around here include a little love from home! Who doesn’t like a little love note slipped somewhere unexpected? One that’s intentionally hidden to be found mid day when you are away from loved ones?

 Kids love knowing mom and dad are thinking of them during the long day at school.  Start a tradition this Valentine’s Day and keep it going the rest of the year! You don’t have to write a long love story, or buy an elaborate card. In fact those store bought valentines can work perfectly well for the month of February. Add your own little note to the prefab card with lots of x’s and o’s from mom and dad.

Then graduate to super easy homemade Love Notes by using things easily found in your kids’ craft collection. All you need to get started is some brightly coloured card stock, scissors and a few stickers. If your kids have a favorite character, TV show or sport make some notes themed around that. Use photos from last summer that you have taking up space on your computer, print as tiny photos, glue to cards stock card, add a note about the fun summer memory and you have a love note they will cherish.

When I was young, I would flip ahead a handful of pages in my dad’s ‘DayTimer’ and write him little love notes, as only a 9-year-old can. I do the same thing now in my children’s agenda’s that come home every afternoon from school – except we play word games and have a little fill in the blank fun geared to each of their ages. Another easy love notefrom mom that takes seconds to do and leaves a lasting memory.

As my kids have grown, so have the love notes. Where big fluffy teddy bears and sparkly princesses once reined supreme, we have now moved on to inspirational quotes, daily jokes and goofy pictures of when they were babies.

And the best part, when the kids see me pull out the card stock and stickers, they crowd in and write their own version of our lunch box love notes for each other! And those agenda word games I do every morning before school? I get almost as many “I love you Mommy’s” coming home in the margins of those agenda’s!

Healthy school lunches may include vitamin rich fruit, vegetables and milk, but around here, it’s the lunch note love that makes it a nutrionally-balanced meal!