Lunch Is Served!

I now have two children eating lunch at school.  This is proving to be a bigger challenge than I had expected. First, we have issues with buying.  For some reason both of the kids are FASCINATED with buy food from the cafeteria.  Caden has an obsession with buying breakfast at school, even though he's just eaten at home.  Our school also offers, "healthy snacks" at lunch time, for an additional fee--also a favorite of Caden's.  With a lunch account it's hard for me to control when my kids buy.  They simply type in their pin and they get the food.  They don't seem to understand that there's money involved in that.  So I've made the rule that they are each allowed to buy once a week.  (Oddly, this is the opposite of the rule I had in school.) 
Caden, of course, chooses pizza day to buy, and pretty much eats whatever I pack for him the rest of the week.  In this scenario, Caden is my easy child--never thought the words would come out of my mouth! 
Ellie, on the other hand, is having a hard time with lunch.  She wants to buy, but won't eat what they're serving.  The once-a-week rule fits her because that's about as many times as there's a menu item that she *may* eat.  So she packs the other days...and the last few times it looks like what I've packed comes right home, untouched.  I know they don't have much time to eat, and I've been eating meals with Ellie for the last 5 years.  She much prefers to talk than to eat.  So I know some of it is a time issue, but I'm worried that she's not eating lunch.  She picks at breakfast, now doesn't eat lunch, and take a few bites of dinner.  So it's time to get creative in lunch packing.
Ellie's teacher sent home a FANTASTIC idea list of healthy options for lunches and snacks.  The biggest issues I'm running into with Elle, is that she prefers warm food.  She'll eat steamed broccoli before she'll eat raw broccoli.  She loves oatmeal.  She's not a fan of lunch meat, but loves pb and honey, which gets to sticky after sitting in a lunchbox all day and she won't eat it.  She's also not a fan a fruit, which has been a struggle for a long time, but with packing, it's getting harder.  I can't cut up an apple for her because she wants to dip it into honey, which as we've already established, is too sticky.  So I'm going to start looking into some "hidden" fruit options.  It's time to get out the Deceptively Delicious cookbook b Jessica Seinfeld and start trying some of those baked goods that will pack well.  Applesauce muffins, avocado dips, just anything that will allow her to get nutrients into her little body as quickly as possible.   If I can cram a whole bunch of fruits, veggies and whole grains into her in one muffin, I'll be happy.  It's better than the one bite of her sandwich, and nothing else!  She's a big fan of sweets, so if I call it a cupcake, we might be in luck! 

Ornery!