Homemade snacks

I love making homemade snacks--partially because I love baking. I also love that I can give my family food that is healthy, and I see exactly what is in it. I do buy prepared stuff, too (I don't have THAT much time on my hands), but when I can, I have a few things that I try and do myself.

1. Popcorn. We've all heard about the crazy chemicals and health issues associated with microwave popcorn. I found a great way (via a Facebook friend) to make it. Take 1/2 cup of regular popcorn kernels, put it in a brown paper bag and fold the top over. Microwave for 2-3 mins (depending on your  microwave), and then you can add whatever toppings you want when it is done. My 2 favorites--butter and brown sugar, and butter and Parmesan cheese. Yum! And thrifty, too--way cheaper, and less packaging to throw away.

2. Homemade granola bars. This is my go to recipe.

What I LOVE about these is the ingredients, oats, wheat germ, honey, brown sugar, and I use whole wheat flour. This recipe is very forgiving when you add ingredients or modify. I often add pumpkin and use applesauce to replace the oil. I also love adding chocolate chips. I put in flax seeds sometimes, too--for some reason Lori gets very excited when she sees me pull out the flax seeds. These never last long around my house, and I make them at least once a week.

3. Muffins. Which variety depends on what is available and what everyone is eating. Lately, this recipe for Pumpkin What Honey muffins is the favorite, especially for Lori. I take out the raisins and put in chocolate chips, and usually don't include nuts. Lori has a nut free classroom, so if I want to send this in for snack, I can't include nuts. I used many of the recipes for muffins in the Jessica Seinfeld "Deceptively Delicious" cookbook, too, but haven't used them lately now that I'm not making baby food very much.

4. Kale Chips. These are my favorite snack for me. I haven't made them since last summer, when I had a huge abundance of them from picking a friend's CSA food for the week. LOVE these. So easy to make and delicious. I basically eat them over the pan after I make them and finish all of them. My kids don't like them--I'm okay with that.


5. Homemade popsicles. My cousin got the kids little freezer pop molds, and I found some more to make these in. I have 3 varieties that I make. The first kind is just plain old freezing fruit juice. Sometimes I put little chunks of fruit that is just about done in it (like chunks of strawberries). The second kind is basically a smoothie that I put into the pop molds. Our favorite during the summer, and I can sneak in some veggies--usually butternut squash--into them. The third (and not as healthy kind) are these:





Yes, homemade pudding pops! My favorite are vanilla. 

Looking forward to having more time in the summer to discover some more homemade snacks that are easy to make and healthy.

Carving out time for fun

The  month of March is my least favorite month of the year. CMTs (our state test) at school make for really short classes and hectic days, I have at least 3 events I have to return to school at night for (all crammed into 6 days), most of my Saturday mornings are spent at musical rehearsals, and with our musical coming up the first week of April, I will be spending many afternoons late at school.

Trying to carve out time with my kids gets a little crazy this month, but I want to do extra fun stuff with them because they are missing out on their typical time with me. Here are some things we've done already, and other things I am planning on.

-Maple syrup demo: On Saturday, I raced back home after my rehearsal, and after getting some things done and before dinner plans with friends, we went to Lamothe's  Sugar House in Burlington, CT. What a great little place! Their store is open year around, and they sell their syrup at Highland Park Market and some other IGA stores. They did an interesting demo where they showed us how they used to tap trees, and showed how the different machines worked. They also told us that now instead of buckets on the trees, they run lines from the trees down to their collection tanks. While he was chatting about this information, he gave the kids maple candy lollipops to eat. We also got to test different colors of syrups (Scott and I liked the dark the best), and they had samples of cider, maple coffee, and their homemade jam out.

-Bubble bath--not just a regular bubble bath, but I gave the kiddos little bubbles from my cousin Gabriella's party and let them blow bubbles in the tub. Simple, yes, but I won major cool mom points for letting the kids blow bubbles in the house.

-St. Patty's Day parade--for once I don't have rehearsal the day of the parade, so I'm contemplating bringing the kids to the Hartford parade... waiting to see how cold it is.

-Bowling--Hunter turns 4 at the end of the month, so we thought that it might be fun (and relatively inexpensive) to do a bowling outing for his birthday treat. Neither of the kids have been yet, so it should be fun, and I haven't been bowling since Lori was a baby, so I'm looking forward to it. Trying to find a time when they have a special to save some cash.

-St. Patty's Day fun--it falls on a Sunday this year, so it will make it easier to do things like turn the toilet green (just pouring mouthwash in it) and cook green eggs and ham and see how many things I can make look like shamrocks or turn green.

Any other simple ideas to carve out fun during a busy time??

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Fabulous 4 (well, almost)

Hunter will be 4 in about a month, and I forgot how much I love this age.

He is eager to be a helper--which means that when I ask for something to get done (like get something from the fridge), he will try and TACKLE Lori to get to it first. I also love that I can get him to do many things that he might not be crazy about, just by telling him he can do it himself.

His attention span is amazing, especially when Lori is at school. He can sit and play with his cars or Legos for at least 30 minutes at a time, and I love watching his imagination at work. It is also so much fun to see how his fine motor skills have developed. Just the other day he was twisting something open, which he couldn't do a few months ago. He is so attentive when he colors, too.

He is talking non-stop, especially when we are in the car alone. When I start to get annoyed by it, I remind myself that 2 short years ago, we contacted Birth to 3 because we were worried that he wasn't putting words together. Be careful what you wish for, right?

His memory is remarkable. While he says "yesterday" for any point in time before this minute, he clearly describes things that happened a long time ago in great detail.

My favorite thing is watching how absolutely sweet and loving he is. He usually insists on hugging and kissing every single person when he leaves preschool, Sunday school, and most family functions, especially his favorite people. As rambunctious and active as he is, he is incredibly sweet and gentle when it comes to little ones, like his baby cousins.

That being said, there are just as many things that frustrate me about this age, but this post isn't about those things--adore it most of the time.

Have I told you how much I hate winter??

Things cancelled/not attended due to someone being ill in my house since January:

3 church services
1 concert
3 visits to my mom
2 visits to my grandmother
3 playdates
2 days of work
5 days of school
1 dinner out with friends
2 violin lessons

And that doesn't count all of the things we've missed because of the darn weather.

I'm not bitter much. 

Bring on spring!

Rising to the occasion

On Friday, I came down with the dreaded stomach bug. I was at my brother in sister-in-law's house, and all was fine until dinner time, and I just did not feel like digging in to the pizza that we had ordered. It became  apparent quickly that I was most definitely sick.

Since Scott was at work, I had drive the 20 minutes home with the kids by myself, crossing my fingers that I wouldn't need to pull over on the highway. Once I got home, I made a beeline to the couch, and my lovely 5 year old rose to the occasion. Lori loves to play the mommy role, so she jumped right in.

This precious child made sure that she and Hunter got PJs on, teeth brushed, and tucked into bed. She even sang Hunter his bedtime song and then sang her bedtime song to herself.

Seems like not a big deal, but when you aren't feeling well and the only adult in the house at the moment, it is nice to know that your kid can step up and take charge in a situation that isn't ideal. 

Cooked once, served several ways.

I didn't want to stock up my freezer just in case we lost power, so I decided that on Friday I'd use some ground beef that I had in the freezer. My kids LOVE taco meat, and we had leftover guacamole,so we grabbed some taco seasoning at the store, and I tried to think about what I wanted to make.

We have some kind of burritos at least once every other week--it is one of those meals that I know both kids will eat, I will eat, and I can make it healthy with lots of veggie toppings. Plus, yum. But I wasn't in the mood for burritos.... what to make??

I cooked up the meat, and I decided that I was in the mood for nachos--thus nacho bar for dinner was born! Big hit with EVERYONE  in the family, even my picky boy.

We had leftover meat, and I decided tonight that we'd eat the leftovers--kids had burritos (only 2 burrito shells left). The girl eats hers with stuff IN the burrito, and picky boy wants everything on his plate and eats the burrito wrapper on the side. Hubby was home for dinner (VERY rare occurrence during the week), and he and I had taco salad. We got to finish up the guacamole, ate lots of healthy veggies, and used up my leftover meat.

I also love using leftover meat to make quesadillas-it makes me happy to maximize every ingredient so that we aren't throwing out food at the end of the week. Another popular favorite in our house is taco casserole--basically, you layer the cooked taco meat with black beans, veggies, and cheese on top.
 And I can't forget about the taco skillet with rice.



Maybe I can find some more ways to serve up taco meat!!

Snowed in-Saturday

1. Son crawls into bed at 5:30am. Snuggle with him until he gets hungry and wonderful hubby gets up to get him breakfast. Fall back asleep until 8 because hubby feeds kids and puts a show on so he can start shoveling.

2. Wake up and go "OMG this snow is INSANE!!" Look out all the windows to survey the craziness.

3. Eat breakfast and hang out with kids. Decide that this snow is too much for hubby--get yourself and kids dressed for snow and head out to help.

4. Get totally overwhelmed by the amount of snow that needs to be cleaned. Help hubby shovel while kids play in snow. Watch hubby ski down the hill because we aren't plowed yet. Laugh at him with the neighbors as he hikes back up the hill.

5. Send kids inside to watch TV and continue to shovel.

6. Come in to warm up and make lunch. (Lunch included edible playdough for kids and soup for me and hubby)

7. Head back out to shovel while hubby takes a break and gets kids to nap.

8. Remain overwhelmed at the amount of snow. Trudge to back of the house to clear slider door of snow. Walk through waist high drifts of snow to come back to the front. Decide that you are done with snow for the day.

9. Entertain kiddos with various activities--Valentine making, sensory play, coloring, more math with the older child.

10. Make dinner while kids play in the snow with wonderful neighbor child for an entire hour.

11. Make snowcones for the kids.

12. Bedtime for kiddos=drinks for us again.

13. Chill and contemplate that we have to clean off the deck tomorrow. Look at weather report and wonder if we'll be in school on Monday.