Week Two- How'd We Do?

Week 2- Overall we did okay.  Not as good as Week 1, but still okay.  It seems pretty obvious, but planning ahead really is key.  The times when we did not eat as well were when I had no plan and was trying to figure something out at the last minute...  We had some triumphs and some failures with new recipes.

I made this chicken enchilada casserole http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/2010/04/14/recipe-chicken-enchiladas/  and it was a big flop.  I'm not sure if I did something wrong or if we Texans just need the real thing, but no one liked it.

But this morning I made these Breakfast Cookies http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/2011/05/10/recipe-pecan-maple-breakfast-cookies/  and they were a huge success.  I did not have any pecans so I left them out and I was short 1 Tbs of maple syrup so I used honey.  The kids kept asking "can I have just one more?"  Dutch asked if I would put one in her lunch next week.  The recipe says they freeze well so maybe I'll do another batch to freeze.  They would be good on Sunday mornings when we are rushing to get to church.

This week I plan to try these homemade chicken nuggets http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/2010/10/14/recipe-homemade-chicken-nuggets/  and the homemade waffles. 

Somethings other things we have figured out this week:
After reading this http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/2012/06/07/milk-101-whole-raw-organic-low-fat-etc/ about milk I decided to try to something other than skim milk.  I knew switching right to whole milk would be a huge change so I decided to try 2% milk.  I don't really drink milk but The Hubby and both boys do.  At first they thought it was okay but then The Hubby said he felt like the 2% was giving him heartburn and Bubba started asking for the other kind of milk...  Maybe I'll try 1%?  Or whole milk  for cooking and skim for drinking?  I'll have to think on that. 

The kids like whole wheat pasta.  I made some whole wheat egg noodle-type pasta with meatballs and Buba said "This is the best pasta I ever had!"  The Hubby eyed him like his body had been taken over by aliens for saying that. 

I have not made my lunch for work every day, but thankfully have been able to find some decent options to buy.  There is a good chicken salad, I just don't eat the white bread that comes with it.  I have also had tomato soup, fruit and yogurt parfait, burrito bowl and a mozzarella and spinach sandwich.

But I do find I am hungry and need a snack, peanuts and almonds are a favorite.  The kids are hungry after school and need a pretty good sized snack.  Hummus has come in handy as they all like it and can dip a variety of things in it- Triscuits, carrots, pretzels, tortillas... 

Valentine's Day pretty much was a big failure of a day.  I made the kids scrambled eggs with cheese for breakfast to try to get at least something healthy into them.  The school had Dads and Donuts that morning, so The Hubby took the kids to school and they had heart shaped Krispy Kreme donuts.  Lunch was whole wheat tortillas with hummus, a whole carrot (they are loving eating whole carrots like Bugs Bunny), an apple and fruit leather.  Then came the school parties...  Dutch had ice cream sundaes with all kinds of toppings and Bubba had cookies, chips, fruit punch, chocolate covered pretzels...  Plus all the candy that came with their valentines... Sigh.

  I made dinner for the family- beautiful sea scallops, bacon wrapped pork tenderloin, rice and salad.  For desert I planned to make chocolate fondue.  I messed up the chocolate I bought...  it wasn't melting the way the directions said it would so I turned up the heat and ended up cooking it instead.  So I melted chocolate chips.  The kids didn't know the difference.  They had fruit, marshmallows and pretzels to dip.  They were not really that impressed.  Sigh again. 

 

 

In other Valentine's Day news, Bubba got his first real Valentine from someone other than a classmate or family.  One of the new neighbors made him a really sweet card to say thanks for being a good friend because she is "new in town.  But it doesn't mean that I like you because I don't, that would be weird."  It was free dress day at school so their Valentine's gifts were clothes, Dutch got the outfit above and Bubba got a new zip-up hoodie since he wants to wear his other zip up hoodie every day.  Poor Huck got a hand-me-down t-shirt.  My best Valentine's gift was The Hubby helping the kids clean up the playroom and vacuuming it for me :-) 

 

I got another glimpse of the sweet heart of oldest son.  At ballet one of the dads brought some left over cupcakes.  Bubba took one but had not eaten it because he was working on addressing his cards for school.  Another girl arrived but all the cupcakes were gone.  She asked Bubba about his cupcake and he offered it to her.  At first she said no but then changed her mind and said yes.  He gave it to her without hesitating saying, "I had enough treats at school today." 

 

If you want to get an idea of the personalities of my kids, play a board game with them.  Dutch, Bubba and I played Life last weekend.  Bubba was very cautious, never taking a chance on spinning the wheel, counting his money regularly.  Dutch played chance at every opportunity.  Bought everything she came across.  And that is exactly how they are in real life.  They are asking to play Monopoly, but I'm not sure Dutch is up to it yet. 

 

We are starting to plan a Spring Break trip.  We are going to go to San Antonio with Aunt S and cousins W and D.  It may be crazy for the two of us to take 5 kids to Sea World during Spring Break, but we are going to go for it!  Wish us luck!

Trader Joes vs Kroger

Week 1 of the 30 Days of (Mostly) Whole Foods is complete.  To keep myself accountable I'm going to post our meals and evaluate how well I did.  But first, a little grocery store comparison.  Last week we went up to Trader Joe's and spent $92.47.  Today I went to Kroger and spent $116.93.  How do the compare?

Whole wheat pasta-           K-1.49    TJ- 1.39
Applesauce pouches-         K- 2.59   TJ- 2.99
2 lbs organic apples-          K- 5.49   TJ- 2.49
cage free, grain feed eggs- K- 2.49   TJ- 1.79
organic canned tomatoes-  K- 1.09   TJ- 1.49
whole wheat bread-            K- 3.29   TJ- 1.99
organic spaghetti sauce-     K- 3.09   TJ- 1.49
hummus-                            K-3.29     TJ- 1.99

Over all I'd have to say Traders Joe's is the better choice.  They have better prices on most things, especially produce.  Also, they have less to choose from so there is less chance of impulse buys.  No temptation to buy donut holes because there are no donut holes to be found!  Or at least I did not see them.  The down side of Trader Joe's, it was crazy crowded and, at least for now, it is far away.  Once they open up down here I will definitely be doing shopping there regularly. 

As for this weeks meals, let's see how we did.
Sunday- Breakfast, whole wheat blueberry muffins, apple sauce and yogurt
              Lunch- ham and cheese on whole wheat pita bread, whole wheat pretzels and carrot sticks
              Dinner- spaghetti with 1/2 whole wheat pasta, 1/2 white, organic tomato sauce, fresh bread, salad   
Pretty good job, the plain yogurt sweetened with honey was not a hit, but otherwise there were no complaints, only compliments.  They loved the muffins.

Monday- Breakfast- whole wheat waffles from the freezer and clementines
                Lunch- ham and cheese of pita (chicken salad for me), apple sauce pouch, strawberries
                Dinner- (made by the hubby) broiled chicken thighs, mixed veggies and mac and cheese, salad
Again, pretty good.  I did not eat the mac and cheese with dinner but the kids did.

Tuesday- Breakfast- don't know what the kids ate as I had to be at work early...
               Lunch- ham and cheese on pitas (Bubba's with spinach), carrots and pretzels with hummus
              Dinner- steak and chicken tacos on corn tortillas, lettuce, tomato, onions
I forgot to eat breakfast so I had oatmeal at work and I don't know what the kids ate.  It was nice of the Hubby to make a dinner that met the whole food criteria :-)

Wednesday- Breakfast- pancakes (white flour frozen ones) and bananas
                     Lunch- PB&J on whole wheat bread, carrots and ranch and an apple
                    Dinner- whole wheat french toast, apple sauce
We had the pancakes in the freezer so we might as well eat them...  I had planned to make home made chicken nuggets but by the time we got home from dance I had lost my motivation...  Maybe I'll make Wednesdays breakfast for dinner days since the hubby is always at work...hmmm.

Thursday- Breakfast- whole wheat waffles from the freezer and clementines
                  Lunch- everyone bought lunch
                 Dinner- Pizza and past from Tony's
So, not such a great day...  The kids asked to buy lunch and, honestly, I was out of sandwich bread so it was easy.  I was tired ofter work and did not feel like cooking so we just did Tony's.  Oh well, not the end of the world.  But there is nothing from Tony's that would even remotely meet the criteria from the challenge.

Friday- Breakfast- pancakes or waffles and bananas
            Lunch- ham and cheese roll ups, tricuits and an apple
            Dinner- Bubba was at a sleep over and had hamburgers, Dutch, Huck and I had take out Mexican- fish tacos on corn tortillas for me, cheese quesadillas on flour for them.  And french fries.  What kind of restaurant serves fries with Mexican food?  Oh, Del Taco.  I had never been there before, don't think I'll be going back either.

Saturday- Breakfast- blueberry whole wheat pancakes
                Lunch- chicken noodle soup (from a can), Triscuits and carrot sticks
I have to say, the soup coming out of the can was pretty gross looking.  I won't buy that again. 

I had 2 Dr Peppers during the week and lots and lots of water and lots and lots of coffee.  A few ice teas in there as well.  The kids had a few random snacks that we had in the house, but over all I think we did pretty well.  As the bad snacks get eaten I will not be replacing them so I think it will wean itself out a bit.  The kids really did not ask for "bad" food either, instead they were asking questions about what makes each kind of food healthy.  We did not have any major meltdowns, may be a coincidence but who knows.  So we'll keep it up.

But I do have one complaint.  Dutch celebrated the 100th Day of School on Friday with an all-morning long event.  It was a ton of fun and I got to help shepard her group around to all the different stations.  I know I am not the first to say this, but why do we have to have food at every school event?  The celebration started at 8:30 in the morning.  They had:

• a cupcake (thankfully not the huge, artificially-colored icing ones from the grocery store),
• Hershey Kisses,
• Fruit Loops made into a necklace,
• punch with fruit juice and Sprite
• trail mix with chocolate chips, Skittles, M&Ms, butter popcorn, marshmallows & 5 other ingredients

So much sugar and artificial coloring!  I don't want to be "that mom" that complains, especially when I did not help plan anything, but still...  And when I asked the kids what their favorite station was, none of them said the food stations.  They liked the cup stacking, t-shirt painting and the exercise stations the best.  And we have Valentine's Day parties coming up where there will be more cookies and candy...  I am NOT send candy with my kids Valentines.

Overall, I am much more aware of everything we are putting into our bodies and it is a good thing!

So Far, So Good

 

Day 4 of the 30 Day Challenge: So far we are doing well!  I knew my kids would do well.  Here are yesterdays school lunch requests:
Bubba- ham, white cheese, and SPINACH on a (whole wheat) pita
Dutch- ham and cheese on a pita with a little bowl of hummus on the side for dipping
I also gave them both carrot sticks and whole wheat pretzels for dipping in the hummus.  Their lunch boxes were empty when they came home.  So far we have followed most of out rules.  I didn't have fruit with breakfast yesterday because I ate oatmeal at work since I had to be there so early.  Last night the Hubby made us a great whole foods dinner- steak tacos with lettuce, tomatoes, onions and cheese on corn tortillas.   He bought us corn tortillas even though he used flour tortillas for himself
 :-)  I have realized I'm going to need to buy a whole lot more hummus!  My kids are gobbling it!

So, how about some updates on the kiddos?  Let's go youngest to oldest.
Huck-  My baby is turning into a big kid.  He is in constant motion and insists on being included with the big kids.  He loves to play in the backyard, loves to climb the playhouse, swing, run around and follow the big kids.  He loves playing ball and is starting to play more with blocks, both the big cardboard blocks and the Duplos.  He still plays in the play kitchen a lot.  Sometime soon we'll get out the tool bench and tools for him, I think he'll love it.  He'll sit still a little more for books but we still have to turn the pages pretty quickly.  He loves Veggie Tales and we have trouble getting him to leave the DVDs in their cases.


He got himself ready to go out in the snow dusting

Put on his own make-up to go to the Cub Scout Banquet

Reminds me of a birth ball!  Only a doula would think that :-)

We really have to watch him because he has figured out he can reach whatever he wants if he stands on a stool.  So if I put something up on the counter away from him, he'll just go get one of the new kitchen stools, move it where ever he wants and climb up to get it.  And he takes the stools all over the house- bathroom, playroom, bedroom...
He is still nursing and not looking like he is interested in weaning at all.  He nurses before naps and/bed and whenever he suffers an "injury," either physical or emotional.  Some days I think he survives on air and breast milk because he eats so little, but the next day he out eats us all.  Typical toddler! 
He goes to bed in his own toddler bed most nights.  He doesn't stay there all night, but it is a start! 



Is there anything sweeter???

Dutch-  Is reading!  She really is doing well with it.  She sounds out words, looks at the pictures for clues and uses the sentence to get the context.  She is very proud of herself!  We do book reports every week and she can do it by herself now.  It's fun to see her blossoming, she is more comfortable at school and not quite as shy.  It's fun to see her with her friends before and after school.  Today is the 100th day of school and the big kindergarten celebration is on Friday. 
I think she is sleeping better than she did before she had her tonsils out.  She used to wake up almost nightly but now it is only 1-2 times a week.   I don't hear her snore as much and when she does it more like loud breathing than actual snoring.
She was invited to a birthday dinner for a friend at The Magic Time Machine.  It is a fun restaurant where all the servers dress up in different costumes. 
She continues to love ballet and is learning the recital dance. 

Dutch and the Birthday Girl

Bubba- His reading skills have "sky rocketed" according to his teacher.  I agree.  He is reading like crazy and we have to enforce lights-out or he'd stay up until midnight.  Last night he read "Freddy in Peril" for 70 minutes.  I don't know much about it except that it is about a hamster.  It was given to us by a friend who's son loved the series.  I am so happy that he enjoys reading!  I was just listening to a NPR story about how much of a difference having books in the house makes in a child's literacy.  We definitely have a lot of books around here! 
I am seeing the influence of his peers more and more.  Which is good and bad.  Some of the good things- he asked me to buy more blueberries because James told him blueberries help you to focus more and Dylan told him spinach is good.  The bad: Magic game cards and talk about The Hobbit and playing zombies... 
He had the Cub Scout Blue and Gold Banquet this past weekend.  It was at the Boy Scout museum so that means there were roughly 70 boys running wild around the museum.  They played zombies...  They have a desert contest and he won for Most Creative Use of Marshmallows- he made Indoor S'mores which are a marshmallow dipped in chocolate and rolled in graham cracker crumbs.  So not whole foods...But he won a Cub Scout water bottle and was very proud of himself!


We had a beautiful weekend and the kids spent much of it in the backyard.  Some of the games I heard being played- mountain climbers, super heroes, cowboys, and army men (and girls).  There were lots of costume changes and props involved.  We had a school friend over Friday afternoon and neighbors Sunday afternoon.  Love it!  We also had a picnic lunch on Sunday.  And painted  MomMom birthday pictures. 

We decided to take the kitchen table out and eat all of our meals in the dinning room.  The kitchen table is not really big enough for 5 of us anyway, so we moved it into the playroom.  One of my biggest "clutter" problems was the end of the kitchen counter so we decided to add more storage.  We put in a long desk and a really big cabinet from Ikea.  The kids sometimes eat breakfast at the desk and both the hubby and I will sit down there to do some work.  It is working for us and the kitchen feels more open.  Someday we'll update the cabinets, counter and floors...

 

We're Going (Mostly) Whole Foods

Inspired by The 100 Days of Real Food Challenge www.100daysofrealfood.com, I have decided that the kids and I are going to have our own little challenge.  We are going to 30 Days of Mostly Whole Foods.  So what does that mean?  Basically it means cutting out highly processed foods and eating foods as close to their natural state as possible.  We do usually eat pretty healthy, but I have noticed that we have been slowly slipping in more "convenience" food  (from a box) and more "treats" (sugar.)

 I have been toying around with needing to make some changes to our diet for awhile but two things really prompted me to make this decision now.  1) the big kids seem to be fighting more than ever and more prone to melt down.  Bubba has also had a very hard time settling down and falling asleep.  We get plenty of exercise, play outside, don't watch a ton of TV or play a ton of video games, are not over scheduled with activities and go to bed every school night by 8:00.  So the only left to change is diet.  2) I surprised the kids by bringing up lunch to school one day.  I was a few minutes late and Dutch had already bought her lunch; a grey piece of breaded "meat" they called chicken fried steak.  I was happy to throw it away.  Other benefits I hope to see: more energy for me, a decrease in sugar cravings from all of us, Huck not asking for junk snacks all day long...  I have no idea if it will change anything, but it can't hurt! 

I have no illusions that it will be easy or that we will follow it 100%.  It won't be tough to get my kids to eat healthy.  It will be tough to get them to NOT want the unhealthy stuff.  They like fruits and vegetables.  It's just that they also like candy and Cheetos and cinnamon rolls and Kraft mac and cheese.  Sugar and white flour are definitely going to be the toughest.  I really like flavored creamers and Stacy's Pita Chips and flour tortillas...  So I am not going to give up the flavored creamer- yet.  I think my kids need me I need me well caffeinated if I'm going to have to spend more time in the kitchen.  Let's just say my Midwestern-born meat and potatoes eating husband is not on board- yet.  I think we'll convince him to at least do a little better :-)  Maybe.

So the rules that I am going to try to follow:
1) a serving of either fruit or vegetables at every meal (which is not so tough since we usually do that)
2) No artificial colorings/ food dyes
3) whole wheat/ whole grain baked goods
4) whole food school/ work lunches (which means I have to make lunch every day, blah! I hate packing a lunch for work.)
5) nitrate-free pork and lunch meats

Rules that I am not going to follow;
1) no white pasta, tonight I am going to try the half white, half whole wheat pasta trick to see if that flies.  Whole wheat pasta is just not the same...
2) no sugar, see above re: coffee creamer.  Also, I just don't like plain yogurt, even with honey.  I'll substitute honey or other natural sweeteners when I can.
3) no fast food.  Going to Chick-fil-a is a nice treat for everyone, including myself.  I will, however, order the kids the grilled nuggets to go with the fruit we always get.  And no Sprite or lemonade.

On nights that the Hubby makes dinner, I will eat whatever it is gratefully. 

And lastly I will still use some of the foods that are already in the pantry that don't meet the criteria.  I will try to spread it out so we are not eating them as often .  I'm not going to waste the money by getting rid of it.

We made the trek up to Trader Joe's in Plano yesterday and I was pleased.  We got almost everything on my list for the week for less than $100.  We are getting two locations closer to us this year.  If I can avoid Whole Foods and their prices I will be happy.  Our Kroger has a decent selection of organic/ whole foods as well.  And I want to try to find a source to buy a mixed quarter of grass-fed beef from a local farm.  That should help the Hubby to get on board a little bit.

We had a good breakfast this morning.  Whole wheat blueberry muffins, strawberries and apple yogurt sweetened with honey.  The muffins and strawberries were a hit, the yogurt not as much.  I agreed.  Lunch will be nitrate-free ham and cheese on whole wheat pita bread, carrots with hummus dip and whole wheat pretzels.  Dinner will be spaghetti, salad and a loaf of fresh-baked bread from Trader Joe's. 

So wish us luck!  I'll be sure to report how it is going.