Tuna melt on english muffin
Broccoli salad left overs (dairy free - hubby is dairy free right now due to reflux... yi yi yi - dairy free hubby, sugar free son...good thing I like to cook!)
Raspberry lemon scone for dessert Mmm
Monday, May 28, 2012
Long time no see... lunch
Hey y'all!! Are you still out there? I'm still here though not as much as I'd like. School is out so no kids lunches today! You'll have to enjoy my lunch:
It's not pretty but it is yummy...
Tuna melt on english muffin
Broccoli salad left overs (dairy free - hubby is dairy free right now due to reflux... yi yi yi - dairy free hubby, sugar free son...good thing I like to cook!)
Raspberry lemon scone for dessert Mmm
Tuna melt on english muffin
Broccoli salad left overs (dairy free - hubby is dairy free right now due to reflux... yi yi yi - dairy free hubby, sugar free son...good thing I like to cook!)
Raspberry lemon scone for dessert Mmm
Monday, March 19, 2012
Pinterest inspiration....
So I have a new addiction ~ pinterest. I resisted for as long as I could. Then one of my MLIS classmates mentioned that she uses it to track ideas for her library. Genius! So I signed right up. Guess what?... I haven't a library board yet.. But I have done lots of other fun things! Here's my pics from activities I've tried or recipes I've done because of pinterest -
My 1/2 french twist hair style ~ easy peasy for something a little different. But mostly I'm workin' the food aspect of pinterest!!!
Baked oatmeal in cups ~ this one is from Sugar-Free Mom Pinterest introduced me to her blog and I love it! Though I gotta be honest, I also pinned the pumpkin-vanilla smoothie and I didn't love it. It was ok, but after trying some of her other stuff - I think my expectations are just really high. Because her other stuff, healthy or not, is out of this world delicious!!
I'm looking forward to putting some of the ideas to good use in my garden this year as well. :) Oh yeah... and maybe the library too.
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Fun lunch of the week
Fun lunch of the week: Nachos :-)
For all of the complaining of my children about not liking "hot" foods cold... they sure did wolf down some lunchables when they were offered!!! So I'm calling their bluff. Nachos it is... and they seem excited about it.
The sneaky ingredient in this lunch is salsa. Lots of salsas have sugar added :-( I like Pace because it's sugar free!! As you can tell, natural fruit sugars are still on the menu and we haven't found any significant issues with natural fruit sugar. I may consider trying out a bit of honey or maple syrup to see if it's just the overwhelming amount of refined sugar hidden in so many things that causes our focus issues.
BTW - after looking at the picture, the lunch seems a little scant so I'd like to point out that both children receive a snack 1 hr before lunch. Really... some scheduling genius figured that out, but we've learned to plan accordingly. Smaller lunches = less waste.
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Cornmeal cakes for breakfast
We are still on the sugar free train and boy are we seeing great results - and not just with the little guy. Even little pixie who tends to not act out but daydream - has seen improvement in focus and concentration. Yeah!!!
So this morning I tried out a substitute for our beloved Saturday morning pancakes:
So this morning I tried out a substitute for our beloved Saturday morning pancakes:
Cornmeal pancakes
1 c cornmeal
1 t salt
1 1/2 c boiling water
1 T butter
1/2 c fat free milk
2 eggs
a bit of butter and oil for frying
In a medium bowl combine cornmeal and salt. Add boiling water and butter. Stir until smooth and add milk. Stir to cool enough to add the eggs without them cooking from the heat of the batter. Blend well. Fry over medium to medium high heat in a good nonstick skillet. My pancakes were about 2 T of batter each for smaller sized ones. Serve with unsweetened applesauce.
Yummy!!!
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Seriously...
right on the heels of our family's experience proving that sugar is the bane of our existance ~ I find this article:
Cake for breakfast? Go for it
To sum it up - study participants either ate a 600 calorie breakfast that included something like a donut or cookie, OR they ate a 300 calorie breakfast w/o a sweet treat. They found that the 600 calorie breakfast participants faired better. I venture to say that it has less to do with the donut and more to do with the size of the breakfast.
"It's completely unfair to compare a 600-calorie breakfast with 300-calorie breakfast," says Katherine Tallmadge, a registered dietitian and author of "Diet Simple" (LifeLine Press, 2011), who was not involved in the study. *yeah, what she said.
Cake for breakfast? Go for it
To sum it up - study participants either ate a 600 calorie breakfast that included something like a donut or cookie, OR they ate a 300 calorie breakfast w/o a sweet treat. They found that the 600 calorie breakfast participants faired better. I venture to say that it has less to do with the donut and more to do with the size of the breakfast.
"It's completely unfair to compare a 600-calorie breakfast with 300-calorie breakfast," says Katherine Tallmadge, a registered dietitian and author of "Diet Simple" (LifeLine Press, 2011), who was not involved in the study. *yeah, what she said.
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Just say no
to sugar...
My son is amazing. He's energetic, funny, curious, warm hearted, snuggly, thoughtful, considerate.... but many of these qualities are hidden because they are masked by sugar. You know how people sometimes say, "I can see the hamster running on the wheel..." in describing someone's thought process?
Well my little guy has a flock of hamsters slam dancing in there.. partly because he's a young boy with energy to spare.. and partly because he has sugar to fuel the fire.
A week or so ago he had a really rough week. We get notes home often, but to be honest I don't think his teacher sees the jewel that he is... and also brings a lot of the problems upon herself. I mean all day kindy kids NEED recess... no matter whether they are "active" kids or not. But that week we had notes home. He had time out during recess. He had trouble completing activities...
And then I got to observe it in action. At karate - which he loves - he just couldn't focus. He just couldn't stand still or follow instruction. He was so talkative that he was outwardly disruptive. My heart hurt for him... he seemed to be trying his best to control himself but just couldn't. He came close to being asked to leave. This is huge. His karate teacher is outstanding with commanding a class. It is exceptionally rare that he would need to ask a child to leave.. and here it was MY kid. YIKES!!!
So being a library sort.... I busted out some books. I won't go into all of the details of our thought process or technique in this post... but we decided to cut added sugar (I'm talkin' cane sugar, corn syrup, brown sugar, natural sweetner, unnatural sweetner, you name it!)... and might I add we aren't a junk food house but
you don't have to be a junk food house to get too much sugar!!!
I'll skip the details of all the changes we've made for now because the post is really just a big hurrah over the fact that my little angel of a boy has had smiley faces all week at school and participated fully in karate class. He's a joy!!! And the best part - he earned a prize for good behavior this past week at school - just a little token treasure box kind of thing... but he is so proud of himself and his self control.
My heart is full for him and his sense of accomplishment.
My son is amazing. He's energetic, funny, curious, warm hearted, snuggly, thoughtful, considerate.... but many of these qualities are hidden because they are masked by sugar. You know how people sometimes say, "I can see the hamster running on the wheel..." in describing someone's thought process?
Well my little guy has a flock of hamsters slam dancing in there.. partly because he's a young boy with energy to spare.. and partly because he has sugar to fuel the fire.
A week or so ago he had a really rough week. We get notes home often, but to be honest I don't think his teacher sees the jewel that he is... and also brings a lot of the problems upon herself. I mean all day kindy kids NEED recess... no matter whether they are "active" kids or not. But that week we had notes home. He had time out during recess. He had trouble completing activities...
And then I got to observe it in action. At karate - which he loves - he just couldn't focus. He just couldn't stand still or follow instruction. He was so talkative that he was outwardly disruptive. My heart hurt for him... he seemed to be trying his best to control himself but just couldn't. He came close to being asked to leave. This is huge. His karate teacher is outstanding with commanding a class. It is exceptionally rare that he would need to ask a child to leave.. and here it was MY kid. YIKES!!!
So being a library sort.... I busted out some books. I won't go into all of the details of our thought process or technique in this post... but we decided to cut added sugar (I'm talkin' cane sugar, corn syrup, brown sugar, natural sweetner, unnatural sweetner, you name it!)... and might I add we aren't a junk food house but
you don't have to be a junk food house to get too much sugar!!!
I'll skip the details of all the changes we've made for now because the post is really just a big hurrah over the fact that my little angel of a boy has had smiley faces all week at school and participated fully in karate class. He's a joy!!! And the best part - he earned a prize for good behavior this past week at school - just a little token treasure box kind of thing... but he is so proud of himself and his self control.
My heart is full for him and his sense of accomplishment.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Another fun family math game
We call this one Pioneer ~
Materials needed:
graph paper
a die
2 pencils
Set up:
We are pioneers traveling west to claim land for our families. We make 5 trips to stake our claim on 5 plots of land. (Yes, I realize this isn't historically accurate - this is math, not history!!) The person with the most land at the end of the 5 trips wins.
Play:
player 1 rolls the die for this example we'll say is was a 3. The player will then draw a horizontal line that is three blocks long. player 2 rolls and draws a line the same number of blocks as the number rolled. Other players continue. Once everyone has had their first roll, player 1 rolls a second number. This example we'll say a '2'. Player 1 now starts at the end of their first line and draws a vertical line 2 blocks high. This creates an L shape. Draw a matching horizontal and vertical lines to create a rectangle. You've now fenced in your claimed acreage ~ but you have to know how much you have!! So you must write out the following math sentence under your square: 3 x 2 = ___ Once each player has taken a second turn, you've all completed your 1st trip west. (At which point whomever had the most would take a moment to gloat, though that's not the point of the round ;-)You get 4 more trips - completed in the same manner. When all 5 trips have been taken and all of your math sentences have been completed, each player adds up their grand total from all 5 trips. The player with the most acreage overall at the end of the 5 trips is declared the winner.
Does this make sense? It was great fun with minimal prep work. And the competitive drive certainly kept my little person playing longer than they ordinarily would be - and doing other people's math fast so they would know straight away if they'd won or not. I hope it has a similar effect in your home :)
Materials needed:
graph paper
a die
2 pencils
Set up:
We are pioneers traveling west to claim land for our families. We make 5 trips to stake our claim on 5 plots of land. (Yes, I realize this isn't historically accurate - this is math, not history!!) The person with the most land at the end of the 5 trips wins.
Play:
player 1 rolls the die for this example we'll say is was a 3. The player will then draw a horizontal line that is three blocks long. player 2 rolls and draws a line the same number of blocks as the number rolled. Other players continue. Once everyone has had their first roll, player 1 rolls a second number. This example we'll say a '2'. Player 1 now starts at the end of their first line and draws a vertical line 2 blocks high. This creates an L shape. Draw a matching horizontal and vertical lines to create a rectangle. You've now fenced in your claimed acreage ~ but you have to know how much you have!! So you must write out the following math sentence under your square: 3 x 2 = ___ Once each player has taken a second turn, you've all completed your 1st trip west. (At which point whomever had the most would take a moment to gloat, though that's not the point of the round ;-)You get 4 more trips - completed in the same manner. When all 5 trips have been taken and all of your math sentences have been completed, each player adds up their grand total from all 5 trips. The player with the most acreage overall at the end of the 5 trips is declared the winner.
Does this make sense? It was great fun with minimal prep work. And the competitive drive certainly kept my little person playing longer than they ordinarily would be - and doing other people's math fast so they would know straight away if they'd won or not. I hope it has a similar effect in your home :)
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