Healthy Eating.....

So I don't know about many of you, but I have SUCH a DIFFICULT time trying to get my boys to eat healthy. Sam, my middle child, is actually a pretty good eater, but since my oldest is not Sam does whatever his big bro does. Needless to say I have resorted to bribery! 

I have never been one to do a sticker chart, but what the heck, I caved. (Honestly, it holds me accountable to eat right too and does not allow Daddy food! Daddy food is literally NOTHING healthy!) 

The idea is after they eat each healthy meal they get to put a smiley sticker next to that meal. IF come Friday they have eaten all their healthy meals then they can pick what they want for breakfast on Friday and dinner. So far they have asked for Fruit Loops and Pop-Tarts! For dinner they just want frozen chicken nuggets, which is fine with me! Then we told them once the whole chart was full we would take them to Legoland. (Note: the ONLY time they did not eat their dinner is when Gammy was watching them b/c she doesn't force them to eat.)

Here is an example of one dinner:

 Salmon burger on whole wheat sandwich bun. Organic frozen potato fries from Whole Foods. (the kids LOVED the letters!) It didn't photograph but cantaloupe and banana slices too.

Then after reading Dixie Delights blog I realized I could do the same in their lunches too. Now granted this is a risk b/c no teacher can sit there and make a child eat, but here's hoping they are either hungry enough or like the meal enough to eat it on their own. (So far no such luck!)

I always prepare their lunches the night before so I had not heated up the burrito in this picture, I waited til morning. The burrito is Whole Foods brand in the frozen section and they have LOTS to choose from, carrot sticks, banana slices, cantaloupe, and organic sugar cookie. I always put in a fun napkin and note. I hit Party City every so often to buy napkins, the kids LOVE it! I recently ordered a food safe marker so I can WRITE on their food! Who knew you could do that?!

With their lunches I recently started a new bribe that if they finish all their lunches for the whole week they could sleep in our bed on Friday. (I'm so bad!!!)

Home for the hurricane

  I am a young mother of 3 boys who has been stuck in her house for 48 hours thanks to Tropical Storm Isaac. While browsing through some of my girlfriend's blogs I found the most fabulous blog of all time, Dixie Delight. Now, I am NO WHERE near as creative, crafty, cool, or any other c adjective as this Southern Belle BUT.....I wanna be! 

  I decided to start this blog to hold myself accountable to showing my children that I do think of them more often than they realize even though I am now back at work. (I teach 3rd grade at a private school that my 2 older boys now attend.) I live in Miami, Florida, and not many women are "crafty" and do things on their own. Miami is known as a city that requires little talent b/c you can outsource ANYTHING and pretty much everyone down here does. However, I want to do it a little different in my house. So here's my attempt to live dixie!

 Tonight for dinner I made a shark dinner! I dyed the whole wheat noodles with blue food coloring. Cut the whole wheat baguette to appear to have a bite and spaghetti sauce for the blood affect.

 Organic whole wheat tortilla with Swiss cheese, avocado, turkey and mayo. Complimented by carrots, cantaloupe, grapes and organic chocolate milk.

 This is my hubs. He will KILL me for posting this! BUT I wanted to note that he got the "I am special" plate with pancakes spelling out DADDY. When he sat down he asked where was the N b/c his name is ANDY! Yeah, I guess he has a difficult time reading!

 My middle child SAM.

 My oldest BEN. 

The name pancakes were a BIG hit! The shark spaghetti lacked flavor so I added more spaghetti per the boys request.