WANTED: Quick and Healthy Snacks for Kids

"Yummy snack!"

Lately, it seems, my two toddlers spend most of the day begging for snacks. Even my dear Lila screeches: "SNACK!" They act hungry all the time. We have the usual peanut butter with crackers, fruit, yogurt (frozen, drinks, etc) and so on. Now, I'm just out of creative snack ideas and the begging won't stop!

In desperation to get a child to stop begging, it's easy to just start handing them whatever will get them to quiet down quickly. Often, that's junk food. I really try not to keep junk snacks in the house because I end up doing just that! I'm trying to get my children to view junk snacks such as marshmallows, gummy bears, candy, cookies, cake, etc., as weekly treats. Not daily. I'm not going to rob my children of a normal, American childhood. We do, occasionally eat at McDonald's and, on occasion, eat boxed-frozen pizza or take-out pizza. But, we keep junk meals and snacks to a minimum. I don't need to explain why. Everyone who knows a little bit about healthy eating knows why.

A blogger friend posted a great link to this week's works-for-me-wednesday at Rocks in My Dryer. This week, readers posted meals and snacks with five ingredients or less. I found a few things I'd like to try. An apple dip, strawberry/spinach popsicles, etc. I found, however, that the 399 recipes were a little too much to go through. Quickly browsing, I saw that more than half of the meals appeared to be chicken meals. We like chicken. We don't love it. Do not need more chicken recipes.

So, I'm calling out for help! I would love healthy, kid-friendly snack ideas. Place a comment with a cookbook recommendation, recipe, tip, link, healthy-eating food blog, etc.

Staying Busy

It's been a bit. So, here's a run down:

• I made another batch of bagels, this time from The Joy of Cooking and they came out even better (I did use a lot less flour than the recipe called for and did an egg white wash - but yum!).
• We went to a social gathering over the weekend. There was face painting and Olivia decided to be a princess. This was the artist's idea of a princess.
• Lots of B-Q's and social events this week and month. We are staying really busy!!
• Every day this week, Lila has swimming lessons in the morning. She does NOT like them. She screamed through the first two days. The instructor is awesome and proves that the instructors we had in Alaska were amateur, at best. The screaming is totally my fault. I knew, early on, Lila would need a lot of exposure to the water, at a very young age, in order to be naturally comfortable in it. Aside from a couple of months of lessons in Alaska, she has spent little time in the water. Thus, the screaming. Had I kept her in lessons, as I did Olivia, I am quite certain we would not be going through this (I used to do a little bit of instructing and/or life guarding during instructions - so I know this to be quite true. You don't expose them to the water on a regular basis, some children will develop water-anxiety). I'm a bit disappointed that these lessons don't last for two-weeks, every day. I think that Lila would be having a blast by the middle of next week. I'll have to take her to the pool myself and work with her. We'll get there!
• Lila's hip is still sore. When she's running around for long periods, I notice a slight limp. She also has a very low-grade fever. I'm told this is common. However, we are reaching the 10-day mark -meaning the fluid on her hip and fever should be just about gone. Maybe the cold that she came down with has something to do with it not getting better. When she's not limping, she walks with her left foot turned in. She's got to be uncomfortable. I'll call the doctor at the end of the week and schedule an appointment for next Monday. I've been told this hip virus can sometimes take longer than 10-days to heal. So, I don't want to keep rushing to the doctors if all it needs is more time! Admittedly, I am getting concerned that it's something more serious. I'll keep you all posted.
• There's a good chance we'll move in the Fall to a bigger house. We've realized that we just need storage (read: a basement or attic of some sort). We cannot live much longer with boxes in our dining room. So, we have our eye on a house a couple of miles down the road. An American family will be leaving it in late September and it should be ready in October. I've seen it and it's so nice. It would probably be the nicest house we would ever live in during DH's time in the military (minus the Portuguese heating system, a minor parking issue and a few other quirks). We would not have to pay over our housing allowance either. I don't want to pack up our stuff and move and I do LOVE our location, however, this house is just too small. It would have been perfect for Matt and I. But, with the two girls, it's a bit much. And, when we have guests, we'll have so much more room in the other house for them. I am not getting my hopes up, however, because, well, it's military life. Need I say more?

Okay, that's it for now. Nothing else to report.