Snacks

Anyone who knows me knows that I have never been great about being "healthy."  I LOVE chocolate, sugar, cereal for every meal, crackers, cheese, and donuts.  Oh my heavens donuts.

Well, that doesn't work out very well with little kids.  Too much sugar and a lot of long term side effects can happen, not to mention the crankiness they excude all day long.  So I have tried for a long time to just limit their sugar and their snacks were like popcorn or animal crackers.  Not bad things, but seriously, how many animal crackers does a little kid want to eat before they just go crazy?

I would want to feed my kids healthy snacks, but they are just so expensive.  Fruit and veggies cost so much.  Well, really, they don't.  Not if you scale back on buying the animal crackers and canned food, and buy the fresh fruits and veggies that are in season.  But still, handing a kid an apple, will they really eat it?  In my house, we love apples, but usually the little ones will take a few bites and then leave it and then it goes brown and gross and is pretty much wasted.

So, one day I was just sick of the whining and complaining about how hungry they were but didn't want any of the options I gave them.  So I wrote up a list (with the help of my idea man, the husband) of every good snack I could think of.

-popcorn (plain)
-celery
-apples
-raisens
-hardboiled eggs
-animal crackers
-carrots

Okay, so that was about it.  Those would be okay, but after awhile that gets boring.  We have been going to little summer activities at the library and they make really fun snacks there.  Like once they made butterflies out of cheese and a sugar snap pea pod.  Really cute.  So that got me thinking...

We just got to make the snacks cute.  Presentation is everything.  No joke, they consumed everything.  (half an apple with veggies stuck on with peanut butter)  A few chocolate chips in there made it fun for me, but you can use raisens or whatever.  So I have to be a little more creative but it seriously takes just a few minutes or you can put the stuff out for the kids and they can make their own animal/creature.  Try it and share any cute ideas you have!  I'm sure my kids would love to benefit from it!