I know what you are thinking:
“How can I homeschool my children in this fantastic of a way, such as my cyber-pal, Taylor?”
Yes. It’s true. I’ve got skills.
Or skillz. Whichever you prefer.
Alright. I don’t have skills. But I am able to show my kids the importance of a brain and/or brain fluid by simply using an egg, a plastic container, water, and two goofy girls.
Lest any of you are confused, I am not a superb homeschooling parent. Nay. I am an “adequate” homeschooling parent who is hoping to to not mess up her kids whilst awaiting for an excellent school to open up down the road, next to the bison and horses and deers and such.
Ah. Today was a day. But aren’t all days?
You know those days that seem to go on and on forever?
And you are certain that your husband will never arrive home to save you from the wrath of Handsome Dude’s fury over who-knows-what and Little Dude’s refusal to put on his own pants after a successful elimination?
You know those days where you just look gross? And your hair looks like your dog’s? And no matter how many layers you strategically drape over your mid-section, you just can’t seem to achieve that svelte look you were hoping for?
And you want a brownie and quiet?
Today is one such day.
But that is neither here nor there.
Let us move on to more enjoyable topics.
1. We went to the movies last night. We saw Pirates of the Caribbean and ate gobs and gobs of popcorn.
2. I was uber proud of myself for following the entire plot of this Pirates movie from beginning to end.
3. I am ashamed to admit that I have never, ever, understood a Pirates of the Caribbean movie.
4. And don’t even get me started on Lord of the Rings.
5. David finally figured out that if he turns on closed captioning during the movie, I stand half a chance of understanding what is going on. Alas. I cannot do this in a movie.
6. This is the woman he has entrusted with the education of his four, fine children.
7. For years I would not let my girls have Barbies. I felt they were way too grown up. Finally, one year, I gave my mom the ok to purchase them Barbies. I told her to go easy.
8. Her first purchase? The Hot Tub Party Bus.
9. There was no turning back.
10. My kids are ravenous beasts these days. The sentence I hear and dread regularly is:
“Mom! Can I have a little snack?”
11. When does the kitchen close?
12. I need snack ideas.
13. I am fatigued today.
14. I have a friend coming over tomorrow. This excites me deep in my innermost being. She is bringing me coffee and wants to get my advice on homeschooling.
ha!
Is it wrong to take coffee from someone who is expecting good advice when you have none such advice to give?
I vote no!
15. I have nothing to blog about.
16. Can you tell?
17. I think I should go work on my physical appearance before my husband gets home.
18. If he ever gets home.
19. Or maybe I don’t care.
20. No. I do care.
21. Kind of.
Alright.
What do you feed your ravenous kids as snacks?
I need ideas, peeps.
Happy Tuesday!
carrots, apples, and raisins… I’m cheap. and I hate making snacks. and I really really hate those shiny silver fruit snack wrappers that I find in couch cushions. although, when carrots turn into shriveled up wrinkely things that look like old lady fingers and I find them in the couch cushions, that isnt great either… 🙂
I’ve quit watching tv because of hearing issues. And it annoys my family to turn on closed captioning. Why oh why does the stupid background music have to be so darn loud???? I think you are not in danger of messing up your kids in your amazing home school!!
Popcorn! Cheese and crackers. Nachos. Sandwiches. Fruit. Vegetables and Ranch Dip.
1. When it comes to snack time, I send my son off in his own car to get food with his own money… there are some perks to aging…
2. I banned Barbies from my home for several years too – I don’t trust a gal who goes around naked so often, and the comparisons between her figure and mine were making me want to hide in my closet and eat ice-cream..
3. We also saw Pirates – who knew mermaids were actually vampires????
Oh…the snack thing…it doesn’t get better when they get older. They just eat more food. And then they come home from college and eat even more food and bring home friends who eat even more.
Ok…back to snacks…
Mac and cheese, wigglers (bacon on top of cheese toast), pigs in a blanket (super easy, by the way), cereal (yes, this is a snack), cut up fruit, raisins, yogurt, pizza rolls (who cares about being uber healthy…you’re trying to give them full bellies)…
I fear that I’m not helping you much.
Start enlisting the help of your girls. They are getting old enough to pop things in the toaster oven (you must get one if you don’t already have one).
As far as advice for the homeschooler-friend-wannabe…tell her to run. LOL
You’re doing a great job. You’ll get better each year. Don’t be too hard on yourself.
I am so jealous that you got to see the Pirates movie. I want to see that one bad. 🙂
craisins! Fruit!
Okay so here’s my deep dark secret: My mom (idiot) (not really) (you’ll see why I’m calling her that in a sec), decided it was a good idea to pull out a giant tupperware container of my old barbies and let my 2 and 3 year old sons play with them. They no longer owned clothes. They had morphed into a barbie nudist colony in that box. Okay, well one barbie was wearing clothes, a hot pink spandex body suit. She had been roller blade barbie.
So I walk in the room and have a small heart attack when I see Q holding a few nude barbies, and then he asks if he can take a nap with them. I say “NO!” and he says, “Why not?” and I say, “Because look! They have sharp feet! They could poke you in the eye while you sleep!”
I made my mom hide them back out in the barn and guess what toys he’s always requesting now when we visit? BARBIE!
I have decided to never tell my husband about this incident.
The End.
This is funny. Makes me want to bookmark your blog. I know what you mean about boys and barbies…my husband would never understand! No dolls, no pink, no high heels… 🙂
I am the same way, if you want me to understand everything, turn on the closed captioning. Cant believe how much I miss not having it on. But hubby hates it, my son always let me use it, sure do miss him. Hes almost 21, in the army, married and fixing to be a daddy for the first time so I don’t have to give him snacks. But what I used to give him, until he became a teenager and only wanted frozen snack he could stick in the microwave, vanilla yogurt with grapes, sesame sticks with yogurt covered raisins, chocolate hazelnut spread on toast. Try homemade cal-zones. Spread out a pizza dough on a pan, down the middle put meat, cheese, veggies. Pull the sides over and put slits in and bake till its done, then brush melted butter and sprinkle Parmesan cheese over the top. Cut into slices and dip in ranch dressing or a little cup of spaghetti sauce. One my son and husbands favs.
yogurt “parfaits”, as in yogurt, fruit and granola sprinkled on top.
Best snack in our house? Put a flour tortilla on a paper towel. Sprinkle it with shredded cheese. Pop it in the microwave for 30 seconds. Cut into slices with a pizza cutter (I found this to work the fastest). You could make it a full fledged quesadilla by throwing another tortilla on top before you microwave, but we usually don’t. My girls call this taco bell, but I’ve forgotten why. I’ve done this for years and it’s’ still one of their favorites.
I had such a day…ha! What a day.
Looking at Orlando Bloom is all the reason you need to see Lord of the Rings or Pirates of the Caribbean. Who cares what anyone is saying? Legolas. Mmmmm.
I refuse to talk about feeding my children. I will only get frustrated and disgusted. I may come back for ideas, though.
The dreaded “snack” word. If I hear that word one more time I’m going to lose it. That’s ALL I hear around here “I want a snack”, “What can I snack on”, “When can I have a snack”, “What’s for snack”, “Why can’t I have a snack”, “I want a snaaaaaacccccckkkkk!!!!!” (<—said of course in the most annoying whine on the planet). Apparently I starve my children because snacks are apparently the key to their existance. My grocery bill says otherwise!
Crackers with ketchup, a piece of turkey pepperoni and a sprinkle of cheese, heated until cheese melts. YUM.
Tortilla with butter and salt, popcorn, wheat pb crackers. Pretzels, apples, oranges (cut them up before hand…nothing wrong with them if they get “brown”). Nuts.
Dry cereal.
ugh. Finding things to feed my kids is a never ending chore. Especially b/c of Derek’s food allergies.
If they’re growing & hungry, try giving things w/ a lot of protein to really fill them up. Lots of peanut butter– carrots & pb, bananas & pb.
How ’bout some elk jerky?
But I don’t know where you’d find something like that…
String cheese, crackers, fruit bars, crackers, yogurt, crackers, goldfish (oh wait that’s a cracker too.) Banana muffins with cream cheese frosting (perfect for those 2 bananas that go brown EVERY WEEK on my counter.)
And there’s always cheating and giving not so healthy dip with fruit. One package cream cheese + 1/2 cup of brown sugar and sprinkle with toffee chips makes the best apple dip. We use it for grapes and such too.
When my kids are home all day, we have a snack schedule – same time every day. Then the choices are always the same: fruit, yogurt, string cheese or baby carrots.
Eat it or don’t. I don’t care.
No, you may not have goldfish.
Or chips.
I said “fruit, yogurt, string cheese or baby carrots” peanut butter is not on the list.
Suddenly I’m not looking forward to summer quite as much.
may sound bad but it it good. Kraft cheese slice with Peanut butter in it…..and part of a banana if you like.
The combo is sooo good. I liked it as a kid. Ok I still do but don’t have often.
Nothing to blog about blogs are the very best blogs!!! Hands down. And I luh-uh-uh-ooove Pirates!
We avoid processed food and sugar like the plague around my house (and yet I am still portly. Someone please explain this.) so snacks look something like this: Cheese sticks, almonds, fruit, fruit and more fruit, cut up veggies, peanut butter on gluten free toast, Enjoy breakfast bars (the ONE packaged food I buy because my kindergartener must have a peanut and tree nut free snack for school and these bars are everythingyoucanpossiblybeallergicto free).
SKILLZ!
We are late dinner eaters, so afterschool snack is a mini-meal for the boy. Peanut butter & jelly sandwiches, cheese quesadillas, fruit, hot dogs – I’m all about holding over til a mealtime.
I never got Lord of the Rings either… what was precious? :\
Some people probably suggested these things but… string cheese, dried cherries or craisins, apple slices with peanut butter, carrot sticks with hummus or ranch dip, trail mix, banana slices in a bowl with milk (and sprinkles, if you like), peanut butter and marshmellow fluff sandwiches, gogurts, and popcorn. FYI – does anybody actually follow the plots of P of the C stories? Not me and I’m a pretty good plot-follower.
granola bars
yogurt
tortilla chips and salsa
more granola bars
any fruit they can find is always fair game
roasted almonds
more granola bars
leftover food…yes, they are odd
anything they can pick from the garden, they can eat raw…and you wouldn’t believe how cool they think that is.
Chips and Salsa (nachos, if you’re feeling generous)
Cheese and Apples and ham/pepperoni slices
Quesadillas–flour tortillas with cheddar inside, melted in the microwave and cut like a pizza.
Apple slices, with a spoonful of Peanut Butter for everyone. Eat and apple slice, and take a bite of PB off the spoon.
Crackers, cheese, pepperoni (my butcher has instructions to never allow me to leave the store with less than a pound of pepperoni)
yogurt
cottage cheese with canned fruit
My kids eat breakfast, three full lunches, dinner, and a bedtime snack every. single. day. I feel your pain.
My father used to give us a bedtime snack of saltine crackers, spread with butter and then a spoonful of brown sugar on top. Yay Dad!
Yogurt with a drizzle of honey or maple syrup. Actually, anything with a drizzle of maple syrup makes a good snack! I keep muffins (oatmeal chocolate chip) in the freezer – zap for 30 seconds in the microwave and they’re good to go.
Your readers have some good suggestions; I’m taking note. My kids are always hungry too. My grandpa once told me that when a boy says he’s hungry, even if you think it’s not possible, he’s really hungry. So I try to believe them and feed them healthy things, but I get tired of being a short-order cook all day!
I am going to try to start prepping vegetables so they can just grab them when they want them, and fruits that I can (so many can’t be prepped ahead). They eat lots of crackers, I buy them wholesale and top them with peanut butter, cream cheese or nutella (seriously good. Not “healthy” but equivalent to peanut butter). This summer I am going to attempt to make homemade fruit leather.
And for a quick sweet treat, a spoonful of peanut butter with some chocolate chips in a bowl. They love it. It’s cheap and easy.
My apologies if this doesn’t jive with lots of people but kids need to eat (as all of us do) when they’re hungry. I don’t differentiate between meals and snacks. I’d fix the meal early and give that to them, you know all the food groups and such.. and after they have eaten well, anything after that can be the snack. Pizza is good because it’s bread, cheese, tomato sauce and usually some kind of veggies. Mac & cheese with broccoli, yogurt popsicles etc etc. Look online for lots of kids food suggestions. Or, plan a day when you make and freeze some hefty healthy cookies, yogurt fruit and ice cream pops, pizza slices etc and have them available instantly for snacks during say a month or two-week period if you really want them to wait for mealtime. Even salads can be a fun crunchy snack, string cheese it good but has lots of sodium. Fruit is good but doesn’t keep you filled for long.
I just found this list of healthy snack ideas, with links to recipes. I’m bookmarking it!
http://heavenlyhomemakers.com/healthy-snacks-i-feed-my-family