It’s the weekend we’ve been gearing up for weeks now, Halloween Weekend! The kids are so excited to put their costumes to use, collect some candy and be outside when it’s “POOKY,” according to Carter. Our trick-or-treat is not your typical collection of candy. We carry two twin-pack epi pens with us, even though we don’t allow the kids to eat candy while we trick-or-treat. You just never know what they can come in contact with when it’s dark. When the kids are collecting candy, we’ve learned that there are a few homes in our neighborhood that have the teal pumpkin visible, we set that candy to the side. ONLY the…
Jambalaya
This week we tried another HyVee freezer meal. It was a wonderful Jambalaya recipe that included a locally made starter kit. This meal was super fast. If you’re in a hurry, you could use rotisserie chicken or just the andouille. The best part was the starter kit. Becuase its local, I called to ensure that it was nut free and locally sourced. It was. Winning! Very delicious. Everyone cleared their plates – kids has to use a tiny bit of sour cream to cut the heat a bit. This meal took 20 minutes after I dumped everything onto the Dutch oven. This weekend is supposed to be amazing , just…
First Independent Play Date
When you have a child with life-threatening food allergies, leaving your child alone, for any amount of time, is anxiety provoking. Luckily for us, Chloe’s friends and their families have all been amazing and over the top careful about her food allergies. Here’s what we did to prepare for this HUGE step of independence for her: We decided to invite her new friend over to our home first. This allowed us to talk as a family with her friend and her family about our serious food allergies. This conversation was a great ice breaker and allowed us to talk openly about many things parents have concerns about. After the first play…
S'mores
Tonight we had our first campfire as a family of 4 in our backyard. We recently purchased a fire pit, and it’s perfect for warming up on fall nights like tonight. Here’s what we did for safe, nut-free s’mores: Plain Honey Maid graham crackers Regular 10 oz Hershey’s milk chocolate candy bar; not the king size, not the miniatures – those are made in facilities with nuts, and are on shared equipment. Kraft jumbo marshmallows The kids enjoyed watching the sunset and roasting marshmallows for the first time. We even had a few fire ball mallows, and funny made up ghost stories by Chloe. My husband enjoyed playing with fire. I simply…
Vegetarian Minestrone Soup
Have you ever had one of those weeks where you feel like you take 2 steps forward and 10 steps back? By Friday night you feel like your hair is on fire and no amount of delicious wine will right all the wrongs that happened in the past 5 days?! It’s during stressful times that you really have to find little things to be grateful for to keep pushing ahead. The show MUST go on. We’re parents. Our kids rely on us, we’re setting an example all day, every day – we can’t melt down under pressure (even thought I didn’t fall to the ground crying like my kids, I was pretty…
Sprinkles
It’s that time of year – baking season. Starting with Halloween yummies, then Thanks Giving pies and Christmas cookies (hopefully not followed up by the “well, why not, I’ve eaten so much crap already, Happy New Year cake”). There is no doubt that I’ll be on the phone and emailing manufacturers like crazy over the next 3 months. Today alone, I’ve sent out three emails to manufacturers to make sure manufacturing facilities haven’t changed from last year. Here is a little cheat sheet (AVOID THESE) below. We never use the Wilton Brand because MOST of their items, including food colorings (yes, I made an entire cake with their food coloring only to find…
Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Muffins
It’s been a while, hey? I’ve been working on a home-improvement project and I blew away my goal. Happy dancing! The timeline was tight considering I still had adulting to do during the daytime (SAHM stuff) and most of this project had to happen after the kids would go to bed, and before I got too tired. Painting after 10pm is not a good idea. So this brings me to my favorite term, opportunity cost. My most utilized take-away from my master’s degree 5 yeas ago. The things we must give up to have something else. In this case, I gave up a LOT to complete this project in 4 weeks. My daily work outs…
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