Enjoy Life brand has an AMAZING chocolate bar free of the big 8. We were at the Kalahari Resort this weekend and had the opportunity to try this yummy treat! I’ll be stocking up via Amazon Prime for sure. Enjoy your Sunday. check out my blog post on the Kalahari and how allergy friendly they are!
Nut-free at Kalahari
***Update as of 5/25/2019 we no longer consider Kalahari allergy friendly. The large assortment of allergy free snacks available last time are no longer stocked at Kalahari. There is a restaurant inside the game area that will acommodate allergies, however. But the snacks by the pool and waterpark are gone. The #1 Allergy Friendly hotel for families would be across the street at THe Great Wolf Lodge where the entire hotel and facility is nut free. All restaurants, snacks and treat are safe to those with nut allergies. They take ALL allergies seriously and work to ensure each guest is having a great time. *** This week, my husband had…
Gingerbread House!
Live Blogging here! We are at toys r us, and I am probably more excited about this new find than the election coverage, a totally nut-free gingerbread house kit (rare!) Made by DISNEY!
Chicken Chili Dip
When I call a dinner “Dip” – it makes it seem like a fun snack, not a healthy, vegetable packed meal that will give my kids the energy they need. Tonight we made Chicken Chili, another amazing meal that Chloe and I put together at last night’s Hy-Vee DISH session. Since she helped me make it she was proud of her work, making it easier for her to clear her plate. She owned this meal. It was hers. And she was proud to tell everyone about her homemade spice packet that made the chicken taste so good. I was happy to see her so excited and capable of making a meal. Preparing healthy food is…
Happiest Birthday Party!
Birthday Parties. According to our 5 and 3 year old, these kid-centric events seem to be the best part about going to school and meeting new friends! Both of their classrooms have lots of birthdays + parties and we always look forward to spending time with their friends and families. First, I never, ever want a family to feel like they need to change a birthday menu or cake due to our food allergies. The birthday girl/boy gets to celebrate how THEY want, and that’s how it should be and we 100% will always default to this. We will bring our own birthday treat. This is why I keep cupcakes…
Non-safe Snack Update
Hostess recently made a change to their HoHo’s. They have added Peanut Flour. Peanut Flour has been in the news lately, many processed food manufacturers have decided to go this route for whatever reason. It’s a huge deal for us in the allergy world because we get used to buying certain snack items. This is just another reason to always check the labels, don’t get too comfortable with your favorite snack items! Rold Gold Pretzels, Zingers and DingDongs are also in this same manufacturing facility. Out of an abundance of caution, we’re no longer including these snack items on our safe list. So summarize we’re removing these items from our…
Trick-or-Treat!
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…
Safe Buns at Metro Market
Good Morning! Bakery items are almost always a no-go in our house. Unless we can get a 100% confirmation from the manufacturer on cross contamination, we do not buy it. How do we find out about these details? Emails and phone calls, and keeping in touch with our nut community of friends which we share lots of information! We average about 3 calls/emails a month in our house, so not too bad. Holiday time , it will be about 3 calls per day!!!?⛄? Here is a sample email that my husband wrote this morning while he was at the grocery store picking up supplies: Hello,My daughter has allergy to nuts. …
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