Food Revolution

I don't know if any of you have seen the new show on ABC called Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution but I am in LOVE with this show. If ever there was a TV show that was screaming at me this is it. The show has been at an elementary school showing what the kids eat and it is all high fat processed food. I am happy to say for all of my years in school I was a "hot lunch kid" and Ryan thus far has been the same. Ryan is even lucky enough to have free breakfast everyday. Although after watching all of this I wonder just how lucky we really are / were.

On Saturday's show they showed how a chicken nugget is made... YUCK (I think I might have puked a bit in my mouth) All the leftover chicken parts and fat in a blender then covered in more fat to hide the bloody chunks inside. I am going to have a hard time ever feeding my kid's their favorite meal of nuggets again.

There is a family they are following that only eats processed foods, fast foods...etc. and they never cook. This week they went to the doctor to learn the real state of their health. WOW ... they are a really sick family. As I watched I saw so much of myself. Let me be real honest for a minute. I don't cook. Why don't I cook? it use to be because of my job. Working  70 hours a week just didn't allow time for it. Then I became this coupon crazy girl. Have you ever seen a coupon for free fruit or veggies? Which I admit I love coupons, and free stuff, but I think it is time I really start looking at what we are eating and take a little bit better care of ourselves and our children.

Tonights dinner:
Chicken Breasts on the grill
frozen mixed veggies (that I got for free)
frozen dinner rolls (that I got for free)
1% milk... I am trying REALLY hard to give up 2%
Oh and a few chips for the kids so they don't die on the first night of new dinners. :)

We will see how long I can make this last!!

Coupons!

As you read a few posts back I have be come a fan of coupon's but I don't use all of them. An example would be diapers or denture paste. Last night I had this great idea of coupon circles. Here is my thought.

If I clip the coupons I will use and keep them but then cut every other coupon I won't use and I send it on to the next person they would take out what they would use and add what they would not use. (They would also have to take out and toss anything that had expired). If there was a circle of five people and each sending to the same person each week you would get a new envelope every week and could really help yourself as well as others.

Does this sounds crazy? Does it sounds like a lot of work? Should there only people people from your area in your circle? Or people from all over so you would get different coupons? Would you want people at different stages in their lives to be in your circle? (so the diaper and denture coupons both get used) If I organized it I would start a whole new blog dedicated coupon circling but before I do that I want to know if people would join in? So give me your thoughts????

Thanks for reading!

Nanc

How Do You?

Ryan's new favorite question is "how do you spell..." or "How do you read..." and Emmalee's is "how do you write...?" I love that both of my kids love school, however do you know frustrating it can be?

It is frustrating to me because let's be honest... I use spell check and I can't spell 1-800- ask- Gary. I get to 1-8-0 ... and Ryan screams ''SPELL it!" Suddenly we are both frustrated and neither of us is understood.The same thing happens if I read a book and change the words or skip a few. I am not sure if he has memorized the book or does first letter reading as I read. Either way he is learning and that is the ultimate goal.

Emmalee on the other hand wants to do everything Ryan does but doesn't have the skill level. This morning she was coloring and said I can make a circle but my triangle is wrong, fix it. I grabbed the crayon and drew a new triangle and then was told ''no not like that!" I guess it wasn't perfect. Her other huge frustration is her name. She so badly wants to write her name but when I make connecting dots for her she gets very upset when her lines aren't perfect. Wait till she has to write Emmalee Elizabeth Hochschild, I think her perfectionism will fade away. Sadly she has a whole year to wait till she can go to school, but thankful that means she has another year to practice that long name before she gets to school.

The main thing I have learned is that I would fail horribly at home schooling!

Spring Fever!

Today is the first day of spring and I think the kids have internal clocks to remind them that they should now have spring fever. From the moment Ryan got up this morning all he could talk about was going to grandma's today to play with his cousin outside. Where he got this idea I have no idea. When my eyes were fully open and Emmalee was screaming "me too! me too!" I called grandma to see what her plans for the day were. Just my luck they were going to drive up to Cabella's and would gladly take the kids with to see the fish. SCORE! This was perfect seeing I had to work today and Keith needed to go to Rainbow for double coupon day. Grandpa and Grandma had so much fun with the kids at Cabella's they also took them to Stride Rite and Crocs for new shoes... I think they had spring fever too! Just as I got home from work the kids came home happy as could be and a bit tired, but there was no way they could nap they just had spring fever in their pants. After eating for an hour and bouncing around Ryan announced "ah, hey, guys, I have a very important message for grandma, can we call her?" I dialed her up and about 30 seconds into the conversation Ryan says "so, um, do you think we can have a sleepover?" and with those words Em came flying out of somewhere screaming "I sleepover too?" of course grandma and grandpa jumped on the opportunity for a sleepover and Keith and I have jumped on the opportunity to watch New Moon.

I will update you tomorrow on how late into the night their spring fever lasted... I just hope it doesn't last longer then a few days.

Happy First Day of Spring!!

Ryan's best day of the year

If you ask Ryan what today is he will tell you "It is St. Patrick's Day but really it is the best day ever because it is GREEN DAY! I thought you all might enjoy seeing what Ryan looked like when he cae home from school today. Oh and Happy Green Day!

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The "beech"

Emmalee has been "at the beach" everyday for about two months. No, not the real beach, rather, our living room floor. While most kids are wearing clothes, or even jammies she prefers her swimsuit, or as she calls it her "swimming suit" She has been known to lay on the hardwood floors and slide her body across the floor and tell you "I swimmin" A few weeks ago she hauled her body pillow out of her room and now uses it as a air mattress so she can float at the beach. Today we added sun glasses, a sun hat and with the breeze coming in from the open windows and doors she truly believes she is at the beach. Now if she starts hauling in sand from the sandbox the beach will be shut down, but until then I will play along and dream I too am at my favorite beach, Sanibel Island.

So what if we take the bus?

Today after school Ryan and I were watching our favorite Disney video's online. We were in the middle of  "A Model Day at Disney'' when Ryan looked up at me with his big brown eyes and said "If we take the bus and not the airplane can we live there forever?'' Oh, how I wish it was that easy.

Please check out our favorite video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyZfIlxwsfI

goal for the week is to attempt to insert pictures and video's on the blog.