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227 Healthy Snacks eBook ~ Win One for You and One for a Friend!

December 23, 2015 by Laura 114 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links which won’t change your price but will share some commission.

As Christmas approaches, I thought it would be fun to give away some of our most popular shop items. Then I decided it would be even more fun if you had a chance to win one for you and one for a friend! We began with Learn Your Letters (and Numbers), Learn to Serve Complete Curriculum Kits. Be sure to enter for a chance to win copies for you and a friend here.

Today, we’re giving away copies of 227 Healthy Snacks eBook!

227 Healthy Snacks 2

 

I think you’ll love these snack ideas and recipes as much as my family does.

This book contains 59 pages full of 227 awesome snacking ideas. These have all become our snacking staples, and they are sure to become yours too!

  • All 227 of these snack ideas and recipes can be prepared ahead of time for easy snacking.
  • More than 200 can be prepared or mixed up in a matter of a few minutes.
  • 145 of them are naturally gluten free or are recipes that can be easily adapted to become gluten free.

And how about the 78 recipes in this book? I can’t tell you how much fun I’ve had creating new recipes for this resource! From homemade Payday candy bar knock-offs to oyster crackers to hearty cookies and bars to several varieties of crackers and so much more – you will love these simple, real food recipes. Just for fun, I’ve even perfected a homemade fruit snack (lightly sweetened with honey)!

227 Healthy Snacks

 

Read more details about 227 Healthy Snacks here.

If you’d like to win a copy of this book for yourself and for a friend, leave a comment on this post. Be sure to tell your friends about it so they can come enter too. It gives you more chances to win, assuming your friend will share one with you if she wins!

I’ll draw a random winner on Wednesday, December 30. Be watching for a post sharing the winners of these Christmas giveaways. You’ll be responsible for contacting me if your name is chosen!

Now think of a friend you’d love to bless. Leave a comment here for a chance to win copies of these books for both of you!

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!

Menu Plan for the Week

October 31, 2010 by Laura 4 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links which won’t change your price but will share some commission.

I just proof read this post and almost put myself to sleep. Either I’m really sleepy, or this is a really boring and dry post….

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My freezer foods have officially been depleted. I have been amazed at how helpful it is to have those grab and go meals prepared! Therefore, I have been amazed at how much I miss them now that they are gone. Over the next few days, I’m planning to cook a little extra so that we can have a well stocked freezer full of healthy convenience foods. I’ll show pictures of my progress once I’ve made some progress. :)

  • Mini Apple Pies
  • Turkey Sausage – made into patties
  • Whole Wheat Waffles
  • Taco Seasoning
  • Whole Wheat Tortillas (x2)
  • Applesauce Bread
  • Chicken Fried Steak Strips
  • Bean and Cheese Burritos
  • Whole Wheat Graham Crackers
  • Experiment number two on homemade poptarts!

Speaking of making progress…I bet you’re wondering how our living room is coming along! I’ve got tons of pictures to show you and will put them into a post sometime this week. 

By the way, Danielle made a great suggestion to put a link to the Recipe Parade link-up right on the top tool bar of the website. That way, if you want to reference all the great recipes linked up (86 and counting!), you’ll be able to find the post easily!! So…do you see it up there in the toolbar? Just to the right of the Links link. No, your other right.  Ah, you got it. Feel free to add your recipe links at any time!

Last week was a sad week for our church family as one of our elders died very suddenly. He was a great man and ugh…how I hurt for his family. We have company coming in tonight for the funeral. We’re so excited that they’re coming to town and will be staying with us, and so sad for the reason they are coming. I am so thankful for the Hope we have in Jesus!

Here’s what’s on our menu this week:

Sunday, October 31
Oatmeal, pears
Italian Pasta Bake, tossed salad, cream corn
Fall Party Cookout with our Small Group

Monday, November 1
Whole Wheat Waffles, blueberry syrup
Funeral dinner with our church family  (a mixture of celebration and sadness)
BBQ brisket, cream scalloped potatoes, green beans

Tuesday,  November 2
Applesauce Bread, bananas
Grilled cheese sandwiches, tomato soup, carrot sticks
Hamburgers, homemade fries, raw veggies

Wednesday, November 3
Warm Chocolate Soother, toast
Homemade corn dogs, peas, fruit-kefir smoothies
Steak fajitas with the works

Thursday, November 4
Sweet Potato Streusel Muffins, applesauce
Chicken and noodles, carrots, soft pretzels
Veggie Egg Scramble, fruit-kefir smoothies

Friday, November 5
Mini Breakfast Pizzas, oranges
Chicken Tortilla Soup, peaches
Three Cheese Garlic Chicken Pasta, tossed salad, steamed broccoli

Saturday, November 6
Giant Breakfast Cookies, apples
Cheesy Turkey Sausage Stromboli, fruit salad
Leftovers

So, was that a boring post or am I just sleepy?

I wonder if I can sneak in a nap before small group.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!

Homeschool Curriculum and Unhealthy Soccer Snacks! Podcast #2

September 30, 2010 by Laura 26 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links which won’t change your price but will share some commission.

It’s podcast time again! Matt and I are still working out some of the kinks, but overall I think we’re getting things figured out. We WILL be asking to boys to “keep it down” in the next room as we record future podcasts. You may or may not hear a little rough housing in the background.  And a bird might chirp here and there. My children I can control (usually)…birds? Not so much.

On a completely different note, and don’t ask me why I feel the need to share this with you, but ever since I lost my mom to ALS six years ago…there have been random moments when I sing or speak that I am able to HEAR her voice through mine. I think the older I get, the more I sound like her. I am her daughter after all. Occasionally at church I’ll be singing away and suddenly notice…WOW, that sounded just like Mom! And then I melt into a puddle right there in the pew because “hearing her voice” makes me miss her so much more.

That’s what happened when I listened to myself at the beginning of this podcast. Not the whole thing…just when I open with the word “Hello!” It completely took me by surprise and I immediately began weeping all over the computer right there in my headset. Whew…I was not expecting that. It’s amazing how the pain fades, yet the tears and yearning are always there. Perhaps God has given me a gift today in being able to “hear” what my mom’s voice sounded like. Yes, it is amazing really.

Thanks for letting me share that. You all are really, really great and I appreciate all of you so much. {She says, as she pauses to blow her nose again. Man, I’m weepy today.}

I really am okay.  :)  {deep breath}  In today’s podcast, I address the question of which curriculum I recommend and how in the world to keep curriculum affordable!! Also, I talk about how to handle it when our kids are handed sugary, food coloring filled snacks after events such as little league games. Isn’t that counter productive to the exercise they just participated in to keep them healthy?!

Sit back and relax…or get some dishes done while you listen. (Actually if you’d like to get some of my dishes done while I sit back and relax and we can listen together…that would be great!)

Heavenly Homemakers Podcast Two

Links refered to during the podcast:

  • Swagbucks (the online search engine that has enabled me to earn free Amazon dollars to use toward some of our homeschool curriculum)
  • Heavenly Homemakers Homeschool Curriculum Share Forum

Thanks for taking the time to read and listen to the podcast!

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!

Investing Money in Good Food

August 24, 2010 by Laura 48 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links which won’t change your price but will share some commission.

simplesteps

As our family was making our way toward a more healthy lifestyle in the beginning stages of our healthy eating journey, one of the biggest obstacles I had to work through in my brain was that I had to actually spend money on groceries. I didn’t like spending money on food. I had figured out ways to use coupons to get almost all of our food practically for free so spending money on food seemed crazy to me. 

I’ve done a complete about-face on that issue now. Not that I don’t work hard to keep our grocery spending low…I do. I work VERY hard as a matter of fact so that our family of six can eat a healthy whole-foods diet on a limited budget. But I’ve changed my way of thinking now about spending money on food. And…I’d like to encourage you to do the same as you make some simple steps toward healthy eating.

I see money spent on food as an investment. I understand now that food is meant to nourish us…not just fill a hole and satisfy hunger. I feel like when I spend money to buy top knotch food, I’m actually investing in a healthy future for my family.

I’d like to challenge your thinking just a little bit if you fall into the category of one who thinks that “you can’t afford to eat healthier”. You may not have much extra in your grocery budget, but that doesn’t mean you have to feed your family unhealthy foods. 

It does mean you may have to work a little harder to find good, whole foods. You may have to change some of your habits. You may have to cut some other unnecessary spending out of your budget. But you don’t get to cop out with excuses about not being able to afford healthy foods. (I know this first hand as our family was barely scraping by a couple of years ago, yet we did not have to compromise the quality of food we ate. We just had to be creative!)

I’ve just about come to the conclusion that eating real food costs less than eating processed food if you go about it the right way. Now, does grass fed beef and free range chicken and raw milk and organic produce generally cost more than the “regular” beef and chicken and milk and produce from the store? Sure. (Although I’ve found many ways to save on those items too which I’ll address later on in this series.)  But just hear me out on this. My boys and I did a little research one day when we were out shopping. Then we came home and did the math. We were shocked at the results we found!

The reason, by the way, that we did this little experiment is because I’m tired of people telling me that fresh produce is too expensive. So instead of giving their kids fruits and vegetables, moms (the ones complaining to me about “expensive” fruits and vegetables) fill them up on “cheaper food” like crackers and fruit snacks. I wanted to see if indeed crackers and fruit snacks were cheaper than fresh produce.

My boys and I went down the snack aisle, writing down prices and ounces of some popular snack items. Then we wrote down prices of some of our favorite fresh fruits like apples, watermelon, pineapple, bananas, oranges, peaches…

The cost for the best in-season produce averages to be around $1.00 to $1.50 per pound (or even much less in many cases). 

But check this out: 

  • The cost for a box of cheese crackers…$3.20/pound (yes, we actually calculated how much the cost was per pound!)
  • The cost for chocolate sandwich cookies with the white filling inside that you lick out and dunk in milk (yeah, you know what I’m talking about)…$3.84/pound
  • The cost for an off brand of fruit snacks…$2.56/pound
  • The cost for a box of granola bars…$4.18/pound

Now, I know this price comparison isn’t apples to apples (literally!). I recognize that you can use coupons to cut the cost of the boxes of snacks. I realize that when you pay for a watermelon, you’re paying for the rind that you cut away, so that part shouldn’t really count when you’re figuring cost per pound. Yes, I realize all of the variables that make this experiment not exact.

But I hope you kind of get the idea that when you break down the cost of processed foods (that do practically nothing to nourish us) compared to the cost of fresh produce (which do quite a bit to actually nourish us)…you aren’t really right on track if you think that buying “cheap” boxes of snacks is saving you money. Produce, if bought in season, is really quite reasonably priced. 

Alrighty…this post is getting long!! I’ll stop there and we can talk more later about all kinds of other things you can do to save money as you switch to a healthier lifestyle. There’s so much to talk about as we break down Simple Steps Toward Healthy Eating!

But do give some thought to your mind-set about spending money on food. Are you looking at it in the right way? Are you really saving money when you avoid some of the “more expensive” healthier foods and instead buy “cheaper” food?

And what about the long term effects of not eating healthy now? Will health care costs outweigh what we might be saving in groceries?

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