Chores are a big deal in our house and the kitchen is no exception. I know a lot of people are scared of having their kids help in the kitchen. Hot stove, sharp knives, garbage disposal, mixer!!! I get it. The kitchen can be a dangerous place.

The problem is we are doing a disservice to our kids by not giving them any responsibility in the kitchen. Part of teaching them what healthy living looks like includes being exposed to all the stages it takes to eat healthy. Ideally this would include planting and growing the food, but for those like myself who don’t live on a self sustaining homestead it can at least start with going to the grocery store (which I already talked about) or preparing meals and cleaning up in the kitchen.

Teaching kitchen safety and supervising is important, but don’t panic! If you let your child swim, go to parks, play sports, or ride in a car then you can stand the risk that is involved in letting them help in the kitchen.

Here is a list of ideas for kitchen chores for the age brackets that my three older kids fall in.

Age 3-5

• Put clean silverware away
• Help set the table
• Help bring in light groceries
• Throw away trash
• Stir ingredients while cooking
• Dump measured ingredients while cooking

Age 6-8

• Wipe down table and counters
• Sweep/mop
• Set the table
• Help bring in and put away groceries
• Help with baking in cooking
• Help rinse/dry dishes
• Empty trash and reline can
• Get snacks or drinks
• Make sandwiches

Age 9-11

• Do dishes/load dishwasher
• Put away dishes
• Pour drinks
• Scramble eggs
• Make simple meal like hotdogs
• Cut fruit while supervised
• Put away left overs
• Make coffee *Sorry, I have no shame. I taught my 9 year old to how to grind beans and use a french press.*

Those are just some ideas. They are meant to build on each other so the last age group can do all of the above.

Now here are a few tips to help implement the chores.

Keep your expectations realistic

I have very low expectations for toddlers and preschoolers. The point of chores at that stage in life is NOT for them to help you, but for you to help them so that they can help themselves (and you) when they are more capable. There are some toddler prodigies who can efficiently wipe down a table or do dishes, but it’s rare.

Don’t expect the same thing from each kid

Z loves helping me prepare meals and he’s mature and strong enough to take the trash outside and bring groceries inside. He is not so great however at dishes or wiping down counters. His sister is so much more thorough when it comes to these tasks. I want them both to have opportunity to learn each chore for later in life, but I mostly try to find their strengths and use that to everyone’s advantage.

Allow Yourself to have boundaries

Often times having kids help in the kitchen is more stressful than doing it yourself, not to mention more messy. In some cases it is a sacrifice to allow your kids to try certain tasks so that they can learn and be empowered. However, in real life and the real world there are times that I have to kick my kids out of the kitchen! I actually like not having an open floor plan for this reason. When I am having guests over I want to focus and I need to do it myself. So don’t feel like a horrible mom if you don’t need any helpers for certain jobs.

One final recommendation. If you want ideas to help your kids become more responsible and less entitled read Cleaning House by Kay Wills Wyma. I wrote a full review HERE. It is an excellent resource for moms, in my opinion.

I hope this post has been helpful in terms of knowing where to begin with kids in the kitchen. For more “kitcheny” stuff check out my series going on all month long here at Messy Mom.

Now that I’ve addressed just how horrible sugar is let’s talk about CUPCAKES! No, seriously, I hope I have stressed how I am not little miss organic health nut (although kudos if you are!).

Cupcakes are such a fun option for birthdays. Many times I bake them in lieu of a cake. For SJ’s 5th birthday which was a tea party theme, I got this pink cardboard cupcake stand on clearance and as you’ll soon see I have really gotten my use out of it.

The cupcakes had the most amazing light and fluffy frosting. I’ve wanted to share the recipe for a long time. It was also fun to make the display more enchanting by adding fake flowers with butterflies all around it.

The same cupcake stand was used for Ezie’s 3 little pigs party. I never thought of being able to use a pink for a boy party, but for 3 Little Pigs it totally worked!

Most recently we spray painted the pink cupcake stand black to use for Ezie’s batman party which worked out great.

The next birthday party will be Elle’s bumble bee birthday so I’ll be using the black cupcake stand again. I’m not quite sure what kind of cupcakes I’ll be baking yet, but I still have two weeks to think about it. Let me know if you have any suggestions!

I’ll admit all of these cupcakes were made from a store bought cake mix, but it’s the toppings that vary. Here are the directions for all three.

White Cloud Icing 

(from the kitchen of Melissa Griffiths at Blessthismessplease.com )

Pig Cupcakes

For little pig cupcakes all you need is pink frosting topped with pink wafer cookies cut into triangles for the ears, candy eyes (or you can just use chocolate chips), and a marshmallow cut in half with mini chocolate chips for the nose. Really easy, but stinking adorable.

Dye-Free Cupcakes

These are just regular old cupcakes where I used a cake mix and a can of frosting. What is special about them is that they are free of artificial dyes, preservatives, bleach, or flavors. I never realized how hard it was to find dye free foods until I started looking into it! I almost gave up until I found Pillsbury Purely Simples.

They have multiple options available at most grocery stores and they are not expensive. If you are ever looking for something more natural without baking from scratch I would definitely recommend it.

That’s all I’ve got for now as far as cupcakes, but for more kitchen related information check out the rest of my series Captain of the Kitchen going on all month long here at messymom.com. Thanks for stopping by!

There are many ways to make shopping with small children a pleasant experience for both a mom and her children.

For example, if you have an infant you can put the carseat on top. Just kidding. That’s not recommended. What was I thinking!?

Well, you could put the carseat in the cart. Although you may not have space for your groceries, but who needs groceries anyway. Oh yeah, I do. That’s why I’m here.

Anyway, once your baby is old enough you can just put the baby in the seat. Except I think these buckles were designed by Flat Stanley because for real they never fit my kids.

For multiple children you can simply put the baby in the seat, the middle aged children in the car, and the oldest can push. I can assure you that everyone will co-opera… HEY! WHAT ARE DOING!? GET YOUR BOTTOM BACK IN THAT CAR THIS SECOND YOUNG LADY!

Who am I kidding, the best way to make grocery shopping pleasant for both mom and children is to use Walmart’s online grocery pickup service. Trust me on this one. I have been using it for months and it’s changed my life. There are so many reasons you will love it. I narrowed it down to 10.

1. It will save you tons of time! One’s you start shopping online it saves your favorites. Most items I buy over and over so I just have to go through and click everything on my favorites list. Boom. Done.

2. You will save so much money. Not only from not falling for impulse buys, but also because it’s easier to compare the price per unit when you can see everything conveniently listed side-by-side.

3. They do substitutions. And if they do have to substitute something they’ll give you the bigger package at no extra cost to you! Oh yeah and they label it and they also label the fragile stuff. It’s awesome.

4. You CAN use your reusable bags if you want. This is me and my trunk full of reusable grocery bags after making a Walmart run.

5. You can bring your kids and live to tell about it. Photographic evidence here.

6. You can edit your order. If you already submitted your list, but realized you forgot something you can add it.

7. You can easily track your spending and shopping history This helps with budgeting, keeping track of your “inventory”, or if you ever need to return something. It’s all right there.

8. You can check and approve your produce. I’ve always been impressed with the produce they pick. On my account they know I prefer hard avocados and somewhat green bananas. If however you don’t like what they selected you don’t have to accept it and you will be refunded.

9. You can get $10 off for signing up under me. Even if you only do it once it’s worth it to get $10 right?

10. Also I get $10 off when you sign up using my link and you can do the same thing with your friends and save even more.

The way it works in case anyone is curious is you select a time for pickup. They are set up in one hour intervals so it’s pretty flexible.

Then they call you when it’s ready and you call them when you arrive. 

They bring all your groceries out and go over your order with you incase you aren’t satisfied. Then they load it up in your trunk all for FREE.

I know it sounds too good to be true. I am still pinching myself, but it is true. You really should give it a try.

You and your children will thank me.

Let’s start with a good laugh, shall we?

There are many different ways to go about putting together the family menu, but out of all the ones I have tried this is the strategy that has stuck with me. I love it for the many reasons listed below. Maybe you’ll love it too. Are you ready to hear what it is?

I use the calendar on my mac to schedule meals usually a week at a time. Really that’s all there is to it. You could use any electronic calendar. I know that it doesn’t sound very revolutionary, but it has been for me. Here is why it works better than other methods.

1. I have access to the menu at home and on the go because it’s on the phone and the computer (thanks to icloud).This comes in handy from time to time when I am away from home and forgot what I had lined up for dinner.

2. I can include links to the recipes.

It’s so easy to find the meal for that night and then click to see exactly what ingredients to add to the grocery list or what the recipe is when I need it.

99% of my recipes are online, but if it’s in a cook book you could just make a note of which book and what page.

3. It helps me brain storm. I like to change it up sometimes by looking through pinterest, but if I wanted to I could just repeat a previous weeks menu or even a previous months menu! I am often times in a rut so I just look through old menus and get inspired.

If you are looking for something in particular that you know you’ve cooked before use the search bar. Or you could just start typing and let the computer’s predictive text fill in the blank for you choosing from items you have added before.

Having all of my previous meal plans right there at my finger tips is extremely helpful.

4. I am not forced to stick to the plan. One of my favorite parts of this method is that I can easily shuffle the plan around by just dragging and dropping the menu items to a different day. So if we have an event I had forgotten about I can swap the menu with a simple click. If we ended up eating out at the last minute I can drag that meal to next week (assuming the ingredients aren’t about to expire). It’s great to have a plan, but life does happen and the ical menu plan makes it easy to adjust.

5. I can remember when I cooked something. This is seriously such a huge game changer for me.

How long has it been since I made pork chops? Oh 5 weeks? Time to put that on the menu again.

Or how about

How old are these leftovers? It’s right there on the menu. Oh yeah, I made this on Tuesday it’s still good!

I always forget when I made something and I love leftovers so the calendar menu plan has rescued me on many occasions.

6. I can see what is happening that week and plan accordingly. I have our family calendar color coded so for example family activities is orange and weekly menu is brown.*

Planning everything on the same calendar is convenient because if I see that I have a busy day scheduled I know not to plan an extravagant meal. I know I don’t need to cook dinner on the 12th because there is a spaghetti fundraiser at the church or if I see I have a busy afternoon on the 3rd it’s a perfect crock pot day. This is critical for meal planning success. Also, you get to see your day at a glance in the morning including what’s for dinner!

That’s pretty much it. You could get even more technical and use the alert option to notify you if you need to thaw something or start the crock pot. You could also use the repeat button if you wanted to make the same thing every other week or for example schedule tacos every Tuesday. Lastly you could use the notes option to remember whether or not you even liked it or if you modified something. The possibilities are endless!!!

That’s my Apple Calendar menu planning technique. In the future I would really love to record a screen cast because it would be easier to explain it that way, but for now I hope this little tutorial is helpful.

And for more kitchen tips check out my 31 day series Captain of the Kitchen here at messy mom.com

One way I’ve gotten my kid’s excited about fruit is by making fruit creations like this Bert and Ernie Z and I made out of mostly an orange and banana when he was 5.

I also have a tradition of making a theme fruit pizza for birthday parties. Here are just a few that I have created over the years.

*Updated to add this “E” fruit pizza for Ezie’s 7th birthday

Fruit Pizza

Today’s post is a part of a 31 day series called Captain of the Kitchen. To catch up on all the other posts you can find the table of contents HERE.

Elle turns 11 months old today, which means she is entirely to close to turning one.

And since she is pretty much a big girl now she is eating almost anything she can get her hands on. The girl will eat clumps of dirt if you when I let her. Her favorite things are berries, eggs, and pizza crust. I still have yet to introduce her to sweets. The no sweets rule has nothing to with the sugar project I talked about last week by the way. The first dessert comes on the first birthday. It’s how we’ve done it with all four kids. Well, with the exception of what my relatives have snuck to them behind my back. Don’t even get me started.

With my first baby I introduced rice cereal with breast milk and did everything by the book. Then I ventured out with baby number two and made my own pureed avocado for her first meal.

I did the same thing with Ezie and Elle, but at that point I was tired of trying to force the baby food. They usually didn’t like it, so it felt more natural to allow them to pick up soft solid foods and experiment with eating on their own.

Even though it seemed like allowing my baby to eat solids right from the get go was going smoothly, I wanted to be sure it was safe and healthy. So I did some research. It turns out there is a name for skipping baby food and going straight to table food. It’s called baby led weaning.

This sounded like a funny name to me because I am still breastfeeding. It really has nothing to do with weaning. I guess the name comes from England where weaning means something different.

To be clear, I am not anti-babyfood, so this isn’t some crunchy mom propaganda. It’s just that when you think about it, baby food hasn’t always been around. It wasn’t until the the 1920’s that jarred baby food was manufactured. This was back when mom’s were encouraged to introduce solids and supplements as early as 4 weeks. Now that it is recommended to wait until 6 months it is totally appropriate and normal for baby to want to grab, bite, and suck on table food.

So that’s the direction we’ve taken. Elle has had jars of baby food here and there because we get them free from WIC. She has always preferred solid food though. When she was 6 and 7 month old she started with cut up avocados, bananas, soft carrots, tiny bits of chicken and even sweet peppers to chew on when teething.

Sometimes I use the mesh bag feeder, but they are such a pain to clean and then I loose pieces, so usually I just give her the food. I am always monitoring her to make sure she doesn’t choke, but it’s incredible what babies can gnaw on with little to no teeth.

Definitely don’t take my advice without doing your own research and talking to your pediatrician. Different babies have different allergies and abilities. However, if you are curious about Baby Led Weaning and want to know more, check out babyjourney.net which has tons of information. Also if you want to know the benefits of starting with avocado check out my post about it here.

Lastly, this is day 10 of a 31 day series called Captain of the Kitchen. For the rest of the series find the table of contents here.

Out of all of 31 posts for this month this will be the hardest for me to write. This one is personal.

It’s not that I am ashamed of my journey, but my biggest fear is that I will cause someone else to be ashamed of theirs, and I don’t want that at all! I also hesitate to talk about weight because that’s not the point. I have come a long way from being someone who fought a hard battle with insecurity (read This is Me) and I want more than anything to be a positive example to my daughters.

For me that means loving the skin I am in. I almost never weigh myself because I used to obsess over the number on the scale and I’ve been set free. If you are in that situation where you feel shame about your body or you feel like a failure when it comes to being healthy, I have been there and I would love to encourage you. I welcome any messages at messymom at gmail.com. Don’t hesitate to reach out to me if you need prayer or just want someone to confide in.

Now for a little of my back story.

She eats like a bird. That’s what they would say when I was a little girl or even as a teenager still ordering from the kids menu. Food was food back then. I ate when I was hungry. I loved a variety of foods and thought of them sparingly. My mom would buy little snacks for me to hide in my room because being the only girl in my family with two older brothers they would devour in minutes what took me weeks to nibble my way through. When it came to food, I paced myself for no reason other than I was a natural grazer.

Then I became an adult and got married and felt physical and emotional stress on levels that I had never known before. My husband J and I went through marital struggles that absolutely wrecked me. I was dealing with feelings of betrayal and jealously so I started eating my way through the confusion. I ate alone and I ate in secret.

I remember one time we got a box of girl scout cookies from a girl in the neighborhood and I ate them all in one day, but I didn’t want J to know. So I had to go back and buy another box and eat a couple more to give the illusion that it was the same box. After work I would often buy a large milk shake from Braum’s (shout out to Texas) and watch endless hours of TV by myself drinking my milk shake sinking deeper into depression. I started gaining weight and feeling really bad about it. So I would go on some crash diet and then quit and feel worse. Then I would binge one more time in preparation for the strict  regimen I was going to start up.

It was one of the darkest seasons of my life. The smaller I felt inside the larger I got on the outside. Again, I don’t want this to be about weight because I was never that big. I just wasn’t healthy. I happen to be thin when I am taking care of myself and at that point I was being self destructive.

I hate using this cliche “Before” photo because it’s the epitome of unflattering, but the only other photos I have of that season in my life (40 pounds over my typical weight) are on discs and my new computer doesn’t have a disc drive. Anyway…

In 2005 I went through a christian counseling program and worked through everything that was tormenting me. Praise God for the serious healing and deep spiritual cleansing that took place in my heart about my marriage and my hatred towards men in general (talk about unhealthy!). Around that same time I started reading the Maker’s Diet and working part time on a farm. I milked goats and fed animals. I got to have some milk, cheese, and eggs as a perk. My life wasn’t perfect, but I had found forgiveness. I also really enjoyed working on the farm and eating whole foods. That is when the pounds began to come off. I know that sounds like such a hippy dippy solution, but it worked for me. Two years later I became a mom.

Everybody’s body is different. I can’t stress that enough. Sometimes that sugar dragon inside of me tries to take control. Still, I never want to go back to yo yo dieting ever again so I try not to be too strict on myself while also keeping the focus on clean eating. I enjoy eating all kinds of food, some healthy others not so much. My budget is too small to try to eat all organic and get specialty flours and grass fed beef, but ultimately our goal is to live healthy lifestyles. 

 So that’s my story in a nutshell. I am a mess, but God’s grace is ALWAYS sufficient.

I preach a lot about moderation when I talk about sugar, but how do you introduce this concept to kids? It’s so vague. Shoot, even I have a hard time knowing where to draw the line. I don’t have an awesome answer or solution, but here is one tip that can give kids a visual and teach them the difference between healthy, foods and “sometimes foods”. It all takes place in the grocery store.

I know taking the kids to the grocery store can be a mess! I am the first one to admit it (see my post 4 Kids in a Grocery Store).

Later in this series I will be sharing my new found love obsession with online grocery pick up services. However, I still take my kids with me on occasion.

I think it’s important for them to see that food doesn’t just grow on trees. Wait, some of it does. Bad analogy. What I mean is I want them to know that a lot of work goes into planning, prepping, and feeding a family. I want them to hopefully have some appreciation for all of the steps that I take to keep them nourished and also to learn something for when the day comes that they are on their own and have to do their own grocery shopping.

The following photos are actually from a lesson I taught Z back when he was a preschooler. Isn’t he stinking adorable in that top photo? Look how much he changed and grew by the following photo four years later. Sorry, mommy rabbit trail. Back to the moderation lesson.

The concept is to allow kids to help you shop, but they have to put the healthy foods in the cart and the junk food in the small basket.

Once the junk food basket is full that’s the limit. The kids can see the difference in size between the shopping cart and the smaller basket to see how the moderation balance works.

This is also a great opportunity to discuss what makes something healthy for your body or harmful. It’s interesting to watch them evaluate which basket to put certain items in. Obviously this lesson took place BEFORE our sugar challenge. Our healthy cart is full of juice and our “sometimes” basket is loaded with foods we later banned. Next time I do this I will make the small basket specifically for processed food because after doing our sugar challenge I know realize that basket is too big to be full of junk food.

Speaking of which, this is going to vary from family to family. Some people will have mountain dew in their little basket and for us that would be a never food. The other extreme might put raisins in the sometimes food basket because they are processed. Either way the point is to start a dialogue with your kids about health and moderation.

It’s worth a shot.

This post is a part of a 31 days series called Captain of the Kitchen. For the rest of series click here.

Yesterday I shared about our challenge to cut back on the sweets in our home.

According to the American Heart Association children should limit added sugar to less than 6 teaspoons (25 grams) a day.

To put it in perspective that is half a bag of skittles. So I did a rough estimate of what I thought my kids were consuming per day. I’ll put the grams of sugar in parentheses.

Let’s say my son started his morning with a cup of watered down 100% apple juice (12) and a chocolate chip eggo waffle (5), then for lunch had one more cup of juice (12) and a peanut butter and jelly (7) with a side of grapes, and go-gurt (10). Then at dinner he had mac and cheese (3) with broccoli and two Oreo cookies(7) for dessert.

That would equal 56 grams of sugar or 14 teaspoons and I was being really conservative with that number. When you calculate snacks or second helpings of food or drink it’s probably a lot more. No wonder the average American child eats 21 teaspoons of sugar a day (84 grams). Most children are consuming more than triple the recommended amount of sugar.

There isn’t one magic amount that works for all sizes of kids ages 4 to 8. So I am not about to start measuring food and counting teaspoons, but when I realized just how bad it had gotten with my family back in 2014 I knew I needed to do something.

When it came to a healthy diet we weren’t even in the right ball park or zip code for that matter. That was until we started our sugar project and began to tackle one offender per month.

We started with the biggest culprit, JUICE (24 g). Even though we were drinking the 100% natural, no added anything, fruit in a bottle and diluting it, it didn’t matter. The more I learned about this sugar epidemic, the more I became aware that the good stuff in it doesn’t outweigh all the sugar that our bodies absorb the exact same as it would if it were sugar from a milk shake.  Dr. Jason Gill is one of the many researchers to talk about the misconceptions of fruit juice being a healthy alternative to soda. He says “One glass of fruit juice contains substantially more sugar than one piece of fruit; in addition, much of the goodness in fruit – fiber, for example – is not found in fruit juice, or is there in far smaller amounts,”

So we replaced juice with water and it was difficult at first, but it didn’t take long before it wasn’t an issue at all.

In February we replaced packaged chocolate chip muffins and cookies (17 g)with home made treats. When I have to make them myself we eat them far less often!

In March we eliminated chocolate milk (24 g) and I think at this point my kids were ready to eliminate me! They still get to have it when their mémé or grandma comes to town and treats them to a happy meal though.

In April I cut out fruit snacks (10 g). I am not proud of the fact that I bribe my kids, but it happens. I like to call fruit snacks hush money. Truth be told I still get a box of fruit snacks on rare occasions when I have a parent teacher meeting that I know they have to quietly sit through. For the most part though we’ve replaced all fruit snacks with actual fruit.

Sugary cereals (12 g) bit the dust in May. We still eat cereal, but nothing with over 9 grams of sugar per serving.

Eggos/poptarts (19 g)were a real doozy for us. My kids love them and their so easy, but SO bad for you. In it’s place I sometimes make homemade waffles or pancakes which can then be refrigerated and heated for convenience during the week. Or more often I just scramble a few eggs. Everyone once in a while I cave and buy some smores pop tarts. It’s a guilty pleasure of mine believe it or not, but that happens maybe four times a year.

My kids used to love go-gurt (10 g), but they are loaded with sugar. So in July, bye bye go-gurt. Instead we eat slices or cubes of cheese on the go.

By August I was feeling like we were pretty much were we needed to be. I cut out granola bars (7 g) but at this point we weren’t really eating them anyway.

In September I decided to ditch Break and Bake cookies (7 g). This was my vice. I’d be completely lying if I said I haven’t had any break and bake cookies in two years, but it’s a special treat and not a habit now.

After the sugar project our average day of meals look more like this

A bowl of quaker oats cereal for breakfast (9 g), cheese tortilla with fruit and water for lunch, a mini ice-cream cone after school (11 g), water, chicken nuggets, carrots, and watermelon for dinner.

That knocks it down to 20 grams a day, less than half of what they were eating before. I feel like it’s a very doable alternative that has so far been successful for our family of 6. Now if I could just get my four year old to eat green beans we’d be all set.

This post is a part of my series Captain of the Kitchen. You can catch up on all the other 5 posts here if you are interested.

As a special needs mom with 4 kids, convenience plays a huge role in my daily routine. I had about a three year block of time (2012-2015) that I had boxed up our cloth diapers and reusable bags and start feeding the kids foods with ingredient lists that looked like an essay written in a foreign language.

I was in survival mode at the time for very justifiable reasons. My natural preferences were put on hold and I don’t feel like I let anyone down by the choices I made. I share this because there is so much unwarranted pressure that is thrown on moms on a daily basis and it’s not okay.

My two cents? Trust your gut. You do what you feel is best for your family and then slam the door on all the unsolicited advice. That’s what has worked best for me anyway.

Soon after the storms of that chaotic season passed and the clouds lifted I realized my kids were eating way too much junk food. It was time to make some serious changes.

I knew cutting everything cold turkey would probably not be wise. My guess was that someone would crack under the unrealistic demands and run away. Chances are I might be that someone. So I decided to just tackle one vice at a time. Here were our top ten sugary offenders.

1. Juice

2. Chocolate chip muffins and cookies

3. Chocolate milk

4. Fruit snacks

5. Sugary cereals

6. Egos/poptarts

7. Gogurt

8. Granola bars

9. Break and bake cookies

10. Jelly*

We completely eliminated one thing a month and never reintroduced them into our home. Now, this excludes parties, going to a friends house, or a happy meal grandma bought. I am not afraid to let them have it as a treat, but I’m not buying this stuff and keeping it in stock anymore.

The project began January 2015 and we ended in September 2015 and haven’t looked back for almost two years. Ultimately I tried replacing each item with something healthy rather than some junk food loop hole. What I thought was impossible (like how could my kids ever forgive me if I take away juice for good) ended up completely manageable. Meltdowns are inevitable and I still have a 3 year old who hates all things healthy, but I think he’ll get there eventually. My older two went through similar picky eating stages.

Tomorrow I’ll explain the how and why of our little 10 month food project. I’ll also include details about the shocking amounts of sugar American children are consuming on a daily basis.

This post is part of the series “Captain of the Kitchen” where I spend 31 days blogging about how I run this ship called The Kitchen. Click the image to see more.

*I included Jelly, but I actually didn’t illuminate that until recently.