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.

In my sidebar I link to a blogpost called My Loud Dishwasher. It’s a story of finding gratitude in unlikely places. Today’s post is a follow up. Here is an excerpt from My Loud Dishwasher–

What’s teeny, tiny, and beige all over?

Our kitchen.

It’s the kind of kitchen you would find in a camper. With a whopping total of 4 drawers, 6 cupboards, and literally two feet of counter space it would be perfect if you were a single minimalist living in the 1980’s.

It’s okay though, because one thing it does have is a dishwasher. It’s clunky, old and it is LOUD. The volume is like having a monster truck rally in our kitchen. And I am totally fine with that!

When I hear that dishwasher spraying and swishing, heating and drying, I am just reminded of all the dishes I am not washing by hand. Sometimes when the rhythm of the noise is just right I swear it is to the tune of the opening chorus from Les Miserables…

A few months after expressing my love for the loud clunky dishwasher we moved and our rental house has a dishwasher that has never worked. For the past two years I have been back to washing my dishes by hand and you know what? It’s not so bad. There are actually a few recent studies that cite the benefits of washing dishes by hand. One that claims it reduces the risk of allergies. Sometimes our ultra sterile environment actually does more harm than good and according to this research such is the case with dish washers.

Also, when I wrote about my loud dishwasher I had several people respond with how they actually enjoyed washing dishes by hand and found it therapeutic. Then I guess I shouldn’t be surprised to hear that washing dishes by hand has been proven to reduce stress!

I am not always this annoyingly optimistic by the way, but sometimes you just embrace where you’re at. I would love to have a dishwasher again someday. I have 4 kids and we eat at home a lot, so I don’t think that’s too much to ask for. Another thing I like about dishwashers is that with the newer energy star  machines it actually conserves more water than washing dishes by hand.* I am all about that.

For now though I am choosing to focus on the good and hopefully my story is an encouragement for others in a season of transition.

We can choose to see the glass as half full, even if it was a glass washed by hand.

* I am editing this post to add that using a dishwasher isn’t always better for the environment. It depends on the type of washer, how many dishes you have to wash etc. But for the amount of dishes I wash I would probably save water with a dishwasher. *

In 2015 I did a guest post for The Humbled Homemaker called “Small Space Living for Big Families“.

 Can I go ahead and brag for a minute? Because on one of my regular run of the mill posts I would be absolutely thrilled if it was shared 10 times. This post was shared over 36,000 times. Not 3,000. Not 6,000. Not views, but shares! Needless to say I was pretty happy about this accomplishment.

I received emails from all over the country and even some international readers that were reaching out from their own small spaces. I’ve never had anything get that much traction or response online before or since then.

So what is it about small space living that connected with so many people? I am guessing it’s because there are a lot of people that can relate and there are many different reasons for this. Maybe you live in a crowded city like Chicago where pretty much everyone lives in a small apartment. Or maybe you live in a tiny house because it’s cool, or you’re a minimalist, or because it’s eco-friendly. Then there are those like myself that are living small because it’s what you can afford at this point in life. I have since moved from 800 square feet to a whopping 1,000 plus a basement. For a family of 6 this is still exceptionally small.

That being said, I have a lot of experience prepping, cooking, and entertaining from a small kitchen. So I’ve compiled a list of tips that can help if you feel like your cooking is confined.

• Think vertically 

Use every bit of space to put extra shelves or hooks, and hang and stack as much as you can! When we lived in the apartment we had this awkward space above the sink that wasn’t being used. So we bought a random office bin at a thrift store and repurposed it. I love our hanging fruit basket. It moved to our new kitchen with us too.

• Open shelving

Not having to have space to open up cupboard doors will definitely allow your kitchen to feel more open and less crowded.

• Less appliances

When we sold our house in Texas the realtor gave us the 3 appliances rule. We were only allowed to have 3 things on the counter in order to make the kitchen appear bigger. It could be a coffee pot, mixer, and toaster, or we could have a microwave, blender, and a crock pot. Whatever combination we wanted was fine as long as we only had three appliances on the counter. I followed through with this rule and ended up loving the extra space and cleaner look. While I don’t always apply this rule at home these days (and my kitchen is far from looking clean) I do recommend deciding what your must haves are and simplifying wherever it’s possible.

For us, we use a french press instead of a coffee maker, we have a hand held mixer instead of a stand mixer, and we don’t own a microwave. One day I plan to have all of these things back in my life, but for now I truly enjoy the simplicity of it!

• Think outside of the floor plan

In our old kitchen (all of the above photos are from the old kitchen) we extended the shelves into the dining room so that we could have counters and storage. We moved our foldable dining room table into the living room.

In this kitchen we have “extra space” and so we made part of it into my office.

Don’t limit your floor plan to what your contractors had in mind! Our daughter currently sleeps in what was originally a dining room. There is a sliding door between her room and the kitchen, but we just never open it. In our apartment there was no pantry so we used the closet that held the hot water heater. It’s amazing how an open mind will really open up your space.
For more ideas on small space living be sure to check out my series Lots of Hope in a Little Home.

And for more kitchen tips and ideas follow this series Captain of the Kitchen for the whole month of October.

Welcome to Day 3 of Captain of the Kitchen where I will be blogging from the kitchen (my computer is literally in my kitchen) and about the kitchen for 31 days. Before we dive in allow me to introduce you to the gang.

I am Natalie, the messy mom. I am the captain and the kitchen is my ship. I decide what we eat, how much we need, how much I’ll spend, how to get the littles to actually consume it etc.

J is my first mate. The other day he was watching a football game and I asked if he could come help me in the kitchen. He said “Sure as soon as this is over” Several hours later he was watching a different game and I had to ask if he meant the football game or football season. Bu-dum-chhh. In all seriousness J is very helpful in the kitchen and sometimes his culinary skills outshine mine.

Now for a run-through of our 4 little mateys.

Child Number One: Z

Age: 9 years old.

Kitchen Skills: He is really helpful when it comes to preparing meals or carrying groceries. He also likes to turn the kitchen into his science laboratory, which I welcome until the sink is overflowing with suds from one of his concoctions!

Child Number Two: SJ

Age 6.

Kitchen Skills: She is my tidy one. She likes to keep things in order I frequently catch her taking out the trash when it is full and then lining the can all without anyone asking her to do so. One time she was wiping down the kitchen counter and had to go to the bathroom. She left her rag and spray and with a stern look she told me. “Don’t finish this. I will be right back” I said “sweetie I have been accused of a lot of things, but finishing someones chore is not one of them.

Child Number Three: Ezie

Age: 4

Kitchen Skills: He can put his dirty dishes in the sink and is notorious for finding hidden junk food. One time with a guilty look he said I did not eat a cookie. I knew something was up because I didn’t ask him or even think that he had! So all I had to do was give him that mom look from under my eye brows and wait. Then he changed his statement to “I did not eat all the cookies”.

Child Number Four: Elle

Age: 10 Months

Kitchen Skills: You know how the family dog is sometimes even more efficient than a Roomba vacuum? Yeah, well that’s pretty much Elle. I am not proud of this fact, but if it falls on the floor it goes in her mouth.

That’s all of us. It’s a pretty big crowd for  small kitchen, but we make it work. Tomorrow I’ll give some tips about how to make the most of a small kitchen. See you then.

Welcome to Day 2 of Captain of the Kitchen. For the next 31 days I will be sharing some of the strategies I have implemented in the kitchen as a wife of 15 years and a mother of 4. I am no expert, but hopefully some of this word salad will be helpful.

This is kind of a rough outline that I plan to go by and it could be subject to change. The official table of contents will be on my landing page and I will add to it each day.

1.Introduction

2. Table of contents

3. The Captain, the ship, and the crew

4. Small Kitchens

5. Washing Dishes By Hand

6. Menu planning

7. Walmart online pickup

8.  Grocery Shopping

9.  Hanging fruit basket

10. My “Diet”

11.  Meal prep

12.  Cutting back sugar for the kids

13.  American Kid’s Sugar Consumption

14.  What a detox feels like and how to get through it

15.   My weekly food prep

16.   Teaching Kids  Moderation

18.    Low Carb Lunch on the Go

19.    Peanut Free Kid’s Lunches

20.   Baby Led Weaning and Feeding

21.    Hard Boiled Eggs

22.   Top ten meat recipes (I’ve memorized)

23.    My personal Grocery Budget

24.    Saving Money on Groceries

25.    Making Groceries Last Longer

26.    WIC

27.     Our Favorite Water Bottles and Drinks We Enjoy

28.     Appropriate Chores for Kids in the Kitchen

29.     Cupcakes

30.     Fruit Pizza

31.      Closing

I am so excited to be embarking on this adventure again! I thoroughly enjoyed the other two times I participated in write 31 days. My first year was 2013 when I did the series Lots of Hope in a Little Home . I shared about how our family of five lived in less than 800 square feet.

The other series was called Teachable Parenting which was focused on biblical parenting from the inside out.

Both 31 days series had a major impact on my blog and challenged me as a writer. I made relationships through Write 31 days that I’ve maintained three years later and I still have people reach out about some of what I had written in those blog posts.

I would have loved to continue the tradition last year and planned to, but in the end I took the month of October off because I was nearly 9 months pregnant.

I don’t regret that decision. I needed the time to rest up. Going from three kids to four has been a wild ride, literally in the sense that my 4th baby was actually born in the van on the way to the hospital and if you’re in for a rabbit trail you can read about that here.

Anyway, I am so pumped about blogging for 31 days again with so many other incredible writers. I am calling this year’s series “Captain of the Kitchen”.

I rarely write about anything related to food or cooking, mostly because I have never been a natural in the kitchen. My mother who is a true foodie tried to impart her gift of culinary mastery to me, but it never stuck.

I got married in 2000 and as a newly wed trying to be a home maker was a rude awakening. One night I literally caught my kitchen on fire when I was making dinner. I had to call 911 for the firemen to come and put it out! I am happy to report that no one was injured and aside from smoke damage the  reprecutions of that learning experience were minimal. It’s been 15 years since that fiasco and I’ve come a long way honey.

I’ll give the full table of contents page tomorrow, but just to give you a tiny taste of what’s to come this month I’ll be talking about how I run this ship that we call the kitchen. Not that it’s anything fancy, but I am going to let you all in on how I meal plan, grocery shop, budget, feed 4 kids, and my attempts at cutting back on sugar for the whole family.

I look forward to being stretched in many ways this month as I tackle this kitchen topic and I hope you’ll join in on the mess. If you stopped by from 31 days leave a comment I would love to swing by your blog and read about your topic too!

See you tomorrow friends.

Welcome to Captain of the Kitchen.

For the next 31 days I will be sharing some of the strategies I have implemented in the kitchen as a wife of 15 years and a mother of 4. I am no expert, but hopefully some of this word salad will be helpful. I’ll post links to each day below as they are published.

Day 1. Introduction 

Day 2. Schedule

Day 3. The Captain & The Crew

Day 4. Tips for Small Kitchens 

Day 5. My Quiet Dish Washing

Day 6. Top 10 Sugar Offenders We Banned From Our Home

Day 7. How Much Sugar Do Most Kids Eat

Day 8. Teaching Kids Moderation

Day 9. My Own Personal Struggle With Food

Day 10. Baby Led Weaning or Feeding 

Day 11. Messy Mom’s Fruit Pizza Specialty

Day 12. Messy Mom’s Meal Planning

Day 13. Walmart Online Grocery Pickup Service

Day 14. Fun and Easy Cupcakes

Day 15. Kids Helping in the Kitchen

Day 16. Eggs Are Hard to Boil 

Day. 17. Meal Prep

Day 18. Low Carb Lunch on the Go

Day 19. Peanut free kids lunches

Day 20. A week of Meat

Day 21. Favorite Recipes from Pinterest

Day 22. Organization in the Kitchen

Day 23. How Much Should You Spend on Groceries

Day 24. Ways to Save Money on Groceries 

Day 25. Make Your Groceries Last Longer 

Day 26. What is WIC? 

Day 27. Making the Grocery Rounds

Day 28. Soda Alternative

Day 29. Composting Without a Bin

Day 30. Nature or Man-Made- Free Printable

Day 31. The Captain of Your Kitchen

Please let me know if you have any questions or want to connect. I am a friendly captain! 

Me trying to get my kid sleep:

What is wrong with this child!? Why won’t he go to sleep? Is this some sort of punishment for something I did in the past!? I can’t take it anymore! I am about ready to quit. That’s it. GO TO BED NOWWWWW! 

Me when I check in an hour later to find the child sound asleep in bed:

 Just look at how peaceful he is. Oh. Was there ever a more precious angelic being to ever walk the earth? His hair is so soft and those beautiful poochie woochie lips. I could stare at this baby forever. I love being a mom. 

My kids have never gone to bed easily, so bedtime can get intense. Although, right now I’ve got it pretty easy because my older two go to bed on their own for the most part, and the baby still sleeps a lot anyway. That just leaves Ezie. My 35 pound ball of energy. He will not go to sleep unless I lay down with him and sometimes he still fights it even when I snuggle up on the lower mattress of the boy’s bunk bed.

About a week ago I had an idea to help him relax. I spontaneously made up a lullaby and so far it’s stuck.

The concept stemmed from an old record that I used to go to sleep to you as a kid. Yes, you read that right it was a record and no, I was not born in the 1950s. We just happened to have a record player and one of the records was called The Sleepy Locust.

The story starts out really upbeat. It’s about a farmer building a shed and filling the shed with corn. There is a banjo playing and sound affects of hammering. It conjures up a busy scene with a bright blue sky and a red barn. You envision the farmer locking all of his harvest in the barn to be stored up for the winter.

Then the sun goes down and you hear a swarm of locust on the hunt for food. At first the locust can’t get into the barn because it’s sealed up tight. Then one locust finds  a tiny hole just big enough for one single locust to get one grain of corn.

At this point any child listening is intrigued. Then another locust goes in grabs a grain of corn and comes out. Then another locust goes in. Grabs a grain of corn and comes out. You hear this line “Then another locust went in got a grain of corn and went out.” Over and over and the narrator’s voice gradually gets slower and softer with bigger pauses in-between. Add to that the hum of the locust in background you would be lucky to last 5 minutes into the story. It was like audible sleepy dust.

For my lullaby I thought about how the kids are always ready to doze off after a day at the beach. On those nights they sleep hard. So I tried to come up with a story line that would evoke those kinds of feelings. It’s really repetitive to make it even sleepier and if he doesn’t fall asleep the last line naturally leads back into the first. Here is the song.

Watch the waves crash on the shore. In and out. 

In and out, in and out, in and out. 

Ezie digs in the hot sand. Digs and digs. 

Digs and digs, digs and digs, digs and digs. 

Ezie climbs onto mommy’s lap. Yawns and yawns.

Yawns and yawns, yawns and yawns, yawns and yawns. 

Daddy takes Ezie to the car. The day is done. 

The day is done, the day is done, the day is done. 

Daddy drives with the headlights on. Drives and Drives.

Drives and drives, drives, and drives, drives and drives.

Ezie drifts off to sleep that night. Sleeps and sleeps.

Sleeps and sleeps, sleeps and sleeps, sleeps and sleeps. 

Ezie dreams of the beach that night. Dreams and dreams. 

Dreams and dreams, dreams and dreams, dreams and dreams. 

Has anyone noticed the trend in “celebratory days” lately? Everything from national smores day to siblings day and beyond.

A couple years ago we had a wall calendar that recognized national croissant day and my six-year-old asked if we were going to be doing anything special for that holiday. I tried to break it to him gently that there would be no croissant traditions or events at our house on January 30th.

Come to find out (thanks to my online library account) today is national ebook day.

I’m actually all about old musty books. I like to turning pages and flipping through something tangible. I like to smell the story behind the story. Perhaps it’s a book that’s being cracked open for the first time or maybe it’s lived a very long life and gone through many hands with stories of their own. You don’t get that with ebooks. I also love going to libraries or bookstores and walking down rows and rows of books as well as keeping our own books in stock at home. There is a saying A house without books is like a house without windows.

Why do I mention this on national ebook day? Because, truth be told I am equally as obsessed with e-books and mostly audiobooks. Sorry nostalgia, convenience wins. As a mother of 4 it’s almost the only option I have.

You already know I love the library. I’ve been a member of several different ones in different states and all of them have had e-libraries. So chances are yours does too! The advantage here is that you get to choose from countless e-books that you can look through at your leisure and download it immediately. I talked about this in my review of Cleaning House. So this is my shout out to ebooks.

I’m not actually reading any the e-books right now. But I did just finish three fascinating audiobooks that I was really REALLLY into. Keep in mind they’re all controversial and very much faith based, but they were also riveting, fascinating, and encouraging.

First was Unplanned: The Dramatic True Story of a Former Planned Parenthood Leader’s Eye-Opening Journey across the Life Line by Abby Johnson

I’ve recommended this book to so many people already. It’s definitely not a lighthearted, fun-to-read book. So be prepared. It is however very passionate, informative and eye-opening. I already have a heart for the unborn and I do feel like being a voice for those babies is a part of my calling. This book only awakened that even more.

Next I stumbled upon With My Eyes Wide Open: Miracles & Mistakes on My Way Back to KoRn by Brian “Head” Welch.

I had no idea what to expect with this book, which is a memoir written by one of the musicians of the heavy metal band KoRn. I probably don’t look like the type that would be a KoRn fan, and I’m not. I went to a few hard core shows back in the day though and I was totally into this book. I felt like I was sitting down with Brian hearing his story first hand and sometimes I felt like I should be talking back like it was a conversation we were having. It was just so sincere and heartfelt. It made me want to see what other books he had written.

So then I checked out Save Me from Myself: How I Found God, Quit Korn, Kicked Drugs, and Lived to Tell My Story

 I wasn’t as excited about this book, but it was still really good. At this point I felt like I knew Brian (yeah, I am a weirdo). And since this book proceeded the one I had just finished it was mostly about his days of drugs, depression, abuse, and being suicidal. It was hard to hear all that he had walked through before He found Christ.

Also, he didn’t read this one. It was written by Brian Welch, read by Tom Brokaw.

Just kidding! It wasn’t read by Brokaw, but that’s what it felt like.  Allow me to slip in a quick public service announcement for readers and authors. I have found audio books are always better when read by the author. Especially if you’re Tina Fey, Brian Head Welch or Jen Hatmaker. It makes a big difference. So I recommend reading Save Me From Myself and listening to With My Eyes Wide Open.

Right now I am actually reading a printed book called Life creative : Inspiration for Today’s Renaissance Mom by Wendy Speake & Kelli Stuart and it’s been just what I needed.

I recommend it for all mothers who feel like they have any creative bones in their body. It’s very inspiring and I’ll be sure to write all about about that when I finish it.

Happy Ebook Day everybody!