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.

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