How Do I Love Thee?

Have you ever found a gadget that seems to make your life easier? I definitely have a few and need to tell you about one that I especially love. See the potatoes on the plate below? See how they look different?

These potatoes are made by using a potato ricer, which I bought at Target for around $10. Just boil potatoes, stick them in the ricer, and squeeze the handle down and you have pieces of riced potatoes, better known as "potato worms" in this family. The potatoes look like little worms and because of this the children gobble them up and ask for more. And because of the light and fluffy texture my husband and I gobble them up. The potato ricer just makes the potatoes taste better...really!

My children aren't typically picky when it comes to food (take notice of the brussel sprouts on the plate, which they love) but anything that encourages them to eat more of a healthy food is a winner in my eyes. Sometimes one must get creative in the kitchen in order to get healthy food into a child's tummy. So my potato worms are my creative way to get the kids to shovel those potatoes in. Similar to when I was a child and my mother wanted to get me to eat chicken livers so she wrapped them in bacon and baked them. Thinking I wouldn't notice what was in the bacon she set a plate before me, only to notice later that I peeled off all the bacon and left the livers on the plate. You win some and lose some. The ricer is a real winner.

As an update to my healthier eating I wanted to let everyone know that in the past two weeks of healthy eating (besides Sunday, which was a birthday feast!) I have lost three and a half pounds. It does make a difference not only in how I feel when I cut out sugar and unhealthy junk, but also in how I look. I'm actually not trying to loose weight as I am at a weight that I like and am trying to maintain but I guess it never hurts to loose a couple more pounds. And when you loose weight by changing your lifestyle it will typically stay off, as opposed to a diet which almost never works and just results in you gaining and loosing the same weight over and over.

It's sunny out this morning and may even reach 60 degrees today, before plummeting to the low 40's for the rest of the week. So I think after school the kids and I will take a long stroll around the neighborhood and enjoy this weather. They need to get their energy out anyway as they have been stuck inside the past couple rainy days and have been climbing the walls. And driving me crazy. So I think it will be a very long walk today. Have a lovely day!