Change of plans

Meal plans that is!

If you've been following us for a while, you'll know that about a month ago, we decided to give the paleo diet a trial, including using the emeals paleo meal plan.

We've tried many a new recipe during the last month, some we liked, some we didn't. Technically, we only followed the paleo guidelines for one meal a day, as the breakfast and lunch menus we were using had more classic-style meals with grains included.

About 3 weeks in, Jackson started to eat less and less of the dinners, and while I know many will say, oh he won't starve himself, etc, it became a struggle to get him to eat even one bite some nights. No veggies and very little meat. He has also cut back a lot on nursing, some days not even nursing at all. Needless to say, he would need to eat something, and would usually have a small snack an hour or so after dinner. By the beginning of the fourth week, I was resorting to something I did not want to do - making a separate meal for him.

Jason and I decided to switch the emeals plan to classic and also throw some of our old stand-by's in there (tacos, spaghetti, burgers).

We do have some new favorites and a lot of different types of veggies we will be eating more often so at least our diets are more varied than ever before.

The older boys were quite adventurous when it came to eating the meals, trying at least on bite of everything served to them. Even if they didn't like something, they were very polite about it and honest about what they didn't like - too sour, too spicy, etc.

While we only gave it a few weeks, we did learn it just isn't right for us at this stage of our lives. Sometimes you just have to know when enough is enough.  The toddler has hit that stage where he wants familiarity. And there's nothing wrong with that. I just have to make sure it's healthy and decent variety.

I am still glad we decided to try the menu planning site though, as there have been many, many recipes that I would never have found or tried otherwise.

On that note, we had Italian bread pizzas tonight made with freshly shredded mozzarella and turkey pepperoni (I didn't like the pepperoni very much...). Ethan, Alex and Jackson all had cranberry-cream cheese coffee cake for breakfast. It wasn't really a huge hit, although Alex seemed to really like it. Jason took some broccoli, ham and cheese corn muffins to work. Alex took some of the muffins, yogurt in a thermos, sliced pears and water, E had a turkey and cheese on whole wheat, yogurt in a thermos, sliced pears and water, and Jackson had a pb&j on whole wheat - cut into the shape of Elmo's head! - and orange juice. Oh and I stuck a kit-kat in each of the boys' lunch bags.

We still have some candy sorting and trading to do and then they can decide if they'd like a gift card or a toy for the candy they can't have. I also picked up some dye-free (organic!) suckers and gummy bears that they like, as well as some yogurt-covered pretzels that they can trade some of the candy for. I've been thinking we will keep the m&m's, skittles, and sweet tarts to use for a gingerbread house in December. Maybe we can send some of the rest of their candy to soldiers overseas? I wouldn't even know where to start with that, though.

 I'm posting once a day for NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) and while not everything I'm writing is exciting, I hope you enjoy reading what I'm writing :)