toddler standing in front of the starts of his thankful tree

holidays, life

Halloween is behind us and just like that we are thrown into the next round of holidays. Thanksgiving and Christmas can be hard when it comes to food allergies. For us, Christmas Eve is the most stressful as it involves a huge family gathering with a lot of unsafe food. Ollie has always been totally fine, but it’s just the one where I feel a little more on edge. None the less, it’s a favorite memory of mine as a child and we will make sure it can safely be the same for Ollie. During a sometimes crazy and stressful holiday season, I love this

planning for our weekly grocery budget

meal plan

We’re on week two of our $100 grocery challenge. I’m trying to get our grocery budget to a more reasonable amount. This isn’t easy to do when buying mainly organic with allergy-friendly specialty products mixed in. I touched on this during week 1, but getting our grocery budget more under control takes a serious commitment to planning. My command center on its own simply isn’t enough. I’ve started writing everything out in a notebook with approximate prices next to each item. Adding the prices helps me see how far off I am and lets me know what, if any extras I can add in. This

allergy-friendly energy bites

recipes

A few weeks ago, a fellow preschool mom reached out as she was making energy bites for shared snack. On top of being really appreciative of the communication, I was intrigued with the recipe she found. It was very easy to make “Ollie friendly.” Even so, our rule at preschool is that Ollie doesn’t have any homemade shared snacks. It’s far too risky with manufacturing and labeling practices here in the US and cross-contamination risk from other kitchens. Parents have a list of safe, prepackaged options and are encouraged to let us know in advance if they’re bringing in something homemade so we can prepare

allergy-friendly crockpot meals are a money and time saver

recipes

Fall is officially here. There’s snow on the mountains and our heat is on. For us, that means the crockpot will be out more. We use our crockpot year round, but in the cooler months, I find it is out nearly all the time. Here are my five favorite allergy-friendly crockpot meals. whole chicken This one is so easy. And multi-purpose, which is the main reason it’s an allergy-friendly crockpot favorite. Did you know a lot of boxed broths have sunflower oil in them? I didn’t until Ollie. I love cooking a whole chicken in the crockpot and making broth after. It’s so easy. We

spinach muffins are an easy and healthy snack

recipes

I’m always looking for ways to get more vegetables in all of our diets. As an infant, Ollie LOVED veggies. His favorite food was “squishy carrots.” We’ve never stopped offering veggies, but he’s becoming less of a fan. One thing he’s a sure-fire fan of? Muffins. That’s where these spinach muffins come into play. These spinach muffins go by a variety of names too: hulk muffins, green monster muffins, green machine muffins. For us, that doesn’t actually make a difference. Ollie LOVES these, no fun name needed. If your child needs a little more convincing to try spinach muffins, get as creative as you need