Eat This, Read That

My guys went skiing yesterday and my role in getting them out the door for these ski trips is to pack them lots and lots of food. Yesterday's big bag o' food contained: apples, Zing bars, banana blueberry muffins, egg salad, cookies & power balls. Powerballs you ask? Yes, powerballs -- you should make them the next time you're looking for a delicious, easily portable, pretty healthy, protein-packed snack for your family.

Powerballs - makes 10
(you can find so many versions of these online, this is my latest incarnation)
1 c. peanut butter
1/2 c. honey
1 tbsp chia seeds
1/3 c. raisins
1/3 c. cocoa nibs
1/2 c. shredded unsweetened coconut
Mix ingredients 1-5 together in a bowl until well combined. With wet hands, form into ten walnut-sized balls and roll in shredded coconut. Let them firm up in fridge for at least 2 hours before eating.

And, if you want to read you children a good book while you're waiting for those powerballs to be ready, I recommend The Apple-Pip Princess by Jane Ray -- great story, beautiful illustrations and a nice medium length. Yes, I have boys and I read them princess stories, and if you have boys I think you should, too!

The Candy Shop is Open!

With this in (chocolatey) hand, we made candy today! We're beginning our second week of Spring Break this week and I thought some candy-making would be a good activity.

We made the chocolate mint meltaways and they are delicious. They were fun, easy and totally kid-friendly to make (well, if you hold a loose definition of kid-friendly, as I do) and then end result is cute and fun and good. They would make great gifts (teachers, I'm looking at you!) and I am totally ready to make more recipes from this adorable cookbook (which, itself, would make a great gift--maybe the book & some candy together?).

In addition to making candy, we read a bunch of stories from From Sea to Shining Sea (not to be confused with this book, of similar name - yikes!). I love this book as it has stories from all different parts of American history, and from all the different cultures that make up America. After the stories and the candy-making, we went to drop off some food for the Oregon Food Bank and listened to my new Neil Diamond CD on the way. When the song America came on, Ezra asked what it was about and I got to have a brief (I force myself to keep them brief!) teaching moment about religious freedom, immigration to America and our good fortune at being born here. In addition to feeling thankful for being born in a free country, I felt really thankful today to be able to be at home with my beautiful boys.