Snack Attack

Lots of people knock Pinterest. I get it. It's the definition of overwhelming. Plus, it's all coming at you like "why don't you make ALL of your food from scratch?" or better yet, "why don't you learn how to grow all of your food and then use it to make meals from scratch?". I have thousands of pins that involve anything from teaching your four year old algebra to redecorating your whole house for $100. I'm exaggerating, but there's a good chance those pins actually exist. It can be "intense in ten cities" as Seth would say.

BUT, I love me some Pinterest. I can't help it. When the day came where it was simply a source of help for me and not a source of jealousy or feelings of not measuring up I then realized how freaking amazing it is. I pin and pin and pin. Then, one day I suddenly remember something in the heat of the moment, look it up on my phone, and DO IT. That's right. I do my pins.

The trick is organization. You have to know how to find something quick or the whole deal is useless. I spent some time reorganizing one day and thought I would lose my mind. Looking back it was the best decision because now I am a Pinterest master.

The other trick was being very clear about my choices. Am I ever really going to do this pin?

Probably not (even though I really want to). I'm okay with having tons of pins that are dream big kind of things. As long as I'm being productive too. That being said, I created a few boards that make the choices clear as day for me.

1) DONE IT - Pins I have done with comments. Currently I have 77 pins on this board (out of over 3,000 pins total). I realize that's not the best percentage of completed pins, but I don't care. I refer back to this page a lot!

2) RECIPES I TRIED AND LOVED - This one is so clutch. I am not a cook, but I am a fantastic recipe follower. There are a whopping 37 pins here. However, I have made some of those recipes so many times I don't have to look them up anymore. That's a big deal for me.

3) TO ACTUALLY DO IN THE NEXT MONTH - This one is tricky. I totally don't do these within the month, but that's okay too. I go through this board once a month and prioritize things I want to get done. This way I am weeding out the dreamworld pins AND accomplishing something.

That last board leads me to the reason for this post!

At the start of summer I knew I had to have a plan for food. We had big goals of hitting up every playground in and around Atlanta. Add in the pool, the zoo, the Atlanta Botanical Gardens, the Imagine It! Children's Museum, and the Georgia Aquarium and I saw way too much fast food in my future. I hate fast food with a burning passion. I just feel like I know too much about it and I can't do it. Of course, I break down once in a while because Chick-Fil-A is so taunting. Anyway, I needed a way to ensure that all three of us ate normal food on the go which can be SO HARD. Seriously, now's the time for someone with a crap ton of money to create a drive through facility that sells organic veggie trays, yogurt, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. A girl can dream.

In thinking about how to best arm us with great food on the go, I remembered a pin! It linked to a blog called Little Penelope Lane and this post. Funny how her post is basically the same as this one!

I went to Costco, Lila and I bagged up the lot of food, and off we went. It was magical. I used the baggies for snacks and for parts of meals too because they were so accessible, portioned, and yummy.

Today was round two of shopping and bagging. Evie and Lila did this while I made lunch. As you can see, I didn't really need to make lunch.

Now an entire drawer of my refrigerator is filled with snack bags. Plus, both girls can grab a stool, open the drawer, and grab a snack whenever they want. The first few days they snacked all day, but the newness wore off.

I also have a "pantry" snack basket with pouches, granola bars, crackers, and baggies of trail mix.

I used some of the ideas from the actual blog post, but I tried to cater it to items that I know my girls will eat. Here's the rundown of what we did if you are curious.

Apples (prebagged from Costco)
Blueberries
Grapes
Cherry tomatoes
Cheese squares
Carrots with individual size hummus (Costco)
Olives
Red, green, yellow, orange pepper slices
Snap peas
Boiled eggs