Day 4

Breakfast:
Cereal (dry for D and E or with coconut milk T)
zucchini or banana muffins (mom and dad)

Lunch:
peanut butter sandwiches (D and E) or Noodles (T), grapes, snap peas, snickerdoodle
couscous and Gardein Orange Chikn (mom and dad)

Dinner:
Baked Potatoes with Daiya cheese and broccoli
Spinach and lettuce salad

snacks: triscuits and wheat thin crackers, tortilla chips, apples, grapes

Today was the first day we had to pack lunches and it went off really well.  Lunch was totally normal for the kids, sandwiches and fruits and veggies.  T has access to a microwave at school so he had some noodles.  The kids were fine with not eating the school's processed and animal-filled lunches, like they normally do.  T's typical school lunch is cheese pizza and the other two eat a lot of that as well, along with Chicken Breast Sandwiches, Bosco Sticks (cheesy bread sticks) and mostly processed, white flour and cheese dishes with a carton of chocolate milk.  They always tell me they will eat the fresh fruit offered but come home with excuses about how it was slimy or gone.

Mom had school from 5-8 so she threw some big potatoes in the oven before she left and that worked like a charm to get the family fed with minimal effort.  They all liked it and ate a bunch.  I should add that our kids do not normally do potatoes (they must be the last living kids that don't eat mashed potatoes!) so they had to stretch outside their comfort zone, even though it was a pretty basic food. We were all really proud of ourselves.

One of the kids had a terrible tummy ache tonite and I think the increase in produce created some uncomfortable bloating.  We are really pushing drinking at least 8-10 glasses of water to try to alleviate that.

 Zucchini muffins and Banana muffins

Grocery trip last night: beans, crackers, cereals, breads and frozen meatless stuff at Target came to $112.49 and we had to make another trip to Vitamin Cottage for vegan sour cream, cream cheese and popcorn (we are kind of popcorn snobs) and that was about $22.  Our grocery bill for the month of January (we use mint.com so, unfortunately, I know it to the penny) was...this is so embarrassing: $1048 and that does not include $472 of restaurants and fast food.  So, yes...we are definitely going to save some cold, hard cash this month.