Spinach and Smoothies

I will admit I'm not always the best example on eating nutritious food. I would be happy to eat cereal for every breakfast, peanut butter and jelly for every lunch, and honestly- cereal again for every dinner. I can blame my dad for that. When my mom goes out of town now she doesn't even bother to leave meals for him, she just stocks up the cereal shelf and the milk.
So last Wednesday when Taylor met us at Ethan's soccer game after work and then announced right after the game that he was way behind on BAR studying and was going to just head right back to work to study, I thought "there's no way I'm cooking a meal if it's just for the boys and me".
So off we headed to home. I'm proud to say we bypassed McDonalds although my plan was just to cook a frozen pizza when we got home. I was surprised when I opened up the freezer to grab one out and Ethan announced "let's have chicken nuggets and spinach!" He said this in all seriousness. And while chicken nuggets may not be the best for them, it's protein. The spinach he was requesting is really Stouffer's spinach souffle- just spinach, eggs, and milk according to the ingredients. We first tried these out as part of Taylor's southbeach diet and while they're more pricey than just canned vegetables, they're on par with fresh vegis and....
MY KIDS LOVE THEM!!! Literally Isaac would eat the entire box himself if I let him.
Here's the evidence. That's his 3rd plateful by the way.

Not all of it makes it into his mouth of course but he loves feeding himself.

And here's Ethan's plate as evidence. So if you ever need your kids to eat some vegis, try these- just wait for the good sales!

It has been interesting to have a second child and see how different they are. Ethan literally would not touch sweets until he was almost 2 and fruits were the same. He finally agreed to eat grapes and watermelon last summer and we added bananas and apples over the winter- but that's all! No berries, no oranges, nothing! Isaac never had those issues and is happy to each peaches and other fruits as well as any sugar in sight.

So I was surprised when we got back from graduation where they'd spent the weekend with my mother and Ethan asked me to make him a smoothie. Apparently she told him it was a milkshake- which he loves and so he agreed to try it and got hooked.

Can you believe it? He still won't eat other fruits but he loves smoothies. All we put in them is 1 cup of juice (orange, apple, pineapple-whatever), 1 cup of vanilla yogurt, and another cup of any kind of frozen fruit, sometimes a banana too. That's it- no extra sugar so it's pretty healthy.

Even Isaac loves them. Of course the straws help.

Thanks mom! Now if you could just convince him to eat the crusts on his sandwiches!