Daddy's Birthday!

Tomorrow is Molly's Daddy's Birthday!  HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DADDY!!!!  We had a great weekend of celebrations with friends and family that included some scrumptious goodies and lots of laughs.  Some of the best things in life are these little get togethers.  The worlds' problems stop for those few moments when you are doubled over with laughter after a funny story that  a friend tells.

Tomorrow we will have a small celebration since it is Daddy's real birthday but Mondays are usually pretty busy at our house.  Sundays are too and Daddy was at church for most of the day today at a class for catechists.  The good thing about that is that he picked up a couple of hoagies (or sub sandwiches) on his way out.  Our youth group does this as a fundraiser and they are hard to pass up because they are so delicious. You'll see just below.

Our main entree is part of an Italian hoagie.  It's freshly baked bread with fantastic meats and cheeses.  Molly can eat an entire foot long sub by herself on some days.  We're hoping that this fills her up enough.

Our vegetable side is yellow pepper slices with Trader Joe's sun-dried tomato hummus.  We would probably put the peppers on the sandwich but Molly really enjoys dipping them in hummus.  This sun-dried tomato hummus is a little sweet from the tomatoes and had a fantastic basil flavor.

Our fruit side is a fresh plum.  This is paying homage to the sugarplum fairies of the Nutcracker Suite.  We've been listening to as much Christmas music as we can and the girls are always twirling around to the Dance of the Sugarplum Fairies.

Finally, our dairy/dessert is strawberry yogurt.  Molly asked for a twist so we switched it up a little bit and went with the strawberry instead of the regular vanilla.

Pizza Monday

I've mentioned before that Molly's school serves pizza on Mondays so I've decided to jump on that trend this Monday.  We have some left-over pizza from Daddy's Birthday Dinner tonight and I figured that Molly will fit right in with everyone else by having pizza too.  The biggest difference between Molly's lunch and the school cafeteria lunch is that Molly's is portioned for a child, it includes vegetables that are not dripping in fatty dressing, fruit that is not sitting in heavy syrup and a dessert that isn't as big as her head.  At school, they serve Papa John's pizza with government cheese added to it, salad that is soaked in dressing, fruit in sugar laden heavy syrup and a large hot pretzel. Then, they have cookies for sale that are bigger than a salad plate.
I understand that kids like rewards and fun foods but it's all about portion control.  I'm not the Mom that will only give her children ultra healthy food at all times.  Yes, I do try to give my kids a variety of healthy foods but I too like pizza and cookies now and then.

Our main entrée is cheese pizza from Little Caesars.  Today is Molly's Daddy's Birthday and as part of our celebrations, we picked up some pizza.  Cold leftover pizza is really delicious, as noted in our previous post called Cold Pizza.

Our vegetable side is cucumbers.  We sliced these kind of thick so that they give Molly a nice crunch.  Plus, they have a lot of water in them that will help combat the saltiness of the pizza.

Our fruit side is a Clementine.  One of those little Christmastime gems that are a huge favorite in our house.  Just the smell of them can perk you up!

Finally, our dessert is an anise pizzelle that Molly's Daddy made.  These are light and crispy with a delicate sweet flavor.  Definitely a cookie that most anyone will enjoy.