A School Update Complete With Food And Football

First week of college....

His room is a wreck and I'm not sure if he is studying, sleeping, or praying for the Lord to return.  

This picture just says it all...books and papers everywhere, his cleats, a football, a couple of disc golf discs, and his brother's chest of bionicals.  I just love it all in a sappy momma sort of way.  

So with 4 of my people gone for a good portion of the day, I'm working on making snacks and portable foods that transport well and are not high maintenance with refrigeration and re-heating.  And  because of ease, I know I will include plenty of pre-packaged foods and sandwiches but I want to be creative and as healthy as I can with the time and money I have.  So this week included both...   

For week one I did Cheezits, pretzels, sandwiches, cheese and crackers, chocolate protein bars, and cookies.  I flash froze the cookies and protein bars then wrapped them in twos.  

This recipe is perfect in every way.  Easy, delicious, and freezes well.   I got this from Six Sisters and modified it a bit.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• ¾ cup sugar
• ¾ cup light brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
• 1 cups milk chocolate chips

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. In a large mixing bowl, beat together butter, sugar and brown sugar until creamy. Add eggs and vanilla and beat until smooth.
3. In a separate bowl, stir together baking soda, salt and flour. Add flour mixture to the wet ingredients and mix until combined.
4. Fold in oatmeal and chocolate chips.
5. Drop rounded tablespoons of dough onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper. Bake 10-12 minutes, or until golden brown.
6. Makes 60 cookies.

This week I made bean and cheese burritos, summer sausage and cheese, and Lane made muffins and more cookies.  I'm experimenting with some things to see what will work best for them at school.  I also bought them new water bottles that clip on their backpacks.

Grandma pitched in with some boxes of pop tarts.  And it's now a collective effort to make sure our college students don't starve to death. 

LB is doing great at the school.  As a matter of fact, she was offered a JOB!!  She will be the assistant to the tech guy and will work around her school schedule.  This was a big unexpected surprise blessing.  Lance asked her to help him one morning with a simple project and the next thing she knew he and the principal asked her if she'd be interested in doing it for pay.  She explained that she really knew nothing about computers, and his response was, "Well now you can learn."

We are grateful for this new opportunity for her.

Back at home, school is great.
ZBoy has gone from this pencil grasp....

To this......

So much better in a short amount of time.

He's also experimenting with all kinds of new words he's learning in his Wordly Wise.  His favorite word at the moment is "unfortunate".  Problem is that he has no idea how to use it so he just interjects it as any sort of random adjective.  Like..... We bought a new unfortunate bowl at the unfortunate garage sale yesterday.  

And of course with the start of the school year comes FOOTBALL!!  

Oh Tigers, how I've missed you.  

This year we have boys playing 5th, 6th, and 8th grade.  Tomorrow kicks off the first real game of the season.  I've made a list of game necessities including snacks, chairs, drinks, snacks, umbrellas, and all manner of snacks.  And some money in case we need different snacks.  

Jes' #6 was taken so he got the next best thing.  His brother's #3.  SWOON!!!

Tomorrow I get to watch this new KICKER in action (!) and help out with his team's pre-game meal.  

And I couldn't be more thrilled.