Recipe (and product) Roundup, Birthday edition

It was my little one's birthday this week, so we used this cake recipe for his Ninja Turtle cake.

                  King Arthur Tender White Cake  Everyone said it was yummy!  It didn't last as long as a store-                     bought cake mix, but that's not a problem!  We had plenty for party day and the next day, which                   his real birthday, so it was perfect timing.  I will post party pics later so you can see the end                           results.

We also found some natural white vanilla chocolate to make candy Ninja Turtle suckers, and we used these colorings to make the colors:

                 Natural powdered food coloring   It took very little powder to color the chocolate, and the                            taste was minimal.  Both of our kids were fine with it.  The colors weren't as bright as the                              artificially colored candy you can melt for suckers, but that was okay.   At least no one's behavior                  was affected from it!

 I dyed the icing for the cake with these:  Natural Liquid Food Coloring   Again, the colors were more subdued, but tasted fine and were safer for my kiddos.  I bought a small pack to start, as I wasn't sure how they would work.

We always have muffins on birthday morning so that we can put candles in them and blow them out.  Since our boxed/packaged muffins are no longer allowed, we tried these:
                   Chocolate chip muffins from BreadBeckers website
                   Cinnamon roll muffins

We also found some chocolate chip cookies from Immaculate Baking Company that have no artificial colors and flavors.  Those were my little one's school birthday treat for snacks.  I didn't want to send snacks because I am "over" how many snacks they serve the kiddos at school, but Fridays are snack day anyway, so at least I knew there would be something safe for him.  :/

Now that we have been on the plan for quite a while (7 weeks I think??), we are going to be working to reduce our sugar intake as well.  These first few weeks we've been trying to increase compliance and decrease how much the kids felt "left out" by our food choices, so we have been modifying their "junk food favorites."  Now we are going to work on the sugar issue. I  am not going to completely eliminate it, but we are going to work to reduce it.  It's just not the healthiest way to go.

My one "cave" to convenience has been these Tyson nuggets, which claim to be 100% natural. I know there are better choices, but for the occasional "oh no, we got home really late and have 30 minutes to fix and eat dinner" nights, these have been a life and sanity saver.