The Breakfast Battle!

I am very fortunate that all four of my kids are good eaters.  By no means are they members of the clean plate club (well, one kid is!).  But the the cpc is not something that we enforce in our house or even need to.  Good eaters in our house means that they eat a variety of foods, including many fruits and vegetables, stop eating when they have had enough and they are open to trying new things.  Like all kids they have certain favorite dishes. My kids do have expensive tastes!  All the kids love shrimp & lobster. My 5 year old loves ribs, salad and salmon and my 7 year old often will order a crab cake when we are out in a restaurant!  My 5 year old often will declare that she prefers "fancy food" to "kid food".  Also, like all kids there are certain things that my kids will not touch with a 10 ft pole.  Fortunately, the things that they don't like tend not to be as healthy - pasta with cream sauce, casseroles and frozen dinners, etc.  We eat together as a family and the kids are involved in the grocery shopping and meal preparation.  We also try to get the kids out to local farms as much as possible and pick our own produce. (Loudoun County, VA has some wonderful farms!  I cannot wait for the Spring Farm Tour! Great Country Farms & Crooked Run Orchards are two of our favorites!)  This helps them to see where their food comes from and if it is something that they dug up from the ground or picked, they want to eat it!

Even though they are good eaters, we still have breakfast battles on a regular basis.  My oldest needs to be at the bus stop by 7:23am. Mornings in our house are pretty rushed and I like to do a quick and easy breakfast on week days. I do not like being a short order cook, fixing a different meal for each kid.  Oatmeal and cold cereal will only go so far in my house!  My oldest is also not a fan of "traditional" breakfast type foods - he won't eat eggs or french toast; doesn't really even like regular toast.  Some mornings his breakfast is a PBJ or Nutella sandwich!  I have found that the more creative I am with breakfast and the more things I make myself the kids like them better and will eat them!  On weekends we will make a big batch of pancakes and put them in the freezer.   I can take them out as needed and microwave for a few seconds.  This morning we had funny faces for breakfast!  My 5 year old decorated the above face herself!  I put a big plate of sliced fruit in the middle of the table and let them go at it (we also did have chocolate chips available in moderation and whip cream for hair!) I also will make mini muffins and different types of bread.  Again, I try to do several batches at once and freeze them.

What do your kids eat for breakfast?  What works in your house?

Have a great day!