And the winner of the losers is....

Have you ever wondered which is better for you? Skittles, Reese's Pieces or M&Ms? Well, I guess I have candy on the brain cause I just sat and figured it out and want to share my findings with the world.

I found this helpful video that backs up my label reading methods, minus some details like how high fructose corn syrup is the most evil of all. Though sugar is bad, very bad for you, I prefer it to artificial sweeteners, with the exception of Xylitol and Stevia, which rock. I'm pretty sure the others give you cancer. Hydrogenated anything is bad. Based on this criteria here's my findings, since I can't make a table on blogger, I made the findings for Skittles in RED, Reese's in ORANGE, and M&Ms in BLUE:

Ingredients in order of naughtiness:
Sugar: 47g, 27g, 23g
Fat: 7g, 6g, 2.5g
Calories: 250, 220, 210
Sodium: 80, 25, 10

In addition to the above findings, I had to look at the list of ingredients to made an educated decision as to which was the healthiest. The sugar content in Skittles is so astronomical that I had to drop them out of the race completely. The fact that they are also stick to your teeth so badly points to their need of complete eradication from the face of the Earth, except that we all love them so much.

The final two. The first ingredient for Reese's was sugar, and the first for M&M's was chocolate which contained sugar then sugar was the next ingredient, so I figured they're about the same (the grams listed backs this up). The protein from the nuts in Reese's is a bonus, but so is the milk in the chocolatey M&Ms. It came down to the fact that M&M's contained less than 1% of corn syrup and Reese's listed less than 2% of it in their ingredients. They basically tied since Reese's has 5g of protein and M&Ms had 2g, but M&Ms, I think, are slightly better for you*.

I confess my bias is for the Reese's. I was rooting for them all along. We have a candy dish we keep in the laundry room, I'm not sure how it got there. It's always filled with M&Ms. We used to bribe Z to use the potty with them. We gave up on that, resigned to have the first college student in diapers someday. He gets them for helping with the laundry now. I don't really like M&Ms. Never have. I eat a few when I walk by though as I'm nearly always hungry when I'm nursing. I always wish they were Reese's Pieces. Now that I've done my study, I know for a fact that it's not much worse at all to have Reese's in the bowl....except that it is, because I'd eat them all during my laundry helper's nap time.

*findings are relative and not approved by the FDA

Trading character for land

"Bittersweet," a friend recently described the sale of her house this way and there is no better compound word to describe it. The lady who postponed the sale of our house for two weeks signed a paper today and suddenly it's done. Here's some pictures of some of the original character of the house that I'll miss the most, followed closely by my kitchen with heated tiles. {sniff, sniff!}

What a gift to have gotten to spend nine years in this lovely home! If we could have bought the parking lot next door and made it into a yard, we'd have stayed here forever. We had four teenage girls come through this home, bought two hairless terrier puppies and birthed two children who've known no other home. I'm excited to see what plans God has in store for us at the next house and pray that the buyers are blessed by this home as we have been.

"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord.
Plans to prosper you and not to harm you,
plans to give you a hope and a future."
Jeremiah 29:11

Who Screams for Ice Cream?

WE DO!!! Here's a couple of ways to have fun with ice cream this summer!
Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes!

Wrap colorful ice cream cones with foil and place in muffin tin. Prepare a cake mix and fill halfway with batter. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. Let cool completely....

...then top with icing and add sprinkles! You can also fill cones less full,
bake, cool and add ice cream on top instead of icing.
I just used icing and they were a hit at Z's Summer program he goes to on Wednesdays.

Homemade Ice Cream!

Speaking of which, I learned a really cool trick at his Whoop it up, Wednesdays program! Get this, you can make homemade ice cream...ready? IN A BAG! I love it! Here's what we gave the kids to make it:

Ingredients:
1 c. half and half
3 T. sugar
1 T. vanilla
6 T. table salt
Gallon bag, half full of ice

Yup, you just add the salt to the ice bag, then put the first three ingredients in a quart sized bag, zip it, throw it in the bag of ice and get shakin'! I've heard the baggie of cream mixture can be put in a coffee can full of ice and salt and kicked around, rolled down a hill, etc. Ours needed shook for 7 minutes. This was so much fun to make and tasted so very good! I paid for it later. I get hypnotized by homemade ice cream and forget that I'm lactose intolerant.

Housing Update...
It comes down to this. We signed the papers on Friday to sell our house. The buyer signed on Saturday. The woman the buyer is not yet divorced from, however, has yet to sign her paper. Turns out we MUST have her signature before our closing is final. She held out to get more alimony, he's given her everything she's asked for. So, we're praying she doesn't ask for more and hold up the closing any longer. We were supposed to close on June 30th! She was supposed to sign today, but hasn't yet....it's 1:45pm. I'll keep you posted.

In other, more happy news, I wrote an article on homeschooling for Tuscmom.com and it was posted today on their site! Click here to read it!

Finally, a little clip of our Juju. Notice how she opens her mouth to get me to do the same! She is a little parrot and was recently mimicking the goats we heard at a farm! She sings and dances to music anytime she hears it and just cut her first top tooth. Thank heavens for teething tablets!