Surviving Late Night Snack Cravings

It's the end of the night. Kids are in bed. You are ready to de-stress and relax (that is if you aren't cleaning up everything you didn't get to during the day.

Unfortunately, most stress cravings are not a salad with light dressing. It would be great if it were. And there is nothing wrong with having one cookie and calling it good. But sometimes the cravings are there and won't go away. So here are a few things to try out.

1) Drink water instead. I've heard that sometimes when you get cravings and want to eat, sometimes it's your body telling you that you need more water. You know what you've eaten (hopefully) and know whether you really do need food or if you just want to eat for eating sake. Drink some water to fill the void.

2) Brush your teeth. Don't wait until you are getting ready for bed to brush your teeth. Do it with the kids when they are brushing theirs. I tend to think a whole lot more about whether I want to eat something at night when my teeth are freshly cleaned.

3) Find a snack that will both fill your craving and be low in calories. If you really do enjoy salad, have one in the evening. Get a lighter calorie dressing and don't pack it with tons of calories. Or have a popsicle (homemade ones will have less sugar). If you really are craving something, enjoy a little something, not a lot of something.

4) Get busy. Do some cleaning, do a craft, read a book. Do something so you don't have time to snack.

Do you have any ideas for curbing those late night snack cravings?

Yummy easy pizza roll recipe:
Start off by thawing out 9 regular rise and serve Rhodes Rolls. (I thawed mine in the microwave-30 seconds on each side). Then I combined all of them together and rolled them out into a big rectangle. Once rolled, I made 1-2 inch small cuts down the side of the rectangle-make a slit directly across from the other slit on the other side. (So its like you are cutting them into strips but skipping the middle area). Then, take a pizza sauce-you can also use a BBQ sauce, spread it all over the middle section of the rectangle. If using a BBQ sauce-cook some chicken, cut into bit sized pieces then add them to the top of the BBQ sauce. If using regular pizza sauce, add what pizza flavorings you would like, olives, pepperoni, sausage, pineapple...Top with lots of cheese, cheddar and mozzarella. Then take a piece of the dough strip from each side of the rectangle (the one directly across from the other) and tie the pieces in a knot. Do that all the way down the rectangle until it all looks like one big loaf. Put on cookie sheet and bake at 350 for 17-20 minutes. Then take a pizza cutter and separate each strip. Yummy Yummy!
                                                                                                                     Ashley

Surviving General Conference With Young Children

Surviving eight hours of General Conference with young children can be quite the task. The trick I have found is to make it fun for your kids. 
For the past 3 years I have done Conference bingo. I have bingo cards with pictures of different church topics on them. I use M&M's, Pennies, Goldfish etc for the gameboard markers. When they get a bingo, they get to eat the treats for that bingo, or keep the pennies. My kids love this and look forward to this tradition every time that Conference comes around.
Tomorrow I am going to try another idea I found. I printed out conference packets for each of my kids- they have coloring pages, mazes, dot to dots, color by number, journaling etc....I thought I would do the bingo one session and the packet for the next session.
Check out these fun sites to print your conference activities for your kids:
http://2kidsandtiredconference.blogspot.com
http://jmsmusings.blogspot.com/2008/10/reminder.html
I just love great idea's that help our children learn and grow.
Hope you get the most out of conference.