Sweet Saturday

Our youngest is also in sports. He just wrapped up his first ever soccer season, scoring the Defensive Player of the Year spot! If you have a hyper child that seems to never run out of energy, let me tell you, soccer is AMAZING. Our youngest is so full of energy that sometimes he even tells me that he 'doesn't know how to sleep'. Soccer is so fast paced for the little's and so much back and forth, that they run all their energy out and mom gets an extra hour while they nap afterwards! Our youngest always has games on Saturday mornings, and it seems the younger they are, the earlier the games are. So, there is no sleeping in on Saturdays for us, unless you consider 7 a.m. sleeping in!

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This is our little Soccer guy, photo credit to gowanphotography.com, the best photographer that we know! With soccer ending that means that basketball is starting up and although our Saturdays are free for a moment, soon they will be filled with early morning basketball games for this cutie.

With sports, also comes snacks. There will be a time, even if you really don't want to, that you are picked to bring snacks for after the game. This can be super stressful when you are paycheck to paycheck and you just scraped up everything you could find to pay for the child to play the sport.

There is no need to worry about it though. We were lucky to not have any allergies on our team, so we could basically bring anything. I'm not calling any names, but one week we had a mom (or dad) throw in extra Halloween candy! Hopefully you get on a team like that! Luckily all of the mom's on our team had multiple children and were over all the perfect, cutesy snacks that first time moms have to have. Trust me- Its not worth it- don't spend your extra time making a perfect snack for the little's that are just going to  tear into their bags and start munching away. They really don't care. Sometimes you just have to slow down and think "Will this cause my child to be in counseling one day?" if the answer is No- then really, really don't sweat it.

So here are our favorite go to ideas that are simple and affordable for even the tightest budget.

Water Bottles with a drink mix taped to it
juice boxes
capri-sun's

Pretzels                            

Chips
Goldfish

Oranges (although I had one mom complain they are too sticky)
Grapes (and I had another complain that we need to cut them up for our 4 year olds)
Bananas (again with the sticky)


So what's best about all of these options are that they are sold in bulk. You could purchase a giant box of goldfish, pour them into little baggies and save yourself a little money. Usually buying these items in the individual packages will cost more- especially since you already have the baggies at home. If not- Dollar Tree has them for cheap! So- when your at the store- just look for bulk items, its a plus if you have left overs to serve as snack throughout the week to your own crew.