Healthy after school snacks

So you've got them the eat good breakfast, lunch, and school snack but what about the dreaded after school to pre-dinner hours? For the most part I have an open all-you-can-eat policy with fruit or vegetables. occasionally their sweet tooth kicks in and they can have a piece of leftover Halloween/birthday party candy if they got "green" days at school. Popcorn, veggie straws, goldfish, etc the usual toddler snacks in most pantrys. However, what if I could turn their "treats" into something healthier? I was lucky enough to win some give-aways recently and the monkeys are having a blast trying out the new goodies. A big thank you to my fellow bloggers for the goodies

Skeeter Snacks makes nut-free cookies. They are not your average "I can totally taste the healthy in there" type snacks. They come in 4 flavors Chocolate, Chocolate chunk, golden oatmeal, and Skeeter doodle. I won some samples over at Keeley McGuire's Allergy Free Fun Lunch boxes. The monkeys chowed down! Chocolate and chocolate chunk were scarfed down over Christmas break, sadly I missed taking pictures but trust me they loved them. I grabbed the golden oatmeal and they were delicious. This week they got the Skeeter doodles and they loved them as well. I asked which was their favorite and they said chocolate or chocolate HA!.

In this snack:

• Skeeter Doodle cookies which comes in
• Green Smoothie from 30 Day Green Smoothie Challenge
• Gala apple
• Banana

Next we tried Chobani Champions greek yogurt for kids. We have tried a few kinds of yogurts over the years and the monkeys never really took to it, never clarifying if it was taste or texture. But thanks to A Boy and His Lunch we were able to try something new. They come in 4 flavors Banana Honey, Orange Vanilla, Chocolate Chunk, and Very Berry. we are excited to try them all but the first ones up are Very Berry which we have made into popsicles and they love them! I tried sending a popsicle to school, but it thawed despite the ice pack and though still cold it didn't hold this shape so Green Monkey licked the stick and wouldn't eat it. However once he got home he and Blue monkey fought over them wanted seconds.

This lunch was originally posted on our first week back to school after Christmas break, I bought some in anticipation of our give-away getting delivered patience is not my virtue, you can see it here.
In this lunch:

• Chobani Champions Very Berry popsicle
• PB&J Incredible Hulk sandwich with white cheddar on top
• Grape hands with cheese fingernails
• PB celery

After the awesome shipment arrived we had more popsicles. I love saying yes when they ask for ice cream.

They are so excited to try all the flavors they can't wait for one set to be eaten before requesting another flavors.

Lastly we tried a new healthier candy called Unreal it is candy unjunked. It's carried by our Target so that made it easy to pick some up and do some serious scientific research...a taste test.  We tried 4 out of the 5 varieties - Unreal 41:compare to M&Ms, Unreal 5:compare to Milky Way, Unreal 8:compare to Snickers and Unreal 77:compare to Reese PB cups. There's also Unreal 54:compare to Peanut M&Ms but we didn't try that one.

These Hungry Hungry Hippos loved playing to win Unreal 41 and gobbled them up.

Next we tried Unreal 77 and it was just as delicious as a Reeses, they gave it 2 thumbs up.

Then they tried Unreal 5, definitely a good substitute for a Milky Way, 2 more thumbs up.

Last but not least was Unreal 8 and it was as yummy as a Snickers, 2 more thumbs up.

They wanted more of course but we saved some for later. They are priced about the same as the other brands and better as far as sweet treats are concerned.

None of these reviews were paid for, or asked for, they are just some new snacks we've tried and liked and wanted to share our opinions on.