What to do with candy

A few years ago, I went through a period of completely eliminating sugar. It was beneficial in ways I can't even begin to tell you in one blog post! The women in my family are prone to hypoglycemia and later in life, diabetes, and my daughter Natalie and I are particularly sensitive to sugar. However, over the last year, I have loosened up a little bit in this area. In the spirit of practicing moderation in all things, I think it's fine and even good to enjoy sweet treats! Also, the older the kids get, the more difficult it is to take control of what they receive at certain places (like at church, for holidays, etc...) and the less likely they are to forget about it once it's in the house!

So, rather than make myself crazy trying to keep sugar completely out, I decided to let it go in some ways.  Add this to the list of reasons why I'm glad we homeschool! We can eat very healthfully here at home! And, when we eat sugar, it can be on purpose, because I can make sure it's not a secret ingredient in our salad dressing, our canned fruit, our bread, etc...! We can keep only milk and water around and eat actual fruit instead of juice from concentrate!

Okay, that was a long intro into what I really wanted to share :)  This is what I did with our Halloween candy from our church party this year:

I've been trying to teach Natalie about money, so I divided up the candy into three tubs, each with a different price tag and opened Mommy's Candy Store.  Every day after lunch, we have a "10 minute tidy", then each kid gets five pennies. This is enough for two small things or one big thing. (Notice I didn't make a 1 cent tub--I didn't want anyone to have 5 pieces at one time!) They are lovin' this. I think I'll stock up on dollar store items and more healthy treats and then I'll be able to teach some of the larger coins too. This could turn into quite a little store :)

Change of subject, but that brown bookshelf up there was given to me recently for more of our books and homeschool stuff (thank you Maggie!) and it's begging me daily for a makeover.
I'm thinking something like this...

(Repinned from Miranda Giles on Pinterest). 

Watcha think?