After School Snacks, Thanks to Bagel Bites

  Let’s talk after school snacking. Are everyone else’s children as ravenous as mine when they walk through the door after school? I pack both my children large lunches, but it does not seem to matter. Each and every week day, the chorus of “we’re hungry” greets me before I get to even ask them how their days went. And goodness, Caleb is only 9 years old and in the 4th grade now. He is on the swim team and easily eats as much as his father already, if not more. I cannot begin to imagine what our grocery bills will be like once he hits those teenage growth spurts! And Hannah is just as active and really just as hungry as he is when she gets home. She is 7 years old and in the 2nd grade.   Frankly, it used to drive me a bit nuts, scrambling to make them practically a second lunch each and every day after school, but I finally got smart and cleared a shelf in our food pantry just for them. I stock it with their favorite granola bars, pretzels, raisins, nuts, bananas and anything else they might be willing to eat. I keep some selections of cold stuff for them as well, in both the refrigerator and freezer, so when Bagel Bites offered me the chance to write about their product as an after school snack option, I was happy to do it. Both kids love pizza, so these bites are a perfect addition to their usual line-up of snack choices.     I’ve talked a lot before on my blog about how I fall somewhere in the middle of providing fresh foods and convenience foods and Bagel Bites really incorporate both. They use only REAL cheese (Mozzarella, Cheddar and Monterey Jack), make their tomato sauce from scratch, mix the bagel dough from scratch using high-quality ingredients and there are zero grams of trans fat per serving. They are baked not fried of course, so some Bagel Bites served along with some frozen grapes and milk are a very quick, nourishing and tasty snack that will satisfy both my children’s appetites until dinner time.     We really encourage independence in our household. Both kids have chore charts they are expected to complete each day. And while I do still pack their lunches and purchase the food choices for their snacks, they are on their own when it comes to fixing their actual snacks after school. They fill their cups with either ice water or milk and then choose from the five or six choices I have for them that week between the pantry, fridge and freezer. Bagel Bites are microwaveable, so they are able to satisfy that hunger quickly!   If my children’s happy faces aren’t enough to encourage you to try Bagel Bites in your own homes, perhaps the chance to win a $100 Visa gift card provided by Bagel Bites will be! To enter for a chance to win, leave a comment below to tell us what YOUR favorite snack is!     Then visit Bagel Bites HERE to check out all the flavor varieties they offer. And be sure to click HERE for a valuable coupon toward your first purchase.  Sweepstakes Rules: No duplicate comments. You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods: 1. Leave a comment in response to the sweepstakes prompt on this post 2. Tweet (public message) about this promotion; including exactly the following unique term in your tweet message: “#SweepstakesEntry”; and leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post 3. Blog about this promotion, including a disclosure that you are receiving a sweepstakes entry in exchange for writing the blog post, and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post 4. For those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry. This giveaway is open to US Residents age 18 or older. Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail. The notification email will come directly from BlogHer via the sweeps@blogher email address. You will have 72 hours to respond; otherwise a new winner will be selected. The Official Rules are available here. This sweepstakes runs from 8/25-9/28. Be sure to visit the Bagel Bites brand page on BlogHer.com where you can read other bloggers’ posts!