Our Story

I was never someone who thought they’d ever be a homeschooler. I thought homeschoolers exclusively wore long plaid, gingham or denim dresses, had long braids in their hair, and were socially inept. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. Homeschoolers really are just like everyone else.

Rewind 7 years and when my oldest was in preschool we lived in a very small rural town where my options for a school were slim to none. Of those few I could choose from, I definitely didn’t trust them with my little guy. So his anaphylactic allergies were the initial reason we started homeschooling.

Fast forward 2 years from that point in time and we’ve now completed preschool and pre-k. It was decision time, and ultimately we decided to move forward with Kindergarten and the rest of our children’s academic careers as a homeschooling family. We fell in love with homeschooling for so many reasons above and beyond the allergy thing.

Our Homeschool Group End of Year Party

This year was my 6th year homeschooling. We had 1 baby, 1 preschooler, 1 pre-k, 1 2nd grader and a 4th grader.

We are part of a homeschool group that has all sorts of fun activities throughout the year including park days, chess club, spelling bee, service days, holiday parties and more!

The last activity of the year with our homeschool support group was an End-of-the-Year Pizza Party. It was held at a local splash pad and park. The splash pad and park served as the entertainment, plus we have a super talented mom in the group that is a face painter and balloon artist, who was so generous to share her talents with us for added fun.

It seems as if most or all of our society’s social functions and get together a revolve around food. Our group has a pizza party with pizza, bread sticks, marinara dip, and cinnamon loaded crazy bites from Little Caesars. The group has a potluck in addition to the pizza food, and that allows for families to bring other safe things for their special dietary needs and lifestyle. Important to note: In our group peanuts are the main “culprit”, and so the groups asks that no potluck items contain peanuts or tree nuts.

Little Caesars

My son only eats the pizza items from Little Caesars, and he doesn’t have anything else unless it’s prepackaged with the label, or something that we have brought safe just for him. It’s a nice way that we have found to be safely yet included.

Little Caesars doesn’t carry any peanuts, tree nuts, shellfish, or fin fish. They have a nutritional and allergen menu available online which indicates they do have 4 of the Top 8 food allergens in their establishment: wheat, milk, egg and soy. This chart notates which menu items contain aforementioned allergens.

It is fun that we are able to have our son participate and eat this food that is safe for our allergens. For my husband who is gluten-free, we sign-up for the accompanying potluck to bring things he can eat and share.

That is one thing I’ve learned over the years as a food allergy mom. We can try to make things as friendly as possible for everyone, food can be fun, and to accommodate and include everyone we can be creative such as with this group in adding a potluck addition. Will this work for every situation? No, but I wanted to share for those that it may serve as a good option for them.