45 Kiddie Cabinet 2.0

It's funny how one post can lead to another!  I am SO glad it did however!

Earlier this week, I chatted about how we stashed our huge basket-o-halloween goodness up on the top shelf of a kiddie cabinet...

And I got quite a few questions and comments regarding the cabinet itself.

The cabinet didn't always look like this, in fact, I had done a post here, regarding the concept of the kiddie cabinet and how it was organized.  It once looked more like this:

What once gave me happy tingles, has since given me some scares.  The whole cabinet is one big giant plastic filled hole.... and all I can think about lately is that PLASTIC = BPA.

This is where I went wrong, and why I am glad you asked about my cabinets.  I made an assumption and instantly began replacing out ALL plastics in our entire kitchen.  This included the kiddie cabinet, which was one of my first concerns since it has been mentioned that BPA has a greater impact on our younger developing peanuts.

My family is my everything, and I instinctively wanted to make changes to how we are living in the kitchen due to all the BPA news.  I absolutely have heated up many kiddos meals, from oatmeal to hot dogs to everything in between, on and in plastic plates and bowls.  And much of what I have read states that BPA is activated and moves to foods mostly through a heating process.  That is why we have begun switching to a plastic free kitchen.

So, I decided to change out the plastics for some ceramics and glass:

I found all of the dishes through the Crate & Barrel outlet, after searching through many different non-plastic options.  For those interested, here are the links for the glasses, plates and bowls.

So with some tweaking to our Halloween candy situation, and updates to the dishes, we now have this:

First, since we just had candy talk {THANK YOU FOR ALL THE GREAT COMMENTS AND IDEAS}, I will follow up with what we ended up doing.  We sifted through all of the more kid friendly sized candies and divided them out in stay fresh containers.

Now we have a quick go to for smaller treats, and they should hopefully last for awhile.  And the rest will be donated {after mom and dad snag a couple of our favs for ourselves and for baking some delish post Halloween treats...}

The box on the top shelf still contains all of the family vitamins.

The next shelf contains our glasses, straws, crayons {it's OK to snag ideas from restaurants and hotels for your own benefit} and some mini dipping bowls.

The glasses do make me slightly nervous with the kiddos {I am sure you are all ready to commit me to the loony bin at this point}, however, we have had them for awhile now and so far so good.  The kiddos don't typically take their glasses away from the table or the counter {no food out of the kitchen is this momma's rule}, so they are typically pretty safe.  When they are in roam, they just snag their pre-filled water bottles from the ol' fridge.

Our lower kiddie cabinet shelf was updated with white ceramic dishes as well.

The plates and bowls are perfectly sized for kid portions.  And the really small dipping bowls were just snagged from our "grown up" dinnerware cabinet.  The larger bowls are perfect for hot cereal, soups and ice cream, and the smaller bowls are incredible for sides of fruits and veggies or dipping sauces.

And they all work together really well to serve up some grub to my handsome threesome!

But here is the big 'ol' OOPS that I made, that you don't have to make.  After I had updated the kiddie cabinet to what I thought was the safest route for my clan, I have since read that those plastic IKEA dishes that gazillions of families adore, are said to be... BPA free!  However, many of the other plastic dishes we were also using for our kiddos, weren't in the same situation.

Eggs for breakfast, or egg on my face?!  Seems like we have both goin' on around here....

The thing that frustrated me most, is that I am typically pretty good about trying to gain the facts before I impulsively make a decision or purchase... but I didn't this time.  I let the fear get the best of me and felt I was doing the right thing...

I know I am not out much, the juice glasses are great for... well juice!  And the dishes are white and versatile for kids and adults alike.  In fact, I really have been crazy giddy excited about removing all of the plastics from the kitchen, regardless.  It feels more organic and people/earth friendly to be using glasses and ceramics vs. plastics.  The storage containers and dishes will last eons longer and it's just a safer option for us. 

At the end of the day, all we can do is what we feel is best for ourselves and our families.  I have been slowly trying to move to more natural and organic options all over the home, and this is no different.  And I am by no means any type of expert in any of this, I just know what I know through my bff, Google...

Some other things we have done is make updates to our pantry storage {stay tune for more on that later} and switched out our utensils to bamboo and have since stopped purchasing food in cans... 

So what do you guys think?  Anyone have any other thoughts or advice surrounding the whole BPA uber hot topic?  How about messy egg eaters.... can anyone empathize with me and share a story of acting impulsively?