If you were to step in my shoes on a typical day, you might be surprised to see just how crazy life with four boys is. Or maybe you wouldn’t be. I don’t know because this is my norm. It is wonderful, actually, but in the fall, especially, the days are filled to the brim with activities.

We try to limit the amount of activities each kid has, but when you have four active boys, even if they just have one activity, you are still going in four different directions on any given day. The majority of my kids have two sports each day. This is great for them, they get plenty of exercise, but it can cause serious havoc to our weeknight schedules.

In order to have our family sit down together for dinner each night, which we feel very strongly is very important to do, I have to plan ahead.  That means a dinner that is ready to go at the end of the night, but it also means fixing something to tide them over until we can get to that point. This could take place at 3:45pm or 5pm, depending on the day, and we have limited amount of time to get something ready.  The type of snack they are in need of is not the goldfish cracker kind, but a mini dinner for these growing boys.

Enter in the picture the KitchenAid Digital Countertop Oven.  This gorgeous looking countertop appliance is a life saver.  Why?  Because I think microwaving food is kind of gross and my kids don’t love it either.  They much prefer something from the oven.  When we are short on time, though, I have no time to cook something in the oven when we are rushing from one sport to the next.  I love my oven, but it takes far too long to heat up, which would be about the amount of time we had to cook something.  Not something that will work for us at all.  However, KitchenAid sent us their Digital Countertop Oven to check out*, and after setting it up, we quickly found this was the solution to our snack time problem.

Very little set up was required to get this appliance started.  Simply put in the rack and broiler plate that come with it and plug it in.  Voila! Simple and easy, I love that!  It matches my kitchen appliances perfectly and sits well on the counter. My oven has a cobalt blue lining and so does this countertop oven (I know it’s funny, but I love that!).  It is smaller than a microwave, but bigger than your average toaster oven and measures 12 inches.  I can cook a frozen pizza inside, so there is lots of room.  This also is ideal when I am trying to feed four kids at once!  It’s nice and sturdy, not at all flimsy, which is important to me when selecting products for my kitchen.  I love that the controls are all digital and have a clear display screen.  It is a breeze to set up the temperature, cooking time and to start it.  So easy, in fact, that my kids can run it after a quick run through from me.  As I am helping my kids get organized and ready to head out the door, one of them can be cooking a snack just as easy as I can.

This is important to me because my kids need to know how to use the kitchen independently.  I am not always going to be with them to cook their food, so learning now is a great skill to have.  It’s important to them, too, as they don’t want to have to rely on me, and their confidence in the kitchen increases.  I will admit that I don’t love them using the regular sized oven, as I worry about them burning themselves.  Having a smaller scale oven on the counter top where they can easily reach and maneuver pans makes me more comfortable with them utilizing an oven to cook.

My kids absolutely love using the KitchenAid digital countertop oven!  So many settings to choose from, you really can cook so many types of foods perfectly. There is a convection, cookie, bagel, pizza, toast, asado roast, bake and warm settings  The element heats up super fast, so there is virtually no wait time to heat the oven up.  It cooks the food very quickly, resulting in the type of food my kids love to have. They toast bagels and sandwiches, make their own individual pizzas, and more.  They even made cookies the other day when we had a little more time! Now they can make quality snacks that fill their bellies as they go off to do their other activities.  This makes for a happy boys and a happy mom.

This is an awesome appliance to have, as every member of our family enjoys using it and it produces great results.  I highly recommend purchasing one for your own home!  You can learn more about this countertop oven and other great products at KitchenAid.com.

*product was received to facilitate a review, all opinions are my own.