With no fruit left in our basket (except 1 banana which I am saving for pre-run tomorrow) I pulled out a bag of frozen mixed fruit that I’ve had since February for a day like today!  What a treat! It’s great to have on hand when you are out of fruit.  Today was warm, so I left it frozen, and added a spoonful of plain yogurt on top.  This is a stock up item when it’s on sale.  It can last quite a while in your freezer and still be pretty good.  You could also blend this up for smoothies, icee’s, ice cream toppings, skewer it for kabobs, chop it up for muffins or pancakes…. so versatile!

Hooray, Summer is finally here for my kids. All year long I had to drag their little bum’s out of bed at 7am to get ready for school.  Finally they can sleep in. Yipee!  Yeah, whatever. My kids had no such plans.  5:45AM!  I’m not exagerating! They were up at 5:45AM.  It’s Saturday, AND its’s summer! Come on kids, when are you going to start valuing the sleep-in days. When are you going to be those kids that sleep till 11:00am every day.  I won’t complain, I promise.

Kids need sleep.  Between ages 5-12 they need 10-11 hours per night.  When my kids don’t get enough sleep, they are moody, sensitive, cranky, argumentative etc.  But they have always been good sleepers. In fact, I used to tell people “My kids have always slept through the night… since they were 3 months old!” Till one day I told someone that, and my husband said, “They don’t sleep through the night, you just don’t wake up when they do.”  I sleep so soundly at night, I don’t even wake up when our kids do.  We had them in a basket in our room until they were three months, which is why I DID wake up when they did, and as soon as they went to their own rooms, I slept straight through their midnight waking.  I’m guessing they just started sleeping through the  night, cause no one was there to answer their cries.  Part of me feels like a bad parent, but part of me is glad they are such good sleepers now.

So, as a result, I can offer no advice on getting your child to sleep better, except advice I’ve heard from other people. 

1. Follow a bedtime routine.
2. Wind down by listening to wonderful lullaby music.
3. Go to sleep at the same time every night.
4. Limit caffeine in the afternoon and before bed.
5. Do not allow the bedroom to be a place for television.
6. As we spoke about Thursday, if they need a bedtime snack, let it be a small amount of complex carbs.
7. Keep them really active during the day, so they will be wiped out at bedtime.  (This is what we do)

READER ADVICE???

Inspired by Roni’s delicious looking post yesterday, I HAD to make it. She pureed watermelon with yogurt, and froze. Click over to her post for more details. It was so terrific.  My kids devoured it. I was hesitant to share it!  There just wasn’t enough.  Ketchup boy and I actually drank some before we froze it.  It also made a yummy smoothie.  I like this idea, because I always cut up our entire watermelon right when I bring it home.  By the time we get to the bottom of the bowl, we have small broken pieces.   My kids do like eating the wedges with the rind on, but my chopped up pieces are so much cleaner.

Why we love watermelon:

• Good source of lycopene, vitamin C, potassium, vitamin A
• Good source of water (kids are going to start needing to be hydrated and watermelon is 92% water!)
• High in energy, low in calories and fat
• Excellent snack and fun to eat

Side note: my mean brother told me when I was very small that I must have eaten watermelon seeds and was growing a watermelon in my tummy cause it was so huge.

This question came from Lisa:

Hi!
I’ve been wondering what your thoughts are about bedtime snacks.  My kids are usually hungry right before bed and ask for food (not treats) many nights.  Sometimes this IS a stall tactic but most times, I think they truly are hungry.  We usually eat dinner around 6:00 pm and their lights out time is 8:30.  That is a normal amount of time passed to want a snack (about every 3 hours)  but I’ve never thought this was a healthy habit to have so I’ve always discouraged it.  However, I don’t like the thought of sending my kids to bed hungry.Do you think they need something different earlier in the day?  Better, more balanced dinners (not my strong point)? They are usually good about eating until feeling full.  Should I just plan to give them a healthy snack as a part of bedtime? (I would prefer to have it planned from me rather than seem like I’m giving into their later night requests.  Avoids arguments and stall tactics.)  I know it’s not recommended for adults but, I’ve never really read anything about good/bad for kids to have food right before bed. Perplexed in Orem   (this sounded like a “dear abby” when I read it!)

Dear Perplexed:
WHAT WE DO:  At our house, we are grazers. Despite my best efforts to serve three meals and two snacks, I never succeed.  We eat when we are hungry. However, when we say bedtime, even after a full dinner, they are always starving! I try to reason with them and tell them “It’s better to go to bed a little hungry, than stuffed.”  or “Being hungry is OK!!  I promise a small hungry pang is not going to be followed by death.” I actually think it’s good to let kids get a little hungry once in a while.  But then I let them choose for themselves if they want something very small. And they always choose to eat. They typically have an apple, or a yogurt, or graham crackers.
What the experts say:  Most experts will tell you children SHOULD have a snack before they go to bed.  Children with diabetes are expected to check their sugar levels, and if low, have a snack.  Children with Autism are encouraged to have a small snack. Dentists will even recommend it, as long as the nighttime brushing happens AFTER the bedtime snack.  One pediatrician recommends kids have a bedtime snack high in complex carbs, since it has a calming effect on the brain (stimulating serotonin). As opposed to protein which stimulates adrenalin.  His best before bed snacks include whole grain crackers, sweet potatoes, mini muffins, cereal with milk, small piece of a bagel, an apple, etc.  So to answer one of your questions, it’s best to keep the high protein foods for earlier in the day, and go heavier on the complex carbs later in the day.
Final Opinion:  I don’t think changing your meals during the day would make much difference.  If they are stuffed at 10am from a great breakfast, they still could very well be hungry at 8pm.  I  would not plan a nightly snack, simply because if that becomes routine, they will eat every night out of habit, and not out of true hunger.  We give kids plenty of warning, such as, “20 minutes till bed and you will NOT dig into the pantry when we say 20 minutes has passed. If you know they are stalling bedtime, they could get a drink, read a book, play a game, or give them other reasons to stay up “just a little bit longer” (Only in the minutes prior to actual bedtime).  If it’s truly from hunger, give them a small, healthy, morsel of food, high in complex carbs.   Have some find out questions ready to see if it’s hunger, habit, or a way to spend just a little more time with you.

I read in the paper the other day, our generation (today’s mom’s and dad’s) do not know the basic steps of cooking. That we complain we have no time to be in the kitchen to make food for our families, yet we spend an average of 4 hours in front of the TV a day.  While I’m sure this doesn’t apply to anyone reading this blog, it got me thinking though if I was doing a good enough job teaching my kids how to cook. 

I invited the flip-flopper to the counter to help me make dinner the last few nights.  I said, “When you are a mom, you are going to need to know how to cook!”  So, she pulled out an old spiral bound notebook, put page numbers throughout the ENTIRE thing, and asked me to spell each and every ingredient for our salad (the recipe she is holding was a bread recipe).  Then she started an index.  I thought it was so stinkin cute, I wanted to rush out and buy her her very own CUTE recipe binder where she can collect her favorite recipes until she leaves home.  I resisted however, and decided to let her do it her own way. She doesn’t know any better.

It is more difficult and time consuming to let your kids help you in the kitchen. But studies show, if they do, they are more likely to eat healthier, and when they leave home they will prepare healthier meals for their own famlies. And the cycle of  health continues….

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With my 450 lbs of wheat, I have decided I better start cooking with it.  Here is what I have calculated.  To bake whole wheat bread with wheat flour at regular price, I’m making it for about $0.45-0.55 per loaf.  To grind the wheat and then make the bread, it’s about 0.33-0.44 per loaf.  My most recent trip to the store I noticed the price of my whole wheat bread almost doubled.  So, I am going to bake more often. 

For all you super busy mom’s, I threw the ingredients in my mixer, and then froze the balls of dough.  Then pulled one out of the freezer a day, or every other day (we eat a lot of bread) and let it defrost, rise, and bake.  I promise it hardly took any kitchen time.  And it was super, super yummy.  I even put it in the same bag my old bread was in, so the family didn’t realize I made it.  This only matters to the husband.  He rather I buy bread. I have no idea why. 

This first super delicious loaf got left on the counter by someone (Cereal boy) making a sandwhich, and the dog took it when we weren’t watching and ate the ENTIRE thing!  At least I got my picture first.  Doesn’t it look so professional! Even the cuts I made in it were so uniform.

Have you ever baked your bread with Liquid lecithin?  You can buy it in the health food store by the supplements. It’s super sticky, and keeps your bread really moist and holds it together well.  I recommend trying it.

This was the recipe I got from Kristin, who got it from her neighbor.

• 3 cups whole wheat flour
• 2 cups bread flour
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 Tbls Saf Yeast (this is really really inexpensive)
• 1 1/2 TBL Liquid lecithin
• 2 Cups hot water

Put in mixer or bread maker to knead for 5 minutes.  Let rise for 25 minutes, bake for 25 minutes at 350.

I am also experimenting with add-ins.  Nuts, seeds, flax, wheat germ, etc. Then it will be like the really expensive, nutty, wheaty breads.

We are participating in Scale Junkie’s Summer Blog Party!  All summer you can hop around to various weight loss/ health related blogs and find giveaway’s all along the way.  For those visiting this blog for the first time through the blog party, WELCOME! I’m Amy, mother of 3 and owner of Super Healthy Kids.  I am a graduate of health education and trying to teach my kids to love being healthy. 

 I’m giving away two Healthy Habits Plates to two lucky winners, to be chosen at random, open to anyone in the United States or Canada.  The plates have been designed to teach your kids how to eat a balanced meal.  They can look at the adorable images and know that they need more fruits and vegetables.

If you don’t want to wait for a winner to be drawn, feel free to purchase one or more, just by clicking the purchase button on the side bar.

Come back often for daily ideas on getting your kids to eat healthier.  

To be entered to win, leave a comment about something UNhealthy you buy for your kids because it provides you with some sort of sanity.  You have till June 6th!  For me it’s popsicles.  They are cheap enough to give to the neighbor kids, and one of the surefire ways to keep them OUTSIDE for a few minutes.  However, then I always have to deal with the aftermath, which is this:

When we bake, my kids keep asking if they could literally take a spoon full of sugar and eat it. I think it sounds gross. They think it’s the best.  So I started wondering, how much sugar are they getting?   I’m not talking healthy fruit sugars, I’m talking granulated, corn syrupy, crap.  I decided to keep track for one day like I did with salt.  Here’s what they ate:

• Waffle 2 grams
• Syrup  (Lite sugar) 3 grams
• yogurt  14 grams
• two slices of bread (homemade, not sure)
• Peanut Butter  Very slight
• Jelly 2 grams
• nuts  1 gram (I don’t know why)
• Veggies  0, hooray!!
• fruit leather  Only natural fruit sugar 
• Granola Bar  7 grams
• orange (just fruit sugar)
• carrots with ranch  1 gram (from the ranch)
• Chicken 0
• Rice 0
• Salad 0
• Popcorn  0

Total:  22 grams of refined sugar

4 grams of sugar = 1 tsp of sugar.  So my kids ate 5.5 teaspoons of sugar today! Wow, that is somewhat shocking considering it was a fairly healthy, fairly typical day. 

Poptarts have 17 grams of sugar, which is MORE THAN 4 TSPS of sugar PER PASTRY!  Yes, I am yelling as I write this.  I am the biggest anti pop-tart mom there is.  I won’t even cut the coupons out for a pop-tart!  There are only two foods I won’t cut out coupons for… pop-tarts, and Totino’s Pizza Rolls.

We spent the day at the zoo today. Our family pass expires in one week and we don’t plan to renew it.  We do love the zoo, but it’s kind of a far drive with gas where it is. 

As I mentioned before, we always pack food whenever we go anywhere!  One of our favorite and most filling snacks is trail mix.  You really can’t beat the nutritional powerhouse that nuts are.  Our problem has always been limiting nuts to one serving.  That’s why I love when it’s individually packaged small enough you can limit it.  Snacktrition has packaged nuts and dried fruit PLUS baked it with calcium and fiber! Very cool.   My kids completely love these little bags. Each bag has 2.5 servings, so that is perfect for my kids to share.  They particularly like the bags of cashews, and the fruit and nut mix. The fruit and nut mix they’ve added dried orange cranberries, dried blueberries, and those mini vanilla chips.  It’s really delicious. Thanks Snacktrition

Also, if you visit their website, they are currently giving away a Total Gym, and 50 gift cards to Foot Locker.  I just entered.

Every home needs food storage.  Disaster, hurricane, job loss, truckers going on strike, too lazy to get to the grocery store, whatever, you don’t want your little ones to starve.  But I want to use the food I store too.  The Provident Living website has a calculator that we plugged in 5 people for 6 months… and found we need 750 lbs of grains (Wheat, flour, oats, rice, pasta), and 150 lbs of beans.  As I’ve said before, I want to start cooking more with beans anyway.  So we went out and got 450 lbs of  wheat.  And upon Autumns suggestion, everyone needs their food storage to also look “Cute”.  So I got up this morning and made some cute labels for my buckets.  They are topped with the cool Gamma Seal lids for easy access.

I know you are asking yourselves, “Amy, you health nut.  Why the 50 lb bucket of sugar.”  I would say to you, “We are not, nor ever will be a no sugar family.  We are a low sugar family.  I think it’s wise to teach the kids moderation in the real world.  To eliminate something like sugar altogether I believe sends the wrong idea about food.  Let’s learn to live with sugar, not go overboard, but be responsible.

And PS, the 10 buckets of wheat is actually under our house in our crawl space, if anyone is looking for it after we die and you need some wheat.