I still don’t have anything to hand out tonight. For the sake of the integrity of my blog, I really wanted to get something to hand out that wasn’t candy. Spider rings, pumpkin erasers, etc. Not that I’m opposed to candy per se.. but there is going to be enough candy without me adding to the pile. And I’ve noticed the little guys that come to my door are just as excited to get little toys. Its the junior high kids that rather have the candy, and I don’t really care if they come to my door or not.  Lets just say the rest of the family really wants me to hand out candy, so I think I will oblige.

I have this crazy compulsion to count the number of kids that come to my door every year. I have a piece of paper and pencil next to the door that I mark tallys on. For some reason I must know how many come, so I can plan for them next year. We’ve been averaging about 75 kids per year. 

As to the loot: As I mentioned on my post about all their Easter candy, I used to let them eat till they were sick, and then throw the rest away. But realizing I’m contributing to their gorge mentality, which I am cursed with, I figured a better way is to teach them that there is room in their diet for candy if they can be happy with one small piece per day. I would love to feel that way.  So, tomorrow, I let them begin to learn to ration their candy.  An incentive to see whos candy lasts the longest maybe?

Other ideas, my sister was driving by a dentist office yesterday and noticed a sign out front, “Cash for Candy”.  I thought it was awesome!

News from the Blogosphere

• My favorite nutrition doctor (thanks for noticing Heather) and the author of the best books ever published on health and nutrition, Dr. Joel Fuhrman, asked me to be a guest blogger on their blog.  I was so excited, and nervous at the same time.  They posted it yesterday, and you can check it out here.
• Chicago is coming QUICKLY and I’m so excited to meet all the bloggers that have been invited.  Below is the final guest list. You will see how lucky I am to be included with some of the most amazing bloggers out there.   If you love them as much as I do, and live in the Chicago area, we are planning a meet up to get together with readers who want to mingle.  If this is something you would be interested in, send me a comment or email and I’ll give you more details.

Steph of Back in Skinny Jeans
Carla of MizFit Online
Roni of Roni’s Weigh
Jennette of PastaQueen
Tanya of I Ate Pie
Lisa of Workout Mommy
Monique of Big Fat Deal
Leslie of Weighting Game
Jason of Twit2Fit
Anne Marie of This Mama Cooks
Jenna of Eat Live Run
Kath of Kath Eats
Lyn of Escape from Obesity
Alanna of A Veggie Venture
Anne of Elastic Waist

Pretty exciting, don’t you think?

More Halloween Snacks

The 4th in my Halloween snacks for the kids, that doesn’t include sugar:  Eyeball appetizers.

You could send a whole tray of these to a party, or just have them on the table for an afternoon snack. We used whole wheat crackers.  Mozzarella cut with the inside cutter of a donut hole cutter. And topped with an olive.  Put just two of these on a plate, and slice an apple for a mouth and you have a face.

What’s better than sugar cookie ghosts with frosting?  Whole wheat tortilla cut outs with salsa!  OK, maybe not.. But remember, it is no sugar snacking this week at my house so Friday the kids will be primed and ready to inhale their sugar stash.

This snack was easy. I used my whole wheat tortilla recipe and cut out the shapes instead of made round tortillas.  Then I cooked them on the skillet.  We also put a dozen or so in the oven (after the skillet time) to make them crispy.  The kids liked them both ways.  Then Ketchup boy had a great idea and he layered a Ghost tortilla, meat and beans, cheese, another tortilla and made a ghost taco sandwich.

We also tried making ghosts out of mashed potatoes. Can you say, Close Encounters?  They wouldn’t touch the potatoes, just said, “can I have regular potatoes, not shaped like a ghost?”.  Lot’s of things I try flop around here.

There is a new tab at the top of my blog.  Under here I’ve put a few free downloads and will be adding many more.  The best one I think is my Price points list.  This has good and best prices on Healthy food.  It will be a work always in progress so check it before you hit the grocery store to make sure you are getting a good price on food.  When you do find a best price, STOCK UP.

Second in a series of Halloween snacks that are unrelated to sugar:  Finger Food!

My kids liked these too.  I took a big fat Pretzel rod and wrapped a piece of lean ham around it.  For fingernails, I stuck a sliced almond in the end of it. 

These would be perfect to take to a halloween party as appetizers, an after school snack, or even for lunch.  The kids enjoy making these too, so let them help you out.  Ketchup boy thought it was great fun to tell his little friends that he loves to eat fingers.

A word of caution about lunch meats.  Its ideal to slice your own lunch meat from a ham or roast you have for dinner.  You can buy a whole ham, slice it thin and freeze for later.  Most packaged lunch meats come full of added salt and chemicals.

Lastly, if you like to Twitter, I’m going to start updating my pages more frequently. You can follow me here. Although, I’ll probably twitter more about my personal health journey, than what my kids are eating.

There was a time when during the week of Halloween I would busy myself frosting pumpkin cookies, snacking on my secret Halloween candy stash, and eating candy corn color by color.  Not this year!  This week, less sugar for all of us.  Friday night we’ll all have enough to induce a coma.  Why start early?

In trying to think what I could shape into Halloween images that didn’t involve 1 cup of butter, I thought about our Japanese exchange student that taught us how to make rice balls this summer.   Then I thought I could make some pumpkins out of the rice. 

Step 1: I soaked the rice in water and added some color to the water.  After rinsing the rice, I put more color in the cooking water.  The food coloring I used was the Icing concentrated colors.  (remember the frosted pumpkin cookies).  This way the orange turned out really bright. 

Step 2: While rice was still warm, I sprinkled a piece of plastic wrap with salt.  Then put a dollap of rice in the wrap.

Step 3: Wrap the rice ball and move it between your hands back and forth while packing the rice really well.

Step 4: Unwrap ball and shape into a pumpkin.   Add any greens (this is celery) for the stem.  You can decorate a Jack-o-lantern face using things such as dried sea weed (that is what they would use if we were in Japan)

The kids loved these for a snack.  They can eat them with their fingers.  Try it tonight!

My kids will go ride their bike without any nudging or encouraging from me.  But that is about the only activity they ever think of to do outside.  Cereal boy is a bit of a bookwork and would rather read alone in his bedroom than go round up the neighbor boys for a pickup game of soccer.  This is why I like organized sports.  However, this has also been the source of great disagreement between my husband and I, as he doesn’t believe you should have to pay for such things that should be free. 

The flip-flopper loves gymnastics, which happens to be one of the most expensive activities out there.   But I think its a great activity.  According to Kid exercise website,

Gymnastics requires fitness, balance, coordination, and overall conditioning, making gymnastics a wise choice for kids from toddlers to teens.

My solution: Our rec center has a trade program where I can help set up the gymnastics equipment once a week in exchange for free tuition! I was thrilled. It takes only about 20 minutes (there are 15 people there) and its great exercise for me, hauling the mats around and such. Flip-flopper can take gymnastics, husband can’t complain, and we are all happy.  Other organized sports team often allows for free registration if you volunteer to be the coach or help out.  Ask in your neighborhood and see what they offer.
Kid Exercise has tons of great articles about getting fitness in. Ideas for games for kids under 5 all the way through teens and families to do as a whole! Check it out.

Come back tomorrow.  I’ve got a whole week of healthy Halloween snacks!!

Thanks to everyone who shared oatmeal ideas. There are so many things I can’t wait to try. Also, there are so many of you that have fabulous blogs I want to start following. So thanks for letting yourselves be known.
But there is only one box of Quaker goodies. And the winner is comment #22

 
Christy As for oatmeal, my favorite way to eat it is with cinnamon and brown sugar.
As for what I do with oatmeal, I am known to stick it in muffins, add it to homemade bread, make homemade granola bars, and sometimes I will even add it to cookies.
Thanks for a great contest!

Today is the last day to enter the Quaker Giveaway. Check back tomorrow to find out who won.

One more frozen spinach recipe, and this one turned out to be the most successful. Not only did all three of my kids eat a whole mini quiche (I’ll call it a quiche, although its not. I just don’t have another name for it) but they asked for more!  A rare event in our home, even with dinners they like, they never want seconds. They only want to finish the required eating and then they ask if they can have some cereal and yogurt instead of more dinner. 

But last night was different.  Not only did they eat up, we had 3 neighbor kids over during dinner.  All three of them loved it too!!  The spinach was not disguised in any way. They all knew it was there, and they all loved it.  My dreams are coming true.  The dream: Kids aware and desiring to add more fruits and vegetables to EVERY dish they prepare.

I hestitated to post this recipe, because I probably should try it a few times with different ingredients.  But it turned out great the first time.  I wanted to use ricotta cheese, but didn’t have any (nor do I ever except the time I made crepes, which was NOT a success).  So I used what I had on hand.  A little light cream cheese, mozarella, parmesan, onions and then LOADS of spinach.  I uploaded the recipe here.  Don’t feel like you have to follow the recipe. Just use what you have in your fridge.  Then I used those great silicone baking cups I got the other day.  These are a perfect size to portion out a meal for kids.  They can be baked, frozen, and microwaved.  I just think they are great.

Thank you for all your great oat ideas!  Everyone should check out the comments if you need some ideas.  If you haven’t already, you can still enter the contest here today and tomorrow.

Usually if my husband works late, I decide to opt out of preparing dinner.   So, instead my kids and I got creative.  The only rule was they had to eat everything they used.  Here is what they came up with. 

The red balls are cranberries. They were anxious to try them, since we enjoy dried cranberries. But wow! These were so not good! I guess we’ll use the rest of the cranberries for baking. I feel a muffin post coming on soon.  But they actually ate everything else. In fact, all of them mixed up the whole plate after pictures, added a little dressing, and made themselves a big salad for dinner.  Easy meal for me!

We have a chance to help a great cause! Save the Children works to ensure that children are healthy and well-nourished.  They assist to improve the health and nutrition of pregnant women, newborns, and young children.  Truly I marvel at how blessed we are to have so much, while many families are suffering just to get food on their tables.   All you have to do is go here to vote and Save the Children can win a million dollars!  For more details click here.

Have you heard todays elementary kids are the first generation to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents.  These kids will have more disease, and poorer quality of life due to their unhealthy lifestyles.  There is so much joy in being healthy!  Your kids will be happier now, and in the long run if you teach them healthy habits.  Some kids are never taught what healthy food is vs. junk food. 

But Oats are healthy! Plus oats are so easy to love. Don’t give up if they don’t immediately take to them.  Keep trying. There are so many things you can do with oats.  I’ve posted on:

• what to top your oatmeal with.
• Adding oats to pancakes
• Oats in cookies
• Or these cookies
• Granola Bars
• Or today’s baking experiment.  I used silicone muffin cups, which I love. You can put them in the freezer, microwave, oven up to 500 degrees, and they are cool to the touch within minutes of pulling out of the oven.    We mixed apples with some oats, brown sugar, and cinnamon and baked them in the oven.  Delicious in a perfect serving size.

Now the giveaway:  Quaker (who is sending me to Chicago in 2 1/2 weeks, doin the cabbage patch and singing woot, woot!) has graciously offered a “Quaker starter kit” to one lucky reader.  It consists of 2 canisters of oats, 2 boxes Oatmeal Squares, 2 boxes instant oats, and two boxes of Oatmeal to go.  My family got a box last week. The kids love the cereal!  Its as high in fiber as the regular oats.   To enter, leave a comment for me of what you like on top of your oatmeal with, or what you do with oats. Deadline is Friday night. I’ll choose a winner first thing Sat. morning. Oh, and comments are moderated, so don’t fear if your comment doesn’t show up right away. Thanks