Welcome to my new and improved ORGANIZED blog!  Let me explain.  No more chaos! No more wondering what I’m going to post about. No more mystery.  Here it is!

MONDAYS:  Fruits and Vegetables:  Ideas on how to get your family and especially your picky little eaters to eat more fruits and veggies.

TUESDAYS:  Whole Grains:  This will be my favorite day.  More whole grain recipes and ideas.

WEDNESDAYS:  Legumes, Nuts, and other Proteins.  This will be challenging, but totally essential. 

THURSDAYS:  Healthy Ideas and Health Issues: I will talk about problems and solutions to your health questions, lesson ideas to teach your children about nutrition, or other issues pertaining to the health of your family.

FRIDAYS: Activity day!  Getting your kids off the couch and start moving with tips and things we try here at home.

HOPE YOU ENJOY THE NEW FORMAT.  Visit when you can. Bookmark, feed burner, or just remember to come back.

Thank you for entering to win BOOST Kid Essentials from Nestle Nutrition.  Our two winners are Denise  who said

I totally agree about the junk food, that is terrible advice. I always worry my dd is under nourished but that doesn’t mean I would take her to McD’s all time to eat burgers! (actually she doesn’t care for them and she doesn’t like fizzy drinks, I’m thankful that she likes to drink a lot of water. She does have choc milk on occasion and I would love to let her try these.
Keeping my fingers crossed
thanks!

and Jen who said

I saw these the other day and wanted to get some for my very picky 6yo. I sure hope I win! (But if I don’t, I’ll be buying some anyways.)

Thanks Dramama for not only tagging me in your 7 random things meme, but also for suggesting I give 7 random health tips!  What a great idea!

7 Random Tips for getting your kids to eat more fruits and veggies:

1. Add frozen grapes (or frozen berries or cherries) to 100% fruit juice.  Its like little ice cubes, and they will think its delicious.
2. Carrot chips:  Slice carrots super thin and bake on a cookie sheet with a bit of salt and pepper.  If they don’t like raw carrots or cooked carrots, this might be the answer.
3. Juice it! Imagine my surprise my kids liked carrot juice.  Unless you can make your own, its pricey.  Consider mixing half carrot juice with their regular juice, or make carrot juice Ice to put in their juice.
4. Don’t pass up the baby food aisle.  If you hate to puree, just add baby food to your food storage.  A small jar of  carrots can be added to your child’s mac and cheese each and every time!
5. Fondue:  Dip is fun for fruits and veggies, but fondue is really fun! Consider chocolate for fruit, or cheese for veggies.
6. My favorite dessert: Baked apple
7. Use a Healthy Habits Plate!  Not just for kids, my most recent customer was an elderly diabetic man who wanted to eat better and bought a plate for help.  Cute, huh!

I tag:

The organized mom:  Give us 7 random tips to stay organized.

Low Buy Lehi:  Natalie could give us 7 random tips to save money.

Megan: You can give us tips to finish off your kids favorite food and make them forget they were “saving it for later.”

Baby, it’s COLD outside!   Although my kids love playing outside, we need indoor activities as well.  Presenting; The 2009 Winter Games:

Using painters tape or masking tape, we created somewhat of an indoor playground.  This is set up in our family room, so I purposely put it under our area rug, so that I can cover it up when they aren’t playing on it. 

If you are a mom like me, you can just let your kids go crazy and compete amongst themselves.  If you’re an awesome mom, you could have events, judging, and an awards ceremony with homemade medals using this template. 

THANK YOU for your overwhelming response to my plate sale!   Today is the last day you can get a Healthy Habits Plate for $2.99 (the shipping is 0.99 per plate).   Budget a little tight? Head over to Simply Healthful and Heather is giving away a plate (Only until Friday).  Here is part of Heather’s review:

When I served this lunch to him he said,”Mommy the plate says I need carrots too”, I was shocked, he is not a carrot boy.

Thanks Heather!!

The day has finally arrived!  I thought it was never going to come. But it has, and it’s here!

I have created a children’s plate called the “Healthy Habits Plate”.  It is designed to teach children good nutrition in a simple and visual way.  The plate makes it easy to teach kids proper portions of food in a meal. This should be 1/2 fruits and vegetables, 1/4 protein, and 1/4 grains.  My purpose in doing this is to begin empowering them to make their own healthy choices. To teach them skills for life. To teach them to embrace good food instead of forbidding the bad food.  Kids want to eat well, and they need tools to teach them how it is done.

For one week only I am offering all plates for $5.00  (because I have told so many of you this will be the price.)  Shipping is a flat fee of 1.99 (even for multiple plates) for one week only!  After that, the price will go up! You have till March 1st to get ALL plates for $5.00   Click here to place your order!

Here are some ideas with the plate

Doesn’t this look delicious.  It reminds me of spring, and we are anxiously awaiting spring.   We had a few hours of sun yesterday and it was terrific.

This an example of a balanced snack.  There were frozen strawberries that I defrosted.  Some mini-muffins, and a little plain yogurt for some protein.  The toothpick can be used to stab and dip the strawberries into the yogurt. Yum, Yum.

If I don’t set something out to snack on after school, they will go straight for the pantry and eat cereal. Not bad, but for the most satisfying and balanced snack, combine protein with a carbohydrate.  Such as:

• apples with peanut butter
• fruit and yogurt
• fruit and cottage cheese
• Lean ham wrapped around a pretzel stick (my ketchup boy likes this, dipped in ketchup of course).
• Nuts and raisins
• String cheese and banana.
• Low fat cheese on whole wheat crackers.

Get creative.  The more balanced your kids snacking is, the less cranky they will be till the next meal time.  Unless you like cranky kids.  And put it all on a cute plate like the one in the picture!