Although I hate to be in charge, I love helping out at the class holiday parties, at the kids school.   However, my running BFF, Eliece, is in charge of her son’s 5th grade class Valentine Party this Friday.  She wanted to put a healthier spin on it, considering they’ll get plenty of candy when they exchange cards, so this is what she came up with!

Heart Healthy Valentines Party!

5 FUN ACTIVITIES THAT ENCOURAGE HEART HEALTH

1. Our HEART needs Exercise:

• throw a bean bag onto a poster-sized grid with different exercises in each square
• roll dice (or spinner)
• do the exercise the bean bag lands on that number of times (or for that many seconds)

2.  Our HEART needs Friends:

• She made a game , A paper grid they get friends to initial. For example:  someone who has read all 5 Percy Jackson books, someone with a clean desk, someone who takes dance lessons, someone with the same birthday month as you they have to get a different person to initial each box (there are 20) then they get a prize (bouncy ball).  Click here for the game download.

3.  Our HEART needs Hobbies/activities you enjoy

• Craft:  Make a key ring that says I (heart) ______________
  It is actually a clip they can put on their backpack, so clips, string, alphabet and heart beads.  Example:  I basketball    or Imusic  (whatever they like doing)

4.  Our HEART needs to Serve

• make a gift for teacher:   each child writes 3 specific things they like about Mrs Day.  Put them all in a jar for her to read

5.  Our HEART needs Healthy Food

• make own trail mix (Ziplocs, pretzels, fish crackers, raisins, m & m, etc.)
• fruit shish-kabobs (skewers, apple chunks, pineapple, grapes, strawberries)
• water

Some great ideas, right!  Changing Valentines from a sugar fest is a healthy way to show your kids you truly love them!

I just finished watching Food, Inc.  Great Movie! The take home message is to buy local, and in season food! If you haven’t seen the movie yet, did you know you can download and “rent” the movie to watch from Amazon for $2.99!  I just realized this!  Right under “Buy”, you click WATCH IT NOW, $2.99 to rent.  

Although I’ve mentioned them before, after watching the movie, I was so glad we buy our meat local (beef and pork at least).  If you live in Utah and are looking for a local meat supplier, you must check out The Christiansens farm for well fed, well treated, organic, and super awesome meat!  Hollie Christiansen is my neighbors- sister.. which is how I found out about their farm. 

Last night, I pulled out our bag of frozen Edamame to snack on while I prepared dinner.  The kids devoured it! I forgot how much they liked this great snack the first time I bought it.  It’s definitely coming out more often this week.

As always, head over to the side bar, or Menu Archives to print the menu!

Don’t forget…. Monday is the last day to enter for Crest Pro-Health supplies,

and FRIDAY is the last day for the V8-V Fusion Visa $100 Gift card!

As a matter of business, when you click on my RSS feed to the right, this does not include a feed to my giveaways (or my health journal that I never have time to update) .  So just know, when I choose a winner for contests, I will post it on the giveaway site (although it won’t come through if you RSS feed my kids blog).  You do not need to check however, because I will always email the winners!!

I got this adorable letter from PBS Kids.  I posted once about the cute new show they have about eating healthy.  Here is their second communication with me.

Dear Potential Lunch Labber:

I am Professor Fizzy, host of FIZZY’S LUNCH LAB, a new Web-only property launching November 16 on PBSKIDSGO.org, and I am in need of your help! The holiday season is quickly approaching and Fast Food Freddy, proprietor of the high calorie, unhealthy fast food theme park “Greasy World” is licking his chops in anticipation of sugary sweets and fatty goods interfering with the healthy habits of young Lunch Labbers across the country.

To keep Freddy and his half-baked schemes at bay, I am sending you six Lunch Lab tested recipes for delicious, nutritious foods.

Your mission, should you chew and digest it:
* Visit PBSPARENTS.org/nutrition/ to download and share healthy recipes from FIZZY’S LUNCH LAB that families can prepare together this holiday season.
* Join me and my friends in FIZZY’S LUNCH LAB (PBSKIDSGO.org/lunchlab) as we prepare tasty snacks, investigate the difference between good and bad food, and learn what happens once the food you eat goes into your body.
* Learn more about me, Mixie-Bot, Sully the Cell, Corporal Cup and the rest of the gang and our mission to help families make smart food choices together by downloading the full press release.

There are so many different ways to make a smoothie, your kids should never be bored.  While not packed full of fruits and veggies, this smoothie sure made a great treat. We called it the Orange creamsicle smoothie.  I’ve seen different versions on many different websites, but I kept ours simple:

• 1 Cup vanilla yogurt
• 1 cup Orange juice
• 24 ice cubes

Put all ingredients in a blender.

  And drink

(Those are sunglasses that the lenses broke out of. She loves to wear them and “trick” people into thinking she wears glasses.  She wants braces too. Remember those days?)

It’s been a great long while since I posted anything about kids and exercise.  Getting them off the couch in winter (or any cold weather) is more of a challenge, than when the sun is shining.  Lets be honest though, its usually not their fault. They would be happy running around in their underwear in a snowstorm, if I would let them.  I however was meant to live in Southern California, where you can play comfortably outside all year long.   Then OF COURSE I would be outside with my kids more often.

But yesterday, I had a reason to get moving.  We got a coupon for a free family day at our rec center pool (indoor pool that is). It expires soon, so we headed out.  The great thing about swimming  in a public pool during fall and winter, is you have the pool to yourself.  Even on Saturday afternoon.

I wish I could say I swam with them. That’s what a good mother would do.  But as soon as I get wet, I get so cold that I want to go home.  I like to blame that on my thyroid.  So instead, I brought my big, awful GRE study guide, and hung out on the side of the pool, book open, pretending to study, but really people watching.

Have you heard about the miracle fruit? My kids and I were watching the Science channel last night and they did a segment about this berry that literally changes the taste receptors on your tongue.  For an entire hour after eating a berry, everything tastes sweet… Including Tabasco sauce and broccoli!  This could literally make any child eat vegetables! Crazy huh.

Decided to mail my camera into Olympus for them to fix the lens.  I don’t need to ruin by taking it apart.

Come back on Monday for another giveaway. Do you like my rhyming hints to what the giveaway is?  Dreaming Fireflies!  You won’t want to miss it.

	Breakfast	Lunch	Snack	Dinner
Monday	Orange Creamsicle smoothie	Sweet potato Risotto	Cottage Cheese and peaches	Black eyed peas with brown rice
Tuesday	Bran Muffins and Bananas	Pita with sprouts, lettuce, tomato.	Mixed nuts with raisins	Sweet potato soup
Wednesday	Breakfast Burritos	Caesar salad and whole grain roll	Pumpkin hummus on sourdough	Pizza
Thursday	Oatmeal with craisins, vanilla and cinnamon	Noodles, broccoli and parmesan.	English muffin with peanut butter and banana slices	Chicken with wild rice and parmesan
Friday	Whole Grain cereal with soy milk and berries	Whole wheat sandwich, honey and almond butter	Veggie Tray	Chicken salad with creamy orange dressing, pecans and cranberries

Something is stuck UNDER my crappy camera lens.  I took the whole camera apart thinking I could somehow get access in between the lenses, but all I got was shocked!  And the lens never came off.   Anyone have ideas on how to fix this?

Every picture I take has a “soft focus” edge on the bottom of the picture. I don’t know what to do. I’d get a new camera for Christmas, but I already got this laptop for Christmas.  So, I’m out of luck until next year!

Anyway, I’m in some sort of root vegetable craze.  Not only do I love Russet Potatoes, and red potatoes, but I really love Sweet potatoes!  For any meal, they are so filling.  My kids really don’t need to eat anything else.  So here is a little potato 101.

Our grocery store sells two varieties of sweet potatoes.  Although BOTH are technically sweet potatoes, they call one a sweet potato, and the other a yam.

Have you ever noticed a difference?  Here is how we use each:

SWEET  POTATOES:  (with white flesh)

• Just like a baked potato (butter, salt etc.)
• As Sweet Potato salad.

YAMS: With the orange flesh

• Sweet potato fries
• In a casserole with brown sugar.
• As a baked potato with sweet stuff on it like cinnamon and brown sugar.

Is one healthier than the other?  YES! Yams, with its rich orange color has more vitamins.  The more colorful your fruits or vegetables are, the more nutrients they have.

Rumor has it that some of you (you know who you are) don’t like reading my blog because it makes you feel guilty for not doing more to keep your kids healthy!  First, let me be totally honest and set the record straight about a few things.

• My 8 year old daughter (Erica) says EVERY SINGLE NIGHT, “Why do you have to make gross things for dinner every night”.

• My 6 year old son (TJ) subsists on granola bars, string cheese, apples, and ketchup (he even dips his apples in ketchup).

• My 11 year old son (Nate) tells people his favorite food is candy. And just yesterday he said his 5th grade teacher is The Best because she is always giving them candy!

So, with that said, to ease the guilt, lets change our intentions to SMALL CHANGES! That’s right! Small changes can make huge differences.  You don’t have to use every idea on this blog.  Of course not.  But one in 50 may speak to you and inspire you to try it with your kids.  So, here are some small changes.

• Make your kids smoothies once a week.  On that day they will be getting more fruits and vegetables than 98% of the rest of the kids in America!

• Go outside this weekend instead of going to a movie.  Plan a family walk, hike, swim, bike ride, anything!!

• Substitute!  When baking use applesauce instead of oil.  Light sour cream instead of full fat.  Light cream cheese, instead of regular.  Whole wheat flour instead of white.
• Sneak it in!  Follow the Sneaky Chef, or Jessica Seinfeld and puree some veggies to include with your creamy, cheesy casseroles.  Or, sneak in the beans.
• Replace the white bread in your house with whole wheat bread.
• Teach them something about nutrition.  Angee is doing a nutrition segment this week on preschool nutrition ideas.

So, for the love of all that is healthy and good, Please keep visiting my blog. Don’t get scared away!

Post note edit: I forgot to add: Throw out the Little Debbies.  No one needs them. And while you are at it, Toss the Lorna Doones Beth. Obama said so.

Hope everyone had a great Halloween. I, for one, am not sad to see Halloween over.  Its one event where my kids are just completely exhausted, irritable, and ready for a good detox!  Hopefully this week we can get some good solid whole foods and move on with eating better. 

The funniest  story I remember about Halloween (funny to me) was many many years ago, I was watching Regis and Kelly.  Well, Kelly Rippa talked about how she spent days, or maybe weeks preparing little treat bags with ribbons on them for the trick or treaters. She was ready with her whole bowl of treat bags and got NO trick or treaters!  It’s like planning a party and no one shows up!  I laugh about that story every year for some reason.

I haven’t made muffins from my Master Muffin Mix in a while.   Of all the muffins the master mix makes, this was a family favorite!  Everyone, including my husband thought they were great!
Once you have a Homemade muffin mix, there is no reason to buy purchased muffin mixes. Its just as fast to make it from this mix.   I added the recipe to the bottom of this page (A quick peak at my super awesome, amazing, new website. I’m so embarrassed by the old recipe pages!   I screwed them up one to many times.   My sister has almost fixed everything I messed up, and I promised her I would only write with the <div> and NEVER change my fonts willy nilly again.

Anyway, back to the muffins!

Simple ingredients.

Added wet things first (oil, eggs, vanilla, and soy milk)

Then the dry Master Muffin Mix

Then I crushed some STILL frozen raspberries.  (I just pushed a mug onto them)This made it easier to crush into their beautiful little individuals cells….rather than squishy and mashed.

Added the berries to the mix

Then for the “Mystery” part of the muffin, I added a dab of raspberry jelly to the center.

Then added the rest of the muffin batter to the top till it was about 3/4 full.

Then in a tiny bowl, made a small amount of streusel. Literally only about 1 TBL of brown sugar, 1 tsp of butter, and 1/8 tsp cinnamon.

Then mashed it between my fingers, and sprinkled it on the muffins.

And BAKED!  Again, the recipe is here

Of course, being Halloween, we had to add Halloween muffin papers, and the token cupcake flag to the top.