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!

Business first: Congratulations to DramaMama! She won the beautiful book, Poem on Fruits Odes To Vegetables.  If you love your teeth, visit the giveaway page tomorrow for a new giveaway!

Anyone love Great Harvest Bread?  I’m anticipating a store opening just a few miles from my home, and I’m so excited.  In browsing their website, I came across this:

BAKERY TOURS

Calling all kids and parents! Ever wonder what it’s like to be a baker? Come take a tour of a Great Harvest Bakery! Check out our locations.

Most bakeries schedule free group tours. Just call and ask!
Eight Great Reasons to Go on a Great Harvest Tour:

1. Find out the five simple ingredients that go into our bread. One of the ingredients is actually alive…and you’ll get to see it!
2. Learn where our wheat kernels come from.
3. See how we grind wheat kernels into fresh-ground flour every day.
4. Feel how our flour is different than the flour you have at home.
5. Gaze upon the biggest mixer and mixing bowls you’ve ever seen!
6. Knead your own bread dough.
7. Peek inside our huge oven. Can you guess how many loaves it can bake at a time?
8. Eat some of our delicious bread, fresh out of the oven!

Forget about the kids… I WANT THE TOUR!!

So many blogs, so little time! Have you seen this one?  Although I am the world’s worst crafter, I love to look.   I wish I could make this Christmas Advent calendar, but I know if I tried, my dove would look like a piece of felt with a spec of blue dirt on it.  So, I won’t try. I’ll just enjoy what others can do.

My pumpkin hummus flopped like many of my crafting attempts.  I don’t feel bad.  I liked it of course.  My husband thought it tasted like baby food (but he doesn’t like hummus anyway), and the kids wouldn’t try it at all.

Here is the recipe from allrecipes. (I cut the recipe in half to fit my tiny food processor). If you like hummus, I’m pretty sure you will like this.

Give it a try!  The sourdough bread made it all that much better.

And hurry, before it’s too late. Enter Cathy’s giveaway to try some organic fruit puree!

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?)

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.

Carrot fingers! My kids liked these! They’ll take anything dipped in ranch.  Halloween has never been more delicious.

My sister is working on some big design changes for Super Healthy Kids.  Its so exciting, I can’t wait till its done.  Until then, I am praying all you who read in google reader DO NOT visit my site until its done!  Being half done, its a bit… what’s the word… difficult to navigate.  Wait for the invitation to see the new site, and you won’t be sorry!

Eating actual meals (rather than from the bag, or standing at the refrigerator) not only is better for you, but also keeps your house cleaner.

My kids will stand at the pantry, take a handful of Cheerios, and walk away, leaving a trail of Cheerios on the floor, and at the pantry door.  In literally makes me insane.  As soon as I step on Cereal on the kitchen floor, I know they’ve been eating from the bag.

In a span of 30 years, you will most likely eat 30,000 meals!  According to The Pleasure Trap, “anything you are likely to do 30,000 times cries out for efficiency and organization”

The following is our menu plan for next week.  Head over to my sidebar to find the printable version along with the shopping list.  Happy Cooking.

Next week I will post some pictures and recipes to a few items on this menu.

Your kids need more beans!  They are such a perfect food.

After a conversation with some friends last night who declared “My kids would never eat beans!”  I got to thinking…. Is it the kids, or is it the parents  (You know who you are!) bad attitude towards beans that leaves them uninterested.  Maybe a little of both.

My kids were such picky eaters before I started this blog.  However, I wasn’t exposing them to a variety of foods like I do now.  Now, when there are no other options, and since children don’t like to starve… they eat!

So, onto my bean dish.

I want to start using my $50 Costco blender more.

I posted this recipe for Black Bean Burgers moons ago.   But this time, I put in my blender

• 1 can of black beans
• oats (because I was out of bread crumbs)
• salsa and an egg!

I know it looks gross, but, it is what it is.

Then I added the cooked rice separately because I wanted it a little chunky.

Then I poured about 1/3 to 1/4 cup on my cast iron skillet.

And then of course put the patty between some delicious whole wheat buns (with a bunch of ketchup).

Then TJ added more ketchup to the TOP of his bun. Such a strange kids sometimes.

We topped it off with some homemade french fries, and the kids Gobbled it up.  Most kids won’t notice you used black beans instead of beef.  You will notice, but its still delicious.

More beans our in my blog future!!! They are cheap, low fat, good for you, high in protein, high in THREE kinds of fiber, and did I mention CHEAP!!  Way cheaper than ground beef.

Other awesome bean posts!

Beans 101

Today’s post is brought to you by my 8 year old daughter!

chop  the    carits. cut  the  strobarys. put  in frozen bluebarys. cut a appel. chop up  frozen   charys. put it in a bole and eat.