Stickers!

Stickers are so much fun! Most times I just have to pull out a few books of stickers, paper, and markers and my kids will be busy for at least a half an hour. Most of the time you can find books of stickers in the dollar section at Target or at Michaels! 

This is what happened today with the stickers! Forget the paper, lets put them all over our body! =)

HOMEMADE STICKERS

*Heres another idea: You can have your child cut out pictures in magazines and make their own stickers! All you need is 2 Tablespoons of any flavor Jello gelatin and 4 Tablespoons of hot water. Stir in a small bowl until gelatin is dissolved. Then paint on the back of your cut out pictures. Let dry, Gelatin side up, for an hour and your homemade stickers are ready! WARNING: these will taste good so make sure when you lick the back to apply them to paper, you don't lick ALL of the gelatin mixture off! =)

Open ended art

Craft Time doesn't always have to be so much work for mommy! Bring out what you have on hand like: Paper, Markers, Colored Pencils, Tape, Scissors, Toilet paper rolls, pipe cleaners, and even candy wrappers. Just let them create! The trick to your child staying at the table longer is all in the surrounding! Fix some hot coco, put on some music, and, the most important key, Create with them! This doesn't mean help them with their project! Do something you enjoy like scrap booking, drawing, or even bring out a puzzle. My son and I had a relaxing hour this afternoon creating together. He is very proud to show off his creation on my Blog. He calls it "Volcano, Snow, & Candy Corn Land"

Let their Imaginations soar! =)

Cooking: Chocolate Bowls!

Balloons are so much fun! If you are going to play the balloon game from my last post, that means you already have some in your house! All you will need for this project is:

1. thick balloons
2. chocolate for melting, any kind you want!
3. non stick spray
4. a needle/knife (I used the sharp end of a compass)
5. Parchment paper
6. Something to fill you bowl with (I give suggestions at the bottom)

Here is how you start! Let your kids have some fun washing the balloons as you blow them up! You know how much they love to play with soap and water!

 After you dry them off, spray the bottom with non stick spray!

 Now you want to melt your chocolate! We already had Almond Bark for a different project so that's what we used! A healthier option would be Dark Chocolate!

 After it's melts it time to dip your balloons! OK, now here is where I had a problem.... the pictures above show that we blew up water balloons but when dipped into the chocolate, they POPPED! To much heat for how thin they are! In a quick moment, I grabbed my large thicker party balloons and blew them to about the same size as the water balloons, washed, and sprayed them!

 Now we are back on track! Dip your balloons in your melted chocolate and just go about and inch up from the bottom of the balloon. set the on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.

You can make as many of these as you want, I made about 10 balloons and there still was room on my cookie sheet for more! After you have them all dipped, put in fridge to cool. About 10 minutes later, bring them out and pop your balloons!

 Here is what it will look like! YUMMO!

 Because of the season, I am going pumpkin CRAZY so in ours we added a scoop of Pumpkin Ice cream!

 The best part about this is we brought it over to a friends house and got to share our sweet treat with them just for fun! That's what life's all about! Sharing in sweet moments with friends!

* Other ideas you could do with a white chocolate bowl is sorbet and fresh cut fruit! If you have a peanut butter chocolate fan, try using peanut butter chocolate chips for melting with chocolate ice cream inside. Most kids would probably go for a milk chocolate bowl, vanilla ice cream inside, and don't forget the sprinkles! For the healthiest option, how about a Dark Chocolate bowl with just fresh cut fruit!

****Check out this fun idea for Christmas Time****

Click HERE to see more!

Pop the Balloon Game!

I promised something fun! 

My son Brenden inspired me to do something with balloons! He had an idea to put little balls of play dough in a balloon. Its fun to play with and it makes cool sounds when you shake it! I wanted to make a game out of it so I surprised the kids with 3 packages of mini lego figures. If you have never seen these, its just different lego guys that come in a small bag, all in pieces! 

 Here are the three characters all in a pile, straight from their bags! I figured they would all be a good size to fit into little water balloons.

 Here is a picture of one of the pieces going into a little balloon.

 After the piece was mostly stuffed into the balloon, I stuck my balloon pump in there to get it blown up! The mini balloons WOULDN'T get blown up without a pump!!!

 This process took a little while but they were with me through the whole process because I was documenting for the Blog. If I were you, I would do the blowing up balloons by myself and then let the kids have a surprise when they play the game! They won't know what is inside!

 Put all the balloons in a pile. Count down and then they get to pop the balloons by sitting on them!

 The water balloons are so much easier to pop, especially if you have little kids playing! However, I had a little trouble fitting certain lego pieces into them so I added a couple large balloons in the mix.
Below you can actually see the legos inside the balloon that Brenden is about to pop!

 Here are the three lego guys we got, put together after the game!

Now, we played with Legos, but there are many ideas of things you can use to put inside the balloons! Since its Halloween time, you can put a single SMALL piece of wrapped candy or a spider ring inside!
If you are doing this for a birthday party you can use small party favors like silly bands and other fun prizes, just make sure its something they can't break when sitting on the balloon!

*My suggestion after playing this game is little water balloons for younger children. It's not fun if they are struggling to pop the balloon. Save the large balloons for bigger (school age) children. Part of the fun is watching them struggle to pop the balloons! =)

Check out this short video of my kids playing the game!

Whole Grain Vs. White

I hate to just load you up with facts that aren't so fun but I can't show you how I convert recipes unless I tell you WHY I convert them first! No one can explain this better the Dr. Michael Roizen.

"White bread is made from wheat grain that has been stripped of the outer shell and germ. Why is this a bad thing? When you eat breads and pastas made from this type of wheat — also called enriched, bleached, unbleached, semolina or durum flour — or rice flour, your body quickly converts this carbohydrate to sugar in your bloodstream. Your brain likes the feel-good rush of the sugar and sends out the message, more, more, more! Your arteries — not so much. Essentially, regularly raising your blood sugar can damage proteins called glycosylates. One of that protein’s jobs is to hold your cells and arteries together. When the arteries aren’t held together properly, your body tries to plaster the holes with LDL (bad) cholesterol. The result: atherosclerosis, which means your arteries are hardening and thickening, thanks to the fatty deposits, putting you at a high risk of heart attack and stroke. One-hundred percent whole grains, meanwhile, take longer to convert to sugar, are much less addictive than white flour/bread, and they also stay in your intestines longer, which means you stay fuller longer. That’s pretty fantastic, don’t you think?"

Read More http://www.ivillage.com/why-are-whole-grain-breads-and-pasta-better-you-white-bread-and-pasta/4-n-143806#ixzz1aqkfoRk6
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When my mother in law first started her diet we just switched ALL flour in recipes to Organic 100% Whole Wheat flour but as you all know white flour is so SOFT and Whole wheat doesn't have that same consistency. Although I still use Whole wheat flour for some recipes, my favorite substitutes over time which stand up to the soft consistency of white flour are Whole Grain Spelt, Barley, Oat, and Quinoa. A lot of times I mix them, a little bit of this flour and a little bit of that flour. Here is a picture of what I have in my kitchen now. You will most likely have to go to the health food section in your grocery store to find these different flours!  

When making choices with your bread, pasta, and flour PLEASE read ingredient list on the back and watch out for the words: enriched, bleached, unbleached, semolina or durum flour. 


I PROMISE MY NEXT POST WILL BE SOMETHING FUN!!!! =) 

First food post: Why Organic?

Since this is my first food post I just want to give a little information about why I try to cook the way I do. If you read my first blog "Here I am" you know that my mother in law, Nancy, has totally gotten off all medication just by changing the way she eats!!! She eats all Organic and Local (Food grown at farms close to your home) food.


What is Organic food mean? Definition from Wikipedia-
Organic foods are foods that are produced using methods that do not involve modern synthetic inputs such as synthetic pesticides and chemical fertilizers, do not contain genetically modified organisms, and are not processed using irradiation, industrial solvents, or chemical food additives.^[1]


I'm gunna get a little controversial but this is MY blog so I'm gunna say it! The food and drug administration want to tell us that pesticides, etc. in food not labeled "organic" aren't proven to do anything to anybody. But when you have positive results sitting in front of you, like my mother in law, you cant ignore it!


So if the fruits and vegetables that you are eating aren't organic, then most likely you and your children are consuming different pesticides and/or chemicals! So its easy right? Just eat Organic!!! Unless you have lots of money, it's not that easy, buying Organic is EXPENSIVE!!!! So I will help you out with a list of foods that normally contain more pesticides than others (dirty dozen) and food that is safer to buy nonorganic (clean 15). 
this is copied from: http://www.ewg.org/foodnews/


As you can notice in the "Dirty Dozen" they are fruits and veggies that you eat the whole thing, even the skin! Also they are very hard to grow without bugs touching them and to be perfect store quality!!! So how can you consume them without also consuming the chemicals used in their growing process? Even after being washed, pesticides are still found! 


Hopefully these lists help you in making better choices for you and your family! =) Also, now that we have Trader Joes in Kansas City, your organic produce can be more cost effective!

EWG's Shopper's Guide to Pesticides in Produce

Dirty Dozen

Buy these organic

1

Apples

2

Celery

3

Strawberries

4

Peaches

5

Spinach

6

Nectarines
– imported

7

Grapes – imported

8

Sweet bell peppers

9

Potatoes

10

Blueberries
– domestic

11

Lettuce

12

Kale/collard greens

Clean 15

Lowest in Pesticide

1

Onions

2

Sweet Corn

3

Pineapples

4

Avocado

5

Asparagus

6

Sweet peas

7

Mangoes

8

Eggplant

9

Cantaloupe
- domestic

10

Kiwi

11

Cabbage

12

Watermelon

13

Sweet potatoes

14

Grapefruit

15

Mushrooms

Halloween Game: Capture The Ghost

I am SO EXCITED!!! I have been looking for my notes to Capture The Ghost for years now. I remember it being so much fun at Halloween time with the school age (K-8th) kids I worked with. Sometimes, I would have 10 kids playing this game at once and EVERYONE would be having fun. This is great for parties or large groups of kids or you can keep it low key and play it just with your family. If I am unclear in any of my explanations, please leave me a comment below and I will try to make things more clear.  To start you need to make the ghosts! Very easy and here is what you will need,

1. White paper towels (two per ghost)
2. Pieces of string or yarn about 3 feet long (one per ghost)
3. a black sharpie marker

Lay out one of the paper towels and you or your child crumple up the second paper towel and lay it in the center, like pictured below.

 Then pick up the edges of the paper towel on the bottom and bring them up around the crumpled up ball.

 Take your 3 foot string and tie it around the paper towel, right above the bump of the crumpled up towel inside.

 Have you child draw the faces on the ghosts. If this is for a party, get the ghost to this point and then let the kids draw their own faces on their ghost! It's a fun thing to play with even after the game is over!

This is what it will look like when done!

 Let the game begin! The rest of the supplies you will need are:

1. Tape, to make a circle on the floor.
2. A plastic cup, to use as the cage to capture the ghosts.
3. Two or more dice 
4. ten pennies per player

Here is what it will look like when you are ready to start! You tape a circle on the floor and lay the ghosts inside with the strings coming out of the circle. One person is chosen to start as the ghost catcher! The ghost catcher sets their ghost aside and is holding the dice and plastic cup.  All of the other people have a ghost inside the circle and are holding on to their string! 

 The ghost catcher calls out a number between 1-6 (the numbers on a normal die). Then rolls the two dice in his/her hand. If that number is on either die, they can try and capture as many ghosts as possible by putting the cup on top of the ghost. My daughter is capturing my ghost in the picture below. The people holding onto their ghost DON'T want to be captured so if they see the number called on the dice, they pull their ghost out of the circle (where they are safe). Which is what my son is doing in the picture below!

What do you do with the 10 pennies per person?

1. When your ghost is captured you have to give the catcher a coin. 
2. If you pull your ghost out when the number called didn't show up on the dice, you must give a coin to the catcher. 
3. If the catcher catches you without the number called being rolled, the catcher gives the person who ghost was caught a coin!

Everyone gets a chance at being the catcher! Just go around the circle clockwise. I say, the game stops when someone is out of coins or when everyone has had a chance at being the catcher twice. You can make up your own rules to stop the game depending on the number of children and their age. After the game is over, I let the children keep their money and give everyone a treat for playing (a sucker, homemade cookie, or a choice of halloween candy, etc). No losers and everyone has fun!

This game is great on practicing number skills!

*You can easily use this for your adult halloween party. Anyone playing puts in their own ten one dollar bills, used instead of pennies, and you play till someone has no more money.

*Another example of how the game can be changed is: My friend Sara is having a Halloween party and the theme is Spiders. Play Catch The Spider and make spiders instead of ghosts. Also, when you tape out your circle on the floor you can tape out a spiderweb!