Entries Tagged 'Kids' ↓

A kid-friendly lunch doesn’t have to mean a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Not only can dishes such as fruit kabobs, pizza quesadillas and noodle bowls be just as easy to make as a sandwich, you may be surprised to discover how popular and kid-friendly such healthy choices are.

Ideas for spreading the lunch love:

• Give kids something they can assemble themselves. They love dipping, stacking and rolling up their food into fun treats.
• For kids, anything “mini” equals fun. Serve them things like mini whole grain bagels, potstickers or cheese cubes.
• Make food into fun shapes. Colorful or interestingly shaped pasta, sandwiches cut into shapes with cookie cutters, or fruit cut into triangles, circles, etc.
• Try to expose your children to at least one new flavor each week. This could be an item they’ve never eaten before or one they haven’t had in awhile.
• Include a fun container, special note, napkin, cartoon or joke in the lunchbox.

BUILDING THE IDEAL LUNCHBOX

Like the ideal breakfast, lunch should have lots of fiber and whole grains, some protein and healthy fat, a veggie and just a bit of natural sugar, like a piece of fresh fruit.

To give kids a sense of control and a vested interest in eating their lunches, involve them in the prep-work and the decision-making process about what goes in the bag. Best to do this on the weekend or the night before to avoid morning meltdowns.

Tips for building a kid-friendly lunch:

• Involve them in the prep-work.
• Include a protein.
• Choose whole grains, whole grain breads, crackers and pasta for fiber.
• Choose one fruit and at least one veggie per lunch.

INSPIRED LUNCHES

Stuck in a peanut butter and jelly rut? Try these ideas for a little something different:

• Whole wheat tortillas spread with peanut butter sprinkled with raisins or dried cherries, rolled up and cut in two.
• Pizza quesadilla or a tomato cheddar soup and cold antipasti spread including tortellini, meats, cheeses and green beans served with grapes any other fresh, bite-size fruit.
• Hummus and spinach wrap, cherry tomatoes with string cheese, and yogurt.
• Baked corn chips, black beans, cheese wedges and fresh pico de gallo with jicama sticks.
• Whole wheat or buckwheat noodles with peanut sauce, sugar snap peas, a pear, almonds and a fortune cookie.
• Tuna salad with grated carrots, served with crackers or in a pita.
• Cheese triangles served with pepperoni and whole wheat crackers for stacking.
• Crostini (toasted French/Italian bread slices) served with chopped olive salad, roasted turkey and hard-boiled eggs.
• Vegetarian brown rice sushi rolls with soy or ponzu sauce.
• Smoked salmon, cream cheese and cucumbers on mini bagels.
• Shumai dumplings/potstickers packed cold with ponzu sauce or peanut sauce.
• Vegetable fried rice (make the night before or use dinner leftovers).
• Chocolate almond butter with graham crackers.
• Fruit kabobs made from assorted colors of melon balls and other fruits on a bamboo skewer, served with yogurt for dipping.

Find out how to stock a tempting selection of healthy snacks. – WholeFoodsMarket.Com

Serves 2

Kids will love to help you make this healthy snack since it’s fun to spread the nut butter and sprinkle the chocolate chips. No corer in the kitchen drawer? Slice the apples into rounds first then use a small cookie cutter to remove the core from the center of each slice. Wrap sandwiches tightly and tuck them into lunchboxes, if you like.

Ingredients

2 small apples, cored and cut crosswise into 1/2-inch thick rounds
1 teaspoon lemon juice (optional)
3 tablespoons peanut or almond butter
2 tablespoons semisweet chocolate chips
3 tablespoons granola

Method

If you won’t be eating these tasty treats right away, start by brushing the apples slices with lemon juice to keep them from turning brown.

Spread one side of half of the apple slices with peanut or almond butter then sprinkle with chocolate chips and granola. Top with remaining apple slices, pressing down gently to make the sandwiches. Transfer to napkins or plates and serve.

Nutrition

Per serving (about 7oz/192g-wt.): 300 calories (150 from fat), 16g total fat, 4.5g saturated fat, 0mg cholesterol, 115mg sodium, 36g total carbohydrate (6g dietary fiber, 25g sugar), 8g protein – WholeFoodsMarket.Com

Set of 3 Sandwich, Fruit and Snack, $24.00

Set of 5 Sandwich, Fruit, Veggie, Snack and suprise, $38.00

www.GrazeOrganic.Com

Whole Foods Market is participating with Chef Ann Cooper to provide healthy salad bars to schools across the country. We are  jump starting the movement by raising money for a salad bar in at least one school in the communities surrounding each of our stores in the U.S. That’s almost 300 schools! You can help us reach this goal by donating to your local Whole Foods store and also by helping a school of your choice to apply for a grant.

A healthy salad bar in every school across America so all school kids may have access to fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains and healthy proteins, every school day.

The time is ripe for 31 million schoolchildren. We need a solution and we need it now to deal with these unhealthy facts:

• According to The Center for Disease Control, children born in the year 2000, one‐third will contract diabetes. And, these children will be the first in our country’s history to die at a younger age than their parents.
• 70.1 percent of Americans are overweight; 4.3 million children ages 10 – 14 will become overweight or obese in the next 24 months.
• Rates of childhood obesity are soaring. About 12 percent of children ages 2 to 5 are obese compared with 17 percent of kids 6 to 11, and 18 percent of kids ages 12 to 19.
• “The number one thing any school can do to improve their school food is to add a healthy salad bar and allow children to make their own choices.” – Chef Ann Cooper, AKA The Renegade Lunch Lady and co founder of The Lunch Box Project and Food, Family, Farming Foundation.

I’ve donate to this very worth cause every time I shop for groceries, So next time you find yourself in Whole Foods add your donation to you bill or Click below to find out more information. – Taryn Cox for The Wife.

www.SaladProject.Org

Parents will love using this mini note set to create quick personal notes to tuck inside a child’s lunch. Includes 105 colorful cards for writing messages and 100 silly stickers for brightening up lunch sacks and sandwich baggies. Use them on days when your child has a test, when they need a pick-me-up, and just to say I love you. Mini Lunch Box Notes, $9.95.

www.PaperSource.Com

This set of No. 2 pencils from Paper Pastries is printed with a half dozen factoids that every good student should know: from “I before E except after C” and “Largest Mammal- Blue Whale”, Etc. Know it all Pencil Set, $10.00

www.paperpastries.bigcartel.com

SnowWhite Rabbit, $32.00

Arttic Hare, $28.00

Mother Goose, $53.00

Mama Jack Rabbit, $42.00

Squirrel, $30.00

Mallards, $11.50

ImagineChildhood.Com

www.IcoEye.Com

World Ma Aqua, $75.00

Green United States Map, $45.00

Letterpress World Map, $100.00

www.TheseAreThings.Com

www.FloraHenri.Com

Image: Jak & Jil

www.MarcJacobs.Com

Photos from Jak and Jill

Photos from Style Me Gorgeous

I always see these fun colorful pom poms hanging over charming tables at bridal showers, baby showers or like shown below to decorate a child’s bedroom. I assumed you had to spend grueling hours constructing each little pom from scratch until I discovered the company PomLove or as they like to call it “Happy Floating Paper.” Each Pom is available in an assortment of rainbow colors. Ranging from $5.00 each, 7 Poms for $30.00, or a 20 Poms for $75.00. – THE WIFE

www.Esty.Com/Shop/Pomlove

For years, we’ve known about the epidemic of childhood obesity in America. We’ve heard the statistics—how one third of all kids in this country are either overweight or obese. We’ve seen the effects on how our kids feel, and how they feel about themselves. And we know the risks to their health and to our economy—the billions of dollars we spend each year treating obesity-related conditions like heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.

But we also know that it wasn’t always like this. Back when many of us were growing up, we led lives that kept most of us at a pretty healthy weight. We walked to school every day, ran around at recess and gym and for hours before dinner, and ate home-cooked meals that always seemed to have a vegetable on the plate.

For many kids today, those walks to school have been replaced by car and bus rides. Afternoons playing outside have been replaced with afternoons inside with TV, videogames, and the Internet. And with many parents working longer hours, or multiple jobs, they don’t have time for family meals around the table anymore.

It’s now clear that between the pressures of today’s economy and the breakneck pace of modern life, the well-being of our kids has too often gotten lost in the shuffle.

And let’s be honest with ourselves: our kids didn’t do this to themselves. Our kids don’t decide what’s served in the school cafeteria or whether there’s time for gym class or recess. Our kids don’t choose to make food products with tons of sugar and sodium in supersize portions, and then have those products marketed to them everywhere they turn. And no matter how much they beg for fast food and candy, our kids shouldn’t be the ones calling the shots at dinnertime. We’re in charge. We make these decisions.

That’s actually the good news—that we can decide to solve this problem. That’s why we started Let’s Move, a nationwide campaign with a single goal: to solve the problem of childhood obesity in a generation, so that children born today can reach adulthood at a healthy weight.

Let’s Move is not about trying to turn back the clock to when we were kids, or cooking five-course meals from scratch every night. No one has time for that. And it’s not about saying no to everything either. There’s a place for cookies and ice cream, burgers and fries—that’s part of the fun of childhood.

Instead, Let’s Move is about families making manageable changes that fit with their schedules, their budgets, and their needs and tastes. It’s about giving parents the tools they need to keep their families healthy and fit, and getting more nutritious food—more fresh fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, and less sugar, fat, and salt—into our nation’s schools. It’s about helping grocery stores serve communities that don’t have access to fresh foods, and finding new ways to help our kids stay physically active in school and at home.

Achieving all this won’t be easy. This isn’t something we can fix with a bill in Congress or an executive order from the president. I’ve spoken with many experts about this issue, and not a single one has said that the solution to childhood obesity is to have the government tell people what to do.

Instead, it’s about what all of us can do to help our kids lead active, healthy lives: parents making healthier choices for their families; mayors and governors doing their part to build healthier cities and states; and the private sector doing its part as well—from food manufacturers offering healthier options to retailers understanding that what’s good for kids and families can be good for businesses too.

That’s why I’ve been traveling the country, speaking to groups ranging from PTAs to food manufacturers, to elected officials, to school food-service employees, asking all of them to be a part of Let’s Move. And since this campaign began, several major school suppliers have already agreed to improve the quality of their food, doubling the amount of fresh produce they serve to our children. The nation’s largest beverage companies have agreed to provide clearly visible information about calories on the front of their products, as well as on vending machines and soda fountains. The American Academy of Pediatrics has begun urging its members to screen children for obesity and to actually write out prescriptions for parents detailing how to address it. And we’ve started a Web site—LetsMove.gov—with tips on eating well and staying fit.

Changes like these are only the beginning—and we’ve got a long way to go to reach our goals. But I’m confident that if we each do our part, and all work together, we can ensure that our kids have not just the opportunities they need to succeed, but the strength and endurance to seize those opportunities: to excel in school, pursue the careers of their dreams, keep up with their own kids, and live to see their grandkids grow up—maybe even their great-grandkids too. That is the goal of Let’s Move, and that is my mission as first lady. - Newsweek

Look around anywhere in America and the reality assaults you: we are simply too big. Nowhere is the evidence for this more striking than the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s color-coded obesity map. Between 1990 and 2008 the country morphs from a sea of pleasant blue, representing an obese population of less than 19 percent, to an alarming patchwork of tan, orange, and maroon, where the stats range from 21 percent obese in Connecticut to 32.8 percent in Mississippi.

The epidemic is most alarming among American children: rates have tripled among kids ages 12 to 19 since 1980, with one third of America’s youth now overweight or obese and almost 10 percent of infants and toddlers dangerously heavy. Obese kids, defined by a body-mass index at or above the 95th percentile for children of the same age and sex, are at risk for developing conditions in childhood once monopolized by adults: high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and type 2 diabetes. And many are stigmatized and suffer from low self-esteem, which can lead to depression. If current trends continue, nearly one in three kids born in 2000—and one in two minorities—will develop type 2 diabetes in their lifetime, according to the American Diabetes Association. The disease is linked to heart attack, stroke, blindness, amputation, and kidney disease. Indeed, a study published last month found that obese children are more than twice as likely to die prematurely as adults than kids on the lower end of the weight spectrum. In the U.S., new government data show an overall plateau of high BMIs in kids over the last 10 years—a hopeful sign. But “even without further increases in childhood obesity, the toll of the epidemic will mount for decades to come,” says Harvard’s Dr. David Ludwig, director of the Optimal Weight for Life program at Children’s Hospital Boston.

This goes way beyond fitting into our jeans or airline seats: the estimated annual cost of obesity in the United States is $147 billion. The problem even threatens our national security—being overweight is the No. 1 reason recruits are turned away from the military. Not so long ago, a lack of personal willpower was blamed. Today, obesity is considered a public-health threat, the toll of a toxic environment that endangers the well-being of our children and their future.

It’s not just us, either. “Globesity” has consumed much of the planet, with more than 1 billion adults overweight or obese. And while we’re not the fattest—Nauru, Micronesia, and a handful of other countries beat us—we’re very close to the top of the list. Urbanization, modernization, technology, and the globalization of food markets, which includes the exportation of Coke and burgers, has created a crisis of “epidemic proportions,” in the words of the World Health Organization.

But it’s America that has become the world’s preeminent fat-making machine. To dismantle it we need a coordinated, comprehensive plan of attack, one that pairs individual responsibility with a social construct that fosters good nutrition and a healthy lifestyle. We need to be surrounded by food that makes us well, not sick. We need schools and workplaces that reward us for exercising our bodies, not just our brains. “If you want people to make the right choices, they need to have the right choices to make,” says Dr. William Dietz, director of the CDC’s Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity. We need forceful and well-enforced policies, a government that invests dollars in improving the diet of school kids and puts limitations on the advertising that targets them. We need Americans to perceive obesity as a personal threat to themselves and to their children, not as somebody else’s problem. We have a long way to go.

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www.LittlePosers.Com.Au

The Official Tooth Fairy Kit contains one letterpress Certificate
of Record for filing with your local Tooth Fairy and one reusable silkscreened cloth deposit bag for your first and all subsequent transactions. The offical certificate keeps record of name, age, tooth lost, method of extraction and compensation information.

Official Filling Instructions: Simply place tooth in the attached envelope and insert your completed certificate in the deposit bag. Place the full bag under your pillow. The tooth fairy will collect the Certificate of Record and place your compensation in the deposit bag.

www.OfficeoftheToothFairy.Com

Simply set the built-in timer to the desired time-out duration (usually one minute per year of the child’s age) and sit the child on the pressure sensitive pad. If the child gets up before the end of the programmed time, an alarm sounds to alert the parent or caregiver, and the countdown will pause until the child sits back down. Once the full time-out countdown has elapsed, the finish tune is played to let everyone know that the session has ended. The child should then apologize and be rewarded with a big hug!

Five Steps to Successful Time Outs

STEP 1 – The first warning

This warning stage is critical to the success of the time-out technique, as it gives your child the opportunity to correct inappropriate behavior.

Come down to the eye level of your child, and say in a firm but calm voice “Your behavior is unacceptable. We do not swear and hit people in this house. Please do not do it again”.

STEP 2 – The final warning

Arts & Crafts

Paint, fold, and create with classic and innovative arts projects.

1. MAKE A BOOK: Choose from nine different styles, such as accordian, step book, and more, for you child to create his own book. Voila! A creative gift that everyone will love.

2. WRITE A STORY: Help your budding author create a story by filling a bag with 10 objects and using at least eight of them in the plot.

3. DRAW A SELF-PORTRAIT: Set your tot up in front of a mirror and have her sketch her self-portrait.

4. TRACE YOUR BODY: Tape nine pieces of blank paper together into a large rectangle, then have your child lie on top. Trace her body and have her decorate it with hair, clothes, and accessories.

5. DRAW YOUR FAMILY: Sketch pictures of each family member.

6. MAKE A FAMILY COLLAGE: Cut up old photographs to make a collage of the family.

7. MIX AND MATCH: Have one person draw heads, another draw bodies, and another draw legs. Cut them out and mix them up to make funny pictures.

8. GIANT TISSUE-PAPER FLOWERS: All that’s needed to make these impressive oversize blossoms are tissue paper and pipe cleaners.

9. GO GREEN: Kids can whip up these trash-to-treasure craftswith items that are already around the house.

10. CREATE CUSTOM KNAPSACKS: Personalize bags with fabric markers and stencils.

11. MAKE SHEEP: Create soft, fluffy sheep with construction paper, cotton balls, and googly eyes.

12. MAKE KEEPSAKE BOXES: Every kid needs a special box to store stuff. Use magazine photos to create a decoupage collage box.

13. CREATE A RAINBOW FISH: They love the book, now kids can make their own special, sparkling rainbow fish.

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Kiddie Records Weekly began in 2005 as a one year project devoted to the golden age of children’s records. This period spanned from the mid forties through the early fifties and produced a wealth of all-time classics. Many of these recordings were extravagant Hollywood productions on major record labels and featured big time celebrities and composers.

Over the years, these forgotten treasures slipped off the radar and it became our mission to give them a new lease on life by sharing them with today’s generation of online listeners. Each week throughout the year we’ll add a new recording.

So whether you are hearing these records for the first time or reuniting with a childhood favorite from long ago, we hope you take great pleasure in your trip down memory lane!

I also thought that if you found Kids Records from the 1940’s or 50’s at antique fairs or records stores they would make great pieces of art to frame and hang in a child’s nursery or room. Another decorating tip from THE WIFE!