On your mark, Get set, GO!

My friend recently started a new blog, Foodwise, Childwise, for moms to share recipes and ideas for getting little kids to enjoy healthy foods. I submitted a "guest post" to share some of my ideas and I thought I'd cross-post the entry on my own blog too.

When our son was about 2 1/2 years old, we wanted eating plain cooked broccoli (my husband's favorite choice for vegetables, thus a very frequent side dish at our home) to be a fun and enjoyable experience instead of coaxing and bribing. So we started to have "broccoli races." Everyone at the table gets a piece of broccoli on their fork, someone counts "1, 2, 3, GO!" and we all eat our broccoli at the same time. When we're done eating, of course we display our open, empty mouths to the whole table. The goal is for everyone at the table to finish, not necessarily to finish first. My boys love this game and it turns any "blah" food into an exciting adventure. We still use it for broccoli, but we also use it when we're learning to eat a new food.

Another game we play to make eating fun reveals the depraved mentality of our boys. This game is called "Don't eat me!" and my son invented this game when he was almost 4 years old. Sometimes our food talks. It usually talks in a high pitched squeaky voice and says something like, "Please don't eat me! Whatever you do, don't eat me! Please!" At which point the boys gleefully take a bite of the food and laugh as the food screams "AHHHHHHhhhhhhh!" The scream fades away as the food gets swallowed. My boys, now ages 6 and 3 1/2, LOVE this game!

Note: Due to the high "giggle factor" in these games, it could pose a small choking hazard, so be attentive and chose foods that are appropriate to your child's chewing ability. For example, don't play these games with a bowl full of grapes.

O Christmas Tree...

For many people, the day after Thanksgiving is all about crazy shopping and great sales.  In our family, the day after Thanksgiving marks the beginning of the Christmas season!  Casey and I both love Christmas and we don't see any point of delaying the decorations and the music for later in December.  And this year Thanksgiving was real early, so our Christmas season is even longer!!!!

Bikers!

We celebrated a warm Thanksgiving at my brother's home.  We all had a great time and the kids loved being able to play together.  The temperature was in the 70s, so the kids could play outside - bikes were the favorite activity.  Dinner was delicious.  Casey made the turkey and mashed potatoes (Thanks to Cook's Country for the recipes).  Nathan made the stuffing.  Kristine made sweet potatoes, wild rice, green beans.  I contributed a pumpkin pie (Thanks to Libby's pie mix in a can!).  Yum, I love all the traditional Turkey Day foods!

The next day, we left my brother's house and headed towards the mountains for our 2nd annual Christmas Tree Hunting Expedition.  It's so Norman Rockwell to go to the mountains as a family and pick out your tree - and we love all that sappy family stuff.  We even sang Christmas songs in the car together!  Don't tell anyone.

 

Please forgive me if I don't blog frequently.  Casey is in the process of interviewing for jobs, so we're in the middle of a pretty big decision that will change our lives forever.  Plus it's Christmas time, so we've a lot of extra stuff going on too.

 

***** Update on the project for the school in Kenya - The school would like to buy sweaters for each of the students.  Aside from providing the basic need of warmth for the children, I think it also helps them to feel proud about their school and their hard work and develops a sense of community among the students (all the sweaters will be the same, like a school uniform, which is pretty important in many cultures).  In all, the teachers estimate that it will cost $300 to buy all the sweaters.  So all funds raised will go towards this sweater project.

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