Tag: raising kids

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Easy Kids Snack Ideas & Recipes

broccoli, twins, boy, thefivefish.com

Feeding my children can be the easiest and most daunting task. So I try to find healthy and substantial snack ideas that do not leave them craving for more food later or feeling unsatisfied.

A great snack idea that costs very little and is great for on the go or to tie the kids over until dinner is graham crackers and cream cheese. Simple and effective without the sugary, sweet effects or salty, bloating of other foods. Spread a little softened cream cheese on a graham cracker snack and you have a cheesecake tasting snack without all the filling calories, fat, and sugar like more snacks.

Do you want your kids to get more protein without all the bulk of eating meats and or processed foods? Lentils are a great snack and are fabulous for toddlers learning to grasp and eat by themselves. Boil a cup of lentils, rinse and toss with your favorite seasoning for a light snack or even bake them tossed in a light coating for a bit of a crunch and zip. Great for salad toppers or alone, the kids love the crunch.

Ants on a log: my personal childhood favorite of raisins atop a stalk of celery smothered with peanut butter. Crunchy, salty, sweet, and good for you. Low in calories and high in fiber and protein this fun filled snack is sure to be a crowd pleaser.

Cracker Sanwiches: using slices of apples or pears and cheese or spread some peanut butter in between these crackers to create a fun and tasty sandwich to help your kids feeling full without overfeeding them.

Ask your kids what they want to eat and make it fun, take them into the kitchen and let them explore with you and share their ideas of a fun and great snack idea.

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Trying to Conceive

As a mother I think that a great deal of misconception surrounds trying to conceive for women. I personally went through my own struggles. From complicated health issues that hindered my ability to conceive to loss. To conceive a child is what some of us consider to be what makes us women. While we are no less human or no less a woman, the yearning for a child for many women is very biological.

Currently I have a friend who has struggled, as I had to conceive. But I feel her story is worth sharing as I wish her all the baby dust and sprinkles in the world as she begins her journey into motherhood.

trying to conceiveHer conception struggles began sometime last year as she made her first attempts at conception. Knowing some early pregnancy symptoms and signs she knew she was pregnant. But as veteran mothers know, the first 12 weeks are always the danger zone. Within the week of sharing her good news with the blessed few, including myself, she was experiencing heartache. My heart broke for her as I watched hers break over and over and I saw her wretched with pain. I saw her come to work and swallow her pain. I knew her pain, I once experienced her pain, but how can you console a grieving woman who so badly wants to be a mother just as I had become. At a loss with her loss I gave her space but shared my pain with her, my struggles as a reassurance she was not alone, to aid in her healing.

Time passed and she tried yet again only to be faced with the same result, loss, grief, and the emptiness that she may never become a mother. I saw the despair, I could feel her despair, I once experienced this myself, and again I offered my friendship and experience as a consolation that conception can suck, but she is not alone.

However  her loss became a sounding strength as she became more determined to find the root of her struggles of which she did and did so with some success. She found answers, direction, and a healing path. She recently just found she was pregnant, without jinxing the impeccable news, she has not shared with many people, and I will not share her name because I would hate to jinx this for her as well. But my intent is to share that conception is not always a joyous event. Women struggle each day, but with struggles and heartache can eventually yield the joy and love every woman who is trying to conceive deserves.

Please cheer, pray, light candles, whatever your methodology may be for my dear friend as she travels through the next seven weeks to the path of glory and surviving her first trimester into the coming days of motherhood. I have been honored to get her every other day results with her blood work as her levels climb at awesome levels. My personal hope is she is cursed blessed with twins and she experiences all the joys, laughter, struggles, and growing pains of any parent.

Our journey to motherhood should not be met with such woe and sorrow, but the reality is that we are thrown a curve ball. How we act upon that curve ball is whether we step back from the plate or we take a swing and run for the bases.

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Breakfast Pizza Recipe

Sunday mornings are my time to give the man of the house a break and I whip up some of my culinary favorites in the morning for the family. Albeit egg nog french toast or pumpkin pancakes for the coming of fall, but lately we have tickled our taste buds for a bit more of the boring meets eccentric type of cuisine.

A little cafe by my office serves up a WICKED breakfast pizza, it is all sorts of unhealthy with garlic, olive oil, bacon, you name it and this breakfast pizza is topped with the heart stopping additives. While I wanted to copy this recipe of sorts I did not want to steal their thunder nor the replica of the food, I wanted to put a Herring organic spin. Of which I did!

Half dozen organic flour tortillas (super easy to make with organic flour too!)

Morning Star Vegan Sausage

Diced/cubed ham

(yes this is available in organic, you have to hunt for it)

Six Eggs, scrambled

(I add a touch of water while scrambling to make these babies extra fluffy)

Shredded Cheese (to taste)

On a large baking sheet or baking stone, place tortillas flat, topping with the above and add cheese to taste. You can mix up the ingredients and add bacon and or pork sausage, we went for a lower calorie and I love Morning Star sausage due to the vegan component for my kids. Place in oven at 350 degrees until the cheese melts to be sure not to overcook the eggs and meat and serve. My kids loved this new spin on pizza and breakfast.

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Broken Crayons Recycled

What to do with broken crayons? Our family is a waste not, want not type. More so the waste not because why throw out something that can be repaired or recycled. In our case we have about a gazillion broken crayons due to toddlers and children’s hands and who knows the reason why crayons break, but it happens. Unfortunately though these broken crayons became intertwined with those that are whole creating a crayon nightmare for my OCD. My project became how to reuse or what to do with broken crayons.

So one day I decided to embark on the great crayon rescue and clean up project. My kids have the Crayola crayon maker and to be honest I think it sucks, we used it and I was not impressed. I am glad I did not spend a great deal on it for Christmas one year, so that will be a yard sale item, and I suggest you do the same by not investing in this purchase. I digress. Any how, we sifted and sorted through the thousands of colors and crayons we have, removed the paper wrapping, and tossed into a bowl to break into smaller chunks.

When I saw that the Crayola contraption was lacking in effectiveness I resorted to creativity and ease. Here is how you can make your own cool shaped crayons at home here is all your need:

Non-stick or silicone muffin tin

I have these great silicone muffin tins from Wilton’s that I used for this project and created some really rad looking crayons for my three and a half year old twins and eight year old son that are great for them to grab onto with their little paws, are sturdy, and they are funky shaped and fun.

So I tossed in similar color family colors of crayons into each deposit spot and placed in the oven at about 250 degrees for roughly 20 minutes and watched them melt into the molds. I checked on them to ensure the wax did not bubble or boil as not to break down the way and mix the colors into an oblivion or brown and pure ugliness. Here is the end result and the kids love their new crayons and they are some fun, funky, sturdy crayons that are wonders for their imaginative coloring creations.broken crayons, recycled crayons, make new crayons

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The Alternative to Purchasing Textbooks

textbooks, text books, college books, college educationAs a much indebted college graduate I can share my woes of financial burden and hardship of my college years were spent wasting away in the words and higher learning’s of textbooks. The ever dreaded and might I add bank breaking textbook. Nowadays there are lots of options and alternatives to purchasing textbooks for money savings and recycling.

Much of my textbooks ran in the hundreds of dollars range or they ran into that range due to the fact that I had to have multiple books for the class. Luckily I took a similar class  line as my husband so we were able to share books, albeit some were a bit outdated yet the material was the same. I would shop feverishly to find low priced books or a way to NOT have to buy the books because now I have bookcases stuffed with college text I will probably not refer to again unless I am playing Trivial Pursuit with a gaggle of friends and we are adding alcoholic beverages to the playing lineup. Oh I digress.

However I was introduced to a fabulous website Campus Book Rentals and life saver for college students. Rent your textbooks, purchase at a reduced price and not only do you receive a smoking good deal but the organization supports one of my favorite not for profit organizations Operation Smile.  Campus Book Rentals has partnered with Operation Smile by donating over 1000 life saving cleft lip surgeries this year to children in need. So for every book that is rented a portion of the proceeds help fund Operation Smile.operation smile, cleft pallete repair, Talk about two for one with saving money on college textbooks, but your funds are further being used to support a great cause. Don’t just take my word for it, take a gander and try out Campus Book Rentals for more information on saving money while in college.

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Dawn of the Dead

Yes the title of this blog is a direct reference to a movie surrounding zombies. The Chad and I are huge fans of horror flicks and zombie movies are some of the best (*cough…worst) movies around. I mean anyone who is anyone has seen a B rated zombie movie and laughed, or you got hooked on the A&E series, or maybe your kids talk about zombies with their video games (*cough…not my house).

But there is one thing that I will attest to with zombies, despite their total non-existence, is that I know they are attracted to noise. Lots of loud, obnoxious, even just muffled noise, zombies are attracted to noise like a moth to a flame. So I am going to ask you of a large favor in the event that one day our world were to ever become overrun with brain eating, flesh munching, scavenging zombies.

But let’s look at this noise issue. Seriously my kids are prime zombie dinner. I kid you not, from the moment my Seth-en-stein is awake his lips are a running and he is on his way to verbally vamoosing you, honestly the words leave his mouth so fast you can hardly answer the first question he vomited your way let alone the next. Up next is Little Bitty who is the house manager and has a shrilling scream that would break the most finest of crystal if the right pitch allowed, so come on zombies….we are just sitting ducks waiting for you just on these two alone. Finally we have The Boy and The Dog….mind you the dog snores worse than any human. In fact someone asked me what the rumble was….I had to confess it was my English Bulldog snoring…no rumble. I am left now with the boy who if you asked him to be quiet would argue the art of being quiet just for sake of debate.

In the event of a world zombie domination

AVOID MY HOUSE!

Yes, avoid my house because my family will be the first victims because my children cannot shut the fuck up for more than one point one milliseconds. The fighting, screaming, whining, crying, carrying on is going to be a zombie magnet and we can guarantee to be zombie dinner. Thank you and best wishes.

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Choosing Childcare, Preschools

Upon the birth of my first child Grant I was a mess for weeks scrambling, literally, at the last minute attempting to arrange and interview child care centers and preschools. My poor son, at the ripe age of five weeks with a neurotic mother, scared sick about leaving her child with anyone else but his parents. Even the sole time my mother watched Grant so that The Chad and I could attend a work dinner was sheer horror for me. I was breastfeeding and it was time away from my baby.

However, my fears were lessened as I began to research schools and childcare centers. I read articles online about credentials the centers had yielded, affiliations, complaints and where to find those complaints (which will vary by state), I researched whether they were part of a food program, the security measures they had to keep my children safe from predators and while in their care, and the staff to children ratio.

Who would have dreamed that childcare considerations were so in-depth, labor intensive, and quite frankly a science?

I had no idea. In fact when I first began seeking out childcare for Grant I went off of the brand name centers that were familiar by sound. Later I found I was unimpressed, annoyed, and rather disdained by the level of service these “brand name” childcare and preschool centers offered. The treatment was comparable to walking onto the sales lot of an auto dealership, vultures, waiting to pluck at their prey when they are most vulnerable, pushing for a “tour” based on their schedule and not yours, more concerned with enrollment and cash flow than the needs of my child and myself. One center had the audacity to advise me that they would not let me visit the center unless I had an appointment, needless to say I felt this organization had something to hide if I could not just drop in as I felt my schedule allowed, they were discounted and removed from consideration.

My research and extensive notations about the various facilities soon became a bullet point checklist:

  • Accreditation – was the school accredited in the state, nation, how were they officially recognized as a facility and learning institution.
  • Safety – was the facility safe for my child (now children with the twins), keypad entry, camera’s viewing the classrooms, licensed facilitators and caregivers.
  • Convenience – was the center convenient to my hours, schedule, location, were they accommodating to my needs and those of my children.
  • Curriculum – did the center provide a curriculum of learning and or child interaction no matter the age to aid in the development of my child.
  • Cost – the nitty-gritty is that cost is a huge factor in choosing a childcare and or preschool. Even if the cost is low, do the other bullets add up in the equation regarding curriculum or learning, safety, and accreditation, the same can also be said for the higher priced “brand name” and or boutique childcare centers.
  • Happiness- is my child happy here, am I happy they are here, do the staff interact with my child in a fun and loving fashion, yet educational and assertive to establish healthy boundaries.

While each parent’s decision in choosing a childcare facility and or preschool may vary, the fact of the matter lies in that as parents we choose what is best for our child, children, and our families. Each family varies with their needs, whether they be a special needs learner, a child with allergies, and or our children need a level of interaction to stimulate their learning and childhood experience, the choice in a childcare facility is not one to be made hastily.

Be sure to weigh in on all of the factors when choosing a childcare center, and furthermore, rely on your instincts. While the consideration may sound hooky or even mystical in nature, a parent has a form of sixth sense when considering care, welfare, and well-being of our children. Choose a facility that will work with you, your family and especially your child. For more information, visit your local department of health services to research a childcare facility and their operations and visit Primrose Schools to read about the various options to weigh when researching a childcare facility.What are some considerations you look to when choosing a childcare facility? What sticks out as a sore thumb or red-flag in your decisioning?

This is a sponsored post on behalf of Primrose Schools. While I was compensated for this post, in no way has my opinion, experience, or knowledge been influenced and or biased, but purely an informational post.
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Not easy being Green

USDA Organic, organic, Karie Herring, thefivefish.comMom’s and folks galore find the most amazing topics in life to argue about. Stout opposition. Blatant bullshit. Mindless minutiae. But let’s get to the brass tax of some largely misunderstood and widely misrepresented information. The Green Movement. Even more so, the whole organic movement and the stout opposition to HFCS (high fructose corn syrup) among mommy bloggers.

But a lot of folks are mislead or are completely uneducated about organic, certified organic, certified free trade, USDA certified organic, heirloom and the like. The business and marketing about organic is confusing to the layman and its marketing and a lifestyle choice to those who fully embrace, understand, and know the true meaning of going green and choosing organic. Let’s place a bit of fact or fiction regarding organic, buying organic, what organic really means, and exploring the full realm of the Big O and what the general public is probably not fully aware surrounding our friends at the USDA.

FACT  or FICTION? : The top foods you should buy when buying organic are milk, meats, produce, and grains.

FICTION.

Organic is a lifestyle. PERIOD. Much like dieting, smoking, drinking, whatever your vice, choosing to purchase USDA Certified Organic foods is a LIFESTYLE choice. Suggesting to buy specific items is sheer bullshit. However, you can find a fantastic list of items that are believed to be the dirtiest (riddled with pesticides and considered high on the GMO list) in your produce section on this article by CNN and you can also read it on the great not for profit site. Furthermore, take a good look at organic and standard produce. If you love your California avocados and are willing to buy them at 2 for $1.00 when in season, by all means. But don’t stray away from your organic either. Take a gander, are the prices comparable? If so, then the investment is worth the small price difference.  But if the price difference is rather considerable, then hold off until the item is in season or buy standard. Again a pure choice. Organic is reasonably priced due to the fact that the items are harvested when they are in season, much like when your flowers bloom and based on the location of the farm with the season. When in doubt though, buy US produce as the cost will be a bit less due to the fact less travel was associated with the delivery.

FACT or FICTION: Milk should always be bought organic because of all the hormones?

FICTION

Again a matter of lifestyle. However, many dairy farmers are pushing that they are not using hormones or are hormone free because of the startling study found by researchers that these hormones are being carried into more than just milk. But into our bodies and our children which is believed to induce premature puberty in young girls and androgyny in some of our boys. Furthermore, with the recent events in Japan, be wary of your “California Cows” or those from the Pacific area since radiation is first found in milk of cows from the grass they eat….that goes for Organic too. Moooo-ve on over Pacific and Pacific Northwest.

FACT or FICTION? : There is only one organic.

FICTION

The truth of the matter is that everything is organic. *gasp! Yes, we are all “organic” material, made of matter and the like. CERTIFIED Organic, the big green you see above, is delegated into several different categories and let me just paint the picture so you understand how each applies to just a few of the different delegations of the “organic” umbrella:

  • Certified Organic – this can be QAI and USDA certified. Both of these require rigorous and in depth investigation of the farms, the product, the water source, the cleanliness, the soil testing. Not a stone goes unturned in these certifications. However, the USDA is rather more intense requiring a farm to be clean for a minimum of five years during review. The soil, water, produce, the entire farm is tested to make sure it is clean of pesticides, hormones and additives. A farm generally has to be clean longer than this time in order for the life cycle of pesticides to die off, if they ever. Furthermore, rigorous maintenance and fees are applied for being USDA certified. Not to mention the handling on these farms is not your standard handling which is why the costs may be realized to be higher. But you are what you eat right?
  • Heirloom – I could live and breathe heirloom if allowed. Heirloom is exactly what it sounds like. These are seeds and produce passed down from generations. You will see a good portion of EU (European Union) countries have heirloom produce. Native Americans here in North America have heirloom seeds and produce. Heirloom produce is open pollinated and are a hybrid. By hybrid, these seeds have naturally cross pollinated and albeit evolved through the ages. They are generally pesticide free and are not what a layman may consider a perennial or annual. These beauties are tasty, gorgeous, and unique all their own. What people do not realize is that seed producers and sellers generate seeds that only germinate once or maybe more but after that the fruit/produce becomes bitter due to the genetic engineering of these items. Which makes heirlooms all the more in demand.
  • Organic – just about anything can be called organic. It just cannot be called “certified” or you start getting into an ugly marketing and disclosure issue with the feds. Organic is a way of farming, period, and again everything is organic matter/material. So items can be considered under the “organic” umbrella in a range anywhere from 70 to 99% organic depending upon the ingredients and the way the ingredients are grown. However, in order to slap the old green seal of approval onto the foods you eat, those foods must have passed the rigorous testing of the USDA and the Organic Program which certifies that the farm is still an active clean farm from the water, the soil and the environment in which it operates. See all my aforementioned regarding the cleanliness of these farms and you can find more at the USDA Organic site.

Just know that Organic truly is a lifestyle. No one will look down their nose at you for the food choices you make, and if they do, well maybe they ought to look at their own lives before passing judgement on yours. Life is all about choices and as parents we try to make the best choices we can in life and as long as you can say you are doing what you can for your children and they are healthy, happy, productive people then what else can we ask for as parents. Like Kermit the Frog always said, “It’s not easy, being green.” Nor is life easy as a parent, when we brought our special packages home we were never given a manual for handling them, so we make our own rules and manual up as we go along all the while learning from our mistakes, because if we were all perfect, we would never know to learn.

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Mom Sells Weapons of Mass Destruction

Recently I found a new calling in the employment realm. This has been a truly liberating change in fields and needless to say I rather find living on the edge to be totally sexy and intriguing. My new job, in addition to all my other career paths, is as an arms dealer. Yes. I kid you not. I deal with weapons of mass destruction.

You see these two WMD’s are probably the safest on the market as well. You can keep them in your home without permit and their expiration happens at around the age of 18. You avoid the whole fallout issue as you would with standard nukes, the 10 mile safety radius, cancer, however, these two do not come without a price. Their side effects include headache, exhaustion, sleepiness, irritability, agitation, the uncontrollable urge to curse, this is all the effect on you….but if you want to clear a room or destroy one, these two are the weapon of choice.

In fact, they are so powerful, we had to keep them behind bars.

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Healthy Homework Habits

Education is such a vital aspect in my family’s home that may be overlooked when considering the health and overall nature of fostering healthy learning. Our worlds are so technologically driven that even the most necessary evils, computers, e-books, and e-learning environments can be damaging or even cause a hindrance for our children’s learning curves.

Luckily my seven, soon to be eight, year old son has not reached the peak of technology based learning for which I am ever so grateful. He is still at the stage of the essential basics for communication both written and oral that will foster healthy learning for his teen and adult years and something I will rally for through those learning years. However, while he is still in his elementary learning in life his dad and I do what we can to create an environment at home that is conducive to his learning and would be parallel to his learning in the educational institution. So each night when he comes home we ask if he has homework, even though we know the answer, we feel that asking him promotes the desire to learn and excel.

When homework is confirmed we like to create a healthy learning environment. Now most parents may think to clean off the table, maybe clean their room as to be free of distractions, maybe turn off the TV, some form of “cleaning” to create a healthy homework environment is perceived by a majority of parents. But as parents to a school aged child, and two more on their way into the educational system, we have found that the healthiest environment is one of consistency. Here are a few tips we offer as parents for creating healthy homework habits for our child(ren):

  • Homework should be done immediately when they get home from school.

We think that by completing homework right away is the most effective. The material is still fresh in their minds, they have not had the opportunity to decompress from their learnings and thus let this vital knowledge slip away from loose play with friends and or by joining the mass of zombies who log onto video games.

  • Homework is completed in a quiet and or relaxed environment and or setting.

As a parent to three children, of which is a set of troublesome three year old twins, finding a quiet spot in the house is much like building a rocket to land on Pluto. Fuhghedaboutit! However, we do get the twins involved in the quiet time by asking their big brother to read out loud to them if he has a reading assignment. This is a very healthy habit as he gets into the routine of reading aloud to hear himself say words and learn to speak clearly in front of others. Not to mention the captive audience of a pair of rowdy troublemakers who will learn by example.

  • Get involved!

Sometimes this is easier said than done with parents. We have busy schedules that are driven by work, kids,extracurricular activities involving the kids, PTO meetings, travel, dinner, and the rigmarole of  everyday life. But if we ask our children, “does your homework involve….(fill in the blank)” whether it be reading, writing, spelling, and or math we are showing that we too care about their homework and their continued learning path and no separation exists between school and home. That the two are congruent with one another. In fact, years of research have shown that when parents are involved in a child’s learning, through homework and school interaction, that children have “Higher grades, test scores, and graduation rates, better school attendance, increased motivation, better self-esteem, lower rates of suspension, decreased use of drugs and alcohol, and fewer instances of violent behavior” (Michigan Department of Education: Education.com, 2007). Those reasons alone should be a powerful initiative to get involved with our children and their learning.

Whatever your habits may be, make sure they are healthy for your child’s learning. Kids thrive on routine and positive affirmations. Really their homework time should not be a burden for them or for you. What would you say are some of your family’s healthy homework habits? What would you share with other parents that may foster healthy homework habits that will have a positive effect on their child’s learning?

“THIS IS A SPONSORED POST ON BEHALF OF CLOROX AND WHILE I WAS COMPENSATED FOR THIS POST IN NO WAY DID THE COMPENSATION DETER OR INFLUENCE MY USE OR OPINION SURROUNDING THE USE OF CLOROX PRODUCTS.”