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Momma Mondays: Healthy Meals for Toddlers

Feeding little ones a variety of healthy meals can be a challenge…especially when they become oh so opinionated! All the sudden your glowing, well palated toddler has turned into this picky monster refusing anything presented to them simply I believe for the mere pleasure of watching mom burst into tears! But don’t lose faith you emotionally drained and overwhelmed saint! This too shall pass, and to help this phase move along here are some great tips for expanding your toddlers tongue and ensuring the little angel/demon gets adequate nutrition.

1. 1. Watch their liquids. A big deterrent for little bellies at meal times is their sippy cups. These cups are so handy, your little one can tote them around all day and for the most part they are spill-resistant. (I’ve yet to find a spill-proof no matter who makes the cup). However, this constant flow of liquids doesn’t allow their little bellies to get hungry so eating what’s on their plate becomes an issue. They can afford to be picky when they’re half-full! So a good way to eliminate this is to only offer their drink towards the end of the meal and to limit their fluid intake a good hour before they eat. Now all those parenting extremists out there, no I’m not saying deny your child fluid and dehydrate them, simply experiment! My trial and error has shown they will drink quite a bit towards the end of their meal and then usually a whole cup of water after the meal too.

2. 2. Don’t refill till their entire plate is empty. A big challenge is NOT to refill their “fav” foods when they gobble them down first and plead “MORE! MORE!” Instead let them have a few meals of “you get what you get and you don’t throw a fit!” No your little one will not starve! Like the saying goes, when they get hungry enough they’ll eat and believe me…it doesn’t take very long for little ones to figure this out. This method works great as well for those “picky” eaters. Simply offer more veggies and proteins while you’re in this “training” stage.

3. Hide your nutrition! That’s right; hide some nutrients in that food. Make your kiddos a smoothie and throw in protein powder, flax meal, oats or berries. Put some veggies (cauliflower, broccoli, peas) in their mac-n-cheese. Make their ordinary PB&J with almond butter and mashed berries instead of PB and high sugar jelly. Switch out all your tortillas and breads with whole grains versions…believe me, your kids will barely notice.

4. Let them dip! All kids love “dipping!” My girls love to dip any fruit or veggie in ketchup or yogurt, doesn’t matter what it is they’ll eat it simply to dip it. So liven it up a bit, ditch the ranch and give them hummus, avocado dip(which is a big help for those kiddos with bowel movement issues!), yogurt and honey to dip their veggies and fruits in.

Mostly in all this don’t lose sight of the goal…getting your little one great nutrition to be healthy. That also means a healthy relationship with food. Too many kids now a day have been fed horrible nutrition growing up and start dieting in the adolescence, thus creating an awful relationship with food. Start your little ones early to enjoy healthy foods and help teach their little bellies moderation without making it an issue. Anyone else have any great success with expanding your little ones tastes?

Tasty Thursdays: Heart Healthy Vegetable Lasagna

Well it was experimenting day in the kitchen! Having a hubby who LOVES some lasagna I wanted to make a healthier, low calorie version that was friendly to our waist lines and yummy to our taste buds and also was made with stuff I had in my cupboards versus going to the store for a few ingredients. I have to say...I succeeded! Here's the recipe...

8 Whole Wheat Lasagna Noodles(Oven Ready)
1 cup 0%fat Greek Yogurt
1 cup Part skim Ricotta
1.5 Tbsp Basil
1-2 tsp Garlic Powder
1 Jar roasted whole bell peppers
1 Bell pepper (julienne cut)
1 onion (julienne cut
1 15oz can of crushed tomatoes(preferably no salt added)
6 Cups of Spinach Leaves
1 Pint of Mushrooms sliced
1 cup Low fat Mozzarella Cheese
1 Jar of Marinara Sauce

Mix together your ricotta cheese, Greek yogurt, basil and garlic powder. Start with a bottom layer of noodles in a 15x17.5 in glass pan. Next pour on some marinara sauce, tomatoes, mushrooms, onions, Julienne bell peppers, tomatoes and spinach. Sprinkles some basil and garlic powder on top of veggies.The take your roasted Bell peppers and butterfly them to make your next layer base. Spread a little of the ricotta cheese mix on top then go to town with all your veggies and pasta sauce again. Sprinkle a little bit of the mozzarella cheese on top of this layer. For the next layer use the last 4 lasagna noodles, then add the ricotta cheese mixture on top of this then your pasta sauce and the remaining veggies again. Use the last of your whole bell peppers to make your top layer then sprinkle with the remaining mozzarella cheese. Bake covered with foil for about 40 minutes, then uncover and bake till cheese is golden. Makes 12 large servings.Nutrition: (From MyFoodDiary.com)
1 Serving
Calories: 219
Fat: 6
Sat Fat:2.5
Trans Fat: 0
Cholesterol: 15
Sodium: 240
Carbs:32.6
Dietary Fiber:6
Sugar:8
Protein:13
Vit A:33%
Vit C:491%
Calcium:20%
Iron:9%

The twins are Two!

Abbie and Ella turned 2 on Saturday!! We've survived two years..Yeay!! I decided to have their party at The Little Gym and it was a hit! The girls loved every minute of it and we had such a great time playing with them.

Momma Mondays: Post-Outing Days

I decided I would start writing about "mom" moments on Mondays. Tips, tricks, advice, trial and error stories. These moment seem to stack up on the weekends so what better way to start out the week than having a bit of encouragement for the mammas out there!

This weekend was very busy for my Jackson Five! The twins turned two on Saturday and we had their party on Sunday. Magically Andy had the weekend off so we were able to celebrate as a family which is very rare in our household. As it always seems anytime we have an outing or event out of the normal daily routine, it takes almost an entire day to recover. My little ladies are great adapters for those random outings, but they do require an extra day to get back into the swing of things. Especially after a very stimulating party at a gymnastic gym for little kiddos.

After two years I've learned three realities when dealing with post-outings.
1. Expect the kids to be a little on the whiny side the next day.
98% of the time, my girls are a little extra needy and tend to fight more the day after we have gone somewhere out of the norm. I am more attune to the "pre fight" signs and use more distracting techniques than I normally would. On a normal day ignoring the fighting is the best method for me (unless it involves yelling and hitting then we go through the apologizing routine). But post-outing days I distract a little more when I feel a storm brewing.

2. Nap time usually needs to be moved up 30-45min
The girls normal nap time is around 1pm-3:30pm. On post-outing days they need that moved to 12 or 12:30. This irks our schedule a little bit, but being prepared for the change a head of time I can make the transition smoothly.

3. Errands on a post-outing day are akin to WWII
Too many times it seems we run out of milk or need diapers the day after we have gone out somewhere. Lesson learned the hard way after half a dozen fits in King Soopers, that we DO NOT go anywhere the day after an outing. Some out there would rather teach their kids to be flexible in this area, but in my house I'd rather push flexibility in another way than reenact a scene from Johna and Kate plus 8!

Any moms out there have stories about post-outing days? Please share!

Recipes

Since staying home I've been able to cook A LOT more and experiment with some recipes. I recently read "Skinny Girl Dish" by Bethenny Frankel. She breaks down cooking and really teaches some basic skills. One of those was the ratio of cookie making. Fats to sugars to flour and my first attempt I have to say was absolutely AMAZING!! So I had to share. This is by far the easiest and most delicious chocolate chip cookie I've ever tasted. Enjoy!

Sarah's Cookies
1/2 Cup Butter
1 2/3 Brown Sugar
2 Eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 Cups All purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 bar of dark chocolate( chopped and broken into pieces)


Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs and vanilla. Add flour and baking powder. Mix in chocolate. Bake at 350 for about 10-12 min. Only till they are slightly golden on top. It helps to bake them on parchment paper if you have it.


Simple Chicken recipe

So since Andy and I are counting calories and trying to slim down I've been trying to mix up the ever faithful fowl friend. This recipe has become a favorite and it's so incredibly easy to make. All you need is Boneless, skinless chicken breast thighs, a packet of ranch or Italian dressing mix and reduced fat Parmesan cheese. Mix the dressing packet and cheese. Rinse off thighs and trim any visible skin remaining. Roll the thighs in the dressing mix and put in a glass baking dish coated with non-stick spray. Bake at 375 for about 35-40 min until internal temp is 160.

Give me your feedback if you've tried them!

Couponing

It seems the latest craze is couponing! Everywhere there are advertisements for half offs, deals-n-steals, and massive BOGO offers. There are some AWESOME deals out there to be had, but the digging is time consuming and very, very addicting! I admit I have gotten caught up in it the last year, but now after going through the craze I've come up with a few certainties...

1. Of all the offers I purchased, I really only needed 2 of them.
2. 90% of all coupons in the Sunday paper are for processed, artificially flavored, sugar loaded junk food that I don't need or should ever buy.
3. Most of the household cleaning/paper products coupons still are more expensive with the coupon than the store brand product.
4. Diaper coupons are great IF the brand is on sale with a manufacturing coupons and a store coupon.


Don't get me wrong I'm all about saving money, but the time that it takes to research, clip, drive and organize the good deals cuts into my family time immensely! I was spending more time learning to be cheap than with my kids or being an attentive mom, lol. So in this Jackson household we use coupons...when they have them for the things we normally buy:) Maybe in the future when my kiddos are a little less dependant I'll have the time to set aside for this endeavor. But for now it's scanning the store fliers and clipping Sunday coupons for things we regularly buy.

There are some great sites out there that walk you through couponing and post good deals a lot.

http://www.eversave.com
http://groupon.com
http://southernsavers.com
http://mamapedia.com
http://moneysavingmom.com/
http://passionatepennypincher.com/blog/

Good luck to all those moms out there couponing!