Trickster

I tricked my kids into eating something green and good for them. Mwah-ha-ha-ha!

I've been making this extremely healthy smoothie for my husband and me that calls for, among other things, spinach. You can't taste the spinach or see it because of the overbearing blueberries in the shake, but you get all the healthy benefits.

I decided to throw some into my kids' smoothie, and what do ya know? They couldn't tell! Clara wasn't drinking hers as well as Noah, so I decided to make them into popsicles, and...we were two for two!

Here's how I made them (the measurements are really up to you):

handful of blueberries

handful of strawberries

half a banana

half a thing of yoplait strawberry yogurt

a little bit of milk

a little bit of grape juice

a big handful of spinach

Make sure you blend it up without your kids noticing the scary green things you put in it. My kids would not be eating it if they knew what was in it. You can also do whatever fruit you want, just make sure you put in blueberries or blackberries- something dark that will cover up the green color.

I got my popsicle makers at some kitchen store. I'm sure you can find them at Bed, Bath,and Beyond.

I guess Jerry Seinfeld's wife wrote a book about deceiving your kids by sneaking in healthy stuff in your kids' food. I've never read it, but I've heard she's got some good ideas. It's called

Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food
by Jessica Seinfeld

Have fun tricking your kids to eat healthy!

Rained Out

Today the rain ruined our plans, but it turned out to be a very fun night. We were supposed to go camping, but, like I said, the weather had plans of its own. Noah was so excited to go camping, and I didn't want to disappoint him, so we had a campout in the kids' room.

We fashioned a tent by attaching a blanket to the crib and the dresser. I layed out blankets and pillows and Noah's sleeping bag for a little bed. But I didn't want to stop there. I didn't want Noah to miss out on the things he was so looking forward to doing.

While Dad distracted them, I taped pictures of animals to the wall that I'd printed off the Internet or drawn myself. Then I told Noah that even though we didn't get to go see the animals in the mountains, they came to our house! I turned off all the lights and had him bring his flashlight on our animal hunt. He had so much fun searching for the animals I'd hidden throughout the upstairs. Once he found them all, he wanted to find them again and again. Clara loved it too, especially the owl (she loves owls!). I was a huge hit, and I think I will laminate the pictures so we can have those pictures around for another rainy day.

After the animal hunt, I hurried and drew a picture of a campfire and cut it out. Then, I made s'mores in the microwave (recipe at the bottom). I took the fire and s'mores to our campground, taped the fire to Noah's dresser and we ate s'mores around the campfire. Noah said, "I love rain." I think what he meant by that was, "I'm glad it rained so we could have a campout in my room." I am too!

After that we got ready for bed and gathered again "around" the campfire and sang songs like, "If Your Happy," "Popcorn," and "Itsy Bitsy Spider." Then we read a whole stack of books by the firelight (flashlight). Then we had prayers and said goodnight.

In theory, they were supposed to go to sleep, but the excitement was too much for Clara. She was quite silly, but it was fun. I let them be silly and play for awhile, until a little while later I had to take down the tent just for tonight so that Clara could sleep without fun distractions.

This ended up being so much fun! We would not have had this much fun in the mountains. Or, maybe we would have, but it would have been a different kind of fun. There's something about sleeping under a homemade tent at home when you're a kid. Seeing Noah experience that was pure bliss. We wouldn't have had this experience if the weather had cooperated the way we thought we wanted it to. I hope we have more campouts that get rained out.




Microwave S'mores

Large marshmallows
fudge striped shortbread cookies

Place one marshmallow on a cookie. Put in microwave for about 15 seconds. Immediately place other cookie on top to make the sandwich; press hard. Eat! (Don't stop at one, either!)

Fruit Smoothies

I decided that Wednesday is going to be my Recipe Day. I'll try to post a kid-friendly recipe (hopefully something they won't wine about or gag on) every Wednesday, but some weeks I might not have anything. Those would be good weeks for my contributors (and wanna-be contributors) to post there own recipe (hint! hint!).

On my post about eating healthy, I made a comment that I often make fruit smoothies in an attempt to get make crazy non-fruit eating children to ingest some of the healthy, yummy goodness that is fruit. Someone requested that I post my recipe. So, here they are (I have two). There's really nothing fancy about them.

Mixed Berry Smoothie

• handful of fresh or frozen mixed berries
• 2-3 ice cubes
• splash of orange juice
• half a banana

blend until fruit and ice cubes are crushed and mixed.

Yogurt Smoothie

• 2-3 large spoonfuls of plain or vanilla yogurt
• handful of berries (any kind you want)
• half a banana

blend until fruit is crushed and ingredients are mixed

*Keep in mind that I use a Magic Bullet, which is a lot smaller than a regular blender. So, you may need to adjust your measurements.

*For both these recipes, you really can add whatever fruit you want and how much of it you want. I really just throw stuff together.

Great Idea

My sister had a really good idea. You can buy trays for making your own pop-sickles. My mom got some at Ikea (Good luck finding them on the website. I tried and failed. Let me know if you find them.), and they're really fun because they're tall like a real pop-sickle. Others I've seen are short and squat. Anyway, my sister's idea was to make fruit smoothies and make them into pop-sickles. It sounds delicious and fun for the kids to help make. That might be a fun summer activity.

I'd love for you to post your favorite smoothie recipe in the comments. Maybe one or two will make it in a later post.