Perfect Fathers Day gift . . for MOM!

I have the perfect Father's Day gift . . .every mom should run out now and get one of these for their kids Dad!

This perfect gift gives back every weekend, to ME!

I sleep in (LATE) every Saturday morning. Daddy HAS to get up. The kids beg for him to get up. The kids never let him skip a weekend, this is serious 'Daddy is the best ever and we love him soooo much' !! All the makings of the PERFECT Fathers Day Gift!! So what is it . . .

THE perfect gift for this Fathers Day is a Waffle Maker. Seriously!

We bought Dad at our house one about 2 years ago for Father's Day and every single weekend & and every single birthday slumber party morning has been a waffle morning. He makes huge batches and freezes them so the kids have ready made pop-in-the-toaster breakfast before school.

It's brilliant !!

I get out of weekend breakfast AND school morning breakfast!! Kids can self serve from freezer to toaster and they LOVE Daddy's waffles.

He's even come up with his own "healthy" waffle recipe so the kids get some good stuff with their weekend waffle! (yes I know there are sprinkles on that whip cream above . . . but its real whip cream!)

So think about YOU this Father's Day!! Your kids will love you for it !!

Dad's Healthier "let mommy sleep" Waffles

Dry Ingredients

2 cups whole wheat flour

6 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

2 tbsp sugar

Wet Ingredients

2 cups Milk

8 tbsps Extra Virgin Olive oil

2 tsp vanilla extract

4 eggs seperated yolks from white.

1-2 mashed Bananas & handful of chocolate chips (see blog about choc chips here!)

Add first four ingredients to bowl and mix.

Add milk, olive oil, egg yolks and Vanilla Extract and mix. Add to dry ingredients and mix.

Add in mushed bananas and a sprinkle of chocolate chips

Beat Egg whites until white and fluffy. Then fold egg whites into batter.

Pour batter in to Waffle iron and cook for approximately 8 minutes. Makes approximately 15 waffles depending on size of waffle iron.

Brownies for Breakfast!

I know, a blog on raising healthy kids and here I am on my 2nd post talking about Brownies for Breakfast!!

Having 3 daughters, I am careful to avoid instilling those negative body image issues you hear so much about in today’s young women and I think brownies for breakfast can help me with that! Now bear in mind, I am not a certified anything and this is just my own personal experiment that I have been conducting for the past couple of years . . . for the real scientific results you will have to check back when my kids are in their 20’s and see how well adjusted they are! For now, I am going on gut instinct!

Here is what I am doing so far:
Lead by example – Check
I run, I eat granola and drink shakes for breakfast, salad for lunch, serve balanced dinner every day. Kids have health conscious parents to model.

Healthy Food First – Check
Few rules here – you must have breakfast, you have to eat all your lunch at school and not just the treat, you don’t finish dinner, you don't get dessert or vitmains. Simple and always enforced. They know the 4 food groups and know healthy food first. Always.

Family Meals – Check
We eat dinner together every single night as a family. Dad too. At the table. No TV. And we talk. Having said that, my kids are 4,6,8 and haven’t developed full on lives of their own yet so I can have Family Meals !

I also do something else important, I make eating FUN!! Broccoli is never fun when you are 6, but you have to eat it. To offset that, we have "play food" nights. Pudding for dessert, served on a tray and eaten with . . . your HANDS! They love it . . mix up a couple flavours and they are happy little kids! Jello on a tray works too . .add in the whip cream for super YUMMY Fun!

The brownies for breakfast happened by accident one day, but it’s the same idea – its Fun. My kids birthday is always a special day for them and one year we had birthday cake left over so I jokingly said, “who wants cake for breakfast” and of course they all said “ME” . . and I thought, why not? So now when it's anyones birthday, the whole family gets to have cake or brownies for breakfast.

It’s not going to hurt them, not going to decay their teeth, not going to turn them into sugar monsters. It is however, going to make that a super fun day (it started with cake!!), make them the envy of all their friends (they had cake for breakfast!) and make some amazing lifelong family memories (no one forgets cake for breakfast!) and it makes me one super cool mom (I LET them have cake, FOR BREAKFAST!).

And the best part? Since a DQ Ice Cream cake is what I order every year on my special day, I get to have ice cream for breakfast on my birthday!!

Do you let your kids get messy with food sometimes or have dessert first? How do you make food fun? Leave me a comment so I can try it out on my kids ! We love having fun!