Sprint to the Finish!

I am not ashamed to admit that both my kids beat me across the finish line at our very first 5 km Moon in June race last weekend!

I trained with my two older daughters for weeks ahead of time (see blog post on that here!), I taught them how to pace, to stretch, to drink water, and we bonded so much preparing for this race. Race day comes, and because it was a night run (meant for older kids & adults not 7 & 9 year olds!), we had the girls take a nap in the afternoon and filled them with pasta at lunch. They were ready to run!

Our 5 year old did her 1km run with Dad . . she loves that run!! Her little legs were non stop! Medal and freeze in hand, she settled in to watch her two older sisters run the 5km with me.

My older kids were barely visible among the 790 tall adult runners ready for the 5km challenge! They were never once intimidated by the people, the distance or the time of day. They were so excited when that starting gun went off at 9:15pm . . yes, it was a late one and yes, we would be doing our first 5km race together in the dark! The race was on!

After the pack thinned a little, the kids were thrilled to literally "run into" their school Vice Principle, Music teacher and Kindergarten teacher . . .each was impressed that the other was out running a 5k!! The kids and I chatted as we ran along on the road, they loved the encouragement from the other runners as they passed us by, loved the police officers directing traffic at the turning points and couldn't believe the kids and well wishers on the front lawns as we ran through sub divisions.

They saw the km route markers and the negotiations started . . ."we will run until we see 2km and them we will have a rest and walk . . . I think."

Turns out they passed the 2km mark and the 2.5km mark and experienced their first water station at 3km and after a brief sip of water, kept running. We made it all the way to the 4km sign before we stopped for a photo op and a walk to drink some water.

Be now they knew the finish line wasn't far and were eager to get back to running. After I finished texting their Dad to tell him we were coming in (yes I can text & run!), we headed for the end. They got more excited as they got closer and begged me to let them start running faster. I held them back til I knew we were close enough and no one would get hurt or too tired to finish.

Well, when I said "OK go for it" . . .they were GONE! I honestly could not catch my 9 year old as she sprinted across that finish line.

Proud does not even begin to describe how they feel about themselves! They experienced what setting a goal, working towards a goal and accomplishing a goal feels like. They talk about it almost everyday. I know they are reliving those moments in their head and how it felt to cross that finish line. They cannot wait until next year.

As for me? I am going to make sure I have a head start next time before the sprinting starts!!

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.

Healthy Easter Memories!

I will admit, I am a big fan of a certain chocolate that's only out at Easter, I love the pastel coloured candies, a solid waxy chocolate Easter bunny must be present (although I have no interest in eating it!) and there would be no Easter morning without jelly beans! Not sounding so healthy so far!

As much as I go candy crazy at Easter and it's true, I do focus more on healthy memories than the healthy breakfast, but I do try to balance it a little. I fill them up with a healthy Easter Brunch and 'add extra rainbows' as one friends says! They get scrambled eggs with cauliflower, fruit kebobs and muffins made with flax, whole wheat, and bran.

The fun side of Easter however, I go full out!

With 3 kids I quickly learned that the oldest was going to get all the goods unless I found a way to evenly divide the hunt. Those plastic coloured Easter eggs can be filled with stickers & pennies instead of jelly beans and as long as you assigned colours to each child, you control how many each kid finds! I spend a long night counting and sorting and then place a green & yellow egg in oldest child's 'collection' basket - she knows those are her colours - and place the basket at the foot of her bed. If she finds a pink egg on her way downstairs, she leaves it there and moves on . . pink and blue are her youngest sisters colours. Works every year and even allows me to hide the oldest daughters eggs in harder and higher locations!! And hide we do - eggs everywhere, trails of jelly beans from their room to their Easter baskets and even a hunt throughout the backyard . ..with the same eggs they found in the house, just secretly recycled and re hidden out back!

My favorite tradition has to be the paw print. I've had a kitty paw stamp forever and each Easter eve, as the kids sleep, I sneak in and place a paw print on their cheeks and on the back of their hand. The don't notice until someone tells them the next day . . . or now that they expect it, they run to the mirror to see when they wake up!!

Our last tradition is another fun one for the kids, aside from the usual colouring of eggs, we also grab fallen tree branches from outside, sometimes spray paint them white and hang the tiniest of decorative egg's on them with some we've coloured . . . our Easter egg tree is out earlier and earlier every year as the kids can't wait to decorate it!

Perhaps what surprises me most every year, is not how much the kids indulge in the candy palooza that goes on here at Easter, but how quickly they loose interest in the chocolate and the jelly beans after Easter! I leave the candy out for all to see and sure the first couple of days they ask for something every 10 minutes . . . but as the days go on, they forget and within weeks the gummies have hardened, the chocolate's disappeared to moms freezer stash and the jelly beans are a distant memory!

We like to have fun with food and it seems like around here it's the anticipation, the hunt and the memories that leave us with the sugar high! Enjoy your Easter everyone, stay healthy and be sure to sneak in a few sugar coated memories . . .we'd loved to hear about them!

Is an Apple a Grain?

Do your kids know if an apple is a grain?

Should they?

As parents, we have so many things to teach our children, and for me, teaching them as much as I can about the food we choose to eat is very important. From the age of 3 or 4 I discuss with them what I put in their lunches and why. Soon enough they will be the ones choosing what to pack and eat for lunch and if I don't give them the information they need, how can I expect them to make healthy decisions?

They see their friends with packaged snacks at school and they get those treats at soccer games and birthday parties when they are being handed out, but I use every opportunity I can to talk to them about making healthy choices. In the grocery store we look at labels - recently we've been checking out the sugar content of everything. We compare sugar in milk to that in juice and then look at a can of soda . .they get it when they can see it themselves.

Canada's Food Guide is a good teaching tool, but kids will may learn more at

the dinner table and from cutting apart weekly grocery store flyers, or helping pack their own lunch! All great places to start to talk about the food you are eating. My 5 year old came home from Kindergarten with some great work she had done in art. Gluing pictures of food from the flyers into its proper food group!! How fun! And what a great way to teach them that we need to eat foods from all the food groups . . . and wait . . candy isn't a food group??

My kids understand that we eat 'brown' bread and whole wheat pasta's because it is better for us . . even though that starchy white stuff might taste good I explain why we choose not to eat it. They know that at each meal we should try to eat something from all the food groups and sometimes we take turns at dinner to see who can name the food groups on our plates.

From all these conversations, they are learning what Protein, Fruits, Vegetables, Diary and Grains are. They know these are the 'healthy' foods. They are also normal kids that would rather have ice cream and jelly beans for dinner so we do make 'treat' food a part of our day too. . .but the kids are learning to choose healthy food first!

It takes more than a glass of milk and gummy vitamins to raise healthy kids! Do you talk about the food you make with your kids and what the food groups are? Do you think understanding this now will help them as teens and as adults?

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!