The Cutest Kids Ever

My sister Jo and I share this blog and it has been a great project. We are able to stay in touch more and are both working toward great changes in life. I think that the best blogs are 1) steady, 2) personal in building relationships and 3) real. So when Jody said that she was really busy and would be working on a blog post soon, I thought her situation itself was worthy of noting. We're all in this same boat.

This visual aid is from her youngest daughter, Allyson. As you can see, there are two other children in the middle of Ally and her oldest brother Zachary. Zach is the tallest in their family, but not quite as tall as this visual suggests. Still, he is this tall in his 7-year-old sister's eyes.

Jody has shared with me some of the funniest stories and most hilarious one-liners from her kids, that I've always told her she should write a book. The situations she finds herself in are truly larger than life and unimaginable to me. Most recently, she has been in bed sick. Very, very sick. The kids are all in school, husband works nights, she works days and their oldest son -- the 8 foot tall one -- works part-time but doesn't have a driver's license yet. All kids are involved in church, choir, soccer, baseball, band, dance...

So earlier this week my sister saw a need to help with a mini-crisis between my dad and our little brother. They had some relationship strains due to some displaced frustration from my dad, to my brother Bil. Bil has also gone through some challenges recently in getting his business off the ground. WHILE still sick, Jo manages to gather up a dinner after work, scoop up one of the kids (others had extracurricular obligations) and drive two hours to patch up some emotions. The drive is nearly two hours each way. So on a worknight where she has voluntarily done this, while still sick, she tells me she didn't get around to writing a blog. The guys were well-fed and their relationship is healed. Jo is on the road to recovery and has undoubtedly stored some treasures in heaven for her incessant selflessness. I'll encourage her to write some of the kid story highlights. Stay tuned for naked at Bob Evans, "that's not my hat," and the 7-year-old Bad Teacher.

Lunchable Makeover

If you look at the ingredients of a Lunchable, you will see that NOTHING in the container is nutritionally sound. In fact, eating the cardboard would likely be less offensive to a kid's digestive system than the food contents. For example, there is a turkey-cheese-cracker combo. Let's break that down: the turkey is processed, high in sodium, cheese is high fat, calorie rich and the cracker contains partially hydrogenated oils in addition to super refined white grains (good grain stripped of it's value to be smoother and tastier). Sometimes there is a small candy bar, no comment necessary and a pouch of Hawaiian Punch aka sugar water. Whew! I'm done ranting.

Here is the appeal of a Lunchable to kids, it looks cute. The portions are small and fun for kids to put together and play with. The idea of a Lunchable is similar to an Asian Bento box and you can create some similarly fun boxed lunches but with much more good health inside than the processed junk.

These are some of my favorite ideas:

Sandwiches - Cut the crusts off (save them to make homemade breadcrumbs) and cut the sandwich into quarters. Pampered Chef makes a cute Cut 'N' Seal that cuts crust and seals the sandwich all at once. My girls used to love them. (click here for my PC website) Fill sandwiches with some sugar-free jam and a touch of peanut butter or tuna salad. Also use whole wheat mini pitas for petite sandwiches.

Fruit - Cut fruit into small shapes and put them on skewers, reminding your kids that they are not to be used for sword fights when the skewers are empty (use a coffee stirrer if you're nervous about pointed objects). If your kids like to dip, you can make an awesome fruit dip out of yogurt with a touch of brown sugar. If you need to slice apples in advance, coat them lightly in lemon juice to prevent browning.

Peanut Pasta - This pseudo-Asian snack is fun and easy, slightly dilute some peanut butter with water and mix into spaghetti or angel hair, finish with some sesame seeds and dice in some green/red pepper if you can get away with it.

Veggies -Be creative with colors and shapes. For example, score a cucumber with a fork before slicing and you get a pretty shape around the edges, cut carrots into matchsticks and fill celery with light cream cheese coated with sunflower seeds. Dip is fun here too. If you mix some dry salad dressing mix like Good Seasons or Hidden Valley with yogurt you may even get those health benefits without them catching on that it's not high-fat Ranch.

If you like these ideas and want more kid-friendly recipes, let me know by sending an email and I'll send you more (without putting you on a mass mailing email list...I promise.)