A few months ago, Rachel Vidoni (blogger at East Coast Musings and sister of my friend Megan) sent me a book that she had written called Little Changes. It took me a while to get to reading it because frankly I don’t read nearly as often as I once did.

(Let me get sidetracked here for a minute and ask if you’ve read 50 Shades of Grey. I bought it at the airport because a friend had mentioned it, but had no idea what it was about.  All I can say is — whoa. Not what I was expecting. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, watch the SNL spoof .)

SO, the book Little Changes is all about bringing awareness to small ways we can change our habits, the products we use, and the food we eat for the better. Rachel wrote the book with Kristi Marsh, a mom and cancer survivor who has made it a mission to help educate women about the choices we have to live a healthy, natural lifestyle and to provide the same to our kids.

Of course this is something most of us try to do, but it’s easy to lapse. I know I grab chemical-laden products when I just can’t justify spending crazy amounts of money on tiny bottles of sunscreen and organic bath products. I forget to bring my reusable bags to the grocery store, and I get so busy I just plain forget to make healthy choices a priority.

Last night I watched part of the movie Food Fight on Netflix — the story of Alice Waters and Chez Panisse, and how she started the whole local, organic movement instead of settling for the crap food that mega farms were trucking out to our grocery shelves. It reminded me to tell you about this motivating book — AND it reminded me to go to the farmers market this morning, where I loved breathing in all the smells, colors, and life of real locally grown delicious healthy food. I bought these bite-size McClendons carrots there, and when I got home, I headed straight for the sink to wash and crunch into these little nuggets of amazingly flavorful carroty goodness. They really are completely different than the old grocery store carrots, or the slimy flavorless “baby carrots”.

Now, go buy Little Changes! Here’s a pic of Rachel and her baby:

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I love it when the kids wake up early and get started on their own crafty activities (and “paint” their nails with a marker). This weekend, my daughter drew a tiger, an owl and a princess, then handed me a new play clay recipe she found. I whipped up a batch and we made snowmen, a heart and a happy bear. I loved the smoothness and snowy white color of the clay. Here’s the super simple recipe:

Ingredients:

2 cups ARM & Hammer Pure Baking soda (1 pound package)

1 cup cornstarch

1 1/4 cup cold water

1. Stir together baking soda and corn starch in saucepan. Add water and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly. When mixture is the consistency of moist mashed potatoes, turn out on a plate and cover with a damp cloth.

2. When Play Clay is cool enough to handle, gently pat until it’s smooth, then create!

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I had a fun girls weekend with my daughter over the past few days, while the boys were on a Scout camping trip. We started the day yesterday with a big breakfast at Chompie’s (probably the most authentic New York deli in Phoenix) so we weren’t too hungry for lunch. I made “ants on a log” for a healthy afternoon snack, using dried cherries and butterscotch chips for a little something extra. Next time, I may try cream cheese in place of the peanut butter on a few of the logs.

If you’re looking for more summery snack ideas, I just wrote about some of my favorite classic summer snacks. See them all at SheKnows.com.

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1. Make your own snacks.
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There’s just something so satisfying about breaking open your treat! You could frost these and add sprinkles, or fill with something healthy like berries. Endless possibilities. Have a festive Cinco de Mayo!

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We celebrated our friend Phoebe’s 6th birthday on this beautiful spring morning at a party in the park. Lucky for Phoebe, her mom is Deb the Baker (That’s what I call her, and what I’m trying to talk her into naming her baking business.) and she brought to life Phoebe’s favorite book series, Magic Treehouse. Can you believe this cake?! Check out that Kit Kat rope ladder! And that luscious trunk is 100% edible! Look — here’s little Debbie now…

Each party guest was given a bag of a sweet and salty mix of potato chips, popcorn, pretzels, and Chex cereal all drizzled with chocolate.

Later that afternoon, we had a Magic Treehouse-like fort set up in our backyard — complete with a stack of books inside…

And then suddenly everything was still… absolutely still.

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Want something with a little kick? I recommend the Jalapeno Popper Grilled Cheese sandwich from Becky Bakes. I’ve made it, and it’s every bit as good as it looks in this photo:

Or maybe a grilled caprese sandwich like this one from Closet Kitchen (prepare to drool) …

That’s it. I’m off to the market to get my grilled cheese fixins. Happy NGCD!

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I read an article the other day about how the “snack-food” industry is exploding. Companies are now coming out with whole lines of snack foods for kids and adults to much on shortly after breakfast. The article said people are now splitting their breakfast into two phases, having a little bite at home, then another nosh an hour or two later. Is it me, or does something just seem wrong about eating packaged snack foods constantly throughout the day? Don’t get me wrong — I fall into this trap myself more frequently than I care to admit. Honestly, those little bags of goldfish or sugary granola bars are so darn easy to grab when running out the door to pick up the kids from school and deliver them to running club, soccer, tennis, drama, or wherever their busy schedule dictates on any given day.

In addition to health reasons, I also realized it makes financial sense to start making my own snacks, since a big chunk of my grocery bill is going towards these nutritionally lacking packaged goods. So what am I going to do about it? Kids need fuel, and I’m not always able to prepare freshly cut fruits and vegetables (plus, one of my kids will only eat fruit directly from the refrigerator. In his opinion, if it’s not ice cold, it’s not fit for human consumption).

I decided I would search out some healthy recipes for wholesome snacks I could make myself that would be just as easy to grab and go. I started by finding the recipe for Smart Cookies, then made them this weekend. They are so healthy and delicious, I even let the kids have them for breakfast. Next, I’m going to make a batch of these homemade whole wheat goldfish crackers.

Smart Cookies from Honest Pretzles by Mollie Katzen
1 1/2 c. unbleached flour (I used half unbleached white and half whole wheat)
2 c. oats
1/4 c. oat bran or wheat germ
1/2 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. salt
2/3 c. brown sugar
1 c. apple juice
1/2 c. unsweetened apple sauce
1/4 c. canola oil
1 t. vanilla
3/4 c. chocolate chips
Extras: (I used them all)
1/2 c. dried cranberries
1/2. c. unsweetened shredded coconut
1/2 c. chopped almonds (I bought these from the Whole Foods bulk bin for just 70 cents!)

Preheat the oven to 375. Oil a 9×13 baking dish. Combine the flour through salt in a bowl. Stir in the brown sugar. Then add the apple juice through chocolate chips. Then stir in your “extras” (all or some). Get it all mixed thoroughly then dump it into your 9×13″ baking dish and smooth it out. Bake for 30 minutes. Cut into 24 sqaures and put onto a large cookie sheet. Return to the oven for 15 more minutes. Enjoy!

Thank you to Mary Beth from Salt & Chocolate for sharing the recipe. The Honest Pretzels book is for sale on Amazon.

If you have any recipes for healthy snack foods you make yourself, please share in the comments!

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Do you know about Perler Beads? They’re these tiny pieces of plastic that keep my kids busy for HOURS! Both my 5 year old daughter and 8 year old son will sit together and quietly work on their creations for an unusually long time — sometimes even working together, where one will be the “finder” and sort through all the beads to pick out the right color, while the other completes his or her design on the plastic shapes that come with the beads.

I like the kit I got at IKEA this weekend, because in addition to the shapes (heart, star, etc.) it also comes with a big white square, so the kids can get creative and not just fill in the shape, but make shapes of their own within the square. You can sort of see in the photo above that each shape has little nubs that the beads sit on. When the shape is done, they bring their plate to me, and I put a piece of special paper over the design (comes with the kit), and iron it for about 30 seconds, peel the fused design off the plate, flip it over, and iron another 30 seconds. When it’s done, I hand the kids their warm plastic shapes…

You can  find these at Michaels, IKEA, or maybe a garage sale, where I once lucked out and bought a huge bag of beads!

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1. Pop Beads!

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It’s really quite wonderful to enjoy a breakfast made by your neighbors. I had the pleasure of spending Saturday morning with my daughter at Boho Farm and Home, where an already amazing backyard was turned into a marketplace  brimming with local vendors selling handmade soaps, furniture, gardening items, freshly made “frites”, hair clips, the ciabatta bread and peach jam you see here, and much much more.

If you live in the Phoenix area, I recommend following Boho on Facebook to find out when the next garden tours, jam-making classes, farm to table dinners, and markets will be taking place. The community of urban gardeners that has formed in this area is truly amazing and I’m so thankful to have found out about it!

my breakfast: ciabatta roll from Grano de Vida and peach jam from Sweet Life Garden

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I love inventors. There’s always a good story behind their creations. In this case, the inventor of Vortex Color Changing Toothpaste is Dr. Howard Wright, a retired dentist. And color changing toothpaste isn’t the first thing he invented. He also has the patent on a special underwater whistle for scuba divers, which happens to be the loudest whistle in the world. Don’t you want to have a beer with him already?

His next dream was to create a toothpaste that started out as two colors, and turned into another color, so that kids would be encouraged to brush vigorously. It took him 10 years to find a tube that could hold two compartments with different colors, but he never gave up. And it makes me kind of sad to think of him waiting those 10 years, because honestly, my kids don’t care so much about the changing colors. It’s actually the flavor that my son went crazy for. I believe his exact quote was “This is the best toothpaste in the whole entire world!” And for him, flavor has always been an issue (as I was reminded last night when I dug through a half dozen rejected tubes of toothpaste in the cabinet, trying to find the saline nose spray), so I’m thrilled he likes it. Here’s how it works:

You squirt the toothpaste out of the holes. You can see they don’t always come out at the same rate, so you may have to plug one hole with your finger to get an equal amount of the other color.

You load up your brush with red (looks more pink to me) and blue, and brush away. The toothpaste doesn’t contain sodium lauryl sulfate, so it doesn’t foam. Dr. Wright says this is good for a few reasons. First, it has been linked to canker sores, and also, the absence of foam lets more fluoride come into contact with teeth. So how do you see the purple, when there’s no foam? Well, I tried it for myself, and I saw the purple on my brush, and when I spit the toothpaste out of my mouth. I’ll spare you a photo of my spit in the sink, but here’s what my toothbrush looked like after brushing:

Purple! You can try your own Vortex Color Changing Toothpaste by purchasing it here:

$6.95 at vortextoothpaste.com or Amazon.com

Ooh. I just saw this Twooth Timer, also for sale on the Vortex website. My kids could use one of these – maybe in their Easter basket to make sure they scrub well after eating all those jelly beans and chocolate bunnies!

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