Let’s talk about salads in the fall & winter months. If you’re looking for a way to spice up your roasted veggie recipes while it’s cold outside, I recommend trying something a little different. Usually, we think of salad as fresh, crisp, cold, crunchy veggies drizzled in a creamy dressing and tossed together. Salad is amazing. But in the fall and winter, a lot of our favorite salad veggies are extra-expensive. And their taste...disappointing. What if we combined everything … [Read more...]
How to Keep Your Masks Clean (Including No-Wash Hacks that Take Less Than 5 Minutes!)
In a world where it's hard to get kids to change their underwear or brush their hair regularly, dealing with a new piece of clothing worn directly on the face every day is a big organizational deal for parents! I'm sure some have had no problem incorporating regular mask washing into their routines, but we are all going to have "those mornings"... You know the ones. They used to look like this: "Oh no, we forgot to pack lunches last night and homework is only half done and my … [Read more...]
Cloth Masks vs. Disposable Masks: Our Planet and Your Budget
Any big change in our lives brings something new that we could buy. Sometimes it's just a frivolous marketing ploy from a company hoping to cash in on our anxieties. Other times, we truly need a thing that we didn't need before--but some of the options on the market are unnecessarily wasteful. Over the course of my life, I've seen an increasing number of disposable products marketed as essential, and I've often found that the reusable version is just as good or even much better. In … [Read more...]
Teach Your Kids: How to Take a “Mask Break” at School Without Inviting More Germs to Visit Your Face
"What's your favorite part of school so far?" It's the quintessential adult-to-kid question after a week or two of school, so when the orthotropics hygienist asked John this week, I was fully expecting certain 9-year-old boy answers. Most years he might say recess, STEM class experiments, silent reading time, or seeing his friends. Sometimes he comes up with a really fun activity that his creative teacher facilitated in the first week. This year, the infamous 2020? He … [Read more...]
The Truth About Coconut Oil: Is Coconut Oil Good For You?
How do you use coconut oil? Refined or unrefined? Substitute with coconut oil for baking and cooking? Coconut oil is used for personal care like lotion, eye makeup remover, eczema treatment, oil pulling, and more. I could go on about the usefulness of coconut oil. When I first started getting into traditional nutrition, I read about coconut oil. I was surprised how often I ran into it, and I didn't even know what it was (was it liquid or solid???), but I was curious to see if I … [Read more...]
The Most Effective Way to Start Your Homeschooling Day
As more parents begin their homeschooling journey, it's important to understand how to make the transition and the most effective way to start your homeschooling day. Let's talk about what morning time is and why you'll want to add it to your routine! Every weekday morning I have a goal in mind: 7:00. I want to have myself ready and the kids up by 7:00 so we can get a good start to our homeschool day. When this happens, we can usually knock out several subjects by 8:00! But our … [Read more...]
Give Your Pizza a Plant-Based Protein Boost! {Chickpea Pizza Crust}
Chickpea pizza crust is gluten-free, vegan, easy to mix up and handle, and receives literal cheers from the dinner table when I serve it up. Don't wait to give this extra filling, high protein pizza crust a try! Pizza night is every Sunday, much to my children's delight. In fact, if we eat anything else, even everyone's favorite homemade hamburger helper recipe, they feel deprived. I've been using at least a half dozen different pizza crust recipes this year and trying new gluten-free … [Read more...]
Could Your Mask Put YOU at Risk? 8 Doctors Agree on How to Wear a Mask Correctly
Way back in early February, before people in America really knew about the novel coronavirus now called COVID-19, Influenza A and B both went through our elementary school like wildfire. The kindergarten wing was hit particularly hard, and one day when I came in to volunteer with small group centers, more than a third of my son Gabe's class was absent. I finished playing Uno with my four eerily small groups of children and went to tell Gabe goodbye. After sanitizing with the … [Read more...]
Instant Pot Applesauce {No Sugar Needed!}
Instant Pot applesauce is so quick and easy to make - you'll wonder why you ever bothered with store-bought applesauce! You can enjoy this yummy taste of fall any time of the year in less than 30 minutes from start to finish. People who visit my house in the fall tend to enter through the garage and look around themselves and wonder. "What are all the apples doing here?" they say. "What is your plan?" I grin and share that yes, every fall, we buy about 400 pounds of … [Read more...]
Why My 5-Year-Old is My Most Helpful Kid in the Kitchen
You would think that my older kids would be better helpers in the kitchen than my youngest. While there are certain times and tasks where an older cook is amazing in the kitchen, here's a fact: My 5-year-old can't be beat. Are There Kitchen Chores for a 5-Year-Old? 5-year-olds should not be around sharp knives, hot stoves, or hot ovens. At first glance, it looks like they cannot be very helpful in the kitchen. However, young kids are far more capable than we think. RELATED: 10 … [Read more...]
