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Stealthy Vegetable Disguises for Kids

March 5, 2019 By Kelle

Stealthy Vegetable Disguises for Kids

This sponsored post is in partnership with Stonyfield Organic, a brand we love not only for their products but for their values. They make delicious healthy yogurt without the use of toxic persistent pesticides, artificial hormones, antibiotics or GMOs; and they do it all with planet-friendly business practices–from using yogurt cups made from plants instead of petroleum, to making their own renewable energy.

I’ve admitted before that while I’m not big on getting hung up over parenting regrets, I have a few of them that are hard to live down. We moved Nella out of her crib and into a bed too quickly (her sleep has never been the same); I picked up my kids toys for them for far too long (leaving them out is a bad habit now), and then there’s the fruit before vegetables mistake. When my kids started eating solid foods, I skipped over the green stuff and went right for the applesauces and peaches because I wanted them to taste good. I missed out on the chance of expanding their taste buds early which led to a long stretch of limited things they’d eat–pasta, cereal, fruit, bread and sweets. Repeat. We’ve since introduced many new foods and are slowly growing their taste tolerance, but we still struggle in the vegetable department. It looks a little bit like this:

There are two words that work for a number of parenting challenges though, from slipping out of a room without waking up a baby to adding vegetables to their diet: BE STEALTHY.

A few sneaky ways we’ve tricked them into eating vegetables:

* Smoothies – Whenever we toss our favorite frozen fruits into the blender, I make sure to throw in some spinach. It gets pulverized in the blender, disguising the turn-off factor of unappealing leaves, and its taste is masked by the fruit.

* Sauces & Soups – If I chop them up good and pair them with the right flavors, I can slip in some veggies in our spaghetti sauce, chicken soup, and cheesy broccoli soup.

* Air Fryer – Brett bought a new air fryer last year (his Amazon picks, of course) and has made some creative options out of green beans, sweet potatoes and zucchini chips–all which the kids have tried with the selling factor of “fries” and “chips.”

* Stonyfield’s Whole Milk Yogurt pouches – Stonyfield gives moms a break and does the stealthy work for you, slipping veggies like sweet potatoes, spinach, beets and carrot in their convenient yogurt pouches and tubes.

Their new whole milk flavors include Apple Cinnamon Sweet Potato (Dash’s favorite–he says it tastes like creamy apple pie), Blueberry Apple Carrot (my favorite–so rich and creamy!) and their new Strawberry Beet Berry yogurt tubes.

My kids’ lunchboxes have come home many afternoons with their snap peas and dip untouched, but the yogurt pouches are always a favorite. Little do they know, they’re packed with carrots and sweet potatoes and beets!  Cue evil mom cackle.

Bonus – no mess, no spoons, no dumped yogurt all over the inside of their lunch box.

You can purchase the new Stonyfield flavors nationwide at Target, Walmart and a variety of other retailers.

Baby dolls are fans too!

Filed Under: Family, Parenting

An Ode to Toys

February 26, 2019 By Kelle

An Ode to Toys

I ran to Target last week with a shopping list of birthday party supplies and a reminder from Brett to pick out a “cool present” for Dash–a task that is not difficult because Dash thinks a lot of things are cool. I started in produce and strategically mapped out my aisle course, saving the toy aisles for the end–even if the milk warmed–because toy aisles are the best aisles, and I save the best for last. As I rounded my cart into the first aisle of the toy section and pushed it slowly past shelves of Hot Wheels and packages of bright orange tracks that promise roller coaster thrills, I felt a hint of the nostalgic ache I know I will soon feel when the delight of Hot Wheels has faded and is replaced with–what, new computer speakers? How lovely. This “future nostalgic ache” isn’t so much a sinking feeling as it is a subtle awareness. I know the dangers of mourning the loss of something while it’s still wonderfully present, yet I cannot help but be very aware–especially after experiencing the speed in which one child has already graduated through all the toy thrill stages and is now holding steady at Clothes-are-Everything–that we are past Intermission in the great production of Our Life in the Toy Aisles that has played in our family for years.

There’s a Hotline for Future Nostalgic Ache, and it’s called Heidi’s phone. So I call her, from two toy aisles over where I park my cart between pets that “come to life” at any sign of motion. When she answers, I practically yell to be heard over the uproar of animatronic dog barking. Let’s just state for the record that there are some toys that do not delight.

Heidi answers.

“I’m in the toy aisles at Target picking out a present for Dash and it just hit me–I don’t get much longer of this, do I?”

“I know. It’s horrible,” she says, attempting to console and failing miserably. In fact, when it comes to mourning our kids getting older, I don’t even know why we call each other. We provide nothing but an invitation to a deeper level of festering sentimentality. We are pigs in our own wistful filth.

“I’m going to miss toys so much,” I say. “I’m going to miss seeing my kids bolt from the cart, breathless with anticipation to get to these aisles.”

“Isn’t it awful?” Heidi says. “One day they’re brushing their doll’s hair. The next day they’re slamming doors in your face. It sucks.” Ladies and Gentlemen, Heidi and I are taking our “POSITIVITY IN PARENTING: How to Healthily Embrace Your Children Growing Up” Show on the road, book tickets now!

And yes–I know every stage is wonderful, Brenda. I feel that. Sharing love with Lainey for checkered Vans and finding the perfect pink lip gloss at Sephora is a new joy in parenting that is wonderful in its own way. Having conversations together about big life things and watching her discover passions and interests beyond the world of childhood? It’s all so good. But it’s still paired with the recognition that these new interests are replacing the loss of something else–something magical that has lived in our home for a long time, and I just want to take a moment to declare my love for it while it’s still here–an ode to toys, if you will.

The happiness these toys bring to our bedrooms with their colors lined up on our shelves–bright green garbage trucks, red fire engines, a Tonka truck as yellow as the sun. Bins of Barbies, Legos, blocks, little animals with names and faces known by all three. The constant invitation to step out of character, use a different voice, try new sounds–a police car siren “woo-oo,” a high-pitched Barbie conversation–“Hey Kiki, do you want to go to Target?”, a growl from a fierce dinosaur who runs into the block tower and knocks it down with a crash…the uninhibited laughter that follows.

The baskets of little toys, collections, tiny treasures that fit in tins. A few always escape and end up in far corners of the house where I find them in a frantic cleaning blitz, frustrated for a moment with their existence but not really. I’ve loved the Shopkins and puzzle erasers and popsicle plastic necklace charms. I hope to be finding them at the bottom of backpacks for years to come.

There’s freedom and innocence and a world of imagination without limits and rules or embarrassment behind these toys, This is what I want to last forever. There’s joy in that freedom of expression.

And then there are the favorites–the most cherished toys that have won the prize of longest lasting thrill and truest companions. They’re personified to us–as real as Christopher Robin’s friends or Andy and Jessie in Toy Story 2 where surely the intent was announced among the Pixar script writers: “Moms–let’s get in ’em in the jugular.” This scene had me in a full-on stomach jerk cry in the middle of the theater, and I have never looked at Lainey’s beloved Gagoo the same since.

These favorites are members of our family. They’ve earned their place, sitting at the dinner table with us, being tucked in sleepover bags and brought on road trips and plane trips and travels to our most favorite places. They show up in pictures of our life’s most memorable moments. Their names are known by friends and family members. Love has breathed life into them, and yet I know…it won’t last forever.

As childhood fades, so will they. And I just want to say that I will miss them when they are tucked in boxes or tossed in baskets, their lively presence slowly fading, perhaps without us even noticing until it’s been too long.

While they’re still here with life breathed in them, I want them to know…I’m glad you’re here. Thank you for your service and companionship.

Clothes and nail polish and computer speakers might gradually take over where you were once displayed, but just know, we loved you first and best, Toys.

Filed Under: Family, Uncategorized

Christmas Day

December 28, 2018 By Kelle

Christmas Day

For the first time in–well, ever–the end of Christmas hasn’t put me in a sentimental all-the-fun-is-over funk.

Last year, somewhere between the last present opened and the first piece of pie cut for Christmas dinner, Brett found me in the bathroom, curled over the tub while I washed Dash’s hair, a tearful mess. It was like all those childhood Christmases where I cried when it was over and all the magic years of raising babies and all my love for the holidays had crescendoed to that very moment in the bathroom–a recognition of how much I have loved it all and how much it is changing, sweet and painful at the same time.

“It’s all changing, they’re getting older, these Christmases…I love them so much.” Sob, sob, blah, blah, blah. If I recall, I pulled it together for pie.

This year, I didn’t cry or mourn the end or say one word about how next year would look different. I sat back and enjoyed our little Christmas–just as it is–a maturity graduation I attribute, of course, to turning 40 tomorrow because I’m attributing every meaningless thing to turning 40. Drop a spoon in the kitchen: “Ha ha, look. I’m dropping things. Must be turning 40, eh?” Try a new lipstick color: “Gotta change things up, you know. Turning 40.” Puts clothes away instead of leaving them on the floor: “I’m a new woman! I pick things up! Yay, 40!” I realize this is annoying, but I can’t stop.

That said, yes, I do love so much about Christmas and I’m grateful for the memories we’ve made this month and the festive celebrations and all the pretty things that have added wonder to the past few weeks. But I can tuck them away without feelings of scarcity or sadness. Because 40, of course.

Some favorite moments from the past week…

Baking Santa’s cookies.

A hug he grabbed because he loved the little buns she put in her hair so much, he couldn’t help himself.

A check off our holiday bucket list with a trip to a nearby neighborhood that puts on the best light show.

Every weekend in December, it’s bumper-to-bumper slow traffic in this neighborhood–trolleys and buses come to tour it, residents host parties in their driveways, bands play Christmas carols and just about every family in Naples spends an evening touring the streets.

Another holiday bucket list finished (I think we had two unchecked items at the end), rolled up and tucked in the keepsake bin…with no feelings of scarcity or sadness BECAUSE 40. We’re doing this, folks. We’re doing this.

I was so proud to announce that I had all my wrapping done early this year and would not be staying up until 1:30 a.m. Christmas Eve to prepare.

But we all know how that ends. I stayed up until 1:30 a.m. Christmas Eve to prepare.

The Eve is my favorite. Christmas movies by the fire…

Writing our final words to Santa.
(Dash: “I’m not going to tell Santa I love him because he’s not in my family, and I don’t love him.” Touche, Dash.)

Annual tradition: setting up the reindeer runway in our driveway.


Cookies for Santa.

And putting all three kids to sleep in the same bed. It takes forever for them to settle down, but when they do, I take this photo every year.

And yes, I fully expect them to keep doing this in their 40’s (Because 40). I know this can happen because the mother in the book I Love You, Forever crept into her son’s room to cradle him grown man style, and if she can do that, then my grown kids can surely leave their spouses and children at home to come curl up in bed at my house to fall asleep and get their photo taken, not creepy at all. (We will absolutely reenact this scene to recreate a photo in 20 years, and it will hang in my old lady office someday.)

The final scene, 1:30 a.m. before I crashed, excited and happy.



And all the Christmas morning joy. Running to find evidence of Santa, Blitzen’s spit-out carrots (he doesn’t like them), snowy reindeer tracks (it’s magic North Pole snow that never melts), stockings and presents and Christmas breakfast, pajamas that don’t get changed until the afternoon, endless coffee and movies and family piled up on the couch. Grateful for these memories and the people in them.





And Nella’s little doll with Down syndrome. I’ll tell you more about it later this week. Let’s just say I changed my mind about dolls with Down syndrome because I used to feel very strongly against them, and this little baby has brought so much joy.

We’re still in cozy lazy day mode over here. Whatever you celebrate and wherever you are, I hope you all made some special memories this week and were surrounded by love.

Filed Under: Family, Holiday, Uncategorized

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