Valentines Day Activities for the Whole Family

Valentines Day Activites For Families

It’s important for families to show their love for one another, so what better time than Valentine’s Day to play some game, engage in some fun activities, all designed to show each other love and support?

One fun activity is all about giving each other “snaps” for being who they are. Over the course of the year, mom and dad, and the kids as well, can add “snaps” to a special jar or containers. These “snaps” might include things like “dad helped me build my pinewood derby car” or “Joey read books to his sister each night without complaint”. Read these little slips of good things, thank each other for caring and empty the jar to start it again for another year.

At dinner on Valentine’s night, have each family member tell others why they love them. What about dad made mom love him? Why does Joey love his sister? What about sissy is special to dad? It might seem a little corny at first, but in the end, everyone will enjoy hearing wonderful, positive things about themselves.

One fun family game involves family trivia. This game is particularly fun if the children are a bit older and there are at least 2 children in the family. Mom (or dad) creates a trivia game that looks something like this: there will be a series of index cards with a bit of family trivia on each card. Someone draws a card and tries to answer the question correctly. If correct, they get a point. The person with the most points at the end of the game gets a prize or extra chocolate syrup on their dessert. Some questions might be things like this:

*Which one of us suffered a broken leg at the age of 8?
*Which of us, at the age of 3, flushed an entire box of Tide down the toilet?
*Which of us snuck into mom and dad’s room every night until he or she was 6 years old?

At a certain age, children begin to enjoy preparing meals for mom and dad. For a fun Valentine’s activity, the children could be asked to prepare a meal for mom and dad. Ideally, this would be breakfast in bed and could include foods that are traditional “romantic” foods (like strawberries and chocolate) or whatever the kids want to make. They might even like to prepare a special Valentine’s Day menu and let mom and dad choose off the menu. This would be a fun tradition to start as an annual event on Valentine’s Day.

Consider a fun family game of “hidden hearts”. In this game, children are given clues to find chocolate hearts hidden around the house. The clues can be easy or more complicated to figure out depending on the ages of the children. If one or more children are very young, mom and dad can help them with the clues. When they find the hearts, they can eat them, but mom or dad, remember where you hid the hearts and be sure to count how many are found, so there aren’t any left to get ugly in the house!

Finally, a fun family activity around Valentine’s Day is to make cards for other people. Have the kids make handprint cards for the grandparents or have the kids make cards for their friends. Handmade cards can be so much more meaningful than the store-bought kind and kids learn a lot from the experience of putting their hearts (literally) into making the card for others.

 

Breakfast Frittata

For the busy mom who doesn’t have time to make elaborate breakfasts but want something good for the kids to eat.

BREAKFAST FRITTATA
Prep and Cook Time:
20 min.

Ingredients:
½ medium onion, minced
4 medium cloves garlic, chopped
¼ lb ground lamb or turkey
2 + 1 TBS chicken broth
3 cups rinsed and finely chopped kale, (stems
removed)
2 whole free range chicken eggs
3 egg whites
salt and black pepper to taste

Directions:
Preheat broiler on low.
Heat 1 TBS broth in a 9-10 inch stainless steel
skillet. Healthy Sauté onion over medium heat, for
about 3 minutes, stirring often.

Add garlic, ground lamb or turkey, and cook for
another 3 minutes on medium heat, breaking up
clumps.  Add kale and 2 TBS broth. Reduce heat
to low and continue to cook covered about 5 more
minutes. Season with salt, pepper and mix.

Beat eggs, season with a pinch of salt and pepper,
and pour on top of mixture evenly. Cook on low for
another 2 minutes without stirring.

Put under broiler in middle of oven, about 7 inches
from the heat source, on low, so it has time to cook
without the top burning. When it gets firm it is done,
about 2-3 minutes.

 

Breakfast, The Most Important Meal Of The Day

We have heard it over and over before that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and there is a reason why, let’s look at it.

First we know that breakfast is supposed to be the most important meal but, that doesn’t stop millions of Americans, and people around the world, from skipping breakfast or opting for only a drink of coffee. The truth is that breakfast really is the most important meal of the day, and you will have a much  healthier diet if you include breakfast in your daily life.

 

Breakfast is named so because it is when we—break our fast. When you sleep, you are not eating for 6 to 9 hours at least, and more if you haven’t eaten since dinner the night before. Therefore, breakfast is the first time you’ll be eating anything for a very long period of time. Some nutrients, like proteins, cannot be stored in the body and are therefore not present, so the body needs you to replenish the “low” levels of such nutrients. Breakfast is like the match that lights the fire. It truly is a very important source of energy for your body in the morning.

 

Eating breakfast in the morning also helps you avoid some illnesses and disease. For example, your sugar levels are probably out of whack from not eating for many hours, so having breakfast levels out the amount of sugars in your body, helping to prevent diabetes. Eating a healthy breakfast also helps you to provide food to your stomach so that you don’t overeat at lunch because you are so hungry. Overeating leads to obesity, which comes with a whole host of problems, including heart disease.

 

Healthy breakfast foods, like eggs, fruit, or bran cereal are also a good source of many of the vitamins and minerals a person needs during the day. If you don’t eat these things in the morning, it will be hard to make up for that loss later in the day. Remember that without the proper amounts of nutrients, you body will not function correctly. When you eat a healthy breakfast, it also makes you choose healthier foods during the rest of the day, so that you continue to get the proper nutrients needed for your body.

 

Setting aside 15 minutes in the morning to eat breakfast every day can truly make a great different in your diet. In the best case, your breakfast will include foods from at least three different food groups. For example, you can have whole grain toast (bread food group) with peanut butter (protein food group) and a banana (fruit food group). Top that off with a glass of milk to drink, and you’ve even hit a fourth food group. Breakfast does not have to include a heavy pancakes and sausage meal every day to be healthy, and even grabbing a single piece of fruit or a muffin is better than skipping the meal completely. Breakfast is important to your health!

 

Bloggers Unite For World AIDS Day

Nearly half of all AIDS cases in the U.S. involve people 13 to 24 years of age, placing many of Blog members or their children in the highest risk age groups. More than 250,000 are estimated to be HIV positive and not know it. And more than 1 million are estimated to have AIDS.

Of course, AIDS is not limited to the U.S. There are an estimated 33 million people with AIDS worldwide. It affects every country, city, and town in the world. And, the most frightening thing about it is that is going largely unchecked. In fact, that is one of the reason that worldaidscampaign.org is continuing its “leadership” theme, which it developed after learning that many leaders who promised to support AIDS were not keeping their promises.

As always, what you choose to write about is up to you. However, you might consider checking the NIDA and AIDS.gov research and prevention resources on the Bloggers Unite resource page. Or, for a more global view, check out http://www.worldaidscampaign.org

Unlike most campaigns where we hope awareness led to action, this is one campaign where awareness is action! If even just 10 percent of our members get involved, we can reach an estimated 4 million blog readers. And if half of our members participate, we can reach 20 million. And if all bloggers participate, we can reach the entire world. But more importantly than all that. If your post just touches even one person and convinces them to get tested or helps someone learn about AIDS prevention, won’t that will be worth it?

Your words, voices, videos, and actions can all help people become more aware about AIDS and how to prevent it. And by doing that, you might not only save someone, but save someone close to you.

 

Crock Pot Cooking Saves You Time and Money

First introduced in 1971, the Crock-Pot revolutionized the way we cook meals. The word Crock-Pot is actually trademarked by Rival Industries, but is used in every day conversations instead of the term slow cooker. Many recipes for the crock-pot require little preparation. The slow cooker can then safely be left to run unattended, making it a convenient cooking method.

Crock-pot meals can not only save you time in the kitchen, but they can also save you money as well.  The reasons are as follows:

1.    It keeps you out of the fast food line.  If you had not loading up the crock-pot with the ingredients this morning you’d likely be in the drive through line at the local fast food restaurant this afternoon after work, grabbing a meal for your family.  The average fast food meal for a family of four rings up over $20.

2.    Stretches your dollar.  Most crock-pot recipes and meals can truly stretch your food dollar.  Because you can put a whole chicken in the crock-pot to cook then cut it up for several meals, you can stretch your budget with the use your leftovers.

3.    Cuts your grocery budget.  You can save money at the butcher since the slow cooking process is especially useful to tenderize cheaper cuts of meat.

4.    Saves on your energy bill.  Instead of running a larger appliance like the stove you are running one small energy conservative appliance, the crock-pot, saving on your energy costs.

The convenience of the slow cooker not only saves you time, but will also save you money. Don’t you think it’s time to take it out of your closet (or wherever you have it packed away collecting dust) and make a Crock-Pot meal today?

About the Author:
Cara Mirabella is a WAHM with one toddler from New Jersey. She owns and manages TheHouseholdHelper.com – a site dedicated to saving your time, money and sanity when managing your household. She has written several articles, reports and e-books including “Recipes For Every Occassion: 470 Crock Pot Recipes”.