Tiny Oranges – Fresh, fun blog for OC moms

The year my daughter was two we participated in a Mommy & Me class at her preschool. To ease the kids into the preschool “drop off” pattern, the mommies would go into another room for about 45 minutes for a talk or presentation so the kids could get used to playing without mommy.   One of these talks was presented by Sherri Fenn and the topic was all about teaching healthy eating habits to kids.   In that presentation she spoke of the “Traffic Light Eating” technique to teach your kids how to make healthy choices.   From that day on, I have used this with my daughter and it has been SO super effective I had to do a post on it!

To a two-year-old it probably doesn’t make sense why you can’t have cookies for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  Why not?!  That’s why this technique is so amazing.  It puts a hard-to-grasp concept into simple terms and categories.  Even today my 4-year-old will ask if it is okay to have a “red light” treat.  But she knows she has to feed her body “green light” foods before she can have a little “red light.”   She totally gets it.

So I asked Sherri if she could write me the brief synopsis to explain it best!  Here is what she wrote…

“The easiest way to introduce making healthy food choices to young children is Dr. Sears’ Traffic Light Eating from his book Eat Healthy, Feel Great.

All food can be classified as Green-light, Yellow-light or Red-light foods.

Green light foods are the “go for it!” foods that make you grow stronger, help your brain work better and give you more energy to play.

Yellow light foods are okay to eat sometimes, but they won’t keep you feeling great the way green-light foods do.  These are slow down foods like ice cream, butter, juice, and cookies.

Red-light foods don’t do anything to help your body. Instead, they can hurt your body and make you feel too full to eat your green-light foods. Red means stop, you can make a better choice.  Examples of red light foods are soda, chips, candy, and french fries.

A great game to play in the car, at the dinner table or in the grocery store is the traffic light game.  Have someone name a food and you have to guess which color light goes with that food.  You can then reinforce why they need to increase their green light foods and decrease their yellow and red light food choices.  It is never too early to start on this concept; even two year olds can get the idea and can play along.”

Sherri Fenn is a wife and mommy of 2 boys Jantzen (10) and Caden (7).  She is passionate about educating children and their parents about making healthy choices for their bodies.  As a retired USA national team volleyball player, Sherri knows the impact of proper fuel for the body.  Bridge the gap between what you should it and what you do eat every day by visiting her web-site at www.JPHealthandWellness.com or e-mail her at Sherri@JPHealthandWellness.com.

{Disclosure: Tiny Oranges is an Amazon.com Affiliate.}

Moms have the best ideas. I went to a friend’s house for a play date yesterday and on her dining table she had these darling glass jars with notes inside.   On each note (with the date) was a “sentence” or “saying” or basically something her girls had said that she would want to remember.  I thought what a cute way to capture your child’s words!

I can’t tell you how many things I WISH I had written down that I didn’t. i was so good with Emma’s first year, then after that I feel like all my documentation went out the window.

With this idea, you don’t have to dig out your baby book or search for somewhere to write it down.  And with the pretty display containers, these special sayings become a part of your family decor.  I love it. I am going to do one for each girl.

Just the other night Emma and I were looking at the sky, and the first star came out, so we did “Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might, have this wish I wish tonight.”  And she said, with grand gesture, “I wish for a huge birthday cake that reaches from here to the sky and for all my friends to come eat it!”  Now that would be one for the note cards!

Thanks Susanne for the amazing idea!

Our groove is sort of off this summer.  It is our first summer after a full year of preschool and our nice little school year rhythm just feels interrupted. Add to that the fact that my baby still naps two times a day, and that means we are home a lot.  Lately my 4 year old has needed a lot more supervision on ideas to keep her busy.  I am having to get creative myself.  If ANYONE has any other easy activities, please comment!  I need help!

I found myself creating an impromptu art project the other day. I thought I might as well make it into a blog in case anyone else is bored going crazy I mean looking for a fun easy summer activity!

The pull stuff out of your cabinets and make it into an art project collage!

Supplies needed:

1. Paper
2. Magazines or in our case a Bed Bath N Beyond mailer (which incidentally has a lot of good collage items! Who knew?)
3. Scissors
4. White glue
5. Paintbrush (optional)
6. Food coloring (optional)

My daughter asked me to make the glue a color. I guess they have colored glue at school.  So we ended up making different glue color combos using the food coloring which served absolutely no purpose other than being entertaining!   And she had fun using a paintbrush to brush on the colored glue to stick on the pictures.

The whole project entertained her for awhile & I got a kick out of cutting out random pictures and seeing them glued on a piece of construction paper.  Oh, the things that entertain me now…wow.

{I was just going to use one of these pics for my Wordless Wednesday but now that I am done writing it, I realize my Wordless Wednesday has a lot of words! For more Wordless Wednesday pictures head on over to Angry Julie Monday.}

I met  The Container Store in Scottsdale last month at the Bosch Home Appliances “From Hamper to Hanger” laundry event where they did a presentation on laundry organization tips.  So, contain yourself. I am about to disclose 5 simple ways to organize your laundry days.  Little things made easier by The Container Store!

1. SORT in the hamper, not on the floor. Use a hamper with different compartments so you are sorting as you go.  These hampers have three separate sections for whites, darks and brights.  Check out this one or this one for great examples.

2. GET THE HANG OF IT.   The faster you can get your clothes out of the dryer and on a hanger, the less wrinkled they will be.  Consider installing some sort of hanging device in your laundry room so you can hang immediately instead of piling clothes in the laundry basket.   The ELFA systems have great options.

3. ASSIGN COLORED HANGERS.  Pick a different colored hanger for each family member so you can quickly grab Susie’s clothes or Bobby’s items and go directly from laundry room to closet.  I personally think this is BRILLIANT!

4. DEFEAT THE SOCK MONSTER! How much time do you spend searching for matching socks?  And, where do those missing socks go?   Defeat the sock monster by using these ingenious inventions.  The Sock Cop & Sock Pro products keep your socks together in the wash to save you time!

5. ORGANIZE YOUR LAUNDRY STUFF! Short on space?  These cool storage systems keep your detergents, soaps & stain treatment items neatly tucked into vertical, easy to pull out drawers.   Like this idea? They have larger ones to help organize your laundry and help with sorting too!

Just walking into The Container Store will make you feel more organized.  Click HERE for store locations or to shop online!

{Disclosure:  The Container Store provided a free item for the bloggers, but none of the above.  I personally shop at and love The Container Store!}

I think I might lose my mind this week.   Correction, it might already be gone.  Emma and I both have colds, which means that between the rainy weather and the sniffles we have been house bound for three straight days.  One day is kinda fun, two days is okay, but by yesterday morning I thought I might lose my mind.

What to do? I Googled “rainy day activities for kids” and found this site and the “masking tape house.”  Supplies needed? Masking tape.   Easy enough, I thought, so we got the tape out and started designing our floor plan.

All you do is stick the tape on the carpet to make “rooms.”   Emma had a lot of fun finding items to decorate our house.   We took her play kitchen and table and chairs and made a kitchen, took a little chair and baby bed from her room to make the baby’s room, and I found myself making a bathroom out of masking tape.  She found this quite funny.  I had to reiterate, “you know this is a PRETEND potty, right?!”

So, if you are losing your mind this week like me, this was a pretty easy and cheap activity that entertained us for the better part of the day.

And, if you are not up for construction, but looking for an indoor outing, check out Frogg’s Bounce House in Fountain Valley!  Great place to get that energy out!!!