I overheard a mom at the playground tell friends how she'd prepped weekly lunches for the whole family for the first time—and how nice it was to have prepared lunches ready to send with her child to school and to take to work. I couldn't agree more! Starting the week off with prepared meals makes it so much easier to eat healthy all week—not to mention avoiding more morning chaos getting ready.
It's a well-known fact that taking the kids to the grocery store can be a recipe for Aisle 5 tears and catastrophic meltdowns. What starts out as a fun ride in the blue racecar shopping cart can soon turn into a full-on battle as those little eyes spot boxes of sugar-laden snacks. From toaster pastries to peanut butter cups, it's amazing how fast the word "pleeeease" can kick back into their vocabulary.
Soda is packed with sugar, preservatives and artificial colors and has been linked to both obesity and diabetes.
I'm a working mother of two kids under 5. What do I want for Mother's Day? Breakfast in bed. I want to sleep in till 7 (gasp!). I want my hubby to bring me a cup of coffee and that stack of magazines I've been meaning to read for months years. And I want my family to make me breakfast while I sit lazily in the comfort of that lovely piece of furniture that doesn't see enough of me: bed.
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Sheet-pan success is all about three things: uniformity, staggered timing and layering. Cutting foods into evenly sized pieces means even cooking. To make things easy we've divided our veg into slow- and fast-cooking groups. Roots like potatoes, beets and carrots need more time in the oven, so they go in first. Softer vegetables, such as leafy greens, tomatoes and onions, cook more quickly, so they get stirred in later, and the protein goes on top. And voilà—everything's done at once.
May the Fourth might be the official Star Wars holiday, but in our house every day is Star Wars day: Fleets of action figures, speeders, blasters and light sabers hide out in whatever shelf, bin or bookcase they can find shelter. We wait for each new movie release with bated Vader breath.
