16 backpacks overflowing with back-to-school surprises are being given away! It’s an exciting online event currently taking place across 8 blogs. Each backpack is filled with amazing products from LeapFrog, Ziploc, 20th Century Fox, and calendars and planners from Orange Circle Studio!
You can check out the blogs and their giveaways here.
Parents and teachers can also enter to win a dream classroom!
Good luck, and happy back-to-school-ing!
The Star-Telegram touts organization as the very best way to take stress off the school calendar. According to Faith P. Tennyson, their decluttering expert, organization should be a family event. Here are some of the best tips and tricks:
1. Label everything. Clothing, school supplies, etc. This way it won’t get mixed up with siblings’ or fellow students’ belongings. Try Mabel’s Labels.
2. Color code. Assign a color to each family member (or let them pick their favorite!) and buy their backpacks, lunch bags and other accessories in the assigned color.
3. Keep a family calendar. Tennyson suggests hanging a large wall calendar where everyone can see it, and getting into the habit of looking at it each evening to plan the next day. Try this Family Life Monthly Weekly calendar.
4. Keep the closet simple. Store your kids out-of-season clothes in bins so whatever they choose from their closet will be appropriate.
5. Play with the paper. When they come home with art work, have your child help choose their favorites to keep and store away. Other works of art can be recycled into cards for Grandma and Grandpa!
You can read more about back-to-school organization here.
Check back later this week for more on back-to-school! Share you own tips or tricks by leaving a comment below.
Dressed to the nines (as always!) today at the NAACP Convention, Michelle Obama touted her new “Let’s Cook” video series as part of the “Let’s Move” initiative. “Let’s Move” is the First Lady’s nationwide campaign to tackle the nationwide obesity epidemic and raise a healthier generation of kids. The program encourages kids and families to “Eat Healthy” by helping people make healthier choices and instill healthy habits in children, and to “Get Active” by increasing opportunities for kids to be physically active and creating new opportunities for families to get moving together.
One of the “Eat Healthy” suggestions is simply cooking more meals at home. Chefs from across the country visit the White House kitchen to create nutritious and affordable menu plans for busy families. With one shopping list, a little preparation and dinner recipes to take you through the week – Let’s Cook makes it easier to eat healthy at home.
This week’s plan with Chef Marvin Woods features healthy and affordable dinners for five days of the week:
You can get this week’s full recipe plan here.
Looking for a great way to meal plan?
(Photos courtesy of Huffington Post)
For as long as she can remember, Stacy Peterson was always doodling and drawing. Even at the young age of two, her mother saw talent and kept her enrolled in art classes. Stacy followed her passion for drawing and became a full-time illustrator after a career in advertising in New York City.
For the last 15 years, Stacy has illustrated dozens of children’s books, greeting cards and products in her bright, cheerful style. Her happy color palette and charming illustrations of children make for a delightfully, unique style. Her recipe for success has been: a little bit of whimsy for personality, a dash of sweetness and a lot of style.
We are absolutely thrilled with Stacy’s illustrations for the 2011 Family Life Monthly/Weekly calendar!
You can find more of Stacy’s art on her website: www.stacypeterson.net or follow her on facebook.
Currently, Stacy lives in the wild, wild west with her two children and enjoys the vast blue sky and brilliant sunsets.
For those of us with families, “what’s for dinner?” is a question that looms over us almost every day as we frantically look for answers in the supermarket, in the fridge and freezer, or worse, at the nearest fast food joint.
One way to eat healthier, save money, and get home cooked meals on the table more often is to plan ahead each week. Consider using a menu planner! This way, you can streamline your grocery shopping and meal preparations. It only takes a few minutes to create a meal plan once a week and ultimately, you’ll save a load of time (and stress) during the week.
Tips for Creating a Meal Plan
Get Inspired. Comb through your cookbooks, take out the recipes you’ve torn from magazines, and check websites to print out recipes you’d like to try. This Week of Menus blog has some great recipe options that look delicious! After a bit of research, pick your favorites and use them to help create your menu for the week (remember to consider which recipes will have leftovers!)
Use what you have. When doing your planning, think of meals that can be made with ingredients you already have in the house. We all have a staple of food items that are always in the fridge or pantry, usually for meals and recipes we’re most familiar with. Keep this is mind: It’s helpful to use your tried-and-true dinner recipes on busy nights, and save the fancy meal for a day when you’ll have more time to be creative and adventurous with your cooking.
Plan for the entire week. Sit down one day on the weekend, and plan the entire week’s worth of meals. Our Eat Well! Monthly/Weekly Meal Planning Calendar is a great option for this, because it comes with a standard monthly grid, as well as a weekly pad for meal planning. The pad has space for Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner, as well as a perforated shopping list! Fill in the meals for the week ahead and post it on the fridge for the whole family to see.
Recycle! Consider saving a successful weekly menu plan for future use. File them away (these accordion folders would do the trick!) and revisit them in the future.
Remember, menu plans are not written in stone. Write it out in pencil and give your permission to erase or alter the plan as circumstances change.
Comment below and let us know what’s on your menu for the week!
(Photos Courtesy of Weekofmenus.blogspot.com)