With the new school year starting up again, how can you be sure your children are getting a good start to the day with a healthy breakfast? One way to be sure of this is to add milk to their daily food intake. But, if your children don’t like to drink milk with their meals, you may need to sneak milk into their diet.
My favorite trick to do this is to make breakfast smoothies. You can find some super recipes online here at Smoothies Recipe, but I like to just wing it and use what I have on hand at the time. Smoothies don’t have to be an exact science and you can have your kids help you put the ingredients in the blender. All you really need to make a yummy smoothie is milk, yogurt, some fruit and some ice. I like to also have some honey around too just in case we want to make it sweeter. If you plan on making smoothies every day, I suggest grabbing a bag of frozen fruit the next time you are at the grocery store. A mixed bag of fruit is best.
Another idea is to make breakfast muffins. I like to do this on Sunday afternoon with my daughter, because this gives her something to look forward to eating when she wakes up in the morning. We like to make a different type of muffin for each week and wash them down with a cold glass of milk. Our favorite ones to make are Bacon Cheddar Muffins and Chocolate Chip Muffins. We especially like to make the mini muffins because they are so cute.
When my daughter is at school I like to pack some cereal in her lunch box and I send along some milk in a thermos. Having cereal as part of her lunch is different, but that is what also makes it fun, and she is more likely to eat something if she thinks that it is fun.
Finally, the after school snack. I normally leave this snack up to my daughter to make because she is a creative little girl and likes to make her own snacks. One of her favorite things to make is her Checker Board Pepperoni. She takes 1 slice of Swiss cheese, cheese crackers and pepperoni and then makes a checker board design out of the whole thing, and before you know it, the whole thing is gone.
If you want to find ways to sneak milk into your child’s meals you can check out some recipe sites online and just type in the word ‘milk’ in the search area. You will be surprised how many recipes include milk as one of the ingredients.
Another place that I have found some great recipes is on the Real California Milk site; they even have a section devoted just to milk recipes. One that we recently tried as part of our Sunday baking time was the Cocoa Cupcakes. We baked the Cocoa Cupcakes last night and they were hands down the best cupcakes I have baked in a while because they were very moist and light. Even the batter was tasty.
The tops of the cupcakes are huge, look how they overtake the cupcake pan.
Topped with Whipped Cream and Cinnamon
Lily explains why she likes the Cocoa Cupcakes
Center of cupcake with marshmellow, yum
For more information about how good milk really is for your child to drink check out the nutritional chart from Real California Milk here.
Disclosure: I wrote this article while participating in a blog campaign by the California Milk Advisory Board, who paid me a fee to participate. All opinions expressed are my own.
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Finally, the day we have all been waiting for has arrived. It’s Lily’s 1st day of Kindergarten. We have been looking forward to this day because it starts a whole new chapter in all of our lives. This day starts Lily on her path to school and our families path to connecting with new people and reconnecting with old friends. We are looking forward to being part of a community where everyone is ‘on the same page’.
Lily and I were able to see a screening of the Ramona and Beezus movie a few weeks ago and it was really good. There are no flying dragons or animated toys or vampires and nothing to scare your little ones. It is a live action “G” rated movie and perfect for little girls and Tweens.
I’m super jazzed to be heading out to the Milk the Moment Got Milk? tour this week and thought you might like to come too! Here is a link to their website with more detailed information 
• More than 90 percent of Ford research participants indicated that Ford’s inflatable seat belts are similar to or more comfortable than traditional belts, which could help increase the lower rate of rear belt usage
Lily was so excited to try this because she told me that she has seen a Kook-Aid commercial on TV and the drink looks good. At first I was hesitant to try it because when I think of Kook-Aid I think of sugar and when Lily has too much sugar it is like watching a cat on ‘catnip’. Once I read the package I was pleasantly surprised that the FUN FIZZ Drink Drops are a different type of Kook Aid drink and contain no sugar. The package contains 8 small individually packaged tablets, think alka-seltzer, which is great because you can keep a few in your purse or diaper bag and use them on the go. They are a fun and delicious way to get kids to drink water. To use them just tear open the pack and drop into an 8oz glass of water or water bottle. Each drink drop dissolves into a fizz kids will love to watch and then drink! You can view the 
These crackers were not what I expected at all, they were a nice surprise because I thought that they would be a box full of cracker sandwiches but I was wrong. They come as 6 individually wrapped cracker bars which is basically two long crackers that have cheese in between them like a cracker sandwich. The cracker tastes great and the cheese is soft and has a nice taste to it as well. I liked them so much that I went to the store and purchased the bacon and cheese version. Holy cow, they reminded me of Bacon Thins Crackers that Nabisco used to make, I LOVED those back in the day but they don’t make them anymore. Ok, back to the Ritz Cracker…this cracker not only tastes good but leaves you satisfied until your next meal. Each one contains real cheese and 5 grams of whole grain as well as 2 grams of protein per serving, now THATS a good snack. You can visit the 
Lastly we tried the 100 Calorie Cheese Bites and these fit into our families snacking style because we are always on the go and we love love love the 
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