Category Archives: Kids

Growing Sprouts – Good Fresh Food For Kids

Even though most of you are thinking, ” I don’t have the time to do something as ridiculous as grow sprouts” you need to know how it easy it is. In fact you could say it is as easy as growing grass.  It is so simple that a child could do it which is exactly why I am telling you all about it.

The reason you want to grow sprouts is because they are a whole food. They contain everything a human needs to survive in one little plant. Also growing them is a really nice project for you and a kid. These plants grow so easily and fast that it gives your child a real sense of accomplishment. Better yet after they are grown you can teach your child how to make a sandwich or salad with them. So you kill two birds with one stone by teaching cooking and gardening at the same time.

If you are a person who is concerned about the environment and issues such as global warming then you might be interested in growing sprouts.  Did you know that if you juice them, as many people do with wheatgrass sprouts, you can live on just the juice for the rest of your life if you had to?   Also if you are sick the juice from fresh sprouts is incredibly healing. It is best to mix sprout juice with tomato juice to improve the flavor.

If you could sneak a little sprout juice into your children’s beverages you would be doing them an incredible favor as it is full of all kinds of friendly enzymes and growth promoting vitamins and minerals. They are one of these foods that leaves a minimal carbon imprint when produced. Fresh sprouts can be grown almost anywhere and for pennies.

Another good reason to grow your own sprouts is to reduce global warming. It is a good idea to teach your kids how to be ecologically correct early on in the game. For all you know you are teaching them survival skills who knows what could happen to agriculture in the next twenty now. By now you have probably heard of the 100 mile rule which says that you should eat foods grown within a 100 miles of where you live to prevent the pollution caused by food transportation.  Sprouts can be grown right in the same room that you are.  All you need is water and sunlight (or the grow lamp.) Growing them is environmentally a very nice thing to do for Mother Earth.

When I say that sprouts can be grown anywhere I am completely serious. You can grow them under a grow lamp in under a week so you are enjoying a beneficial and fresh food source all year long. I really love onion sprouts. Furthermore onion sprouts have allicin in them which helps boost the immune system. They might be a little strong for children. The same thing goes for radish sprouts which can have a real bite to them. For kids play it safe by sticking to alfalfa sprouts which are blander.

Classic Baby Shower Games

Tis the season to throw baby showers.   No baby shower is complete without a few pins. Here are a couple of classic ideas for baby shower games : they are suggested by Hope Mason who is one of my favorite online authors on Lulu and who has written a book called “How To Throw a Baby Shower”

An icebreaker is the Story Go Round Baby Game. This Baby Game is a classic!  All women sit in a circle. The hostess starts the first part of what is going to a run on sentence that is added to contiunually as in “Once there was a girl named” The second guest adds to the sentence –“Once there was a girl named Gloria and when he grew up he wanted to be” . Then the third guest continues –“Once there was a girl named Gloria and when he grew up she wanted to be a Las Vegas Showgirl but his mother said ” and so on. As the sentence gets longer it of course becomes more and more challenging for the each woman to remember the full story. Of course as the Baby Shower hostess you are keeping track of the tale on paper. One by one the guests will drop out of the game until a winner emerges.

Yet another old favorite is the Baby Tray Game. This simple game challenges your guest’s photographic memory. Arrange 20 baby items on a platter or tray and cover the entire display with a cloth. Pass the tray around to each guest and let each get a quick glimpse of the tray for about thirty seconds. Remove the tray and ask each guest (who has been provided with a pen and paper in advance of the start of the game) to write down as many of the things on the tray as they can remember. The winner (the person who remembers the most things) wins a party favor.

Yet another interesting game is Baby Bottle Bowling. This game is exactly what it sounds like. Line up 10 pins (plastic baby bottles) at the end of a long hallway and give your guests a tennis ball. The ladies who knock down all ten pins win a prize. Pins and Rice is another very old traditional baby shower game that is a bit strange but it does tell you a lot about a person’s dexterity. Bury ten tiny safety pins in a bowl filled with rice. Make sure the safety pins are closed tight! Bend them a bit so that they are crooked and captured inside the clasp. This is so that no pin opens and slices a finger of a player. A Blindfold each guest in turn and have them dip their hands in the rice bowl. Time each guest with a stopwatch as they try and extract the safety pins from the bowl. The guest who can extract all of the safety pins from the bowl in the shortest amount of time is the woman of the hour!