Homemade cookies are a holiday special event. Every child likes to bake cookies with mom or grandma. Cookies take a bad rap these days, so as a cookie lover, here are some healthy tips this year to make your cookies a healthy treat:

Start with 2/3 cups canola oil, a cup of sugar – brown or white – an egg or two, a teaspoon of baking soda for crispy cookies or a teaspoon of baking powder for softer cookies, a 1/2 teaspoon of salt, and a heaping teaspoon or more of cinnamon. Cinnamon is a deterrent for diabetes. Cinnamon helps the digestive system utilize insulin. Never skimp on cinnamon. For more information about Cinnamon, go HERE. It’s George Mateljan’s site, World’s Healthiest Foods.

Mix your ingredients with a vigorous spoon or an electric mixer. Then add your whole grains. Use a combination of whole grains like oats, corn flour, rice flour, whole wheat pastry flour, wheat germ, wheat bran, etc. When you have a desired thickness, add your extras like dark chocolate bits, sunflower seeds, peanuts, berries, raisins, etc. These jumbles are beautiful, fun, and good for you.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 8-10 minutes.

Children become fatter by watching food commercials aimed at them and a ban on fast food TV advertising would reverse childhood obesity trends, according to a new study.

By Sarah Hills, 20-Nov-2008

Here is an interesting article from Food Navigator. For more go HERE.

Meanwhile, after reading the article, I think the focus on food has become unmanageable with most kids. The desire to eat high fat, high salt foods has become an unhealthy goal for a lot of children because sweets are now politically incorrect. The correct thing to do is serve a steady diet of “healthy” snacks like fruit, vegetables and crackers.

But there are problems with even these extraordinarily healthy foods. Fruit is digested in 30 minutes and does not create that sense of fullness for very long, so consequently, the child’s desire for food never ceases. Having “healthy snacks” six times between meals will ultimately destroy meal time. Question? What is the tease of constant fruit doing to cause early onset diabetes?

When the child sees a commercial for McDonald’s, and the desire for food weight and substance becomes overwhelming. Unconsciously or even consciously the child is saying to himself, “That’s what I want.”

The next best thing would be chips — allowable for parents but frowned on for children, so this “golden delicious idol” becomes a child’s next desire especially if they are in the house. Crackers are a modern parent’s diversion from chips, but actually, some chips are a lot healthier than crackers which are high in fat and sodium and have little or no food value. A Snickers bar has more food value than most crackers. Homemade cookies have three times the food value of boxed crackers provided the contents are whole grain.

The mistake most parents make begins with a parents’ constant focus on feeding, feeding, feeding. When snack after snack after snack after snack becomes the prize of the day, the consequences are that meal time becomes a battle zone, duh! The child has not been allowed to become really hungry – bored perhaps and whining for food or drink, but not actually hungry.

Establishing a routine with children that works depends on a family’s individual schedule. But the best project is to establish three eating times by the clock and stick to it. We eat breakfast at 7:00; lunch at 12:00; and dinner at 6:00. That gives plenty of time to have a snack between meals and still let the child become genuinely hungry.

And drinks are not better served! Personally, I think drinks are the culprit that actually cause children to become overweight and have bad teeth. That constant sipping of milk or juice is a drain on the system and can lead to diabetes as well. Drinks other than water allow a child to fend off hunger for about 15 minutes.

Hunger is not the enemy of children – it’s a disciplinary friend that teaches many things like a true desire for food, an enjoyment for meals, and it prompts picky eaters to really eat.

One of the nice things about having a little time off is doing the things you would like to do if and when you ordinarily had the time. One of those things for me is yoga. I’ve practiced yoga on and off for about 4 years. In the beginning, it was a real challenge to get my fat body moving and twisting and bending and stretching, but I stuck with it and in six weeks I went from a size 18 to an 8. That in itself is an incentive to practice, practice, practice!

Edith was our first yogini. Then I tried it; then Miss Kelly, and then Miss Amy, and this weekend on Thanksgiving, Miss Molly tried it and loved it. Now all the ladies at the GS do yoga. This month we will be teaching the children once again. It’s a marvelous exercise for everyone.

Yoga is a cardio workout; a weight training; tougher than a ballet workout, the overall massage you get with the practice is better than an hour at a spa. It’s a meditation time just for you and it empowers you to a strong and vital confidence, and you do it all on a mat about 2.5 feet X 6 feet. You never leave your mat and all the exercise is done either standing, kneeling, squatting, sitting or lying down. You don’t need anything to practice but a mat.

The idea of yoga is to exercise every single muscle in the body every time you practice. You start with balance and breathing and a warm up called a sun salutation. In this short routine, you will stretch up, back, forward, squat, lunge, do a pushup, do downward dog, upward dog, and that’s only the warm up!

Imagine this: you are standing on one leg, you reach down and grasp the ball of your other foot. You slowly pull that foot out so your lifted leg is straight out in front of you. You put your head on your lifted knee, and then you let go of your foot. Sound impossible? It’s not and quite frankly it’s fun to go from wobble wobble to a lovely rendition of the correct pose. It takes time and practice, but once you have done this, your vitality and strength is so increased, you think you are 20 again.

Another pose: Stand with your feet about 3 feet apart. Bend at the hip and bend over and put your head on the floor. Grab your ankles with your hands and pull your chest through your legs. Not a chance? It’s my favorite pose and I can do it!

There are stories everywhere about people who have been confined to beds and wheel chairs who have taken the yoga challenge and bit by bit recovered completely from paralysis of all kinds. It’s a whole body method of getting and keeping in shape, but more than that it’s about getting and keeping a healthy body and outlook.

The yoga studio here in EVV is actually in Newburgh. It’s on Newburgh Road right across from the Stacer Road light and just east of the 164 interchange.

The 101 studio takes its name from the fact that the practice room is HOT. I despise heat, and I find the 101 degrees a delight because I can do more in the heat than I can in an airconditioned room. Also, I never come away from yoga sore, and that’s because of the heat. You will sweat a lot, and that is fabulous for the skin.

Yoga increases your immune system, strenghtens your heart, your digestion, your balance, and it uplifts your mood. I can’t say enough about this wonderful exercise.

Practices start at 7:30 A.M. and there are more practices about 9:00. there are classes all day on Saturday and a couple on Sunday. Visit the site and see if there is a convenient class for you – just once; you’ll be hooked too.

For more information about Yoga go HERE.

You’ll be glad you did.

The play was a smashing success. It was really well done, and we can thank our wonderful students who make this year’s play so special. The kids were really on target and learned their lines well. They were able to ham it up a little and that made it all more fun. Of course I was tucked away in the practice room with the kids, so I only heard faint rumblings, but from what parents have told me and the teachers, it was very cute.

The kids made the play special this year. Their devotion to learning and their love of the theatre was an outstanding example what this group is made of.

Special kudos to our “family” actors who came on for five scenes: Kamden, Andrew, Emma, Addie, Jaylen, Ethan, and Donavon. Truly gifted children.

Special and great big thanks to Miss Kelly for directing it. She did a marvelous job with the children helping them to learn, and more than that, to understand their lines.

A warm thank you to Mrs. St. Louis who makes our costumes. They are a whole world of art.

A lovely thanks to Miss Amy who taught the children the song. It’s always nice to work with someone who took her talents and multiplied them 1000 times.

And thanks again to the parents who helped the children with lines, came to see the play and who brought such generous snacks. You are a blessing to work with.

Susie E sent this: During a lecture on Essential Oils, they told us how the foot soles can absorb oils.

Their example: Put garlic on your feet and within 20 minutes you can taste it.

Some of us have used Vicks Vapo rub for years for everything from chapped lips to sore toes and many body parts in between. But I’ve never heard of this. And don’t laugh, it works 100% of the time, although the scientists who discovered it aren’t sure why. To stop night time coughing in a child (or adult as we found out personally) put Vicks Vapo rub generously on the bottom of the feet at bedtime, then cover with socks. Even persistent, heavy, deep coughing will stop in about 5 minutes and stay stopped for many, many hours of relief. Works 100% of the time and is more effective in children than even very strong prescription cough medicines. In addition it is extremely soothing and comforting and they will sleep soundly.

Just happened to tune in A.M. Radio and picked up this guy talking about why cough medicines in kids often do more harm than good, due to the chemical makeup of these strong drugs so, I
listened. It was a surprise finding and found to be more effective than prescribed medicines for children at bedtime, in addition to have a soothing calming effect on sick children who then went on to sleep soundly. I tried it on myself when I had a very deep constant and persistent cough a few weeks ago and it worked 100%! It felt like a warm blanket had enveloped me, coughing stopped in a few minutes and believe me, this was a deep, incredibly annoying- every few seconds; uncontrollable cough. I slept cough-free for hours every night that I used it.

If you have grandchildren, pass this on. If you end up sick, try it yourself and you will be
absolutely amazed at how it works.

Last Sunday at Mass, the wonderful Gospel reading about the master and the servants and the talents was read. In the Scripture passage three servants are given different amounts. One is given 5000 talents which amounts to 5000 gold coins, the next is given 2000 and the third 1000. The servants all go about using the talents differently. The first two invest their talents and generate more. The servant with the 1000 talents buries his. What does the master think of all this? He is proud of the two who have done well, and for the one who buried his, the master is crestfallen, because this lazy servant was given gifts and he only put them in the ground. He was frightened by the master and didn’t want to “get into trouble,” so he buried his lot and hid.

Lots of images there; lots of things you can mentally do with this reading.

One of the things I’d like to do with this reading is apply it to children. Each of our beautiful little children has a lovely respectable amount of talents. It is not for us to question who got more or fewer or why, our job is to be joyful at the talents each has and encourage each child to build his life up and not bury his talents in the ground.

When I think of talents, I think of all the things that could be called talents. The first of these is life itself. When you have life, you have hope. The second is health. Health is a real blessing. There are degrees of health, of course, and health is often the impetus to action. The third, in my opinion, is intelligence. Here is where the amount of talents really becomes diverse. Some children are so gifted and some are not gifted at all. Some rise to every occasion, and some choose to remain in the background. But intelligence is not specific. Some children who are quite bright in one area and limited in another. Some children are people smart and some are book smart and some are building smart and some…

Howard Gardener speaks of the Nine Great Intelligences, and it is true that each of us has at least one. The job of preschool is to present to the child every opportunity to learn by exposing the children to every possible means to learn, and in this way, every child can develop the talents he has been given and multiply them by themselves and live a rich and exciting life.

And this is where good parents and teachers in the very early years can help make a child’s life exciting. It is in the preschool years that a child discovers what he will do with his life. Something during the age 3-6 years will captivate his heart and his mind and he will form an attachment to something that he will pursue all his life. So it is in preschool that a child is beginning to search for that special something. If he is shown a myriad of things in preschool, then he has many things to choose from. If he is exposed to a simple kind of music, he may develop a simple interest in music, but what if he is exposed to a complex kind of music? What if he sings, plays all kinds of instruments, listens to the great musicians of every era, and learns to dance? What if he is encouraged to sing solos or learn to play an instrument at four or five?

If a child is read a little story once a week, he might find reading a amusement once in a while. But if he is read to every day, and learns to listen to little stories, then chapter books, then poetry, then creates his own characters and makes his own stories, and then learns to watch good films and can begin to discuss what he has learned, and can take a role in a play and understand the depth and act it out…

And what about art? If he is exposed to a few bedraggled crayons once in a while he might think art comes into play at Hallmark. But if he is exposed to crayons every day along with chalk, colored pencils, colored paper and glue, clays of all kinds, paper mache, paint and loads of stuff to put together, and drawing lessons on top of that, and then gets to look at all the great paintings he might find that wonderful intellectual attitude about art that allows him to incorporate art into his life all his life.

You can look at all of life’s subjects like science, history, geography, foreign language in either “meager introductions” or ” great submersions” and see that through a great submersion in the early stages of a child’s life how rich and rewarding his life travels will be simply because he can form an attachment to something important and real so very early.

Every child deserves to explore his talents and choose something within his gifts to glorify. This is his gift back to his world and his creator. This is the making of the child. It is not a solitary trek on the part of the child. It is a guided tour by loving and caring parents and teachers with plenty of play time.

We had a rush rush rush to the Philharmonic this morning, and Super Sandy got us there first so that we could sit up front. There were lots of instruments: an oboe, a bassoon, a flute, a harp, a French horn, a percussionist with a tambourine, drums, an xylophone, a viola, a violin and a clarinet. The children enjoyed the music and the musicians as they came around and showed the children close up. There were lots of questions asked and our kids had most of the answers. Our children were the best behaved children present.

As I watched the children watch the musicians play, I noticed how riveted they were. Cole especially was undone by the beauty of what he heard. Jake and Sam closed their eyes and put their heads back and kept time with their whole bodies. We had a couple of philistines who tried to talk through it, but for the most part, the children were thrilled.

We came home to play practice with the staging and the props. It’s a long way to the play! The children’s places were blocked, and a last minute look at costumes.

We played outside for a few minutes, but it was very cold. It never made the 40s today! It will probably be cold the rest of the week. Please dress the children warmly. If you send hats and mittens, please put them in your child’s sleeve, or instruct him to do so. It’s the best way of keeping track of mittens and hats.

We had children’s spaghetti, salad, watermelon, grapes, French bread, cottage cheese and milk for lunch. The kids ate most of it. There were few left overs.

Later this week the Discovery Toy party will close on Thursday. If there is something you want, please see Miss Judy.

Some of the orders for candles and batteries are coming in now. Thank you all so much for your support.

On Friday, our play will begin at 3:00 p.m. All children MUST have an adult escort. If you are unable to come to the play, please see Miss Judy asap otherwise, please be sure that someone arrives for the play. Please bring a treat to share with friends. A great treat is cookies or chips. Children like these best.

There is a computer virus that comes through your email that has the words Hallmark or Postcard in it, and it literally destroys your computer. It happened to my daughter, Katy about 3 weeks ago, and she had to send her work computer back to the home plant to be completely redone.

Just thought you’d like to know!

This article, Brain link to mother’s high fat diet and offspring’s obesity: Rat study, from Food Navigator is interesting because for the first time a study has been done that suggests that the diet mom has during her pregnancy could determine the eating habits of the child.

“A high fat diet during pregnancy may bring about changes in the offspring’s brain that makes them more prone to over-eating and obesity throughout their lives, according to a new rat study that may help explain the rise in childhood obesity.”

For more about the subject, go HERE.

One of the most memorable fun things I’ve seen this year are the hilarious and heart warming Lunch Box Cards that you slip into your child’s lunch box. I was sent a sample of these cards and I gave them to my daughter Molly who thought they were just wonderful. It’s an extra special note that is in the form of a post card. They come in many assorted packs.

Kids Lunch Box Cards are a great way to add laughter and excitement any day of the week! They have fun facts and cool ideas, Kids Lunch Box Cards include topics like Wacky World, Fairies, Riddles, Gross-Outs and Looney Laws. There’s space on the back for a special note from mom or dad which is a great way to remind kids of things they need to do, ask, remember. Kids Lunch Box Cards come in packs of five and are sure to put a smile on every child’s face. Check them out at kidsfuncards.com