Posts from — September 2008

First of all, can you believe that BPA is in formula? So yes, even if you’ve switched to glass or BPA free baby bottles, there is actually BPA in the formula you buy! I’ve got some tips here from EWG to help you minimize your baby’s exposure.

• avoid metal formula packages
• buy formula in powder form instead of liquid
• store your formula in a BPA free container – such as OXO Good Grips POP containers (which are also PVC and phthlate free!)
• buy the “better” brands (with BPA only in the top & bottom of the can) – Nestle, Enfamil, & Similac, or the “good” brands (with BPA in the entire container) – Earth’s Best & Bright Beginnings

You also need to avoid using the soft plastic bottle liners, as they also contain BPA.  If you are in a situation where you must use formula, I encourage you to write the companies asking them to stop putting this harmful BPA in their packaging!  If you can’t remember all of the harmful side effects of BPA, please see my other post Is There BPA in Your Baby’s Bottle?  What About His Toys?.

I wanted to give you this information, because some of you are unable to avoid feeding your babies formula.  A close friend who is in the adoption process reminded me about BPA in formula, so I wanted to bring you this helpful information.  Please check out EWG’s Guide to Baby-Safe Bottles and Formula.  It’s a great reminder of all of the important steps in ensuring your baby’s safety.

I’d like to thank my sweet friend Felicia at Go Graham Go! for presenting me with the ‘Brilliant Weblog’ award.  I’m thankful and flattered that she would pick me!  Head on over to her place for some great coupons to use this weekend!  She’s always got some new and exciting products to tell you about along with great coupon codes to boot!

The CDC has launched a new campaign to protect kids from skin infections.  According to the CDC, MRSA is a type of staph bacteria that’s resistant to certain antibiotics.  It can cause severe infections in people in hospitals and other care facilities, and can also cause skin infections in healthy people who haven’t recently been hospitalized.

MRSA is spread through:

• direct contact with an infection
• sharing towels & razors that have touched infected skin
• touching surfaces contaminated by MRSA

The signs and symptoms of MRSA skin infections appear as a bump or infected area on the skin that may be red, swollen, painful, warm to the touch, or contain pus or other drainage.  Fever can also be a symptom.

So, please help your kiddos keep those cuts and scrapes clean and covered with a bandage.  And wash those hands!  If your child develops any of these symptoms, please contact your doctor to get the proper treatment.

High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) is the number one source of calories in the US according to Dr. Mercola. Number one! So, the “food” that most people get most of their calories from is HFCS, mostly in the form of soft drinks.  If you have seen any of the corny (no pun intended) commercials the Corn Refiners Association is putting out, you might think it’s just fine. What’s the big deal, anyway?  Here is an example.

Well, HFCS is bad for you, and I want to prepare you with an answer!  If somebody asks you why HFCS is bad, here’s what you can say:

• it increases your triglyceride (the chemical form in which most fats exist) levels – (this increases your risk of heart disease)
• it increases your LDL (bad) cholesterol
• it’s linked to diabetes, obesity, and metabolic syndrome
• it harms your liver and pancreas
• it is metabolized to fat in your body much more rapidly than any other sugar, making it’s negative metabolic effects significantly magnified
• It does not stimulate insulin secretion or enhance leptin, an appetite regulating hormone.  Insulin and leptin help us know when to stop.  Thus, fructose may contribute to eating more, which equals weight gain.

Put simply, it increases your risk of heart disease, obesity, metabolic syndrome, and it’s bad for your liver and pancreas!  What can you do to avoid HFCS?  Read your food labels!  Look for these common tricky names: chicory, inulin, iso glucose, glucose-fructose syrup, dahlia syrup, tapioca syrup, glucose syrup, corn syrup, crystalline fructose, and fruit fructose.  It is commonly found in:

• soft drinks (Stop drinking them, or look for Dr. Pepper made in Dublin, TX with Imperial Sugar if you’re in TX, or Coca-Cola from Mexico, or Hansen’s brand soft drinks, to name a few.)
• fruit juices (only buy 100% fruit juice with no added sweeteners – check the label)
• baked goods
• canned fruits (buy fruit packed in it’s own juice, not syrup)
• dairy products (check your yogurt!)
• cookies
• gum
• jams and jellies
• avoid processed foods (Almost anything in a box or bag.  Check the label!)

I hope this has made you ready to answer the next time someone asks you why you don’t want to eat HFCS.  It may be a “sweet surprise” for your mouth, but it’s not for the rest of your body.

Source: www.mercola.com

If you’re not familiar with Deceptively Delicious, by Jessica Seinfeld, it is a book full of yummy recipes with hidden veggies.  For example, pureed carrots are in many of the muffin recipes, and the meatloaf recipe.  Every recipe has hidden vegetables or fruit in it!  It’s great for picky eaters, or for just adding more vegetables to your diet.

Jessica even takes you through all of the steps to puree your fruits and veggies.  From what types of kitchen tools you’ll need, how to prepare the fruits and veggies for steaming or baking, and how to store them in your freezer.  Many helpful tips are found throughout the book.

Some of our favorites have been:

• Applesauce Muffins
• Peanut Butter and Jelly Muffins
• Oatmeal (this is an awesome oatmeal recipe!)
• Italian Meatloaf
• Burgers (2 recipes to choose from)
• Tacos
• Sloppy Joes

We haven’t tried any of the dessert recipes, but there are some great ones to choose from. Even ideas for birthday cakes.  A good friend of mine makes the Chocolate Fondue, (with hidden carrot and avocado), for her kiddos to dip their fruit in and they love it!

There have only been a couple of recipes in here that we did not like.  The Quesadillas and the Tortilla Cigars.  They both have butternut squash hidden in them, and squash is sometime hard to disguise in my opinion.  Anyway, we couldn’t see what tasted weird,  but we did not like it.

If you have this cookbook, let me know what your family has raved about!  Or, if you’re in the market for an additional cookbook of this type, my good friend Becky and her girls love  The Sneaky Chef.

I’m thinking I need to go make a batch of Jessica’s Carrot Cake Muffins with Cream Cheese Frosting.  Now that sounds good!

It’s Friday!! And that can only mean one thing around here….Family Night!  Johnny and I decided several years ago that we wanted to have a special night together every Friday.  I think it may have started back when we lived in a Chinese village and needed to be creative.  Anyway, I started making pizza every Friday night back then, and we still continue the tradition today.

The kids love it too!  Every Friday when we go into Gabriel’s room to tell him “good morning”  we tell him it’s Friday, Pizza Night!  And he is always excited, for many reasons…that means the next day is Saturday and Daddy won’t have to work, he loves to eat Mama’s yummy homemade pizza, and last, but not least, he and I make chocolate chip cookies!!  We don’t do sweets much around here, so those Friday night chocolate chip cookies are a BIG hit!

In the past year I have read in at least two other places about people who have a weekly Pizza Night.  One of the articles was in a Good Housekeeping.  The writer had lots of great ideas to share to make it even more fun.  She liked to have a wide variety of different toppings and let people make their own individual pizzas.  Maybe when the kids are a little older, I’ll try that idea.

Another special feature of Friday Family Nights are that after the kids are in bed my hubby and I watch a movie together.  As the kids get older and stay up a little later, I’m sure we’ll watch movies all together.

As a bonus, I’d like to share my favorite pizza crust recipe with you.  I did not create this recipe, but we do really like it.

Whole Wheat Pizza Crust

• 2.5 c whole wheat flour
• 1 T yeast
• 1 T sugar
• 1/2 t salt
• Mix together, then add:
• 2 T olive oil
• 1 c warm water

Preheat oven to 500. Knead dough until soft ball forms, then let rest for 5 minutes.  Roll dough out and place on pizza pan.  Prick holes all over the dough with a fork.  Bake 3-8 minutes until puffy.  Add your toppings and bake until cheese starts to brown.

I have always made this crust as a 12 in. round pizza, until lately.  Since Nathaniel has gotten old enough to eat pizza too, I need more pieces!  So I bought a large rectangular pizza stone and I roll this same crust out into a larger square.  It’s enough dough, and the crust is a little thinner.

Try it out and see what you think.  I’d love to hear comments from you on pizza recipes and ideas for family nights!  I’ve been searching for that perfect, and easy, pizza sauce recipe.  Maybe you have it!

Did that title get your attention?  Boy, it sure did get mine a few weeks ago when I first read about it on ZRecommends.  I quickly thought about the clothing we have.  We actually don’t have many of the tagless items because our clothes were mostly purchased a few years ago when Gabriel was a baby, before tagless was popular.  But I did find a few tagless items from The Children’s Place, Carter’s, Old Navy, and Gap.

If your child has a rash or lesion caused by these labels, ZRecommends says you need to:

• Call Carter’s at 888-782-9548
• Call CSPC 800-638-2772
• Email ZRec’s with pics and information for them to use when talking to Carter’s
• Email ZRec’s with pics and information concerning other brands you’ve had this problem with.

Here is some addition information from ZRecommends with a response from Carter’s.  And, some pictures of a child who has suffered a burn.  There is no need to freak here.  My kids have not had any of these allergic or sensitive reactions to these tagless clothes.  I just want to make you aware of this so that you can be on the lookout if your child has a strange “burn” on his or her back.  Share this information with friends!

Ok, so if you have little kids, you probably have concern every now and then that your house smells like poop.  I mean, come on, let’s be honest.  You may even have that one friend in your life who’s house always does smell like poop, so you’re very conscious of trying NOT to have that same aroma in your home.

When I was pregnant with my first child, I registered for the Diaper Champ.  I did my research, read the reviews, and decided it was the best,  and most cost effective.  I liked that you could use normal trash bags in it and not have to buy any type of special refill.  And none of that silly sausage, twisting, stuff like with the older style Diaper Genie.  It was great….until that fateful day.  I can hear myself saying “What’s that smell??  It smells like poop, like all the time now.”  Oh yes, the days of no more breastfeeding and only table food had begun.  And they stunk!! The Diaper Champ just wasn’t doing the job.

And thus, I began my search for an alternative to stink.  They had just come out with the new Diaper Genie II and though I didn’t like the idea of special refills, I liked it better than smelling poop.  I don’t really like the idea of having a special “doo-doo” trash can right outside my back door.  I can’t imagine how bad it would smell after sitting outside in the heat for several days, and to be honest, I just don’t want that on my back porch.  So, I bought the Diaper Genie II. Let me tell you folks, it works!!  NO MORE POOP SMELL!!!  No sausage twisting either! Ahhh, clean indoor air quality, again.

By the time my second child was born we had gotten even smarter.  Pee diapers don’t stink.  Therefore, don’t waste those precious Diaper Genie refill bags on them!  We throw pee diapers in the regular trash can.  And, breastfeed newborn poop doesn’t stink either.  So, until he started eating solids at 6 months, we threw all of his diapers in our regular trash can.  Now that he’s on solids, we do use the Diaper Genie II again.  The pee diapers still go in our regular trash, and we really don’t go through the refills that fast.

So there you have it, the tale of our diaper pail journey.  Hope this gives you some ideas on what works!  And I hope you too can have clean indoor air!

You  may think I’m crazy, but I have a weekly schedule for myself.  What can I say?  I love to be organized and know what to expect every day.  Plus after having Gabriel, I realized the days of getting all of my chores done in a single day were over for a while.  So, let me give you a run-down of my week.

• Mondays are grocery days.  I go to one store because this is the easiest thing for me to do.  And I like easy.   I make my weekly menus and my grocery list on Saturday.
• Tuesdays are laundry days.  I tackle the bulk of our laundry on these days, but as you can expect with small children, there are other times during the week when I do small loads.
• Wednesdays are for cleaning the bathrooms and vacuuming.
• Thursdays are for dusting.
• Fridays are for sweeping.

Thursdays and Fridays are easy days and if I need to make a trip to Wal-Mart, or if we have guests, or anything else out of the ordinary, I can do my dusting and sweeping on the same day instead of splitting it up.

My little guys have even picked up on my schedule!  A few weeks ago I was vacuuming and Gabriel said “Grandma and Grandad are coming over tonight!”  I’ve read before that routines are great for little ones, so this probably just adds a little more routine to his life and he has come to know what to expect on different days!

The boys and I have fairly dry skin, especially in the winter time.  And in this house, we like to use paraben- and phthalate-free products on our bodies, if at all possible.  So trying to find products that meet all of our “safe” criteria is not always an easy thing.

Last winter, when Nathaniel had eczema that would not go away, I was searching for that magical safe product that would solve his problem.  Dr. Mercola had just come out with this new Organic Body Butter, so I decided to try it out.  I put it on him twice a day in the beginning and his eczema was gone in a couple of days!  Now I only put it on him when he gets out of the bath.  We’ll see if that has to change this winter.

One of the great things about this body butter is that you can use it on your whole body.  I use it as my facial moisturizer in the morning and evening and it never makes my face greasy at all.  I can also tell my face looks healthier and I think some of my fine lines are less noticeable.  I don’t have any before and after pictures or anything, just subtle differences that I can notice.

I love that this body butter is organic – it contains eight organic ingredients; shea butter, cocoa butter, virgin coconut oil, jojoba oil, murumuru butter, rice bran extract, palm oil, and aloe vera juice.  It comes in three scents – unscented, lavender, and sweet orange. You have to store it in the fridge because it does not contain any kind of preservatives!  Even the container is BPA and phthalate free!!

If you’re in the market for a great moisturizer, then I highly recommend this one.  With the cold fall and winter months ahead, you’ll likely need it!