Let's Move Summer Program Fun and Free Food

The First Lady Michelle Obama created the Let's Move program to help tackle and prevent the threatening rise of childhood obesity in the US. This summer parks across the nation are participating in the Let's Move program by having sports and fun activities and giving FREE healthy lunches to all kids under 18!

The program is being promoted as a way to feed hungry kids who rely on school lunches throughout the year, however, where I live it's for ANY kid under 18 and it seems that's how it's now being promoted as the turnout has been much lower then expected. When we went my kids were the only ones there!

Here are the details:

• Check  HERE for more info and to find a local group.
• Program runs M-F, June 27-August 12.
• Activities are from 10:30-11:30
• Lunch is between 11:30-12:30

Lunches are healthy and come with  whole wheat bread, salad and fresh fruit. They are, however, giving chocolate milk with the lunch. I hope you find a park near you and try it out, feels good to support our local community programs.

Day 28 and Today I Ate A Rainbow Giveaway!

Today marks the last day in the All You Grocery Challenge! I can't believe what a difference it has made in our family. Within the first couple days it became clear that my biggest hurdle would be to improve the eating habits of my almost 3 year old daughter, Salma. Her idea of a varied diet included different chicken nugget shapes and deciding between chocolate milk or chocolate ice cream. Then I had an inspirational moment  to make it a game and challenge her to eat the rainbow everyday! She loved it and took to the "game" right away. The theme of our family's challenge became "eat the rainbow everyday."

Imagine my surprise and excitement when I stumbled upon a whole kit to help parents teach their kids to eat the rainbow everyday! Kia Robertson, the brains behind this ingenious product, created the Today I Ate A Rainbow Chart to keep track of her daughter's eating habits and found it to be a fun and interactive tool to help her daughter make healthy, varied choices. 

Kia generously sent me a kit to review and it is exactly what my family needed to motivate them and visually track how we were doing in eating the rainbow. With three kids' eating habits to track, it wasn't easy to know if they were all eating the rainbow! Kia's kit makes it super easy! 

I love that each kit comes with enough magnets to track up to 4 children. Salma quickly picked the star shape, Eissa wanted the triangle and I used squares for our 10 month old. The chart can be put on the fridge and with a quick glance I was able to check if the kids' were eating the rainbow and what color they were lacking in; surprisingly we were lacking in yellow and that was fixed easily with some bananas. Although I found the kit late in the challenge, it's going to be key in helping us maintain our new eating habits.

Kia has generously offered to give one lucky reader their own Today I Ate A Rainbow Kit!

One lucky reader will win the following prize package worth $25!

• 1 Today I Ate A Rainbow chart
• 4 sets of magnets 
• 4 achievement magnets
• 2 fridge magnets
• 1 color coded shopping list
• 1 The Rainbow Bunch book
• 1 Rainbow bookmark

This contest will end Friday, July 22, is open to residents of the US and CAN only. I'll announce the winner the next day.

Every participant can have up to 4 entries! For each method of entry make a new comment to this post letting me know you did.

Mandatory entry: Leave a comment below!

1 entry: Follow me @thefrugalette on twitter-leave your twitter name in comment

1 entry: Subscribe to my blog via Google Friend Connect

1 entry: Follow my blog via Networked Blogs (click follow button on sidebar)

Good Luck!

Day 23

I was going to wait and take a picture of the finished product; but seeing my son's enthusiasm for the process made me realize that's much more important. We are far from finishing, but homemade is not just about cooking in one's own kitchen, it's about being surrounded by your loved ones and trying your best to nourish them well, and love is part of that nourishment. Laughing, spilling, getting cherry juice everywhere, all of it is what makes something truly homemade.

Yesterday the kids helped make our first ever bread, and Salma, the girl who never eats bread, was asking for more! Sure, it tasted good, but I'm convinced it was the act of being a part of the process and seeing the family's excitement at tasting the bread that made her want to be part of the experience also. Homemade is not Home-easy..but it is Home-worth-it!

Day 22

This is the last and final week of the All You Grocery Challenge! While the past three weeks have focused on shopping, this week will be all about homemade. How creative can we get in the kitchen without going to the store? My bread maker came and I was excited to test it out. This is a picture of our first ever homemade bread, nothing fancy, but so wholesome. The smell of fresh bread baking in our kitchen was worth the price of the bread machine alone!

For me, the challenge began with a budget but is ending up in a lifestyle change. It was all about the money and not over spending, but here I am three weeks later baking bread and waiting on my canning kit to make cherry jam. I started this challenge resisting to change anything except our spending and the month became something much more profound. The first week opened my eyes to Salma's poor eating habits. The second week was an effort in shopping"outside the grocery store" and the third week brought organic produce into our home after years of buying only conventional. 

I talked to my mom the other day and she reminded me about an age old quote, "It's not about the destination, it's about the journey." That was pretty sneaky of All You to disguise my journey in the form of a contest. ;)

What changes have you seen the past month? Good luck in the last week!

Day 21

Every Saturday marks the end of a week in the four week challenge. It's a good day to look at how much was spent, where it was spent and what adjustments can be made for the coming week. The rules allow for $25 per family member, children under 1 are not included. We are a family of 5, but our youngest is under 1, so our weekly budget is $100 on all food, including eating out.

This week had such a different vibe than last week. My challenge this week was to find frugal ways to bring organic food back into our home after a three year break! Organic, like anything, is not all or nothing. If eating more organic is a priority for you and your family, there are ways to incorporate it into your diet without breaking the bank. We always hear buzz words like 'in-season' and 'bulk' and that is key to budgeting organic. Cherries are synonymous with summer, so stock up! When the price gets to $3/lb.,or less, buy in bulk and have recipes on hand to incorporate all that bounty or learn how to can fruit! 

I was so inspired this week to get my family eating more local and organic produce I bought a canning starter kit to make cherry jam and preserve that delicious summer fruit all winter. With conventional jam selling $.40/oz, I estimate my homemade version will cost roughly $.20/oz. and it's organic! Not only will it be a 50% savings, my kids will have so much fun making their own jam.

Here is how we did this week:

$100

-$15.39 (Shaws/Star Market)

-$1.49 (Trader Joes)

-$6.50 (Cedar Market)

-$10.63 (Harvest Coop)

-$53.19 (Whole Foods)

=$12.80 under budget!

Some highlights from our shopping include over 5 lbs. of organic cherries, 16 lbs. of vidalia onions, 2 lbs. of dried chickpeas and tahini sauce (homemade hummus that will last 2 months!),a 4 lb. cabbage head, 8 boxes of honey nut cheerios and 2 gallons of all natural local farmed milk and no eating out at all. 

And how is my other challenge doing? This morning Salma ASKED for a banana for breakfast, not chocolate, not chicken nuggets....a banana. We are heading into the last week of the challenge, how are you all doing? Good luck in the final week!

Day 20

Today only Whole Foods is selling organic cherries for $2.99/lb.! Cherries are my favorite fruit and one of the most expensive. Whole Foods cherries are also well-known for being bigger and juicier than cherries you find elsewhere. Last week I bought conventional cherries for $5.99/lb., so this is a stock up price! I'm already getting my recipes together of what to make, and at the top of my list is this super easy skillet cherry jam. I just ordered a cherry pitter and am waiting on my bread maker; I see lots of homemade bread and cherry jam in our future! Best part is cherries are even a favorite of my super picky eater, Salma.

Besides being delicious, little cherries pack a nutritional punch, better known as a "super fruit." Compared to other fruits, cherries have the highest levels of disease-fighting antioxidants. They contain beta-carotene, 19 times more than strawberries or blueberries! They are also rich in Vitamin C, potassium, magnesium, iron, fiber and folate. I hope there's still some left when I get there tonight! Happy cherry-picking!

Day 14

Every Saturday marks the end of a week in the four week challenge. It's a good day to look at how much was spent, where it was spent and what adjustments can be made for the coming week. The rules allow for $25 per family member, children under 1 are not included. We are a family of 5, but our youngest is under 1, so our weekly budget is $100 on all food, including eating out.
This week was fun as we challenged ourselves to get out of our comfort zone and shop for groceries in non-grocery stores. We found great deals at Rite Aid, OmahaSteaks.com and even Kmart. While I still enjoy shopping the traditional grocery stores, it's good to know there are alternatives and great deals to be had at drugstores and online.
We were going out of town for the July 4th weekend, so my grocery consisted of a lot of snacks and fruit from Whole Foods.
$100
-$.69 (Rite Aid)
-$6.34 (Shaw's/Star Market)
-$52.53 (OmahaSteaks.com)
-$34.67 (Whole Foods)
=$5.77 under budget!
Even though I had a lower budget last week, I'm much happier with our budget this week because it includes a lot of organic fresh fruit and food for our weekend getaway. I only shop Whole Foods for their fruits and vegetables. If you stick to their produce it's not much more than the regular grocery store. Salma ate scallops for the first time yesterday and didn't spit them out! She said it tastes like chicken..mmm...OK! Today marks the halfway point in the challenge, how are you doing? Good luck in week 3!

Day 9

This is Eissa and Salma, This is Salma about to try Nutella for the first time, see her sneaky smile, it's a smile she has just for chocolate. I spread it on half of a whole wheat pita bread...she ate it! Salma doesn't eat bread, much less whole wheat pita bread, so this is great progress. I was worried she was going to lick off the nutella and leave the bread; she does that with cupcakes, cakes, donuts...but we had a deal. I told her if she just licks the chocolate off then I have to take it away, she decided not to lick. Rite Aid this week has Nutella on sale for $2.50, with a $1 coupon, makes a very cheap and healthier alternative to regular chocolate. Seeing that she ate it, I'll pick up some more tomorrow!

Day 6

My "eat the rainbow" challenge for my family is particularly important for my daughter,Salma, who wants nothing to do with any other color than brown, i.e. chocolate. We have a deal that she eats three different colors everyday. Yesterday her three colors included green...yes GREEN! She ate one green bean. One.

The really big progress was that it was not covered in butter, barbecue sauce or deep fried. It was as farm fresh as you can get and she knew exactly what she was eating. There are lots of recipes on sneaky ways to get your kids to eat veggies, and I've made a lot of them, but I want my kids to know what vegetables are! I don't want it to be this big surprise one day that I've been hiding in their food.

Eating one green bean may not impact her health, but it does open her mind to eating foods she previously shunned. We are striving for progress this month, not perfection.

Day 4

It's becoming clear what every family member's challenge will be this month. The hardest one to change will be my almost 3-year-old daughter's chocolate and chicken nugget habit. I can't say it came from nowhere, I am a total chocoholic and fast food junkie! This morning she woke up asking for chocolate cake for breakfast, when I refused, she then asked for chocolate milk and then chicken nuggets...for breakfast?! Oh my, I thought, what have I created! Then, I had an allyou inspirational moment, speak to kids in a voice they understand. I explained in my most toddler-friendly explanation that we are going to try to eat the colors of the rainbow everyday and brown, the color of chocolate and chicken nuggets, is not in the rainbow. I offered her cranberry-grape juice, she loved drinking the color purple and asked for more! I then asked if she wanted some cereal and she said she wants to eat a yellow banana! I'm so happy and now that Salma has opened the door to other foods I'm not turning back and will hopefully get the whole family to eat more colors of the rainbow, myself included. So the theme of our AllYou Grocery Challenge will be to eat the colors of the rainbow everyday! What is your theme?