WIN a gorgeous Peppa Pig Pyjama Giveaway!

May is Peppa Pig Friendship Month!

Peppa is a lovable, cheeky little piggy who lives with her younger brother George, Mummy Pig and Daddy Pig. Peppa loves playing games, dressing up, visiting exciting places and making new friends, but her absolute favourite thing is jumping up and down in muddy puddles. Her adventures always end happily with loud snorts of laughter.

I don't know about your house but in ours nothing gets as much squeals of delight as Peppa Pig! Yep, she has rock star status here and both my girls especially my youngest have developed a great love for anything Peppa Pig and everything muddy puddles!

Even last years birthday cake had a big muddy puddle on top with a tiny Peppa jumping in it!

I have to admit too, even mummy doesn't mind watching a bit of Peppa hehe! She is rather cute and funny after all!

My Peppa Pig loving Miss V!

You too can enjoy your own Peppa Pig adventure this May.

Simply visit any ABC store this May to 'find Peppa and her friends'.

Collect an entry form from the till point and write down the name of the characters that you find.

Once you have completed the hunt hand in your completed entry form to be entered into the competition and receive a Peppa Pig giveaway!

For more info, visit peppapig.com.au | facebook.com/officialpeppapig.au | https://shop.abc.net.au

PLUS.....

WIN your little sweet pea a fantastic Peppa Pig Pyjama Pack set valued at $50rrp right here on this blog!! Note: Styles and sizes vary, giveaway winner may request a size between 3-6. Sizes are not guaranteed, but we will do our best to accommodate.

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Healthy & Delicious Picnic Food Recipes

There is something so magical about a picnic.

Packing a basket of lovely scrummies and heading into nature.
Basking under the sun's rays.
Breathing in that fresh air.
 Kids laughing.
Relaxing.
 Everybody slowing down for awhile and enjoying the sights and sounds of nature.

It is a joyful escape from our busy schedules, a really great way to have some downtime together as a family and with friends.
To me at the heart of a picnic is also the glorious food.
I love food and I love making food so the idea of picnic is always an exciting opportunity to me to bring some lovely recipes, ingredients and food creations together and share them with loved ones, even better is when we can all bring some food creations we have made to share and bond over our food together.

Here are some of my favourite picnic food ideas X

Spelt TomatoTartAs seen in Holistic Bliss Magazine HERE

Carrot & Zucchini Rolls RECIPE (super easy)

Perfect Kids in the Kitchen recipe

 Healthy Cacao and Maca Bliss Balls RECIPE

 Sundried tomato & marinated feta savoury muffins RECIPE 

Tasty Tempeh chickpea bites RECIPE

No added sugar - choccyliscious muffins RECIPE
All the yummiest of chocolate indulgenec without the refined sugar!

 Pineapple & Sweet Corn Mini Quiches RECIPE (Super Easy)
Great Kids in the Kitchen recipe!

Smoked Trout, Avocado & Pomegranate Salad RECIPE

Mushroom and Brie Cheese Strudel RECIPE

Chocolate zucchini and chia seed cake RECIPE

Spinach, Pesto and Feta Savoury Scrolls with Quinoa and Avocado Oil RECIPE

Moist Carrot and Ginger Cake RECIPE

And by popular request from FACEBOOK
My Mushroom and Quinoa mini pasties

Ingredients

• 200 grams fresh mushrooms
• 3/4 cup Quinoa flakes
• 1 leek, finely chopped
• 4 teaspoons garlic (or to taste)
• 1 teaspoon turmeric
• 1/2 teaspoon curry powder
• Himalayan salt to taste
• 2 sheets puff pastry or your own homemade puff pastry alternative
• 1 free range egg
• 1 free range egg yolk

Method

• Pre heat oven to 180'c.
• Line two baking trays with baking paper.
• De - frost pastry just slightly. 
• In a frying pan saute the leek and garlic together until lightly transparent.
• Add in the turmeric, stir through.
• Add all the mushrooms, stir together over a medium heat until all the mushrooms are lightly collapsed.
• Remove from heat, mix mushrooms mixture with the quinoa flakes and whole egg until all well combined.
• Lay a sheet of puff pastry out on a bench. Cut into 16 small squares.
• Place a small amount of the mixture in the middle of a pastry square.
• Pick up two opposite corners and bring together, then do this with the other two and you should have a little square parcel. Pinch the edges together.
• Continue with all the pastry squares, placing them onto the trays with baking paper.
• Lightly whisk the egg yolk and use a pastry brush to brush the little pasties.
• Bake in the oven until they are golden brown.
• Cool on a wire rack.
• Serve.

Notes

• These are really quick and easy, tasty and perfect for picnics and lunch boxes.
• You can really increase the garlic in these to give them a great, rich flavour and cold fighting power!
• You can use normal quinoa, pre cooked and cold if flakes are unavailable.
• Use bigger squares to make bigger pasties.

Toddler Tips

• These are excellent for toddlers due to the great little hand friendly sizing.
• Add some cheese to make them extra tasty.

Happy Picnicking!!

Rebecca xx

Recipes, photography and text by Rebecca Mugridge
(c) RebeccaMugridge 2013

An Afternoon Tea Party with Tomarata Sensational Zucchini Pickles

A Family Tradition

Does your family have one? Or three? I decided awhile ago that I would start some lovely family traditions with my girls. Regular things we do together, moments that are just about us spending time together, bonding, enjoying life.


We currently have two!
Our Friday night girls movie and homemade pizza night and our once a week Afternoon Tea Party!

At least once a week we have a very special afternoon tea party together.

We chat over lovely nibbles and things like chai & hot chocolate, iced tea or smoothies and sit at a pretty table and enjoy each others company. It is so much fun. I make it different each week, sometimes it is a pretty high tea with delicate china and lace tablecloths, (and we have been known to all dress up as princesses for it too! haha) other times more a picnic style relaxing in the garden with blankets or it's a fresh food fiesta or something we have made together.

It is such a special thing to make a time and start a regular family tradition, I am really enjoying it and have decided to share some of them on my blog. It is a couple of hours scheduled in once a week where my girls and I enjoy each other's company and follow in my family's tradition of making and enjoying food together, with chefs, cooks and foodies galore in the family we really do love to eat, laugh and enjoy food together.
I just love sharing the joys of cooking, growing food, sourcing food and enjoying food.

Today we had a very fresh and crunchy afternoon tea and the highlight was the most beautiful Zucchini pickles!
"Tomarata Sensational Zucchini Pickles." I was really looking forward to trying them, especially as they are Australian Made and they are a local product to where I live too. I have always enjoyed pickles and preserves and was impressed at how delicious these were. My kids both enjoyed them too.

My toddler especially loved it on rice crackers and would have eaten half a jar given a chance! The flavour combination was gorgeous and you immediately think of all the lovely ways you could also eat it.
It would be a really great Christmas Gift Basket inclusion, something I am doing this year. Available from the Maleny Supa IGA, (where I got mine from) this zucchini pickle is beautiful.
I thought it would be nice but it really exceeded my expectations, I was really impressed.
It is not too tangy that kids won't eat it but is tangy enough that adults will really enjoy it.

Rebecca xx

Kids having trouble getting off to sleep? Dinosnores could be just the answer! Guest interview with their creator Sherene Alfreds

Kids have trouble getting off to sleep or aren't very rested when they wake up? Dinosnores could be just what you are looking for!

Dinosnores are sleepy stories using guided relaxation and visualisation to help kids sleep and have won America's Creative Child CD of the Year 2011 and 2012. Featuring 9 sleepy story CDs.

 

Q Where did the inspiration for the Dinosnores come from?

 Like so many good things, inspiration for Dinosnores came from experience.  My own daughter, Emma, found it difficult to sleep during her preschool and kindergarten years.  So I combined my love of relaxation and my training as a speech pathologist with her interests (dinosaurs) to create imaginative relaxation stories to help her sleep.  Dinosnores sleepy stories was born.  And it gave me back my nights to read and relax (and now work!) after a busy day.

Q What is it about Dinosnores that sets it apart from other bedtime stories?

Four main things set us apart.

1. Each story CD runs for a full hour (the final half our CDs are natural soundscapes without spoken stories), helping to make sure children stay settled after falling asleep.
2. Calming natural soundscapes evoke an imaginary world, as well as masking distracting household noise
3. The stories have been scripted using my background in speech pathology to build language and listening skills.  Slow rates of speech, repetition, and learning themes, encourage children to listen with understanding and learn about the natural world.
4.    Teach relaxation and visualisation techniques to children

Q They go for an hour, what made you decide to make them go for that long and do you find this helps?

If children are light sleepers, they wake easily to the sound of household and neighborhood noise.  By lasting a full hour our CDs mask household noise.  Parents can stack the dishwasher, leave the washing machine on, or relax and watch television.  On New Years Eve I run  our CDs on repeat all night, so that my kids are less likely to wake to boisterous party noise in the neighborhood.

Q How important is relaxation and breathing to a good nights sleep?

It’s essential!  Relaxation and focusing on breathing helps children calm their busy minds as well as distracting from bedtime fears.   Bringing the mind inward, using breath, is central to both yoga and meditation.  And in recent years it has also been established in the medical literature as benefiting mental and physical health.

Just this year, a Lancet Medical Journal review reported that the best way to cure insomnia, and bring on sleep, is not medication - but to change bedtime behaviour.  Specifically they identified use of relaxation techniques, good sleep hygiene and cognitive behavioral therapy. 

So the evidence that relaxation helps people sleep is strong.  We just need to learn the skills.  Fortunately, children are so fast to learn relaxation skills that parents report our sleepy stories get their kids to sleep the very first time they listen!

Q What exactly is good sleep hygiene?

Good sleep hygiene involves having a regular bedtime, calming bedtime routine and regular waking time.  Good sleep routines allow our bodies can then anticipate and wind down ready to sleep.  We also need a dark, warm, comfortable room to sleep - used only for sleep and not for television, computers or rough and tumble play.  Finally, to help sleep at night we need to get enough exercise and outdoors sunshine during the day.

Q And the stories can help build language skills too?

All stories help build language skills.  But Dinosnores sleepy stories are particularly good at building language skills as they have themed vocabulary.  Like our computers, human brain like to store related words and topics together.  So each new word a child learns is best learnt with other related words.  This encourages them to develop neural pathways connecting all related words.  It helps them recall and use these new word themselves.  By providing a story with themed vocabulary we are enabling children to develop strong neural connections between related words, while children enjoy an imaginative story.  Also by using a repetition and a slow but normal (as opposed to more rapid) rate of speech, children are allowed more processing time to listen with understanding to both the words and sentence structures.

But as fabulous as our sleepy stories are, they don't replace the bedtime story with a parent.  That shared time, and attention cannot be replaced.  But our CDs do give parents a good exit line “Of course you can have one more story darling - I’ll just put on your sleepy story CD for you.”

Q How much difference to you think a good night’s sleep makes to both the children and their parents?

Just enormous - and recent Australian research supports this.  This year the Australian Murdoch Children's Research Institute found that 38.7% Australian kindergarten children have sleeping problems and that child sleep problems were associated with poorer child and parent mental health. 

 I personally found it very difficult when my then three year old daughter was having trouble sleeping at night.  It was so draining!  My daughter would be grumpy and irritable.  I knew it was largely because she wasn’t getting enough sleep - but the bedtime routine alone was not working.  I felt worn out because I had no time to myself to recharge - even at night, plus I was pregnant!  It was a very difficult time.  I looked for child relaxation CDs but none appealed to my to my daughter or me.  So I started developing my own stories, and mixing them together with relaxing soundscapes.  I got my nights back to myself and the rest is history!

Sherene Alfreds is mother to one 7 year old tom-boy and a lego obsessed 4 year old boy.  Trained as a speech pathologist, she now uses or professional and personal experience to create Dinosnores sleepy stories.  Her sleepy stories have won Creative Child Seals of Excellence, CD of the Year 2011 and 2012, are recommended by psychologists and loved by children!

 

You can listen to her stories at www.dinosnores.com or follow Dinosnores sleepy stories on FACEBOOK - make sure you say HI and let her know you found about her through the blog,

Rebecca xx

Happy Food Shopping with a Toddler - WIN a Trollipop!

Taking kids shopping is often not easy, taking a toddler shopping is usually a nightmare.  There’s that difficult age which can start around 12 months where they can become resistant to sitting in the shopping trolley child seat.

For parents to survive shopping with young children – the best way is to try and keep them safely secured in the shopping trolley child seat for as long as possible.  

However, this is easier said than done! So here are some tips to get them in the shopping trolley and keep them there that may help.

* Park near a trolley bay in the carpark and put them straight from the car into the child seat in the shopping trolley.  If you carry them into the shops or let them walk, there is less chance you will get them to go willingly into the shopping trolley.  

* Use a shopping trolley cover with a built in harness – the child waist strap on the shopping trolley is often not sufficient to prevent children from trying to wriggle out of the seat.  An over the shoulder harness can deter this behaviour, and the cover makes the trolley more comfortable and inviting for them too.

* Get the essentials first – that way you are not pushing them beyond their limits and getting yourself stressed out to get those essentials, if they start to get restless.

* Keep that trolley moving! Put the fruit, vegetables, meats, deli items and other grocery items that you need to stop to pack or select at the top of your list and get them first.  This way if they are getting restless towards the end you can quickly get the rest of your essentials and get out!  

* Encourage independence - use a shopping trolley organiser so they can get their own snacks, drinks and toys

* Make sure you continue to talk and interact with your child – let them know they have your attention by singing, talking, giving kisses and cuddles etc. This done consistently may remind them that they will get a lot of attention if they sit in the shopping trolley child seat and encourage them to want to sit there.

* Wherever you can get them to help – the fruit and vegetables section is great for this give them a bag and where fruit and vegetables are stored up high and within easy reach get them to help fill the bag (just make sure they are secured in the seat with a restraint and do not lean over to reach items)

* Keep a special toy or treat in your hand bag to keep them entertained while you wait at the checkout - try wrapping a small toy in a few layers of paper, this keeps their hands and mind busy while you unpack and pay for the shopping.

* Lastly, keep them in the trolley until you return to the car, once again if they figure out they can get out and run around that is what they will want to do – no stopping for that $2 merry go round – straight from the shopping trolley child seat and back into the car.

* Be persistent! If they are starting to resist the trolley, try as much as you can to get them to sit in the shopping trolley child seat.  My 2 year old son often resists however once I get him strapped in, we get moving and he is snacking away he has forgotten all about trying to get out.

So remember, be organised, don’t plan to do everything, get the essentials and get out.  Keep up the interaction and get them to help wherever possible. From car to shops and back to car keep them in the shopping trolley child seat.

Lauren Angove is Mum to 2 boys aged 2 & 6 yrs and runs her own business providing products and information to help make shopping with kids easier, including her own invention Trollipop (www.trollipop.com.au) – designed to help kids independently snack and play while parents shop

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As a mum of a toddler myself I think this invention is BRILLIANT!!
Shopping is something you always have to do, you always take a drink and often snacks or buy a snack while you are in there and are always looking for things to entertain them - and keep them in the trolley!
How would you like to WIN one of these amazing inventions and have stress free shopping
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How DO you get children to eat spinach?

What is the best way to get children eating spinach and benefitial greens like silverbeet?

Make it fun-make it exciting-make it tasty!

How do we do this?

By getting children involved with real, fresh ingredients. Getting them out into the garden and enjoying the stimulating experience of growing ingredients themselves and bringing this experience together with a great tasty recipe and the experience cooking of a meal with your children.

This is one just such perfect recipe that brings the home garden, cooking with children and healthy eating for your kids all together.
It is one my family loves to make and I loved to create!

Enjoy!!

My Garden Quiche

This is a gorgeous and lovely smelling dish that is so easy to make and has the added delight of many of the ingredients being really easy and cheap to grow yourself, making it another great recipe to get children involved with as they can help ‘gather the ingredients’ with you making the dish something they will be excited to eat!

Ingredients:
• Approximately 5 good sized fresh Silverbeet leaves
• A small handful of baby English spinach leaves ( around 6-8)
• 2 stalks spring onions, chopped
• Approximately 10 good stalks fresh chives
• A sprig fresh thyme
• A sprig fresh Rosemary
• 2 stalks fresh Italian parsley, finely chopped
• 1 large zucchini, finely grated preferably skin on
• 1 medium sized washed potato, finely grated
• 2 cups grated low fat cheese divided into two lots-1 x ½ cups and 1 x ½ cup
• 1 tablespoon low fat sour cream
• 2 sheets reduced fat puff pastry
• 3 cherry tomatoes, thinly sliced
• 3 free range eggs, whisked
• Paprika
• Sea salt
• Freshly ground black pepper
• Dried mixed herbs
• 1 teaspoon milk


Method:• Preheat oven to approximately 200` ( not fan forced )
• Grease a round baking dish, at least 4 cm deep and
• Remove pastry sheets from freezer and allow to slowly thaw
• Wash and then pat dry with a clean tea towel or paper towel the sliver beet and spinach leaves, then finely chop until they resemble green confetti
• Place this into a large mixing bowl
• Add into silverbeet the 1& ½ cups grated cheese, zucchini, potato, egg, parsley, spring onion and sour cream and mix together
• Finely chop the fresh chives into the mix with scissors, adding also the leaves of the rosemary and thyme sprigs removed from the stalks.
• Season mixture with sea salt, pepper and paprika and mix well.
• Arrange the pastry sheets into the greased baking dish in two diamond shapes cutting off the overlapping pastry and then attaching this to the least covered edges to ensure a good coverage of the entire base and sides.
• Pour mixture onto pastry base and spread out evenly, top with the remaining cheese
• Arrange in a circular pattern the finely sliced tomato on top
• Sprinkle with a small amount of paprika, teaspoon of dried mixed herbs and some pepper.
• Lightly paint any bits of pastry sticking out with the milk
• Bake in a medium oven until pastry is well cooked and the quiche mix has set.
• Serve hot with fresh ripe tomatoes and a dressed garden salad. or a selection of crunchy and colourful fingers of veggies for the kids like yellow capsicum, carrot and snow peas.

Kids in the kitchen notes:
• This is an excellent recipe to get kids enjoying eating spinach and silverbeet!
Kids of all ages from the very young will enjoy growing their own silverbeet and it is one the easiest and quickest veggies to grow-they require next to no space, grow really easily in pots and gardens and are even very forgiving of general forgetfulness and irregular watering or an insect attack!
• If the kids grow it and harvest it and help cook-they will definitely want to eat it!From the silverbeet to the chives and rosemary this is an excellent recipe that you can go out into the garden together to collect the ingredients and even better if you are fortunate enough to have your own free range chickens for eggs too. Limited in space? Many of these things will grow easily on a sunny balcony or could be a great little project for a local kindergarten, school, church or community garden.

• Kids Jobs in the recipe!
Other than the harvesting ( or sourcing from a local farmers market ) this recipe has some great steps the kids can get involved in.
Tasks:
Egg cracker! In our house my 4 year old is the resident egg cracker and has been for a couple of years ( even if we do have to remove little bits of shell from time to time)
Chives chopper. Using kid safe scissors let them chop the fresh chives straight into the mix
Silverbeet dryer. Get them patting the washed leaves dry ready for use.
Tomato decorator. Let them be the artist and arrange the tomato slices at the end.
Official Grater. Depending on the age of the kids grating can be a great task for the older children to help with.
The mixer. What child doesn’t love the job of mixing the ingredients-regardless of the recipe?
Pastry painter. Using a clean pastry brush let the kids paint the edges of the pastry so it can brown nicely.

Toddler Tips:

For small fingers and mouths try making some mini versions for your young toddler using circles of pastry lined into min muffin trays filled with the mixture and you can always reduce the amount of spring onion.

Parent Tips:
The key to an enjoyable ( and still edible ) cooking experience with kids in the kitchen I have found is to make sure you have what you need ready before starting and are distraction free so it can be fully supervised during the whole procedure.
And most important of all...to relax! Enjoy the experience of bonding with young children over healthy fresh ingredients and making food together, things can and often do go wrong when working with kids-so be flexible and patient and you will all be sure to create not only delicious healthy dishes the whole family will enjoy but great memories too!

ENJOY!!
(c)RebeccaMugridge2010

You can find heaps more great recipes like this one along with great gardening ideas and projects you can do with kids in THE PRAM DIET book.
See the links on this blog page for stockists.

Childhood Obesity

Childhood obesity is something that is very close to my heart.


So I was extremely delighted when I was asked to be a guest speaker recently on the topic of childhood obesity at the "How Health Smart is our Community" Breakfast held in Bundaberg by Queensland Health with a strong focus on preventing childhood obesity as a community.

The ever growing figures on childhood obesity are simply frightening.

I know as a mother myself the sheer amount of sugary and fatty foods our young children are exposed to through all kinds of marketing and often as a result of tough financial times and us the parents leading busier and busier lives to provide for our families and meal times becoming quick and easy solutions.

I also know how deceptive it can seem at the supermarkets that unhealthy options are far cheaper and quicker to make than their healthier alternatives.
With families finding themselves on tighter and tighter budgets it can be all too easy to think you can't afford the money and time to provide healthy options.



BUT I can tell you that it really does not need to be this way!
In fact becoming more health conscious on a budget can even make your money go further in the long run and there are so many easy, fast recipes that you can whip together or make in advance so you can leave those unhealthy packet foods where they belong for the most part-left on the shelf!!



I am not by any means saying you should never eat packet or takeaway foods as a family but these foods should always be 'sometimes foods' as said by the great Elmo!



I chose to make my talk at the breakfast on inspiring ways to raise healthier kids and make healthy choices fun.
In particular my passion for involving children right from the youngest age in growing fresh fruits and vegetables. I have seen over and over again the excitement experienced by children growing food and especially at eating food they themselves watched and helped grow.



We can do this in our own backyards, patio's, verrandah's and even indoors as hydropinics. We can grow them through our school's, kindergarten's, day care centre's, community groups and churches.

Bringing the world of fresh fruits and vegetables alive to children is one of the best and easiest ways we as adults can make a huge difference in children's lives and in turn help reduce childhood obesity.

Childhood obesity is serious and is something we can all help to reduce. As someone who has dealt with weight issues for so much of her life I know first had the damage that being overweight can cause to your self esteem as a child.

Damage that carries through your teenage years and follows you into adulthood.

What can start out as a small problem-being just ‘a little’ overweight as a child can begin a lifetime of low self esteem and unhealthy habits that become so ingrained you aren’t even aware of them until it all seems too hard to ever change.
For me All the women in my family have dealt with weight issues.
My grandmother was overweight.
My mother is overweight.
I have been overweight or had other weight related issues most of my life.

When I became a mother myself and had my daughter I wanted this pattern had to stop with me.
I wanted my daughter to grow up without constant worrying about her weight. I wanted her to have the energy and drive to play sports and be energetic.
To eat healthy foods as a normal way of life and to see daily exercise as normal and even fun. I wanted her to grow up confident to join in at sports at school.
I wanted her to not be ashamed of her body and the reflection she saw in the mirror.

I adopted a healthy lifestyle with my daughter as inspiration and it became the single most amazing thing I have ever done in my life.

It changed me forever.

I lost over 30 kilo’s and found an energetic , confident version of myself that I did not know I could be.

I love to share my story most of all to let others know that you don’t have to keep waiting around for the new quickest way, a magic weight loss pill or to have enough money to buy exercise equipment or join a program.
I share my story to let others know that you can make positive changes at any age and stage in your life. You can do it on a budget and most of you can and should do it when you are blessed to have children in your life.
All you really need to start down that path to a healthier, more vibrant you....IS YOU.

You just need to begin