Earlier this week, Miss G and I were invited to one of our neighbourhood grocery stores to find out more about a new online resource recently launched by Healthy Families BC. The site, called Shopping Sense, was developed in order to equip shoppers with the knowledge and skills to make healthier, budget-wise options for their families.
Shopping Sense is really easy to use… So easy, in fact, that I could see it being used with elementary-aged children as a multi-media learning tool. It includes fun virtual tours of grocery store departments led by Global TV’s Melodie Yong, and is chock full of great shopping tips.
During our tour, Melodie shared many of these useful tips with us, and though they weren’t completely new, they were great reminders. Here are some of my favourites:
Shop in season. Not only will the produce taste better, but it’ll be less expensive too.
Buy local. You’ll be supporting local farmers (and artisans), and because the food doesn’t have to travel far to get to you, it’ll be fresher.
Frozen can be just as nutritious. When it comes to out of season fruit, frozen is often the way to go – just be sure it doesn’t contain and added sugar (this is especially helpful given the amount of smoothies we consume in this house).
Shop the perimeter of the store. This was my favourite tip and we do this naturally in our day-to-day shopping, but I hadn’t thought about it this way before. Shopping the perimeter means getting the majority of your grocery items from the produce, dairy, bakery, meat departments, and getting fewer of the processed and packaged items from the centre of the store.
Melodie also introduced us to one of my favourite parts of Shopping Sense – a simple printable meal planner and shopping list. I’ve talked about my meal planning / grocery shopping routine before, and this printable works perfectly into my little system. It allows you to plan your meals for the upcoming week, make a coordinating shopping list, and have everything neatly organized in one place, all while avoiding over shopping (or coming home with a ton of stuff that really equals no decent meals).
While I found the whole event very interesting, I must admit this little monkey was slightly less enthused… I managed to keep her happy for most of the trip with a mini colouring pad, healthy snacks (avocado! clementines! tofu cubes! homemade crackers!), and 2 sheets of scented stickers, but by the end of our tour she was done and she certainly let me know it. She’s lucky she’s so cute. ☺
Now for the really fun part… We’ve graciously been given a $100 Safeway gift card to give away to one of our readers. (Yay! Who doesn’t love free groceries, right?!) This contest is open to BC residents and the winner will be chosen at random on Monday, March 18th, 2013.
There are FOUR ways to enter. Please leave a separate comment for each:
–> Visit the Shopping Sense resource and tell us one thing you learned or like about the site.
–> ‘Like’ Mama.Papa.Bubba. on Facebook and leave a comment saying “I like(d) you on Facebook”
–> Follow us on Twitter and leave a comment saying “I follow(ed) you on Twitter”
–> Tweet about the giveaway and leave a comment saying “I tweeted” (#BC Residents: Win $100 FREE groceries on MamaPapaBubba.com! https://mamapapabubba.com/2013/03/08/shopping-sense-free-groceries/ #giveaway)
Obviously the more times you enter, the better your chances of winning. ☺ Don’t forget to leave your email address! The winner will be announced on March 18th and contacted via email. Good luck!!
♥
For extra fun, like us on Facebook here and find us on Instagram here.
I thought of putting this little station together for Gracen to explore months and months ago, but only got to it today. Perhaps today just felt like a face painting sort of day? I don’t know…
Either way, I set out her 
And when she did, was she ever excited! She didn’t quite know what it was all about, but she was excited none the less. I stood back and watched her take off her tights. Then she turned to me and asked, “Mama helps Grae Grae paint her toes?” Hah!
Once I explained that they were face painting crayons, she was even more pleased. And off she went, decorating her face.
She went through several changes during the process… First, she announced that she was a raccoon, and after adding a few more lines here and there, she decided that she was a kitty cat.
Here she is with her first finished look. ☺
When it was time to remove it, she tried using the damp cloth I’d provided, but it was quite tricky. Face paint is stubborn, but I knew just what would do the trick…. One of our very favourite body/household/cooking products – organic coconut oil! She dipped her fingers into it, started rubbing it on her face, and the paint literally melted off. Afterwards she was able to use her cloth and wipe her face clean – easily!
Miss G decorated herself for a while longer, then let me have the final turn… The natural choice? Papa eyebrows, of course! ☺ I don’t know who found it more hysterical – her or me.
Yesterday, while shopping for fresh produce, Miss G asked if we could take home a starfruit. It got me thinking. I didn’t know if Grae had ever even seen a starfruit, let alone tasted one. I said sure, let her select the one she wanted, and carry it throughout the store for the remainder of our trip.
Today, after nap time, we pulled it out to investigate. We started by smelling it…
Then moved on to running our fingers over it to feel its texture…
And then to gently pinching it to see how soft or hard it was.
When we were done investigating the outside of the fruit, we decided to cut it open.
Of course the first thing Miss G wanted to do was taste it. This particular starfruit was still a little too green, but you can’t investigate a fun new fruit without tasting it!
Starfruit got her seal of approval, and while munching away, Grae was pleased to discover seeds inside the fruit.
This was such a fun and easy little activity that I think I’m going to let Grae choose one new item during our produce shopping trip each week. While we eat a TON of produce, there are still many fruits and veggies we haven’t tried (especially in our local market’s extensive Asian section). It’ll be fun to branch out a little bit and try new things, and I truly believe that when kids are involved in the shopping and cooking aspects of food, they’re much more open-minded about tasting their selections and creations.
Unlike 
An indoor picnic! It was special enough that Miss G wasn’t completely crushed about not making it out the door to play gym, but kept our daily routine moving along and neared us to nap time, which was desperately needed. We laid a blanket out in the living room, gathered a few cushions, and turned on some happy music in hopes of a reset.
Miss G requested a “special picnic lunch” and chose a random assortment of foods cut into small pieces, in true toddler fashion. Her lunch included orange pepper slices, baby carrots, grilled chicken cubes, chunks of aged cheddar, a multigrain mini bun with hummus, kiwi slices and some fruit water.
This mama, on the other hand, needed something more meal-ish, especially after the morning we’d had. For me, baby kale and baby spinach topped with fresh veggies, feta, cilantro dressing, and a few mini 
Grae thought the entire set up was very special and went back to being my happy little sidekick almost as soon as we began putting it together.
And thank goodness for that. 
Okay, okay, okay…. So I know I first declared 
Erin hit the nail on the head when she explained that adding blueberries into the mix to prevents the green veggies from mixing with the brown cocoa and turning into a grey sludge. Brilliant, really.
Each morning I give this to Grae she has the exact same response. “It’s a CHOCOLATEY smoozie!! But not yucky sugary chocolate, right Mama? Just Gracen chocolate.” As soon as I give her the confirmation that it’s chocolately because we’ve added cocoa to it, but it’s still filled with all kinds of healthy ingredients, she chugs it back. Silly little munchkin.
Do you ever set up an activity that you think will be a total hit and it just kind of flops? Or if it doesn’t flop, it just doesn’t take off the way you thought it would? That was the case with this sensory tray.
After a 
I kept it very simple and filled a tray with raspberry-scented shaving foam, sprinkled glitter on top of it, and set out a warm bucket of water with a hand towel.
Grae dove in.
She definitely had fun mixing up the different colours of glitter and squishing the foam between her fingers…
And she even thought it was funny that it stuck to her hands at first, but after a while, the fact that she couldn’t properly clean the foam off of her hands and arms, even with the bucket of water and towel, started to bother her.
She decided to gather some sandbox tools and played for a while longer, but the activity never really took off the way I thought it would. In the end, there was a giant tray of semi-played with foam just left there and she was done.
If anything, this was a great way to get messy. ☺
Something I absolutely love doing on weekends is going on little family adventures. Driving to a part of the city we don’t frequent often, parking the car, and exploring. Add in a sunny gorgeous day after a long run of rainy ones, and it’s that much better.
Back when we were living in Kuwait, I remember desperately longing for rain. The kind that lasts days and days and lends itself to cozy hoodies, movie afternoons, and pots of soup simmering on the stove. Well, I’m happy to say, I think I’ve officially had my fix. It’s been raining for several days in a row now, and though lazy afternoons on the couch watching documentaries and romantic comedies don’t exactly fit well with our current life, we’ve enjoyed the rain nonetheless. 
The project started off as a 
Grae decorated her coffee filters independently for a while, and then asked me to join her to finish them off. 
Afterwards, Miss G used an easy-to-squeeze spray bottle to soak the filters pretty thoroughly.
While waiting for them to dry, we began to work on our butterfly bodies. Using Sharpies, we drew little faces on the tops of the bamboo pins.
Here they are when done.
Next, Grae chose some pipe cleaners from our stash, we cut them in half, and bent them into little antennae shapes.
When we got back to our filters, they weren’t quite dry yet, so we took a blowdryer to them. 10 seconds each was all they needed.
To assemble the butterflies, we simply pinched them across the middle (Miss G did this job) and fanned the wings out nicely (my job).
Then Grae carefully selected a clothespin body and a set of sparkly antennae and we clipped everything together.
Here are are the two butterflies Miss G declared her favourites.
At the last minute, we decided to add magnets to the backs of the clothespins with hot glue (I also popped a little squeeze of glue into the tops of the clothespins too, just to hold everything together more permanently).
And here’s my proud little girl with her finished project.
