I heard about this on NPR.

But when I did the math I am only at 44 out of 76….

So, we try to keep a healthy diet: whole grains, low sugar, lots of fruits and veggies, but then comes the holidays. Not so bad when you're a grown-up: have a cup cake or a few pieces of chocolate and call it good, but when you're a kid there are treats galore!!! Eli's daycare is having a Valentine's Day party. On the food sign up list there's cookies, cupcakes, brownies & candy, plus punch (read: Hawaiian Punch and 7-up. Very healthy.) Now I'm all about Valentine's Day: pink and red hearts, making special cards, I can't get enough! But do I want my kids full of food coloring, refined sugar and white flour? Not really. So I started looking for fun, healthy-ish treats for my kid and his daycare friends. Some I found included strawberry yogurt (have you ever looked at the sugar content of strawberry yogurt?) mixed with strawberry cool whip (yummy red dye #479) as a dip for graham crackers, pretzels & fruit. Might as wall give them another cupcake!
Some I thought of included Strawberry “Mousse:” Cream cheese, thawed strawberries (no sugar added), a little honey blended with enough milk or or yogurt to make i dippable. Yes, cream cheese has fat, but for the average active kid, no big deal. Find some whole grain graham crackers, fresh fruit, etc, and you've got a special (pink!) treat, that won't send them bouncing off the walls. Plus, they get to DIP. What kids doesn't like food that involves dip. Or use it as a filling for mini-cream puffs.
Strawberry smoothies seems like another fun V-Day treat, but I can't quite figure out how to make them in advance. Ooooo. Maybe freeze them into and ice cube tray with a little red popsicle stick… VDay popsicles!
Or what about pretzels, raisins, nuts and a FEW m-n-m's, in a little Valentine's dixie cup. What kid wouldn't love that?
Heart shaped cheese slices seems perfectly, well, cheezy. And kids like cheezy.
Rice crispy treats cut out with a SMALL heart shaped cookie cutter seems reasonable, too.
100% juice w/ sparkling water… now that I can get behind (even 100% juice w/ “pop”).
In the end, I guess I just can't imagine being 2 years old and being offered a full size cup-cake, a brownie, psycho-sugar punch, candy and heaven knows what else, and feeling good at the end of the day. Bring on the treats, but only a few, and make 'em small. Just enough to make the day celebrating love and friendship a little bit special.

All of us have been sick over the past couple weeks. Bridgit started us out with getting sick and then later that week Eli had a cold and then fever. Friday I got a pounding headache and fever and now I just have a massive head cold.

I guess that is what we get having a kid in child care and both of us working in schools. More sleep, acetaminophen, vitamins, and grapefruit seed extract.

So many people know that I am a sandal guy. I even wore sandals to two weddings this past summer. This winter Bridgit and I surveyed the pile of Chacos that we had and decided which ones needed some love. We decided to send in 3 of the 5 pairs we had for repair and to return a pair to REI because I hated the toe loop on the Z/2 style.

The cool thing is that chaco can repair and refurbish sandals and make them like new for less price and waste then pitching them and getting a new pair. To get three pairs back into new condition it was only slightly more then buying a pair new. Though a complete repair is about what you can get them for on end of season sales, which is how we got a few of ours.

We each had a pair that was the brink of falling apart. My black pair had webbing that was almost completely worn through (I must have rough toes) and a grove worn under the balls of my feet It got new straps and sole. Bridgit had a pair where the soles had almost worn through and had some worn webbing they got new straps and soles too. Then I had a newer pair that only got the main strap replaced.

Well, we all had to go back to work today. Not that work is bad, it's just not as good as not working.

That said we had a great break. I like it when Christmas is placed early in a break because gets it out of the way. Bridgit and I did the music for the Christmas Eve afternoon mass at HTSP. We don't get to sing together much anymore, especially since being parents, but Bridgit's folks watched him during mass for us. We had the immediate family over Christmas Eve for dinner and that was fun. Christmas involved driving around a lot. Then there was Christmas 5 days later with Bridgit's family.

On the 29th we had a big party with all the old friends, most of whom live out of town now. We did the same thing last year and it worked great, so I think we might have a tradition now.

We had a great new years eve, we shot a TON of trap in the afternoon. Bridgit's folks were kind enough to allow a party to be held at their house and they also took Eli to my parent's party. We did a tapas/small plates pot-luck that turned out wonderfully. We feasted on crabcakes, bacon-wrapped dates, crostini, sausage, filet on caramelized onions, roasted vegetables on barley, and many other delicious items. We then headed over to another party around 11pm and toasted in the new year.

As darkness fell so did the snow and by the time we headed back to Bridgit's parents to spend the night there was about 6 inches so when we got to our destination we made a snow man at 3am. The next morning we had breakfast and went skiing. We then bid farewell to family and friends who had to trek home to Grand Rapids, Portland, and Savannah and headed to my folks for the afternoon.

We spent the first part of the year having tons of fun. With daycare for Eli paid for we took advantage of it and went skiing, out to lunch and a movie, and got some cleaning done. On Saturday we went to the “New” DIA with Bob and Brie and on Sunday prepped for going back to school/work/daycare.