Eat Your Greens to Give Some Green at Whole Foods on September 9

Ah, salad.  So good for you (sometimes) and so tasty (sometimes), especially when someone else made it for you (yes, please).

The next best thing to someone making it for you is a well-stocked and attractive salad bar.  Easy to slap something wonderful together.  Something that is healthy and nutritious.  Instead of, say, that nasty slab of meatlike substance served in a stereotypical school lunch.

Imagine, then, if vegetables and fresh fruits were an option at school.  Imagine a gleaming, colorful salad bar, the kind only Whole Foods, that symbol of high-end healthy eating, could create, in a school.  Salad seems so much more appealing when it’s presented in an endless array of self-serve options.  That attraction must be amazing to school children.

Whole Foods is doing exactly that – helping to put salad bars into schools.  In a partnership with Let’s Move Salad Bars to Schools, the Whole Kids Foundation is  providing grants to schools so that kids will be able to choose delicious healthy fruits and vegetables for their lunches.

Hungry now?  Here’s where you can eat and help at the same time.

On Saturday, September 9, Whole Foods will donate $1 for every pound of food sold at their salad bars and hot food bars from every store in their Southern Pacific Region toward building salad bars in local schools.  (If you look on their interactive map, you’ll see that there are no schools near us that have salad bars.  Maybe that can change with our help!)

Our local Whole Foods Markets in Tarzana, Woodland Hills, and Thousand Oaks are all participating in this wonderful event.

I don’t suppose they meant for me to eat several pounds of their delicious macaroni and cheese, but it’s for a good cause, so it’s my civic duty to go and buy some that day.  Come to think of it, I should probably buy and eat a salad to model this for my children.  Maybe then they will mimic my behavior and choose vegetables and fruit over say…macaroni and cheese.

Perhaps I’ll see you at the salad bar.  In the meantime, enjoy this lovely infographic that shows how your tasty meal, purchased at a Whole Foods salad and hot food bar on Sunday, September 9, will help grow a salad bar at school so that the children there can choose healthy options that also look delicious.

This post is sponsored by Whole Foods Market but the opinion that salads taste best when made by someone else and that Whole Foods’ hot mac and cheese is to die for are, of course, my own.

101 Days of Summer – Outside

Today was my older son’s last day of school.  When asked what he wants to do this summer, he answers:

“Have a playdate with Johnny, play lots of video games, and spend time with you.”

Awww.

I am pretty sure my husband told him to say that last one, but my son has pulled that one out before, so it may be genuine.

If they had their way, both of my children would indeed stay inside and play video games all summer.  Luckily I am sometimes a very responsible mother, so I do things like sign them up for camp at Agoura Hills Rec Center, shove them out the door into the backyard to play handball (while I grit my teeth every time the ball hits our kitchen window), and tote them around the corner to our neighborhood pool.

Of course, since the boys have inherited my alabaster white skin, they must be dipped in sunscreen from head to toe before they even so much as think about the sun.  When we were invited by Banana Boat to a fun party in at Roxbury Park in Beverly Hills to sample their new Natural Reflect Sunscreen Lotion, eat snacks, and play games, I was happy to schlep them across town to check it out.

Banana Boat is celebrating summer with several promotions on their special Facebook page “101  Days of Summer.”  There, you can upload your own photos of summer memories and enter a contest to win a family vacation to Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.  You can also take a pledge to get outside this summer, and every time someone does that, Banana Boat will donate a bottle of their sunscreen lotion to the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp – a summer camp in Connecticut for children coping with serious illnesses.

I feel comfortable slathering Natural Reflect on my children – and myself too – because it is made with natural ingredients, and includes less of the bad stuff and more of the good stuff that protects them from the sun.  It is pretty thick and goes on heavy, takes about a minute and some good rubbing to absorb into skin a little bit.  But that is fine with me.  Number one priority is no sunburn.

The party in the park with a small group of my favorite LA bloggers and their families was the perfect way to get acquainted with the Banana Boat brand.  My kids had no clue we were there for a brand party – they never do – so they cavorted and competed in the lawn games and Kid 1 even took home the bean bag game as a prize.

No wallflowers here – even the bloggers themselves got into the summer fun.  Anna Flores of Spanglish Baby smoked the competition in the hula hoop challenge.  Other contestants were Andrea Fellman of Savvy Sassy Moms, Alexandra Bowers aka Beverly Hills Mom, and Sarah Auerswald of MomsLA and Sarah and Sons.

It’s nice when someone gets it right.  A simple little get-together in a park, good friends, and a small goodie bag with product, a Frisbee, and a flash drive with all the information we needed.  Oh, and mini chocolate cupcakes.  Gotta have those.

I am being compensated for sharing all this Banana Boat-flavored goodness with you, but the opinions are my own and the smiles were all genuine.  Thanks to Savvy Sassy Moms and Adrienne’s House for the lovely afternoon.

Shaking Those Bodies

The most amusing thing about my children listening to music is the way they react physically:  it’s as if their bodies are little tuning forks, vibrating from head to toe with the joy of hearing a favorite song or discovering a new one.  They dance to everything from the music on those maddening plastic toys to Yo Yo Ma.  That’s why I long to expose them to the pleasures of dance instruction.  Considering that they’re both boys and their father is a bit, ahem, traditional in that way, I know dance classes will be an uphill battle for us.

In the meantime, I can at least bring them to shows where other kids dance, and maybe they’ll get some instruction as part of audience interaction.  Starting June 18 at the Madrid Theater in Canoga Park, the kids can be exposed to many different styles of music at the weekly offerings of the Valley Cultural Center’s “Monday Morning Concerts For Children” Series.

Every week during the summer at 10AM, the Center brings a professional musical act to the Madrid Theater so children can get an interactive experience with musicians and artists.  There is often audience participation, and the events are FREE (reservations required).  Great way to start off those summer weeks!