Playing: Toddler Calendar

My first ever post was a link to an amazing calendar of activities for 0-18 month olds. Well, my first post back from a whole summer off is a link to the next age group calendar. Let the good times begin.

AHS Toddler Activity Calendar

Playing: The Imagination Tree

The Imagination Tree is a great website for home-made, simple, educational, and fun games and activities to play with your child. The articles are arranged by age category so you can pick the right ones for your family. What a fantastic website!

Playing: Physical Literacy

WTF is Physical Literacy you may ask?

Find out on this website: Active for Life

I love this approach to children's fitness. Children should love all kinds of different activities- crawling, jumping, walking, running, stretching- and all the sports those activities lead to- hiking, soccer, baseball, bowling, and yoga.

It also has links and news articles about the latest developments in family fitness including how to use popular movies (like FROZEN ) to encourage children to become active. Oh- and it is slightly academic... *listen as the awe-inspired music of millions of educated angels sings to you.*

Eating: Banana Bars

It has occurred to me that I am using this blog as more of a pinterest board with collections of links I need to remember rather than a "blog" per se, but oh well. Is the internet going to sue me, likely not. On that note:

My mom found and posted this recipe that I love. Simple, fast, and you can pronounce all of the ingredients, all 6 of them. For little kids- drop into smaller bite size pieces. For older kids- create "bars" that can be gnawed on. Adjust baking times accordingly.

Health: Milestones

One of the almost constant concerns nagging in the back of my mind is "is baby behind?" AHS has great resources for helping you understand where your baby should be.

AHS- Growth and Development

The best part about this resource (and arguably the worst)- it uses language like "most" and "often times" instead of the ominous "always." It is also fuzzy and quite general. Why? Because babies grow and learn at their own speeds. This resource helps you feel less like you need to enrol your child in a program and more like it will all be ok. Enjoy!

Eating: Home Made Yogurt Drops

What's better than a recipe with 2 ingredients (yogurt and fruit) that babies love? (Uninterrupted sleep, a set nap schedule, toys that entertain... among a few, but that's beside the point.) Thanks to my mom friend for sharing this recipe!

Live Strong- How to Cook Your Own Graduate Yogurt Melts

Eating: Baking With Infant Cereal

After a long month of Mr. Noodle deciding he is "too cool" for infant cereal, I decided to google recipes that can be made with this super nutrient-rich floury substance. I found a couple of cool links:

Bloggin About Babies- Recipes Using Infant Cereal

That site sent me to the Wholesome Baby Foods Blog with a list of recipes.

From there I found this banana bread stick recipe. And I substituted half the regular flour with infant cereal. It is in the oven so no rating/update/review so far. Ingredients:

1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup oil
2 eggs
1 cup mashed banana
1 3/4 cups flour (white, whole wheat, or a combination)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda


Directions:

Combine ingredients and stir only until smooth. Pour into a greased loaf pan. Bake at 350 degrees F for about 1 hour or until firmly set.

Cool, remove from pan, and cut into sticks. Spread sticks out on a cookie sheet and bake at 150 degrees F for 1 hour or longer until the sticks are hard and crunchy. Store in a tightly covered container. Adapted from Feed Me I'm Yours by Vicki Lansky **Freezes Well**