Raise Your Hand For Chocolate Milk

Speaking of milk...

I was contacted by Got Milk and asked to help spread awareness for this new campaign called Raise Your Hand For Chocolate Milk. Here is the deal. There is debate now among schools to remove chocolate milk from school menus in efforts to boost nutritional quality of their meals. The result is less and less kids are drinking milk at all at school. During these developmental times in a child's life, milk is essential in their diet be it chocolate or plain.

Leading health and nutrition organizations – like the American Academy of Family Physicians, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Heart Association, National Hispanic Medical Association, National Medical Association, and School Nutrition Association – recognize the valuable role that milk, including flavored milk, can play in meeting daily nutrient needs. All agree that the small amount of added sugar in flavored milk is an acceptable trade-off for the nutrients provided. In addition, studies show that children who drink flavored milk have better quality diets, do not have higher intakes of sugar, fat or calories, and are not heavier than non-milk drinkers. source: raiseyourhandformilk.com

Here is a pdf file outlining the top 5 reasons to Raise Your Hand for Milk.

I'm a mom of three and all three of them drink chocolate milk. I'm Ok with it! There are other drinks out there like sodas and other sugary drinks that they do not drink because they know they have the option for something better. Luckily (as far as I know anyway) our school here has not booted chocolate milk off the menu but should that happen it would be a cause for concern for me. If you have school aged children I hope you visit the website, sign the petition, and help out in spreading awareness for this campaign. Our kids need us!

Ebeanstalk.com...a place for toys

***Introductory paragraph written by Ebeanstalk

What makes a good toy? A toy called the Activity Bus from Plan Toys who makes safe green toys was sent to me from a toy website called ebeanstalk. Ebeanstalk has toy experts and moms that find the great learning toys and baby toys through a toy testing program. I’ll let you know what I think of the toy now.

This post is literally months overdue, along with the other posts starting at me from my notebook of blog ideas! I received this Activity Bus back in July and handed it over to my kids. They were excited about it when it first arrived and they liked all of the little parts and pieces that came with it. The bus opens up to make a mini class room complete with chalkboard, desks, teacher, and students. Very creative!

I love the design of the bus. It reminds me of the classic wooden toys...something that looks like one of Santa's elves made! The parts and pieces however really didn't stay put. They popped out of place easily and fell over easily. For a my three and five year old, this got annoying. The Activity Bus didn't really grab the attention of my oldest child. She played with the younger two for a few minutes and then lost all interest. This toy is not really made for her age group so that is not a bad or surprising thing.

In all honesty, this is not one of my kids favorite toys. That being said, Ebeanstalk.com does have several toys that I think my kids would like better. All of the toys sold at Ebeanstalk are good for learning and development and there are several neat toys that they carry that I have not seen in stores. One thing I like about the website is that it is easy to navigate through. You can search for toys by several different categories making it easy to find just what you are looking for.

This is a late post, but as it so happens just in time for Christmas! If you've got little ones to shop for this season, this website might be a good stop!