Hi! My family has found ways to be healthy and to spend quality time together in a life full of crazy schedules. My husband and I both work full time (I am off summers, however, as I am a school teacher.) First, I have always stressed healthy eating with my children. I don't bother to cook vegetables, since my kid's love them better raw with dip, and they retain all their health value this way. For my son, we pretend to be giant dinosaurs at dinnertime, and we eat the "trees" (broccoli). He loves it! In addition, throughout the day I always have a bowl of fruit in the refrigerator (blueberries, strawberries, grapes, etc.) and a bowl of veggies for snack attacks. I allow my kids to have candy and treats, but I limit it to one or two a day and the amount is small. After holidays where they accumulate candy, I wait about two weeks and then offer them a trade to get their candy. I will let them buy a toy or new CD and give me the remainder of the candy to dump. Sometimes, I simply tell them that they may pick 5 pieces from their stash and must dump the rest. And you know what? They DO NOT MISS IT! Finally, I do things to meals that they never notice, such as using whole grains pasta and bread. My daughter and son are both on 2 sport teams, so evenings are too crazy for fancy dinners. Most nights we are lucky if we have something cooked! So I have learned to keep it simple: lots of raw veggies and fruit, dairies (cheese, yogurt), and deli turkey. As for family time, this part has been the hardest with my husband's crazy work hours. He works many nights and some Saturdays. We have a family night during the week when we all go to the Y to work out. The kids are on the swim team and they know their parents are working out during this time, also. It may not be the best scenario, but I feel good knowing we are being roles models for exercising. On the weekends, we try to set one whole day aside for just our family...no friends, no extended family, and no individual activities. We go to the park together, go boating, go bowling, etc. I have come to realize that this world is spinning far too quickly with enticing technology, both parents working in more cases, and the advertisers telling us we NEED more than we actually do. I am trying to keep it as simple as possible. My number one priority is raising my kids to be compassionate, giving, healthy people. Good luck to everyone in this endeavor. I love the other ideas I have read!

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