Yoplait Kids Blog Tour!

Did you know that adding yogurt to your diet every day can help you lose weight, while adding calcium for strong teeth and bones, much-needed vitamins and protein? Well, maybe you did, because you're a Mom, and Mom Knows Everything (or at least that's what we tell our kids!).

But how do you get your kids to make the healthy choice and eat yogurt themselves? Easy-peasy. All you have to do is offer them Yoplait kids, as I find out last week.

We had two kinds of Yoplait kids yogurt in our house, both with cute new Dora the Explorer packs, with all different flavors for the kids to try.


First, the peach and strawberry-banana multi-pack went--fast! The kids would come home from school hungry for a snack, and I would offer them a choice. They usually went for the strawberry-banana, which meant I had my favorite, the peach, to myself.

Once those were gone (with two gr-o-o-w-ing boys, it didn't take long), we quickly went after the Yoplait kids yogurt drink in bottles. I have to admit, the boys were a bit leery of the bottles. In our house, they are firmly entrenched in the "yogurt should be in a cup" camp. But we "dared" each other to try it, each of us picking a bottle. I told the kids they only had to take a slurp, just to try it, but they both ended up drinking down the yogurt and asking for more. For those of you with younger children, Yoplait kids yogurt drink is smooth and silky, so it's easier for toddlers to drink and digest than other yogurts.

So now, I am all out of Yoplait kids yogurt! But don't worry, I'm going out to get more! And now, you can too, because thanks to our friends at MomCentral.com and Yoplaitkids.com, you can get money-saving coupons from Yoplait kids!

Enjoy your yogurt. Oh, and by the way, I actually lost a couple pounds eating yogurt every day. YMMV, but there's no doubt a little yogurt will do you--and your family--good.

~Viv

OHNOES! Valentine's Day is Tomorrow?!

Need some quick, easy ideas for Valentine's Day? Here's some great (and easy!) ideas to help make the day special.

From parenthacks.com comes this simple idea: Pancakes with powdered-sugar hearts. Just make your favorite kind of pancakes (it's okay to use a mix or heat up some frozen pancakes, just remember our motto here at Cool Moms Rule: homemade just means made at home!). Put a short stack of pancakes on pretty plate, and use a heart cookie cutter as a heart stencil. Then just shake some powdered sugar inside the heart and Voila! Instant Valentine's Breakfast. You can even serve your honey breakfast in bed for that extra special touch.

Easy-Smeasy homemade Valentines! Gather up all those old magazines collecting dust at your house, and use pinking shears or scissors (Fiskars scissors for the little ones) to cut out red and pink sections. Form into sweet heart shapes, lips or XXXs and OOOs, then glue to white paper doilies (you can even cut those into larger hearts by folding in half and cutting out a tear-drop shape). Fold the doily in half and seal with a red heart sticker.

If you are a little craftier, and have the time, use plain white card stock and leftover red Christmas ribbon or tissue to make your Valentines shine. For kids' Valentines, place a wallet-size pic of your little one on the front surrounded by a tissue-paper heart to hand out at school. Use a hole-punch to snip a small hole in the corner and thread a red ribbon through and tie it into a bow. Make sure your child brings enough for everyone in the class.


Don't forget your furry four-footed friends this Valentine's! As new pet owners, here at our house we are feeling especially loving this Valentine's, especially since our sweet little kitten, Leo, was just fixed today (ouch!). Petcentric.com offers a great solution for sending out sweet Valentines while helping stranded pets at pet shelters around the country. For every dog e-mail or cat e-mail Valentine you send between today and the 15th, Purina will donate .50 to help care for homeless pets!

The World is a Tootsie-Roll Pop Turned Inside-Out

The boys and I were driving home from school talking about lava.

This is not as strange as it seems. According to a recent AskMe thread over at Metafilter, one of my very favorite sites, almost every child has a version of the Lava Game. You know that game, right? Sure you do.

In the Lava Game, you're stuck on a chair, or a bed, and the FLOOR IS MADE OF LAVA, OH NOES!!

And the Owl, whose mind travels along circuitous paths it is best not to attempt to follow, pipes up with, "You know, you really SHOULD be able to dig a hole to China. Wouldn't that be cool?"

So, naturally, the Rhino wants to know why you couldn't. "I get that it would take a long time," he conceded, "but if you had a lot of shovels and friends to help you..couldn't you just dig around the middle?"

So I explained that, in addition to being incredibly hard, and the overwhelming pressure there, the earth's core is surrounded by layers of molten lava (Aha! So that's where the Owl was coming from!).

Which led to us deciding that, in the end? The world is like a tootsie-roll pop, only inside out.

It's soft on the outside, very hard in the middle, and no one knows how long it takes to get to the center!

Weeee're Baaaack!

Missed your Cool Moms Rule! fix? Viv took a couple weeks off to deal with some pesky health problems, but now she's back with all the latest news, including some great new reviews coming your way!

What you'll be seeing here on Cool Moms Rule! soon:

Reviews of great products like:

BabyJamz

and

Yoplait kids yogurt
(stay tuned for special money-saving coupons, too!)

And NEW Contests!

I'm so glad to be back. I missed all of you.
Thanks for keeping up with Cool Moms Rule!
~Viv