If you’ve ever wondered how to sneak a snack into your mid-morning meeting, a nine-year-old girl from Missouri has an answer. Mom, St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Valerie Schremp Hahn, shared the idea on Twitter in which her daugther used an empty lip balm tube container to bring cheddar cheese into school.
Schremp Hahn posted a pic of the cheesy tube on Twitter, adding, “My 9-year-old daughter has taken an old lip balm tube and filled it with cheese so she can eat it in class.”
My 9-year-old daughter has taken an old lip balm tube and filled it with cheese so she can eat it in class. pic.twitter.com/YEAqZx2wnr
So how did the nine-year-old come up with such a creative idea? The fourth-grader told BuzzFeed, “I was just looking on YouTube because I was bored and I found this video and I decided to do it.” She added, “I just took some of my dad’s cheese, sliced it up, and put it in the chapstick container.”
After filling the emptied and cleaned tubes with sharp cheddar from Aldi, the nine-year-old brought the snack in to sneak as a mid-testing treat. She added, “You can lick it and no one will know.” Genius!
If you’re looking for more ways to sneak a snack, check out the nine-year-old’s inspiration—Troom Troom’s YouTube video.
When it comes to pampering, the petite set doesn’t like to be left out. That’s the idea behind the latest trend in kid spas, which are going mobile with party buses parking it and featuring age-appropriate treatments for tots through teens. Check out these spas-on-wheels where your darling diva can experience all the indulgences she or he demands, and have a whole lot of fun at the same time.
Photo: All About a Girl Spa
All About a Girl The name says it all for this Bristow, Va mobile spa that aims to bring out the inner beauty in young girls, and make them feel wonderful about themselves in a safe, relaxing, and luxurious environment surrounded by friends and family. Adverse to pink (lots of it), fluffy seating, or glitter? Steer clear!
Glitz and Glam
This kid-fiendly spa party company meets you where you’re at. Set up the shindig at home, hotel, or community center with cake and treats and they’ll bring the nail painting, foot soak, DIY custom lip balm, makeup application, glitter tattoos, and/or honey and yogurt facials. When booking with Glitz and Glam, the more the merrier–parties of 10 or more get a 10 percent discount.
Sassy Princess Spa Primp, pamper and play. That’s the idea behind the Sassy Princess Spa, a mobile spa party with the mission to provide amazing fun for girls ages 3-13. Mobile spa themes include Mommy and Me Tea Party, Mommy and Me Spa Day, and Pajama Party. They also feature day camps with hands on activities such as jewelry making and clothing design, along with workshops that teach young girls the importance of healthy eating and skincare.
Spoiled Rotten Kids Spa Party Bus It’s not just about indulging decadent divas at this full-service salon. Spoiled Rotten Kids believes in promoting emotional and physical wellbeing through creative and inspired pampering. Featuring odorless, non-toxic, paraben-free, gluten-free, water-based products, clients can receive an array of hair, skin and nail packages, along with private and mobile spa parties, boy parties and fashion shows.
Crawling, walking, touching and feeling. Your home is a hot bed for your child’s curiosity to abound, but it also means that keeping your household healthy and safe is extra important once your kids are on the move. Grove Collaborative shares your mission. They’re a customizable auto-shipment service, which delivers a wide array of sustainable household and personal care essentials that are great for you and your family, your home and the planet, too. Read on to discover why this is one collaboration you definitely want to join.
What Grove Collaborative Is All About From the hand soap we use to the lip balm we wear when we kiss our babes, it takes energy to ensure everything we use is safe, natural and, ideally, reasonably priced. Grove Collaborative’s Grove Standard shares these same principles. All of Grove’s products are healthy and effective, eco-friendly and affordable.
As a parent and consumer, you can rest assured that Grove has already checked every ingredient and tested each product in order to tell you how it aligns with their Grove Values—perhaps for being Non-GMO, Paraben-free or for using responsible packaging—and exactly what they love about it (shade-grown, solar-roasted coffee, anyone?). Translation: Grove did the research for you, which means you can use that energy to spend on actual homework.
How It Works Shop the leading natural brands like Mrs. Meyer’s, Method and Zarbee’s and discover new ones like Counter Culture, Full Circle and Earth Mama Organics, to name a few. With customizable shipments, that healthy lifestyle we all strive for is accessible and effortless. Here are a few reasons why Grove Collaborative will make your life easier:
• You control refills, frequency of delivery (the default is monthly), and adjust what you receive as you go. They’ll even send you convenient monthly reminders to restock so you never run out.
• There is no requirement to order every month and you set the frequency of product shipments. For example, designate Method Laundry Detergent to arrive every two months, but ask for Seventh Generation Baby Wipes to ship every month.
• When your home care package arrives, it contains just what you need, when you need it. No surprises here and no last-minute trips to the store.
• Everyone in the family has been thought of, including dads and pets, too!
What’s Inside Your Box Grove Collaborative isn’t just imagining a better world for our kids, but they’re creating a reality where every product we use can actually be good for the planet. That global philosophy is distilled into our homes whenever Grove’s healthy household essentials arrive at the door, such as cleaning products for the house, bath soap for baby, biodegradable bandages for the kids, or some Nourishing Coconut Skin Superfood by the Grove Collaborative brand just for you. Whether you’re already a seasoned natural products guru or looking to learn more about sustainability, Grove is an easy and enjoyable one-stop shop.
Other Perks of Going Green with Grove Collaborative One way Grove offsets the carbon footprint that comes with shipping is by dedicating a portion of every shipment to the Arbor Day Foundation. Their goal is an impressive one—to plant one million new trees over the next three years. Grove’s packaging also prioritizes post-consumer materials and has helped to earn Grove Collaborative its Certified B Corporation status for doing good for people, animals, communities and the planet. And, the fact that your first order ships for free is a pretty sweet perk, too.
Much like Willy Wonka, there’s a chocolate factory in North Portland that offers tours your family won’t soon forget. Creo Chocolate makes irresistible candy and gives eager customers a behind-the-scenes peek at how all of their chocolatey magic happens. So for a real-life Charlie and the Chocolate Factory experience, book it over to Creo Chocolates to learn how chocolate is made. There’s even a surprise at the end of the tour…let’s just say: it’s sweet.
The Shop From brewed cacao and hot chocolate to small batches and bars, Creo offers something for every chocolate lover in the family. A bean-to-bar shop that boasts roasting, cracking, grinding, tempering, molding and packaging their own product, Creo gets its beans from a hand-picked family owned farm in the tropics that works directly with them to create unique flavors that bring back customers again and again.
Some of the littlest members of your family may be too young to make it through a behind-the-scenes peek at how sweets are made, but the tours aren’t the only reason to visit the shop. The warm, inviting environment and friendly staff welcome chocolate fanatics of all ages and your kids will love noshing on their chocolate chip cookies, brownies or any other numbers of goodies while you wash your own down with a pumpkin spice mocha! Creo offers a number of seasonal treats and drinks that provide a perfect way to get toasty and perk up after a crisp fall or winter day.
The Tours Creo offers a Chocolate Factory Tour, a Make-a-Bar Tour and Chocolate 101 class. Both the Factory and Make-a-Bar tour are perfect for families with children ages 8 and up and provide kids and parents alike with an educational and tasty learning experience. The Chocolate 101 class is for adults only.
Chocolate Factory Tour You will learn everything you could possibly imagine there is to know about chocolate and more on this in-depth factory tour. It lasts approximately 30 minutes and takes you on an adventure to the cocoa farm in Hacienda Limon, Los Rios, Ecuador where the cacao that is used to in the creation of Creo’s specialty chocolates is grown. Your little cook will find out all about the cacao pod, how it appears after it has ripened and what happens during the fermentation process. Then you will follow the cacao bean through the drying, shipping, storage, sorting and roasting process.
Participants can expect the half hour to be packed with hands-on experiences that allow them to see, touch and smell the bean as it is broken, put through the winnower, ground down to molten chocolate and then aerated in the conche until the perfect flavor is achieved.
You will have plenty of time to ask all of the questions that pop up along the way, and your kids will love venturing behind the counters and into the back rooms where the machinery will captivate their imaginations. All in attendance will be required to wear coverings over their feet and hair nets.
Make-a-Bar Tour The name Creo means “to create,” and create you will as you join the staff for on this tour. It includes all of the information and hands-on experiences from the Chocolate Factory Tour and you get a chance to come up with your unique version of the chocolate bar and then create it with your own two hands. You even get to design the label and package your bar like a pro!
Chocolate 101 Looking for a fun and educational date night out? Or how about something fun to do on girls, boys or couples night out? Creo offers this fun and informational two-hour course that is as interactive as it is informative. You not only learn about how cacao is grown and processed, you get to get your hand dirty by prepping, cracking and winnowing cacao beans. These classes book fast so plan ahead!
The Gift of Chocolate With the holidays right around the corner, we couldn’t help but notice Creo’s great options for gift giving. If you are hitting up the shop for an afternoon mocha or attending one of their tours, consider checking out some of their cool gift options as well. From tasty treats like roasted cacoa beans, sipping chocolate, chocolate bars, and roasted cacao nib to chocolate mint lip balm, chocolate candles, Creo mugs and more. There is something for everyone on Santa’s list this year.
Environmentally conscious 21st century Angelenos rejoice! You and your family can experience a carless LA. Grab a stroller, bike, blades, scooter or skateboard: it’s time for the pedestrian-friendly, car-free, wheel-y fun celebration that is CicLAvia, taking place this fall on October 5 in downtown Los Angeles.
Cycle-what?
As their website touts, CicLAvia “temporarily removes cars from LA streets…and fills them with smiles.” Originally started 30 years ago in Colombia as ciclovia, it launched in 2011 in our fair city, growing to multiple events in 2014 with more planned for future years that branch out beyond the city center.
Where do we go?
The upcoming October 5th event is called the “Heart of LA” tour and takes place downtown. It’s not the same downtown route that CicLAvia has traveled in the past – this fall it will branch out into new areas like Echo Park, the Historic Broadway Theater District, Boyle Heights all the way to East Los Angeles. Riders (and walkers) of all ages can join in anywhere along the route, though it’s easiest to start near an endpoint. A wheel-free walking-only zone is located this year in the Broadway Theater Districs at Broadway and 9th St., if your little one isn’t quite up to biking or triking with the crowds. There will also be a kids zone at the East LA Civic Center and you can stop in at the Festival of Philippine Arts & Culture, which is being held in Grand Park. A complete map is available online at ciclavia.org.
And how do we get there?
Getting there can be half the fun, if you live close enough to take an early morning bike ride. Load up the minivan – or if you’re nearby, board Metro to transport you to the route. Both buses and subways allow bikes at no extra charge – be sure to study the guidelines before embarking on your journey: get the 411 at metro.net/bikes.
Remeber, CicLAvia is for everyone, but peewee peddle-pushers just learning to ride may need extra help, and this isn’t the best place to practice balancing. That’s where tandem attachments and bike trailers are magic. Pedestrians are welcome as well, as are strollers (hey, they’ve got wheels!). The organizers of CicLAvie just ask that if you’re going slow, stay to the right, for safety’s sake.
Helmet, check. Air pump, check. Water, check. Sunscreen, check.
Safety first. There are lots of happy helpers along the route, many passing out water or offering to top off tires in need of air (or just give encouragement). To minimize stress and max-out fun, here are our tried-and-true tips to ensure a memorable experience you’ll soon want to repeat:
Fill tires beforehand: Flats are no fun. Pop-up repair spots are hard to predict, though über-friendly organizers are strategically sprinkled along the course, ready to aid in a pinch.
Dress comfortably & for conversation: A brightly colored easy-to-see graphic tees makes friends & meets new neighbors. Or dress your baby biker dude in a vintage concert souvenir.
BYO water (& lip balm): Many spectators graciously offer refreshing bottles along the way, but there’s no guarantee.
Prep your phone for pix (sync, download & clear memory): Besides photo ops of tykes on trikes in the middle of 6 lanes of seemingly deserted urban thoroughfare, there’s lots of local color to soak up.
Pick a portion to ride: The course is 10 miles in total, too long for most little legs, with designated crossing points for cars. Try a segment with few (or no) traffic breaks for constant wind in your hair, tangles be damned.
Get a late start: The event goes from 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. No need to be crowded in with the masses. Eat a healthy breakfast (mmmm, pancakes for fall?) and hit the road a little later.
The CicLAvia site is chock full of detailed guidelines, from parking sites and rules of the road (helmets for everyone!) to a handy dandy downloadable printable map. Click ‘Join’ on the homepage to get newsy email updates about the route, entertainment and food – and upcoming events. Because we’re pretty sure that when you’ve experienced CicLAvia, you’ll be counting the days till the next event. (That would be the South LA route on December 7, or you can wait for the Iconic Wilshire Blvd. ride in spring of 2015.) What: CicLAvia “Heart of LA” is October 5, 2014 from 9 a.m.–4 p.m. Online:ciclavia.org
– Kim Orchen Cooper
Have you participated in CicLAvia before? Got any additional tips? Share them in the comments below.
