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Spring into spring gardening!

Enter for your chance to win a fabulous tub of gardening tools and products provided by City People’s Garden Store + Landscape to get started planting your family garden this year. The winner will also receive an expert one-hour garden design consultation by a City People’s Gardens designer!

This amazing giveaway prize includes:

1 - large flexible garden tub from Tubrugs

1 - Corona 3/4" bypass pruner

1 - Hori-Hori (a serious tool for parents only!)

1 - 5-piece set of kids garden tools from Holland Green House

1 - Grow Your Own Mushroom kit

1- Backyard Exploration Nature Explorer Set

1 - set of adult garden gloves from Mud

1 - set of kid garden gloves

1 - knee cushion

1 - 12-quart bag of Edna’s Best Potting Soil

1 - box EB Stone Organic Tomato and Veggie Food

1 - packet rainbow chard seeds from Uprising Seeds

1 - packet Nasturtium Spitfire seeds from Renee’s Garden

1 - gift certificate for a 1-hour design consultation with our lead landscape designer

About the Design Consultation

Spend an hour with City People’s Gardens designer and get customized advice about your garden! The winner of the giveaway will get to spend an hour with City People’s Gardens designer to receive customized advice about his or her garden, from questions about plant identification and maintenance to help with a trouble area to overall design tips for improving both the beauty and the function of the garden space. Plant lists and/or rough sketches may be provided during the hour. For many, a consultation is enough to get started. For others, it might be a gateway to a larger or more detailed design.

This post by Positive Discipline Trainer Casey O'Roarty is part of our Growing Character series on fostering connection.

I try and make sure to have special time with each of my children on a regular basis.  I know that our interactions are more positive and feel more cooperative when this is happening.  But time is a funny thing, and often the week flies by before I realize once again that I missed some opportunities.  Or the scheduled time together becomes sabotaged by my controlling tendencies, leaving my kids disinterested in spending the time together.  My practice is to stay aware enough to embrace the opportunity to connect when it is presented to me, and to allow my child to take the lead.

Recently, I had this opportunity.  My husband had been called out of town and my daughter was away at a sleep over — it was just my son and I for the night.  After playing with his friends all afternoon, it was time to come in.  We were both looking forward to our evening together, with included making banana pancakes, smoothies and a candlelit dinner for two.  All accompanied by my son’s favorite Pandora station, One Direction.

I mentioned having some controlling tendencies earlier, right?  Well, this really can come out when I am trying to teach the kids to cook — it stops being fun when the teacher gets too focused on the outcome rather than the process.  I decided that this night would be different, and it was.  Mistakes were met with smiles, breakout dance sessions were encouraged, and the tablespoon was used to drop the batter into the pan to make for easier flipping.  This was taking time to train at its finest hour.

When longtime ParentMap contributing writer Loralee Leavitt told me she was publishing a book called Candy Experiments, I made the exact same ecstatic utterance as my 8-year-old son did when I eventually showed him the published book. He read the cover blurb, Blow it up, melt it into bubbling puddles, find secret ingredients, and shouted, "How cool!"

Cool indeed. In straightforward, step-by-step experiments for scientists with short attention spans, Candy Experiments invites kids to sacrifice their glut of holiday booty for the sake of simply suh-weet science. Building on the undeniable allure of the ever-popular Diet Coke + Mentos soda fountain trick, this photo-rich book delivers 70 riveting experiments to coax out the budding carbohydrate chemist within any child (though recommended for the "sweet spot" age range of 7 to 10, the book will certainly entertain younger kids and adults alike).

Along the way, Leavitt clearly articulates the supporting science behind the experiments — validated by experts in the fields of chemistry, nutrition, dietetics, biochemistry, physics, geology, dermatology, orthodontics, and chocolate tempering — to educate the sugar-mad about the cool scientific phenomena behind what is otherwise just plain fun. What kid (or parent, for that matter) doesn't want to learn cool tricks like turning garden-variety gummi worms into gummi snakes, creating density rainbows from Skittles, vacuuming marshmallows, dissolving cotton candy into slime, or making lightening? And, psst!, how about this for an unadvertised but tangible bonus in this age of holiday excess: The experiments render the candy inedible!

By Nick Rose, M.S., PCC Nutrition Educator

Vitamin D is a very unique nutrient: it’s essential for many body systems (immune, skeletal, cardiovascular) but unfortunately not found in many foods. During the summer months, when we are able to get outside for 30 to 60 minutes each day, our skin is able to produce adequate vitamin D from daily sun exposure. But during the long, cold, dark winter in the Pacific Northwest, it is wise to pay attention to this essential nutrient.

The most reliable food sources of vitamin D are wild Alaskan salmon, dairy products, eggs and fortified foods such as orange juice and soy milk. Vitamin D is found in smaller amounts in only a handful of other foods, such as mushrooms and pork; seafood and dairy products are definitely the best sources.

(See table below for examples of foods providing significant dietary vitamin D.)

This post by Sound Discipline trainer Karen Schrantz is part of our Growing Character series on the value of practice and gratitude.

Enough is as good as a feast.

— Fortune cookie proverb

My yoga instructor offered an interesting challenge for her class this month: Lighten up. It was not meant to be the typical New Year’s resolution to exercise more and lose a few pounds, but to look at life with more levity.  Last week as my family ate dinner at our favorite local Thai restaurant, I shared  how the challenge from my yoga instructor to smile more each day has been producing some fun results.  As I walk down school hallways at work, I’ve noticed that when I smile at the teenagers, they smile back. School administrators seem to lighten up to.  I confessed that it also has taken a bit of thinking, that I’m going to need some practice for this to become easy for me.

Our dinner wrapped up and we opened our fortunes.  “What does ‘Enough is as good as a feast’ mean?” inquired my 8-year-old son.  That was the beginning of  a very interesting family conversation that touched on gratitude, protection of natural resources, healthy eating choices, balance, and Yoda (all topics eventually lead back to Star Wars in our house!).  We concluded by agreeing that how you look at things determines your happiness.  More is not always better.  Having just enough means noticing and appreciating what you do have and not what you lack.  “It’s looking at the glass as half full instead of half empty,” I offered.  “Oh, that’s just looking at the bright side!” our son replied.  “Kids are good at that!”

By Leika Suzumura, R.D., PCC Nutrition Educator

The New Year always brings a fresh commitment to ourselves, especially around our health and eating. But getting the whole family to eat better can be a challenge, even more so when you have a picky child. The two most common questions or concerns I hear from parents are: “How do I get my child to eat more than plain pasta?” and “Is it alright to let my child eat dessert if they don’t eat dinner?”

As parents, the well-being of our children is always at the forefront, and even the most well intentioned parents may sometimes use unhealthy tactics to get their children to eat. Let’s talk about healthy practices and how to incorporate them into your daily routine so your child can develop a good relationship with food.

Make mealtime a nourishing experience — avoid forcing food or bribing with desserts. This is really important because if mealtime becomes a constant battle, your child will start to associate food and mealtime as a negative experience and may carry that into their later years. Find your own balance of encouraging them to eat their meal. Maybe it’s “try bites” or “power foods first.” Help them understand why their meal is important — it gives them energy to be strong in their body and in their mind. Treats are a “sometimes” food that we should enjoy … sometimes! Bribing them to eat dinner first before a treat can lead to using foods, especially sweets, as rewards for good behavior and can become an emotional filler in adulthood to feel approved or rewarded when feeling down. Set boundaries that you feel are appropriate and feel confident that you are supporting them to have a healthy relationship with food.