How to Have a Hapy Healthy Birthday

Whether the party is just for the kids, or it's a family celebration, it's easy to make it fun, festive, AND nutritious. Instead of defaulting to the traditional chips, pizza, burgers, cake and ice cream, create a healthier, more delicious celebration. Here are some ideas to ignite your own creative party plans.

FOOD:

You can keep the traditional fare, like burgers, pizzas and cake, but transform them into healthier versions. Make the burgers from extra lean beef and serve on whole grain buns. Serve up Earth's Best Sesame Street Whole Grain Cheese Pizza instead of take out. Or, offer something different such as a big platter of Earth's Best Kidz Baked Chicken Nuggets with a variety of healthy dipping sauces, such as plain, low-fat yogurt mixed with honey, organic ketchup, or low fat ranch dressing, For beverages, and to minimize spills and mess, offer individual juice boxes of Earth's Best Organic Juices and Earth's Best Kidz reduced fat milk.

SNACKS:

If serving snacks, here are some healthy ideas: 1) Fruits- Children actually love strawberries, bananas, grapes, and apple slices. 2) “Ants on a Log”- Cut celery sticks into 3 inch slices. Fill them with organic peanut butter and line up the raisins. An alternative, in case of peanut allergies, is to fill the celery sticks with low-fat cream cheese. 3) Cereal Mix- combine low fat, low sugar cereals, crackers and pretzels, sprinkle with a little bit of olive oil and sea salt, and bake in the oven until toasty.

THE CAKE and ICE CREAM:

Fanciful and fun will be more important than hooey and gooey to the kids. You can make cupcakes or a nice large cake and substitute yogurt for some of the more fattening ingredients. Consider making the cake in a fun shaped pan. Or make a frozen cake out of fat free frozen yogurt or fat free ice cream. Serve fat free ice cream cut out into cookie cutter shapes. (Soften ice cream, spread out onto flat jellyroll pan, refreeze until hard, and using desired cookie cutter shapes, cut out individual serving size ice-cream treats. You can decorate them with sprinkles, or raisins, peanuts, etc.)

FUN:

Focus on the fun rather than on the food. Make the theme action-packed. Have a pool party at the local hotel pool or gym, go ice skating at the local rink, or stay home and play games that keep your guests moving, such as Duck-Duck Goose, musical chairs, and treasure hunts.

THE FAVORS:

Kids will expect to go home with a favor bag. Instead of filling it with candy or other sugary foods, substitute something more nutritious such as one of Earth's Best Sesame Street snacks. Or, skip the food treats all together and make one of the party activities a creation to make and take home. How about a craft table where children can make their own paper bag puppets or handprint crafts.

THE GIFT:

When choosing what gift to give, think of something that will involve activity, such as a jump rope or hula-hoop. A big bouncy ball, or a plastic sled make fun, impressive gifts that are relatively inexpensive. Or, offer a healthy cooking gift that includes a colorful mixing bowl, a pan, a wooden mixing spoon and the healthy mix, like Arrowhead Mills Organic Bake with Me Family Fun Kits.