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In our home I’m pretty strict about the food that we eat and want to make our options healthy. But I also have kids – seven of them – and they want their food to taste good, to look cool, and to be fun. And, shhhh, I really like it for my kids to get their vegetables.

Since my almost three year old Samuel has Celiac Disease and can’t eat gluten, I like to look for products that allow his normal to match the normal of his six siblings. I want his food to be just as fun and to not feel limiting. And I also need it to help supplement his diet and to provide that much-needed, extra nutritional boost.

Now there is one thing my kids love, beg, and hope will make it into the many grocery bags entering our home every week. That item? The single serve juice. And sigh, for years I’ve avoided purchasing this item as they’ve been loaded with other stuff that my growing {and energetic} kids didn’t need.

That being said, my kids still want to have fun and cool food options and are thrilled when the juice enters our home. And I’m thrilled when I find juice that provides nutrients, like fiber, that makes them happy and me confident in my healthy mom choices.

The solution?

At least the temporary try it now solution that I’ve found that actually really works?

Capri Sun Super V .

The secret weapon? Vegetables. Added to the drink. 1/4 veggies, 3/4 fruit. Perfection.

The super secret weapon? It tastes amazing, and those fab kids of mine absolutely love it! Here’s the cool info – a pouch of Super V {make sure to visit their awesome site to learn more} contains a combined serving of fruits/veggies and 25% comes from the veggies incorporated into the drink.

I didn’t tell my kids about the veggies when I gave them the pouch of Super V that they had been begging for since the juice arrived. No, instead, I gave them the highly sought after container of Super V, watched them enjoy it with their snack {we had popcorn}, and then proceeded to tell them that the drink had a secret weapon – vegetables.

Then they asked for another.

In my eyes? A success.

Cool factor? Taken care of.

Fruits and Veggies? As well.

Well done, Capri Sun Super V, well done.

So now super awesome moms looking for a solutio, now you can buy the cool Capri Sun drink and feel great about getting the healthy and cool choice. You can go right ahead and watch your kids jump for joy while sitting back knowing that they’re getting that serving of fruits and veggies. That is the sought after win-win in food choices – kids love it/tastes great coupled with the healthy mom choice.

By the way, as long as we’re chatting about healthy snacks, here’s a list of ten of our favorite simple gluten free snacks that pair fabulously with Super V.

I did something amazing a couple weeks ago.

I sat down, grabbed a book, opened it up, stayed up way too late, and read it. It wasn’t a how-to book, or a cookbook, or a planning book, or a homeschooling book, or a book about planning. It was a historical fiction book that I loved. In fact, as I just wrote, I stayed up much, much, much too late reading Laura Moriarty’s words in The Chaperone.

image courtesy of blogher

Set in the 1920’s The Chaperone chronicles the lives of two women – two women that ultimately would struggle to discover self – as they travel to New York City. The one, portrayed as the one with the life all together is Cora, the chaperone, who was sent to protect and guard the feisty Louise Brooks as she travels to pursue her dream of dancing. I started thinking it would be a book about Louise, and yet, here I was drawn into the life of Cora.

She was a woman, a determined woman, who lived her life behind the mask of perfectionism and yet lived that way attempting to maintain normal within the confines of society. It was an engaging, challenging, and thought-provoking look into the 1920s culture and the mindsets that prevailed. I’ve always enjoyed historical fiction, and Moriarty skillfully paints a realistic and intriguing picture of the 1920s and beyond.

This book reminded me that, sigh, yes, I think I’ll have to grab a book again and curl up with my cup of tea late at night and simply read again. Tired is okay sometimes.

To read more about The Chaperone pop on over to Blogher’s Now Reading Book Club.

Disclosure: I was provided a copy of The Chaperone as part of the Blogher Book Club. All opinions are my own and no other compensation was provided. The image used is property of Blogher.