Julie Scelfo


Encourage children to help with meal prep while keeping hassles to a minimum with tips, equipment, and layout advice from designers and clever moms.

Create a View

An essential feature of a kid-friendly kitchen is that the adults using it have clear sight lines to watch their offspring. Meg Rogers says that when she's planning a kid-friendly kitchen, she thinks about all the different places where Mom and Dad might need to keep an eye on the children, whether in the same room or down the hall. Are you building your house from the ground up? If so, consider putting the kitchen where windows will allow you to simultaneously cook and keep an eye on kids playing in the yard.

Make It Welcoming
Consider decorative elements that appeal to the whole family. For a family in Manhattan with five children, Celerie Kemble wallpapered the back wall with a gigantic map of the world. "They can pin into it current-event issues or where they're traveling," she says.

Also don't

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5 ways to entertain your baby on EasterEaster can be sort of a letdown for the under-20-pound club, right? Our sweet babies are not yet mobile enough to hunt and gather eggs from the back lawn, and the concept of an Easter basket surprise is mildly lost on them. Yet the good news is that there are plenty of springtime activities your baby will love if you can get creative enough! Here are a few we've been indulging in around our own home. Happy Easter, babies!:

1. Get puzzled
If you have older kids, chances are you already own your fair share of foam shapes and puzzles. If not, craft your own Easter egg puzzles out of colored paper and watch as your baby enjoys mixing and matching (and yes, "tasting!")!

2. Get bubbly
I spotted these egg-inspired bubbles around town, but any bubbles will do! Babies will marvel at the shapes and motion as they float through the air with delight.

Related: 25 children's books to teach your kids about Easter

3. Get messy
Babies love the texture of Easter grass, so why not make a basket for

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Refresh your home's style for springBy now, you've disinfected, decluttered, and reorganized for spring. Next, it's time to refresh your style. Interior designer Shirry Dolgin joins Easy Does It host Ereka Vetrini with some tricks and tips for updating your home this season.

Related: Décor updates that add character to your home

Dolgin says that some of the hot color families for spring are corals and yellows, as well as seafoam blue and floral patterns. However, you don't need to feel overwhelmed or throw these colors all over a room-you can make small changes instead.

Related: Decorate your home in spring's fun colors and trends

"I want you to think of a room in 3-D," says Dolgin. "So what I would recommend is something like changing your area rug. That covers your floor surface." Then, she says, the walls can be updated with new drapery or by adding a small tape detail to the edge of your existing drapery. Finally, add a bold pop on your crown molding to tie it all in together. "Now you have a 3-D, full space

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Kendra Vizcaino-Lico


Our extreme matzoh makeover is the ultimate family craft for Passover

Move that matzoh! Don't pass up the opportunity to use your extra matzoh for more than snacking. Charoset may be the traditional representation of mortar at Passover, but you can build this festive abode using other edible construction materials like kosher candies, chocolates, and peanut butter. This craft is fun for the whole family and makes a beautiful decoration for your hametz-free home.

Ingredients & Equipment

• A rectangular piece of cardboard (about 12 by 14 inches)
• Aluminum foil
• Kitchen scissors
• 5 sheets of matzoh
• Matzoh crackers
• 2 cups peanut butter (see Editor's Note)
• A pastry bag or resealable plastic bag
• 1 cup matzoh meal
• Toothpicks
• Assorted kosher-for-Passover candies and chocolates, such as fruit slices, marshmallow twists, and jelly rings

Editor's Note: Some denominations of Judaism forbid consuming peanuts and peanut products during Passover. Feel free to

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By Nancy Howard, for SparkPeople

If you are like me, you spend a large portion of your day sitting. And because of this, it isn't too uncommon for many of us to have tight hip flexors-the muscles responsible for flexing the hip or drawing the knees to your chest, as well as moving your legs front to back and side to side.

Your hip flexors are not a single muscle, but are actually a group of muscles which are comprised of the iliopsoas, the thigh muscles including the rectus femoris and sartorius, as well as the tensor fasciae latae, the inner thigh muscles including the adductor longus and brevis and finally the pectineus and gracilis.

Tight hip flexors are a common complaint amongst runners, too, due to the small, repetitive movement when running which can bring on injury if the muscles remain tight. If you suffer from tight hip flexors this may lead not only to hip pain, but lower back pain as well. Therefore, by doing stretches and exercises to help release the tension of the

Read More »from 5 Stretches for Healthy Hips

By Stepfanie Romine, for SparkPeople

Are you feeling tense? Do you suffer from back pain or stiffness? Whether you're an experienced yogi or a fitness newbie, whether you can touch your toes or are very inflexible, this 5-minute yoga-inspired stretching routine can help you unwind anytime of day or night.

You don't need any equipment, and, as long as you have a floor you can kneel on, you don't even need a yoga mat. Since it's just five minutes, you can even do this in your regular clothes.

Child's pose: Starting in a kneeling position.

Keep your knees together but separate the feet and allow your bottom to rest on the floor. Roll your calves away from your thighs (use your hands) to help you get comfortable.

For a deeper stretch:
Sit back on your heels, shins together, tops of the feet pressing onto the mat. (Place a rolled-up towel between your heels and hips to ease this stretch.)

From here, start to lower to the floor. Your belly will rest on or between your thighs, and your Read More »from 5 Minutes to Less Stress

I used to love watching scary movies when I was younger. I still have memories of junior high sleepovers, when a group of us girls would make buckets of popcorn, curl up in our sleeping bags and watch horrible, D-list movies like "Silent Night, Deadly Night" and "Child's Play." We'd scream and shriek, finding some kind of bizarre delight in scaring ourselves. As an adult, I still got a thrill from a good horror flick, much more so than my husband, who jokes that you cannot make a scary movie unless it has the word "The" in the title ("The Others, "The Cabin in the Woods," "The Shining.")

By Jessica Collins Grimes for TheBump.com

Thinkstock / The BumpBut then I had kids. And scary movies were no longer fun or silly. They became, well, scary.

Isn't that strange? That was certainly a side effect of motherhood that I was not expecting. But every time I watched some young starlet meet a horrible death onscreen, all I could think was, "What if that was my child?" Even watching movies like "War of

Read More »from 7 Unexpected (and Unglamourous) Ways Motherhood Has Changed Me

Create some me-time in your bathroom.

For many moms, one dream far surpasses all others: enjoying some guilt-free "mom time" in the bathroom. Taking a nice bubble bath without desperate cries for "Mama!" or tiny hands reaching under the door probably seems as likely for many moms as having a lottery check delivered personally to their homes by Brad Pitt. If you share the fantasy of "mom time" in the bathroom, consider these secrets that might possibly turn your dream into a reality.

Adjust your schedule. When my daughter was a newborn and I hadn't yet figured out her rhythm, I'd no sooner set foot into a long-awaited shower than her cries would echo through the house. Now that she's older and has a predictable sleep routine, showering before her wake-up time or during naps ensures me a nice, full-length, blissful shower and some primping time to boot.

Create a baby safe zone. For babies and younger toddlers, set up a baby safe zone that includes some well-loved or novel toys. My daughter thinks it's a hoot when I

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