3 Ingredient Creamy Fruit Dip

This post is sponsored by Real California Milk but the content and opinions expressed here are my own.

Now that the kids are back at school, after school snacks have become a big thing in our home again. It can be so tempting to grab a pack of chips or a cookie, but I like to make sure that my kids eat something healthy after school. Of course, healthy doesn't have to mean boring!

My kids already eat a lot of fruit after school and they don't need much tempting to choose an apple or strawberries as their snack option, but sometimes it's nice to make it a little more fun for them, while still keeping it healthy. Fun, tasty and healthy!

Today on the blog I'm sharing a simple recipe for a sweet creamy dip to make snacking on fruit just a little more tasty. It's also a great source of protein which gives kids the energy they need. It's great for after school snacks at home but can easily be taken to after school activities or even in a lunch box for a lunch time treat. It would even make a great party dish!

Best of all? It's super easy to make and only require three ingredients! The kids can even help.

Sounds great, right? Let's take a look at how to make it...

What you'll need:
8oz light cream cheese
8oz light vanilla yogurt
1 Tablespoon agave syrup
Plus fruit for dipping eg. strawberries, blueberries, apple slices, mandarin, banana and grapes

Place the cream cheese in a large bowl and mix until smooth.

Add the yogurt and mix together until smooth.

Add the agave syrup and mix together. Give it a taste and if it's not quite sweet enough for your liking add a little more agave syrup.

Place the dip in the fridge to chill while you prepare the fruit.

Cut the fruit to your liking and place on a large platter with a small bowl in the center.

Add the creamy dip to the bowl and voila, it's ready to eat!

My kids like to use their fingers to hold apple slices, mandarin pieces and strawberries, but for smaller fruit like grapes and blueberries (or squishy fruit like banana) they like to use a toothpick.

For on the go snacks, I like to place the fruit into a bento box with a small dip container, but any container will do. This recipe makes such a great snack to take along to after school activities or picnics and is great for sharing with friends. Mathilde took this along to karate class in the park this week and the sweet creamy dip was a hit with all her friends - although she was pretty keen to eat it all herself!

I love that this simple recipe combines two of my kids' favorite (and my favorite!) food groups - dairy and fruit. We eat a lot of both in our home, not only because they taste good, but because they're great for fueling active bodies. My kids are so busy with school followed by swim team or karate class every day that they need the vitamins, minerals and protein that dairy provides. Of course, it doesn't hurt when it tastes this good!

When it comes to dairy products, I like to make sure I'm buying products that are produced with local Californian milk. I love knowing that not only am I helping to support local dairy farmers, but my purchase is helping local communities. To make sure I'm buying products made with local milk I keep an eye out for the Real California Milk seal.

To find out more about Real California Milk and to find your local stockist click here.

Fun Facts & Adventures with National Geographic Kids

Sponsored post: I received these National Geographic Kids products for free from Moms Meet (momsmeet.com) in exchange for my honest opinion. 

Hands up if you're a fan of National Geographic magazine? I've got my hand up!

It's such a classic, isn't it? 

As a kid I used to love looking through stacks of magazines at our neighbor's house, and every time I came across that instantly recognizable yellow border I knew I'd found something worth reading - even before I knew how to read! The photos always captivated me and I loved learning about people, places, animals and plants that I knew I'd probably never get to see with my own eyes. The magazine sparked a sense of adventure in me and a keenness to learn about the world around me. No matter how old the issue was (and they were often quite old!) the articles always filled me with wonder.  

Fast forward a few decades or so, and that yellow border still draws me in when I see it. When I saw the National Geographic Kids Almanac 2019 I just knew I had to get it for the kids. Just like National Geographic magazine, the Kids Almanac is full of stunning photography and amazing facts about our world, but, here's the best bit, it's broken down into kid sized chunks of information. There's a little bit of everything: animals, plants, geography, history, cultures, weather, science, food, technology... Everything! 

Berkeley Chocolate & Chalk Art Festival 2018

This past weekend saw one of our favorite local festivals here in Berkeley, the annual Chocolate & Chalk Art Festival.

Now, you would think that the chocolate part of the festival would be what excites my kids every year, but the chalk art part of the day is actually the big draw card for them. It's not every day you get to get creative on the sidewalk, after all. Plus, it's a competition with prizes up for offer.

This year's festival happened to fall the day after we arrived home from our East Coast trip. I'll be sharing our East Coast trip here soon, but make sure to check out Instagram in the mean time as I've been sharing sneak peeks there. Anyway, we were all a little tired from our early flight home from Boston so we had a quiet morning and headed to the festival in the afternoon. This didn't give us an awful lot of time to try out the chocolate on offer but we still had plenty of time for the girls to get creative with chalk.

We found ourselves a few clean-ish squares of sidewalk along Shattuck Avenue in the Gourmet Ghetto and the girls got to work.