Active Life Extremem Challenge for Wii: $34
December 2, 2009 by Jenn
Filed under Deals, Family Fun, Saving Money, Wii Mommies
Looking for games for the Wii efficianado in your life? Today you can get Active Life: Extreme Challenge Bundle with Mat
Signing Time: $15 off of $50 Purchase
November 28, 2009 by Jenn
Filed under Deals, Family Fun, Saving Money
Today only you will receive $15 off a purchase of $50 or more at Signing Time. Simply add items to your cart and the discount will be given at checkout, no coupons or promo codes are needed!
These are truly amazing products…my kids LOVE the DVDs…my nearly 2yo walks around signing “Signing Time” begging to watch the movie. They sing and sign along with great enthusiasm! My almost 4yo even recognizes Rachel’s avatar on Twitter when he sees it on my computer!!
Be sure to check out their selection of DVDs, CDs, Flashcards and more at Signing Time.
Baby Signing Time 50% Off – Today Only!
November 27, 2009 by Jenn
Filed under Deals, Family Fun, Saving Money
If you haven’t seen the Baby Signing Time DVDs yet and you have a small child…its a MUST. My kids absolutely love these CDs and have quickly picked up signs that make it much easier for us to communicate when their cognitive and motor skills are ahead of their verbal ones!
Today, Friday Nov 27th, you can get 50% off all CDs, DVDs, and Flashcards with the purchase of $25 or more. You don’t need a promo or coupon code…just visit Signing Time and place your order…the discount will be given automatically at checkout!
While you are at it…be sure to check out the incredibly inspirational story behind the creation of Signing Time!
Notebook Experiments: Monster Cupcakes
August 3, 2009 by Jenn
Filed under Family Fun, From My Kitchen, Mom Advice Notebook Experiments
I haven’t kept up on my Notebook Experiments from MomAdvice over the past two weeks….last week I was at BlogHer MEETING Amy from MomAdvice (yeah!) and the week before we were getting ready and having Brendan’s Half Birthday Party. I’m going to go ahead and post my marvelous adventure in Monster Cupcake Making under Notebook Experiments because it WAS an experiment…and it IS Notebook worthy!! LOL
We decided when Brendan was born that we would celebrate half birthdays for him. His birthday is Jan 20 and it sort of seems like a gyp to have to wait an entire year for both Christmas AND your birthday to come around. Then Lilli came along and her birthday is December 26!! So cake and special dinner on actual birthdays and parties 6 months later seems like a great idea.
This was Brendan’s 3.5 yr birthday…the first one he can actually remember and was able to really get excited about. He has been saying for quite some time that he wants cupcakes for his birthday…so I let him pick out what kind he wanted. My mom always made fabulous cakes for our birthdays and I want to do the same for my kids…but I’m really nervous about it.
Brendan spent literally DAYS looking through my cookbooks and trying to find what he wanted for his birthday and settled on some Monster Cupcakes he found in the Wilton Cupcake Fun
I decided to use these really cute Wilton Silly- Feet Silicone Baking Cups
I used the recipe for Buttercream frosting found in the Wilton book and got a decent sized batch of frosting. To color my frosting I use a gel color instead of paste or liquid called Americolor Gel Food Coloring
The directions in the book were fairly easy to follow. I have only ever decorated with tips once before and it was a basket weave…so this was a giant first for me. The biggest “trick” I learned on these cupcakes was using your finger, dipped in cornstarch, to “shape” the frosting. To flatten the dots for eyes, etc you can pat them into shape. With your finger dipped in cornstarch it doesn’t stick to the frosting. I was concerned I was doing it wrong because I had these big white powdery splotches all over…but they absorb into the frosting after a few minutes and virtually disappear.
I only did 8 cupcakes like this as we were only expecting 8 kiddos…and it took me FOUR HOURS. BUT…it was a lot of fun and totally worth it.
Wacky Cake (One Pan Cake)
3c. unbleached all-purpose flour
2c. sugar
6 tbsp. cocoa
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
2 tbsp. vinegar
2 tsp. vanilla
10 tbsp. oil
2c. cold water
Sift together dry ingredients into a pan or bowl. Scoop out 3 holes in the dry ingredients and liquids in one of each holes. Pour cold water over entire thing. Mix together and make sure sides of pan/bowl are scraped. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. **When I make cupcakes I bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes.
Notebook Experiments: Chocolate Chip Cookie Bowl Sundae
June 29, 2009 by Jenn
Filed under Family Fun, From My Kitchen, Mom Advice Notebook Experiments
Amy at MomAdvice puts together a notebook entry every Wednesday with fabulous ideas for activities, crafts and recipes you can do with your family…great ideas that she has rounded up around the blogosphere. She invites anyone who wants to try one of the projects out to blog it and link up on Thursday when she posts her own experiment.
I used to do this quite regularly… I enjoyed it so much and found it was a great way to inspire me with new ideas of activities to do with Brendan … I’m not sure why I drifted. With my new plan for blogging in place, I have scheduled this activity for me…and my family. A weekly Notebook Experiment. I hope you enjoy it…I hope you check out MomAdvice and see how absolutely wonderful her site is….and maybe you will join the Notebook Experiments, too!
This week I chose to try out The Chocolate Chip Cookie Bowl Sundae from Michael Ruhlman’s blog. His son James inspired him to make these awesome ice cream bowls…and my son thanks him, profusely. This idea was posted in the June 24th edition of Amy’s Notebook.
The idea is simple enough…make cookie dough….mold into cups and bake. I do have fairly decent skills in the kitchen…but I had a little more trouble with this than I anticipated…in fact I don’t think we are quite done experimenting.
Michael Ruhlman gives an adapted cookie recipe that makes for a slightly lighter, crispier cookie…which should hold up well for the bowls. I say “should”.
We thoroughly enjoyed the cookie dough…
I think the problem came when I loaded up the bowls…
The directions call for two different sizes of bowls..one slightly bigger than the other. We didn’t have this…all of our little bowls are the same size…so we forged ahead that way. We made one at a time so that we could learn from our mistakes without wasting all of the dough. Here is a Twitpic of Michael and James’ original crafting of the bowl.
Round 1: We put the cookie dough in the cup and squished the other down on top of it. The dough barely moved up the sides of the bowl…so I decided we needed more dough. Took the top bowl up…added more dough and re-squished. Stuck it in the oven, re-read the directions and noticed it said “Until dough begins to creep up the side of the bowl…rising will take care of the rest”…oops. As you can guess….between pulling the bowl out after the first squish…and adding too much dough…this bowl was a flop. (In shape only, hubby devoured it.)
Round 2: Added only 1/3 c. dough as prescribed. Very carefully centered the top bowl and squished it down…then placed it in the oven. This one also failed. It was still way too thin on one side and when I removed the top bowl most of the top part of the cookie bowl came with it on one side. Again, that didn’t prevent it from being eaten. 
Round 3: Looked for something else to do the initial squish…wanted to thin out the bottom of the cookie bowl a little more and give us more dough to work with on the sides. Used a drinking glass to pre-squish…the centered the top bowl and gave it a good push. This version seemed to be doing much better…but at the end of the first cooking round was again much larger on one side.
I’m told my husband that I think perhaps our oven is slanted.
Round 4: Proceeded as in Round 3, but half way through first baking time turned the bowl 90 degrees in case my oven is, indeed, slanted. This worked a little better.
That is all I’ve gotten done so far. We had a fair amount of trouble getting the cookie bowls out of the glass bowls…but I attribute that to the top sides being so thin. In the comments on Michael’s original post I saw suggestions to bake the cookie then mold it over a muffin tin when you pull it out of the oven. I may give this version a spin next.
So why am I blogging my failed experiment? Because I believe that when the smile is this big….
You haven’t failed.
Telling Time and other Ideas
May 7, 2009 by Jenn
Filed under Blog, Family Fun
**Note** I looked for some clever cartoon or image dealing with housework…feeling overwhelmed…but all of the housework pictures had happy, glowing people…and all of the overwhelmed pictures had frumpy, overweight women who looked, frankly, suicidal. I’m too embarrassed to use a picture from my OWN house…so no clever wit of a picture from me here
Look at me with massive amounts of content this week! I’m going to thank the second tri-mester goddess who has granted me with a modicum of energy and forethought!
What I don’t have in my life right now is structure…in any way, shape or form. It seems like every time I get something figured out…or I start to figure something out… life throws me another doozie.
So how to go about getting some structure? My friend BrandyEllen at Happily Blended is starting a series on Time Management and Organization…right up my alley!! I’m hoping I can learn some tips and get some ideas to help me get my house and my life under control!
My first thought is to actually have a schedule…and teach it to Brendan. He is starting to grasp some concept of time so I’m going to make him a “schedule” …here is what I’m thinking.
I will make a chart that says what time things are going to happen…like 7:00 and a picture of the sun for waking up…then 8:00 and have a picture of some clothes. Do the same for snacktime, lunch, naptime, dinner and bedtime. Put the chart next to the clock in his room and start teaching him that when the numbers look the same it is time to have those things done. These are all things that he is constantly asking me about.
I’m hoping that this will help hold ME accountable for a daily schedule as well.
My second thought is that even though he is only 3 1/2 years old…I’m going to start giving him chores. Last week I told him that he needed to pick up his dirty undies off of the bathroom floor and put them in his dirty laundry basket. He looked me square in the face and said “That’s YOU job, Mommy.” I said “Oh no its not!” and he said “Yes it is. You not doin’ you job.” I nearly choked. Rest assured he DID pick up those undies and put them in the basket.
So, I think chores are in order. Small, simple ones. I’m thinking he should be responsible for putting away the clean silverware when I empty the dishwasher in the morning. (Again…hoping this will also put more pressure on me to follow through with getting that done first thing in the morning.)
I also bought a Dust Buster today. Brendan was in love with it from the begining because it was “Jus’ my size!!”. So I figure a perfect job for him will be to chase down the furballs that continue to float around my house courtesy of our three fury dogs, continually changing weather and new laminate flooring.
So what are your thoughts? Anyone? What do you do with your toddlers…your household schedule? I need to get out of this downward spiral that I’m in before another beautiful, mess making soul enters my life!
I’m sharing this post at Real Life Blog’s “Your Life, Your Blog” Weekly Carnival…check it out for tons of great posts from bloggers all over the blogosphere!
Family Fun Magazine
April 24, 2009 by Jenn
Filed under Deals, Family Fun, Saving Money
I try to let you know every time this offer comes around because I absolutely LOVE Family Fun Magazine. They have such amazing articles, recipes and ideas I think it is a great idea for anyone with kids to get this magazine! However, I’m also not a fan of shelling out cash for magazines…which is why BestDeal Magazines is such a cool thing.
Special Time
April 16, 2009 by Jenn
Filed under Family Fun
As my kids are growing…and watching television….paying attention to what they see in the stores…and to the toys that they see at someone else’s house…I’m finding it more and more difficult to comprehend how we are going to financially keep up! It seems anymore that we done every occasion with a gift or candy or SOMETHING. It is overwhelming. You can say to yourself (I know I did) that you will NOT fall into this trap…but the older they get…the harder it is to avoid.
Siblings are almost always in competition. I’m starting to see it between my 3yo and my 1yo. Every time the 1yo does something cute and we all smile and applaud…the 3yo does it too…and then begs for us to think it is equally as cute. When the 3yo performs some great gymnastic feat that has us all oohing and ahhing…you can bet my 1yo is not far behind trying it out for herself.
It is so very important for us as parents to figure out how to make each child feel special and loved in their own right. What we see as obvious may not be interpreted as so by the kids.
There isn’t a card for Special Time. I’m fairly sure that the banks are still open and your mail will still be delivered. Special Time may not even fall on the same day every year.
Special Time is a very specific time set aside on a regular basis for you to spend time with your kids individually.
When I was growing up I would have Special Time with my mom one month and the next month with my dad. My irritating younger brother would, of course, be on the opposite schedule. The rules for Special Time were simple: it lasted for 2 hours, we got to pick whatever we wanted to do (with a parental veto) and it had to be free or close to free. We did get the occasional movie..and you can bet ice cream was almost always involved…but we would go to the park…or play our favorite board game with undivided attention from our parents. As an adult sitting here I find myself thinking “How on earth did we find something free to do for 2 hours every time?” Then I remember that my son wanted to play Chutes and Ladders alllll morning earlier this week.
Another rendition of this that I have heard is to celebrate Special Time on the date of the children’s birthday’s each month, rotating parents of course each month….or simply letting the kids pick a special meal on the date of their birthday every month.
Like I said, I’m fairly certain that your local banks will still be open…but for two hours during Special Time the world will stand still for at least one little kid…and your wallet won’t be suffering from buyer’s remorse.
Tellin’ It Like It Is
April 10, 2009 by Jenn
Filed under Family Fun
Brendan: “MOOOMMMMYYY!! BOOGERS!!”
Me: “Brendan, you know where the tissues are, go wipe your nose.”
Brendan: “No…YOU do it.”
Me: “No, You can do it yourself”
Brendan: “But WHY?”
Me: (in an arguably loud voice and with an undertone of frustration) “Because I am SICK AND TIRED of cleaning up pee and poop and boogers and dog snot and dog poop!”
Brendan: “But you really good at it mommy.”
Perfect Mommies or Perfect Memories?
April 8, 2009 by Jenn
Filed under Family Fun
One of the most important things you can do when you are trying to live on a budget…when you are trying to live a thrifty lifestyle…is to remember what is REALLY important.
My mom had incredible parties for us when we were kids. I have memories of fantastic homemade cakes, beautiful decorations and fun times all around. Every year she would ask us what we wanted our birthday cake to be…and she would make them from scratch. They were perfect.
I am 34 years old. I don’t have a bad birthday memory…I remember nothing but perfection…and I set that as the bar with my own kids. The trouble is…I am FAR from perfect…and so are my cakes, my parties and my decorations.
Every year on my birthday my mom still asks what I want for a birthday cake. Every year, she tells the same story about how one year, she ruined my birthday. I asked for a white cake with sprinkles. Having June Cleaver on the brain she thought I couldn’t really want just sprinkles. So she made me a fantastic cake with flowers and swirls…when I saw the cake my face dropped. I asked her where the sprinkles were.
My mom stressed about those birthdays…I stress about my kids’. I have no recollection of a failed birthday cake…or of the year the birthday fairy ONLY put up balloons. I remember that my mom made my birthday cake for me every year. I remember that the birthday fairy showed up, without fail, to put out decorations for my birthday.
This year I was sick leading up to the holidays. I didn’t have time for my usual foray into holiday baking. I barely eaked out some sugar cookies from a mix. But I brought them out…I made them with my three year old who put on the sprinkles, beaming with pride the whole time. He was so proud to put those cookies out for Santa. Those cookies were atrocious. Then it occurred to me…like I hit a brick wall. He would not remember that there weren’t six varieties of homemade cookies gracing our holiday table. He would remember the fantastic, beautiful sugar cookies that we made together for Santa.
Perfect celebrations vs. perfect memories. They are NOT the same thing. It is important to remember that it is the time, the love and the effort that makes a celebration and not the grandiose, the money spent, or the perfection of the celebration.
