Thursday, October 31, 2013

Tru-Moo and Goosebumps, Oh MY! #gotitfree

This post is in association with a BzzAgent campaign.
The opinions are mine and real, so you can believe me!


Looking for a great last minute Halloween treat that will be more healthy than the candy the kids are drooling over?  Pick up a half gallon of TruMoo's limited edition Halloween label milk and receive a code for entering their special Halloween sweepstakes.  Here's what you need to do:

  • Buy a TruMoo milk and surprise the kids
  • Look under the cap for your sweepstakes code
  • Enter the sweepstakes by midnight on October 31, 2013
What can you win?  

Each entry automatically includes a $2 coupon off any Goosebumps DVD.  

Want to enter?

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Handmade Halloween (Throwing It Together)

I am not a Halloween person.  But I married into a full-fledged trick-or-treat loving spooky haunted festive family.  I am also not one to be out done. Over the years I've pulled out quite the creativity to make sure we represent well at the fright night gathering.  And now I'm kind of addicted to thinking up themed costumes for us to all where together.  Keeping a tiny budget in mind, and having no shame in using a hot-glue gun,  our Halloween costumes almost always come from a combination of the thrift store  or back of someone's closet. Here are a few of my favorites...

2007-Popeye, Olive Oyl, and Swee' Pea.
We raided the Army Navy Surplus store for the Popeye costume,
and Grandma's closet for the collar.
Don't forget a pair of big floppy boots for Olive Oyl!
2008-A Penguin Family
The Penguin from Batman fame,
An adorable little baby penguin,
Chilly Willy
2009-BLT's
2010-Dr. Seuss's Star-Bellied Sneetches
and Sylvester McMonkey McBean
(This one is my #1 favorite!)
2013-Circus Family
Strong Man, Ringmaster, Stunt Man,
elephant, tiger, and lion in a circus wagon

Which one of these is your favorite?

Thursday, October 24, 2013

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

A Shark On the Loose (Cityville Invasion) #gotitfree

This product was provided for review from BzzAgent.
Opinions are 100% mine and true.

When was the last time your kids were this excited for something...?


A few months ago my kids seriously loved me.  (If you're a parent, you know that comes and goes...)  And I seriously loved BzzAgent for choosing me to review the Kre-O Cityville Invasion Marina Madness set.  I never would have bought it in the store before first trying it out.

In the past I have loved miniature building block sets for my 6-year-old.  They're challenging, but not too difficult and they keep him busy for hours.  The mini-book that comes in the Cityville Invasion sets disguised as an instruction manual was a little more daunting at first.  As if often the case, though, B opened it up and explained all the confusing parts to me.


The Cityville Invasion Marina Madness set comes with a LOT of pieces!  Again a little daunting, but it translated into two hours of my kids and I concentrating on something together and was absolutely worth the time.

There are two distinct features with the Kre-O Cityville Invasion sets.  First is in a sonic motion technology.  I tried really hard to get a decent video of the shark and machines moving around with no success, but know that a battery-powered box makes marina noises while gently vibrating the toy's platform so the pieces will move around.  It was pretty cool to see the shark "swimming" around, but as with most noise-making toys, it got a little wearing on mom's ears and didn't hold the kid's interest for all that long.

The second thing that makes Kre-O Cityville Invasion sets unique, are the ability to combine sets together to make an entire city.  I LOVE the idea of adding to my sons' imagination with a similar toy that will expand the story rather than giving him something entirely different, relegating this set to the back of the closet.  In addition to the Marina Madness set, Kre-O sets includes other city scenes including a skyscraper, a bank, and a haunted construction site.

My favorite part of the Kre-O Cityville Invasion set we received were the tiny people in their shark-catching uniforms and disguises.


My 3-year-old really likes his new friends...


My boys really love their Kre-O Cityville Invasion set.  Having so many pieces has allowed them to use their imaginations creating a multitude of structures and scenarios above and beyond just a shark on the loose in the marina.  The blue building platform helps to keep the building mania contained.  My only tip?  Buy a teeny tiny screwdriver when you're buying your batteries or you'll never get into the battery box.  

Want to win a character from Kre-O Cityville Invasion? 

Have older children?
Each Cityville Invasion set includes a free code for the 
Cityville Invasion Mobile App that lets your child add even more to the story.

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

My (P)interesting Family

My husband, kids, and I have recently packed up and made a big move from Utah where we've been for the past 10 years to Iowa where I spent my childhood.  All the ups and downs that have come with that are stories for other days, but one really positive thing to share is how much fun it is to be living close to my family again.  This week I joined my mom and 3 of my 5 sisters in our very first family Pinterest crafting night. Here's a look at the finished product...


...and here's a look at how we made it...

First, I feel the need to  leave a disclaimer that the photo above looking all polished and nice is a far cry from our actual lives and crafting.  Everything I've shared with you on this blog has been honest and real; I see no reason to change it up here.  We were 5 women in a somewhat messy house juggling scissors, t-shirts, and 10 kids ages 0-6.  It looked a lot like this...


Since it was our first night of crafting all together, and we hadn't yet thought about putting it up for all the world to see, I don't have photos of each step for you to see, but the project is really easy and adding photos might actually be insulting to your abilities.  So for now, let's do it this way...

You need:
  • 3 old adult-size t-shirts in the colors you'd like your scarf to be
  • Good scissors
You need to:
  • For each t-shirt, fold in half and stretch out flat and smooth
  • First, cut off the hem and discard
  • Then, going straight across the bottom of your folded shirt, cut 3/4"-1" strips so you end up with a large loop of material
  • Continue doing this as far up the shirt as you can (if you're lucky you'll make it all the way up to the sleeves, but if your shirt has printing on it, you'll need to stop when you come to that).
  • Between your 3 shirts, you want to end up with approximately 32 strips cut out.
  • To form your loops, first stretch your strips out as far as you can, causing the material to curl up around itself
  • Then hold in one hand and wrap around until you have something that looks like one of these...


  • Decide on the pattern you want your colors to be
  • Then using your t-shirt remnants, decide which color you want to use for your ties, and cut out 30 3"-4" strips.
  • Stretch these to curl in the same way you did your large strips.
  • Start tying your loops together.  A double-knot will work, but I triple-tied mine for added security
  • It's up to you whether you trim the ties after they're knotted or leave them long. 
This is a project we thought would take about an hour, but in the end it took us a little over two to get past our indecisiveness in color choices and wrangling babies.  And a short break to play a game of cat's cradle, of course,,,

Tell me you can resist when you've got your loops laying out in front of you!
The last step, of course, is to wrap your new scarf around your neck and wear it!  We all decided to tie ours into a long loop, but you can choose to leave your ends untied as well.  Here are our finished products...



Our first family Pinterest craft night was a lot of fun with only a little bit of stress.  Since none of us would really call ourselves scarf wearers, we left knowing we needed to be brave and wear them really soon or they'd end up in a drawer.  I'm proud to say I wore mine on my son's field trip today and totally rocked it on the playground.  It's been keeping me warm (and looking cute) all day.  Now, I think I'm in charge of next month's project...that promises to be (P)interesting...

Want to Win One?
Because it ended up being easy and so much fun, 
I'm going to make a Looped T-Shirt Scarf to giveaway.
Link over to the giveaway post to enter!





Saturday, October 12, 2013

How Long Can String Cheese Be Unrefrigerated?

"I received these products complimentary 
from Influenster for testing purposes
.

What kid doesn't love food they can play with (pulling all the strings off and waving them around) and what Mom doesn't love food she can trust is good for her family?

I have been buying Sargento sliced cheeses for years-I love that they have a HUGE variety and the red/black bags are always easy to spot in the grocery store cooler.


And I want to let you in on the part of this review I got the most excited over...


...the individual string cheese insulated cooler Sargento provided with my coupon!  I can't count the number of times I've tossed a string cheese in my purse or the diaper bag for a snack to grab later in the day, only to find it hours later all warm, slimy, and limp.  While these little coolers were only a limited-time promotional item, it shows me that Sargento can be creative and has their consumers in mind.  I've always wondered how long this portable snack could be unrefrigerated and still safe to eat-
the answer is 4 hours.


I decided to do a little test on this 4-hour theory.  I used 1 Sargento string cheese in the cooler, 1 Sargento string cheese on it's own, and one off-brand string cheese.  After 4 hours sitting out on the table, the off-brand was a watery smelly mess.  Both Sargento sticks came out about the same, yes warming and getting a little oily, but still tasty with little smell.  I truly believe the higher quality natural ingredients make the Sargento Natural products a better choice for my family.



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