Happy Friday and some sneak peeks!

Hi everybody! I hope you are having a great Friday. I just had to check in and let everyone know why it has been so quiet around here. I caught some kid of serious bad bug and I have been laid up in bed all week! It has been no good!
However, I have some high hopes for feeling better soon. Here is a sneak peak of what's coming up next week on the blog...

Peanut Butter french toast with caramelized banana sauce. Oh heavens! It is to die for.

I'm also planning on showing you how to make these super easy art aprons out of vinyl tablecloths. They were a really fun and inexpensive party favor at the party.

Have a nice weekend and stay healthy! If you have any tried and true remedies for kicking colds to the curb, please leave me a comment. I'm willing to do just about anything at this point. :)

Grilling is Happiness at the Food & Wine Festival

It's almost grilling season again here in AZ. Yesterday was a beautiful day in the 70's. I am so excited, I'm kind of over soups and ready to get my grill on. 
Well Sears has my back.  Sears is unveiling its latest collection of chic and affordable patio designs at the prestigious culinary celebration, Food Network’s South Beach Wine & Food Festival, February 21st – 24th in Miami. This indulgent festival not only features thousands of culinary influencers and consumers, but the exclusive lighted patio line and Kenmore grill from Sears!

A few highlights include a Kenmore Elite Grill with 692 sq. inches of cooking space and lighted patio furniture to extend your outdoor fun from day to night! I would love this lighted patio set.

Check out this amazing grill too!

Kenmore Elite Grill

Sears is proud to have Ty Pennington and George Hirsch serve as hosts of the Grilling is Happiness Lounge featuring these unique lines in a wide range of styles and price points. Visit Sears.com http://bit.ly/Ydm4CI and let our design team help you extend your living space to the outdoors.


You can follow along with all the fun by following @sears and the #GrillingisHappiness hashtag.

This is a sponsored post. I am a Sears blogger, though all opinions are my own.

 

JumpStart New York City and Madagascar Giveaway

Welcome to the final installment of Video Game Valentines. Make sure you stick around for this whole post, I've got a giveaway at the end!

Are you familiar with the website JumpStart? Well, JumpStart is an amazing website with a whole educational world for your child to explore. They have StoryLand for 3-5 year olds. AdventureLand and MarineLand are designed for kids in kindergarten to second grade. FutureLand and Uncle Milton’s Scienceland are geared towards older children. 
I am very excited to tell you though that JumpStart has some exciting new additions. They have partnered with DreamWorks and now they have a whole Madagascar land.  It includes an expanded Central Park Zoo, New York City, Times Square, and Coney Island. Of course all of the Zoosters from the movie are there too.

Both of my children immediately took to JumpStart. I immediately heard excited cries of, "Look it's Alex!" and "I found Marty!" The penguins are included too. The penguins role is to give out missions for the kids to complete. They also help you track your progress along the way and help remind you of the mission objective. 



My son really enjoyed the adventure and exploration aspect of the Madagascar land. I was not surprised when he really enjoyed the Hide and Seek with Mort. You get clues and have to search around and find Mort.

I noticed that while he was exploring he was clicking on signs in the Central Park Zoo and he was learning all kinds of fun facts about the animals. I think it's the mark of a great educational tool, when they are having so much fun they don't even know they are learning.

One of the missions is to use the "transmorpher" machine to disguise a tourist. You can see in the picture below you need some pretty interesting ingredients to complete the recipes. My son has been loving exploring every area to find all the ingredients he needs. The transmorpher itself allows the kids to measure out the correct amount of the different ingredients and mix it all together. It's a great little cooking lesson.



My daughter loves JumpStart too! She did a maze where you had to stay on the path of a j or an s. We are really working on her letter recognition right now. This was great practice for her. She can be a bit of a reluctant learner, but turn it into a game and she was engaged and loved it.

As a mom, there are so many things I love about JumpStart. It might just be easier to list them in bullet point

• It is a safe, structured, educational environment for kids
• JumpStart has printable worksheets to reinforce the concepts learned
• JumpStart also has a blog for parents with worksheets of the week, all the latest additions, and more
• With a membership, you can download JumpStart software to play offline
• They have mobile apps available for both iPhone and Android, to take the learning on the road.
• My kids love it and want to spend all their screen time playing educational games

JumpStart is so excited about the New York City additions to their online world, that I get to give one lucky reader a 3 month membership to JumpStart. You can create an account for free, but there are certain area of JumpStart which are only accessible with a membership. All the details are below in the Rafflecopter. Good luck to everyone!
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclosure: I was provided with a JumpStart membership at no cost in order to test the products’ abilities and give my own personal opinions on it. The opinions I have given are mine and may differ from others but were not influenced by the company or the free product provided.

Rabbids Rumble

Thank you to Ubisoft for sponsoring this post. Please click here to learn more about Ubisoft. I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls Collective. #UbiChamps

Welcome to part 2 of our Video Game Valentines. This time I am sharing Rabbids Rumble for the 3DS. Many people are already familiar with the Rabbids franchise. Rabbids Rumble is the 8th game to feature these funny little creatures. This time around they are dressed up in costume and they have special abilities to help them in their battles In Rabbids Rumble, the Rabbids have gotten loose and it is your job to capture them all.

My 7 year old son really loves this game. He really likes combat games and this is no exception. As a mom, I am not as thrilled about fighting games, but this one is a bit of an exception. All of the fighting is very slap-stick style and humorous. I would call it cartoon style violence. One attack is to drop an anvil on your opponents head or your foot turns into a giant boot and you kick them. I felt completely comfortable with my son playing the game.

Rabbids Rumble Battle

In the game, there is a story mode which includes mini-games, and the ability to use an AR card on certain levels. The AR card allows you to capture Rabbids in your own reality. Personally, I think it is one of the best features of the 3DS. I tried my best to capture it on film. In the upper screen the game play is being projected onto my couch cushion. You can see the game case in upper right of the 3DS screen, and the upper right of the photo. You do have to keep the 3DS pointed at the AR card. The game play will be interrupted if the camera loses contact with the card.

In addition to the battle mode, there are mini-games to play in the Story mode. The games are pretty traditional mini-games and lots of fun. Depending on your score in each mini-game you are awarded chips. The chips are used as currency in the game.

This game is available for the Nintendo 3DS which means that it has 3D capability.  I tried capturing one of the mini games in 3D mode. I love how the bowling pins in the top picture jump off of the screen.

Rabbids Rumble is a huge hit in our house! With over 100 Rabbids to collect, it has a nice long play time which is a great thing in my opinion.

Rabbids Rumble is available for purchase on Amazon and other large retailers. 

Poptropica Adventures

Thank you to Ubisoft for sponsoring this post. Please click here to learn more about Ubisoft. I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls Collective. #UbiChamps

Happy Valentines Day! Today, I have a special treat for you.  I am sharing with you three video games over the course of the day. I am calling it Video Game Valentines. We are gamers at my house and Valentines is much more likely to include video games, than it is to include flowers and chocolates. So I am bucking the trend and showing you some of the fun games we have been playing at my house.
 First up is Poptropica Adventures for the Nintendo DS. This game builds off the popular website Poptropica. In Poptropica Adventures, you are on a mission to restore artifacts to rebuild the Poptropica museum. Throughout the game, there are three different islands to explore in your search for the missing museum pieces. As you navigate the islands, there are many people to talk with. They send you on missions and introduce the mini-games. 

My son just turned seven years old and he tried out the game. He found the game challenging in both positive and negative ways. The mini-games were a positive challenge. I feel like they give the game longevity, as you can go back and continue to play the games even after you have found all of the museum pieces.I tried out the mini-games as well and found them fun and challenging.

Sewer pipe maze mini-game

My son found jumping his character around in the game overly challenging. He had a hard time with some precision jumping moves as well as distinguishing what he was supposed to jump on versus, what was just graphics. He was able to get past these more difficult areas with some adult help.

With the exception of the problems with jumping, I thought this game was perfect for his age and skill level. The items that you are searching to find, are located within the same region of the game, making it simple enough for my seven year old to find.  As a mom, I am also a big fan of non-violent video games.

Does Poptropica Adventures sound perfect for the little gamer in your life? You can purchase it on Amazon.

Blow me a kiss, Valentine - Photo Valentines

I wanted to share a quick last minute Valentine idea with you. I saw some really fabulous Valentines over on Lil Luna, that I changed just a touch, so I wanted to share. They are photo valentines that say, "Blow me a kiss, Valentine." The lips are replaced with a lip whistle. I think they are so cute!

I loved Lil Luna's design but she printed them at home on her printer and cut them out. I wanted something a little faster and not using my expensive printer ink, so I made a template that prints at 4x6.  That way you can send it to your favorite one hour photo place and pick them up all ready to insert the whistles.  

The lip whistles are at Target, Hobby Lobby, and I bet other craft stores. Hobby Lobby had the cheapest price I found. 

Here is how you can make your own. 

Save the Template Image below to your computer.

2. Insert your child's photo using a photo editing software like Photoshop or GIMP.  If you don't already have a photo editing software, you can go the website Pixlr.com and do it for free.  I just tried it out and it worked perfect for this project! This is what my image looked like before I sent it to print.

 3. Order your pictures from your favorite store. I ordered online at Costco and picked them up a few hours later.
4. To insert the lip whistles, cut two lines below the mouth. Insert the lip whistles and you are done.

 One again, here is the finished product. The whistles stay in pretty snug and I didn't need any adhesive.

 Hope you enjoy and have a Happy Valentine's Day!

Dessert Nacho Bar

I am finding more and more that I really enjoy planning and executing parties.My friends and family are now aware that if they throw a party, I am bound to demand volunteer to help out in some way or another. That is exactly what happened when I learned that my best friend was going to be throwing a nacho bar dinner for her daughter. I told her I wanted to contribute some desserts, which quickly turned into the idea for a dessert nacho bar.

The idea was to take some thinly sliced apples as the chips, and serve up all the fixings for dessert.  I used my mandoline slicer to cut the apples thin. I can't believe I went so long without a mandoline, I love that thing! To prevent browning I soak the apples in cold water and lemon juice. Then store in an airtight container until I'm ready to serve them. The lemon juice will slow down the browning quite a bit, but it doesn't stop it completely.  I also ended up buying some cinnamon chips or bunuelos from my local Mexican grocery store to add some more variety.



Toppings included:

• Chocolate Sauce
• Caramel Sauce
• Strawberry Sauce
• Crushed M&Ms
• Cookie dough bites
• Mini marshmallows
• Shredded coconut
• Mini chocolate chips
• Toffee bits
• Sprinkles
• Canned whipped topping

 

Everybody went nuts for the dessert nachos.  They totally loved it. I spent some time prepping the apples, but otherwise this was so quick and easy. I love low maintenance ideas that deliver a big wow factor.
Here are some of the nachos all put together.

One happy customer!



What toppings would you include in your dessert nacho bar? Tell me about it in the comments.

It's February already!

I meant to post this on Friday, but I just can't seem to keep everyone in my family healthy. The kids keep taking turns getting some kind of crud or another. I'm just excited to have some time to blog.

No soda for a year

As of February 1, 2013, I have been one whole year without drinking soda, and especially Diet Coke! I'm really quite surprised it has been a year already. I have struggled immensely over the holidays (November - January) with keeping the weight off, but I'm so happy I stuck to my guns on the soda issue. I'm recommitting myself to the weight loss, and I'm really excited to start losing pounds again. Who is with me? You can start anytime, with any small improvement. If you don't think you can go cold turkey on the soda, cut back a little each week, and you can get there!

Color Run

While I have you here, I thought I would share some of the fun things I have been up to recently. Back on January 26, I participated in the Color Run in Tempe, AZ. My best friend, did it with me and it was so much fun! It was pouring down rain, but it didn't matter. We didn't actually do any running, but there were plenty of walkers too.

DownEast Home Grand Opening

Then on January 29, I got to attend a blogger mixer for the new DownEast Home store that just opened up in San Tan Village. This is the first DownEast Home store to open up in AZ and I was in love! They sell really top quality brands at a great discount. I was blown away by the great deals I spotted there. You need to check it out if you leave in the metro Phoenix area.
It was fun seeing all my blog friends at the mixer, especially getting to ride with Jax.  She purchased those beautiful hurricane vases, and I won that Tuscan serving tray.

To celebrate the new opening, DownEast is offering a chance to enter a “Shopping’s More Fun with Your Friends” giveaway from Friday, January 25, to Friday, February 8, 2013. Customers can register for the giveaway at the new DownEast Home & Clothing store in the San Tan Shopping Center in Gilbert. The giveaway will award one lucky winner a shopping spree valued at $200 and also present a $50 gift certificate to each of four friends selected by the winner. The winner does not have to be present at the time of the drawing on Saturday, February 9, to win. More info at : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/1/prweb10324251.htm

I have some a delicious recipe in the works, plus the finishing posts about the art party. I can't wait to share with you.