Tips for Tuesday - Valentines Yummies

Happy Valentines Day everyone. I wanted to share with you some things I made all my sweeties today to let them know how much I love them. On this special Love Day.

I made sure everyone had a heart filled breakfast. With Strawberry heart shaped pancakes and heart shaped bacon. Nothing says "I love you" like bacon!

I have been loving these cute ideas for bento boxes lately. This is a hard heart boiled egg. It is more work than I think I would want to do on an everyday basis, but it is a cute idea for special days. You can read how to make heart shaped eggs on Anna's site. I did mine a little different, since I didn't have a milk carton, I used the brownie box below and cut the corners off to make the V and wrapped the corners with plastic wrap. It still worked great!

Here is a sandwich I made for Little Miss and Little face this morning. Heart shaped scalloped bread with the heart shaped eggs inside. She loves egg sandwiches. I forgot he had a party today at school and didn't eat his sandwich. I just brought it back and put it in the fridge. He can have it on Thursday.

I even made the cheese heart shaped. I put it on the sandwich and forgot to take a picture, so I took it off and it has some Ceaser dressing on it. Oops!

And finally I made Chocolate Strawberry brownie kisses for my sweeties. This tastes like Chocolate covered strawberries, since I used strawberry puree instead of water in the recipe. I will post this recipe at a later date. 

Now what am I going to do for dinner?

Did you do anything special for your sweeties? Leave a comment or link, I would love to see what others did today.

Whatever Wednesday - Wii Party Ideas

My stepson wanted a birthday party this year, so we agreed to host it at our house. (long story) He told me he wanted a Wii party this year. I have to say I am inexperienced at hosting boy parties unless they are two or younger. So I thought I have this is going to be easy, until I realized this is not a real popular party idea. I searched on , Googled and used Swagbucks to search for Wii party ideas.

Since my theme was Wii. I also wanted to pick a color theme to tie some of my random ideas together. I chose blue and green, since this was a boys party.


Here are some of the decorations and things I designed for the party

Wii Party Ideas

These are the tags I designed to have another gift favor from his party. They all thought they were cool. I don’t have a color printer, so these were black and white. I covered his name to protect his identity.

I made mustache straws. The boys got a kick out of that. The mustache was for Mario and they are all the rage now, so I thought it would be funny. They took the mustaches off the straws and started wearing them. 

I wanted to make something fun for them to do. I had some long paper and cut it in half to look like a Wiimote and used this print out. They were to make a Wiimote without looking. I thought this might be fun; however, this did not go over well with this age group. Maybe a younger crowd would enjoy it.

It is my new tradition every kid gets their own birthday banner. His name is wrapped around the other side. I chose not to show it in order to protect his identity. Not to toot my own horn, but I am getting pretty good at making these. I used scrapbook paper and cut out a million triangles in different colors and plan out the pattern. I used the Paper Bunting Template and to get five triangles per standard 12X12 sheet of scrapbook paper. Then I sewed them together using bias tape. Yes you can sew paper and it is super easy.

I found this fabulous free 3D Wiimote favor box download. I cut out and put together and glued, with help from the birthday boy.

I only needed to make five, so this was doable. Once put together. I stuffed it with 1 bag of M&M’s and one fun size Twix. What do you think? The boys loved them.

We also had those fabulous Homemade Pizza Rolls I blogged about last week. These were so good. I forgot to take a picture of them baked before they were devoured.

I thought it would be fun to place the cookies on skewers and have them in a vase sticking up. This is not the best idea to have boys running around the house with sharp objects acting like they are mini swords. So I had to police as the cookies were eaten, to make sure I got the mini swords, I mean skewers back. I used an old oatmeal container and wrapped it with scrapbooking paper, that matched the banner, to cover it completely. I put a package of black beans to weight it down and stuck the cookie pops in at random places.

The Wiimote cake turned out fabulous. I have an unwritten agreement with my neighbor. I bake and ice the cake, and she decorates it for me. She has all the awesome frosting tips and gadgets to decorate a cake. In return I give her coupons and share good deals with her. Fair trade I think.

I will post instructions on how make this fabulous cake next week.

Oh yeah and the boys played Wii most of the night.


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25 Days of Christmas - Blog Share Day 9

25 Days of Christmas

December 9, 2011

Featured Blog – Pounds4Pennies

I am so happy to be able to participate in this Blog Share with so many other bloggers. I love Christmas time, because it was always about spending time with my family. It is the one time of the year where we all try to make an effort to get home to mom and dad’s (nana and papa’s) house to enjoy time with each other. When I was a single mom I was able to purchase a set of 3 trees of different heights for my Christmas tree. We now use these trees to put in the three kids rooms. These are their Christmas trees to decorate how they choose each year. They get to place their handmade ornaments on it each year. In order to count down to Christmas we make a paper chain advent calendar for them to put on their trees to count down to the birth of Jesus. Here are some variations on this easy frugal advent calendar.

One thing I want my children to remember is, Christmas is about celebrating the birth of Jesus. I make sure we read the Christmas story from the Bible each year. I enjoy reading Luke 2 verses 1-21. For each length of chain you could write one verse and read it before you tear it off. If you started on the first you can use a few verses from the book Matthew about the birth of Jesus.

If you decide to make only one chain and each child gets a different color to add. They can write what they like about other siblings on their pieces of colored paper and they get to read their day and that is the day they get to tear off. I like coming up with ideas to promote fairness to every child.

The really crafty person can decide to make the chain and decorate each link with their own personality. I find using decorative scissors or punches are fun to do if you have those from scrapbooking. You can sequins, glitter, ribbon. If you make a wonderful masterpiece and don’t want to rip it every day, you could use a marker such as a clothespin to mark the day. Of course you would decorate the clothes pin to match your garland.

There is still time to make an advent calendar. It is a great way for children to enjoy the countdown to Christmas. Here are the simple instructions of how to make this chain calendar.

You will need glue, scissor and paper in different colors.

1. Let your children pick the colors they would like to use.

2. Cut small strips of construction paper across the short end of the paper. Use a pencil and draw lines to make straight cuts on the paper.

3. Take the construction paper and make a circle and glue the ends together to make a circle. This step is good if you have a couple of helpers. Continue until you get to the end.

4. Once you are at the end you can place something special to signify ONLY ONE MORE DAY until Christmas. I used a star this year and placed it near the top of the tree.

5. Hang the garland on your tree or where ever you want. Make sure you enjoy the Christmas season with your Children.

Tips 4 Tuesday - Frugal Exercise

I did it! I finally purchased my first few gifts today, and I already have  return. I bought a couple of things for the kids, since it was a good price and it was the last one. However, when I went home to read the reviews, they were not so good.  I will just bring it back and get something else. This is where I cash in for the holidays. I always keep my receipts and bring it back if it goes on sale somewhere else or if I don't like it after I have purchased it.

I don't know about you, but I ate my way through Thanksgiving. My husband is originally from New Orleans and that is where we spent our Thanksgiving. We had all kinds of traditional food, so we packed on a few pounds from that wonderful Thanksgiving meal, now we need to lose all those tasty pounds we consumed. How can you sneak in a workout, since you don't have any time?

I personally don't like to go to the gym to work out. I would rather do things at home. If this is you too, you can combine shopping and walking. Before you head to the store or department you are going to, take a quick lap around the mall or store before you start your shopping trip. If you do this a couple of times a day you are working off a few extra calories and slimming those thighs in no time.

Exercise while you are cooking. I do this all the time. Do a few leg lifts or simply march in place while you are browning your meat or chopping onions. This also helps improve your coordination, since you are doing two things at once. 

If you have stairs take the toys or clothes up stairs one at a time. You are getting a stair master workout, and you are not at the gym. For a quick ab workout sit on the edge of your bed and do some leg lifts about 20 or so before you get all the way out of bed in the morning. 


A video game is a great way to burn calories and have a great time with your kids. We have a couple of fun games to do with the kids, like Just Dance 2 or Wii Sports. You are making memories while burning calories. I love multitasking, especially if you can get the kids involved.


Sneaking in a few extra exercises throughout your day will also give you more engery this holiday season with out caffeine. Who couldn't use a little extra energy. Now if I can find a way to give me more time I will be set!


Do you have any quick fun exercise you do or would like to share? Leave a comment below to share your fabulous tips with others.

Kids

My daughter has been battling a stomach bug, since last Wednesday. She has occasionally thrown up, nothing consistent. In case you are wondering, I don’t clean up throw up. YUCK. It  becomes two messes for me to clean up and I really don’t need more to clean. I am glad that she is finally at the age that she knows she better run with all her might to make it to the bathroom in time. And YES! she has made it each time. I gave her a washcloth to clean off the seat of the toilette and another for her mouth. I even got her some water to rinse her mouth out with. All from afar. I have a very weak stomach for that. I am happy to say we only had one mess this time.

I had a lot of energy yesterday and planned on getting all caught up on clipping my coupons, I am about 3 weeks behind. AUGH! I put little face down and of course he did not go to sleep right away. I then get a call from the school nurse she has done it again. Before I leave the house to get her I call the dr. to make an appointment. Something is obviously wrong. What she eats needs to stay down. Meanwhile I got a call that morning that my stepson was not feeling well either and that I may need to pick him up if he is sick.

So I ask the nurse if she had seen him and she said yes, but he was not running any fever so she sent him back to class. I get little miss and we all head to the dr. The Dr. did some tests and determined it must be a virus and gave us some nausea medicine. My daughter hates the word medicine and all forms of it. She was not excited.

As we are leaving the Dr. I get a call. It is time to pick up child number two. So I head back to the school once again to pick up sick child number two.  He did not throw up, but just felt bad. Again no fever. So on our way home, which is about 5 min. Little face falls asleep in the car. It is 2:00 way past nap time. More like wake up time and he is out. I get little face out of the car very carefully and place him in bed. Get all sick children on the couches. I always make sure I provide them with a large open container to catch anything that might come up. I also make sure this is as close to their mouth as possible and inform them of appropriate places of disposal if needed. If they move they must carry the bucket with them. This is their new best friend until the queasiness passes. I am serious!

After a couple of hours little face wakes up and no incidents have happened, so on to homework. They have gotten into math homework I do not understand. I am glad they were both here so I could cheat and look of f of each other’s papers to see how they did it. My daughter and stepson are in the same grade and go to the same school. This makes it easier when they do homework and planning for family vacations.

And all of this to say, I got nothing done yesterday that I wanted to do. So is the life of a mother.

Whatever Wednesday - Popcorn Cake

I know some of you have been wanting to know how to make the fabulous Popcorn Cake I made for my daughters 10^th birthday movie party. Today I am going to share the simple instructions on how you can make this cake on your own for a Movie Party or Popcorn Birthday Party. You can see the other decorations I used for her Movie Party.

Popcorn Cake

Movie Party Ideas

1. First I started by baking two cakes. One butter and one chocolate. Click to print Betty Crocker cake and icing coupons. You can decide based on what you already have in your pantry. I think butter is the best tasting cake. Let’s face it, it’s cake who is counting calories anyway. I used two 9" cake pans for each cake. To make sure they have the same amount of batter in each pan, use an ice cream scoop and alternate between pans. The cakes will come out even. 

2. After I baked the cakes, I took them out of the oven and let them chill for 10 min. I inverted them on a cooling rack, then set them to cool in the fridge. If I have time I chill them over night. Otherwise it is best to let them sit for at least two hours in the fridge to cool.

3. I cut the tops off the cakes with a serrated knife to even them out. I just eye balled it, but if you have a cake leveler, then use that. Since, I never throw anything out. I kept the leftover cake to bribe little face when he goes on the potty. It worked great. We are almost there!

4. Then I stacked the cake layers alternating butter and chocolate onto a round cake pan. In between each layer I placed a small amount of icing to glue them together. Next is the hardest part of the whole cake. I placed my serrated knife at an angle and cut turning the cake stand to keep the knife at the same angle around the entire cake to make the Popcorn bowl shape for the cake.  Wipe gently to remove any remaining crumbs around the edge and wipe your cake stand free of crumbs. Again you can discard the cake, but that is a crime in my house. I mean it is cake! When you are done this should resemble a Popcorn Bowl.

5. I used nearly an entire can of icing on the outside of the cake with a cake knife. Be a little generous here. You want to capture all the crumbs in this layer of icing. Place in the fridge for about 10 min or more.This is the crumb coat. Don’t worry about all the little chocolate flakes you see in the icing. They will disappear in the next coat. A cake knife is a great purchase if you plan on making cakes. Spreads icing like a dream. 

6. Yes you will need another tub of icing. I used nearly ¾ a tub icing the next layer. This will make all those crumbs disappear. Generously spread icing over the cake again. Now you should have a white cake.

7. This is where the magic happens. Get the strawberry Fruit by the foot. I opened every package until I found the one with the straight lines. Then I measured the cake from the stand to the top. I cut many strips to this length. To create the smaller lines, I cut one strand in half lengthwise.  Start placing them on the Popcorn cake. Two small lines then one thick one, alternating in this pattern around the outside of the cake. Once finished let the kids eat the fruit roll ups this helps keep them quite while you are concentrating on the cake.

8. I took some of the icing and used a red tint to make it red. Be sure you make enough. It is difficult to get the same color. I don’t have a pastry bag, so I placed the icing in a sandwich baggie and cut a small tip and fed the icing through. This is where you can get decorative. I just used small circles at the top of the cake to cover where the fruit rollup stripes end and a straight line at the bottom with the red icing to seal it to the bottom.

9. Now what you have been dying to know is, how did you make that popcorn on top? While you are doing all the above steps, have the birthday person and extra help squeeze two small marshmallows together with their fingers until they stick. Squeeze hard. I used nearly half a bag of marshmallows. This makes awesome looking Popcorn for the top of the cake.

10. Finally I got another Ziploc bag to place all the Popcorn marshmallows in and sprinkled it with yellow decorative sugar. This made it look like buttered popcorn. Shake the bag to get the yellow sugar everywhere the marshmallows stuck together. Keep them in the bag. 

11. Cut from and extra popcorn bag or print the words "POPCORN" in red ink to make the popcorn logo. Glue it to the cake with some icing. 

12. Right before the party started I let my daughter decorate the top of the cake with the Popcorn marshmallows. The more the better. You want to do this last, otherwise you have crunchy marshmallows, instead of soft ones to eat. I normally don’t like candy on cakes, but this was just right and  tasted fabulous for her movie party.

When cutting this Popcorn Cake remember only small pieces are needed, since this is a four layer cake. This picture is one I made for a friend who also had a Movie Party and this Popcorn cake served over twenty guests. 

Please share if you make one. I would love to see your pics.

Whatever Wednesday - Movie Party Birthday Bash

First I wanted to say thanks for all of you who voted for me at the Top Mommy Blogs. I went from 480 to 127, and I am listed in the top five on the Frugal Living page. You can vote daily. Thanks to all my visitors!

This year my daughter turned 10. Yep she is double digits now. I can't believe it. Where did the time go? I remember she was born a little over two weeks after 9/11. I was thinking of what kind of world was I bringing her into. Things have not changed as drastically as I thought they might.

MOVIE PARTY IDEAS

She picked her party theme "A Night at the Movies." She wanted this to be a red carpet event. So I did my best to give her a fabulous Movie Party event on an extreme budget.

The Menu

We are talking eight 9-10 year old girls, so I wanted to keep the menu simple. My first thought is what do you get at the movies? Hotdogs are served at the movies. Remember the nearly 20lbs of hotdogs I purchased around memorial day? I still had some in the freezer. Then I thought nachos. My all time favorite and hers too. I purchased processed cheese for this event. One of the most expensive things for the party. I had plenty of salsa from this trip and I bought some chips. Then of course the most obvious thing at the movies popcorn. I didn't want to spend my time popping a million bags of popcorn in the microwave. I knew they could eat a ton from the last party she had. So I borrowed a hot air popper from a friend. I popped five batches of popcorn. Yes that is a lot of popcorn. Then I got all sorts of candy from CVS from their sale a couple of weeks ago and chocolate chips to mix in the popcorn purchased here.

Menu:

Hot Dogs & Buns

Nachos

Popcorn

Candy

Chocolate Chips
Popcorn Cake

By the way the plain chocolate chips were a big hit. Who knew? Hint hint if you are throwing a party soon, chocolate chips are cheaper than candy.

And of course, since it is a birthday party you will need a cake. I didn’t feel like buying one from the store. So I decided to make one instead. It is a Popcorn cake. Click the link to see how to make this fabulous cake. Super cute. I even made a Popcorn Cake of these for a friend who had a Movie Party.
 

She enjoyed putting the "popcorn" on the cake.

Decorations

I purchased a generic silver star set from the party store last year. I choose this since it would go with a lot of party themes and not be a one time purchase. We just recycled these and hung them around the house. I found a cheap red carpet at the party store we place outside our door. I colored large yellow stars with sidewalk chalk in front of the house to make it look like the Hollywood walk of Fame. (If I had a little more time I was going to write the girls name who were attending the party in the stars).

 I made her  a banner for her birthday. Her name is at the end, I do not want to share it to protect her identity. She loved it.

I found the popcorn buckets at Target for $1.00 each. And the paper ones at hobby lobby for 8 for $2.49. I couldn't find my coupon or it would have been cheaper. They made their popcorn buckets and filled them with candy and popcorn and everything. I didn't care what they ate as long as they had a great time.

For the table I used a red table cloth. I covered my cake dish with black tissue paper for the stand where the popcorn gift bags were. I also covered a bowl with black tissue paper to place the Popcorn cake on. I thought it looked fabulous for a movie party idea.

Entertainment

My husband borrowed the projector from his work and we hooked it up outside and put a large white sheet on the back of the house. He used a staple gun to tack it up. It looked great. I spread several blankets outside on the lawn where they could lay down eat popcorn and watch the movie. (not too much movie watching happened) They even had a popcorn fight and I didn't care since all of this was outside. I just picked up the blankets shook them off and I was done with clean up. Super easy.

Everyone had a great time! This was fun for me too, since most of the party took place outside I didn’t have a lot to clean up inside.

Kid Post

Wow! I am still tired from this weekend. A second cup of coffee would have been nice, but I had some shopping to do. I prepared my list last night. Unfortunately there were not many good sales, but there were a few items I needed to go along with some dishes I wanted to make.

I am hoping little face will go to bed soon. He has been in his bed/room for an hour now and no sleep. Sleep is not only for him, but for me to have some rest too. I am waking him up early to go to an awards ceremony for the older kids at school this afternoon. We have standard tests here in Texas and they both got Commendable Performances for their scores.

This is a huge accomplishment for my daughter to receive such high marks without any assistance. We had her tested this year, and she has dyslexia. I don’t know if any of you have a child with any disability, but it is hard to hear. To know your child is not only different, but the difference has a name. It now makes so much sense with all her troubles she is having in school It was a relief to hear that she can get help she needs. I was unsure if I should blog about it and announce it to the world. I have gotten more comfortable enough to write about it. Please comment if you have a child with a learning disability or know of any good blogs or sites to visit. I have been checking a few out on my own. I want to do my best to help her, since we have struggled so much in the past.

This is basically how her little brain sees words. She know all the letters in a word. She just has difficulty remembering what order they go in.

i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg.

I will post my shopping trips tomorrow, since this post went into something I had not planned on writing about. I am tired today and need to get ready to head to school in a few minutes.