Food
Choosing great food on a budget and turning that into meals the entire family loves! That's the goal for many households. It's not always easy, or affordable so here are a few ideas and recipes that make sense for our family. Hoping you find some new favourites for your family meal rotation here too. A love of food is something we all nurture from the start with our family, and as parents it's a constant challenge to commit to healthy living while also sticking to the budget. Here are a few tips and tricks that can help you eat healthy food and also try a few new recipe ideas that won't break the bank. Don't Miss my Cooking with Kids series and my Pinterest board by the same name. There are hundreds, possibly thousands, of amazing and fun recipes for families there. We cook it first and sometimes make the mistakes so that we can deliver great recipes and food content to you.
-
Nasty Stains #Resolvetip and a Chance to Win $5,000
You know that rhyme? The old one you grew up with – sugar and spice and everything nice and that’s what girls are made of. Snakes and snails and puppy dog tails and so on and so forth…well, whoever made that cutesy little rhyme clearly never met my girl Ainsley. She is grass and dirt, bloody knees, hugs, exploding science experiments and sometimes bug guts and peanut butter stains all rolled into one sweet little girl package. That’s life with my dolly who I once wrote about in a piece the Globe and Mail dubbed Watch out for My Tornado Girl. Stains are par for the course. Grass stains have…
-
Five Easy Lunch Time-Saving Tips to Use Now!
Listen up. I am about to share all of my lunch time-saving tips with you. So make note and commit a few of these to memory. Trust me. You will need them. Over the course of this coming school year, it is likely you will need about 200 packed lunches, that is if your adorable children are lifers (I mean full time and full day students like mine). That’s just for one child. So lunch time-saving tips are not negotiable. You can obviously make that a wee bit less onerous by opting in for the pizza days and the hot lunch days. I highly recommend this as a service to…
-
Five Fast Wake Up Ideas for Tweens #YOP #BTS and a Coupon
They sure are sweet when they are sleeping. But try to get them to wake up and watch the fun! I am taking tweens and teens of course. And they rarely jump for joy when the alarm goes off. But here are a few ways I help wake up my tween and teen. Oh, we all joke that when they are sleeping they are angels, right? But, wake up time? Well, that’s a whole other ball game. My youngest daughter has always been the kind that springs out of bed bouncing with so much energy I wish I could market that. But my oldest girl, well let’s just say that…
-
Cheezborger #Travel #WordlessWednesday #Linky
Cheezborger, Cheezborger. Chips no Fries. Our last afternoon in Chicago we wanted something fast to eat and the Embassy Suites bell boy recommended this place, which I had never ever heard of, but is apparently a legend from Saturday Night Live Days. We walked in (Margarita Ibbott and I ) and it was totally skeevy. I tried to order something other than a cheeseburger and I thought the cook was going to lunge across the counter and strangle me. Good thing I didn’t ask him for french fries which is what I was really craving. This is a Wordless Wednesday and y’all know I am rarely wordless.
-
Deep River Snacks All Natural Kettle Chips Review
Deep River Snacks makes several tasty items, but this week right before a road trip to Blue Mountain I was sent a box full of their kettle chips. I was thrilled to note the variety of unique flavours from Sweet Maui Onion to Aged Cheddar and Horseradish and my old standby favourite – Sea Salt and Vinegar. The Sweet Maui Onion was delicious and the Sea Salt and Vinegar is always a hit. The Aged Cheddar and Horseradish nearly burnt my lips off, but just because that flavour wasn’t for me, doesn’t mean it won’t be your new favourite snack. Kid Tested? In an aside, my kids sampled these with…
-
What is Unique? #Kindermom and a $250 Visa Contest
My girls with their martial arts hero Frank Trejo My kids are fierce. There are other words to describe them for sure. And some days they push me to my limits like any other kids on the planet, but my girls are my heart. Walking around outside my body. In that devastatingly painful way that children do. My girls are hope and pride, memories, passion, love and strength, faith. My girls are smart and kind and caring and loving and compassionate and strong. They stand up for others and have a strong sense of advocacy and a voice. My girls are my wish for the world as a better place.…
-
Upcycling, 25 Free Boxes of Cereal #Giveaway and #HNCHeartyOatCrunch
How do you make something familiar and well loved into something brand new entirely? Well, you can up cycle, if you are a DIYer. Or you can recreate a classic cereal, that is one of our family favourites, and add oats and nut clusters to give it crunch. That’s just what the people at General Mills have done with new Honey Nut Cheerios Hearty Oat Crunch and they want to give a few boxes away. So stay tuned for details. My kiddo is the queen of up cycling. Truth. She has been taking old stand by materials and objects and turning them into something new from the time she could…
-
Fast and Fun Chili In The Oven #LMDConnector
Spring has, at long last, finally sprung. And we are back from holidays just in time to see our gorgeous daffodils smiling their pretty faces off at us. That is the kind of thing that makes me happy after a long and dragging winter. I mean snow drifted along hammering us steadily through much of April, wearing everyone down. Soups and stews and crockpot meals got us through those wintery days. But the crockpot is put away now – for a little while at least. Today, was a near perfect day here. Temperatures rose. The grass looked greener. I got back to the gym and did a wee bit of…
-
#Linkedmoms Kisko Twitter Party – Join us -May 8th
A few of my favourite Kisko Freezie flavours Well, woohoo it’s time for a party announcement!! This is your official Hold The Date for: May 8th at 8 p.m. EST. The Linked Moms (@Downshiftingpro) and me (@inkscrblr) are featuring Kisko Freezies as our guests. I like Kisko Freezies because they are free of allergens and tasty to boot. Nothing cuts that sweaty post soccer game win, or helps you celebrate that black belt trophy, like a Kisko Freezie. Free of all major allergens: nut free, dairy free, soya free, gluten free and egg free. That means they are school friendly. Also several products are Kosher. The white Kisko Cream Soda flavoured freeze…
-
Energy Bits Review
Several weeks ago I heard about these energybits on twitter and was interested. I am forever trying to stay on top of this thing called 40, and those of you who know me well know I may not be super coordinated, but I make up for that in ambition and good intentions. So I exercise a lot and I am open to trying new routines, exercise programs and nutrition ideas. So I gave these algae bits a shot to see what they might add to my routine. Let me just start with a small disclaimer: energybits will probably not be for everyone and I am not a doctor or medical…