Enjoy some Soup! The Soupmaker’s Kitchen cookbook Review

 

I grew up in a large family, and we all know it’s not easy to shop or even cook for large families. We find ourselves eager and creative to put dinner together with what we have on hand. I have used this method after watching my mother do it when I was a child. One of my fondest memories was the soups she made, stews or gumbo. They were thick hearty and I really thought for the longest time she went out of her way to buy all this exotic food to create it all. Did she?

No. No my mother did what is shown in The Soupmaker’s Kitchen cookbook- a must for any family but I highly recommend it if you find yourself unsure of what you do with those left over scraps and items you don’t ‘have much of.  So you have a little of this and that, don’t think you can use it up? Wrong, don’t toss them, don’t ignore them –  Use them, all of them to make some wonderful soup! photo (1)

Green takes you through easy steps to stock up the pantry with items ( even small)  to create an entire heart warming soup with ease. Techniques on preparing, when you can sub frozen verses fresh and even how to make some flavors bursts are given throughout the book. Time savings tips, best used pots and other basic tools that will get you through soup season.
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Book Review: Get Your Family Eating Right

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I was sent a book for review, “Get Your Family Eating Right” by Lynn Fredericks and Mercedes Sanchez M.S, R.D.

The book is a 30 day plan to getting your kids and family into a healthy eating lifestyle. It shows you how to introduce healthy foods and even provides step-by-step instructions on how to get your child to help you cook the foods in the book.

The Good:

I liked the bright photos in the book. Nearly every recipe has a photo and there are great photos of kids cooking. This book is definitely child friendly and fun to learn from. I also enjoyed the instruction in the book on how to get your child to enjoy healthier foods. I also liked the way the book broke down how to create balanced meals. I do think this book is great for almost all skill levels in the kitchen.

The recipes include a format that is easy to follow, allowing mom or dad to have their child perform tasks to creating the dish. There are even foods from around the world’s cuisine. I like how it helps open your family’s taste buds to new ones.
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WIN – Best Lunch Box Ever Cookbook

School is here! Ready to make those lunches? No? Well think  again if you are dreading this daily chore to help get the kids off to school. The Cookbook Best Lunch Box Ever , ideas and recipes for School Lunches Kids Will Love by Katie Sullivan Morford is a promising cookbook to help get parents and kids excited about school lunches again.

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Sometimes you just need help , an idea to help put together a lunch. Kids get tired of the same old things, peanut butter and jelly, an apple a salad. Boring! Spice up that lunch box and have the kids help .

With 10 Chapters to go through you have plenty to choose from, the Brown Bag basics which is tips to keep food cool till lunch, portion sizes and more. Planning is important, there’s a section on this and it will help even the most unorganized parent prepare lunch easier. Don’t skip this chapter! Next is the food chapters, your array of sandwiches, including just a few are- Smoked Salmon Tea Sandwich, Chickpea Panini and Turkey Hummus Cuties. You have Salads that are aimed for children, roll ups, wraps, and a whole chapter on how to help turn left overs into an amazing lunch. Not skipping the main bulk is fruits and vegetables, little extras to add in there for the kids and even a section for some healthy treats like Rosie’s Energy Balls and more. I like the additional chapters for after school snacks. Yet another daily thing that parents like myself sometimes come to dread. You just serve the same things over and over, well Katie helps take you through the steps and tips to kick up not only your kids lunch box meal but after-school goodies the kids will adore you for! I made some Shredded BBQ Pork Wraps for the kids from leftovers. Perfect size for the lunch box!
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My Littlest Pet Shop : Sweetest Pets on DVD

My girls love My Littlest Pet Shop! I never knew there was a cartoon though, so when I got the DVD it was a nice surprise. The cartoon LPS airs on The HUB TC Network in the USA. Shout! Factory Kids teamed up with Hasbro to release the DVD June of this year to bring some funny, upbeat, silly adventures with our all time favorite little pets.

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A cute girl named Blythe Baxter moves into the city with her hilarious father. They move into a apartment above a pet shop and she soon finds more adventure than she thought she ever would find in the city! She can talk to the pets in the shop below her and even more- they can talk back! Blythe not only talks to the pets but she helps them when trouble comes along. During her adventures [Read more…]

Jeepers Peepers Game – Super Duper Educational Learning Toy

What Am I?

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That’s the question that goes around the game Jeepers Peppers, an Ask and Answer Question will get the kids laughing and enjoying themselves. The game, by Super Duper Publications is aimed at kids ages 5 years old and older

The game comes with 101 Photo cards, six glasses, six clue cards, bingo chips and a spinner. How the game works is simple, each player gets a pair of glasses and picked a card (face down!) without looking at them of course and place it in the glasses. Each one has a little card holder, place the glasses on your head and make sure your all in a circle to see each other. Each player gets a clue card which covered categories you use to guess what your card is. Going around the circle you ask the yes or no questions to [Read more…]

Yogarilla Review

Yogarilla!

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I have practiced yoga for some time, my four kids sometimes join in with me but I have never really found a super yoga book for kids. Yogarilla is wonderful! Bright colorful cards, 55 of them of them fully illustrated front and back. You can find Yogarilla at Super Duper Publications, which I highly recommend you doing.

There is nothing I don’t like about Yogarilla it’s an all around win here is my take-

You have 55 cards, front and back illustrating a certain pose with OTis. On one side you have the playful OTis posing with the name of the pose. On the other side is the entire break down of the pose, directions to move into it, a challenging variety and some activities you may want to add into the pose. There’s also some facts and game like things to do with your children as you go through the deck.

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Teaching kids to exercise is important, but it should also be very fun and enjoyable. [Read more…]

Honeywell EnergySmart® Surround Select Ceramic Heater Review

With winter just around the corner, who doesn’t have the need for a Space Heater? I live in the middle of Kansas, where we have extremely cold winters!! My husband is definitely pretty frugal (I think that’s the best way to put it 🙂 ). He always likes to wait and see how long he can wait to turn on the heat. It was definitely no big deal when it was just the two of us, because I LOVE to snuggle up with blankets, but now that we have 2 younger children, it really isn’t an option for us to do!!

This past weekend it was already in the high 20s/low 30s! I was all for turning on the heater, but my husband of course was reluctant! SO, I recently received the Honeywell EnergySmart Surround Select Ceramic Heater to review! I couldn’t have been any happier. I KNEW this is one product that I most definitely could thoroughly test, as well as get some great use out of!

I decided it was definitely time to break it out of the box!! I got it out and read some of the instructions, to make sure that I didn’t mess anything up 🙂

Here are some of the features of the Heater:

  • Ceramic Technology for quiet, even heating
  • EnergySmart Digital Controls
  • 180 degree feature for directional heating
  • 360 degree tip over protection
  • Cool TouchCarrying Handle
  • Two heat modes
  • Programmable thermostat
  • 1-8 hour timer
  • 3 year warranty


My Thoughts:

I absolutely LOVED it. It works wonderful. Our living room is fairly large, so I wasn’t sure that it would be able to warm us up, but it definitely did. We were almost to the point of being hot. I LOVE the Cool carrying [Read more…]

Loving Pet’s Healthy Treats

There’s nothing better than to treat your favorite pet with something they’d love! Loving Pets is a company devoted to keeping your pet happy and healthy and is coming up with tasty ways to treat your four legged family members. While there are tons of treats to choose from at Loving Pet’s we were happy to try out the Grill-icious treats.

We tried out the All Natural Beef and Turkey Treats. They’re called Grill-icious and if my dogs could talk, they’d probably say just that. My kids find the name adorable and helped wrangle the dogs up for treats!

The treats, are 100% Beef Chicken [Read more…]