Drugstore.com Review

I made my 3rd purchase from Drugstore.comyesterday and I have to say, I was a little skeptical with each one. The prices seemed just to good to be true. I was scammed on another website last Christmas, so I was a little nervous about ordering.
The first 2 orders were successful, great deals, free shipping, and arrived within 2 days!
Once again I am completely impressed! I ordered my new ErgoBaby Carrier (woohoo! more on that later) at 2:00 pm on a Thursday and it was on my doorstep Friday at 3:00! They even sent a few little free samples in the box! I am completely impressed at how fast they process and ship their orders! Makes me wonder what takes other companies so long sometimes!!
I also was able to use my 15% off rebate they had sent me via email after my previous order, so I got an AMAZING deal on the Ergo!
I definitely recommend Drugstore.com!! They have so many different products to choose from (not at all what its name implies) and fabulous prices. They also offer drugstore dollars for most purchases that you can use on future orders!
Check it out!
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Halloween Fun with your Preschooler!

As I mentioned in my post about the Letter of the Week, we are taking a break from the alphabet this week and have a week of fun Halloween activities planned! And it seems to be perfect timing, since we will be stuck in the house for a few days thanks to Hurricane Sandy!

I wanted to share some of the activities with you in case you are interested in doing any of them with your kiddos too! I can't really take credit for any of them, I found most of the ideas on pinterest, through internet searches, and in magazines.  But here are some links to some of the crafts, games, and learning activities we will work on this week!

You can check out my Pinterest Boards for some other Halloween and Fall activities. But here are a few that we hope to complete this week:

Rip and Glue Pumpkin Craft

Surprise Pumpkin

Candy Corn Counting

Roll A Pumpkin Game

Swab Skeletons - From FamilyFun Magazine October 2012

Coloring Pages (We will probably use paint too)

Dress Up Jack-o -Lanterns (Found a prepared Foam dress up craft at Wal-mart)

H Is for Halloween Packet (this is an AMAZING especially if you have a toddler!!! I will probably pick and choose a few activities from here if we have time)

Halloween Pre-K Pack (another AMAZING resource, this one geared toward preschoolers, might pick a few from this pack as well)


Just a few ideas if you need some indoor activities this week! Please Link up if you have any fabulous Fall/Halloween activities! I am sure we will all be looking for something to keep our kiddos busy this week!

Letter of the Week: UPDATE

A few months back I shared this info about the "Letter of the Week" program I planned to start with my preschooler!

So here is a brief update on how it's going!

I started the program with her at the beginning of October, the same week she started preschool.  She only goes to school 2 days a week for an hour, so I decided to do some more work with her at home (and I secretly love doing this stuff, it's the one part of being a teacher I miss, TEACHING!)

We have almost made it through all the vowels so far and she is really enjoying it! She loves the excitement of finding what new activities are in her bin each day. And she has completely amazed me with how well she can do some of the activities.  Here she is enjoying a few of the Letter A activities:

Cutting Practice
Check out www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com to print 

Do a Dot Letter A

Eating Apples while matching Capital and Lowercase letters

Letter A craft at the end of the week

I will admit, I wish I had a little bit more time to sit down and really work with her on some things.  But I have been trying to keep it fun for her, and well frankly, keep myself sane.  I usually have time to talk about the weather, review our Bible verse and Day of the week, explain to her what is in the bin each day, get her started, and then I'm usually off feeding the baby, making breakfast/lunch, or finishing up another chore.

It has been fun so far, and yes its a little bit of work and planning on my part, but since I had most of the materials prepared (up to letter F anyway, still have to work on the rest), I usually spend about 30 minutes on a Sunday night prepping all the bins for the week and there really isn't much work to do during the week (besides catch up on preparing materials for the rest of the alphabet).

If you have any questions about the materials or how we do "Letter of the Week", feel free to email me!

Most of the materials seen in the pictures along with more info about letter of the week can be found at www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com

We are taking a break next week and we will be doing "Halloween Week" with Fall/Halloween Activities in our bins! Stay tuned as I hope to share some of the activities with you this weekend if you are interested in doing any of them with your kiddos next week!

Recipe of the Week: Cauliflower and Sweet Potato Soup

Need a great fall soup? This one is fabulous! After fighting colds for 5 days, when I finally had energy to cook I thought soup would be a great idea! And I actually had all the ingredients for this one in the house.  I found the "idea" for this recipe on pinterest, but it seemed a little to plain for our family. After a google search I found this great recipe on www.tastykitchen.com

Cauliflower and Sweet Potato Soup 

The full recipe can be found here. I used a slightly modified version.  

Ingredients 

• 1 Tablespoon Olive Oil


• 1 whole Small Onion Chopped


• 2 cloves Garlic, Minced


• 1 pound Sweet Potato, Peeled And Chopped


• 4 cups Chicken Stock


• 1 cup Water


• 1 head Cauliflower, Cut Into Florets


• 4 Tablespoons Cream Cheese 


• 1 1/2 cups Shredded Cheddar Cheese


• Salt And Pepper, to taste

Directions: 

Heat oil in large soup pan over medium-high heat. Add onion and a sprinkle of salt and sauté until onion is fragrant and translucent, 3-5 minutes. Add minced garlic, chopped sweet potato, and sauté an additional 2-3 minutes, stirring frequently.

Add chicken stock, 1 cup water, and chopped cauliflower and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 15-20 minutes, until vegetables are tender.

Remove from heat, add cream cheese, and purée with an immersion blender or in batches in a regular blender. (If you want to keep some chunks, reserve 1 cup of the cooked cauliflower before puréeing the rest of the soup). (I pureed everything) 

Return soup to heat, add cheddar cheese, and stir until cheese is melted and soup is heated through, 2-3 minutes.

Season with salt and pepper to taste, garnish as desired, and serve.

I thought this soup was delicious! I used less chicken stock then the original recipe and subbed a little water since I only had 4 cups of stock. But I am glad I did because I like thicker soup.  I also added a little more cheese, which I do to almost every recipe.  Not great for the waistline, but our family loves our cheese! :) It could maybe use a few spices, but overall was creamy and yummy!  

Corona and Lime

So as I'm cutting up lime to make Garlic Lime Fajitas in a completely quiet kitchen (both kids are sleeping at the same time!!!) I start to daydream about drinking a corona and lime at the beach listening to the waves crash at my feet....

(kind of like this OBX vacation 2011)

when all of a sudden.....BEEEEEEPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!...... Laundry's done! And I'm sure that awful noise just woke at least one of my children!

Just another day in the life...

Pantry Perk Up

A few weeks ago I decided our messy pantry needed a little TLC. I am definitely not a very organized person and tend to just throw things in cabinets and close the door before they fall off the shelves! So, as a result, this is what our pantry looked like...




With the purchase of a few bins and shelves from Walmart and some stick on tiles from Lowes it now looks a little bit better...








Still could use some work...anyone have any suggestions for more storage solutions? Especially for bags of chips/pretzels?
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Remembering...

Daddy,
   I love you and miss you.  As this day comes and goes, I hope not to dwell on the events that happened on it 8 years ago, but rather to remember the words you once wrote to me,

Cadi,  
   I'll be with you in heaven- just in case you ever wonder!

I will always love you, 
Daddy 


I am so thankful to have those words to read and always remember. I don't think you knew how much meaning they would have and how much peace they would bring for years after you wrote them. Need that reminder today, and everyday!

Thinking of you today and always,
Cadi

True Blue

Breaking News: My hubby and I went on a date!!!! Yup a whole HOUR without kids, eating a meal at the same time, while its still hot, and could actually talk for a whole hour without being interrupted, feeding kids, or changing diapers?!?!
True story, this actually happened! First "date" since March! We had to deliver a bed to my Mom's, so while we were visiting, we asked if she'd stay with the kids for an hour and we went to a cute little restaurant for lunch.
We intended on going to a little deli, but walked past True Blue Mediterranean Cafe and it looked perfect (and smelled amazing). We had a latte, some really yummy gyros, and amazing hummus!




Perfect little hour together! Hopefully we can do it again soon!
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Recipe of the week: Pumpkin Cream Cheese Bars

I love finding awesome Pinterest recipes right as I am walking out the door to the grocery store! Got to try This one right away!

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Bars

Here's what you'll need:
Angel Food Cake Box mix
Cream cheese
Water
Pumpkin purée
Cinnamon

Here's what you get when you mix all that together and bake!




Pretty much that easy! These turned out fabulous! I maybe should have baked them a few minutes longer and not covered them so soon, they got a bit mushy. But overall, I'd recommend them! Perfect for a cold, rainy Fall day!
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"You gotta see this!"

A phrase that can be so innocent, unless it's coming from a 3 year old who has had the run of the house for 10 minutes while you were feeding the baby!

My cute, wonderful little 3 year old came running to me as I walked out of the baby's room yelling "Mommy, you gotta see this!!" I held my breath and many thoughts flashed through my head...nail polish, soap, flour, paint, what could she have done in 10 minutes?

This is what I just HAD to see...



Her counting bears organized PERFECTLY! :)

Why do I have a feeling my son will not be organizing counting bears in his free time?


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1st Day Jitters!

Yesterday was my baby girl's 1st Day of Preschool!! And 1st time away from Mommy when she wasn't at home or with family! She did great at the Meet and Greet we had last week, so I went in feeling pretty optimistic!

Of course she woke up really grumpy (I think we all did, it was a miserable REALLY rainy day!) and as I tried to get her excited about going to school she says "but Mommy, I never did this without you before!"

As if the day wasn't hard enough for me already, I almost broke down in tears thinking "it's been a really long time since I've done this without you either"

Despite BOTH of us having 1st day jitters, I knew I needed to stay positive for her! So we got dressed, packed her backpack, and tried to talk about all the great things about school and ignore the fact that Mommy wasn't going to stay there.

Although drop off in the pouring rain was a little chaotic, the 1st day went well, she walked right in and didnt even look back. I didn't know if I should be happy that she adjusted so easily or sad that she wasn't clinging to Mommy. But we made it through with no tears from either of us :) and she keeps asking to go back!

My baby girl is growing up :(



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Photo Book

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Recipe of the Week: Asian Turkey Lettuce Wraps

My Brother-in-law, Dr. Ben Lerner, along with other great chiropractors and nutritionists, has created some great healthy living books as well as cookbooks.  While we were visiting my sister and family in Florida we tasted one of the great recipes from one of their cookbooks, Maximized Living Nutrition Plan.
My sister had some leftover Asian Turkey Lettuce Wraps when we got to FL. And well after traveling with 2 kids from PA to FL, we were starving. I am not going to lie, I ate 5, yes 5, of these wraps when we got to my sister's house. So of course the first meal I made when we finally got home, you bet ya, Asian Turkey Lettuce Wraps.

Ingredients:



1/2 cup water
3 tablespoons organic almond butter
1 lb. ground turkey
1 tablespoon sesame oil (I used olive oil)
1 cup shiitake Mushroom caps, chopped
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
1 (8 oz.) can water chestnuts, drained and chopped
3 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons fresh ginger(I used 1 tablespoon ground ginger)
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup green onions (optional) (I used 1/4 cup)
1 head lettuce, separated into leaves

Directions:
Cook Turkey in skillet with oil about 5 minutes, stirring until turkey crumbles and is no longer pink.  Add mushrooms, and next 5 ingredients.  Increase heat to medium-high, and cook, stirring constantly, 4 minutes.  Add green onions if desired, water, and almond butter and cook stirring constantly, 1 minute.  Spoon mixture evenly onto lettuce leaves; roll up.  Serve with extra soy sauce if desired. 

Tips: You can replace the lettuce with all natural whole wheat tortillas as well.

Source: Maximized Living Nutrition Plans By: Dr. Ben Lerner, Dr. B.J. Hardick, and Kimberly Roberto

Doesn't look fabulous, but if you could smell it you'd want to eat it! 

These, IMO, are AMAZING! We ate ours on flour tortillas with some spring mix on top.  But I have had them served in romaine lettuce and they are just as amazing that way! I could literally eat these for every meal of the day!




I actually bought everything to double the recipe and freeze 1/2 of it for later, leave it to me to open the second can of water chestnuts to realize they are bamboo shoots (cans look exactly the same). So hopefully I will get the second batch made tonight!

Scavenger Hunt

We've been staying with my mom for the past week since the hubby is back in FL for work. We've been having a great time visiting with family and relaxing a little.

Since the weather is GORGEOUS today we decided to take a little walk downtown and also go on a scavenger hunt!

Last minute plans led to a quick search on the Internet for a printable scavenger hunt page! Most of them I found were for long trips in the car, but I found one that worked out great for our little walk.




As you can see, I found this one at Momsminivan.com

We packed a snack, loaded up baby brother, got her a marker to fill out her paper, and we were off.

Made the short walk to CVS meaningful and kept her busy. We would never have been able to use this scavenger hunt at our house, we'd pretty much be searching for houses, trees, and maybe a bird there. I have to say I enjoyed walking in the busy little town today and REALLY miss being able to walk to the grocery store on a beautiful day!

If we ever use this again, I will probably add/remove a few things depending on where we are! Would love to make a color, letter, number hunt which would have been fun too!

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The Children's Place Sale!

We were so busy this weekend, I completely missed the 25% off email for The Children's Place. Just in case you did too, you can still get 20% off your order online and free shipping! Use the promo code SHOP20 for the discount. I am pretty sure the shipping is automatically deducted!


Hurry, promo code expires tomorrow, Monday, August 27th!


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Recipe of the Week: Peach-a-Berry Pie

This week was "peach week" at read and pick storytime. So after a long morning of peach picking with a 3 month old and an almost 3 year old (Fun!) we were left with this...




So I began a search for a good, but easy peach recipe. Found Peach-a-Berry Pie on www.allrecipes.com. Looked simple and yummy and had good reviews.

Not being much of a baker, especially pies, I bought some frozen pie crusts and fresh raspberries to get started.

That brought me to peeling and cutting all the peaches... After trying one I realized it was not like cutting and peeling apples and I had no clue what I was doing. (I have since googled the easy way to do this!) So I recruited some help, my wonderful husband to peel all the peaches while I fed baby boy, who conveniently decided he was hungry as I was starting this task! :)


He's the best! After letting the fruit dry out for a few minutes, you simply had to mix sugar, flour, and cinnamon and then toss the fruit in!



Pour this in the pie crust, put a few pieces of butter on top and cover with another pie crust!

Make sure to place the pie on a cooking sheet while baking, mine leaked like crazy(as you can see)!!!



Not the prettiest thing in the world, but it tastes amazing, especially with a little whipped cream on top!


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A Sunday of Pinterest!

Since I spend alot of time everyday breastfeeding, I usually "pin" while nursing! I have been pinning so many great things lately, but haven't had a whole lot of time to actually try any of it. So today was designated as a Pinterest Project day.

Of course after very little sleep, I got a late start and decided to do a quick shopping trip before starting any projects.  Headed out with my baby boy, while baby girl went grocery shopping with Daddy.  

First stop...Marshalls! Pretty uneventful trip, other than my baby screaming the whole time and of course parking right next to Kate Gosselin and her twins! Not sure why that was so exciting, but for me it was. I happen to love Kate! :)


Sent a very detailed shopping list with my husband so that I could prep some crock pot meals for dinners the next few days/weeks.  I found the 1 hour, 1 mess = 5 Crock Pot meals on Pinterest. I loved that the recipes had natural ingredients and didn't use a whole lot of canned soups and other packaged stuff.  And they all sounded fabulous! And now we have 5 meals ready to throw in the crock pot! I will admit it took me more than an hour to prep everything.  I didn't have everything real organized when I started and was also not familiar with the recipes, so I had to keep rereading everything to make sure it got into the right bag. I think it will be easier the next time around.  But I now have, Garlic Honey Chicken, Beef Burritos, Chicken Fajitas, Hawaiian Chicken, and Teriyaki Pork chops in the freezer!

While I was prepping these dinners, I decided it was time to clean out our top loading washer.  So using another Pinterest Find, I got to work on that.  Pretty much just use bleach and vinegar. Let the bleach soak in hot water for an hour, then run a cycle.  Then let the vinegar soak for an hour, and run a cycle. Not sure how great it worked, but it definitely needed to be cleaned!

In between all this work, I also found some time for a good laugh! Roller skating with a 3 year old! :)


And we also had fun dancing in a small summer shower that passed through!



And after dinner we made our last Pinterest find, Hawaiian Blizzard. I had some pineapple leftover from the dinner prep, so we created these for dessert:

They were pretty good, but of course I thought they could have been a little sweeter :)

Find me on Pinterest to find these recipes and all the other great ideas I have pinned!

Recipe of the week/month/year: Garlic Lime Fajitas

Ok, let's be honest, I have no idea when I posted my last recipe! But here is a REALLY good one (IMO).  After making these for the first time a few weeks ago, I have been craving them everyday! And they are healthy!

The recipe is a McCormick spice packet recipe, so it is really easy to make! If you don't want to buy the package, here's what you'll need!


Ingredients:
1 1/2 lbs. boneless skinless chicken, cut into thin strips
1 green or red bell pepper ( I use 1/2 of each for more color)
1 medium onion (I used 1/2 of the large onion I had)
8 flour tortillas
1/4 lime juice
1/4 cup orange juice
2 tbsp. olive oil
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. minced garlic
1 tsp. minced onions
3/4 tsp. cumin
3/4 tsp. oregano leaves
1/2 tsp. cilantro leaves
1/2 tsp. black pepper
Directions:
1. Mix juices, oil, all of the spices, and salt in small bowl.  Reserve 1/4 cup of the marinade. Place chicken in large resealable plastic bag.  Add remaining marinade; turn to coat well. Refrigerate 30 minutes or longer for extra flavor.
2. Cook and stir chicken in large heated skillet, 3 minutes or until lightly browned.  Remove from skillet.  Add pepper, onion, and reserved marinade.  Cook and stir 5 minutes or until tender.  Return chicken to skillet until heated through.




3.  Spoon chicken mixture into warmed tortillas.  Serve with assorted toppings if desired. We only used some shredded mozzarella, but cheddar would probably work great too!




These turn out amazing, at least we think so! And we have been using the leftovers to make quesadillas the next day!
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Playdoh Letter Tracing

We've been looking for some new activities to do on these hot summer days, so where better to look than Pinterest!
We found this fun/educational activity the other day and thought we'd try it out!




All you need is playdoh and some straws cut into approximately 1 inch pieces. Use your finger or some other tool to draw a letter in the playdoh and let your little one "trace" it by sticking the straws along the line.
****note: small playdoh pieces get stuck in the bottom of the straws, my idea was to blow them out, which worked fine. Your toddler will probably copy you (mine did) and try the same thing! However, since my daughter is used to sucking on a straw she did that instead which may lead to a not so tasty snack! :) It's non-toxic right???

Think we made it through 4 letters when she decided she wanted to do her own pictures! But it was a quick and easy activity that allowed me a few minutes to feed my baby boy!

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Transitions

When I was pregnant with my daughter, and for almost 2 years after she was born, I had made up my mind that I was only having 1 baby. Ok, so I did that superstitious "ring game" (where you hang a ring above your wrist and it tells you how many kids and what sex) the day before I found out I was pregnant, and it said "one girl". So, there it was written in stone, one and done! After the rough labor and delivery and a rough transition into Mommyhood, I really decided we were only having one! My daughter rarely slept, breastfeeding was difficult, we had just moved and really had no social/ mommy network close by, and my husband was working crazy hours at his new job! It was really a depressing/trying time for us.
However, close to my daughters 2nd birthday, once we had molded her into well-behaved toddler (haha) we started having second thoughts about another baby. We decided to "pull the goalie" and see what happens. And the rest is history! We have been blessed with the ability to get pregnant very easily and we were announcing our pregnancy by my daughters 2nd birthday.
I will be honest, I had terrible feelings about the pregnancy at first, "what have we done, life was finally calming down, finally had some sort of schedule after 2 years of chaos and now we are starting all over again!?!?" I spent 9 ( I guess 10) months bracing myself for another c-section, a 24/7 screaming baby, sore nipples, no sleep, and a cranky, attention deprived toddler.

Needless to say, I have been completely surprised at how easy the transition from Mommy of 1 to Mommy of 2 has gone. Yes, the first 2 weeks or so were a little difficult, but once we got through those it was smooth sailing (knock on wood). My daughter seems to be adjusting well to having her brother around, and this baby actually SLEEPS!!! He rarely cries, only if he gets really hungry, and the breastfeeding has been easier (after a tough patch in the beginning).

I'm pretty sure I barely left the house for the first almost 3 months of my daughter's life, at least not by myself. When my son was 6 weeks old, I was already lugging both kids to my daughters swim lessons EVERY morning, read and pick storytimes, the library, hour drives to the doctor and to visit my mom, and it has actually been pretty easy...well it's exhausting, but both kids have been really great, so far.

I attribute the easy transition mostly to having 2 really great kids that amaze me everyday, but also to a change in my mindset. With my daughter, I would almost panic when days got rough, screaming In the grocery store, poop/spit up flying everywhere in my house, baby not sleeping. Pretty sure I cried almost as much as my daughter sometimes! Now when I'm in those situations, although they aren't easy, I try to stay calm, "laugh it off", and remind myself they grow up to fast that I need to enjoy EVERY minute with them. 3 years ago when my baby pooped up her back and out very crevice of her diaper I could probably be seen frantically trying to change her and get her in the bath. Now the baby poops up his back and around the corner, and my toddler and I have a good laugh about it, clean him up and move on with our day.

It's amazing how things change with your second child! So thankful for such an easy transition so far and my 2 beautiful happy babies!
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