Muffin Tin Monday – at Grandma’s house

We were at my mom’s house for lunch, and she knows how important Muffin Tin Monday is to my daughter, so Buela made MTM this week :)

 

Back row: Quesadilla, Angel Food Cake
Front row: Carrot coins, Lunch meat roll-ups, mixed berries for the cake.

She loved the meat roll ups, especially the toothpicks. She wanted to use them as lion fangs after she was done eating :) She did not like the berries at all, more for me!

~S

Menu Plan Monday – August 9th

 
My brain took a vacation last week, so no meal plan. I even forgot to post Tasty Tuesday, whoops!

Here's the plan for this week:
Monday ~ Turkey Lasagna from dad and stepmom for my birthday
Tuesday ~ Hibachi Japanese Steak House for my birthday
Wednesday ~ Gravy, Chicken, and Biscuits
Thursday ~ Homemade Pizza
Friday ~ Beef Tacos from Our Best Bites
Saturday ~ Leftover Buffett
Sunday ~ Homemade Lasagna (I’ll be making a bunch of this because two of my friends had babies today! This is such an easy one to freeze and eat later) 
Come visit me for my Tasty Tuesday linky party for my new obsession, homemade granola bars.
So, what are you having for dinner this week?
Link up at Menu Plan Monday over at I'm an Organizing Junkie or leave me a comment!
~S

Kids Bowl Free!

Get 2 free games of bowling for each of your children every weekday until 9/19/10!

I have been seeing this offer all summer, but every time I saw it, it only said AMF bowling centers, which we don’t have where I live.

Well, I got a coupon for our local bowling alley in the ValPak and it said that the offer was good there too!

Go here to sign up for Chippers Lanes in Fort Collins, Estes Park, or Brighton. Or go here to see if there’s a bowling alley in your area.

So, who wants to go bowling?

~S

Great Giveaways #13

Another week, tons more great giveaways!
Be sure to enter my two giveaways:

• Venom & Song – Ends 8/9
•  $50 CSN Gift Certificate – Ends 8/20

Here’s a few I found around the web this week:

• Silhouette machine from Dollar Store Crafts (Ends 8/9) ~ Similar to a Cricut, only cooler! No cartridges needed, all from your computer.
• Another Silhouette machine! from The Idea Room (Ends 8/7)
• $60 CSN Gift Certificate from A Mommy’s Adventures (Ends 8/16)
• Jumpstart Get Moving Game for Wii from Mama to 3 Blessings (Ends 8/10)

If you’re ever in the mood to enter more giveaways, here’s a few sites that have giveaway linkys every week too:

• Super Saturday Link-up at Mama to 3 Blessings
• Mommy Loves Tuesday Giveaways at Homegrown Families
• Giveaway Directory at Someday Crafts
• Ultimate Giveaway Link-up at Mommy Moment

Good luck!!
~S

Product Review – Melissa & Doug Magnetic Calendar & *$50 GIVEAWAY*

CSN Stores has over 200 online stores where you can find everything from dinnerware to camera accessories to educational resources and toys!
I have had the opportunity to review several products for them, so this is the first of the items that I received.
They have also graciously offered to host a giveaway for a $50 gift certificate to ANYTHING they carry! It seems like there’s a little bit of everything there, so I’m sure you can find something you would love.
I got this Melissa & Doug Magnetic Calendar to use with Kahlen, she loves it! It’s been really helpful to give her a basic understanding of calendars, such as what day is today, what month is it, how long it is until something happens, and so much more! I like all the tiles that came with it and I think that if I really wanted to change some of them it would be easy with a bit of Mod Podge and clip art.
Here’s Kahlen setting it up right after we got it:

I hung it on the wall near our new school area, so we look at it and talk about it when we do school. Unfortunately, it’s in the basement, so July we didn’t do much with it.
Our favorite part is the weather tiles. There’s sunny, cloudy, rainy, windy, and snowy. We both enjoy this part because then there’s something to do everyday.
I think when we start school again in September, this will be extremely useful and I’m very grateful to CSN for providing the opportunity to review such a great product
Products reviewed were provided to me free of charge. No compensation was given in exchange for this review. My opinion is my own and is an honest view of my experience with the product. 

Win it!

You can win this or a plethora of other products of your choice from CSN Stores. Giveaway is for a $50 Gift Certificate and will be emailed to you after the giveaway is closed.
(and yes my friends and family can enter . . . I will use www.random.org to pick the winner . . . and you aren't friends with Mr. Random.  No one is.)
Mandatory: Follow my blog publicly via Google Friend Connect and leave me a comment about anything :) Maybe something that you would get with your gift certificate from CSN Stores or another useful school tool that you’ll be using this year.
Optional Entries (meaning write a new and separate comment for each):

• 
  
  Follow me on Twitter
• 
  
  Tweet about this giveaway. Mention @selabear in the tweet. Leave the link where you tweeted.
• 
  
  Add my button to your blog, and provide a URL. (if you already have it, that counts too!)- 2 entries
• 
  
  Blog about this Giveaway on your blog and provide post URL- 2 entries

This giveaway will close on Friday, August 20th, at midnight MST and I'll announce the winner no later than Saturday evening. Open to US & Canada residents. Good luck!!

~S

Piggy Tales – Changes at home

This is the ninth in a 15-week series that I’m participating in over at Mommy’s Piggy Tales.
This week is when I was 12.
Around this time, some significant changes occurred in my home life. My mom had started seeing another woman, who then left her husband for my mom. She moved in with us, bringing her three kids. So then we were a family of 8; five kids and three adults. Trisha had partial custody of her kids for the next many years, so we tended to do lots of fun things when they were with us (one of those Wednesday after school and every other weekend type arrangements).

Here is all 8 of us: Ashley, Kelby (the only boy), and Firen
Trisha, my mom Willy, and my dad Larry
Me and my sister Robin

Just the kids and of course our dogs (Borzois aka Russian Wolfhounds)

Man, I wish my hair was still that curly!

~S

Piggy Tales – Halloween

This is the eighth in a 15-week series that I’m participating in over at Mommy’s Piggy Tales.
This post is a week late because I just barely survived July let alone was able to blog about anything.
The topic for the week is age 11.
It’s a story about Colorado and something classic to my childhood. If you have spent any Halloweens in Colorado, you know that you plan your costume (or your children’s) to be able to go over a snow suit or be comfortable in 70 degree weather because you just don’t know what it’s going to be like until that day. Another year, there was about 2 feet of snow on the ground, yet my sister and I still dragged my dad out to get our candy. People were dumping their entire stash in our bags since we were just about the only ones out.
But that’s not really where I was going with this post. This year was the year we were Star Trek: The Next Generation characters for Halloween.

From left: Trisha (my mom’s partner), Heather (a neighbor), me, my sister Robin, Chris (Heather’s brother), and my (step)sister Ashley.
As any trekkie will be able to tell you, I was a science officer because of the blue. You can’t really tell in this picture, but I was also dressed as a bajoran science officer. Not that any of that means anything to a non-trekkie, but this is about me, right? :)
We had a blast with our costumes! Looking back, I’m sure glad that I didn’t have to make them, but I did help with as much as I could as an 11-year-old. Trisha made them all. As a mom now, I wonder how long that whole thing took and when I’ll get roped into doing something similar.
We happened to get great weather that year, which was good because these costumes did not lend themselves to additional layers. We also went to a big halloween party that year with live music and door prizes. I remember because we won second place with our matching costumes.
Ah, it brings back memories…
~S