Giving back at the Holidays!

I just found out that Twittermoms and Robeez is involved in a blog event to give back for the holidays!   Guess what Robeez   is up to?  For every pair of Robeez Soft Sole purchases, stride rite will donate that pair to K.I.D.S (Kids In Distressed Situations), through December 23rd.  I would love to get a pair of these shoes for Lucy.  She is the cutest baby and will need these shoes before you know it!

I love these Robeez soft sole Paisley T-straps in fuchia!  They will add a little prep to her step. Lucy can study her ABC's and 123's at the playground or the park in this easy-on, stay-on paisley t-strap.

As for my family we give back to our Church Family by hosting a huge Open House!  My husband is the Pastor and this is our 4th Christmas here and our 3rd year.  We moved here right before Christmas.  We had closed on our home so we got to sleep there with air beds! It was a lot of fun!  Members of our Church brought over food, frying pan and utensils, salt & pepper,etc whatever they thought that we could use for a few days until we moved in all our belongings.  Their love and generosity has continued year after year.  So our Open House is a way that we can give back to them and say THANKS for all that you do!

As part of the Open House we are also going Christmas Caroling to the local nursing homes and stopping at homes of people from our church who can't get out and join us.

As a family and as a church family we are involved in Project Weekend Warrior.  Each week we bag up food for needy school children to take home to eat over the weekend.   During their Christmas break we will be sending home $20 McDonald gift cards and extra food and water to help them get through their break.  It is so sad to think that there are kids that don't get much food on the weekends or during the Holidays.  We try and help.

Our family and church family also volunteer and donate food to the local Food Pantry.  We were able to give them money to help purchase chickens for the holidays.  A fun treat we are doing is putting together personal care items for those who visit the pantry.  They will be little holiday bags of shampoo, soap, shavers, denture cleaner, feminine hygiene products, etc.  These are items that are not available for them at the Pantry. If I happen to win the grand prize I will be donating the shoes to the Food Pantry for those with little ones.  They will be overwhelmed to receive such a high quality and very warm product for their little ones this winter.

Thanks to all who go the extra mile and do something special during this time of the year.  What do you do for the Holidays to help others?

Take a few minutes and visit Twittermoms to enter in this blogging contest! K.I.D.S brings hope and self-esteem to children in need and their families by providing new clothes, shoes, toys, furniture, books and juvenile products donated by leading manufacturers and retailers. The donations move through their network of community social service agencies in the U.S. and abroad to reach children who are ill, living in poverty, or are the victims of natural disasters.

About The Stride Rite Children’s Group, LLC. and Collective Brands, Inc.

Stride Rite Children's Group, part of the Stride Rite unit of Collective Brands, Inc., markets the leading brand of premium children's footwear in the United States under such brands as Stride Rite®, Saucony® Kids, Sperry Top-Sider® Kids, Keds® Kids, Robeez® and among others. For 90 years, the company’s passion for excellence in design has been focused on ensuring the proper development of children’s feet with a commitment to innovation, research and technology.

Overcome Supermarket Roadblocks for Healthly Weight Loss

Thanks to Anna at FSB Associates for the review article.

Overcome Supermarket Roadblocks
by Frederic Vagnini, M.D., FACS, and Lawrence D. Chilnick,
Authors of The Weight Loss Plan for Beating Diabetes: The 5-Step Program That Removes Metabolic Roadblocks, Sheds Pounds Safely, and Reverses Prediabetes and Diabetes

Shopping Defensively

Here are some specific hints for defensive shopping:

• Prepare ahead. If there's one rule to follow, this is it: Don't to go to the supermarket "on the fly." We've all run out for a few things and ended up buying twice as much as we needed. Often, something in the store tempts us to do just that. For example, how many supermarkets position the bakery right where you walk in, with the wonderful smell of newly baked bread or cakes perfuming the air? It's not an accident.
• Consult your cookbooks and create a weekly menu. Write down all of the ingredients you need for it.
• Know what you are going to make, and make sure that most of what you buy fits into your overall meal plan.
• Check the fridge and pantry so you know what you don't  need to buy.
• Shop weekly. Shopping too often or stretching your shopping trips to every two weeks will make sticking to your meal plan more difficult.
• Learn the store layout. The fewer tempting products you see and the less time you spend browsing, the easier it will be to avoid buying the wrong foods. The healthiest fresh foods are in areas against the store walls. Don't spend time in the central aisles with things you don't need.
• Look up and down. The most attractively packaged food is on shelves at eye level.
• Stay away from the areas where store employees are offering free samples of high-carb and fatty foods.
• Eat before you shop. A hungry shopper buys more food and makes worse food choices, plus with diabetes, you need to eat at specific times and in amounts that ensure stable blood sugar.
• Shop alone and without the kids. Although research claims that men are more likely to stick to their list only, the levels of obesity in both genders suggests otherwise. Going to the supermarket should be a directed, time-limited event. You are there to buy certain things you need; you don't have to review every single one of the store's offerings. If possible, shop for food when the kids are in school because they are special targets for marketers.
• Make healthy choices. This doesn't only mean buying fresh vegetables from local farms or good produce in the supermarket. A healthy choice is a meal you make at home -- not take-out or prepared foods. Over the past decade, sales of prepared foods at the deli counters and throughout the store have risen steadily. Americans now spend over $15 billion per year on prepared foods in supermarkets and in shopping mall food courts.

While sales of starchy, fat-dripping fast foods are dropping, prepared take-out foods aren't much better. The choices are often "family friendly": fried chicken, chicken nuggets, chicken wings, baked potatoes, egg rolls, tacos, and creamy "comfort food" soups. Did you know that much of the prepared supermarket food is made by the same giant food companies that make the fast foods? If you buy prepared foods, avoid those with heavy mayonnaise or breading and high calories. Dodge items featuring rice or mashed potatoes, too.

Some experts suggest you take a close look at how much of your diet comes from the prepared choices. If prepared food makes up more than half of your diet, you have a problem. While one solution would be to learn to cook more or better, some people simply don't like to cook or have too little time to make meals at home. But this isn't an insurmountable problem.

Making the Supermarket Your Support System

Doing your own cooking will help you control what you eat, control your glucose, and lose weight. You will still go to the supermarket, but buying fresh vegetables in season, certain fruits, and good protein sources such as fish, chicken, turkey, and other lean meats will make your diet more interesting and flavorful. You might even discover that cooking can be fun, and you can make it a group activity. As you lose weight, you will feel better physically and mentally because the food you eat will be better for you. Your body will thank you.

Another good tip is to ask questions at the market. You'd be surprised how much help the people behind the counters can be, and not only at high-end supermarkets.

The desire for certain foods has been studied and reported on over the years. It's often been noted that people fantasize more about food than any other pleasure, including sex. After all, food gave us our first pleasure as children, and eating habits last a lifetime. Given the level of obesity in the country, is it any surprise that many adolescents who do their "hunting" in front of the computer or video game are following in their parents' footsteps?

The above is an excerpt from the book The Weight Loss Plan for Beating Diabetes: The 5-Step Program That Removes Metabolic Roadblocks, Sheds Pounds Safely, and Reverses Prediabetes and Diabetes by Frederic Vagnini, M.D., FACS, and Lawrence D. Chilnick. The above excerpt is a digitally scanned reproduction of text from print. Although this excerpt has been proofread, occasional errors may appear due to the scanning process. Please refer to the finished book for accuracy.

Copyright © 2009 Frederic Vagnini, M.D., FACS, and Lawrence D. Chilnick, authors of The Weight Loss Plan for Beating Diabetes: The 5-Step Program That Removes Metabolic Roadblocks, Sheds Pounds Safely, and Reverses Prediabetes and Diabetes

Author Bios

Frederic J. Vagnini, M.D., FACS, coauthor of The Weight Loss Plan for Beating Diabetes: The 5-Step Program That Removes Metabolic Roadblocks, Sheds Pounds Safely, and Reverses Prediabetes and Diabetes, is a board-certified cardiovascular surgeon whose understanding of the ravages of cardiovascular diseases is grounded in twenty years as a cardiac surgeon. He hosts a popular call-in radio show and has published several books, including The Carbohydrate Addict's Healthy Heart Program, a New York Times bestseller.

Lawrence D. Chilnick, coauthor of The Weight Loss Plan for Beating Diabetes: The 5-Step Program That Removes Metabolic Roadblocks, Sheds Pounds Safely, and Reverses Prediabetes and Diabetes, is the authors and creator of the New York Times bestseller The Pill Book, which has sold 17 million copies and is still in print after more than two decades. He is a publishing executive, editor, teacher, journalist, broadcaster, and author of several popular health reference books, electronic products, audiotapes, and videos.

For more information please visit www.amazon.com.

Creamy Goat Cheese Balls

These cheese balls are so yummy and are the perfect holiday appetizer! They are also very festive in color!  I made them into 4 large balls but you could make them into smaller size balls.  This was a big hit at my last Christmas open house. What appetizers do you make for the holidays?

Click to enter the Holiday Recipe Exchange and be entered to win a 700 recipe cookbook!(ended)

Creamy Goat Cheese Balls

Ingredients

8 oz cream cheese, softened
6 oz semi soft goat cheese (chevre or crumbled feta cheese)
24 pickled, finely chopped jalapeno pepper slices or small, chopped pimiento stuffed green olives, well drained (I do both)
1/2 c. dried red sweet pepper, finely chopped (or sweet paprika)
1/2 c. snipped, finely chopped fresh cilantro(or chopped dry cilantro)
1/2 c dry dill (or fresh finely shopped)
1/3 c. chopped toasted pumpkin seeds (out of shell) or dry onion flakes

Directions

In a medium bowl, stir together the cheeses until smooth.  Cover and chill for 1 hr.  For the small balls use a rounded tablespoon of the cheese form it around a chopped pepper or olives. If you are going to make the 4 large balls then just divide the dough into 4's. (Note the cheese mixture will be sticky. You can wear kitchen gloves)  Keep doing this until I've used up all the cheese and peppers/olives.  Place on shallow pan, cover and chill for 1 hr.  Makes up to 24 small cheese balls or 4 large.

*This last part if the fun and creative part.  To make them look festive you have the green of the herbs and the red of the pepper flakes or paprika.   Set up each spice in a bowl.  You will roll one ball in a spice.  Have fun with it and make them festive!

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Baked Chocolate Covered Cherries

These cookies are linked up to, The Farm Chick,  Serena's Cookie Exchange!  

Check out Thrify & Chic Mom! She also has a cookie exchange and a cookbook giveaway!


These little cookies are always made in December for our Christmas Open House.  They are a lot of work and I decided this year that I would not be making them.  I mentioned this to my youngest daughter and she was disappointed!  She said that I had to make them because they are really good and they are a part of our tradition.  She helped make them last year so she will be the one in charge of these!
Join in my Holiday Recipe Exchange! Link up a recipe from your blog or post a recipe in the comments!

You could win a 700 recipe cookbook for your participation!

Click to join in the fun Holiday Recipe Exchange & Cookbook Giveaway

Baked Chocolate Covered Cherries
1 1/2 c. flour
1/2 c. cocoa
1/4 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 c. margarine, softened (sorry folks but I tried butter and margarine works best)
1 c. sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
16oz jar Maraschino cherries with stems on (need about 30 cherries separate juice from cherries)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  In large bowl, stir together flour, cocoa, salt, b.powder & b. soda.  Separately, beat together margarine & sugar until fluffy.  Add egg & vanilla.  Gradually add dry ingredients & beat until well blended.  Shape dough into 1-2 inch balls and place on ungreased cookie sheet.  Press thumb into center and put in a cherry.  Cover back up with the dough.  Bake 10-12 minutes and let cool completely.  While baking make frosting.

Frosting (optional)

6 oz pkg. semisweet chocolate pieces
1/2 c. sweetened condensed milk
Drained cherry juice

In a small saucepan, combine chocolate and sweetened condensed milk. Heat until chocolate melts.  Stir in 4 tsp. of reserved cherry juice.  Once the cookies come out of the oven, spoon about 1/2-1 tsp over each cherry.

These are very yummy! They just take time to make.

Fun with the Ultra FLIP Video Camera

We are flipping out over our new Ultra Flip Video Camera! (Click camera to check it out on Amazon) This will be great for our homeschool!

This little video camera is so easy to use! Take the video, plug into computer and upload to You Tube! It is preloaded with its own software. It was just that easy! It also holds 2 hours of video! It worked on both Windows and Linux. Enjoy the short video! Can't wait to do more with this!

5 Tips and Tricks to Get the Kids to Bed!

Parents always want to know what works for you!  They want to know how to get the kids to eat veggies, how to potty train, how to read, etc.  I think one big how to is getting kids to bed and having them stay in bed.

(found the image on google images with no link)

5 Tips and Tricks to Get the Kids to Bed!

1) It is so important to have a set bed time.  This time needs to be made known to everyone involved.  From parents, grandparents, babysitters and the child.  The bed time is the goal.  Without it you will have problems.

2) Set a bed time routine.  For us, little ones need to be in bed 1/2 hour before bedtime.  Once in bed they have that time to get comfy, read, listen to music, talk, play with toys in bed,etc.  This is wind down time.  It gets them comfortable in their own bed.  With our teens they just need to be in their room 1 hour before their set bed time.

3) Read before bed is another one of our tips that really works.   Pick that time to read to your child.  Let them pick the book.  When they were little and even today, my husband will take them to a bookstore and let them pick out what they want to read together.  This is a great way to get through a large book.  Kids love to be read to.

4) Make sure they are sleeping in a bed they like.  Toddlers can pick out their own bedding.  Let them be happy.  They can have a special blanket, pillow or even stuffed animal.  We've often called it a "sleep buddy".  So if they have to sleep away from from they can bring a sleep buddy to help them fall asleep elsewhere.

5) No food or drinks 1 hour before bedtime.  This is just something we do without making an issue of it.  It really helps cut down on bathroom trips once in bed.

No matter what you do just be consistent!  

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Tasty Giveaway with Real Asian Made Simple

I bring to you a TASTY GIVEAWAY!

My family loves Thai food!  We love it so much that I never cook it! Isn't that a shame? I pretty much cook anything they ask of me! My kitchen is known as Susie's Cafe yet I do not offer Thai food. 

When we get a taste for Thai we head to a larger town near us and eat at this great little restaurant called Thai Taste! The food is so yummy!

My friend, Carolyn, is hosting a Real Asian Made Simple giveaway on her blog! The Thai photos are from her blog. Click on them to go to the giveaway. IF I win I WILL cook Thai for my family!  Fingers crossed here!  Go enter the giveaway! 5 people will win!  Now that is a Tasty Giveaway!