Shaving Cream Bathtub Paints

We made these super duper, super fun, super easy, and super clean paints today in an attempt to beat the rainy day blues and it worked!  In fact, my 2 1/2 year old spent an hour and a half in the tub painting the tub, the walls, her toys, her body, and then cleaning everything up with washcloths and sponges.  It was the perfect rainy day activity!

You probably won't believe this, but I did not have any shaving cream in the house, only shaving gel which according to every google search I did would not work.  But, desperate times call for desperate measures and I was determined to make it work.  A good stir turned my shaving gel into nice foamy shaving cream in no time.

Here's what you'll need:

• Shaving Cream
• Food Coloring
• Tongue depressors, fingers, or whatever you want to use for painting

Here's what you'll do:

• Stir shaving cream together with a couple of drops of food coloring
• Paint, paint, paint
• Clean up with a wet cloth or sponge
• If you use shaving gel instead of cream just give it a good stir first to get it foamy.  Mine even had a blue tint and it still mixed up nicely with the food coloring.

So easy, so fun, and no stains on my tub or child!

I found my inspiration for this project here.

Milk Jug Bird Feeders

Daddy gets all the credit for this recent outdoor project... I just provided some art supplies and took some pictures!

This was an easy and fun craft that was easy to put together with things we had around the house.

If you don't have a milk jug and need one, let me know!  With as much milk as we go through we could make one of these every few days and feed all the birds in the world right in our own backyard!





Here's what you'll need:

• empty, rinsed out, milk jug
• string for hanging
• scissors or sharp tool for cutting holes
• markers (these BIC Mark-It™ Permanent Markers I got free from smiley360 were perfect!)
• whatever decorations you have and want to use
• 2 sticks
• birdseed

Here's what you'll do:
grown up jobs:

• cut 2 small holes at the top of the jug for hanging
• cut 4 small holes, one in each of the jug sides, to insert sticks for perches
• cut holes in sides, large enough for birds to come in for a snack

kid jobs:

• decorate, decorate, decorate 

together jobs:

• insert sticks into holes
• attach string for hanging
• fill with birdseed
• hang from a tree (we used a broken hanger)

I may have missed some steps to this since I wasn't the one to do the project but just follow the pictures and you'll be fine!


The birds (and squirrels...) love this feeder and we love watching them!  My wakeup call the day after this project was a 2 1/2 year old running into my bedroom at 6:00 AM to inform me that there were birds at her new bird feeder (which hangs on a tree branch right outside her window).

Free fruit for kids at Shaw's

We are big fans of the Shaw's Healthy Eaters program!  I think if my 2 1/2 year old could type, she would probably write up this blog post herself.  Every time we visit Shaw's she is able to pick a banana or apple for herself and pay for it (get it for free) with this coupon.  Not only does this reinforce her love of fresh fruit but also gives her something to look forward to on every shopping trip.  And yes, I am proud, when she asks if she can pay for her own food with a coupon!  If you haven't picked up one of these cards from your store, you should!

Also thanks to Shaws in Burlington, MA for always having stickers at checkout!  My daughter has started asking at the register (loud enough for us all to hear), "Mommy, do you think they have any stickers here?"  She says she is "too nervous" to ask directly, but we appreciate the sweet generosity just the same!

Shredded BBQ Chicken in the Crock Pot

I typically use my crock pot more in the fall and winter than in the spring or summer but honestly, on a beautiful day, who wants to be inside cooking when they could be outside playing?  Yesterday I threw together a super easy crock pot dinner definitely suitable for warmer weather.  I got my inspiration here but was a little lazy and didn't add the extras... it still turned out delicious!

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 - 2 pounds frozen boneless chicken breasts (If yours are thawed, just decrease the cooking time, similar to the original recipe found here.  I used 1.8 pounds frozen.)
• 1 bottle barbecue sauce (I used 18 oz Bull's-Eye Original)
• 1 onion sliced
• salt 
• pepper
• 2 tablespoons chicken/turkey broth (I used two frozen cubes, see below)
• 2 tablespoons corn starch

Directions:

• Place sliced onions in bottom of crock pot
• Place frozen chicken on top
• Sprinkle with salt and pepper
• Cover with barbecue sauce
• Cook on low for 7-8 hours (chicken should cook to 170 degrees)
• Remove chicken from crock pot
• Mix 2 tbsp chicken broth with 2 tbsp corn starch until dissolved
• Add to crock pot, stir, and heat on high for 10 minutes to thicken up the sauce
• Shred chicken with fork, stir it back into crock pot and continue cooking on low for 45 minutes
• We served ours on buns with coleslaw on top and potato salad on the side!

A couple of other things to note:  

• There are lots of recipes out there for homemade barbecue sauces you could use for this but I went the easy route and just dumped in what we had.  I'm not sure it matters a whole lot but I can definitely tell you from experience that KC Masterpiece does NOT cook up well in a crock pot.  The Bull's-Eye tasted just fine.
• I keep frozen cubes of turkey broth in the freezer and used two in this recipe.  The next time you cook up a chicken or turkey, boil the carcass and save the broth!  You can freeze it in ice cube trays and store the frozen cubes in a zip lock bag in your freezer.  This is a huge time and money saver!  I still have tons left over from our Thanksgiving turkey dinner.

BBQ Pork Burgers

I opened the freezer yesterday looking for something to make for dinner and realized that we have an overabundance of ground pork!  Ground pork always seems to be marked down at our local grocery store so we often pick up a pack or two, which is great, however we don't use it often because I really don't know what to do with it!  We've used it in chili, we've made meatballs, but other than that I've been at a loss.

I did some internet searching yesterday and found a Barbecue Pork Burger recipe from Martha Stewart that I was interested in trying.  I had some potatoes to use up for a potato salad and some cole slaw mix to use as well so a cookout type meal sounded perfect.  I was a little bit anxious about using pork in a burger though... I knew it wouldn't taste like the real thing (beef burgers) and didn't really know if we would like it or not but with so much pork to play around with I figured it was worth a try.

We were not disappointed!  In fact, I will add this recipe to my rotation and make it again, even if I have ground beef in the house!  These were so flavorful, moist, and delicious.  We served them on wheat bread.  I covered mine with cole slaw and my husband covered his in barbecue sauce.  We had potato salad and cole slaw on the side.  It was a quick, easy, yummy dinner, and perfect for warm weather!

I used the George Foreman grill because I am totally not brave enough to use a real grill.  That is definitely my husband's job!  But you could cook yours either way.

You can view the original recipe here.
Here's what I did...

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 pounds ground pork (I think mine was just a little over a pound but close enough)
• 1 small onion, minced
• 1/4 cup barbecue sauce
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper

Directions:

• Heat George Foreman Grill (I sprayed it with cooking spray first)
• Gently mix all ingredients in a bowl to combine (Martha suggests you don't overwork meat or it will make the burgers too dense) (I used my hands)
• Form meat into 4 equal sized patties, 4 inches in diameter and 1 inch thick
• Grill for a few minutes on each side until cooked through (my meat thermometer says pork needs to be 160 degrees for medium and 170 degrees for well done)
• Serve 'em up as you like!  

Let me know what you think!

Money-Making Shopping (and/or Watching TV) Apps!

Whether you're a couponer or not, you still shop.  Whether shopping for groceries, clothes, books, or whatever, you're spending money.  Wouldn't it be nice to make a little money in the process?  Even if you don't feel like you have the time to clip coupons to save the money in advance, you can still get a little back in the end... very easily!  Basically, these apps are offering you FREE MONEY.  That's not something you want to pass up.

Here are some of my favorite websites/apps for making a little money while you spend.

Endorse

This is my absolute favorite money making app right now.  Over the course of the last several weeks I've gotten close to $15 back from purchases I've made.  I've gotten 100% back on coffee, 50% back on pull-ups, 10% back on any brand crackers, 10% back on any brand ice cream.  All I had to do was make the purchases, upload pictures of my receipts, wait a couple of days for them to process, and pick my payout method.  You can get paid via paypal or check.  You also get points for every receipt you upload, even if it's not one you get money for and those points can be redeemed for charitable donations.  They post new offers weekly (on Thursdays) and not everyone gets the same thing.  They sometimes offer you a higher percentage back on offers that you are willing to share with your friends on facebook.  For instance, if you go to my facebook page today, you'll see that today I shared an offer for 100% back on any brand coffee, up to $3 (weirdly, the picture is of a cat).  You can claim that and it will get added to your account.  100% back!  See what I mean by free money?!  And free coffee?!  You also get bonuses for referring your friends to Endorse.  So if you sign up through my link, I get credit, and if your friends sign up through your link you get credit!  You can sign up for Endorse here.  If you feel totally overwhelmed with the options out there and want to pick one to start, I would choose Endorse.

Ibotta
With Ibotta, there are little tasks you complete in order to get money back for purchasing items.  For instance you might earn 25 cents for watching a little video, another 25 cents for taking a poll, and another 25 cents for sharing the offer on facebook.  After you purchase the item you'll upload a picture of your receipt and scan the product's barcode to confirm your purchase.  You can get your payouts via paypal or school donation.  Like Endorse, one of the payout options is paypal but you have to have a balance of $5 to cash out with paypal whereas Endorse does not have a minimum cash out balance.  Also, similarly to Endorse, they offer referral bonuses.  You can sign up for Ibotta here.

Savingstar
I've gotten some really great payouts from Savingstar.  You have to accrue $5 in your account before you get paid out but some of the offers give you $5 (for instance if you spend $20 on french fries you get $5 back) so it can add up quickly.  With this program, you just register all of your store cards and when you make the purchase in the store, using your card, it automatically registers in the Savingstar system.  No receipts to upload!  I typically activate ever offer they have just in case I end up buying something unexpectedly.  You can sign up for Savingstar here.

Shopkick
Sadly I always forget to use this app!  With this one you just check in when you're actually at a specific store and you earn "kicks" for shopping, scanning items, making purchases, etc.  You also may get offered special discounts or coupons while you're actually in the store.  You can redeem your "kicks" for giftcards and that sort of thing.  You can sign up for Shopkick here.

Now, if you really don't shop, you can also just stay home and earn rewards for watching TV... NO JOKE!  Check out the Viggle app here.  I'm a big fan of this one as well!

Also, keep in mind that many stores have rewards cards that often offer you special discounts and sometimes even coupons you can load to your card from their website.  All you do is scan your card at the store and your coupons come right off your order!  Look closely at what your stores have to offer!

And if you're making online purchases, of course, always use Ebates.  I have a blog post on that here.

Boston Strong (at Shaws)

This past week was a difficult one.  I'm sure you can imagine the smiles that came to our faces when we walked into our local grocery store and found the store director up on a ladder hanging a huge American flag in the entry way with the help of two store employees!

Mike Garbino, Wayne Bryant (store director), Dwight Ramsdell

Thanks Shaws in Burlington, MA for helping us stay BOSTON STRONG!

This is my absolute favorite store to shop at.  The employees go above and beyond every single day.  They are cheerful, helpful, and overall just great.  They deserved a shout out anyway, but this was the icing on the cake.  If you are local and don't already shop at Shaws in Burlington, you should start!