With 90 degree weather and a bazillion percent humidity, a cool summer treat is definitely needed! And homemade frozen popsicles are always a hit. Especially when they look like these ;c) OurBestBites.com has a selection cool treats for the kids and those young at heart!

Ice Cream with one ingredient? Yep! Bananas. My kids are already addicted to them so this should be interesting once I pull them from my freezer to blend up & spoon out as “ice cream”. So simple, easy on the wallet and healthy! Head on over to The Kitchn for full instructions.

This one is too cool to pass up (even though it won’t cure the humidity) and it can be loved throughout the year. Today I came across Make It and Love It blog. I’m really interested in the Make-A-Cake series. It has everything from cake baking tips, prepping the cake for decorating, fondant & gum paste and all those little nifty tips for creating a beauty for holidays (including step by step tutorial on how to make the cake pictured above)! I shall be experimenting on my own now and following the rest of the series to see how my own cake-making skills go.

How many times a week do you ask yourself, What’s For Dinner? How much time a week are you planning out your family’s dinner meals, shopping lists and grocery shopping?

A lot! I know that I was spending more time than I wanted to in planning for our meals – probably just as much time or more as I did in cooking & eating them! Then a few months ago, I came across Menu In A Box. I won a free one year membership to the site by simply entering a giveaway on the blog. I was thrilled at the thought of it and trust me, it’s came in handy!

My favorite part of the membership was actually the free gift that came along with it, an e-book. Menu In a Box 200 Weeknight Dinners Budget & Family Friendly includes 40 weeks of meals along with shopping lists. All organized and ready to print for shopping and preparing your meals! You could add one night of leftovers and one night as a take-out or go out to eat and print a page from this ebook and you have an entire week planned in seconds!

Example of How to use 200 Weeknight Meals

If your family is easy to please in the meal department, you could print the lists off and use them in the order that they are. Everything, and I do mean everything, sounds great! I, however, have one child that eats everything in sight and one that is allergic to eggs as well as has some sensory issues (picky about way certain foods feel and/or look in his hands and/or mouth). While he seems to be doing a bit better lately with those sensory issues, I do usually have to make sure I have something else on hand that is most likely microwavable or quick to throw together like a sandwich. As there are 40 weeks to choose from, I have been known to skip through a few of them and print out ones in which everyone in the household is more likely to eat all or close to all the meals from that week. And others I have used a blank printable meal planner of my own and created the shopping list for a few of the meals from the e-book and a few of my own recipes. Since my children are toddler/preschool age, I’m sure they will out grow the picky stage and I’ll have more opportunity to use each and every one of the recipes!

Advantages of 200 Weeknight Dinners

Now here’s your chance to get a copy!

3 of my lucky readers will win a copy of 200 Weeknight Dinners!

Contest starts today May 20 and ends May 25 at 11PM EST

Winners will be announced on May 26th

You may visit Easy, Quick Dinners where you can find more information about this e-book.  

To enter this giveaway, Leave a comment below and tell us how this could help your household’s weeknight meal planning. For an extra entry (must have done the above first), Follow myself @LifeAsMama and Ruthie of Menu In A Box at @MenuInABox .  Tweet out the following, then comment below that you did so.

Win a Free E-Book, @MenuInABox’s 200 Weeknight Dinners | Enter: http://bit.ly/7JYiOT | via @LifeAsMama #MealPlanner #Giveaway

It’s that simple!

I recently posted about the Alphabet Animal Special they had over at Little Nummies.  I had an idea to use it as a homeschooling tool since they posted links to free printables, facts and videos relating to the animal.

I was searching today for cupcake ideas for my daughter’s birthday.  I came across Family Magazine’s Cupcake Alphabet.  These could be used to go along with the letter used with the Alphabet Animal Special.  I will share my full plan for my 3 year old son really soon so that anyone interested could use it as well.

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I came across this really cute website called Little Nummies recently.  Having one picky eater on my hands, I understand how the creator of the site got started.  They recently had an Animal Special that I thought would be great to share with others.

This Alphabet Animal Special can be used in many ways:

1. Reference of ideas for daily lunches or snacks to change things up or get your toddler interested in trying to new foods (or just to get them to eat period!)

2. If you are homeschooling and your child is learning the alphabet, you could do the alphabet in order one day at a time.  Have lunch, go over the letter of the day and learn about that particular animal of the day as well.  Lunch, Alphabet and Animal Science – three courses in one!  Couldn’t get much better than that.

You can visit Little Nummies for this Animal special by visiting http://littlenummies.net/?cat=469 or to get other great food ideas visit the homepage at http://littlenummies.net.  For quick reference for myself and to share with others, I have put together a list of the Animals a-z, here.

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1 Safari Sub Sandwich-Small sub roll filled with lowfat meat,cheese, mustard or mayo, lettuce
1 “Tropical” banana
“Quicksand” pudding cup-butterscotch or vanilla lowfat pudding
1 cup “Rain Forest” veggies-broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, or any combination
1/4 cup lowfat dressing for dip
“Kings of the Jungle” animal crackers-8 large, 15 small