Our Zhu-niverse™ Royal Wedding Play-date Was A Regal Good Time

Yesterday I had a long awaited play date set up for Goddess and her best friend Gabor (not her real name). We have been trying to plan this since September and it finally happened. Goddess was so excited as she headed to school.

After I got home I found a big box waiting for me with a colorful sticker on the side that read

Are you kidding me? I was so excited....after spending hours watching the Royal Wedding coverage with Goddess, she was going to host her very own Royal Wedding complete with a Cepia Zhu Zhu Princess Castle, Zhu Zhu Princess Ballroom and Horse and Cepia Zhu Zhu Princess Carriage.  Today would be the perfect time to do it. I didn't tell her until we were in the car going home, plus we gained an extra two girls to accompany us and play along.

We  got home earlier than them and I headed into my gift supplies and pulled out another box containing a Zhu Zhu (it was a gift for a birthday party coming up, but I could grab another. How could I just give one to Goddess and her friend!?) We gave one of the Zhu Zhu Princess Prince and Princess Hamsters's to a friend who had a birthday last week and the girls sat down to play, even my son joined in with his Kung Zhu Zhu Zhus. It was a great time.

First, they got to put the castle together with minimum help. They played and marveled at the dancing Zhu Zhu's and Clary and I talked about the size. We love that it was compact. This is the perfect size! Not too big, not too small. Big enough for everyone to play at the same time.

I called them over to the table to select the Princess's Dress, Ring, Flowers and Cake from a sheet provided from Zhu Zhu. They were so cute!

Next we sat down with a bunch of crafts to create wedding invitations. We had all the Elementary grades covered and the invitations showed it. Our Kindergartners did a lot of stickers and made hearts. Handsome in first, wrote a demanding "You must come to my party and bring gifts." And our older girls worked hard on creating pretty invitations.

When I brought out the rolls of toilet paper and put them on the table they were a shocked. What the heck? Then I explained that we were making wedding dresses for the Princess! It was fun to watch them work together with the help of my humble assistant Clary who cut my massive packing tape for them. Where the heck is my scotch tape anyway?

Last, they decorated a wedding cake. Ok, due to time constraints I must admit it was an Entemann's Pound Cake that I let them frost and decorate with sprinkles but they didn't care!

Over all, our party was a smashing success and everyone loves Zhu Zhu even more, if that is even possible.



What I Can Tell You: The colors and sounds are sweet. We love the costumes. We love the colors of Princess Snow Cup and Prince Dashington. We love the size of the castle and the girly colors. We love that music plays when they dance. We love the carriage where the Princess can get inside and another Zhu Zhu hooks up like a horse and pulls the carriage. This truly is the perfect Zhu Zhu kit for girls.

We had the best time, please check out video when you have a chance. We all would recommend this to ages 3-10.

GoPicnic Anytime Care Package a 2.06-Pound Box of Complete Yummyness

A great GoPicnic Anytime Care Package, 2.06-Pound Box features some tasty treats. A fun introduction to delicious new foods or a thoughtful way to say you care. Great for college students studying hard, roadtrips & travel, birthdays, back-to-school or just to say 'thinking of you.'

Included:

* Old Wisconsin Beef Sausage Snack Bites, a ready-to-eat, high-protein snack (6 oz) 
Really good, quality pieces of beef. Bite size and yummy. I am a big fan of Beef sticks and loved how this one was low on grease and salt!  I didn't feel like I needed a shower after eating them.

* Geraldine's Traditional Cheese Straws, a southern treat of all-natural baked cheese straws (4.5 oz)
So yummy. These are the only things that are left because there are  lot of them.

* Mrs. May's Cashew Crunch, crunchy bite-size nuggets of cashews and organic cane juice (5 oz)
Love! Love! Love! So good! I have purchased three of these bags over the past week. My familly loves them. I had girlfriends over today and they both loved them and wrote down the name on the bags so they could buy them too! These were my favorite of the whole lot!

* Snack Factory Pretzel Crisps, thin, crunchy pretzel snacks (5 oz)
Yummy! What is not to love about Pretzels?

* Home Free Chocolate Chip Cookies, a crunchy classic chocolate chip cookies made in a dedicated bakery with organic ingredients. (2, 1 oz bags)
So good! Better than most other cookies. My daughter asked to take these to snack the day after we tried them.

* GoPicnic Turkey Stick + Crunch ready-to-eat meal, a little lunchbox to go that slips into your backpack or laptop bag, full of fun & tasty foods like Old Wisconsin Turkey Snack Stick, Barbeque Popchips, Mariani Dried Apricots, Sweet Perry Orchards Baja Blend Fruit & Nut Mix, and Terra Nostra Organic Dark Chocolate (3 oz).  WOWWWWW. This was so good. I would buy these everyday for lunch! Love everything about it. My daughter and I split the Turkey Snack Stick and she asked for another one for the next 5 days. I seriously need to find a box of these. My girl doesn't eat any meat but she loved this! We loved the Barbeque Popchips so much that we purchased three more bags of them this week. My husband eat the last bag last night and said, "I usually don't like baked chips. These are so good!"

All food items are ready-to-eat, no refrigeration or heating required open & enjoy anytime, anywhere; no trans fats, high fructose corn syrup, added MSG, artificial flavors or colors.

What was inside the Box:

Inside the GoPicnic:

What I Can Tell You:
I received this as part of the Amazon Vine Product and was so surprised with the amount of food included and the price. My daughter (my snack lover) and I sampled everything the moment we opened the box and loved it all eating over the next five days.

Really good gift for College Students, Someone moving into a new apartment, long car rides or anytime.

ABC Wednesday - - My Princess

Photo Tales Tuesday

Awesome meme idea. Simply post a picture and tell the story.

I took this picture on Easter of Goddess and her cousin. I love my niece with all my heart and seeing her and my daughter spend time so comfortably together gives me hope for their future. The youngest and oldest of the cousins and they get along like sisters even though they see each other so seldom.

I have no idea what they are talking about but it was obviously fun for both!

By the way, only my daughter would wear a tiara and princess dress to her Abuelas for the day. I feel like I have to constantly say, "I didn't dress her!" Love her style and hope she never changes.

Perceptive Perspective - Signs of Spring

The blossoms around the lake are a sure sign that the cold winter is long past us. It was a rough winter and we are so glad to see it go.

Walking around my town last week, I was overcome with the beauty of Spring. It is as if we went from gray to the vibrant shades of nature overnight. It was a slow progression but when it finally showed up, it was with a vengeance.

Momma Moments Monday - Week 2

babybindle has started a Momma Moments Monday Meme where they are asking for your defining momma moment of the past week/weekend.

For me, my defining moment was taking photos of a friend's daughter for her first Holy Communion and thinking I need to rethink my stance on religion.

Let me backtrack here. I was raised Catholic as was my husband. Over the last 30+ years I have toggled between Catholic and Lutheran depending on the Church in my area but have always remained more spiritual than religious. My children talk about God as if he could walk in our day at anytime. He is mentioned and talked about daily but mostly in a God is our Creator sense and wants us to be good people but I have not touched much on the biblical sense because well, I am unsure how I feel about that and I am still learning too.

My husband and I had a conversation about this along time ago or so I thought but a few weeks ago he asked, "shouldn't Handsome be receiving First Communion soon? Don't we have to get him into CCD?" I remember a few years back having a discussion about CCD with him.  I was taking them to Church on Sunday and he said, "we are both Catholic but we don't practice, let's not force them, we didn't like it, let's let them make their own decision." Sounded good to me, because I agreed with him that they shouldn't be forced.

However, over the last few months I have been talking to them again about Church and how we are SUPPOSED to go. I really need to sit down and make a decision. They would not be attending the Catholic Church in my town (long story) but I do want them to attend a church of some kind. I believe that faith is soooo important and got me through my darkest hours. They need a foundation and seeing how important this was to the kids I saw on Saturday and the families who were soooo excited about their child receiving really made me think I NEED to do this for me them!

Quotography

Ok...you know I love a photo meme. Love a reason to showcase my photos and test myself too. I was so excited to find this meme called Quotography.  Ugghhh why didn't I think of this. I love putting words on my photos.


This meme goes up every Monday and this week the theme is Fun!

My submission is a photo from last week's House Party and a song by Creed because Dancing kids and hanging with friends is so much fun!!!

My Get Together Hosts A Super Sweet Party At My House

Today I hosted a Moderation Nation House Party sponsored by Hershey and MyGetTogether. This couldn't come at a more perfect time. Easter basket leftovers mean a lot of sweets in our homes calling our names and sabotaging our diets and healthy eating plans. Right?

Wrong! Moderation Nation through the Hershey Center for Health and Nutrition is a way to included chocolate as a part of a balanced lifestyle. I have to admit, I am a chocolate junkie but do limit it in my life sometimes denying myself the opportunity to enjoy something I love so much.

What I have learned from Moderation Nation is that I am doing the right thing. Enjoying chocolate without going overboard is the way to do it! If I crave chocolate at night, I might have a cup of hot chocolate. If I need a fix during the day, having a small piece of candy like a Hershey Kiss size is the way to go. BTW...Hersheys provided my newest favorite chocolate for my Get Together called the Hershey's Milk Chocolate Drops! I have been seeing these Drops everywhere and had no idea they were part of the campaign to bring chocolate back into our lives in moderation!

My girlfriends and I sat down to a vat of hot chocolate, a canister of chocolate milk and a plate of melted chocolate heaven in the form of Chocolate Florentines which I found on the Moderation Nation website minus the candied orange which I forgot.

My guests were surprised that what I was serving was made with Hershey. I swore I didn't do anything special to it, they didn't believe me and thought it was a more expensive brand. They loved my hot chocolate and everyone was sent home with a goody bag of Hershey's Chocolate Drops (I must admit, I wanted to keep them all to myself, it was hard to share these).

Most of us moms agreed that there were two main things we got out of this Home Party.

1) Chocolate doesn't have to be a sin. There is no reason to feel guilty over a piece of chocolate. Incorporate it back into your life. Savor and enjoy, but do it in moderation. This isn't rocket science people. We all know everything should be eaten in moderation it is stopping that is the hard part which is why so many of us, do away with it completely. One mom said that she doesn't eat it because she knows if she starts, she won't stop. So, setting your mind to "one piece" may take time but moderation is key to not going overboard when you finally have the opportunity for some chocolate. When we remove it totally, we make chocolate the problem and really, we are the problem!

2) Exercise. This was a big part of our discussion. We were broken down the middle with 5 who exercise daily and 5 who do nothing at all. Well, there was 2 who do nothing and 3 who do it in moderation but for the sake of this post not running longer, lets break it in half.  Exercise is key for many things. Feeling good about yourself. Feeling strong. Losing weight. Maintaining good health. We know this but sometimes some of us, find it hard to find the time.

My girlfriends loved learning the Batuka Dance from a dance video. They all are interested and hope something opens close to us. I have video of this but was told there would be a bounty taken out on my head if I posted. hahaha...love my friends and their honesty.


One of the things we learned is that you don't need to schedule exercise, just build it into your day. 30 minutes of active movement is really all you need! So whether this is walking around the block at a quick pace with your family, shopping, dancing. getting on a treadmill or whatever else you love. Make it count!

This was a fun get together. Maybe it was the company (I love my friends), but I truly think, you can't have a bad time when chocolate is involved.

Blue Monday - Today The Flags Are Flying

Today being what it is...I found it necessary to post a picture of The American Flag! While I have mixed feelings about "celebrating" someone's death, I pray many will find some peace and closure today. May we rise above the political madness, hatred and ignorance if only for one day to live together with our brothers and sisters as one nation under God!

I took this picture on Friday for our town's Arbor Day celebration, you can never go wrong with a photo of your countries flag!

Finally Calling Myself A Photographer!!

For the past 10 years people have asked me if I am a photographer. I never know how to answer, I mean I have a camera. I snap away like crazy. I have been paid to take photos for a wedding. Photos has been published in a book and in the newspaper. I took photos for the Senior Prom last year. Have had 3 photos appear in the local school newsletter.  Did a photo shoot for Babybindle and recently the school has been calling me requesting photos for the newsletter.  However, I usually say, "no, I am an amateur, who loves taking photos.

Yesterday, I decided that I am a photographer. My husband has been saying this for over 15 years. A professional Photographer told me this last year when he came to take photos for the Avocado pizza and spent two hours with me discussing my pictures and I am finally ready to accept the title!

My second paid photo shoot was yesterday and the pictures are beautiful! It doesn't hurt when the model was adorable, the family happy and the weather accommodating either.

Self Portrait Sunday - May 1, 2011 & Sunday Shadow Shot

I hope to see your smiling face! I have laryngitis and another Twilight Interview today. How am I supposed to talk? Grrr....Oh well, have a marvelous day.

Stop by and say hello, link up so I can come say hello to you.

BossyPants by Tina Fey - Is funny!

What I Can Tell You: I love Tina! I love comedy! I love reading! I love laughing while reading. For me, this book wasn't as funny as I had hoped.

While I appreciated the memior I was surprised when I didn't feel it was candid enough. Maybe that was a conscious effort. There was a trauma as a child that she explains but doesn't elaborate one. Fine! I don't think she needs to give us the details, they are hers but I felt that she was approached to write a book and agreed but didn't really want to. There is humor, jokes, her interpretation on motherhood,womanhood, woman in the work place, and so on but I don't feel I learned anymore about her than what we already know. 

I did love her chapters on photoshots and photoshop. Hysterical!

She is smart and funny, a good writer but as far as memiors go, this just didn't do it for me.  Still a Tina fan and have read way more good reviews for this book, people love it which is why I call myself the Amateur reviewer. What the heck do I know?

Alphabe-Thursday - B

Wow, I can't believe it is Thursday already. This week flew by. Here is my submission for almighty B.

My daughter 2 days ago, before allergies have taken over her eyes. At the moment, she does not look like this. Her eyes are swollen and the whites of her eyes are red!

This years Easter Baskets. I couldn't get my daughter to sit still for a second and this was before the sugar rush!