Sunshine and Sippy Cups

7 Creative Ways to Get Kids to Eat More Veggies

“No, candy corn is not a vegetable. Potato chips aren’t either.”… Do you have trouble getting your kids to eat veggies? My two year old loves her veggies, all of ’em – but my nephews who live with me definitely do NOT. They are 6 and 9, and very opinionated and a bit stubborn. {A lot like their dad, my younger brother, lol.} So since healthy eating is a bit of a passion of mine – and kids need about 2 1/2 cups of veggies every day – I had to start getting creative to encourage them to try new foods without a fight. Here are my top 7 tips and tricks to easily get your kids to eat more veggies – and if you’ve a tip that works great in your house, be sure to share it in the comments after the post.

[Read more…]

Posted by Meagan Paullin on October 23, 2012 Filed Under: Food | 2 Comments

Coffee Junkies Unite – It’s Party Time

“A morning without coffee is like…. sleep.” – Unknown… Yes, I admit it – I am a coffee junkie. I drink it all day long, year round, and without it, I’m just like a slithering jellyfish – accomplishing nothing, just floating mindlessly through my days. {I ran out of coffee once, so I just gave up on everything.} But WITH coffee, I am an amazing superwoman, able to leap tall laundry piles in a single bound. There used to be a time that I would pick up an iced coffee at the little local coffee place down the road, or grab a Starbucks as we ran errands around town – but that is a big chunk of money that’s wasted each week. {Although, is any money spent on coffee ever really a waste??} Then I was introduced to International Delight Iced Coffee in a carton – the very first prepackaged iced coffee ever that I actually liked. So I switched – I used these cartons to mix up my own coffee drinks at home, and saved over $100 bucks in that first month! Since I’m such a big fan of them, I was excited to put together a great sponsored party to share my faves with my other mom friends, and totally change their lives….

[Read more…]

Posted by Meagan Paullin on October 21, 2012 Filed Under: Food | 2 Comments

Homemade Chocolate & Pumpkin Spice Swirled Fall Dessert Bread

How many times have I told you guys how much I love, love, LOVE the cartons of Iced Coffee from International Delight? Well, let me count the times…. I saved a ton of money when I did a month-long challenge to initially try this stuff out, switching from coffee house drinks to enjoying this amazingly creamy drink at home. {I saved over $100 bucks!} And I’ve showed you how you can use it in recipes like Candy Bar & Cookie Coffee, or Irish Cream Mocha Brownies. And now, I have another sweet idea for using these amazing cartons of coffee for more than energizing my mornings – Homemade Chocolate & Pumpkin Spice Swirled Fall Dessert Bread. SO good!

[Read more…]

Posted by Meagan Paullin on October 21, 2012 Filed Under: Food | 1 Comment

Spooky HERSHEY’S Halloween Spider Cookie Recipe

Witchie, Witchie – Screamie, Screamie – Happy, Happy Halloweenie!… Halloween is one of my holidays of the year. {Christmas and Easter are my other two faves.} There are SO many creative ways to celebrate this time of year – carving pumpkins, decorating the yard for trick or treaters, making costumes, and I love, love, love all of the super fun, spooky kids food and snack ideas. I wanted a few new recipes to make with our extra Halloween candy, and got the inspiration for these Spooky HERSHEY’S Spider Cookies from the Ritzy Halloween Spiders from Sprinkled with Flour, that I found on Pinterest. Check ’em out… [Read more…]

Posted by Meagan Paullin on October 21, 2012 Filed Under: Holidays, Food, Featured Halloween | 5 Comments

Better Than a Wolf Eating Grandma – Lil’ Riding Hood & Wolfie!

Like most other little girls, I loved fairy tales… And, I still do – I am so totally hooked on that new ABC series “Once Upon a Time.” One of the things that I love about it is the way that it’s a fresh look at those fairy tales I loved as a kid – new backstorys, new ways of looking at characters, mixing up the ideas of who’s good and who’s bad. So, when I found a new set of story books from My 1st Story that reinvents the classic stories too – but by making them friendlier for little readers, I was instantly hooked on those too.

I Love Cake!

The original fairy tales are often a little bit scary – big heartless wolves devouring grandma isn’t exactly the kind of thing you want to hear about before mom turns the lights out, and you’re left alone in the dark, right? In our favorite, My1story – I Love Cake! – with Lil’ Riding Hood & Wolfie – the scent that brings the wolf is a fresh baked pie, and the story includes him learning to share. You can get the sweet Lil’ Riding Hood Plush doll too, to read along with you – Check her out on Amazon to see the pics, I’m impressed by how BIG she is! I’ve got this on Abby’s list for Christmas shopping this year…

Jack and the Magic Beans

This one is super cute too – My1story – Jack and the Magic Beans. This is the story about Jack and Beanstalk, again, in a lighter and happier version. And of course, there is also a Beanie Plush character from the story too! We love reading these books before Abby’s naptime – and I’ll definitely be picking some up as gifts for friends too. They’d be a perfect idea for a baby shower gift!

See all of the My First Story products on Amazon!

Posted by Meagan Paullin on October 20, 2012 Filed Under: Fun Stuff | No Comments

Teach Your Kids Kindness During Anti-Bullying Month

October is National Anti-Bullying Month… Did you know that American Justice Department bullying statistics show that one out of every 4 kids will be bullied sometime throughout their adolescence? As someone who was bullied for years and years as a kid, that’s a really sad statistic to read. And, it’s one of those problems that sometimes feels overwhelming – You think, “Well what can I do about it? My kid isn’t a bully…” But bullying isn’t just about the really dramatic, in your face type of meanness that happens. It’s also about the small things – Whispering about a classmates new dress behind her back. Not picking the new kid to play a game at recess, even though he’s sitting alone. Those little acts add up. And with the negativity and nastiness in so much of the media – from trashy reality stars, to the sometimes equally-trashy anchors on cable news shows – it’s more important than ever that we constantly strive to set good examples, and teach our kids compassion and kindness.

Teaching Compassion to your kids [Read more…]

Posted by Meagan Paullin on October 18, 2012 Filed Under: Giving Back | No Comments

Bloggertunities: The Best Opportunities for Women Bloggers 10/18

I know these have been inconsistent again for awhile, and I apologize to those of you who were emailing me saying, “what the heck is up, Meagan?? Where’s the Bloggertunity post today??” The past couple of weeks. It seems like it’s just one crisis after another around here. The latest is that Abby has had more seizures. {You might remember me talking about it a few months ago? She had a seizure that they hoped was maybe a febrile seizure, but it turns out it’s not.} I’ve been so busy traveling to Seattle Children’s Hospital, trying to coordinate appointments between the doctors here, there, and the darn insurance company – Blogging kind of got pushed to the back burner for a bit.

Welcome to another Week of Bloggertunities!

But, hopefully now that all of our appointments are set, and we’re hoping for some kind of answers, I can work a little more consistently. On that note – here’s the newest list of opps and leads. Hope you enjoy – remember to sign up for email updates so you never miss a new post! And here’s my opp that I’m MOST excited about for this week…. [Read more…]

Posted by Meagan Paullin on October 18, 2012 Filed Under: Blogging Resources, Weekly Opp's | 15 Comments