Pillsbury Crescents Offer Simple, Delicious Treats Guaranteed To Please Unexpected Guests! #LMDConnector

Christmas is almost here...less than a month away!  Eeeeek!  Gifts to buy, baking to start, a house to decorate, so much to do for a busy #LMDConnector!  And guaranteed to fall smack dab in the middle of the holiday chaos?  Unexpected guests!  I can easily tidy the house and quickly clean (hidden storage and baby wipes are my go-to for quick cleanups in every room of the house!).  And when it comes to deciding what to serve with beer, wine or tea, my refrigerator and pantry are always prepared!

Quick nacho dips or hummus served with tortillas are perfect for visits from friends.  Visits from family usually means tea and something sweet.  When I'm short on time, I do have to fight the temptation to bake something from scratch, and being prepared helps!  One easy way to be prepared is by having Pillsbury products in the refrigerator.  Using your creativity (or the awesome Life Made Delicious website), you can transform a simple crescent roll into a real treat for guests.

Seriously...the cutest little kitchen helper EVER!

A few months ago, Pillsbury released new Chocolatey Crescents and they've been a huge hit in stores since!  I like to keep a box in my refrigerator for last-minute treats, especially during this time of year.  I bake them as per the instructions on the box, but instead of drizzling the tops with chocolate, I like to dust the tops with icing sugar.  This makes them extra special, and they look really nice when served.  I also like to arrange them in a pretty dish.  A little extra effort really pays off!




Make small figure 8's with the chocolate filling.

Rolled up and ready for the oven.

Warm and fluffy, so good!

I always have a bag of icing sugar in my pantry!  Sprinkle on baked goods using a mini sifter.

Chocolate Crescents dusted with icing sugar.

Place crescents in a pretty dish and serve tea in your best china - this will make any guest feel extra special!



Yum!!!

I also like to keep original Pillsbury Crescents in my refrigerator to make savoury snacks.  I have made the Crescent Wrapped Brie and it is to-die-for!  I love brie, especially wrapped in a flaky crust!  Next on my list are Crescent Bacon-Cheese Tartlets - I think I'll serve them before dinner on Christmas Eve this year.  They would also be perfect for brunch!

Make life easier on yourself by being prepared for unexpected guests during the holiday season.  Keeping a few cans of Pillsbury Crescents in your refrigerator, and the Life Made Delicious website in your Internet Favourites will provide you with quick, easy, scrumptious recipes perfect for a get-together.

I’m part of the Life Made Delicious blogger program and I receive special perks as part of my affiliation with this group. As with every post that I write, the opinions on this blog are my own.

Can't Live Without...Liberté Méditerranée Yogurt

Canada's Food Guide Servings:

1 Milk & Alternatives (3/4 cup yogurt)
 

I have an addiction.  An obsession.  A total fixation.  And I don't see myself getting over it anytime soon.  What is the subject of this fatal attraction, you may ask?  One word - Liberté!  I am a lifelong yogurt lover.  I eat it with granola for breakfast, straight from the snack-sized container at work, topped with fresh berries and drizzled with honey for dessert.  And my boys love the stuff too, happily eating it in place of junky snack and dessert options.  Although I love yogurt any time of day, I am still fairly picky and only eat specific brands.  I was pretty set on one brand for years, until one day I got curious while walking through the dairy section of my local Longo's store.

I have been buying Liberté Organic and Greek Yogurt for years for the boys, adding a squeeze of honey to the plain yogurt for a touch of sweetness.  I've also used it in baking, smoothies and for marinating chicken. And then one day I spotted something that I just had to try - Liberté Méditerranée Coconut Yogurt.  I could hardly wait to get home to try this yogurt.  Coconut is one of my favourite fruits, and my mouth watered the entire drive home.

When I first scooped out the creamy yogurt, I didn't realize that it's fruit-on-the-bottom. I tasted the plain yogurt it and it had a slight coconut flavour, delicious!  And then I found the fruit, small pieces of real coconut in a sweet coconut liquid.  I ate the entire container (500g!!!) in a single night.  I just couldn't stop until it was gone.  I now have to limit my purchase of this yogurt to once every two weeks, otherwise I would be eating it every single day.

After tasting and falling in love with Liberté Méditerranée Coconut Yogurt, I just had to try more flavours.  Next came Liberté Méditerranée Lemon Yogurt, which tastes like a lemon meringue pie with real pieces of lemon.  So refreshing, so darn good!  Liberté Méditerranée Strawberry Yogurt is the most recent one I've tried, and it's strawberries and cream flavour is addictive!  I have yet to try them all, but I will in due time.

If you like coconut, you'll LOVE this yogurt.  There are slivers of real coconut in this yogurt,
so good you'll happily skip dessert for this decadent treat!

This yogurt has real bits of lemon.  It's not too tart, not too sweet, absolutely perfect!  I love to eat it as a snack.
It was refreshing on warm summer days and I also have it in my fridge at work.

 

 

I'm actually not a fan of strawberry yogurt - I have never been.  But I LOVE this yogurt.  It's exactly what you would think strawberries & cream would taste like.  Rich and creamy, it's perfect to add to a morning meal.

Liberté Méditerranée Yogurt is made with both milk and cream - it's not low-fat.  It does not contain gelatine or sugar substitutes (artificial sweeteners).  It is also probiotic, promoting digestive health.  And Liberté is a Canadian company, always a bonus for me!  I highly recommend that you give this yogurt a try, just make sure to practice self-control when indulging!

#CypherKidsClub i3D App & Cards For Kids ~ A Perfect Christmas Gift Idea!

Of all of the gadgets that we have at home, the iPod is one of the favourites of the boys.  They watch movies on long trips to the cottage, and love playing games like Angry Birds and LEGO.  While the apps are fun for the entire family, I rarely find educational apps that actually teach the boys.

With a 7-year old who loves teaching his little bro, and a 3-year old learning about letters and numbers, I was thrilled to learn of the opportunity to test Cypher Kids Club i3D Interactive Cards!  The first thing that I did was check out the Cypher Kids Club website to see what the company was all about.

Cypher Kids Club makes learning come to life!  Children, along with their parents, can Play, Discover and Learn with the free app and 3D flashcards.  The app and cards are compatible with iPads, iPhones and iPods and are available in three categories: Numbers Adventures, Letters Adventures and Wild Animal Adventures.




My local Walmart in Oakville, ON.



I found Cypher i3D Cards in Letters, Numbers and Animals in the
Apple Accessories section of the Electronics Department at Walmart.

Check out my shopping experience at Walmart Canada on my Google+ page!

Here is what the cards and 3D images look like...


Numbers Adventures

• Watch and count along as numbers dance, march and run across the screen
• Helps children to practice counting different objects, learn number words and numerals 1-20, and recognize numerical order

Number Card 7




#7 in action!

Letter Adventures

• Upper and lower-case letters come to life with sounds!
• Helps children to identify upper and lower-case letters, learn the sounds that each letter makes,and recognize letters within words

Letter Card I




Letter I in action!  Check out the hop-scotch :)

Wild Animal Adventures

• A 3D expedition into the animal kingdom, where you can watch animals eat, drink and make sounds in the wild
• Helps children identify different animals, learn the sounds that animals make, and learn about their habitats and characteristics

Animals Tiger Card

 

3D Tiger in action!

On the back of each card is a 3D marker.  The camera on your Apple device (iPod, iPhone or iPad) reads the 3D marker and an interactive 3D world appears on your screen!



The front of the card shows the letter, number or animal.  The back of the card
has a 3D marker that is read by the camera on your Apple device.

The boys had so much fun using the app and cards.  They were fairly easy to use, and I loved that Big-A was able to play with his little brother, helping him and teaching him.  The letters and numbers have adorable songs and music, and you can touch them to make them move.  The animals are awesome, making noises and moving around.  The monkey even swings off a tree, disappearing and then reappearing right before your eyes!


I recorded a video of the boys and I playing with the Letter Adventures cards:

 

And yes, my little guy has a painted thumb - I can't paint my own nails without painting one of his! LOL

After a bit of trial and error, we figured out how to easily get a true 3D picture on the iPod:

I am thankful to have been given the opportunity to test out the Cypher Kids Club app and cards.  My boys have been asking to play with them daily since we first purchased them, and I think that they will help Lil-J to prepare for preschool in the new year.  With Christmas around the corner, these cards would be a perfect addition to any child's Santa list!

Cypher Kids Club cards are available at select Walmart Canada stores.  Check out the cards and information about the app on the Cypher Kids Club website at http://www.cypherkidsclub.com/.  You can also follow Cypher Kids Club and Cypher Entertainment on Twitter and on Facebook.

I am a member of the Collective Bias™ Social Fabric® Community. This content has been compensated

as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias™ and Cypher Kids Club #CBias #SocialFabric.

As with every post that I write, all opinions on this blog are honest and solely my own.

3rd Time's A Charm As A #KinderMOM ~ Introducing Kinder® Canada's 2013 Toy Collection!

 

Yippee!  I'm a #KinderMOM again...for the third time!  I had a blast on the first two campaigns, and am thrilled to be a part of the fun yet again.  And there are certainly no complaints from my boys - they just LOVED Kinder Surprise!  First on the list of Kinder® things to get excited is the new 2013 toy lineup!!!

 

 

 

 

Bouncing Monsters, Flying Jelly, Fuzzy Animals and Merry Twisters (see below) are just some of the toys that Kinder® is offering inside their delicious nut-free chocolate eggs.  And they are as much fun for parents to play with, as they are for kids.

 

As a child, I loved making spiral patterns with my Spirograph toy.  I remember being mesmerized by the different patterns I could make in under a minute.  When Big-A cracked his first Kinder® Egg from the #kinderMOM box, I was thrilled to find this spiral toy!  He quickly got to work making simple spirals and creative pictures using spirals. 

 

 

This toy reminded me of a spiral toy I played with as a child.
Being an artistic family, this has been one of our favourite
Kinder toys so far!

 

Big-A creeated a bird with his first spiral :)

A perfect spiral!  This toy kept Big-A busy for about an hour!

Another fun toy that the boys have found inside a Kinder® Egg is a Merry Twister top.  It's not just any old round top.  They build it themselves, snapping the pieces into place.  Once built, they started spinning and couldn't stop.  On the floor, on the kitchen counter, even on a bar stool, they had a blast with this toy.

My boys LOVE tops and any toy that spins.  They got to build this Merry Twister
themselves, and had a great time spinning it on any surface they could think of!

It took some serious coordination, but we managed to
get a shot of the spinning in action!

 

Make sure to check out Kinder® Canada on Facebook to participate in their My Kinder Moments page. Here, you can place your favourite family photos in a special Kinder frame, saving it in your own photo albums.  You are also entered for monthly draws when you create a Kinder Moment.  Here are a few recent special moments that I've created:

 

The boys posing at the cottage on Thanksgiving weekend :)

My Halloween Joker ready for a spooktacular day at school!

 

I’m part of the Kinder® Mom program and I receive special perks as part of my affiliation with this group. As with every post that I write, the opinions on this blog are my own.”

A Good Ole Belly Laugh

Of all the things I love about my two boys (there really is nothing I don't love about them!), their laughs are at the top of my list.  They both have contageous laughs that exude pure joy and happiness.  And the best part?  They laugh A LOT!

At any time of day, I hear giggles during movies, chuckles during tickle fights, and belly laughs as the boys play and wrestle.  And the laughs don't only happen at home.  Playing silly games like The Silly Songs Car Game is an easy way to make long trips feel short, and keep the kids preoccupied in the car.

One of our favourite family pastimes is to watch America's Funniest Videos, guaranteed to fill the house with lose-your-breath laughter.  We've also started watching the tv show Wipeout with Big-A.  Watching a bunch of fools bounce of balls, get punched in the gut, and slip on muddy surfaces make hubby & I laugh until we're in tears.  And Big-A has the same (warped?) sense of humour.

When the seriousness of life takes over, which for us happens often, find a way to enjoy a good ole belly laugh with your kids by playing silly games, having a tickle-fest or watching a funny tv show.  I don't ever want my children to stop laughing!

The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.” ― E.E. Cummings

This is one of my favourite home videos of the boys, taken 2 1/2 years ago.