BIG Give Makes Big Strides

November 6th, 2008

Lots of behind the scenes activity is happening with our BIG Give and I just want to thank you all for your support. It is not too late to sign up and be part of this movement of community giving. I am so excited to see our list growing each day and learning more about your own projects.

This week I had a truly great thing happen. Jennifer, from Sisterly Savings, contacted me to see how she could support our BIG Give. She came to me with great enthusiasm to help support us in any way she could and began by finding sponsors for our give to Faith Mission. You can read more about what she is doing and if you leave her a comment, Boston Market has agreed to make a $.10 donation (up to $100) for our cause. This is a great way to help with our give without even having to reach in your pocket to do it.

We are continuing to look for sponsors to help us so please email me at amy@momadvice.com and tell me what you can help with. Remember that with your donation, you will receive a month’s worth of free advertising for the entire month of January! I am putting it all out there- that is 160K hits each month that will see your company and all the great things you are doing.

Here is what else is happening:

Kenmore has agreed to help with our appliance donation! They were very excited and willing to help us with what we were doing and I am so thankful to be working for an amazing company like that. I sent over specifications for the appliances and we have a target date of getting these to Faith Mission by the end of the month.
Lands’ End will be donating two dozen towels, blankets, pillows, and hats & gloves for the charity. This was all in thanks to Jennifer at Sisterly Savings.
– We have received over $200 in cash donations.
– I will be presenting to the Elkhart Rotary Club next Thursday and seeing what assistance they can offer. This is all thanks to my friend Kathy Strukel at Perfect Party Solutions. Kathy is also working with me to get me in front of other Elkhart companies to get more donations for our cause.
– We have a donation of 50 toothbrushes and 100 toothpastes coming from North Main Dentistry. This donation was arranged by my dear friend and local fashionista, Kathy Friend.
– We scored a surprise interview with Cat Country 99.9 on Monday morning and got to share about what we are planning for Faith Mission. A big thank you to my true blue friend, Amy Watson, for helping us spread the word.
– We were featured a second time in the Elkhart Truth this week for our involvement with Faith Mission.
– We have received boxes of donations from other bloggers to help with our Welcome Kits. Thank you to each of you for being so generous.
– We have many, many more things in the works that have yet to be finalized. I have hope that we will reach our goals!

I am proud of what we have accomplished in such a short time and am confident that we are going to make Faith Mission’s Christmas a little brighter.

If you want to sign up to be a part of our BIG Give or if you want to make a monetary donation, please click here for more information.

I am anxious to hear the progress on the other projects out there. Be brave- tell us what you need and where to find what you are doing!

Notebook Experiments: Can I Make Oatmeal in the Slow Cooker?

November 6th, 2008


Experiment: Can I make oatmeal in my slow cooker?

Experiment Taken From: Notebook Entry 02.14.07

Materials Needed: Please see Tip Nut for the full instructions. I decided to attempt cooking the oatmeal in my slow cooker and followed the instructions exactly except I substituted the steel cut oats for regular rolled oats because that is what I had in my pantry. I wanted to see if the experiment worked well before heading to the store. My slow cooker is the standard size and I poured the ingredients in there. I was really intrigued by the water to oats ratio because it just seemed like far too much water. I flipped the slow cooker on and let it cook for eight hours.

Results: I programmed my coffeemaker for the same exact time and woke up to a steaming bowl of oatmeal and hot coffee this morning. The oatmeal still seemed a little thin, but I let it set up for a minute or two before I tried it. Within minutes, it thickened up and I had a perfect bowl of oatmeal.

This oatmeal is extremely creamy and tastes delicious! It tastes more on par with restaurant oatmeal because of the great consistency of it. With a lump of brown sugar and some dried fruits, it would make a wonderful way to start the day.

Conclusion: I will definitely be buying the steel cut oatmeal to eat this again. It was a wonderful way to walk up and motivated me to have breakfast which is very hard to do! Thanks Tip Nut for sharing all of your tips with your readers!

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I am so excited to open our Notebook Experiments up to everyone and I hope that you will be able to participate this week or in weeks to come! I will be posting this each Thursday so please mark your calendars if you plan to participate. You can post your entries at any time throughout the week and then leave your entry in the links below.

We have this handy banner that you are more than welcome to use, but it is not a requirement! It is just something you can add to add a little sparkle to your entry.

Rules for Participation:

1. Choose anything from any of our notebook entries (past or present) to do with your family. We have hundreds of bookmarked links of crafts, ways to save money, and organizing ideas.
2. Complete an experiment from the notebook and share about it on your blog or website. We would love to see pictures of what you accomplished or a detailed description of how your projects turned out. Please include a link to this entry, a link to the original posting of the entry (at the original crafster’s blog), and (to help us relocate the project) the date or link of the notebook entry where you found it. You can use the same formatting as our entries or you can just include that information in your post in your own unique way!
3. Post a link below. Please include your name or blog name & a fast description of your project. Example- MomAdvice (WHO bread)

I can’t wait to see what you create and what you find inspiring!

Amy’s Notebook 11.06.08

November 6th, 2008

These patriotic cookies are so neat (@ Pepper Paints)

I love the idea of starting a parent journal (@ Camp Creek Blog)

I am loving these fingerless gloves (@ Purl Bee)

I loved this post on recycling your pumpkins (@ Junk Mail Gems)

I think these Thanks & Giving trees would be a hit in our house (@ Chocolate on My Cranium)

I want to try this sugar cookie recipe (@ Skip to My Lou)

I love these tips for maximizing your kitchen space (@ Smitten Kitchen)

I want to attempt making a pie crust (@ The Kitchn)

This all-purpose holiday cake looks delicious (@ Joy the Baker)

This pumpkin bread pudding would be a fun dish to entertain with (@ Genesis of a Cook)

I might have to try these spiced pumpkin pancakes (@ Baking and Books)

Halloween Fun

November 5th, 2008





This was a fun year for us as parents because both of our kids finally “got” all the trick-or-treating fun. We kept our costumes fun & frugal this year. Emily was a bumblebee, which was a costume hand-me-down from her big brother. Ethan also kept changing his mind until the very last minute so I waited until Target marked the Halloween costumes down to 30% off and got his super cool ninja costume at a little lower price than I would have gotten it normally.

We tried to keep Emily out of the candy, but she managed to get into and suck on a purple sucker while we went door to door. The evening ended with a sucker stuck to her hair & bumblebee costume so that will require a good washing this week.

We loved going around and seeing all of our great neighbors and showing off how big our children were. We have plans to put the costumes on again this week to go see all of the grandparents since we weren’t able to squeeze that in with me heading out of town in the morning. Any excuse to wear the costume again and get more of our money’s worth out of it seems like a smart plan to me!

I hope you enjoyed the festivities, whatever they may have been, with your families!

Vote & Get Your Free Stuff

November 4th, 2008

Today you can swing by The MotherLoot and enter our giveaway of four DS games. If you have a DS or are planning to give one for Christmas, this would be a great giveaway to sign up for. Leave your comments over here by 11/11 (Tuesday) at 8PM (Eastern time) and we will enter your name into the drawing.

Don’t forget to head out and vote and get your free stuff for voting. I am happily sipping my free Starbucks coffee, free just for putting your vote in. Want the full scoop on freebies? Be sure to visit Freebies 4 Mom for all of the freebies you can score just for voting.

Stumped for ideas for how to involve the kids? Be sure to visit our Family Bliss channel and check out a great post on an election night party that the whole family can enjoy. Thanks to Kathy Strukel, from Perfect Solutions, for coming up with such a fun theme night for our channel!

Please get out there and vote & make your kids a part of it!

(Photo Credit: Kate Sumbler)

MomAdvice Monthly Recap: October ’08

November 4th, 2008


I just want to say a special thank you to each of you for visiting my website and sharing it with your friends, family, and your own readers. We had the highest month EVER thanks to each of you and I so appreciate your support. It feels good to know that someone is out there visiting and reading what I am writing.

This month’s top referrers were:

1. Freebies 4 Mom
2. Twitter
3. Tip Nut
4. Immediate Influence Blog
5. Mommy Snacks
6. Bloggy Giveaways
7. Baby Cheapskate
8. The Dollar Stretcher
9. Hooray for Freebates!
10. Deal Seeking Mom

This month’s top articles & entries were:

1. Deliciously Spiced Pumpkin Bread
2. How Do I Become a Product Review Blogger?
3. Fun & Frugal Halloween Costume Idea
4. The MomAdvice Big Give: Faith Mission of Elkhart, Indiana
5. Scary Deals on Halloween Costumes
6. 35 Ways to Save on Your Grocery Budget
7. A Good Old-Fashioned Apple Crisp
8. Storing Homemade Bread & Bread Ingredients
9. Homemade Cinnamon Rolls
10. Chicken Enchiladas with Homemade Enchilada Sauce

Our Autumn Book Basket

November 4th, 2008

I hit the library this past week and picked up some books for the kids with some really great autumn themes in them. Our library conveniently pulls all of the holiday books for us when the holidays come around so it makes it easy to put a seasonal basket together.

Ethan made a sign for our basket that said, “Happy Fall.” I wrote this out on a piece of paper for him and he practiced writing it for the basket. He drew a cute little jack-o-lantern on it because it was something that represented fall to him.

In our fall basket you will find the following books for the season:

Happy Haunting, Amelia Bedelia

Luther’s Halloween

Beauty & the Beaks

Minnie and Moo & the Thanksgiving Tree

Richard Scarry’s The First Thanksgiving of Low Leaf Worm

The Thanksgiving Door

Thanksgiving is Here

I look forward to switching out the books with the holiday season and getting a chance to read all of these great stories with the kids. I picked some beginning readers so we can work on Ethan’s reading skills, but I also picked books that I could read to them. Our favorite so far has definitely been, “Thanksgiving is Here” because it reminds us so much of our own crazy Thanksgiving dinners with family!

What are some of your favorite autumn reads? Do you have any books to recommend for our seasonal basket?

Bloggy Giveaway Results Are In

November 3rd, 2008

Thank you to everyone who entered our big bloggy giveaway! Our winner is… Mary Beth who blogs at Four Silly Sisters.

MaryBeth’s idea for stretching a buck in these tough economic times?

“I am menu planning and spending carefully at the grocery store. We limit our trips to and from town by planning out our weeks activities and trying to logically fit all the run-around stuff into what we’ve already got planned. I realize these are simple things, but we are just getting started.”

Thank you so much MaryBeth for sharing your idea and thank you to the over 900 people who entered our cozy giveaway. We look forward to sharing another giveaway with you tomorrow over at The MotherLoot!

Be sure to visit Bloggy Giveaways for a complete list of all the winners!

Redbox Code 11.03.08

November 3rd, 2008

Today’s free code for a Redbox movie is 67JFP8. This code is good for one free movie and you can use it until midnight tonight. Enjoy a free family movie together!

Side Notes:

– If you want to rent more than one movie for free, bring more than one credit/debit card. You can use the same promotional code, you just will need different cards to charge it to. The charge will be zero as long as you return your movie on time for the next day.

– When entering in your free movie code, you need to enter it FIRST before picking the movie. On the very first screen, click the, “Rent with Promo.” Enter in the above code and then make your selection- the amount should then total zero.

Here is an updated list of new releases:

Journey to the Center of the Earth
Further establishing himself as a great-but-goofy sci-fi leading man, Brendan Fraser stars in this huge adventure about a professor whose search for his missing brother takes him – you guessed it – to the earth’s core. Josh Hutcherson and Anita Brium co-star.

Tinker Bell
Dripping with sweetness and loaded with positive messages, this animated Disney feature catches up with Tinker Bell in her magical home of Pixie Hollow. When Tinker (voiced by Mae Whitman) decides she wants to be someone else, it’s her close friends who show her that being true to yourself is the key to happiness.

Kit Kittredge: An American Girl
Abigail Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine herself) stars in this lovable family film based on the wildly popular American Girl doll line. She’s a young girl growing up in Great Depression era Ohio with one huge dream: to write a story for the local paper. Julia Ormond, Chris O’Donnell and Jane Krakowski also star.

The Incredible Hulk
The bar has been raised for superhero flicks this year, and the Hulk delivers! Edward Norton plays the DC Comics hero who, following a bizarre laboratory accident, starts experiencing the darndest of all side-effects: turning huge, turning green and being hunted by fearful authorities.

The Strangers
The masks are scary, but the motives are even scarier. Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman play a young couple who go to a remote cabin for the weekend, and find themselves, with no way out, stalked by three people wearing burlap masks. Why? Just for the sake of random terror.

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
Ben Stein puts his deadpan delivery and ginormous IQ to work in this intriguing documentary. With cameras rolling, Stein goes in search of teachers, elected officials and others who support the Intelligent Design theory to ask them about their beliefs.

Freebie Friday: October 31, 2008

October 31st, 2008

A big thank you to Heather, from Freebies 4 Mom, for helping us with our freebie list this week. Be sure to get her latest round of coupons for your grocery shopping this week. We were also so excited to get to do an interview with Heather recently because we find her story to be so inspiring. I am hoping to do weekly interviews with bloggers to find out more about how they do their blogging & balance the activities in their life.

I will be heading out of town tomorrow through Sunday for the American Baby Faire in Chicago! If you are coming, be sure to find me over in the Kenmore kitchen, where you will get to see me demoing family recipes, kid’s holiday crafts, and sharing tips for money-saving throughout the two days. Sunday morning I will also be appearing on the Chicago ABC news sharing two of my favorite yummy frugal snack recipes for kids. You can find all my contributions to the Kenmore team over here!

Happy Freebie Friday!

Health & Beauty

Dove Shine Therapy
Aveeno Lifting & Firming Night Cream

Food

Barnes & Noble Free Cappuccino (printable coupon expires 10/31)
Bear Naked Fruit & Nut Granola
Turtle Chex Mix Bar
Betty Crocker Potatoes

Entertainment

Canon Try Me Photo
Quamut Free PDF – Play Texas Hold’Em
KIWI Magazine Subscription
Slam Magazine Subscription

Home & Garden

Uni-ball 207 Pen
Hand Tote from Nature’s Bounty

Pets

Greenies pet treats
Cesar Canine Cuisine

Upcoming Freebie Events:

NOVEMBER

1 – Home Depot Kids Workshop, make a Leaf Press
4 – Free Donut for Voters at Krispy Kreme
4 – Free Scoop for Voters at Ben & Jerry’s 5-8pm
8 – Lowe’s Kids Workshop, make a Semi Truck
22 – Lowe’s Kids Workshop, make a Football Goal
23 – Free Dr. Pepper