AO Opinions is another Market Research company that I get information from. Right now they are recruiting for an upcoming research study. This Survey is open to parents of children ages 2-5. I took the survey and it asks about the types of television shows kids in that age range enjoy.
Greenlight is all about financial education for kids. They help them learn about money management through a safe, secure app where parents manage every dollar and see every transaction.
** This post also contains affiliate links and I will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on my links.
When my littles were wee, they both had delicate tummies. It’s hard to know what kinds of formula to trust, so after lots of research, trying samples, and talking to other moms (really our pediatrician was ZERO help- she’s a nice lady, but formula wasn’t her wheelhouse), I stumbled upon Kabrita.
Our pediatrician is really big on making sure babies get prebiotics and probiotics, especially if they are formula fed. Kabrita has prebiotics, which are a natural digestive aid.
I like Kabrita because it doesn’t have any added white or processed sugar- just lactose, the sweetener from milk! Also, Kabrita formula smells like goats milk and tastes like goats milk. I will confess: after smelling some formulas I wouldn’t want to taste them, but I tried an ounce of Kabrita once just to see. It tastes like goats milk.
I’ve been telling moms about it for a few years now, and one thing I love is that they have a really great sample program.
Sign up here, and you’ll receive:
*$4.99 Shipping & Handling applies at check-out, limited to one offer per household. This is not a subscription. Please note, our Trial Offer may include either the Apple Cinnamon or Multigrain Porridge.
All thoughts and opinions expressed here are my own. I’ve used Kabrita for both of my kids. This post contains affiliate links and I may be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on my links.
My kids are going to lose their MINDS when I tell them about this! One of the places they have been missing over the past 13 months is Legoland.
THE LEGO® MOVIE™ WORLD is opening on May 27, 2021. It brings the streets of Bricksburg and experience the Park’s newest and biggest adventure which brings the blockbuster films THE LEGO® MOVIE™ and THE LEGO® MOVIE™ 2: The Second Part, to life.
This new land features six interactive attractions for all to enjoy.
I’m excited to take the kids to Legoland this summer! They are both itching to visit the new LEGO MOVIE WORLD and of course, the Legoland water park!
The LEGO MOVIE WORLD will be included in the price of admission to LEGOLAND California Resort. Guests can purchase tickets and reserve their spot through LEGOLAND California’s reservation system for their desired Park visit. For more Resort information, operating schedule and to make reservations, visit the Legoland Website here.
And if you are looking for some money savings hacks for Legoland, check out my post here.
Woo Hoo! My Kids are stoked.
Enrollment is also open to all parents for Camp BOOK IT!, which will run June-August, 2021.
PreK students (age 4 by Sept. 1st, 2021) are now eligible for all BOOK IT! programs. Be sure to include those students in your enrollment!
The nice part about BOOK IT is that each teacher can choose to participate, it’s no longer a school wide program. Everything is done online, and certificates are emailed when they are earned. With the digital program, parents can use digital certificates in person, over the phone, or online, for carryout, delivery or dine in providing even more ways for them to celebrate their child’s reading accomplishments.
Get Started here! And remember to share this post with your teacher friends!
Everyone loves pizza- and nothing is better than FREE PIZZA!
The kids have been begging for homemade cookies lately, and I’ve been busy with other stuff, so I haven’t had tons of time to make cookies.
I dug through the cupboard last week and realized that I had all of the ingredients except baking soda. I used the last half box I had to deodorize the kids bathroom.
So I turned to an old favorite, Kodiak Cakes Power Cakes Flapjack & Waffle Mix. and because of the other ingredients, I used a smidge of baking powder (please remember that soda and powder are not interchangeable in recipes- it has a lot to do with the other ingredients and their pH/chemical makeup) and the cookies turned out perfect!
Kodiak Cakes Power Cakes Flapjack & Waffle Mix contains leavening, so the added baking powder was just a little *bump* to make sure the cookies didn’t come out flat.
Oatmeal Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
Directions
This recipe makes approx. 3 dozen cookies. If you are allergic to peanuts, you can substitute sunbutter or your favorite nut butter. Do Not use Nutella- It contains a lot of sugar and other ingredients that will throw off the chemistry of the recipe and you won’t get yummy cookies.
If you’re like me, you’ve been socially isolated/staying home for the better part of a year, wearing the same clothes, and it’s getting a little repetitive.
But at the same time, you don’t want to go to the mall. And as much fun as shopping on Amazon is, it’s hard to buy clothes on Amazon sometimes.
Last week, after I dropped the kids off at school and ran a couple errands, I found myself in South Bay. I remember that there used to be a discount/mark-down clothing store off of Palomar Road and interstate five, so I decided to drive down and see if it was still there. It is! And it’s even better than I remembered. It’s called Everything’s A Deal (it used to be Everything’s $5.00) and they’ve changed their store again.
The address is: 1141 Bay Blvd, Chula Vista, CA 91911
In a true wholesale try store the more you buy the cheaper the price per item becomes. If you buy between five and 10 items it’s $27.50+ tax for all 5 to 9 items. And the prices go down from there. Unlike a lot of discount clothing stores (I’m looking at a Ross) it’s not mostly trash/fast fashion/awful sweatshop crap.
Everything’s A Deal buys lots from well-known retailers (Sears, JCPenney, Nordstrom‘s Rack, or fifth Avenue, just to name a few) and they have a large warehouse-style store where everything is separated by size. All the plus sizes are together, all the small, medium, large, etc.
The nice thing is that the sale prices are for everything. Shoes, accessories, purses, close. They have kids’ clothes in men’s clothes too. So conceivably you could read your entire family there and some really cute outfits and not break the bank. Everything is new with tags. I bought five items and spent $29.99 after tax out the door. I got a jacket, address, two new T-shirts, and a really cute vest that I’m going to tie-dye.
All five items are name brand, and the jacket is a brand that is sold at Nordstrom rack. I googled the RN number and discovered that the original price of my brand new coat was $89.99. My two shirts had the tags still attached, my vest is from a brand I remember seeing at Macy’s, and my new dress, which is adorable, is from a brand that target sells.
There’s another location on Broadway in Lemon Grove (7696 Broadway Lemon Grove, CA) if South Bay is too far of a jog for you. Honestly, the stores are a great help for us, they help me stretch our clothing budget for new items. I’m able to afford better quality items for the same price that I would be paying at Walmart. And because the clothing swaps are going to be not happening for probably the next year or two, we won’t be able to pick up hand-me-downs or other secondhand clothing and household goods.
Clothing swaps are one of the ways that we are able to save a lot of money and keep the kids’ clothes. The kids are starting to grow out of the clothing that they have been wearing, and because there’s been no clothing swap this year, I don’t have clothing in the next size ready. I am going to have to purchase clothes.
I have been doing buying clothes and replacing our wardrobes little by little when I find stuff on sale and clearance that kids and I will like. This is mostly through jcp.com because they have such great sales and coupons. And I can combine those with cashback deals from online aggregators like top cashback, MyPoints, and Honey.
The CSA emails us in advance to give us a heads up as to what may be in our boxes each week, and that really gives me an upper hand when it comes to meal planning for the week.
Veggies and fruit are delivered each Monday by Yasukochi Family Farms CSA. For $25, it’s a great deal. I don’t have to pick anything, go to the store, or carry it upstairs. I can’t go to the store and get the same amount we get weekly for $25. Seriously. It’s a deal. I spend about an hour on Monday afternoon cleaning and prepping veggies for the rest of the week.
Over the weekend, I did some meal prep: I made a batch of potato cheese soup on Saturday evening, and yesterday I cooked rice, made a big salad, cooked marinated chicken thighs, and refilled the snack/school lunch box to make morning lunch prep even easier.
I’m planning on making a couple batches of soup today or tomorrow. I’ll freeze half, and the other half will go into the fridge for my lunch throughout the week. Broccoli Cheese Soup and Copycat Zuppa Toscana are planned (most of the ingredients will be coming in the CSA box today).
For those of you that are new to meal planning, I’ve got an easy 101 style post here with super easy tips and steps. After you get that down, here is info about batch or freezer cooking.
I’ve gotten a pretty good inventory of the pantry, freezer, and fridge done (I try to update it after every shopping trip), so I’m able to plan meals and use up what we’ve got with little waste. If you are looking for a kitchen inventory printable, I like the kitchen inventories here. They are great printables.
I only post our dinner plans for the week, because our other meals are usually the same each day.
Breakfast: Coffee with 1/2 and 1/2 for me, and pancakes or something along those lines for the kids. The kids are nuts about pancakes. The Big Kid has been on a protein shake kick in the AM.
Lunch: Kids take lunch to school. I eat leftovers. Everyone rejoices.
Dinner: Usually, I do a crockpot meal on Mondays, but now that we are home all the time, we’ve been having an odd combination of fully home-cooked, scratch meals, and frozen entrees and veggies. I have been posting our meal plans on Instagram too- As well as pics of stuff we are doing to keep busy.
Please stay safe you guys!
Talk Back: What are you cooking for dinner this week?
Once again, there are not too many freebies for Earth Day. Between the pandemic and stores not being open or making a lot of money, there are barely any freebies. I’m not posting deals for Earth Day, because really, do we need to go out and shop?
While the free day to visit the National Parks has passed for earth Day/National Parks Week, don’t fret. There are several other days as well. You can find the complete list here. The only National Park in San Diego is Cabrillo Monument on Point Loma. If you have a 4th grader in your home (We do!!), Check out Every Kid Outdoors. It’s a free program for 4th graders and their families to visit National Parks for free through August 2021!
The next Freebie isn’t super fun, but it might be needed. We’ve been doing a lot of deep purging and cleaning the past year, and I’ve got a bunch of papers that need to be shredded (oh hi 20-year-old tax paperwork!). Check out your local Office Max/Office Depot- Armed with this coupon (Scroll to the bottom of the page) you can score up to 5 lbs of shredding for FREE!! This deal is valid through 4/24/2021.
And perhaps my favorite freebie this April: if you live in Southern California and have utilities with SDG&E, PG&E, or SoCal Edison, you can join OhmConnect for free and start conserving electricity and earning money (as well as saving on your utility bills). And through the end of April, when you sign up and connect your utility account (it literally takes 5 minutes), You’ll earn $25 straightaway! You can learn all about OhmConnect here. We’ve been using it for 5+ years, and have saved hundreds on our SDG&E bill, and earned almost $1000 from OhmConnect.
And once again, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but…
Despite what you read online there are NO Origin Freebies, Disney Store Freebies, Free milkshakes on the west coast, Mac Freebies, Sephora Freebies, Ice Cream Freebies, or free coffee from Starbucks.
So, that’s it. I know, it’s kinda depressing, but I’ll be on the hunt for freebies for you this week, and I’ll report back on Friday morning.
The CSA emails us in advance to give us a heads up as to what may be in our boxes on Monday, so that’s helped me be able to meal prep.
The kids and I went to the store this morning and picked up milk and some stuff for their school lunches. OH YEAH- School starts full-time TOMORROW!!!
This past week we didn’t follow the meal plan because a mystery illness swept the household. Everyone is better, so hopefully, this week will easier. and also now with 50% more SCHOOL!
Veggies and fruit are delivered each Monday by Yasukochi Family Farms CSA. For $25, it’s a great deal. I don’t have to pick anything, go to the store, or carry it upstairs. I can’t go to the store and get the same amount we get weekly for $25. Seriously. It’s a deal. I spend about an hour on Monday afternoon cleaning and prepping veggies for the rest of the week.
For those of you that are new to meal planning, I’ve got an easy 101 style post here with super easy tips and steps. After you get that down, here is info about batch or freezer cooking.
I’ve gotten a pretty good inventory of the pantry, freezer, and fridge done (I try to update it after every shopping trip), so I’m able to plan meals and use up what we’ve got with little waste. If you are looking for a kitchen inventory printable, I like the kitchen inventories here. They are great printables.
I only post our dinner plans for the week, because our other meals are usually the same each day.
Breakfast: Coffee with 1/2 and 1/2 for me, and pancakes or something along those lines for the kids. The kids are nuts about pancakes. The Big Kid has been on a protein shake kick in the AM.
Lunch: Kids take lunch to school. I eat leftovers. Everyone rejoices.
Dinner: Usually, I do a crockpot meal on Mondays, but now that we are home all the time, we’ve been having an odd combination of fully home-cooked, scratch meals, and frozen entrees and veggies. I have been posting our meal plans on Instagram too- As well as pics of stuff we are doing to keep busy.
Please stay safe you guys!
Talk Back: What are you cooking for dinner this week?
Hewes Family Fun 