Making of Hubby's Birthday Cake

The weekend of January 29th my family celebrated my husband's Birthday (even though it was actually on January 31,2012). We had a nice venison roast dinner with potatoes and carrots and finished with a fun Birthday cake made by myself and the kids.

My husband loves to fish and hunt so about a month ago we went into Bulk Barn looking for birthday cake idea's. I found a fun topper of a man fishing. He is a frustrated fisherman that looks like he is about to fall out of the boat. This got me thinking and off to the gummy section we went to see if we could find gummy fish. They did have them but we didn't pick them up until just before the weekend we needed them, so they wouldn't go stale.


I baked the cake early in the day when the kids were playing and then we decorated it together. The kids were great help adding the topper and fish and my son P took a bunch of photos as I iced the cake.

This post is part of the Foodie February post. Click the imagine below to see more great posts from other bloggers.

~*Jennifer

~*Disclaimer: This is not a sponsored post. All opinions are honest and my own. This is also a post in the Foodie February 2012 Event with Talking Momcents.*~

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Fit & Firm Friday: Week 3 Get Active!

This week I have been working on becoming more active, even though I have been sick. Go figure last week I fall and hurt my hip, this week I have had a head cold/sore throat and now a cough. Blah winter can go away anytime.

Even with all that being said I have gotten my butt off the couch and moving. I took the kids sledding again, it was almost too warm out to be in snow pants and a big winter jacket but we did get about an hour in before everyone was too hot and getting really wet from the melting snow.

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Wordless Wednesday ~ Feb 8th,2012

This video is not for one that gets motion sickness. My 5 yr old was playing with the camera when I was playing with his Tonka Trickster! HAHA

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Mom's Quick Meal with @CanadianBeef

Thinking back on things my mother used to make when I was a kid, I remember we ate the typical meat, potatoes and veggie meals, along with spaghetti (this was dad's special dinner) and throw in the odd days with rice.

Both my brother and I were figure skaters and that meant busy evenings during the week. If we didn't both skate the same night it seemed like one of us was to be at the rink.


One quick and easy dish I remember eating (I don't think it had a name, if it did I don't remember it) included I only 3 or 4 ingredients and can be made 2 different ways.

Ingredients:

Can of Cream of Mushroom soup or Tomato soup
1lb of Canadian ground beef
2 cups of elbow macaroni (this measurement depends on how much you want to make)
1 small onion finely chopped (optional)

Directions: 

1. Brown ground beef in frying pan, if you are including onions put them in now with the ground beef. Drain grease if there is any.
2. While the ground beef is cooking bring a big pot of water to a boil and add macaroni; cook macaroni for 8 minutes or until tender. Drain.
3. Add ground beef to macaroni and stir in soup.

Viola a quick and easy dinner. Enjoy with a side of veggies or a salad. I am sure you could add fresh veggies in the dish, cooked mushrooms when you make the ground beef if you are using mushroom soup. I think this recipe would be easy to play around with. If you try it let me know how it turned out.

This post was written as an entry into the Canadian Beef contest to win a scholarship to attend Eat, Write and Retreat conference in Washington, DC in May. 

~*Jennifer 

~*Disclaimer: This post was written by Marvelous Mommy Meals and is not a sponsored post. All opinions are honest and my own.*~

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Happy Valentine's Day, Curious George!

For as long as I can remember my daughter, A has been a HUGE Curious George fan. I can't even remember how or when but I remember her loving George. Anything George really - t-shirts, books, movies, stuffies; doesn't matter as long as it was Curious George!

When we would go to the library she would pick out Curious George books even ones we already had at home and even after I told her we have that one at home already. Oh well at least she is interested in the library and books, right?

This Valentine's Day we had a chance to take a look at a very new Curious George book called Happy Valentine's Day, Curious George! written by N. Di Angelo. This book is about George and his friends celebrating Valentine's Day together baking, decorating and card making... also a lot more surprises along the way. Unfold the flaps to join in the fun!

ISBN-10:0547131070
ISBN-13:9780547131078
Hardback (Paper over boards):16 pages
Publisher:Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Product Dimensions:8.5 X 8.6 X 0.5 in 
Price:10.99
Status:Available
Publication Date: 03 Jan 2011

Our Thoughts: I love how this book has red sparkly foil throughout the book and catches your eye when reading the pages. My daughter was very excited to see this book sitting on the couch when she got home from school and we had to read it right away. She requested to open the flaps inside the book. After reading the first time through she wanted to read it again. Now we are sitting here typing out this review. A says she likes the "doors the best, also George and his friends" - A. A has helped type this review also. I think I may have a little blogger in the making!

Want to share this book with your Curious George fan? Find  a retailer near you on Thomas Allen & Son Ltd. 

Happy Valentine's Day! 

 

~*Disclaimer: This post was written by Canadian Coupon Mom on behalf of Thomas Allen & Son ltd. We received a complimentary book for review purpose. All opinions are honest and my own.*~

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Truth or Dare Week 2: I secretly want to...

move to Australia! or at least travel the world. I would love to also go to Japan, Thailand, Singapore and Paris. Well who am I kidding I would love to go almost everywhere in the world. There you have it, no more secret anymore.

Traveling to Australia has always been a dream of mine and someday would love to make it real.

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It has arrived!

What has arrived you ask? Our meat order! We usually put in a big meat order once every 3 or 4 months. Usually closer to 3 months but this last time we let it run pretty much out and picked up here and there at the grocery store. 

End of last week I gave our local butcher a call and placed our "Fill the Freezer" order. This pack is huge! It costs $225 and includes the following:


30 lbs Lean Ground Beef
20 lbs Pork Chops
10 lbs Chicken Breast Bone in
10 lbs of Chicken legs
5 lbs Boneless Stewing Beef
5 lbs Bacon
5 lbs Sausage (5 flavors to choose from)

85 lb total!!

We do have a big freezer in our basement or there would be no way to buy this. Now this time around we did do some substitutions as we have sausages in the freezer and also stewing beef (the one thing my son doesn't like and I make a tasty crock-pot stew). We changed the chicken legs (something hubby doesn't like unless on BBQ), stewing beef and 3 lbs of bacon to chicken breast.

I also got it delivered not that it is far for me to go but I wasn't sure if it would be ready today or tomorrow (when the kids are home), and for the $5 to get that much meat carried to MY front door is much better than me lugging it to my van and van to door and door to basement. Okay okay that would have been a good workout but not with all the ice outside. I am scared to fall again.

Buying local is so much better than buying in the store for a number of reasons - helping our local farmers, fresh meat and usually fairly decent prices.

Here is a picture of my son with a meat order from the past. It filled our table and we almost ran out of room on it.

~*Jennifer 

~*Disclaimer: This post was written by Marvelous Mommy Meals. This is not a sponsored post. All opinions are honest and my own.*~

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Marvelous Menu Monday - Week Feb 6-12th, 2012

Happy Two Months to Marvelous Mommy Meals! 

Sorry for the late post this week. I have been sick with a head cold and haven't been able to concentrate on getting my meal plan completed. I didn't get a chance to make the desserts last week but did pass the Rice Pudding recipe along to my mom. I will see how they like it and let you know. I still hope to make it soon.

Today the kids are off at school and I am hoping to get a lot of house work, blogging and get on the Wii today. I just picked up the new Zumba game for the Wii wow is it a good workout! Now to get on it at least 3 times a week.

Monday - Chicken Parmesan from Maple Leaf Foods over pasta with garlic bread and coleslaw.

Tuesday - Italian Style Beef Hamburger Soup

Wednesday - Harvest Chops from Life's on Fire Cooking for the Rushed pg 96

Thursday -Mom's Pasta Fagiole

Friday - Tacos with coleslaw

Saturday - Chicken Stir-fry with Rice and veggies

Sunday - Cowboy Ground Beef and Bean Casserole

Snacks - Banana Cream pie (ET TU kit)

That's it for this week :) Let me know if you try any recipes you see on Marvelous Mommy Meals. Also I would love to hear what you are having this week.

~*Jennifer

~*Disclaimer: This post was written by Marvelous Mommy Meals. This is not a sponsored post. All opinions are honest and my own.*~

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Moola Love Valentine Sweeps

This Lil Piglet and Tales of a Ranting Ginger, together with a group of fabulous Canadian bloggers are proud to present the Moola Love Valentine Sweeps cash giveaway February 7th 12:00 am EST - 14th at midnight. Here is your chance to enter to win $100 in cash via PayPal. You will need a PayPal account to win this "lovely" cash prize. It is open worldwide!

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Super Bowl Sunday with Orville Redenbacher's & #PepsivsCoke #Cbias

I am sure you all knew yesterday was the NFL Super Bowl, right? Go figure I would get a mean head cold and sore throat again :( but it didn't stop me from making a great tasting snack for the family to enjoy during the Super Bowl.

The other day the family and I headed out to Walmart to pick up some groceries including Pepsi and a couple boxes of Orville Redenbacher's popcorn. Best part? the popcorn was on sale $2.97 a box and the Pepsi we price matched for $2.99 a 12 pack. We buy a lot of our snacks at Walmart especially when they have their great sales. Want to see our trip grocery trip? Check it out here.

Buffalo Style Hot Popcorn

Indgredients

• 1 bag (2.9 ounces) (11 cups popped) Gourmet® Butter Microwave Popcorn
• 2 cups Corn chips, slightly broken
• 1 cup Dry roasted salted peanuts
• 1 tablespoon Fleischmann's® Original-stick, melted
• 2 tablespoons Hot sauce

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Prepare popcorn according to package directions. Remove all unpopped kernels. Place popcorn, corn chips and peanuts in 2 gallon resealable storage bag.
3. Combine melted Fleischmann's and hot sauce. Pour over popcorn mixture; seal bag and shake until popcorn mixture is evenly coated. Place mixture into 15x10-inch jelly roll pan.
4. Bake 5 minutes, stirring once. Serve immediately or store in airtight container.

Corn chips, mixed nuts and popcorn

Hot sauce and butter

Adding the melted butter & hot sauce

Baked snack, yummy!

You can find this recipe on the Orville Redenbacher's website. It is very quick and easy to make but I didn't have a 2 gallon bag and needed to use a big pot with lid to coat the nuts, corn chips and popcorn with the sauce. No big deal and it worked out fine.

We had a ton of fun eating our popcorn snack and hubby and I had our Pepsi while the kids had their juice. My favorite of the whole Super Bowl experience is the snacking, commercials and the half time performances. Wasn't Madonna fabulous!

Hubby and his Pepsi

I will have a diet Pepsi thanks

Snacks being enjoyed by A. See where my fat kitty is.. lol

P thinking it is too HOT!

During the 2nd quater I attend a fun and fast twitter party #PepsivsCoke and joined the #TeamPepsi of course! That was a great party and I want to thank the two hosts for #TeamPepsi as at one point my head was spinning at how fast the tweets were going. Thanks @Kidsumers and @MamaBzz
 


~*Disclaimer: This post was written by Canadian Coupon Mom on behalf of Collective Bias it has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study. #CBias All opinions are honest and my own*~

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Everyday starts with Kellogg's

Just recently we had a really nice surprise on our door step that was in a big box and included all of these tasty treats...

One this is missing from this picture and it is an awesome Tony the Tiger t-shirt! Yes, I am blogging about cereal! Out of everything I have reviewed in the last year and a half my son gets super (and I mean SUPER) excited for cereal! He loves Kellogg's everything and so does hubby and myself. My daughter loves cereal bars and Rice Krispie squares more than cereal and for breakfast she loves her EGGO's.

I am very excited to tell you that Canadian Coupon Mom is part of the Kelloggers Network and will be bringing you tons of great reviews and promotional information from Kellogg's.

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Fit & Firm Friday: Week 2

Week 2 started off pretty good. I got on the Wii on Sunday and did a 30 minute workout on Jenny McCarthy's Your Shape. My right hip is hurting but I think it is from the fall last Thursday. She actually has a mom workout and I did 15 minutes of it and 15 minutes of tummy targeted exercise.

On Tuesday afternoon we spent an hour or so sledding and I got right in there with the kids going down the hill and hiking back up. Now mind you it isn't a big hill but it was great workout none the less.

I have been eating more veggies and fruit and trying to portion control, still finding it hard on days I work overnights. I am also still having horrible pain in my right hip and leg. I have a dr's appointment and will bring this up with him to take a look. I am leery of doing more damage working out so I have been walking and doing yoga instead. 

I will add my measurements soon, I took them just can't find the piece of paper I wrote them down on.



~*Disclaimer: This post was written by Canadian Coupon Mom as part of the Fit & Firm Friday blog hop. This is not a sponsored post. All opinions are honest and my own.*~

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