All posts by NerdMom

Memes, Twitter Party Tuesday

Twitter Party Tuesday: The Premiere Edition

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Welcome to Twitter Party Tuesday!!! I love a good Twitter party but sometimes it is hard to find them! So I have decided to start a link up!!! So all of you who are hosting a Twitter party or just know where to find one please leave a link to the party page!!

Every week I will also highlight a Twitter party that I have heard about through the grapevine or have had emailed to me at mom@nerdfamily.com (hint, hint).

This week’s featured party is found over at MomSpark.net!

Check My Ride, along with Mom Spark Media, will be hosting an online Twitter party Thursday, June 9 from 8-9 pm EST.  We will be discussing summer road trips and how CheckMyRide.com can help document those fun memories!  Of course, a party isn’t a party without great prizes, so there will be plenty of prize packs up for grabs, including a $100 gas gift card.

So now is the time to add your Twitter parties! See you on Twitter!!!

Clothing

Is It Me?

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I am going to BlogHer here in less than 2 months and I have been looking around for some dresses for the parties. I tried on a few different dresses and this was the best for the day. I did find 1 other dress that I loved but it would have shown a little too much, if you know what I mean.

So this dress worked out the best and I thought I would see if everyone else liked it. The cut is awesome but….But the fabric seems so loud to me!!! The cut is good and the fit is good but the pattern seems a lot to me! Can I just get it in a solid? I love the feel of the dress on me and there are even pockets. But I don’t want to stand out for the wrong thing. All I can think is that I know I am as big as a house but did I need to plant a yard around it;)?

But I am trying to be more open. So is it just me? Is this just to much or is it cute?

Food

You Scream, I Scream

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You know what comes next…”We all scream for ice cream!” Now that it is officially summer time our schedule has loosened up quite a bit. So I have time to do something special for the kids after dinner every now and then. This time I did sundaes!

First we headed out to Walmart to stock up on supplies! While I may have a little more time, I don’t want to spend it all shopping. So I love that I can combine all my stops into 1 place;).

First is the ice cream! I may be a bargain hunter but in this house we do not chintz on the ice cream! So we went with the Dreyer’s Slow Churned Thin Mint. I had no idea that there was a Girl Scout Thin Mint flavor!!! I know that  I am in not alone in my love of the Thin Mint cookie so I was stoked to have it in ice cream.

Then the kids had fun picking out extras! It is funny how everyone has a different list of must haves. NerdDad wants waffle bowls and chocolate syrup.  The kids are all about sprinkles, whipped cream and cherries.  But you can always find something for everyone! And I love the fact that I can use all those ingredients not only in sundaes but in other desserts too! Have you had frosting flavored by cherry juice? Yum.

But this, like all food experiences, isn’t really about the food. This is about the experience together. The kids love feeling like grownups as they add a little of this and a little of that without anyone keeping track or caring. We remember sitting around and just relaxing with nothing more important than each other to focus on. These are the memories that our kids take away from the many years they live with us. These moments are more memorable that Tuesday night’s homework or the morning rush to get out of the house. These are the moments that we will all take with us!

 
(This shop/project has been compensated as part of a campaign for Nestlé. And while they may have provided the subject, I provided all the words and opinions.)
 

 

Contesting Monday

Contesting Monday 6/6

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So here is the deal. If you are hosting a giveaway or have a post about someone’s giveaway just leave a link. Make sure this link is to the giveaway post itself and not just the blog or it will be deleted. If you listed it last week but your giveaway is still open, list it again! Also your link must be to something family friendly or it will be deleted.

Make sure you stop by NerdFamily Food to enter my giveaway for a $20 Chili’s giftcard!!!

So now you need to add your giveaways and go enter some giveaways! Let them know that Contesting Monday sent you!


 

Food

Chili’s Triple Dipper and a Giveaway

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Triple Dipper Platter with potato skins, chipotle-honey shrimp, and sliders
Triple Dipper Platter with potato skins, chipotle-honey shrimp, and sliders

Chili’s has come up with a new appetizer option! It is the Triple Dipper that you build yourself by choosing from 10 different appetizers! This is the perfect kind of dish because you can choose things that make everyone happy.

 

I recently got the opportunity to go out with the kids to try this awesome new dish. I chose the potato skins, chipotle-honey shrimp and the sliders!! The sliders were my dinner and then the rest I shared;).

While we were eating we had a conversation about what 3 things that the kids would love to see. Like most kids, they couldn’t just come up with 3. They couldn’t decide between burgers, fries, tortillas chips with guacamole and chocolate ice cream.

You wouldn’t be interested in winning a $20 gift card to Chili’s would you? Well you came to the right place!!! Not only am I giving away a $20 gift card but there are other opportunities to win cards!

Entering is super easy! Just complete the form in order to enter the giveaway (and comment to let me know you did) by June 12th!

You can also earn some extra entries (make sure to leave a comment for each thing)

  • Follow me on twitter and tweet about this giveaway!
  • Subscribe to my RSS feed.
  • Like my Facebook page.
  • Post about this giveaway and leave the link in the comments!

    • ShoutOuttoEatOut.com is giving away a $20 gift card every day! But wait! There is more! I am part of the Chili’s Good Things Come In 3′s Linky Rave Giveaway Event that is over at 2Wired2Tired!

    (I received a giftcard from Chili’s to participate in this campaign!)
     

    life, Life with Kids

    Life with Nerdlings

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    Life with kids is always entertaining but I think having nerdy kids makes it just that much more fun. Here are a couple of exchanges from just this morning.

    I am snuggling the NerdPud (almost 4 ). I looked at her and told her she was my heart. She looks at me and says, “Mom, I can’t be a heart. My head is an oval.”

    NerdPie (almost 8 ) is coloring a Phoenician ship for history. She says she is making a ladies barge. I don’t know what is cuter, that it is pink or that she called it a barge. She then went on to define what a barge is for her 5 year old brother.

    Nerdlings;).

    Food

    A Tasty and Good-For-You Treat from #SafewayDairy

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    B & L's Smoothie as part of our healthy lunch!The weather heating up around here means 1 thing: berry season!!! That means that the 4lb bin of strawberries were only $3.99!!! So of course we just had to get them! But that was a lot of strawberries at once to eat just plain, even for us. So while I was making my list off of the Vons.com site I decided to look for a great and easy recipe! I have been having a hard time filling up my kids lately and didn’t want a dessert. So I started looking at milk! I mean between the protein and the fact it would be cold, can’t go wrong with that right?

    So I found a super easy and not to desserty recipe called B and L’s Strawberry Smoothie. Most of the ingredients are things we keep on hand (an essential point for new and untried recipes in this house) and they were all something I could buy at one store (Safeway)! I also knew that I could substitute local, raw honey for the sugar! I have been looking for more vehicles for raw honey because we all have horrible allergies and eating local, raw honey is supposed to help!

    It was going to be a delightful end of the week treat to go with lunch! What can I say, I like to do something a little fun on Fridays when the school work is done. And it was so simple that at least 1 kid could help!

    First off we went and stocked up at Vons! We needed yogurt for our smoothies and I needed Greek yogurts for breakfast! And of course we needed strawberries. My kids love grocery shopping with me. But that might be because they bribe them with a cookie;). Seriously, while I might grocery shop for a small army they all really do help and enjoy helping. They even carry everything in and help me put all the bags away.

    So when Friday’s lunch time came around I assembled all the ingredients! Kids who were done with homework for the week got to help! The 7 year old got my crushed ice while the 5 year got to cut strawberries for the first time!!! This is the perfect recipe for kids to practice their cutting because the pieces are all going to get blended anyway! So after I assembled all the ingredients, I just blitzed it with my stick blender! And even though it was dessert, I topped it with a little light whipped cream. It made the kids feel extra spoiled! Paired with PB &J, it is a super good for you and filling meal!!!

    B and L’s Strawberry Smoothie

    • 8 strawberries, hulled
    • 1/2 cup skim milk
    • 1/2 cup plain yogurt
    • 3 tablespoons white sugar (subbed in equal amount of local, raw honey)
    • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
    • 6 cubes ice, crushed

    (This post’s existence, but not the content, was sponsored. This shop was compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias to celebrate National Dairy Month.)

     

    Brick and Mortar, Deals, household

    Inspiration For All

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    Look what I found at my Dollar Tree store this morning!!! I always go down the basket aisle at the Dollar Tree because they can be hit and miss. But can you believe that these were only $1???

    The kids loved the bright colors and all said that they wanted some. So I told them that we couldn’t get them if we didn’t know what would be in them. So they listed something like 10 things that could be store in them. Everything from small stuffed animals to little people figurines and that isn’t counting any of my ideas. So I figured that buying these 4 would be a great investment. Once they are deployed, I am sure that I will be going back to get some more!

    life, Life with Kids

    Bad, Horrible, No Good, Rotten Day

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    I think we all have those days when things go badly. Not just 1 thing goes wrong but many things and seem to be related. Well, my baby girl had one of those days.

    Now let me preface this with the fact that NerdPud is a flip flop master. While she will only turn four in 14 days, she has been wearing flip flops for over a year. But anyway.

    Incident 1: We are finishing checking out at Costco. She kind of ran around the front of the cart and slipped and fell. Her cheek landed hard on the polished concrete floor. The picture was a couple ours after and before her cheek turned purple. Needless to say, her face got a lot worse from here.

    Incident 2: She is playing Red Light/Green Light with her siblings. They are all taking turns being the person to call it out. When it was NerdPud’s turn she backs up to the fence with her hands behind her tush. That leads to a handful of splinters. She still hasn’t let us take them all out.

    Incident 3: After getting a handful of splinters she was climbing on the plastic structure and bumped her bottom teeth and lip on it.

    And thus closed NerdPud’s bad, horrible, no good rotten day. But she did live to fight on;).