Mommy Octopus – Page 178 – We can all use a few more hands

Happy 13th Anniversary to Us!

March 30, 2015 By MommyOctopus Leave a Comment
By clicking my links, I may earn a small commission to support this blog. Please see our Disclosure Policy.

Screen Shot 2015-03-30 at 5.16.35 PM 13 years ago today, I said “I Do” to my best friend. It has been a wild and crazy ride in these 13 years but worth every minute. When we got married, I had just turned 18 and everyone thought we were insane, but we made it work.

Today for our anniversary, we decided to do something we would both enjoy! We headed on over to the Athens Gun Club and spent about an hour working on some target practice.

I have to say that my shooting has definitely been improving and of course hubby can always use more practice to keep on his toes. Above is my result 🙂

If you’re interested, Athens Gun Club offers free sessions for ladies on Thursday and you can also score a free session on your birthday! Discounts for law enforcement and teachers as well! I took a picture of their rates in case any of y’all were curious.

We wrapped up our middle of the day date with lunch at Freddy’s and some frozen custard. I’m so happy to call this man my husband and look forward to many more years!

Sweet Bunny Buns with Dixie Crystals

March 29, 2015 By MommyOctopus Leave a Comment
By clicking my links, I may earn a small commission to support this blog. Please see our Disclosure Policy.

This is a sponsored post, written for Dixie Crystals.

Easter dinner is always filled with lovely dishes such as ham, deviled eggs, macaroni and cheese, and more. We usually don’t give a lot of thought on Easter breakfast to serve before church, but this year we are prepared! Thankfully, Dixie Crystals has a simple and fun recipe that is perfect for an easy breakfast! So simple that even the kids can help!

They have a recipe for these Sweet Bunny Buns, which are a lovely cinnamon treat! We’ve actually made these twice this weekend since the kids enjoyed them so much!

To make, first gather your ingredients. I used my bread machine on the dough cycle to make the dough and it turned out great if you don’t want to work on it by hand. In that case, skip the first couple of steps and start working with the dough.

Ingredients:

3 1/2 cups bread flour
1/4 cup Dixie Crystals Extra Fine Granulated Sugar
2 1/4 teaspoons rapid rise yeast
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup whole milk (110°-115°)
6 tablespoons butter, melted
2 eggs, room temperature

Topping

2 tablespoons melted butter
Dixie Crystals Cinnamon Sugar

Directions:

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the dough hook, add flour, sugar, yeast, and salt. Mix until combined.

In another bowl, whisk milk, melted butter, and eggs. Add to the mixer, and knead on medium speed until the dough pulls away from the sides, about 5 minutes.

Place the dough in a large oiled bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until doubled in size, about 1 ½ hours.

Line two baking sheets with parchment. Punch down the dough and turn out onto a floured board. Knead for a minute, then roll out into a large rectangle, approximately 8×12 inches.

Use a pizza cutter or knife to cut into strips. Reserving one strip for the tails. Roll and stretch the dough into a snake shape. Make a U, then twist in the center to make two ears. Use your finger to make an indentation for the tail. Cut the reserved dough into 1-inch pieces and roll into a ball. Place in the indentation.

Place on the baking sheet and cover with plastic wrap. Repeat until you have made all of the bunnies. Space 2 inches apart. Cover and let rise for 45 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350°F. Brush bunnies with melted butter and generously sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.

Bake for 14 to 16 minutes, or until golden brown.

NOTE: Instead of a dough ball, you could pipe cream cheese frosting as the tail.

For more fun recipes and activities, visit Kids Kitchen.

OshKosh – New Fun Spring Colors! #ImagineSpring

March 28, 2015 By MommyOctopus Leave a Comment
By clicking my links, I may earn a small commission to support this blog. Please see our Disclosure Policy.

I participated in an Influencer Activation on behalf of Influence Central for OshKosh B’Gosh. I received a promotional item to thank me for my participation.

Spring was here last week, but it seems we have slipped back into the arctic tundra for this weekend! It will be back very soon, though, and hopefully in time for a warm Easter! We cheered up despite the colder weather by venturing out to OshKosh to check out their spring lines! The bright and vibrant colors helped with the cheering up and getting ready for spring!

(It was super windy out, so please ignore crazy hair!)

For my oldest, I was pleased to see that OshKosh offered a variety of fun and bright outfits that still said girl instead of teen. I was especially happy that their shorts for the older girls weren’t super short! This has always been a battle for us to try and find shorts of decent length! OshKosh definitely had us covered in this area! The shorts were the perfect length without being too long and looking boyish.

My son picked out a nice collared shirt that screams spring! He calls it his Easter egg shirt, all in fun, but he does love the shirt! Beautiful brilliant blue colors in stripes made it the perfect shirt to go with his blue eyes! I just adore the selections that they have for boys this year!

The little girls always love matchy-match and together picked out some bright leggings with a darling gray and white top with bright melon-colored highlights. So sweet and girly! They fit perfectly and are so fun to wear!

Lastly, we purchased an outfit for baby brother to wear when he arrives this fall. We went with a fun striped one piece with a hood and oh-so-soft material! My kids helped pick out this outfit and were convinced that this was the perfect one for baby brother.

Ready to shop? Find your local OshKosh B’Gosh store and use the coupon below to save 25% off your purchase of $30 or more (exp 4/30/15).

Introducing the HP Envy 5660 e-All-in-One Printer – This Homeschool Mom Approves! #HPSmartMoms

March 25, 2015 By MommyOctopus 1 Comment
By clicking my links, I may earn a small commission to support this blog. Please see our Disclosure Policy.

We’ve all heard of smart phones, smart tablets, etc, but have you heard about a smart printer? I was chosen as part of HP’s #HPSmartMoms team and was sent a brand new HP Envy 5660 e-All-in-One Printer as part of the program. I have to say that this has to be one of the coolest printers I’ve used!

For starters, it was a breeze to set up! It practically set itself up! It walked us through everything and easily connected to our computers. Next came the fun part!

This printer, while connected to the internet, can instantly print fun printables for your kids or yourself with a click on the screen! I’m talking Disney coloring pages, Meals Plans, Recipes, Checklists, and more without even getting on your computer! Even better, you can set it up to print your child a new coloring sheet every morning if you wish!

Homeschooling parents will also love this printer as it has an education.com printable as well. You can add your children’s grade levels and set it up to print a fun educational worksheet every day! You select the days of the week and the time it will be printed! LOVE this option! I have it set up to print my kids fun educational worksheets a couple times a week! You can set up multiple kids as well! Perfect for our houseful 😉

I’m still exploring the printer’s capabilities and I’m sure I’ll be sharing more with you throughout the year. I’m totally in love with this!

Big thanks to HP for selecting me to take part in this program and for my new printer!

Our Adventures in Fayetteville Day 2!

March 16, 2015 By MommyOctopus Leave a Comment
By clicking my links, I may earn a small commission to support this blog. Please see our Disclosure Policy.

A few days ago, I started telling you about our first day in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Today I will continue on with our 2nd day in Fayetteville. We started the day with a wonderful complimentary breakfast at Fairfield Inn & Suites – Fayetteville North. The food was great and there was a nice variety available.

From there, we ventured on to Fascinate-U Kids Museum. Fascinate-U is a hands-on children’s museum located in historical downtown Fayetteville, North Carolina. For almost two decades, it has been a destination where children have been able to explore their world through creative role-playing, manipulation, and interaction with each other and their environment. My little girls had an absolute blast pretending and imagining at the museum. There were so many different things to do and to be!

For lunch before leaving Fayetteville, we were invited by New Deli. You know a restaurant is awesome when it is super busy at lunch time with people waiting for a table and lots of to-go orders! They were hopping!

New Deli is known for their incredible dessert apples, but I was personally impressed with their allergy friendly idea. They do not have a list of allergens on their breads, so I wasn’t able to risk it for my son, but our awesome waitress suggested making some ham and cheese roll-ups for him instead! What a simple idea and he was thrilled! She even warmed them up a little so it was nice and cheesy. Very pleased with their service!

The dessert apples are giant apples on a stick rolled in all sorts of candies and goodness! We tried the Apple Pie, which is their most popular, the Reeses, and the Rocky Road. We loved all of them, but we have to agree with everyone else on the Apple Pie being #1! We badly need a New Deli here in Athens, GA! I think it would go over super well!

Thanks again so much to the Fayetteville, North Carolina visitors bureau for setting up this incredible trip for us and helping us feel so incredibly at home in your wonderful city! We had a fantastic time and look forward to visiting again! Thanks again also to all the wonderful sponsors of this trip. You can find all of their links below:

Our Trip to Fayetteville, North Carolina – Day 1

March 13, 2015 By MommyOctopus Leave a Comment
By clicking my links, I may earn a small commission to support this blog. Please see our Disclosure Policy.

We were recently invited to come visit the city of Fayetteville, North Carolina. We decided to visit after our recent Myrtle Beach trip. Our family had never been to Fayetteville before although several of our friends have and several actually grew up there. Greater Fayetteville is proud of its rich role in our nation’s history and holds fast to the friendly feel of a true hometown, while providing the cultural and entertainment amenities of bigger cities.

Upon arrival to Fayetteville, we first stopped at the Visitor’s Center, where we picked up brochures, information, and my kids favorites – passports! The passports had a bunch of the local attractions and museums inside and when you went to that place, you could get your passport stamped with the locations exclusive stamp. My kids really enjoyed this!

Our next stop was the Airborne and Special Operations Museum Foundation. The Airborne & Special Operations Museum is owned and operated by the United States Army and is part of the United States Army Museum system. The main gallery is designed as a self-guided tour, in chronological order, through the history of airborne and special operations soldiers from 1940 to the present. I think my husband and my son could have spent all day in this museum! There was so much history and as you walked through, you were able to see weapons, uniforms, aircraft, and more from each of the wars. This museum was free to visit!

From there we visited the North Carolina Veteran’s Park. This was right across from the Airborne Museum. This park was fairy small and didn’t take a lot of time to check out, but it was very sobering. The picture on the left above was a wall with dog tags featuring the names of every North Carolina Casualty from the different wars. Yes, each of those little silver things is a dog tag. Very, very sobering, and this was just from North Carolina. This park was also free to visit.

After this, it started pouring down rain so we went ahead to our hotel, Fairfield Inn & Suites – Fayetteville North. This hotel is brand new, super clean, and fit us perfectly! We had a 2 Queen Bed Studio Room with a sofa bed. This room features a large fridge, sink, and even a dishwasher! I loved the color patterns in the rooms as well. Nice and bright and modern. Our absolutely favorite feature was the HUGE glass shower! It was so wonderful and relaxing!

Look how beautiful the rooms are! And the beds were so super comfy that we slept very soundly!

After we got settled in our room, we headed out for my birthday dinner! The Mash House graciously invited us in and provided gift cards for us to use during our dinner. The food at The Mash House was absolutely incredible. So much flavor and great atmosphere! Their items are made from scratch in house so perfectly allergy friendly! My kids gobbled down their macaroni and cheese and fresh pizzas in no time at all. My husband enjoyed sampling a few of their beers and settled on their most popular, the Hefeweizen. My husband enjoyed their NY Strip Steak and the garlic mashed potatoes as a side were fantastic! I loved my Mushroom Stout Burger with Asparagus! Their desserts are fantastic as well. They offered a red velvet cheesecake, and then my favorite, the Chocolate Stout Cake! Perfect for a birthday dinner! This definitely ranks as one of my favorite restaurants! We will definitely be returning the next time we’re in Fayetteville!

For more, see our 2nd day in Fayetteville!

Our #DisneySide Party at Home!

March 10, 2015 By MommyOctopus Leave a Comment
By clicking my links, I may earn a small commission to support this blog. Please see our Disclosure Policy.

We had the great privilege of doing a DisneySide party at home! Our #DisneySide party celebration pack was filled with all sorts of goodies from DisneyParks and MomSelect! We had tons of party supplies and even some great items from some of the DisneySide sponsors!

We had a great group of kids show up and ready to show their DisneySide. We started the party off with pin the mouth on Mickey game. The kids loved this! Several ended completely off the Mickey head with some right on his nose 🙂

How fun is that! From there we did some Disney Trivia and Disney Bingo. The kids loved finding their favorite rides and places to stay on the Bingo cards.

After this, we enjoyed some Mickey’s pizza and snacks. The kids loved having everything Mickey Mouse themed! It was amazing how much even the littlest kids knew about Disney!

We used the Mickey Mouse cake pan to make a giant rice krispy treat. Let’s face it – that’s one of my FAVORITE snacks at Disney!

Next up we did finger nail painting for the girlies! They loved having nail polish with their favorite characters on it. The moms loved the fact that it’s non toxic and peelable 🙂 My sister in law, Sara, was the nail polish professional 😉

While the party was happening for the kiddos, the parents all got to watch the Disney Vacation Planning Video. Everyone left feeling super stoked about planning a future Disney trip! I know some of our guests plan to go very soon, but don’t tell anyone. It’s a surprise for their kids!

We had a great time at our DisneySide party and say a BIG THANK YOU to Disney for choosing us! Thanks again! For recipes and activities to help plan your own DisneySide party, CLICK HERE.

You can also follow Disney Parks on Twitter or subscribe to their YouTube Channel.

I received free products in order to host a Disney Side @Home Celebration. The opinions here are my own.

Captain’s Quarters Resort Myrtle Beach Review

March 9, 2015 By MommyOctopus 2 Comments
By clicking my links, I may earn a small commission to support this blog. Please see our Disclosure Policy.

As I mentioned the other day, my family and I took off for 3 nights, 4 days at the Captain’s Quarters Resort in Myrtle Beach last week. This is a sister resort of Crown Reef, which we visited this past fall.

Upon arrival, we checked out our Angle Oceanfront Suite. My favorite part is the full working kitchen! We were able to make food right in our room to save money and to eat healthier! This suite features a full-size refrigerator, microwave, stove, toaster, coffee maker, and basic cookware and dinnerware! It worked out perfectly for our family!

The first room in the Angle Oceanfront Suite has a double bed and a privacy door. This comes in handy when you’re on a trip as a family and the adults need a little alone time. 😉 Side note – the door did not have a lock.

From there, you walk through the kitchen and the bathroom is off the kitchen. The bathroom featured double sinks and a large shower/tub. The next room featured a King size bed and a pull out sofa. I thought I grabbed a picture of that, but I’m sorry to say that I didn’t. This room had a table with 3 chairs and a large TV with DVD player. We also had a deck with absolutely gorgeous views! Check it out!

At Captain’s Quarters Resort, we found a lot of things to fill our time. Of course we spent plenty of time walking on the beach, but honestly it was too cold to enjoy the water. My crazy kids did get their feet in, though.

Since it was the off season, what was there to do? For starters, Captain’s Quarters has their own bowling alley on level 6! It was a full working bowling alley, not anything virtual. Resort guests get a free game of bowling each night, shoe rental extra. We totally took advantage of this! Bowling alley opens at 11am every day. For the kids just learning, they offer bumpers that will pop up and help keep their bowling ball in the lane. They also have this neat dinosaur that my little girls were able to use that acted like a ramp to send the ball down the alley. I think this was the first time that many of my kids went bowling and they loved it! The alley was clean and smoke free, which is important to our family. Snacks and a game room are available in the bowling alley as well.

We tried several of the snack foods at Level Six. I loved their fried pickles and virgin strawberry daiquiris and the kids really enjoyed their slushies. Speaking of food, in the mornings, Captain’s Quarters Resort offers a breakfast buffet for an additional charge. The food was great and they even have an omelette station! YUM! You can also walk right across the street to The Loco Gecko, which is a very highly recommended restaurant for lunch and dinner items.

Besides the bowling alley, Captain’s Quarters has an indoor swimming pool, toddler pool, and lazy river that are heated. During the summer months they have more pool options, but we were very happy with the indoor options. My kids loved riding down the lazy river and swimming in the pool.

Captain’s Quarters is also located close to all the major Myrtle Beach attractions. This trip, we decided to visit Wonder Works. It ended up being a super awesome and educational place and we cannot wait to go back! I cannot say enough good things about this attraction, plus it’s close by Captain’s Quarters so you don’t have to drive very far.

Captain’s Quarters Resort is a great and affordable hotel in Myrtle Beach. I have no complaints at all from our 3 night stay other than I wish we could have stayed longer! I left the resort feeling more relaxed than I have in a while, but perhaps that is because my sweet hubby did most of the cooking 😉

We had a great time and a big thank you to Vacation Myrtle Beach and Captain’s Quarters for sponsoring this trip.

We Are Back in Myrtle Beach!

March 3, 2015 By MommyOctopus Leave a Comment
By clicking my links, I may earn a small commission to support this blog. Please see our Disclosure Policy.

Since we had such a lovely time visiting Crown Reef Resort last fall, we were eager to return to Myrtle Beach when we were invited by another resort, Captain’s Quarters! We are spending 3 nights here and then moving on to visit Fayetteville, NC for a night! Can’t wait to tell you all about our adventures in the coming days!

Easter Bunny’s Carrot Garden Pudding Cups

February 26, 2015 By MommyOctopus Leave a Comment
By clicking my links, I may earn a small commission to support this blog. Please see our Disclosure Policy.

For holidays, the kids and I love having fun with our food. What better way to prepare for the Easter bunny fun that to make some yummy carrots out of strawberries! These Easter Bunny’s Carrot Garden Pudding Cups are perfect for an egg hunt with friends or for a classroom party! They are really simple to make as well!

Ingredients:

Carrot Strawberries:

Strawberries, rinsed and dried
Bag of Orange Candy Melts

Carrot Pudding Cups:

Crushed Oreos
1 box Chocolate Pudding
Milk (required number of cups on pudding box)
Carrot Chocolate Covered Strawberries

Additional Materials:

Clear cups
Parchment paper
Plastic baggie and scissors

Directions:

Line baking sheet or pan with parchment paper. Melt orange candy melts. Holding strawberries by the stems, dip them into orange candy to coat and place on parchment paper.
Take a sandwich bag and cut a tiny tip of it off for the chocolate drizzle. Spoon remaining melted orange candy into the bag. Gently drizzle the chocolate from side to side over the strawberries on parchment paper.
Prepare the cups by adding 2 tablespoons crushed Oreos to the bottom of each cup.
Make pudding as directed on box. Pour pudding into cup over crushed Oreos and then top with more crushed Oreos. Place carrot chocolate covered strawberry in center.
Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Easy to make and so delicious and fun! Enjoy!