Chocolate M&M's® Butterscotch Popcorn Ice Cream Sandwiches

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #MovieNight4Less #CollectiveBias

Two posts in one day? Yep, I've had two cups of coffee, the girls are in school, and Noah is busy playing so I decided to catch up on posting more things that I've been up to lately! After I came home Saturday night (we were home by 9:30) I decided to have a little girl’s movie night, so I hopped into my favorite flannel pajamas and pulled out a few movies that I bought at Walmart last week. They have a huge selection of $5 movies, many of which I haven’t seen yet because, well, I’m a busy lady. J I of course grabbed one of my favorites of all time The Notebook, and a couple of others – The Blindside and Horrible Bosses.  When I purchased the movies I also stocked up on Orville Redenbacher’sPopcorn and M&M's® because what lady doesn't want to snack on those while relaxing on the couch??

But you know me, sometimes I tend to get a tad creative and find myself coming up with new ideas…and so somehow I thought, ‘Popcorn…popcorn is good….caramel popcorn is better….butterscotch popcorn might be good – oh and with M&M's® mixed in….wait, what about with ice cream….like a popcorn ice cream sandwich??’ – Yes that’s truly how my mind rambles, and anyways Chocolate Butterscotch Popcorn Ice Cream Sandwiches were born – and they are pretty darn good.

I made them Friday afternoon, so they were all ready for my movie night on Saturday. If you've never made caramel corn before, it’s seriously one of the simplest things to create. I just altered it a tad bit, and thankfully it turned out! J

Chocolate Butterscotch Popcorn Ice Cream Sandwiches

Ingredients:

½ stick of butter

½ cup brown sugar

½ cup heavy cream

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon butterscotch schnapps OR you can use vanilla extract (or another flavor!)

2 bags of Orville Redenbacher’s Salty and Sweet Popcorn

2 boxes of theater sized M&M's®

Vanilla Bean Ice Cream

1. Melt butter in saucepan over medium heat. Add brown sugar, cream, and salt.
2. Bring to a boil and boil for 4 or 5 minutes, stirring occasionally and scraping the sides of the pan down.
3. Meanwhile, pop both bags of popcorn and pour into a large mixing bowl.
4. Remove the butterscotch sauce off of the heat and stir in butterscotch flavoring. Pour into popcorn bowl and mix thoroughly.
5. Add the M&M's® and then pour mixture onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or wax paper. Spread evenly and transfer to the freezer to cool completely.
6. When the popcorn is cooled completely, cut into desired size squares and place a scoop of softened vanilla bean ice cream in the center of a bar, topping with another bar. Wrap with parchment paper if desired. 

 And there you have it! The perfect movie night in treat!! I had some extra butter flavored popcorn so I made a double batch, but held the M&M's® and added ½ pound of cooked diced bacon, then shaped the popcorn mixture into small balls and inserted a toothpick. They had just enough sweet and salty combination to be rather addicting!

 After a full night of having a ladies night out, and then a movie night in, I fell asleep pretty happy and relaxed that night! I’m pretty sure I should make at least the movie night more of a routine – as well as making recipe creations. It’s fun to just let loose and try new things!

~Melissa

You can find these fun movie night displays with special movies discounted through the 24th at the locations HERE.!

How to Style Your Hair and Create Perfect Curls

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #CollectiveBias #HeartMyHair 

Good morning everyone! I hope your weekend went well! I had a bunch of fun Saturday night with my friend at the food festival for a girl’s night out (I’ll share pictures soon!) and enjoyed having the opportunity to dress up and do my hair. Most of the time I’m finding myself wearing yoga pants more and more, and even though I do my makeup most mornings, not much happens to my hair. Having a reason to fix my hair was really nice, and I decided to throw some curls in it and enhance my wild-child look. It’s a funny thing – for so many years when I was younger I tried so hard to be someone I wasn't. I’d dye my hair colors that weren't even close to my natural color, or I’d cut or always have to change my hair styles or straighten my hair which is naturally pretty big an wavy. Luckily I've grown to embrace who I am and how I look and am not trying to visually be someone I’m not.

To be completely honest, even though I feel like I’m sort of a closest beauty junkie (I seriously have way too many products covering my bathroom ) I hadn't updated a couple of the most import beauty tools – my hairdryer and curling irons! Then I found these new Conair products, first the InfinitiPro by Conair® 3Q™ Brushless Motor Dryer which is AMAZING! I hadn't updated my hairdryer in like…..a decade (really) and when I switched I realized just how much time I wasted trying to get my hair dry! This dried my hair so fast and it didn't frizz as much as it normally does when I blow dry it. 

The second item is The Infiniti Pro by Conair® Curl Secret. All I can say is it’s an amazing new product that gave the curls I wanted incredibly fast!

First thing I always do is gently towel dry my hair, then add any products that I want. This is generally a good leave-in conditioner and a root lifter if I’m really styling it. Next I will dry it and will use the Conair Professional Round Brush to lift and dry my roots and bangs, then will use the Conair Velvet Paddle Brush to dry the rest of my hair in a downward position

After my hair is dry I then section it off…in other words I’ll clip all but one section of it up so I only work on one part at a time. I then use The Infiniti Pro by Conair® Curl Secret – all you have to do is take a small section of hair (about ½-1 inch width) and clamp the Curl Secret on. It draws the hair to it and curls it incredibly fast. I continue to do this throughout my hair, letting more pieces down as needed until I have the curls I want all over. I then always finish up with a strong hairspray.

I have this crazy cowlick up by my bangs, so 99% of the time you’ll see my hair parted just off the side a little, and I normally will always have side bangs. When I curl my hair I’ll often pin my bangs back with a couple of Conair Bobby Pins – I always buy the 90 pack because I always seem to lose them! Please tell me I’m not the only one? 

And there you have it – how I created my girl’s night out curls in just a few minutes with some amazing salon quality products! You can find them in the hair care aisle in Walmart.

So, the question is – which do you prefer for a night out, silky and straight or crazy and curly? ;)

~Melissa

Orange Cream Cocktail with #DrinkTEN products

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #CollectiveBias #DrinkTEN

Happy Sunday everyone! Last night I had the opportunity to sneak out for a couple hours and attend another fun food event with one of my friends – it’s always good to have a few kid free hours to catch up and taste new things. At the event (which I’ll post pictures of soon!) there was a cocktail class that we sat and watched for a little while, and I left so inspired! I have always been intrigued with the art and history of cocktail making and even though I know absolutely nothing about the ‘proper’ way to create a cocktail (maybe someday I will learn more!) I never let that stop me from making some mean drinks! I have noticed that over the years I have definitely gone through my phases of my ‘signature’ drinks that my friends always knew I’d have to offer if they came over, it all started with Pina coladas! I then got into strawberry daiquiris, began my exploration with mojitos and fell in love with lemon drops. Recently I’ve been purchasing different flavors of vodka as well as a few other specialty liquors and stocking up on some sodas for the upcoming holidays like any of the #DrinkTEN products ( like the Dr Pepper TEN, Canada Dry TEN, 7UP TEN, and A&W TEN). I don’t drink soda too frequently but when I do love buying the TEN products because they taste delicious and also save me a bunch of calories (since I’ll be adding the alcohol calories in with it) plus it’s nice because non-alcohol drinkers, kids, and guests watching their sugar or calories can also drink up! 

You can mix the soda with just some liquor on the rocks, or you can set out some juices and cocktail shakers and really get a bit more creative! The other night we actually had a family night in and watched our first Christmas movie of the year (!) and I made some orange and A&W TEN floats for the kids with vanilla bean ice cream, and then made an orange cream cocktail for Wayne and me.

And here’s how I created it.

Orange Cream Cocktail

1.5 ounces vodka

.5 ounce triple sec

1 ounce orange juice

1 ounce heavy cream (you can use light if you are REALLY watching the calories!)

Ice

Sunkist TEN soda

Orange gel color for décor

Fill cocktail shaker halfway with ice. Add vodka, triple sec, orange juice, and cream and shake until thoroughly mixed. Pour into glass and then top with Sunkist TEN Soda and create a simple design on top if serving to guests – but it’s just for looks, so if you’re just serving for your self – it’s totally not necessary.

The #DrinkTEN products can be found at any Kroger store (I love Fred Meyer!) in the drink aisle.

What’s your go-to cocktail to make at home?

~Melissa

5 Tips To Keep Your Kids Safe Online

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls Collective and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.

I love technology – the ability to have limitless knowledge at your fingertips and ways to keep connected with my friends and family – I love sharing pictures online with you and catching up on my favorite TV shows – sometimes it’s seriously hard to remember what life was like before all of this technology.

The girls are getting older and things like playing games and surfing the internet are things that they want to do – and even though I’m frequently online for inspiration I've been very cautious about how much technology I let them have – for two reasons,

1.  Because I don’t want them to be dependent on it for information or entertainment (yes, I’m that mom who makes you look it up in a dictionary or play a board game) and 
2. I’m careful about what they see – I want to make sure they are always safe, because let’s face it – there’s a lot of not-so-good things online too.

I've put off the internet safety conversation for quite a while – Anika knew some rules, but I never sat down and made everything ‘official’ until Emma came home a couple weeks ago with a paper from school with information for a learning website with her own special log in so that she could practice her reading, writing and math with fun interactive lessons.

So we sat down.

Our rules may vary from yours, but whatever household rules you have it’s important to just set them and make sure that everyone in the house knows.

1.  Set a time limit and stick to it.
2. Internet usage is only allowed in the kitchen or living room – in other words in a place that’s always supervised.
3. They are only allowed to look at approved websites, and need to ask before looking at other things.
4. No social media until they are at the ‘approved’ age. This one is a bit harder when you have older kids – Anika is at the age where a lot of her friends are joining Facebook and Twitter, but I’ve told her no social media until she’s 13 – after all, that’s  Facebook’s policy and I don’t want to teach her that it’s okay to lie about your age.
5. Ask questions and talk! Technology should be a fun learning experience for kids – and it can open the door for lots of conversations and inspiration for everyone!

Most of you know by now that I’m pretty involved in our school, and have been the President of our Parent Teacher Organization for a while now (this is my second year) so I was really excited when I heard that the National PTA has partnered with LifeLock to share awesome ways families can create an open, evolving conversation about positive, safe decisions when using digital tools through their #ShareAwesome campaign. 

It’s goal is to build an understanding among parents and students that no matter the device, the app or the networking site – the skills we need to be safe and positive online are similar to what you need offline, and to make it fun there are holding a contest! Share the hashtag #ShareAwesome on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Students who are old enough for social media can enter a photo between September 15 – November 30, 2014 will be eligible to win fantastic prizes, including tablets and a $2,500 scholarship! Visit ShareAwesomeNow.org to learn more.

~Melissa

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls Collective and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.

Boys Will Be Boys at The Pumpkin Patch.

 It's been quite the craziness lately around here...and here I am once again just now going through pictures from a month ago - trying to get caught up. Today we actually ended up having our first "snow day" of the school year - which turned out to be nothing more than a little bit of freezing rain this morning that has since melted away. 

The kids haven't been feeling so well either so I suppose it was good for them to stay home and 'rest', although having all three of them here at the same time - acting tired and grumpy - it's been one of those days that tests my patience. 

But anyways, I've came across these pictures from our field trips to the pumpkin patch, where 

I chaperoned Noah and Emma's classes - both on the same day. 

Luckily for me they weren't both at the same time, Noah's preschool arrived around 9:30 and finished up at about 11:00 - right when Emma's bus pulled up, so Noah and I stayed and hung out until 1:00 with all of the grade school kids. He felt like quite the lucky man to ride the hayride twice in one day.

I took pictures of the boys making silly and scary faces while we waited for the class to wash their hands. I love the age 4 - it may be one of my favorite ages. They're big enough to communicate with you (and no more diapers!) and still young enough to ask for hugs and snuggle in the morning. 

As for now I think a quiet reading time is in order for my little grumpies this afternoon - hopefully it will give me a little more time to go through the rest of these photos!

~Melissa