Strawberry Shortcake Thank You Basket

Strawberry season is closing in. Are you as excited about that as I am? Where strawberries are there is strawberry frozen yogurt, strawberry lemonade, strawberry pie, strawberry spinach salad, strawberry jam, and of course Strawberry Shortcake. I recently had a few friends do me the biggest favor ever. They watched my three older little men while my littlest man and I went on a week long trip. There is no feeling like not having to worry about where your kiddos will be during the day while you are out of town. That kind of peace of mind deserves a really a big THANK YOU. A BERRY special kind of Thank You if you will. Hahaha. We all have people in our lives who are BERRY sweet. There are teachers, neighbors, friends, moms, and so many others all awesome enough to be thanked with Strawberry Shortcake.

Making your own Thank You Strawberry Shortcake Kit is really easy.

Just gather up all the stars of the show. Starting of course with the leading lady. Strawberries.

Then we have whipped cream.

Now introducing the strawberry glaze and cakes of the shortcake variety.

Everything is store bought. I simply prettied everything up just a tad. I put the strawberries in a fun paper berry container. I added a paper doily and yarn to the whipped cream. The store bought strawberry glaze found a new home in a fun textured mason jar.

I printed out the Thank You tag and attached it to the basket with a cloths pin.

 

 

Download Berry Thank You Tags HERE

It has never been easier, prettier, and yummier to say thank you to that awesome person in your life.

Now I can say thank you to my berry special friends with a little Strawberry Shortcake Kit. I am pretty sure they will be my friends forever now.

Bluberry Cereal Trail Mix

Three out of my four boys all prefer eating cereal dry.

No milk. No spoons.

They like their cereal to be finger food. Which, hey, as a mom on the go I don't really have too many complaints about that. Have snack will travel.

That is always a good thing.

With Summer basically here, that means baseball, swimming lessons, sports camps, road trips and oh so many other activities. That means we are snacking a lot on the go. I really wanted to create a snack that was fun, portable, and still healthy.

So I decided to use one of my boys' favorite cereals as the jumping off point for a healthy trail mix. My boys really like Kellogg's mini shredded wheat. The flavored ones are at the top of their list. I grabbed a box of Blueberry Frosted Mini Wheats. Then I gathered up a few other ingredients and I made up a batch of this Blueberry Trail Mix.

Cereal makes the best trail mix. Plus you can pretty much make up any kind of trail mix you want. Then you throw it in any portable container and take it with you. I am not above just throwing it at my kids while driving.

My boys really liked this mix. Ninety percent wholesome, Ten percent chocolate. Perfect.

 

 Print HERE

End of School Pizza Party

“This post is part of a social shopper marketing insight campaign with Pollinate Media Group® and TONY’S® Pizza, but all my opinions are my own. #pmedia #BigPizzeriaTaste http://my-disclosur.es/OBsstV”

School's out for the Summer, well for us it is almost out. We have 8 days left, but then who is counting. The end of the school year calls for a celebration.

This year we decided to throw ourselves a little pizza party.

An Hasta La Pizza School party. Oh gosh. I kill myself. After I laughed at how clever I was, I went to work making posters and decorations for our end of school pizza party.

Download HERE

If one is having a pizza party, one must have pizza.

When you have four boys with bottomless pits for stomachs, you have to have good pizza that is affordable. Good news for me is that TONY's®  Pizza is now 30% larger, comes in a variety of yummy crowd pleasing flavors, and they are super affordable.

I ran over to Walmart and I picked up a few of our favorite flavors of Tony's Pizza. We cooked them up and set them out to start our pizza party.

To make our party all fun with very little clean up necessary, I laid out butcher paper and served the pizza right on top of it. I labeled the butcher paper with which kind of pizza was on the menu.
  

 

Even the drinks were served up easy in paper cups with paper straws.

We can't forget the decorations. You all know how I like a good coordinated party. So to go with our pizza I made up pizza decorations.

A simple pizza banner.

I whipped up these banners using PicMonkey.

If you are feeling the urge to throw your kiddos an Hasta La Pizza School party, I have made this little pizza banner print out for you to use.

Download HERE

I also made up some invitations just in case you want to invite the whole neighborhood.

Download HERE

Time to load up the plates with all the yummy pizza. All that authentic pizzeria taste, made with real cheese, and lovely herby tomato sauce piled on a plate. My boys love pizza.

I completely lost track of how many pieces they each ate.

 

Pizza is always a good idea. Especially for a celebration. You can use these printables to throw your own Hasta La Pizza School pizza party. You can also load up with a COUPON for Tony's Pizzas: SAVE $.75 off of any TWO (2) Tony's Pizza (14.14 oz. or larger). The Walmart digital coupon is available until 6/30/15. (While supplies last)

Place Mat Outdoor Throw Pillow

When we moved into this house, we were so excited that there was a little front porch. We have lived in our house almost four years.  First off let me just say that I can't believe we have lived here that long. Technically we have lived here long enough now that this is our second set of cushions/pillows for our white outdoor chairs (from Target).

Previously our chair cushions were gray and the pillows were coral and white. I bought them when those colors were super popular. After some wear and tear, I needed something new. When I was looking at what to get now, I decided to look at not just what was popular color wise, but to also look at what I knew I loved and would always love. That meant blue people.

I am sure you are shocked. Blue and white. I am nothing if not consistent.

I went back and forth on what to do for the throw pillows. Then I remembered a set of gray place mats I had laying around. I had originally bought them for another project, but I changed my mind. I have had them for like two years just waiting to fulfill their design purpose.

That is how the Place Mat Outdoor Throw Pillow was born. Two place mats plus some stuffing equals two perfect lumbar throw pillows for our porch chairs.

I have made throw pillows from place mats before. They are one of the easiest throw pillows you will ever make.

You just need--

a place mat (one that is layered like a quilt, basically not just one piece of fabric)
stuffing
needle/thread

On one of the short sides of the place mat, in the middle, pick the seam and create a 4-5 inch opening.

Stuff, stuff, stuff away. Make sure to really cram it full and get the stuffing into all the corners.

Hand stitch up the opening.

BAM! Done.

The throw pillows were not the only new addition this year. I got this bird cage for 60% off at JoAnn's. I then filled it with an IKEA plant and container that we already had. The wind blows something fierce around here, so something heavy has to anchor it down.

I really, really love IKEA's faux plants. If you were to walk around my house, you would find a lot of them.

Now we have the perfect place to sit and enjoy the delights of Summer. I always like coming home, but driving up to my house and seeing this little porch set up really brings a smile to my face.

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Breakfast On the Go

I have said it before, mornings are crazy around here. This is due mostly to the fact that the Little Men have to catch the bus pretty early and well, frankly, I don't want to get up at the butt crack of dawn. So we sleep until the last possible minute, leaving barely just enough time to get them up, dressed, fed, and off to school.

Breakfast and putting on shoes are the two time suckers. While breakfast is an obvious place to use up time, don't ask me why putting on shoes is the other. There is no good reason. Notice I said putting on shoes, not finding them. The shoes are always there. I am this close to only buying slip on shoes. 

So slip on shoes will solve that issue. 

What to do about breakfast? What to do? What to do?

Well a portable breakfast of course. Cereal in a cup to me more precise. 

Cereal in a cute cup nonetheless. These Kellogg's cereal cups are adorable. You guys know how I love myself some good packaging. They are easy to grab on the go. You just peel back the paper and start eating with or without milk. Half of my kids eat cereal with milk and the other half prefer cereal dry.
Either way these cups make it so I don't have to clean up any bowls. Thinking beyond the bowl means I can go back to bed one those sweet children of mine head out the door. Can I get a virtual high five?
"CLAP"
That was us high-fiving.
I did try to make our cereal-in-a-cup breakfast a little bit special by adding a coordinating plastic spoon and a fun patterned paper napkin. The cereal, spoons, and napkins all came from Walmart.  Package up the cereal the night before. Set out everything (but the milk of course) out on a tray.

That way when it is breakfast time all you have to do is shove the tray at them. Er, I mean stand lovingly with the tray in hand and offer them breakfast. Yes that is what I meant.

One might even have to hand it to them on the way out the door.

Have I said how great it is that these cups of cereal are easy to take on the go. They can even eat them at the bus stop.

No matter how the kiddos eat it, it is a time saver. They also make great snacks on the go too. Bean loved having his own cup of Fruit Loops just as a snack in the car on the way to the library.
So in our kitchen, on the way to the bus stop, or in the car we loved ourselves these cups of cereal.

With Summer coming school might be out, but that doesn't mean that our life isn't getting crazier. I am keeping lots of Kellogg cereal in a cup around. We have a pretty lengthy car trip coming up. You better believe I am packaging up some of these. These will help me make the most of my time and Make The Most of my Summer.
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