Monkey Love & Kohl's Cares

He has taken this monkey everywhere this week! Showed it off in line at the Redbox too lol

 Earlier in the week we went to Kohl's to shop for sunglasses. I could not find any I liked for my Mother's Day gift so I thought I would take a peek at the after Mother's Day sales. I found a super cute pair for $11! I had a $10 gift card so I only paid less than $2 after taxes.

While we were in line my son spotted a monkey stuffed animal on the Kohl's Cares $5 items display. He grabbed one and said "awwww monkey" and gave him a kiss. Oh it melted my heart! He has been talking about Monkeys since I bought him a pair of Curious George flip flops (only $1 for those!) His first and most adored pillow pet is a monkey and when he was a few months old I bought him a Monkey Halloween costume just to see how cute he would look in it. So we have a bit of Monkey Love around here. My older brother had tons of stuffed animal monkeys when he was a kid. I can remember two of them very clearly. One looked creepy real lol and the other was a baby one that could take a binkie. It must be a family trait to adore stuffed monkeys!

Normally I try not to buy something my son grabs off a shelf, if I did that we would own the whole store lol. But the sweetness in his eyes and the tender way he patted the monkey on the head and hugged him made me think this is the monkey he needs! We have been having house repairs done and its been hectic, he is not on his normal routine and he has been cranky. Knowing that the $5 we are going to pay for the stuffed animals goes to the Kohls Cares program to help kids in need made me feel awesome to buy it not only for my son but to help another child in the world.

When we left the store my son was smiling sooooo big! It was so beyond worth $5 to see that kind of a smile after the frustration he has been having this week with the construction at home.

Two little monkeys sitting on the couch.......

Easing My Back Pain With Help From Tempurpedic

A few years ago I found myself suffering from terrible lower-back pain. The pain came on suddenly and I couldn't find a way to lessen it.

Thank goodness I finally found some relief in easing my back pain with the help of a Tempurpedic pillow.
Millions of people a year suffer from intense, often debilitating back pain. To say that it changes your whole life is not an exaggeration. My daily routine of being a wife and mother was interrupted by constant pain.

Getting in my car to drive, bending over to pick something up, or just sitting on the couch became a constant, painful struggle. I had heard about how agonizing back pain could be, but it is impossible to understand it until it happens to you.

I went to my doctor but he couldn't find any explanation for my pain and recommended pain relieving drugs and heat therapy. I only took over the counter medicine and used a heating pad, which did not help. My pain continued on for about six weeks.

I had been doing yoga and walking around my neighborhood before my back pain started, but that was impossible now. I only moved as little as possible to avoid experiencing pain. Finally one of my daughters told me that she had read that walking was the best cure for the pain. Slowly I started a little walking each day, and began feeling a little better.

I went to a family member's house to visit for a few days and told her about my back pain. She has experienced back pain before too, and gave me her Tempurpedic pillow to sleep on. Sleeping on this pillow for a few nights made all the difference. Each morning I woke up pain free. The pillow conforms to every contour of your head and neck. This allows your neck and shoulder muscles  to completely relax and help relieve the pain.

I had been tensing up these muscles during the day, contributing to the pain, but at night when I slept on the Tempurpedic pillow, they were allowed to relax. Using the pillow, walking, and slowing starting my yoga practice again all contributed to my back pain finally going away.

I haven't had a recurrence of back pain, thankfully. But if I ever do, at the first sign I will go right out and buy myself a Tempurpedic pillow. Or better yet, I think I'll start looking for one now so that I can keep my back feeling good.

*This post brought to you by Healthy Back

Simple Changes to Eat More Naturally: Coffee-Mate Natural Bliss Creamer

 Coffee is my favorite thing to drink. I enjoy it morning, noon and night. I have brand preferences and types of coffee I enjoy at what time of the day. Its my indulgence and it keeps me happy! For many years I have been a label reader. I check ingredients to make sure certain items are not in my food, including HFCS and other artificial flavors or colors. It can be tough at times on a budget and with availability in the stores I shop at. If you take a little extra time to look for Natural and Organic products you will find them almost anywhere. I shop at Walmart a lot. I have found they carry many food products and even household brands that are natural.

For the last 5 years or so my husband and I have been drinking an organic Coffee Creamer for our morning cup of coffee. We both felt that something we drink all the time should be one of the products we make sure contains natural ingredients. We searched for a coffee creamer that contained only natural ingredients and found that they have no real flavor to add to the coffee. I love a sweet cup of coffee and with our regular creamer it made the coffee light but required too much sugar to make it sweet. Plus it did not have the flavors I wanted in my coffee. 

As soon as I heard about the Coffee-Mate Natural Bliss I knew I had to try it. It comes in 3 flavors, Vanilla, Sweet Cream and Caramel. The awesome thing about Natural Bliss is that in contains only 4 ingredients of Milk, Cream, Sugar and Natural Flavors. Nothing artificial, no HFCS, no man made chemicals to sweeten it, just pure simple sweetness. 

If you are looking for a first step or more ways to pick more natural and healthier foods in your diet starting with your morning cup of coffee is a perfect choice. When you start the day more natural it will help you think about other food choice you make. Maybe swap a regular cookie for a all natural brand or a regular potato chip for all natural popcorn brand. Small steps like that can make a difference in the way you think about food. I know we cant all make sure everything we eat is all natural but we can buy certain items like All Natural Coffee Creamer to make simple changes. With Walmart prices on Coffee-Mate Natural Bliss creamer we can afford it too! #NaturalBlissWM

You can find Coffee-Mate Natural Bliss near the other coffee creamers.

I found 2 of the 3 flavors. I will keep my eye out for the Caramel one.

Right now is a great time to try Coffee-Mate Natural Bliss since you can get a $1 off two Coupon to redeem at your local Walmart.

My son being silly in the Dairy section of Walmart. .

*This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias.
All opinions expressed in this shop are my own and your experience may vary. #Cbias  #NaturalBlissWM

New Cookbooks I Want to Cook From

 I won a these 3 Cookbooks from Sasquatch books on Facebook. I was so excited to win since I want to try to make at least one new dish a week. I want to find some new go to recipes that I can add to my food rotation. We seem to be in a rut and I want new. They are great books, exactly what  I was looking for. One is about fish, which I love, the other is a Farm to Table cookbook, I love farming and support buying local grown produce and the last Rabbit Food looks like a good one too. I cannot wait until our kitchen is done being remodeled and I can get to cooking!

I told myself that I would cook the first page I turned to in one of the books. I grabbed the Rabbit Food one since my son has been talking about Bunnies all day from a book we read. The first thing I turned to was Potato Leek Soup. It sounds delicious. I have not made a soup from scratch and I look forward to it. I will post an update on how it goes when I make the dish.

What new cookbook you have gotten recently?

Clever Creations "Chopped" Theme First Street Ice Cream Party Smart & Final

My family loves to watch Cooking shows, especially the ones that have competition in them. My husband worked as a chef when we first met and I am always trying to prove I make better food than him. We enjoy watching the show Chopped the most. Its a cooking competition where the chefs are given specific items that must be included in their dish and they can use the on site kitchen for other ingredients. They have to make a certain food such as appetizer, main course or dessert using the selected ingredients. I thought it would be a great idea for a Ice Cream Party theme. We like to make wild dishes with flavors that might not go together just to be experimental with food and we love Ice Cream, sounds like a perfect combination.

We shopped at Smart&Final for our supplies for our Clever Creations "Chopped" Party. We purchased First Street brand items since they are always a great deal.

For our required ingredients for our Ice Cream creations we have Bacon, Cayenne powder, Applesauce and Oranges. The creations made by each team must include all four ingredients in their dish for it to be complete. We were able to use other items we had in the kitchen to make our creations. I also had the First Street Products I purchased at Smart&Final along with a few other First Street brand items I already had in my cupboards.

We used a coin to flip heads or tails for who would cook first and get the pick of Vanilla or Chocolate Ice Cream for their dish. The men went first and selected Vanilla and planned out their creation. They decided on a Vanilla Tropical theme.

Their plan was to make a Vanilla Shake served in a Orange peel bowl topped with Cayenne Bacon.

Cayenne powdered Bacon for the topping

The shake included 3 scoops Vanilla Bean First Street Ice Cream, 1/2 cup Applesauce, 1 banana, 3 Oranges (saving the peel as a cup to be served in. Place in the freezer while making other items) 3 pinches of First Street Shredded Coconut, cinnamon and the juice from 2 additional oranges.

Blend the mixture on high for several minutes until there are no chunks

One of the Orange Peel cups did not have a flat enough bottom. Maybe next time we will cut just a bit off the bottoms to make it level.

Team #1 Finished First Street Ice Cream Creation Vanilla Tropical

The second team, the women, we used First Street Chocolate Ice Cream. We were creating a more rich dish with lots of chocolate and Cayenne powder. The original plan was to make bacon cups but the muffin tins had been used in the backyard for mud pies then tossed out so I had to quickly rethink my plan. We decided to make little bacon pedestals for the ice cream to sit on.

For the Chocolate Bacon Ice Cream Creation we decided to make a sauce to go over our chocolate ice cream served on a bacon pedestal. The sauce included 1/2 cup Applesauce, 1/4 cup First Street Chocolate Syrup, the juice from two Oranges, and 1 tablespoon of Cayenne powder. ( We added chocolate and cayenne dashes as it cooked for flavor adjustments.)

I placed the just cooked bacon in little cups to make the circle shapes. Do this fast or it will break.

Needed more chocolate as I tasted it. The aroma was great, like a chocolate orange candy mixed with Mexican Hot Coco.

The finished sweet and spicy Chocolate sauce

Next we plated our dish to be tasted against the other team's First Street Ice Cream Creation. I so wanted my team of the women to win so I could have bragging rights!

Chocolate Bacon with Sweet and Spicy Sauce topped with First Street Slivered Almonds

The two finished Smart&Final First Street Ice Cream Clever Creations "Chopped" Party dishes. Each dish had to include Bacon, Cayenne powder, Apple Sauce, Oranges and one flavor of First Street Ice Cream. The taste test started and we were impressed by the competition. Each team went a different direction with the flavors making it a tough call on the winner. Most of the kids did not like the spicy sauce on the Chocolate Bacon Dish but did love the Tropical Vanilla Shake Mixture. The adults agreed the Chocolate Bacon one was rich, spicy and a great use of the ingredients. But the sweetness of the Tropical Vanilla shake on the Cayenne Bacon was awesome!

The women were officially "chopped" from this competition. The winner ended up being the men's for the overall dish but we all agreed the women did have the best use of the flavors for the Chocolate Sweet and Spicy sauce.

A face covered in Ice Cream is always a sign of a great Ice Cream Party #IceCreamTreat

You can read my Google+ Story about my shopping trip to Smart & Final for First Street Ice Cream and other supplies for our "Chopped" Clever Creations Ice Cream Party.

*This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias.
All opinions expressed in this shop are my own and your experience may vary. #Cbias #IceCreamTreat