Simple Dessert: Marshmallow Popcorn Balls

For movies we love to pop fresh popcorn from our movie theater style popcorn maker. Sometimes I get a little wild with it making way too much for the night. I find it absolutely fun to make the popcorn and watch it pour out of the popper. Silly I know but this leaves me with extra popcorn all the time. Sometimes we feed it to the ducks at a local pond and other times we make popcorn balls.

This last time we made popcorn for a movie I had a whole grocery bag full left over. I decide we would make some simple marshmallow popcorn balls. I searched the cupboards to see if we had anything we could add in and I found some white chocolate and dark chocolate chips. I found some food coloring too so I decided to make my white chocolate pink.

My son wanted to help as always so I let him make a couple pink popcorn balls, his oddly turned out a little runny. I found out after clicking through some pictures and asking my husband that he had dipped his popcorn balls in his apple juice before dipping it into the white chocolate mix. ( I was baffled as to why his turned out so watery and strange lol)

Ingredients:

4 tbsp. butter
1 tsp of vanilla
1/4 tsp of salt
10 oz bag of Marshmallows
12 cups popped popcorn
1/3 cup white chocolate chips
1/3 cup dark chocolate chips


Directions:

Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Stir in the marshmallows, vanilla and salt. Heat, stirring constantly, until the marshmallows are completely melted and the mixture is smooth. Place the popcorn in a large mixing bowl. Pour the marshmallow mixture over the top. Toss gently to combine and coat the popcorn. Allow to cool just slightly, then form into balls with well buttered hands. Place on sheets of wax paper. While popcorn balls are cooling melt the white chocolate in a small bowl in microwave, mix in coloring if desired, melt dark chocolate in separate bowl. Once cooled dipped the popcorn balls in the chocolate mixtures. ENJOY!

Frugal Friday Coupons!

Food

• SAVE $1.00 ON TWO when you buy TWO BOXES any flavor Cheerios® cereals: Original Cheerios® • Honey Nut Cheerios® • Multi Grain Cheerios®
• SAVE 75¢ when you buy ONE BAG any flavor Nature Valley® Protein Crunchy Granola
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• SAVE 50¢ ON TWO when you buy TWO BAGS any 4.5 OZ. OR LARGER Bugles® Corn Snacks, Chex Mix®, Pillsbury® Baguette Chips, Gardetto’s® Snack
• SAVE 50¢ ON TWO when you buy TWO BOXES any Nature Valley® Granola Bars (5 count or larger), Nature Valley® Granola Thins OR Nature Valley
• SAVE 50¢ when you buy ONE BOX Reese’s® Puffs® cereal
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• SAVE 75¢ ON THREE when you buy THREE any flavor/variety Pillsbury® Toaster Strudel® OR Toaster Scrambles® Pastries OR Pillsbury® Pancakes

Personal Care

• $2.00 OFF TWO Pantene® products (excludes trial/travel size) De descuento en DOS productos Pantene® (excluye tamaños de prueba/viaje)
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• SAVE $1.00 on One (1) Package of Men's Fruit of the Loom® Underwear (Available at Walmart)
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In the Home

• Save $0.50 on any one (1) pack of Angel Soft® Facial Tissue
• $1.00 OFF ONE Tide® Washing Machine Cleaner (excludes travel/trial sizes) de descuento en UN Tide® Machine Cleaner (excluye tamaños de prueba/viaje)
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• SAVE $1.00 on any TWO Scrubbing Bubbles® Bath Cleaning Products

Summer Fun with Target and Justice League! #SummerUp

Check out our summer loot, we have been digging into it finding lots of great activities to do!

It is no secret how much my family and I love Target, in fact my 3 year old's favorite store is Target, even above the toys store! There are so many great things to shop for at Target and they did not disappoint for their summer items. Target has a line of summer gear of Justice League with a ton of things to help keep the kiddos busy while the lazy days of summer continue.

Enjoying the summer days with nice cold drinks in our pitcher and cups along with tasty treats :)

Ashley at the beach with our picnic blanket, perfect for keeping the sand under us, not on us.

The boy making their own Justice League masks!

Ashley (and the Chewie the dog) love to throw these light weight frisbees back and forth, again from the summer Justice League.

The summer is in full swing over here in Washington, we have been to the beach, the park, and any outdoor activity we can. The summer days can also drag and feel like they will never end that is why I love getting new ideas for activities and outings. In need some summer fun inspiration? Target has just that and more check it out here!

* This is not a paid post, I was provided these items on behalf of Target. All thoughts and opinions are my own. 

A very vintage weekend...

This weekend consists of taking pictures of my beautiful, vintage inspired, little sister Megan, some thrifting in hopes of some vintage finds and taking in a movie in a local old theater with my wonderful husband. Here to the weekend, hope you enjoy yourself and find joy in the little things.

Day at the Lake with Save Mart Cantaloupe #FreshFinds #Shop #cbias

*I am a member of the Collective Bias®  Social Fabric® Community.  This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias and their client. #FreshFinds #shop #cbias All opinions expressed in this post are my own.

This summer has been filled with fun times. We swim at the pool, have BBQ dinners, attended festivals and even met some new friends. This year we decided we wanted to take our son for his first lake trip. He has swam in pools and dipped his toes in the river but we have not made it to the lake. When I saw the great deals at Save Mart for the food I would need to plan a picnic I knew we had to go. I have been wanting to try a new recipe for Cantaloupe Berry Fruit Salad that has a lemon yogurt and cinnamon dressing.

We made a list for our day at the lake using the Save Mart ad and divided it in half. My husband and I planned to divide and conquer in the store. We had a busy day planned and knew this would be fast. My son went with me since I had the "cool" racing cart. We ended up with 44 items all together and saved $36.86. Great shopping trip! You can read about our shopping trip in my Google+ story.

I found many fresh finds at Save Mart. Everything I need for my Cantaloupe Berry Salad, honey mangoes to snack on while I cook, watermelon to slice into wedges for the kids to eat and red bell peppers to add to the pasta salad. Thankfully my son loves fresh fruit and ate almost half the containers of strawberries and blueberries while I was preparing the fruit salad. I had to hide them or he would have eaten them all!

The sweet scent of fresh fruit filled the kitchen as I was preparing the salad. I always look forward to California summers that are filled with local fresh fruits and veggies. I often just set our a big bowl of cut fruit to guest to snack on. I wanted to fancy up our fruit for the day at the lake so I made a cinnamon lemon yogurt dressing.

Cantaloupe Berry Fruit Salad Recipe:

Ingredients:

1/2 cup low fat lemon yogurt

2 tsp. lemon juice

2 tsp. sugar

1/8 tsp. cinnamon

2 cups sliced cantaloupe 

2 cups sliced strawberries

2 cups blueberries

Preparation:

In small bowl, mix yogurt, juice, sugar, and cinnamon and blend well with whisk. Combine remaining ingredients in salad bowl and drizzle with salad dressing. Cover and chill until serving.

We packed up the fruit salad, pasta salad, watermelon slices, fresh corn that we planned to grilled in the husk, the meat to BBQ and all drove to Folsom. The kids were super excited to be going to the lake. For a few of our friends this would be their first time at the lake, just like my son.

The food was delicious. The fruit salad was a big hit, some of the kids even asked for seconds! We ate so much I wanted to make sure the kids waited for a bit before heading back to the water. I did not want to sound like a cliche so I did not want to say "You have to wait 30 minutes before swimming" so I had them talking and playing with balloons I brought. We played balloons and had fun for about, 30 minutes lol. If its true or not about waiting to swim I still like to have them settle their tummies before swimming.

One of the benefits of serving fruit for a day at the lake dinner is we were all hydrated and full of antioxidants while we enjoyed the summer sun. Some people like to make things like S'mores but for us on a hot summer day fresh fruit is what we love. We all headed to the water to swim and build sand castles. We had a perfect summer day!

My son loved swimming in Folsom Lake. He wanted to stay as long as we could, the only way I could get him to leave is by promising he could have more fruit and swim at the pool when we got home.

You can find great recipes and see what items are on sale to plan your next summer adventure on the Save Mart website, Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest.