The Latest PC Game: The SIMS™ 4 Launch is Happening!

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

I have been playing The Sims™ since the first one came out! My husband and I are gamers and Sims has been our favorite PC game ever. When my husband and I were in college together we would play The Sims™ Series between classes and after homework. We would laugh how we were playing a game that was the life we were going to college for, a career, kids, a home and  pets. My husband and I even speak "Sim" to each other and we so get what the other is saying, its hilarious.

Fast forward 10 plus years and we now have the kid, the responsibility of a house and jobs. Between raising kids and working we still try to take time to play games. After all playing keeps adults young at heart! When we heard that the Latest PC Game The Sims™ 4 was coming out we knew we had to get it. #Sims4 #CollectiveBias

This version of The Sims™ has the characters with bigger personalities by being able to customize personality traits, skills and ambition that all change how your character interacts in the game. The home creating tools are easier and faster with for the first time being able to hand sculpt each room to make it your very own. Plus you can more easily share your Sims creations with friends online.

I spent a few hours playing The Sims™ 4 Create a Character Demo and had a blast. I love how you can now change small details in a face that make a big difference to looking exactly like a real person. In the demo you can only create  young adults but its a great way to get a feel for the flow of the game and I was impressed. I was making a Sim that I thought looked like me to have my husband ask who I was making. That made me laugh because I realized I was indeed making the "cooler" me and ask for his tweeks to my character using the tools. Between the two of us making it I think its a close match. I am looking forward to making his character and building a house once the full version of the game is out on September 2nd.

Like many great games that come out its best to get a pre-order in. I have had to wait on games I thought would be available after not pre-ordering so I knew this game I would definitely need to. Walmart is making it simple and beneficial to pre-order the game online. Easy peasy you don't even need to go to the store! When you pre-order the game online you will get a packet of Sour Patch Kids gum and other limited time offers with the game like a keychain, VUDU movie credits and more. But hurry with your pre-order to get the extra perks.

My husband and I are looking forward to the game day launch of September 2nd to spend hours playing. I even made sure I had the day off from work! It is going to be a Sim-erific day with our Sour Patch Kids Gum and the latest version of our favorite PC game Sims 4.

There is a great Facebook contest for the The Sims™ 4 release. Here is some info:

Be sure to enter the SIMify yourself Facebook Contest here: https://www.facebook.com/simifyyourself. There are $8000 in prizes to be won including the grand prize where you could win a trip to Maxis studio in California! See the official rules here: https://collectivebias.box.com/shared/static/bgg20pn7ujnmkha77b6p.pdf

Have you played any of The Sims™ Series? Do you plan to play this one?

Help Your School With Campbell's Labels For Education #Labels4Edu #cbias

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #Labels4Edu #CollectiveBias

I know many kids all around the country have already started school. Here in Washington State, we still have another week to wait, and the excitement is really running high with anticipation around our house. Like most parents and grandparents, we want to help our school function at it's best in every way we can. So we are very excited to be participating in the Campbell's Labels for Education program, where you just clip and save the UPC labels from thousands of participating products you buy everyday, and give them to your school to redeem for free merchandise.

There are soups, cereals, cookies, dairy products, beverages, school supplies and so many more that all carry the Labels for Education emblem that will help earn points for your child's school, or the school of your choice.

My family and I already buy many of these products on a weekly basis, so it really makes it easy to participate in this program and help us give to my grandson Jayden's school. It's very simple to find out if your school participates in the program, or a school in your district, on the programs website.

Jayden is thrilled to be entering second grade this year, and I'm finding it a little bit surprising that I'm the grandmother of a seven year old. It seems like only yesterday that he was a baby. The time has flown by, but I am so proud of this smart little guy.

Like most schools around the country, Jayden's school has budget challenges, and has needs that have to go unmet because of lack of funding.

By participating in the Labels for Education program, his school has the opportunity to get some of those needed items for free.

All you have to do is clip the labels and give them to your school. It's really easy, and we have a box that we toss them into and give to the school once a month. It's even kind of funny, because now Jayden will pick up a package or can and look for the Labels for Education to help out his school. He caught onto this very quickly, and feels great about finding the labels.

We have a large family, so I've recently asked everyone to clip and save their labels. The list of participating products is over 2,500, so there should be a good amount of labels coming my way every month from family members.

My town has a brand new Safeway, that I just love, and can't seem to stay away from. They have a great selection of so many items, many with the Labels for Education, including my favorite cookies. I love that I can eat cookies for a good cause!!

For my weekly shopping trip, I printed out some great money-saving coupons from the Labels for Education website. These are coupons for items that my family and I use all the time, and also lets us donate more labels to our school.

Since I live with my daughter and her family, which includes three of my grandchildren, we have a big grocery bill every week. So it's really great when I can use coupons to help save us money.





Campbell's soups has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. One of my favorite memories as a kindergartener was coming home at lunchtime to a cup of Campbell's soup and a grilled cheese sandwich that my Mom had made for me.

My grandchildren are soup lovers too, so we buy a lot of Campbell's soup. And now all the kids love finding the labels and helping me put them in the box to donate and help our school.

And there's another way we can help out our schools, one which I love, because I love sweepstakes.

Just enter your school in the Labels for Education $ 1 Million Sweepstakes. 1000 schools will win $1000.  Wouldn't that be great for your school?



When I was at Safeway, I also picked up some much needed pens for myself. On the back of these packages, I found the Labels for Education emblems to clip and donate,  plus all the Bic pens were 30% off. Doing good and saving money, yay!!

When my own children were growing up, the schools they attended were very important to me. And now that I am a grandmother, I want my grandchildren to be in good schools, too.

So any way that we can help out our school to be it's best, I'm happy to participate in. The Campbell's Labels for Education program is such an easy way to help, by clipping and donating labels from products that my family and I already buy.

Would you like to find out more about this great program? Visit the Labels for Education website for more information, and to enter the $1 Million Sweepstakes.

Chocolate Zucchini Bread



I really love chocolate, and somehow chocolate and zucchini just don't go together in my world. Except they do in this marvelously rich, chocolate zucchini bread that is filled with flavor.

The zucchini has been coming out of our garden quite regularly, and this is the first summer I've really embraced cooking with it. It's so versatile, whether you are using it for dinner, dessert, or snack recipes.

It's healthy for you too, of course, and I feel good when my family is eating their veggies. This recipe calls for a cup and a half of grated zucchini, which is about one medium sized zucchini.

This recipe calls for chocolate chips and cocoa powder, and it really packs a chocolate punch. It's moist and so, so good.

If you don't have homegrown zucchini from your garden to use, the farmers markets are still filled with them, and it's a nice way to end the summer, by making this yummy, chocolaty bread.


Recipe for Chocolate Zucchini Bread

Ingredients:

3/4 cup sugar
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 large eggs
1 cup applesauce
2 cups all purpose flour
2 tablespoons unsweetened  cocoa powder
1-1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1-1/2 cups finely shredded zucchini
1/2 cup semi chocolate chips
baking spray

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

 

Place first 3 ingredients in a large bowl; beat with a mixer at low speed until well blended. Stir in applesauce.
Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flour and the next 4 ingredients (through salt), stirring well with a whisk. Add flour mixture to sugar mixture, beating just until moist. Stir in the zucchini and chocolate chips. Spoon batter into a 9 x 5-inch loaf pan coated with cooking spray. Bake at 350° for 1 hour or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out almost clean. Cool in pan 10 minutes on a wire rack, and remove from pan. Cool completely on wire rack.

Football Fun with Chocolate MARS Candy Bar Ice Cream Brownie Cake

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

Football and good food seem to go hand in hand. I usually buy savory dips or spicy wings for football games and make the dessert myself. I enjoy making sweet treats to share with my loved ones. For this football gathering I made MARS Chocolate Candy Bar Football Ice Cream Brownie Cake.

The part of football we love the most is being fans. We like rooting for our team, wearing the team colors and being a part of the excitement with fellow fans. Another aspect of  football fun can be team rivalry and we have that in our family. My husband and I are all about the red and gold while our cousins are true black and sliver fans! It makes it a little more fun to have these opposing local teams be our different favorites. We do all agree on a love of chocolate candy bars!! #Chocolate4TheWin #CollectiveBias

Recipe for MARS Candy Bar Football Ice Cream Brownie Cake

1 bag of 105 count variety bag of MARS Candy bars
1 box of brownie mix
1.5 quart of vanilla ice cream

First make brownies according to the instructions on the boxed mix you purchased. After brownies bake allow them to cool before making ice cream cake. In a rectangle or square pan layer the ice cream, brownies and MARS Chocolate candy bars, freezing the ice cream between the layers for 10 minutes to set. Top layer should end with vanilla ice cream. For the fun size candy bars I smashed them first to make them easier to bite in the cake. I included Milky Way, 3 Musketeer and SNICKERS®  bars in my cake, you can select the ones you enjoy from the 105-count variety bag.

After letting the whole cake freeze use a knife to cut out the shape of a football, removing the outside ice cream brownie cake from the sides first making it easier to take the football shape out of the pan. Place the football shaped cake on a plate. Use the full size SNICKERS® to cut into shape of the football threads and add to top of the cake, freeze for one more 15 minute interval.

My husband, son and I loved the MARS Candy Bar Football Ice Cream Brownie Cake. I will be making this again next time we host a football party for our family. You can find the MARS 105-count variety bag and 48 count SNICKERS® at your local Sam's Club. We found our candy aisle near a sampling machine that dispensed candies and it happen to be a sampling day including candy. My son and I were having some serious candy fun!

My recipe can be interchangeable with the flavors of the main ingredients. Using blonde brownies and chocolate ice cream or many other combinations would be delicious with the MARS Candy.

I made a few MARS candy bar necklaces to wear while watching the game for easy snacking.

Making Memories and a Blackberry Pie

Last week my daughter, and my  grandchildren and I went blackberry picking. A ferry ride away from Seattle is a small town called Bainbridge Island. The island is filled with wild blackberry bushes and August is the best month to pick berries.

We ended up with a whole lot of berries, and even after eating a big bowlful, we had plenty left over for a blackberry pie.

My grandson Jayden is almost eight, and he loves cooking in the kitchen. He helped out so much in making this pie, from stirring the berries in the sugar, rolling out pie dough, and even brushed on the egg wash.

I love sharing this time with him, and I know he'll remember the day that he and Nana made a pie together. Cooking with children not only teaches them how to cook, but builds memories that last a lifetime. I look forward to making many, many more pies with him in the years to come.

Picking berries is so much fun, and you can't get any fresher that just picked off the bush.

The recipe that I used for the pie dough is the same one I use to make a fruit galette, but it's doubled.

This is absolutely the best dough recipe I have ever found, and it always comes out flakey and delicious. Even after we handled the dough much more than if I had made the pie alone, the crust was still so, so good.

Recipe for Blackberry Pie

Ingredients for pie crust:

4 cups all-purpose flour
6 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
2 large egg yolks
6 tablespoons ice-cold milk

1 egg
1 tablespoon water (to make egg wash)

Ingredients for berry filling:

4 cups fresh blackberries
1/2 cup sugar, 2 tablespoons, divided
1/2 flour

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Combine first 3 ingredients in a large bowl. Mix in butter with a pastry blender until mixture resembles coarse meal. Whisk together egg yolk and milk, pour into flour mixture, stirring just until dough starts to form a ball.
Press together with lightly floured hands, and form into a flat round. Cover with plastic wrap, and place in refrigerator for at least 1 hour. Lightly spray a pie plate with baking spray. To make the egg wash, mix together 1 egg and 1 tablespoon milk, set aside.
Divide dough in half. On a lightly floured surface, roll out 1 piece of dough into a circle, about 10 inches round. Fit into pie plate, Roll out the second piece into another round, set aside.
To make the filling, in a large bowl combine berries, sugar and 1/2 flour. Stir gently to combine.
Spoon the fruit mixture into the unbaked pie shell, cover with top crust.
Seal and crimp the edges, then make small cuts in the top crust to make vents for the steam to escape.
Brush the top with the egg wash, then sprinkle with 2 tablespoons sugar. Bake for 50-55 minutes, and until top is golden brown.
Cool on wire rack.