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Snapple Memories Revived

Posted on April 20, 2012 12:00 am by TheAngelForever

While in college, I developed a few not too wonderful habits. Though I had no interest in drinking alcoholic beverages, I was very addicted to Mountain Dew for breakfast and Snapple Ice Tea for lunch. Several years into school, I kicked most caffeine intake to help with my headaches. That lasted until my little guy was born and suddenly I needed a small amount of caffeine to keep my headaches away.

With the warm weather coming quickly, coffee is not always an option. While my beverage of choice is usually water in my giant Nalgene water bottle, I do like to have a special treat. Rather than crave chocolate, I now like to treat myself to a cold glass of this:

Yes, this is a giant bottle of Snapple Diet Peach Ice Tea that lasts me quite a while. Of course, it brings me back to my college days. I think I missed this, but will admit that there is no desire to restart my Mountain Dew habit.

Aside from a cold glass of water during the warmer months, what is your beverage of choice?

It's Me

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Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the linky there if you are participating.

Aloha #199

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Aloha Friday looking back me moments photos yummy

The Cupcake Club – Book Giveaway

Posted on April 17, 2012 12:00 am by TheAngelForever

Cupcakes and books are two topics that I love to talk about on my blog. I often write about baking, taste testing, and observing beautiful cupcake creations.

Most Tuesdays, I write about books that we are reading, or something related to a literacy topic. Last week, Tuesday Tales meshed both of these topics into a delicious new book review for The Cupcake Club: Peace, Love, and Cupcakes. In my review of the new book, I explained that this new series is written by a 9 year old girl and her mother.

CupcakeClub_cover.indd

Sourcebook has graciously offered a giveaway for one lucky reader of The Angel Forever to receive your own copy of The Cupcake Club.

Rules for Giveaway:

MAIN RULE – If you could invent your dream cupcake, what would it be. Let me know the type of cake, frosting, filling, or beyond that would make it a reality.

The following Bonus Entries may also be done. Please be sure to leave separate comments for each that you complete below to make sure you get the right number of entries.

1 Bonus Entry – Who would you like to read The Cupcake Club with and why?
1 Bonus Entry – Follow TheAngelForever on Twitter and leave a comment with your Twitter name below.
1 Bonus Entry – Tweet the following about the giveaway: Enter to #win a copy of The Cupcake Club from @Sourcebooks @jabberwockykids & @TheAngelForever http://bit.ly/HUmYP3 #giveaway #cupcakes (May be done once a day – leave link to Tweet in comment below for new entry)
1 Bonus Entry – Leave a comment on any of my non-giveaway posts from the months of March/April. Leave a comment here to let me know which one. This Bonus entry may be done twice per day.
3 Bonus Entries – Add my blog button to your website and/or add me to your blogroll. Be sure to leave a link with the location.
1 Bonus Entry – Head over to TechyDad’s blog and say hello to him. Let me know where you posted a comment. May be done once a day.

To enter, please follow the rules above within the comment section. Giveaway begins April 17, 2012 and ends April 25, 2012 at 10:59 EST. You do not have to be a blogger to enter, but must leave a valid e-mail address for me to contact you for mailing address once the giveaway is over. I will select the winner using random.org and contact you via e-mail. You will have 48 hours to claim the prize. If there is no response, another winner will be selected. Open to US and Canada residents only.

Disclosure: Sourcebooks offered me a review copy of the book and to give one away to a reader. No other compensation was given and all opinions are mine. Sourcebooks will provide shipment of the book to the winner and The Angel Forever is not responsible for fulfillment of the prize. An Amazon Affiliate link is included in this post for the book mentioned. I will receive a percentage of money for the sale should you opt to buy the book through that link

Categories:
books food glorious food fun giveaway yummy

Tuesday Tales – The Cupcake Club

Posted on April 10, 2012 12:00 am by TheAngelForever

It’s no secret, we like cupcakes in our house. There are several cupcake specialty bakeries in our area and we feel that it is our duty to check them all out. Just doing a cupcake search on my blog will give you a lot of items to look at on the topic. I also like to make cupcakes as part of birthday celebrations for the boys, including the most recent Lion Cupcakes.

When I heard that Sourcebooks had a new series out that worked around cupcakes, I was excited to receive an advanced copy of the book that just came out last week.

About The Cupcake Club:

Meet Kylie Carson.

She’s a fourth grader with a big problem. How will she make friends at her new school? Should she tell her classmates she loves monster movies? Forget it. Play the part of a turnip in the school play? Disaster! Then Kylie comes up with a delicious idea: What if she starts a cupcake club?

Soon Kylie’s club is spinning out tasty treats with the help of her fellow bakers and new friends. But when Meredith tries to sabotage the girls’ big cupcake party, will it be the end of the Cupcake Club?

The Cupcake Club: Peace, Love, and Cupcakes – Written by Sheryl Berk and Carrie Berk – Sourcebooks Jabberwocky – On sale April 2012 – ISBN 9781402264498 – Paperback 208 pages – Ages 9+ – $6.99

What I Thought:

The cover of this book made me drop what I was reading to start reading. I was especially intrigued since I knew that it was written by a mother and daughter team. What I don’t think I really realized (too distracted with Passover preparations) was a bit more about the pair. Carrie Berk is the 9 year old author that wrote The Cupcake Club with her mother Sheryl Berk. Sheryl Berk is a New York Times bestselling co-author of Soul Surfer (on my to read list since my students always had my copy out). Carrie is a seasoned cupcake reviewer. She has traveled all over the world and written about the cupcakes on her website called Carrie’s Cupcakes Critique. Carrie is also on Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter (all found on her website).

As soon as I started reading the story, I became attached to Kylie Carson. This four grader is still struggling to be accepted in her new school. She likes different things than most of her peers and struggles with keeping troubles to herself. What troubles? Well, Kylie is the victim of a bully and her name is Meredith. Meredith gets great joy in the world when she humiliates Kylie in any way. Kylie is afraid that if she tells an adult what is going on that it will only get worse.

Thankfully, when Juliette, the drama teacher steps in to mentor Kylie her world quickly changes. Juliette tells her about the way she was picked on as a child and how she took up baking to help. This is when The Cupcake Club was born. We follow along on the adventure to recruit three more members and watch how they befriend each other.

Will Kylie stand up to the bully? Read the first book in this new series to find out!

I really enjoyed The Cupcake Club. It read quickly and brought up some great discussion topics like bullying, building self esteem, not giving up, making friends, forgiving, and more. My only small criticism of the book is that I have a hard time visualizing fourth graders taking on so much. As the mother of an almost fourth grader, I think the kids should have been a bit older to be doing so much on their own. Once you read the book and learn about the success of their business, you will understand. Even with this little item, I still thoroughly enjoyed the book. I also love that at the end of the book Carrie and Sheryl include the recipes that they talk about within the story. They sound delicious and will have to be tested after Passover.

I know I look forward to reading more adventures of Peace, Love, and Cupcakes. Now, I am going to share a fun video of Carrie making some fun cupcakes.

What have you read recently? Please be sure to link up to your book posts in the comments below. Include something you read on your own, with a child, or someone else. Tuesday Tales are all about spreading the love for books.

BTW – A giveaway for this book will be coming soon on The Angel Forever thanks to Sourcebook, so stay tuned!

Disclosure: I received this book complimentary of Sourcebooks in order to facilitate this review. No other compensation was given. The opinions expressed in the review are my own. An Amazon Affiliate link is included in this post for the book mentioned. I will receive a percentage of money for the sale should you opt to buy the book through that link.

Categories:
baking books food glorious food Product review Tuesday Tales yummy

Preschool Seder Time

Posted on April 5, 2012 12:00 am by TheAngelForever

Growing up, I still remember Passover Seders at nursery school. When I went to NHL’s during preschool, it brought back amazing memories. Last year, I went with JSL to his first one during his three day a week program. This week, we had another preschool community Seder with JSL’s school. Please join me for a tour of their beautiful event.

When you walked into the room, there were place cards to see which table your family would be sitting at. Then, each of the small round tables was set up for kids and adults to be together. I love that they stack two chairs together to make sure that the kids are able to participate and see everything.

If you take a closer look, there was a Seder plate at the center of each table. Along with this there were platters of matzah, fruit, eggs, carrots, kuggel, tuna, and underneath foil desserts. Each of the kids had their own little setting by them to participate. There were also Haggadahs for everyone to read the Passover story.

When the classes arrived, all of the kids went to find their families at the table. JSL came to sit down and we opened up our Haggadah to get ready.

The kids were active participants. They helped to tell the story, sing songs, and more. JSL had his frog puppet ready when it was time to talk about the plagues.

The kids were not the only ones involved with retelling the Passover story. Some special people showed up as well.

This was a great surprise and so much fun to watch the kids interact with everyone. These will definitely be memories that JSL and I will always remember. Of course, the videos I took will also help with that department. Thank you to everyone at nursery school for making this such a wonderful experience.

It's Me

Categories:
food glorious food holidays jsl photos school yummy

Favorite Disney World Resorts

Posted on March 19, 2012 12:00 am by TheAngelForever

Over the years, I have stayed at a lot of the resorts at Walt Disney World. This Spring, we will be adding two more to my list. Growing up, I stayed at The Contemporary Resort (multiple times), Dixie Landings (multiple times and now called Port Orleans Riverside), and Caribbean Beach (multiple times). Since I have been married, we have stayed at The Beach Club Resort, Pop Century (three times), The Polynesian, and The Grand Floridian. Thanks to Disney dining, we have also visited Port Orleans French Quarter, Animal Kingdom Lodge, Boardwalk, Wilderness Lodge, and Fort Wilderness campground.

Deluxe Hotels:

I don’t think I could just pick one of the deluxe hotels. If money were no option, it would be tough to select which one. There’s monorail convenience, great overall location, and never stayed there before dream.

If I had to pick a resort on the monorail, I would immediately pick the Contemporary. I love that you can simply go down to the ground floor and walk to the Magic Kingdom along a palm tree lined walkway. It isn’t usually crowded, plus you always have the monorail to jump on and get back with relative ease. In addition to this, The Contemporary has Chef Mickey, The Wave, and The California Grill (never been there yet).

After staying at the Beach Club Resort on our honeymoon, I fell in love with the location. Not only is it simply gorgeous with an amazing pool, you can walk or take a boat to Hollywood Studios and Epcot. TechyDad and I often walked into Epcot for dinner, or over to the Boardwalk for a snack or another meal.

A deluxe hotel that I have not stayed at, but visited many time to dine there is the Animal Kingdom Lodge. I would adore waking up one morning and opening my door to view animals like giraffes while sipping my cup of coffee. Another perk would be having Boma and the other great restaurants located steps from our room.

Moderate Resorts:

Looking back I loved the quaint, quiet feel of Dixie Landings. We stayed in the mansions there twice and it was fun to bike, boat, and walk around the resort. Since our stay there, the name has changed. I know the the kids would also adore Port Orleans (either section), but would probably prefer a stay at the newer Pirate Themed rooms at the Caribbean Beach Resort.

Value Resorts:

We adore Pop Century as a fun filled value resort at Walt Disney World. We have never stayed at any of the other value resorts to date. Our last three visits have included nights at this destination.

The rooms are smaller and you do not have a sit down restaurant, but it’s extremely fun, kid friendly, and they a great food court that includes the infamous Tie Dye Cheesecake. We have adjusted to the value resorts by saving money on the room to use for our dining plans and to extend out stays.

So where do you love to stay or dream of calling your home while at Walt Disney World? There are a lot of Disney posts on my blog from trips during the last few years, so check them out if you are interested.

P.S. A huge thank you to Mariana from The Domestic Buzz for creating this magical Blog Hop! The link will be within this post the day after it is published.