We talked and laughed and I only had to nag him the slightest bit so that he would stop trying to blow the steam off of the hibachi grill, and also stop putting his feet on the man sitting next to us.
He ate two fortune cookies and held on to my pocket like I asked him to as we walked back to the car, my arms laden with take out boxes.
In the car he sang along with his kid’s CD instead of being noisey.
At home he played in the sandbox while Deeds napped, then ran around outside after dinner until his face was red and his hair was soaked with sweat.

The night ended with a mid-bath melt down that carried over into “tucking in” time, but overall it was a really good day that I needed to have with him.
I guess you might be anxious to know the winners of the latest SWEET giveaways, and here they are!
MagnaPlay Travel Case (ended 7/6) congrats to number 118, Jen Mc!
Custom Shadow Box, ARV $110 (ended 7/11) congrats to number 86, Amanda!
Crazy Dog t-shirt of choice (ended 7/11)
goes to comment number 51, Jingle! Holla!

Don’t forget to browse the list of giveaways and add your own!

I have been using my S.H.O.P. tote to cart around a stack of about 25 magazines I have been trying to pass on to other readers.

The totes are 17″ x 19″, made from polyester, fold up really compactly, and hold about 20 pounds of loot! Yowza! I could have sworn my pile-o-magazines was heavier than that, but it could just be that I am very wimpy.

The jewelry at Calypso Studios is summery and unique! I love the beautiful Kaolin clay beads featured in the Artist Collection by Kathy Hatch!

I got a darling stretch elastic bracelet and an elastic ring. They are a great summer accessory! I would love to have this gorgeous Amber Vineyard Necklace, too!

Go see if you can find something cute at Calypso Studios.

Summer Bridge Activities books are available in grade levels up to rising 8th graders. Summer Bridge Activities were created by educators who believe that “School Stops for Summer, but Learning Never Should!”

I couldn’t agree more!

Jojo’s book, Summer Bridge Activities: Kindergarten to 1st Grade, starts out with an introduction to the Summer Bridge Kids, cartoon characters who appear on each page.
Tips for parents appear on the early pages, including “10 Ways to Maximize” the time spent using the work book, a recommended “summer reading list” with age appropriate titles, and a skills check list.

Summer Bridge Activities: Kindergarten to 1st Grade is divided into 3 sections of activities. Section one has 15 days of Math, Reading, Writing, and Language activities and a Super Science Section.
Section two has 20 days of work and section 3 has 15 days.
Each section has a motivational calendar where children can chart their progress and work towards an agreed-upon reward for their effort!

There is an answer key that corresponds with each page. I am most impressed with the wealth of suggestions for parents regarding things like health, nutrition, fitness, and character education that cover several pages behind the answer key.

The end of the book has letters and numbers printed on sturdy card stock that can be cut apart for playing games (instructions are included). The very last page is a certificate of completion ready to be filled in with your child’s name!

Summer Bridge Activities: Kindergarten to 1st Grade is colorful and appealing, and the allotted daily activities are brief and engaging.
I actually have an issue with Jojo wanting to do ANOTHER page and ANOTHER even after we have finished one.

Two thumbs up for Summer Bridge Activities!

1.) To enter to win your choice of Summer Bridge Activities work book, visit http://www.summerbridgeactivities.com/ and leave a comment here telling me what you do to keep your kids minds sharp when school is out? (You may enter once a day - subsequent entries don’t require you to answer the question).

Try to show that you actually did visit the site.

Please don’t just comment with “Enter me” or “Sounds great”. That totally annoys me. Those entries are not eligible to win.

One winner will be chosen at random.

This giveaway is open to those with a US mailing address.

2.) Email subscribers get an extra entry for as long as their subscription is active.

Already a subscriber? Leave me a separate comment on this post to let me know you’re interested in this giveaway.

Want to subscribe? Just click here: Subscribe to Mom Most Traveled by Email (Only verified subscriptions are entered for all the giveaways.)

3.) One extra entry for every social bookmarking site you submit this post to (examples: Digg, StumbleUpon, posting on Facebook). Leave a comment for each with your user name.

4.) Twitter about this giveaway (include a link to this page and @MomMostTraveled ) and comment here with your Twitter name.

5.) Blog about this giveaway, including a link to this post and http://www.summerbridgeactivities.com/!

You have lots of chances for extra entries!

This contest will close on Wednesday, July 22, 12 midnight CST

Also I read tons of testimonials about all kinds of other uses for Virgin Coconut Oil, so I tried them out. I am using it as a night time facial moisturizer, and I have been using it for about 2 weeks as deodorant. Seriously. Don’t laugh, it seems to be working! I’m excited to eliminate aluminum deodorant from my personal care regime.

Most recently, Tropical Traditions sent me some Tropical Traditions Organic Raw Honey from the frontier areas of Canada, and OH MY GRANNY! This stuff is delicious!
It is embarrassing how much I have eaten already!

It has a delicious, creamy consistency like a spreadable butter. I have been eating a GENEROUS spoonful of it on top of toast every morning since it has arrived.
But, wouldn’t you know, Tropical Traditions Organic Raw Honey has other uses as well!
People have used raw honey topically to relieve skin problems, and it is said to be a great moisturizer!
Honey is antifungal, antibacterial, and it never goes bad.
And did I mention this is delicious?

In order for honey to be certified organic, the beehives must be placed in isolated areas miles from the dense population, industry, traffic congestion, and farm fields treated with chemicals and landfills. Second, a bee’s flying range is determined by their natural instinct which tells them to stay within their natural four mile range from the hive location. Finding area which can be certified organic is extremely difficult, which is why there are so few certified organic honeys on the market. Tropical Traditions sources its honey from hives in the wild frontier areas of Canada.

Tropical Traditions is running a FABULOUS promotion for MMT readers only! For two days only, you can get a jar of Virgin Coconut Oil for 75% off! That makes it $10! Woot!
You will find lots of uses for your VCO, trust me!

First time customers can use the Mom Most Traveled promotion code 4994605 to receive a free copy of the book Virgin Coconut Oil: How it has changed people’s lives and how it can change yours!

The book has testimonies and research about the health benefits of Virgin Coconut Oil, and a lot of yummy recipes to help you easily add VCO to your daily diet.

The book will be added automatically to any first-time customer that uses coupon code 4994605 in the referral box!

I’m told the check out procedure is tricky, so follow these steps:

1. Add the items you would like to purchase from the order form linked to Tropical Traditions. Visit www.tropicaltraditions.com and click on ‘products’ found at the bottom of the menu list on the left side of the home page.
2. You’ll be directed to the ordering form at the Tropical Traditions/Healthy Buyers Club website. You do not have to be a member or purchase a membership to buy from Tropical Traditions. Membership in Healthy Buyers Club allows you to purchase in bulk amount if you choose to join. All non-bulk purchases are to be ordered from this site as well as bulk items. You can purchase less than case amounts of any of the individual items without a membership.
3.  Select the items you would like to purchase.
4. When you are ready to check out please click on the “Check Cart” link.
5. Review your order and then click on the “Check Out” button from your shopping cart.
6. Fill in your account information as directed. In the box: “How did you hear of us?” you must select: “Referred by a friend” on the drop down arrow. When you make this selection a box for your sponsor’s User ID number should appear if you are a first time customer.
7. Enter your sponsor User ID number 4994605
8. To complete your order click on “Save and Proceed to Checkout” at the bottom of this page and follow the instructions through the checkout process. You will receive an order number when you have successfully placed your order.

By following these steps, you will receive a complimentary copy of the book Virgin Coconut Oil: How it has changed people’s lives and how it can change yours! that will automatically be sent with your first order.

If you get confused you can call the customer service number 1-866-311-2626 Ext. 3

And, would you like to win some magically bah-licious (as Jojo used to say) Tropical Traditions Organic Raw Honey?

1.) To enter to win a jar of Tropical Traditions Organic Raw Honey (ARV $17.50), visit Tropical Traditions and leave a comment here with something you learned! It is a very educational site! (You may enter once a day - subsequent entries don’t require you to answer the question).

Try to show that you actually did visit the site.

Please don’t just comment with “Enter me” or “Sounds great”. That totally annoys me. Those entries are not eligible to win.

One winner will be chosen at random.

This giveaway is open to those with a US mailing address.

2.) Email subscribers get an extra entry for as long as their subscription is active.

Already a subscriber? Leave me a separate comment on this post to let me know you’re interested in this giveaway.

Want to subscribe? Just click here: Subscribe to Mom Most Traveled by Email (Only verified subscriptions are entered for all the giveaways.)

3.) One extra entry for every social bookmarking site you submit this post to (examples: Digg, StumbleUpon, posting on Facebook). Leave a comment for each with your user name.

4.) Twitter about this giveaway (include a link to this page, @troptraditions and @MomMostTraveled ) and comment here with your Twitter name.

5.) Blog about this giveaway, including a link to this post and http://www.tropicaltraditions.com!

You have lots of chances for extra entries!

This contest will close on Wednesday, July 22, 12 midnight CST

Deeds loves juice but Jojo always chooses milk!

I have to be a little more creative when incorporating milk into Deeds’s diet.

Besides the occasional homemade milkshake or smoothie, I also make his morning oatmeal with milk instead of water as the liquid. And a splash of milk goes into his scrambled eggs.

Whymilk.com has some recipies for getting more milk into your child’s diet (this healthy Cream of Beans soup looks promising…), as well as some eye opening facts.

I learned that milk helps ensure that kids absorb their vitamin D when they play out in the sunshine, and also delivers eight other essential nutrients.

The national Milk Mustache “got milk?” Campaign presents healthy tips, recipes and snack ideas to get your kids excited about drinking their milk during summer on whymilk.com.

Thanks to Mom Central for making Mom Most Traveled a part of getting the word out!

There are people in the world that criticize the very act of traveling because of the “carbon footprint” produced by getting to a faraway destination.

I’m not ready to give up travel, but I starting thinking about what changes we could make in order to be more eco-friendly on vacation.
Here are a few strategies from our last beach trip:

• we will bring our cloth diapers
• we will bring our own cloth napkins. This will cut down on paper waste during meals.
• we are bringing 2 slow cookers so that we can make meals but no one has to slave in the kitchen while everyone else is frolicking on the beach. This will save natural gas by not using the stove, and save gasoline by not driving to restaurants. It also saves time and stress!
• we are NOT using “travel sized” toiletries. These result in more throw away containers.

The slow cookers were so great to have. My favorite day was when I made slow cooker lasagna! We had lots of leftovers so maybe we should have bought less sandwich fixins and just had leftovers at lunch time. There always seems to be the pressure to eat all of the left over food when we pack the car to leave at the end of the week.

I prefer to “pack light” and do laundry once or twice while on vacation. It just helps me not to stress out about running out of clothes, since I can’t predict how many outfits the boys will each go through in a given day. Especially Deeds. He is a messy eater and a fearless explorer.

This is easy to do if you are vacationing in a condo, but even when we are in exotic places there has always been SOMEWHERE to either have laundry done or do it ourselves. We did laundry three times in Bali!

If you are planning a beach trip, please view the Cosmetic Safety Database to check the 2009 Sunscreen Guide to make sure yours is free from hazardous chemicals. I think that is a good thing to know!

As if that isn’t exciting enough, Mom Most Traveled made the top 5 finalist list for the Blog Luxe Awards! Thank you for your daily votes!

I am trying to make my BlogHer ‘09 itinerary, and this is what I have so far:
Thursday:

MomCentral/ Johnson & Johnson cocktail party 4-6

Social Luxe Lounge party, 3:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. This is a sweet party sponsored by Swiffer and hosted by Petit Elefant, Hostess With The Mostess, This Week for Dinner, Make and Takes, Momfluential and Rolemommy. Woot!

After that I will head over to the People’s Party, which is from 8:30 p.m. - 11:30 p.m. and I heard is a good choice for newbies. The People’s Party is sponsored by Sprout and hosted by The Bloggess, IzzyMom, Motherbumper, Mrs. Fussypants, Playgroups Are No Place For Children and Velveteen Mind.

I’m volunteering at BlogHer and I don’t know when my shifts will be, but on Friday I would like to check out these sessions:

Update! I found out my shifts as Desk Sentinel!

FRIDAY

1:00pm- 4:00pm

SATURDAY

1:00pm- 4:00pm

Day One schedule

8:30-9:30 AM

Breakfast

9:30-10:30 AM

Keynote: Traditional Media Chops meet a New Media Calling

10:45-12:00 PM

Break-Out Session #1

Identity/Passions: TravelBloggers as Boundary-Breaking Evangelists

12:00-1:30 PM

“Birds of a Feather” Lunch: Find your blogging flock over lunch

I”m volunteering from 1:00pm- 4:00pm!

Take notes on these sessions for me!

1:30-2:45 PM

Break-Out Session #2

Identity/Passions: FoodBlogging in the Time of Recession

or

Leadership: The BlogHer ’09 International Activist BlogHer Scholarship Winners Share Their Work

3:00-4:15 PM

Break-Out Session #3

Identity/Passions: Enough About You…Who’s Reading You?

or

Leadership: Green and Eco-Blogging

4:15-5:00 PM

Break

5:00-6:00 PM

Closing Keynote

I am still going to RSVP for a few more parties, woot woot!

Many BlogHerites are abuzz about their swanky wardrobe choices for the conference.

I want to look nice but I don’t want to spend a lot of money on clothes. By day I will be wearing my awesome Joe’s Jeans that I got from Bluefly.com. I’m haven’t selected a top yet but I’m sure I will wear a t-shirt at least one of the days and carry a blazer or cardigan.

For evening parties I have the essential “little black dress” and some silver heels. I haven’t packed yet; there will definitely be more clothes in my bag than just these two ensembles.

Tim Gunn is going to give one BlogHer attendee a private style in the Tide & Bounce Laundry Lounge on Saturday during the conference.

I’m not sure if that will be inspiring or depressing, but I”m game!

I made some extremely tasty “Harvest Granola Bars” (I just made up that name, what do you think?)
They contain pumpkin seeds, flax seeds, sesame seeds, and sunflower seeds!

Recipe:
3/4 c. firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 c. granulated sugar
1 egg
3/4 cup oil
1 tsp. vanilla
1 1/2 c. all purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda

2 1/2 c. oats

1/2 cup mixture of flax seeds, sesame seeds, and sunflower seeds

1/2 cup pumpkin seeds (shelled)

1/2 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Mix together oil and sugars. Beat in egg and vanilla. Combine flour and baking soda; add to oil mixture, mixing well. Stir in oats, seeds, and chocolate chips.

I ended up “massaging” this together with my hands to make it more homogeneous.

Press into bottom of ungreased cookie sheet/jelly roll pan (something with a slight lip). It is okay if it doesn’t reach the edges of the pan. Mine were kind of free-form edges. They look nicer after you trim them off but they are still deeee-lish, so don’t throw any of this away!

Bake about 20 minutes or until light golden brown. Cool and cut into bars.

I also like to eat the crumbs in milk, like cereal.

Store in a sealed container. I put mine in the fridge but I’m sure it would be fine at room temperature as well.

This versatility makes Zuzatz ideal for travel as just one pair of shoes in your suitcase gives you many different looks!

Change your look without changing your shoes…how clever is that?

I have been wearing my Zuzatz all over town. At first I was nervous about changing the straps, but when I couldn’t wait any longer to sport some bling from the Sparkle Pack, I gave it a go.

I found the process to be easy and not stressful.

The Zuzatz sandal base uses a patented QuickClick technology to allow the straps to be changed. It is made to withstand up to 70 pounds of pull force, so these sandals are sturdy and wear well.

I do hear a little bit of squeaking on one of my Zuzatz shoes when I walk, but this isn’t enough to keep me from wearing them.

They don’t hurt, and they look great! Two thumbs up!

I would like to see some Zuzatz with a thinner sole. I’m a tall lady and I don’t often buy “tall” shoes.

A standard pair of Zuzatz comes with a sandal base and two Style Straps and costs $49.95, while
additional three-packs of Style Straps range from $28 to $50.

Enter to win a pair of Zuzatz and a style strap trio in your size! This is about an $80 value! Woohoo!

1.) To enter to win, visit http://www.zuzatz.com and leave a comment here telling me which set of style straps you would choose! Try to show that you actually did visit the site.

Please don’t just comment with “Enter me” or “Sounds great”. That totally annoys me. Those entries are not eligible to win.

One winner will be chosen at random.

This giveaway is open to those with a US mailing address.

2.) Email subscribers get an extra entry for as long as their subscription is active.

Already a subscriber? Leave me a separate comment on this post to let me know you’re interested in this giveaway.

Want to subscribe? Just click here: Subscribe to Mom Most Traveled by Email (Only verified subscriptions are entered for all the giveaways.)

3.) One extra entry for every social bookmarking site you submit this post to (examples: Digg, StumbleUpon, posting on Facebook). Leave a comment for each with your user name.

4.) Twitter about this giveaway (include a link to this page, @zuzatz and @MomMostTraveled ) and comment here with your Twitter name.

5.) Blog about this giveaway, including a link to this post and https://www.zuzatz.com !

You have lots of chances for extra entries!

This contest will close on Monday, July 20, 12 midnight CST

It arrived already packaged in a pretty white box with bright yellow filler paper inside. The cookie itself was wrapped in cellophane and tied with a pretty ribbon. All I had to do was wrap a ribbon around the whole box and it was ready for gifting!

Our giant fortune cookie was dipped in milk chocolate and covered with colorful edible “confetti” and little power tools made of sugar!

We actually ate Chinese food for dinner the night we debuted the giant fortune cookie.
The kids were really excited when we brought it out; it was a pretty impressive presentation!

The second surprise was a personalized fortune inside, wishing “Yaya” a happy Father’s Day!

Six people each enjoyed a generously sized piece, and there was still some left over. We stored the leftovers in tupperware and finished them about a week later. They still tasted good after a few days!

A giant fortune cookie would be a fun gift for all sorts of occasions. Even if you are buying for someone who “has everything,” a giant fortune cookie is a safe bet.

The person you are buying for probably doesn’t have one, and if they did, they probably ate it already.

I’m so inspired by the variety of customizable fortune cookie options at Fancy Fortune Cookies. I’m hoping to bring some to BlogHer, so be sure to find me if you are there! The Orange Fortune Cookies, Lemon Fortune Cookiesand Coconut Fortune Cookies are all equally tempting to me. I would love to sample them all!

Enter to win your own personalized giant fortune cookie, a $29.99 value!

1.) To enter to win, visit http://www.fancyfortunecookies.com and leave a comment here telling me what caught your eye! Try to show that you actually did visit the site.

Please don’t just comment with “Enter me” or “Sounds great”. That totally annoys me. Those entries are not eligible to win.

One winner will be chosen at random.

This giveaway is open to those with a US mailing address.

2.) Email subscribers get an extra entry for as long as their subscription is active.

Already a subscriber? Leave me a separate comment on this post to let me know you’re interested in this giveaway.

Want to subscribe? Just click here: Subscribe to Mom Most Traveled by Email (Only verified subscriptions are entered for all the giveaways.)

3.) One extra entry for every social bookmarking site you submit this post to (examples: Digg, StumbleUpon, posting on Facebook). Leave a comment for each with your user name.

4.) Twitter about this giveaway (include a link to this page and @MomMostTraveled ) and comment here with your Twitter name.

5.) Blog about this giveaway, including a link to this post and http://www.fancyfortunecookies.com!

You have lots of chances for extra entries!

This contest will close on Saturday, July 18, 12 midnight CST.