Sometimes, it feels like my to-do list never ends. I have to do the dishes, fold the laundry, make meals, vacuum, answer emails, make phone calls, head to appointments… and that’s just the beginning! My list of tasks keeps me inside more often than I’d like but as they say, “Summer time & the living is easy!” Now that Memorial Day is just a few days away & the summer is about to officially kick off, it’s about time we made it outside more often.

Families around the country are doing the same thing as a part of the Active Family Project {AFP}. The AFP is designed to help empower moms to enjoy a healthy & active lifestyle with their families so they can live life the way they love. Taking some time to just enjoy outside really can refresh you- I ditched the dishes on Wednesday & spent three hours swimming with the whole family. Two days later I still feel more relaxed from taking some time to just have fun!

The AFP also spotlights tips & advice for fun family activities & is working to build a national community of moms dedicated to adopting & promoting a healthy & active family lifestyle. {You can learn more about the AFP here!}

Not sure how to get started with your activity time? You can check out the Activity Finder to find great activities like amusement parks, campgrounds, and zoos! We’re about to have a week-long playdate on our vacation, but I plan on having some locally too. I want to hit our local zoo & a park that we all love, as well as revisit the baby ducklings we saw last week.

You can enter to win the Family Playdate Sweepstakes, which includes fun weekly prizes- including a Family Beach Vacation Prize Pack! But hurry, the sweepstakes ends at 11:59pm EST on 5/26.

Be sure to check out the Active Family Project on Facebook to join in on the community of Moms & Dads who have promised to make a family playdate! {I made my promise!}

What will you do on your playdate?

The post Plan a Playdate with the Active Family Project! appeared first on {Not Quite} Susie Homemaker.

{Finding her was like a real-life version of Where’s Waldo where everyone was wearing the red & white striped shirt.}

I’m so proud of her for following her dreams & so glad that she’s doing something that makes her happy.

Technically she got her degree after the winter semester, but after waiting decades to get that diploma, I’m sure waiting one semester to actually walk felt like nothing.

She actually started working on her Bachelor’s at the University that I went to this last semester so I’m excited to watch her walk again in a couple of years!

Congrats to the entire Class of 2013- but especially my Mom!

The post {Not Quite} Wordless Wednesday: Congrats Class of ‘13! appeared first on {Not Quite} Susie Homemaker.

Since the season is changing & lots of things are happening in nature, I thought we’d make a super simple Nature Bag craft this week! The goal is for him to take the bag with when we go on walks so that he can easily collect nature items that he finds, like leaves, rocks, or flowers. I used to collect these things as a little kid so I wanted him to have the chance to do the same.

Materials:

-Paper Bag {preferably one with handles, but all we had were lunch sacks}
-Elmer’s Naturals Pourable Glue
-Assorted nature-themed objects {we used feathers; you could also use pressed flowers, leaves or twigs}
-Pictures of nature items {I searched for “flowers”, “pinecone”, and “leaves” on Microsoft Word’s clip art section but Google Images is another great resource}

How To:

Present your child with the materials & assist them {if needed} with gluing them on however they want. Allow glue to dry fully before taking on your next journey! As an added bonus, you can go through their “treasures” once you’re home & teach them about each object.

Lots of companies lately have been switching to more natural ingredients, using less harmful chemicals & more sustainable materials. Elmer’s is one of those companies, who has a line called Elmer’s Naturals. The line includes both pourable glue & glue sticks and works just like the stuff you grew up with.

Elmer’s Naturals Pourable School Glue: Consists of 99% natural ingredients. The primary ingredient is plants-specifically, American-grown corn, which is a rapidly renewable resource. Even the bottle is made up of 25% post-consumer recycled materials, and the label contains 20% recycled paper, is printed with soy-based ink, and is applied with a natural rubber adhesive.

Elmer’s Naturals Glue Sticks: Made up of more than 88% natural ingredients, this soy bean based formula also includes a rapidly renewable resource. The sticks are made of 25% post-consumer recycled plastic, the labels are printed with soy ink on FSC-certified paper, and the card is made from 100% recycled paper board.

I love that we can now feel really good using a product that we already use all the time, just by using their Naturals line that has the same efficiency as the Original line. &Shane loves that the label is green, so there’s that.

Right now, Elmer’s is hosting a Pin to Win sweepstakes where you can win a Elmer’s Naturals prize pack & a $100 gift card! It’s easy to enter, just follow the guidelines below:

How do you include nature in your life?

The post 10 Minute Craft: Nature Bags! appeared first on {Not Quite} Susie Homemaker.

I love to cook, but I still take shortcuts when I do. If something says to cook for 4-6 minutes, I always pick 4 {&check to make sure it’s fully cooked & safe to eat}. If there’s an ingredient required that I’m not crazy about, I’ll skip it. &If I have the option of buying one of my ingredients already ready to be used in a recipe, I often buy it. Whether it’s pre-cut vegetables or pre-cooked chicken, I’m all about using easy foods to save time in the kitchen so that I can spend more time with my family.

This is how Shane helps me grocery shop, apparently.

Last weekend, we went to Walmart to pick up some ingredients for dinner. {You can view my entire shopping trip here.} It’s swimsuit season, so we’ve been eating lighter, which means we’re trading in our breaded chicken fingers for our newest discovery- Tyson Grilled & Ready Chicken! It’s a lighter, pre-cooked & pre-cut chicken that you can eat by itself or in recipes. All you have to do is put it in the microwave for a few minutes & it’s ready to eat! It saves a lot of time versus having to dice, cut or chop chicken yourself & then cook it for several minutes on the stovetop, so it’s a great alternative for a weeknight meal or if you just love saving time in the kitchen like I do.

The Grilled & Ready chicken comes in several varieties, including Chicken Breast Fillets, Sweet Asian Chicken Thighs, Southwestern Chicken Breast Strips & several more. But are they healthy? Frozen foods can be hit or miss for nutrition but these are actually really good. Each variety is slightly different due to additional ingredients {breading in some varieties, sauce on others} but as an example, the Grilled & Ready Chicken Breast Fillets are 98% fat free and have no preservatives.

Since we’ve been focusing on eating well, I’ve of course still had cravings for some less healthy foods. So I decided to make a recipe featuring a couple of my current not-so-good-for-me cravings, but lightened up. Rather than indulge in the buffalo wings & pizza I’ve been thinking about, I put together a flatbread pizza featuring the Tyson Grilled & Ready Oven Roasted Diced Chicken Breast. It was a really quick meal solution &satisfied my cravings for a lot less calories!

Buffalo Chicken Flatbread Pizza

Ingredients:
1 thin crust pizza flatbread*
2/3 cup Tyson Grilled & Ready Oven Roasted Diced Chicken
1/2 tbsp Buffalo sauce
1/4 cup shredded low-fat mozzarella cheese
1/4 of a medium tomato, diced
1/4 cup shredded lettuce
Optional: Ranch as desired

*Cook times for flatbread may vary so bake according to directions on your package. This recipe will describe how to make it using FlatOut’s version.

Directions:
-Preheat oven to 350 degrees
-Microwave Tyson Grilled & Ready Oven Roasted Diced Chicken for 4-6 minutes in a microwave-safe bowl
-Add Buffalo sauce and coat chicken well
-Pre-bake flatbread for 4 minutes
-Add toppings to flatbread in the following order: cheese, buffalo-coated chicken, lettuce, tomato
-Bake for 3-4 minutes, or until flatbread is brown
-Drizzle with ranch, if desired

Serves 1

If you’re looking for something quick, light & easy, be sure to try these! For a fun family night idea, you could make them as part of a pizza making night & let your kids make their own flatbread pizzas while you enjoy this yummy one.

Buy It: You can find Grilled & Ready products in both the frozen & refrigerated section at your local grocery store.

&Be sure to keep up with Tyson on Facebook for news, updates & recipe ideas!

What’s your kitchen shortcut?

The post Recipe: Buffalo Chicken Flatbread Pizza #GrilledAndReady appeared first on {Not Quite} Susie Homemaker.

This time three years ago, we were in the dreaded purgatory that is escrow. Since we officially got the keys, we’ve been doing upgrades here & there- starting even before we moved in. Whether it’s something small like replacing faded & dated golden cabinet handles or something bigger like making over an entire room, our house has been a fun project that has us really making it our home.

One of the projects I have been wanting to do since we moved in was replace our shower head. The one that was here when we moved in was already dirty & gross, and though I clean it, it has some lime buildup that I can’t quite get. More importantly, I wanted a detachable showerhead so that I could clean the shower easier- it’s my absolute least favorite job but I figured being able to rinse all the cleanser off with the showerhead would make it at least a little more tolerable.

As much as I wanted the showerhead, it wasn’t a priority since ours worked, even if not as well as I wanted it to. But now I have the chance to upgrade, thanks to being a Delta Mom Ambassador!

We received the Delta In2ition Two-In-One Shower Arm Mounted Showerhead and I’m so anxious for Justin to install it! He will be doing that this weekend but in the meantime, I’ve been checking out all of the features. I just can’t believe that a showerhead can do all of this!

Features:

-It has Delta In2ition technology, meaning that the detachable handshower can work separate from or at the same time as the showerhead base. That means that even if you’re using it as a handheld, you won’t be freezing in the shower as you can opt to use the showerhead base at the same time!

-The In2ition handshower lets you choose your spray, so you can choose if you want a relaxing massage or invigorating spray.

-The handshower has a pause setting, so you can conserve water by setting it to trickle when you don’t need a full stream {like when you’re shaving}.

-It also has H2Okinetic technology, so it has an internal system that controls the speed, movement and droplet size of the water exiting the showerhead- so it feels like more water is coming out without actually using more water.

I’m so excited to have a new, clean showerhead that will help me keep the entire shower clean, too. &Since Shane is afraid of showers because he hates water on his head, I am planning on using the handheld part for those times when he needs a quick wash but a full-on bath {&the thirty minutes of play that entails} just isn’t an option.

I’ll be posting about our showerhead once it’s been installed & we’ve put it to the real test, but for now be sure to connect with Delta on Facebook & Twitter {#WomansIn2ition}!

What was the last upgrade you made in your house?

The post I’m a Delta Mom Ambassador! #WomansIn2ition appeared first on {Not Quite} Susie Homemaker.

I’m lucky enough that all of Shane’s grandparents live in town & get to see him fairly often. That said, we have several family members who live all across the country & it’s harder for them to keep up with what’s going on with Shane. Even the people who do live here don’t get to see him much- my Mom’s in college & the rest of our parents all work, so it’s a bi-weekly thing at best. I don’t have a lot of time to upload pictures & videos to Facebook, so other than the blog, I don’t do a lot of sharing. But I just discovered the Magisto app that makes it SO much easier!

Magisto is a video creation app that lets you pick the videos & photos you want to include and then uses artificial intelligence to pick which moments are the highlights, and then makes the video around that. It will crop videos, add special effects, and even add music! I played around with the app for a bit, and then was able to make a video in under three minutes. It took a few more minutes to create & process the video before I could watch it, but it was so easy to make! &When I saw the video, I was really impressed at how high-quality the editing was. &I got to personalize it with a theme & music so I’m going to have a lot of fun playing with that.

Magisto just held a contest for Mother’s Day where they gave away several awesome prizes. Users had the option of adding the #MagistoMoms hashtag to their video to enter the contest, where the videos with the most likes won prizes like tablets & Joan Osborne’s new CD. You can view the featured Mother’s Day videos here!

Speaking of Joan Osborne, she just did a benefit concert this week where Magisto was on hand to create videos of the performance! The company also made a donation to the two charities the benefit was for: Somaly Mam Foundation & Save the Children. Joan performed her new song “Born to See You Through” at the show, which is also available for listening on the Magisto app.

Download it: You can download the Magisto app in the App Store, Google Play Store, or view it on the web. As a bonus, you can use the code MomsRule through the end of May to get 3 free downloads!

Who will you make a video for?

The post Turn Any Moment Into Movie Magic! #MagistoMoms appeared first on {Not Quite} Susie Homemaker.

Being a mom has given me a whole new appreciation for motherhood. Before I had Shane, I knew nothing about raising a kid. I admit that I took for granted everything that my Mom did for me growing up, because she was my Mom & that’s just what moms do. But now that I’m doing it all for my own child, I find myself thinking of her & what she’s done for me. Whether I’m frustrated that Shane just won’t go to bed or wondering why he needs to cover every square inch of the floor with his toys, I sometimes think about how I did the same things as a kid & I realize my Mom deserves way more credit than I gave her as a kid.

My mom & I, circa 1989

Being a mom is tough, and joining the ranks is almost like joining a secret sisterhood. I often catch myself giving frustrated moms at the store understanding smiles, reminding them that we’ve all been through the public tantrums {Shane has hit everywhere from Target to the park with his}, the kids who just don’t understand moderation {Shane’s notorious for adding 5 boxes of his desired snack to the cart when I’m not looking}, &the realization that your baby just pooped again only halfway through your shopping trip- and your diaper bag is totally empty. We have all been through most of these moments at some point & we survived. Sometimes, we just need a little reminding that it’s just a small moment in the grand scheme of things.

Guess how many of those cereals were approved?

If you know a new mom or any other mom who could use a little reminding, Johnson’s Baby has made it easy to do just that while actually contributing to a cause at the same time. Johnson’s Baby Cares program has a place on their Facebook page where you can create {or send a pre-made} digital Care Card to send to a mom in your life. &For every card sent, shared or liked, Johnson’s Baby will donate $1.00 to Save the Children {up to $150,000!} to benefit early childhood education.

I made the card above for my mom- it’s the very, very least I can do after everything she’s done for me. &I’m sending one to my Mother-in-Law, too- after all, she raised her little boy into the wonderful man that I married.

Who will you send your card to?

The post Send a Card that Counts- for a Cause! appeared first on {Not Quite} Susie Homemaker.

When I was a kid, I had some very unique interests. I saved my allowance for things that any other kid would groan if they received as a Christmas gift- things like a rock tumbler, a calendar with journal writing prompts for each day, and one of my favorites- a label maker.

I was always such a slob as a kid {just ask my Mom} but for some reason I have always loved labeling. I’m not sure if it’s the sense of everything having a place or what but being able to label a box of objects so that I don’t have to dig & search for it later is almost therapeutic to me. So you can imagine my excitement at being a Brother P-Touch Labeler Ambassador!

I was already familiar with P-Touch labelers from my old desk job, but the one that I received from Brother & Mom Central is about a whole decade newer than the one I was used to, so it has a lot of fun features that the old one didn’t have. With this one, I can change my font style and size, include characters & even add cute little pictures! I’ve been having a lot of fun playing around with the labeler & I can’t wait to show you some of my projects in a couple of weeks.

As a sneak peek, I have to show you the importance of having labels. Remember the above “medicine cabinet” {really, a shelf in my utility closet} that I featured last summer in Storage Ideas & Inspiration post? I was in love with this cabinet because it had previously been a wreck, but had been recently organized into categorized boxes. This is what it looked like last week:

The problem? I never labeled the boxes. At the time, I didn’t have my labeler & I just never took the time to make my own labels. So whenever I’d go to put something back, I couldn’t remember which one was the right box & I would just put it to the side or in front. Obviously, that hasn’t been working very well, so last weekend I took my trusty P-Touch & tackled that big mess! I’m only halfway done, so I’ll show you the “After” in just a couple of weeks, but I promise it doesn’t look like that anymore!

Now that we are about to undertake the giant job of converting our home office into a nursery {eventually- this is not a pregnancy announcement just yet!} I’m trying to clean & organize to make room for everything that is getting displaced. That means I have a lot more to label!

To keep me motivated around here, I’ve been keeping up with the Brother P-Touch Facebook Tab & answering the great questions they’ve been asking. They’ve really gotten me thinking about what’s holding me back from organizing- and why I want to organize in the first place. I really feel like organizing is a lot easier when you know why you’re doing it- other than just that you “should”.

So what projects do you need to complete? Anything you’ve been meaning to organize? Be sure to come back in a few weeks & check out my progress!

The post Getting Organized As a Brother P-Touch Ambassador! appeared first on {Not Quite} Susie Homemaker.

I love shopping at Sears. The store is huge- and they have everything! Whether I’m shopping for Christmas décor, kid’s clothing or something special to wear for a date night, I know I can find it at Sears for a great price.

But for as much as Sears has in stores, did you know that they have even more online? Not only do they have more of the same items that are in stores {like that perfect shirt that you fell in love with- that they ran out of in your size} but they have more colors, more sizes & more items in general! {Need something sooner rather than later? Buy it online & schedule an in-store pickup. When you arrive, your item will be ready in 5 minutes or less, or you’ll get a $5 in-store coupon!}

It’s easy to get distracted while shopping at Sears.com- they have more brands and styles online than in the store, including some really hot brands like Ray Ban, Michael Kors, DeWalt Tools, Steve Madden, Nike, Tory Burch & a lot more. So whether you’re looking for something you need at a great price or a more luxurious splurge, Sears is a great place to find it.

I took a look around some of their featured marketplace offers and newest arrivals and found so much stuff I loved! Check out some of my finds- and as a note, they have over 50% off on select women's shoes!

Every day, Sears is adding hundreds of new styles, colors and designers to the website because they are committed to ensuring every customer can find exactly what they want or need. What are you waiting for? Head to the Sears website to check out their new lineup for yourself & be sure to tweet your finds with your family & friends!

The post Find What You’re Looking For at Sears.com! appeared first on {Not Quite} Susie Homemaker.

First, the boys went to pick up some breakfast. I couldn’t decide if I wanted bagels or donuts so they went to the grocery store to buy donuts & Einstein’s for bagels {and the giant muffin}.

We hung out at home for most of the day- we watched a movie and the boys gave me my card which included my gift in the form of a note. For my gift, instead of the 1 or 2 days off Justin was planning for our San Diego “family honeymoon” trip next month, he’s taking the whole week off! This is a HUGE deal as he usually hates taking time off. I’m so, so excited.

Then we went to the in-laws to see my mother-in-law for Mother’s Day. {I had seen my own Mom on Saturday when we all went to lunch for an early Mother’s Day.} Afterwards, I wanted to go see the ducks at this little pond nearby our house. I always ask to go, but Justin never wants to- but he couldn’t say no on Mother’s Day!

When we got there, we found a whole flock of fluffy ducklings!

Their Mama Duck was very watchful, but since they live in a neighborhood they’re used to people.

They all stopped & starting grooming themselves- Shane thought it was so funny that it was bath time!

Some of them were walking SO cute I had to grab a video.

So that was my Mother’s Day! How was yours?

The post {Not Quite} Wordless Wednesday: Mother’s Day 2013 appeared first on {Not Quite} Susie Homemaker.