My husband and I tend to eat guacamole at least once a week. It’s so good! And easy! And sometimes the kids will even eat it!

I used to spend a lot of time fussing over my guacamole. I turned my nose up at recipes that seemed too simple because I equated simple with deficient in taste.

I was a guacamole snob. But if I’m honest, my huge long ingredient list for guacamole never really satisfied. There was always something a bit amiss in the mix. It wasn’t until I was desperate to make guacamole (tortilla chips were calling), but was  too lazy to run to the store for missing ingredients that I turned the corner and stumbled on the easiest, quickest, and best guacamole recipe ever.

The key is to not put too much stuff into your guacamole. Avocado is such a delicate flavour that it’s easy to overpower it. I tend to switch the ingredients around based on the cost of items at the store. The preferred ingredients are first so if you can afford it, use those, however the back-up (aka cheaper) ingredients still make an excellent guacamole and most people will never be able to taste the difference.

Ingredients

• 3 ripe avocados
• 2 shallots (or 1/3 cup red onion)
• 1 large lime (or 1 lemon), juiced
• 1/2 tsp salt (or to taste)
• 2 shakes Jalapeno Tabasco

Directions:

1. Put shallots or onion into food processor and pulse until finely chopped.
2. Put in all other ingredients and pulse until combined and at desirable consistency. (My husband likes it perfectly smooth, however traditionally guacamole is served a little chunky so only a few pulses of the food processor would be necessary.)
3. Put into bowl and refrigerate for at least one hour to allow flavours to meld before eating. (Important!)

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There nothing that gets me quite so excited as trying out new food products. I love the thrill of finding out if something is as good as I hoped it would be.

Kashi recently introduced three yummy products to Canada, and I was excited to be able to try them out. In fact, my mom and husband tried all of them along with me…and we all have a different opinion on which product is the best.

Kashi Pita Crisps

Kashi’s new Pita Crisps are available in Original 7 Grain Sea Salt (my husband’s favourite new product overall) as well as Zesty Salsa (my mom’s favourite new Kashi product). The Pita Crisps are light and crunchy crackers that my husband has been eating as a snack when he’s out on the road. The Pita Crisps are made with natural ingredients as well as Kashi’s Seven Whole Grains & Sesame blend. I enjoy the crunch of the Pita Crisps and I thought that the Zesty Salsa flavour worked well topped with a creamy spreadable cheese.

Kashi Snack Crackers

Kashi’s Snack Crackers are available in Fire Roasted Vegetable  as well as Toasted Asiago. One of these varieties is my favourite new product, and one flavour was a complete miss for me. Fire Roasted Vegetable is the winner of the the new product taste test in my opinion. It has a nice zippy flavour that isn’t too over-powering and like the Pita Crisps, it works well with my favourite spreadable cheese (I love my cheese). Kashi Snack Crackers are also made with natural ingredients and Kashi’s Seven Whole Grains & Sesame blend.

Kashi Toasted Cinnamon Crisp Cereal

Kashi’s newest cereal is a great source of fibre as well as protein, which is surprising because the cereal itself is quite light. I expected a heavier feel to the cereal, but the Toasted Cinnamon Crisp was filled with light twists of cinnamon puffs that are nicely sweet without falling into the sugary cereal category.

Giveaway:

I am super happy to announce that one (1) lucky reader with a Canadian shipping address will be able to try out all of these brand new Kashi products! I’m giving away a Kashi basket stuffed with one of every item in this post! The winner will receive:

• Kashi Pita Chips Original 7 Grain Sea Salt
• Kashi Pita Chips Zesty Salsa
• Kashi Snack Crackers Fire Roasted Vegetable
• Kashi Snack Crackers Toasted Asiago
• Kashi Toasted Cinnamon Crisp Cereal

To enter: Simply leave me a comment on this blog post telling me which of the new Kashi products mentioned in this post you would like to try first. Once you have left your comment, tick that option as complete in the Rafflecopter widget and you’re done! If you would like additional optional entries to win, you will see those options in the widget.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Disclosure: I received a selection of these products from Kashi for the purposes of this review. All opinions in this post are my own.

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My kids are firmly in the I’m Just Going on Faith That You Have a Nice Smile Because I Haven’t Seen a Normal Look on Your Face for a Few Months Now Stage.

It’s the stage where every time I look at the kids they stick out their tongue, or act like monkeys, or just generally make strange faces that almost always include an open mouth and occasionally include a foot up in the air.

Waiting for the Phineas and Ferb Live show to start

Grooving with a $12 snocone (!!) from the Phineas and Ferb Live show

Supposedly getting ready for school

More moments while getting ready for school

Waiting for swimming to start

Practicing the Rocket Takeoff before swimming starts

They also tend to slap their butts a lot, but I haven’t captured that on camera yet.

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I was recently sent books 1 and 2 from the The Half World series by Hiromi Goto. The world that is described within the pages of Half World and Darkest Light is the definition of fantastical…well most of it is fantastical, the rest is close to reality but the reader spends so little time in the realm of reality that there’s not much point in mentioning it.

Half World is the realm that exists between the Living Realm (where we are now) and the Spiritual Realm (where our beings turn into little balls of light and float around in apparent bliss). In the books, every creature that dies must enter Half World where they are subjected to the most traumatic thing that ever happened to them while they lived. The trauma is repeated over and over and over until that creature somehow finally transcends the pain and moves on to the Spirit Realm.

In the Half World series, this balance between the three realms is broken, and the kooks that have been twisted and malformed from reliving horrors in Half World are taking over. Needless to say, this is bad news.

Half World

Melanie Tamaki is a human born of Half World parents. Her mother escaped Half World while pregnant with Melanie, and the two of them live in the Living Realm without Melanie knowing anything of her mother’s strange origins. One day, Melanie returns home to find that her mother has disappeared and the only way for Melanie to see her again, is to follow her into Half World.

Half World is one crazy place. Hiromi Goto paints vivid images of a place that I hope doesn’t exist. It’s that creepy. Within the pages of Half World is a strange weird world filled with people and creatures that are equally odd, scary, and occasionally wonderful.

Melanie, as a heroine, is a little wanting of backbone, but she gets the job done and manages to survive in a place that is oozing with danger. Half World is a great start to an interesting series for young adults.

Final Verdict: B+

Darkest Light

Darkest Light carries on sixteen years after Half World left off. Melanie, the heroine from the first book, Half World, is now making her own way in the world, leaving strange, angry, Gee to carry on the task of hero. But is he a hero?

Gee has been raised with no knowledge of his background or family. He is aware that he looks and feels different from everyone else he knows, but he doesn’t understand why. His grandmother refuses to discuss it, and then one night she falls ill and while Gee is alone in the house, he is visited by the freakiest creatures he could imagine.

He is saved from these creatures by his cat statue that suddenly springs to life. Without knowing what else to do, Gee, his new friend Cracker, and the cat/statue decide to head into Half World to find out more about Gee’s family and his own self.

If Half World was strange and wonderful, Darkest Light was strange and disturbing (see also: gross). Murdered children, murdered women, more murdered children…there’s a lot of tortured people living in Half World.

Darkest Light amped up the descriptions of the side horror show that is Half World, but I found myself wishing that Hiromi Goto had spent a little more time developing the character of Gee. He’s conflicted and confused. I wanted to know more about that confusion. What else was he thinking and feeling? I felt he was a bit too much of a blank slate who lacked emotion.

The middle book of a series often suffers from having no true beginning and no true ending. Darkest Light felt like more of a complete story than many other middle of a trilogy books do. After reading Darkest Light. I felt as though I had been giving some answers, but I was left wanting a few more. Hopefully the last book of the series (still unpublished) will deliver the answers I desire.

Final Verdict: B-

Buy it:

Half World and Darkest Light are now available from your local book seller as well as online from various sources including Chapters Indigo. I found Half World for $11.82 from Indigo online and Darkest Light for $15.96 from Indigo online.

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Disclosure: I received copies of Half World and Darkest Light from Penguin Canada for the purposes of this review. Opinions in this post are my own.

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I’ve been a member of the Disney Movie Club for quite awhile now, and I have seen the ads for the various “Buddies” movies but hadn’t had a chance to watch one until tonight.

Treasure Buddies is the sixth film in the Buddies franchise. This one stars Rosebud, B-Dawg, Budderball, Buddha, and Mudbud as they travel to Egypt to search for Cleocatra’s Cat’s Eye jewel. (Cleocatra was Cleopatra’s cat.) The Buddies hope to find the jewel before the nasty cat Ubasti finds it and uses it’s power to rid the world of all dogs.

Along the way, the Buddies meet up with some new friends, including Babi, a monkey, and Cammy, a baby camel. The friends encounter lots of puzzles, traps, and semi-dangerous situations.

Treasure Buddies is rated G, so the movie is well-suited to most age groups, though there is a (bloodless) sword fight, and a secondary character falls into a snake pit never to be seen again (he simply falls into the hole, nothing else is shown).

My three and five year old kids both watched the film with me and weren’t scared at all. Some of the puzzle-solving and science bits were a little over their heads, but neither one complained. My five-year-old son was completely entranced by the movie the entire time which leads me to think that the optimum age range is probably five to ten years of age.

Buy it:

Treasure Buddies is available for purchase on Blu-Ray and DVD starting today, January 31, 2012. You can find Treasure Buddies for sale from most mass retailers as well as direct from Disney.

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Disclosure: I received a copy of Treasure Buddies for review thanks to Walt Disney Motion Pictures Canada. The opinions in this post are my own.

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I hope this is the last time that I will have to mention The Month of Doom because Lord knows that I am completely over talking about it. Gah!

But…

During the Month of Sitting on This Couch or That and Doing Absolutely Nothing Else, I had a thought. I started to wonder if my run of bad luck on the sickness front could be changed up. Is it possible to change my fate from a sickie to someone with a Super-Powered Defeat All Comers Industrial Strength Immunity?

Looking to get healthy

Honestly, I don’t know. But dammit, I’m going to try because this past month has been…crap. It really has. So, I’ve decided that I’m going to embark on a project. The Good Health Project. I plan on making a small, but hopefully significant change towards good health every week this year until I achieve kick ass immunity (or a book deal…joking…maybe).

I’ll announce what change I’ll be making on the blog just to keep myself in check and to hopefully encourage all of you amazing, intelligent, and healthy people out there to give me tips on what I can do next. This week I’ve decided to start easy because I’m still not well enough to do much.

Increase Water Intake: I always thought that the optimum water intake was 8 8oz glasses a day. According to sources I’ve read, including The Mayo Clinic, that’s not exactly correct. I’ve read recommendations for anywhere between 9 cups to 13 cups of water a day for a woman, so I’ve decided to go with 2 liters of straight water each day as a minimum. I drink a lot of tea each day, so that can help bump up my water intake a little as well.

Hopefully, I will be returned to normal health next week and will be able to get a little more serious about getting healthy.

Do you have a health tip for me? I will be posting new health tips each week and will gladly link back to anyone who provides a tip I use! I’m looking for all round health tips and can be exercise, food, supplement, or mind-body-energy related. I’m open to anything that could help.

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Note: I am NOT a health professional, do not take anything I say as medical advice. If you’re looking for medical advice, consult a doctor.

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It’s January (almost February!) and while Vancouver is not a snow-covered Winter Wonderland (which actually is completely okay with me), it is a little on the soggy side. Though we do try to get as much outdoor playtime as we can – jumping in puddles is good, wet fun after all – it’s not always possible. That’s when it’s up to Super Mom to pull out my bag of tricks to keep the kids happy…and by extension me too!

I usually start with the easy stuff and work my way up depending on how the day progresses:

1. Toys & Board Games: We don’t own a playroom full of toys for nothing! However the kids will sometimes decide that “they have nothing to play with” which is when I get in there and play with them. Cars, dolls, wooden blocks, and dinosaurs almost always become more interesting to the kids if a grown-up is willing to crawl around on the floor with them. I also will often pull out toys that haven’t been played with in awhile. It’s amazing how everything old can become new again.

2. Books: Sure we have storybooks, but I also keep a stash of Seek and Find, Sticker Books, Connect-the-Dot, and Maze Books in a cupboard. These aren’t the type of books my kids like to use solo, but if I help guide them, they can both spend an hour or more working through them. None of these books cost that much and it’s amazing the variety that you can find to suit everyone from my three-year-old on up. (PS. These are also the books that I pack for our vacations. Stuck on a plane? These are a huge helper.)

3. Build a Fort: Prop up some couch cushions and cover them with sheets or blankets and you have good times. My kids will usually start out playing nicely in one large shared fort, however after fifteen minutes or so, I do usually have to be prepared to supervise the building of two smaller separate forts which usually works out better because they can visit each others “homes”.

4. Baking: My daughter adores to bake. She’s now assisted me in quite a number of recipes for muffins, cookies, cakes, and bread. My son isn’t always as keen to help out in the kitchen, however he will on occasion, which does double-duty as giving the kids a fun activity and making yummy things for the family to eat.

5. Arts, Crafts and Science!: Pulling out some felts, paper and stickers will often keep the kids occupied for a little while, but colouring is a daily activity for them so it doesn’t help to capture their interest for too long. A friend of ours gave us a book filled with kids science experiments and now that the kids are three and five, they are finally at an age where these experiments can be really fun. One of the simplest experiments is one of their favourites:

Foaming…Something (Monster/Dinosaur/Volcano)

1. Find a clean juice or milk bottle or any tall container (measuring cup, vase, etc).

2. Decorate it to look like a monster, dinosaur, volcano, etc using stickers and paper if you desire.

3. Fill container halfway with white vinegar.

4. Squirt some liquid dish soap into the vinegar (about a tablespoon).

5. If you want coloured foam you can add some food colouring to the mix.

6. Mix the contents and place container on a cookie sheet or in the sink or anywhere you don’t mind a bit of a mess.

7. Add 2 teaspoons of baking soda (or more depending on the size of the container) into the bottle and watch the foam come forth!

Of course, it’s also nice when the going gets rough to have some back-up for ideas. As a Fisher-Price Mom, I recently spent some time looking over the creative games and activities that Fisher-Price has come up with on the Play and Learn Family Activities section of their site. All of the activities are organized by age so it’s super quick to find something that will work. In fact, the other day my husband and I played a version of the Animal Walk game with both of our kids, and they loved it. They could have continued playing for ages if that dreaded bedtime hadn’t had to be dealt with.

Do you have any winter play time ideas to keep kids happy? I’m always happy to add something to my emergency list!

Disclosure: I am a Fisher-Price Mom and I receive special perks as part of my affiliation with this group. The opinions on this blog are my own.

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February is only a couple of days away. Not only is February the month for love, it’s also Heart Month which is a great time to think about living in a heart healthy way.

Just in time for Heart Month, Cheerios has launched their new website filled with helpful information about how to live healthy. Did you know that Cheerios (Original and Honey Nut) are two foods that have been scientifically proven to help lower cholesterol? Good thing I eat a bowl of Cheerios almost every morning.

I decided that this was the perfect time to take a look at some of the yummy Cheerios recipes available at Life Made Delicious. There are quite a number of them, but the one that caught my eye was the Chocolate Chip Applesauce Muffins. The recipe calls for a whopping two cups of Cheerios and just like my Oatmeal Cranberry Muffins, I wondered if that amount of healthy filler would be an issue. I needn’t have worried. In fact, these muffins were even more successful than the Oatmeal Cranberry Muffins. It only took my family six hours to consume the dozen muffins my daughter and I baked.

These muffins appealed to me because the recipe already supports my philosophy of editing recipes to try and make them a little more healthy. I mentioned in my last muffin post (I’m muffin crazy this month) that I often tweak my recipes by adding oat bran or ground flax seed to my baking. I also like to replace regular flour for gluten-free mixes if I can, and I almost always replace the milk in my cooking with coconut milk or almond milk (which means my dairy intolerant husband can eat it but it also lowers the calories and/or fat content which benefits all of us).

Chocolate Chip Applesauce Muffins

*makes 1 dozen muffins

 Time for a Treat!

It’s all well and good to eat healthy most of the time, but every so often it’s nice to indulge in a treat. For a limited time, and in Canada only, you can pick up a Red Velvet Cupcake mix complete with Cream Cheese Flavoured Frosting from Betty Crocker. These are not healthy in any way, but they are very tasty! My three-year-old daughter and I made up our batch today and everyone agreed that they are a great way to celebrate Valentine’s!

You can find the Better Crocker Red Velvet Cupcakes mix at grocery stores and mass retailers across Canada, including Sobeys, Overwaitea, Safeway, Thrifty’s, Walmart, London Drugs, and more.

Disclosure: I am part of the Life Made Delicious Blogger program and I receive special perks as part of my affiliation with this group. The opinions on this blog are my own.

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My hair and I don’t always get along. Some days it’s amazing and smooth and playing nicely, and other days it’s a frizzy uncontrolled mop. As a result of my wild and moody hair, I tend to try a lot of hair products. One of the nicest conditioners that I’ve tried lately has been Burt’s Bees Very Volumizing Pomegranate Conditioner.

As with most of Burt’s Bees products, the shampoo and conditioner are made with almost 100% natural ingredients. All of Burt’s Bees hair care products are infused with jojoba protein and amino acids for lovely soft, smooth, and stronger hair. The Volumizing Pomegranate Shampoo and Conditioner uses pomegranate oil to boost hair’s volume.

I have super thick hair so it’s never occurred to me before this to use a product intended to boost the volume of my hair. Call me crazy, but I think the Burt’s Bees conditioner actually helped tame my out-of-control-fly-everywhere-hair into a much nicer swishy-bouncy style. Using the conditioner didn’t turn my hair into movie star hair, but I do actually notice an improvement.

Though my hair seems to be playing nicer, the best part of the shampoo and conditioner is the scent. 100% natural fragrance has gone into each bottle, and it smells fantastically good. Like, I want to eat it good. It’s that delightful.

Buy it:

Burt’s Bees hair care products, including the Burt’s Bees Very Volumizing Shampoo and Conditioner, are available at select natural, drug, grocery, and mass retailers, as well as online from Burt’s Bees.

Giveaway:

One (1) lucky reader can win their very own set of Burt’s Bees Very Volumizing Pomegranate Shampoo and Conditioner to smell…and use on their hair. To enter, you must have a Canadian shipping address and leave a comment on this blog post telling me of the Burt’s Bees hair care scents you think would be your favourite (Pomegranate, Mango, Baobab). Once you have left a comment, tick that option as complete in the Rafflecopter widget and you will see other optional entries that you may complete if you wish.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Disclosure: I received Burt’s Bees hair care products for the purposes of review. All opinions stated in this post are my own.

Stealing makes your mama - AND ME - SAD. Don't do it! © Marilyn for A Lot of Loves, 2012. | Permalink | 36 comments | Add to del.icio.us

I always love my kids. Lets get that straight right out of the gate. But there are moments when I LOVE my kids and there are moments when I’d rather that they stay locked outside in the yard for an hour or six.

Today was a good day. A day where my kids got home from school (or woke up from a nap depending on which kid we’re talking about) and they played.

And they played.

And they fought a little…but very quietly…and it didn’t require my involvement to shut it down so it doesn’t count as a problem.

And then they played some more. Right up until dinner.

They played for three hours straight, people. THREE HOURS! Yes, that deserves all caps.

I wanted to rise up and take my possibly still contagious self into the playroom and gather my young brood to my bosom and hug and squeeze their little smooshie faces until their heads popped off.

But I didn’t.

Because Mama knows you never disturb the kids when they’re playing quietly. Never ever.

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