Do you love Disney? Do you love watching ice skating? Do you love winning tickets?
Then this is for you!
Disclosure: Tickets have been provided to me in exchange for sharing the upcoming event.
Disney on Ice Presents Dare to Dream presented by Stonyfield YoKids Organic Yogurt. I pretty much love it when two of my favorites partner up to bring something magical to kids! The show is coming to town (San Diego) Oct 1st-4th. Enjoy reliving some of your favorite moments from Disney's most popular features with our favorite princesses, Rapunzel, Snow White, Cinderella and Tiana. Of course some of their side kicks will be skating alongside them and dazzling us with their moves on the ice. My kids love Tangled because there's a character for everyone to identify with!
What's your favorite Disney movie?
Here's a little preview to show the kids and get them excited about going to watch their favorite characters take the ice.
I have a family 4 pack of tickets to giveaway for opening night, Thursday Oct 1st 2015! Be sure to scroll down and enter for your chance to win.
The place to be is Valley View Casino Center on Sports Arena Blvd. Kid tickets are just $10 (excluding VIP and Front Row) making it a great family affair! Adult ticket prices range from $15 to $25 and there's VIP seating ($45) and Front Row seating ($60) THOSE tickets go very quickly!
Over a 4 day period there are just 7 shows, and the day time shows go quickly so if you want to buy tickets do it now.
oThursday, Oct. 1 7:00 PM
oFriday, Oct. 2 7:00 PM
oSaturday, Oct. 3 11:00 AM, 3:00 PM & 7:00 PM
oSunday, Oct. 4 1:00 PM & 5:00 PM
There's so much sparkle and imagination throughout their shows, it's such a great way to share a little magic as a family and create those lifelong memories. I'm looking forward to taking my kids and making it an evening to remember!
This post contains affiliate links. When you purchase through an affiliate link you do not pay any more than you would otherwise, but a small referral fee is provided to me for recommending the product or service. That makes it possible for me to continue to blog and share great tips and resources with my readers.
The end of summer is really here. Instead of dwelling on the fact that I want to be able to sleep in every morning I am celebrating the end of summer with a Tropical Parfait. My kids loved it so I bet your kids will to!
These last two weeks of summer have been full of bar-be-ques, water adventure and cool treats! Oh, and back to school shopping, hence the reason I haven't posted anything new in a span of 2 weeks. Well, at least I've been documenting our favorite kitchen creations and will have several new things to share in the coming days because.... insert audible drum roll.... the kids are back in school! They were just as ready as I was so I don't feel any guilt with the parting of ways. There are so many ideas I've had percolating this summer but I haven't had the time to focus on developing them, so now I'm putting the pedal to the metal and you'll want to stay in touch by subscribing to the RSS feed and steal borrow any ideas that suit you. But, believe me, you'll want in on some of the special projects around the corner!
Not too long ago we developed our favorite smoothie to date that the kids ask for again and again. Which I love because they used to grimace at the smoothies I would make for them. That's because I didn't have a plan for what I put in the smoothies. I would just grab what we had on hand and throw a little of this and a little of that, add some green stuff and make sure there was some liquid and press the magic button hoping it would magically turn my smoothies into blended genius. Sadly, more often than not the kids turned their noses up at them. But, not anymore! This summer we changed all that. Now I follow a formula and it has made all the difference. If you missed it, you need to go back and pin it so you can escape to an imaginary tropical place any time you want. In fact it is this Tropical Surprise Smoothie that inspired today's treat, the End of Summer Tropical Parfait. Parfaits are so versatile, they are perfect for breakfast, snack or dessert!
Ingredients:
1 cup yogurt (we love Stonyfield, vanilla)
1/2 cup almond slices
1 mango, diced
1 cup fresh pineapple chunks, about 1/2 pineapple
1/2 cup shredded coconut
Instructions:
1. Combine coconut with yogurt and stir. OR you can combine the coconut with the almonds. I've tried it both ways and it's great either way.
2. Prepare your Pineapple. After getting this pineapple coring tool you will save so much money versus buying the pre cut stuff at the market. Plus you save time compared to slicing up pineapple using just a knife. Watch this video and tell me you don't want to buy this corer right now!
3. Prepare your diced mango. This is one of those kitchen hacks I was so glad to learn. Because, again, I don't have to pay an arm and a leg buying the pre-cut and packaged mango. The kids and I are kind of mango fanatics so this video was big time awesome:
I kind of like to dice the mango by scoring one cheek then the other and then using the glass to separate the "diced" fruit from the skin.
Now you'll have each of your ingredients set and ready to go.
4. Now it is time to build your parfait! Layer a couple spoonfuls of yogurt at the bottom, Next add a spoonful or two of sliced almonds. Then one heaping spoonful each of the pineapple and mango. Repeat these steps once more then enjoy!
Yields 4 small parfaits.
All summer long I have been hemming and hawing about getting a set of parfait glasses because I want to be earth friendly and not use the plastic disposable ones. And wouldn't you know the day I'm writing this post my order from Amazon Prime arrives? So I'll have to make another parfait pronto and update with another picture!
These were the two that I had a hard time deciding between.... but I ultimately went with this one:
I'd love to hear in the comments if you plan to make this parfait for your kids! Remember you can pin it and savor a little bit of summer any time of the year.
My kids love parfaits for an after school healthy snack. Here are some other combinations you may want to try (just click on the image):
June gloom stuck around all the way til the end here in southern California. We even had a bit of a thunder and lightening storm! It's not something we see very often here and I sort of chuckled when my husband turned off all the electronic devices when the storm was right over our house. I grew up in Minnesota and I really don't know if that's something people do because I was just 9yo when we moved to CA. I'm glad that my husband is always thinking about safety! He's definitely proactive when it comes to stuff like that.
I was delighted that Kyle thought to take out a fun game for everyone to play. We've had this game Brain Quest for awhile but only recently has it appealed to Owen who's six. With the culture of electronics in our lives it is kind of a nice to see how readily they enjoyed playing this game together. But, all good things must come to an end. So when things started to wind down with the game (you can read that as some boredom set in or they began bickering, frankly I don't remember), I suggested we make a snack.
Parfaits may not be the immediate thing that comes to mind on a rainy day, but I had an abundance of yogurt and blueberries and like to make sure we optimize what we have on hand. Yogurt and fruit is just fine most of the time, but we needed to make this an activity, you know stretch it out a bit and keep the kids busy.
So, since we had some random rain, why not make some random parfaits?
Ingredients:
1 cup organic vanilla flavored yogurt (the kids love Stonyfield smooth and creamy variety)
1/3 cup peach preserves (this one I picked up at Jimbo's - a cool local natural food store)
1/2 cup granola
1/2 cup fresh organic blueberries
1/2 banana sliced
What's awesome about yogurt parfaits is the fact there are no rules, you can really layer it how you want. You can see from the image below we chose to go yogurt, peach preserves, yogurt, granola, banana, blueberries. The kids ended up mixing everything up. Again, no wrong way to enjoy your yogurt parfait!
This yields 3 kid sized parfaits. The cups are 10 oz size. As you can see they are maybe 6 oz servings.
Sometimes our parfaits are not typical flavor combinations but what I've learned is that you just don't know until you try it! The kids gobbled these right up. Kyle specifically wants to make these again next time. It will just depend what fruit we have on hand! Random is not all that bad.
Oh and here's a picture of the kids playing Brain Quest.
And per his usual, Owen had to strike a pose when he saw I had the camera in hand.
The rain passed more quickly than I would have hoped. Even I was eager to open up the laptop and catch up. But for a little bit we really disconnected from media. For that I am grateful for the rain. Plus, we are in a serious drought here in California so we've been appreciating every rainfall and reminding ourselves not to complain.
What does your family do when it rains? Share in the comments below. I'm working on a rainy day post and your ideas may be included!
Upon checking in at ShiftCon, Elizabeth and I, my carpool buddy and roommate, went into the Expo hall.... we had so much to talk about both on the drive to and from the conference and every night after a full day of conferencing. I hold her responsible for my lack of sleep, and equally responsible for my heightened awareness to subjects that are not on my radar. You can check out her blog here.
The first brand we came upon was Stonyfield, and they were ready to feed us! Eating this Greek and Chia yogurt hit the spot after the nearly 3 hour drive from San Diego. I love that they had biodegradable spoons for us to use rather than typical plastic spoons most other conferences would have.... it's all about the shift, baby!
Melanie and Kristina got us excited about participating in the conference conversation on twitter by using the hashtags #ShiftCon and #ShiftHappens.
I was so glad to spend a few minutes talking to Melanie and Kristina because they were warm, funny and wanted to know about us and our blogs. Why I don't have a picture with them, I do not know!
They gave me my very own "Multiple Organisms Make Me Happy" t shirts which I love and wear proudly.... all while having had a few double takes!
On the morning that The Food Babe gave a keynote at ShiftCon, I was among several winners drawn at breakfast for tweeting during the conference and sharing the amazing things we were learning from both break out sessions and brands and each other. I just knew I would win something too. I was reminded of a feeling when I won a yearbook in middle school. Good luck is not even what I would call it, rather a good energy vibe around what is happening, a shift if you will, in commitment Now, when I was the first winner announced, that kinda blew me away, and when the prize was from Stonyfield, that made it even more awesome! I really didn't hear what I had won, just that it was Stonyfield and that was enough for me to be excited. People might have thought I was a bit crazy cuz I jumped up and hollered with a big WOO-HOO! It is so much fun to win something that you really want and will use rather than something you may not be familiar with or would never use... so I was thrilled!
Here's what I won:
A couple years ago one of my friends put me in touch with Stonyfield to sponsor our snacks at an event I was hosting and they were wonderful to work with, sending enough for every baby and toddler and parent to enjoy, plus sending a couple of great prize packs for our opportunity drawing. Ever since then I've been hooked on the Stonyfield brand. I love their mission statement which I found on their Facebook page:
At Stonyfield, we obsess over everything we put into our delicious organic yogurt, milk, frozen yogurt and smoothies, and everything we keep out. By saying no to toxic persistent pesticides, artificial hormones, antibiotics and GMOs, we say yes to healthy food, healthy people and a healthy planet.
This just happens to be my new favorite!
After hearing Gary Hirschberg give a talk on the first night of ShiftCon I was even more sold. What this brand stands for in their care for people generations to come is inspiring. I made sure to get a quick photo op with him because I see him as a true leader in our fight for real food who was a crusader before there was a crusade. When people walk the walk like Gary has done for so many years and educate others by giving talks and listening to moms share their stories, that will stay with you forever. Just a little thank you to Gary for what he is doing.
Early registration is going on now for ShiftCon 2015. I look forward to seeing you there! I have a feeling Stonyfield will be back as a sponsor and who knows, maybe I'll win another one of their awesome prizes.
