Win $500 school shopping spree from Consumer Queen

This is a wonderful opportunity that I wanted as many of you as can be to have a chance at.
Consumer Queen is hosting a giveaway for a $500 school shopping spree at Walmart thanks to Nestles. (Isn't she so cute? I got the chance to get to know her at Blogher)
Go check it out and enter to win (I did!)

Wordless Wednesday

How does Chocolate help you organize? Well.....I have it...just a minute....I'll figure it out....
Let me see.....hmmm........Ok I have it!!
It relaxes us and calms us down so that we can think about what we need to organize. How is that?

TasteCasting - Morton's The Steakhouse (Yummy!!)

I went to Morton's The Steakhouse in Columbus Ohio tonight with my Tastecasting team. We were treated to a wonderful array of wonderful appetizers. These are part of the Bar Bites that you can get at Morton's. This is the Petite Filet Mignon Sandwich....outstanding! If you sit at the bar and have them between the hours of 5pm - close they are only $6.00. You can order these at your table, but they will be full price.

To see my entire post you can go to my Review site and see all the pictures of the Bar Bite Menu. (You will be hungry after you see it ...guaranteed!)

Room Remodel - Painting...oh my!

We have begun! We are completely redoing my 16 year old son's bedroom thanks to Walmart. Today is painting! (No..my son hasn't been sleeping on the floor without any bedding. LOL) We already carted out the the bunk beds that were previously in there. He did share a room with my step son. We have moved Drew down to the basement. {He chose it and is calling it his "man cave"}
We have already planned out the room on paper. We have purchased most of what we are going to use in the bedroom. I have a couple of things on order that Walmart does not have in the stores.

Now for the paint. My sister is an artist. She has such an eye for what looks right. So I consulted with her. We have decided to go with a very dark gray on 2 of the walls. I know it sounds really strange...but you will just have to follow along over the next couple of weeks to see how it is going to look.

Share my Recipe Sunday - Amy's Chocolate Pudding Zucchin Muffins!

My Gem of the Week award goes to Amy from Amy's Finer Things. She has this yummy zucchini recipe for Chocolate Pudding Zucchini Muffins. I have zucchini coming out the ying yang right now from my garden and I am guessing a few of you do too! I did a little looking and she also has this great page of links to other zucchini recipes on her site. You will have to look at it. I would have used it for this post but she didn't enter it in the Share my Recipe Sunday. I didn't think she would mind if I used a 2nd link to her site to share these yummy looking recipes with you!
Amy says that her children ask for them. She thinks they should be considered cupcakes!
I know I am going to try them for sure!

I would love to have you join my Share My Recipe Sunday! Just pick out a recipe you love..hopefully that is simple and easy. Post the link on here. Pick up my button and post it on your site with the recipe and link it back to here.
My Mr. Linky is finally working again! Yeah!!


*************************************************************************************
Chocolate Pudding Zucchini Muffins

* 3 eggs, beaten
* 1 c. cooking oil
* 1 1/4 c. sugar
* 1 large package chocolate instant pudding
* 2 c. grated zucchini
* 2 tsp. vanilla
* 1 c. unbleached flour
* 2 c. whole wheat flour
* 1 tsp. soda
* 1/2 tsp. baking powder
* 1 tsp. salt
* 1 tsp. cinnamon
* 1 c. chopped nuts (optional)

1. Beat eggs, oil, sugar, pudding mix, vanilla and zucchini together.
2. Blend dry ingredients and add to zucchini mixture; mix well.
3. Scoop into greased muffin tins.
4. Bake 17-20 minutes at 350°.

** Makes 2 1/2 dozen muffins. I made 2 dozen regular plus 1 dozen mini muffins.

** You could also grease two loaf pans and bake 1 hour at 350° for Chocolate Pudding Zucchini Bread.

A Big BlogHer Thank You!

(I saw this on a couple of blogs and loved the idea...so I did steal the idea of taking a picture of all the business cards. I know I was excited to see mine in someone else's pile....so look for yours and leave me a comment if you see it!!)

I have so many thank yous to everyone at BlogHer. Thanks yous for putting it on , thank yous for coming up to me and saying you recognized me (those were the coolest!), thank yous for being the first person to introduce yourself in line at the hotel (@mom101), for asking me to sit down and eat lunch with you and your daughter that first day (@mamacita) my roommate who gave up her free room to help me out since I had 2 people back out on me. (@military_mom) A big thank you for helping me feel comfortable in an uncomfortable place and for being nothing but nice to me (@craftymamaof4). I have big thank yous for these two Walmart 11 Moms for treating me as an equal although in the blogging world we are no where close (@mommybrain and @consumerqueen). Thank you to all the sponsors for all the fun swag they gave us and sponsoring all the parties and food and drinks. I feel I learned so much although I wasn't able to make it to hardly any sessions. (that is crazy isn't it?)
Thank you to the Label Daddy team for asking me to eat breakfast with them at the Newbie Breakfast.
Thank you to Annalisa from GM for discussing the GM cars and organizational features for a possible review with me.

Thank you to John Andrews (@katadhin)from Collective Bias and who started Walmart Eleven Moms for talking to me. I had never been able to meet you and was thrilled to realize how down to earth and nice you really were!
Thanks to Campbell's. I will be anxious to see the video I made about how wonderful my husband is...although I stumbled through it. Your team was awesome to talk to at BowlHer.
It was a pleasure to meet Ted Rubin (@tedrubin) from e.l.f. eyeslipsface.com and the fast response I have had in doing a review for one of their makeup bags.
Denise from brother was great to talk to and I look forward to working with you in the future.

I was thrilled to meet so many people that I see and talk to online IRL (in real life...I thought I would translate for a few like me who were slow to figure that one out)

To the Sponsors that I have pictures for...and this is such a small portion of you. But Thank you for all you did. Thank you for talking to us about your Brands and how we can help each other in this economy. Thank you for coming out to BlogHer and making it so much fun.
I especially want to thank my sponsors for helping to get me to BlogHer.
The Sock Sacks are a great way to organize your socks in the washer/dryer. LOL Kids and adults both will put their dirty socks in their own sock sack. Then you simply put your sock sack into the washer then the dryer...bring them out and NO SORTING! No more lost socks in the wash/dry cycles. I love them! Thanks Sock Sacks for helping me to be able to go.
The pouchee purse organizer is my other sponsor (well...that would be me, but I sponsored myself! LOL ) I did not make this purse organizer (I wish I did) but I do sell them because I am sold on how wonderful they are at keeping your purse organized.
For a Special from Blogher... if you order a pouchee and put in this discount code "BlogHer" you will get 10% off your purchase.


My daughter was thrilled with this new Moxie Girlz Doll that we received at BowlHer as part of our Swag. They aren't coming out until September. My daughter had a blast using the markers and painting the motorcycle and I think her shoes? She was showing me her wonderful art work and was so proud.

The kids ended up with so many fun things....book lights from PBS Kids, also a autographed picture from Nina from The Good Night Show on Sprout a cute pin from Disney (plus Disney had wonderful Mickey Mouse ice cream bars that saved me on one of my "I missed lunch" days), Disney also showed us a laptop computer made for kids that has a safe internet environment (Hint..hint...I would love to do a review and giveaway of one of those for you Disney!! ) and bears from Build a Bear, a Mr. Potato Head from Playschool, coloring books and so much more.
Jump Start was there. It was nice to talk to them as I am going to be doing a review and giveaway for them of one of their programs that my triplets are having a great time using.

Nikon put on a wonderful party and I was thrilled to go.
Pepsico also had drinks for us everywhere!
Tropicana had wonderful and cold juice for us to drink that was lower in calories!
This was the Quaker Oatmeal Smoothie bike! (yummy they were good)
So did you know that Pepsico had more than just Pepsi? I didn't....they have Tropicana, Quaker Oatmeal, Frito-lay, Gatorade Brands. See what you can learn at BlogHer? LOL

Michelin Tires was there with the Michelin Man!

The Swiffer company had a dress up area (as you can see!) at the SocialLuxe party and it was a riot to watch.
Tide gave us a really cool bounce 4 month dryer bars. I haven't put it in my dryer to try it yet...but can't wait. I won't have to have all those used dryer sheets that want to fall out of the dryer onto the floor floating around any more.
They also had Tim Gunn visit their booth. I didn't have time to get in line to take a picture with him, so I snapped this one on my way through. I think its funny that it looks like the word bubble is coming out of his mouth. Thanks Tide.
There are many more ...I mean many more sponsors...and this post would be way too long to list them all. I just want to give them all a very big Thank you!