RSVP to Share Family Togetherness & Meal Time Tips This Tuesday on Twitter
September 12, 2009 by Jyl Johnson Pattee · 47 Comments
Stop for a second and think about your most favorite meal time experience with your family. What made it fun or meaningful? What did you eat? What did you talk about? What was it that helped you connect and grow closer as a family?
Now think for a second about what gets in the way of achieving that on a regular basis. If you’re like me, quick and simple meals are never quick or simple enough, meal times are rushed, and while I’d love to have all sorts of meaningful conversations with the family during meal time, we are usually lucky to get a home-cooked meal and even luckier to get conversation with it.
But… statistics show the importance of family togetherness during meal times. So, this Tuesday, we are fortunate to have Libby’s and Feeding America along with other #gno gals to share with us their fabulous tips for making the most of meal time. Have lots to share? Want to learn? Or, want to connect for a little girl power? Then, join us this Tuesday for #gno.
And, don’t forget to enter to win one of our amazing giveaway going on this week.
- What: Libby’s is sponsoring this week’s #gno Twitter party (Click here to learn about #gno!)
- When: Tuesday, September 15, 9-11 p.m. EST
- Where: Party with us on our custom Tweetgrid. (Use hashtag #gno.)
- Topic: Family togetherness and meal times
- Who: @feedingamerica @goodlifeeats @hannahkeeley @janemaynard @savorthethyme @rockinmama
- Party Favors: Click here to check out this week’s giveaway sponsored by Libby’s.
- RSVP: Please leave your Twitter ID in the comments to follow and be followed (on Twitter, of course!) by other #gno gals. The best format is as follows: http://twitter.com/jylmomIF.
Touch Other’s Hearts by Going Through Their Stomachs!
July 12, 2009 by Jyl Johnson Pattee · 24 Comments
10 Delicious Ways to Make a Difference This Week
Service doesn’t have to be bland or boring! Spice it up. Sweeten the pot. Make it delicious. Think of people that need a little love and touch their heart by going through their stomach during this week’s Summer of Service Challenge, sponsored by Campbell’s. How? By making and sharing a tasty treat, including one or more of the 10 ideas listed below!
For more ideas, join us for a great Girl’s Night Out (#gno) on Twitter this Tuesday night. And, please share a comment on this post with other ways to serve others by sharing a tasty treat.
- Make some baked goods—cupcakes, cookies, bread, muffins, etc.—and take them to a neighbor.
- Take a meal to someone in your community that is sick or needs a night off from kitchen duty.
- Spend one-on-one time with your children by having a cooking class with them to prepare dinner for the family! For a special treat, do a craft activity beforehand to make paper chef’s hats.
- Have a family activity where you make a tasty treat together, such as suckers, decorated sugar cookies, chocolate-dipped strawberries and pretzels, etc.
- Have a couple’s night in! Invite your closest friends over with their significant others for a fondue party. Play the newlywed game no matter how long everyone has been in their relationship.
- As a family, choose another family that needs some love or an act of kindness/service. Drop off an anonymous treat on their doorstep with a nice card telling them how much you love them.
- Organize a girl’s night out with your closest girlfriends and have a progressive dinner where you rotate houses during the meal, starting with appetizers, moving on to salad, heading to the main course, and ending somewhere else for the dessert.
- Treat your spouse or close friend to a dinner at his or her favorite restaurant!
- Make your family’s favorite meal and decorate the table special just for them. Devote the evening to family time by turning off phones, TV, etc.
- Make your children’s favorite cookies, making a different batch once a week until you’ve made all of their favorites. Don’t forget to include your favorite as well!
How Will You Give to Others This Week?
- What other ideas do you have for sharing a tasty treat?
- How has touching other’s hearts by going through their stomach made a meaningful difference this week for you? For others?
How Else Can You Make a Difference This Summer?
Make a meaningful difference this summer by taking the Summer of Service (SOS) Challenge. Here’s how you can participate:
- Commit to do one act of kindness/service based on the week’s challenge.
- Leave a comment with ideas relating to the week’s challenge as well as your experience(s) performing it.
- Grab the SOS button in the sidebar and put it on your blog or social networking site.
- Enter to win each week’s giveaway. Check out this week’s prizes from Campbell’s.
- Join #gno this Tuesday on Twitter to connect with other Mom It Forward moms about the challenge.
Milwaukee Couples Food & Fundraising for Lots of Fun!
April 21, 2009 by Colleen Venier · Leave a Comment
You may recall I announced a Wisconsin blogger’s get together awhile back. The event was to be part of a campaign put together by the lovely ladies at Mom it Forward and would raise money for a great charity that helps Kenyan woman start their own coconut oil extraction business. Those oils are then sold to a company that make them into lotions, soaps and other products.
Besides, it’d be a lot of fun, yo.
I’ve planned a lot of events, and never have the details fallen into place so easily. It was like putting together a preschooler’s jig saw puzzle.
Easy peasy.
One great blogger offered to have the event at her house. Another owns a great online store and donated a gift card for our raffle. Early on, I had a lot of people excited that something local was being planned and looked forward to meeting other “imaginary friends” in person.
But somehow when it came time to collect registrations for the event, the numbers, well…trickled in. In the end, only three of us lovely ladies met for dinner this past Saturday.
Boy, did the rest of you miss out!
Carrie S., Carrie C. and myself (an honorary Carrie for the evening) met at Trattoria Stefano in lovely Sheboygan, Wisconsin and laughed ourselves silly.
It really was a great time. And who would have thought that in a small Wisconsin city, in a teeny little restaurant one could find such GREAT FOOD?!? Honestly, the prices were comparable to that of one of the chain crap restaurants, only Trattoria Stefano featured salads with “organic farm raised Norwegan salmon” and other entres with so many delicious ingredients that our server stood for five minutes at a time reciting them back to us.
(I translated after he left: “A salad with fish, a dish with some meat, and one with noodles, sauce and more meat.”)
We sampled the silky and yumma-licious lotions from Basa Body. (And found that despite how delicious it smells, the chocolate mint soap still tastes like soap if you take a bite. Thanks for that, Carrie S.)
And we laughed.
And enjoyed the fact that there were no little short people yelling, “MOOOOOM!”
And then we saw this guy and the night just got *thismuch* better.
Yes, that’s a full grown man in a nice restaurant wearing a Snuggie. (Who rocked because he didn’t bat an eye when we took his picture. And then told his wife, “You married THIS!” which was super awesome because we all concurred that was something our husbands would say.)
So, big thanks to the Carries for joining me for a super rad evening. Thanks to Basa Body for the lotion and Mom it Forward for organizing such a great chain of events for a great charity. And huge thanks to Angie of Good for the Kids for the raffle prize.
The rest of you — well, we hope you’ll be able to join us next time!
Just a few finishing thoughts:
1) Buying a product from Basa Body or donating $20 to The Pope Foundation (the charity that trains Kenyan women to start their own oil extraction businesses) between now and May 12 enters you to win one of three great gift cards, including a $250 Disney Gift Card, a $150 Amazon.com Gift Card or a $100 Target Gift Card! Click here for more info, or visit the Basa Body site or click on the widget in my left side bar to make a donation. You can still win!
2) If you don’t have money to donate right now, check out Mom it Forward’s “10 Ways to Donate to Charity Without Spending a Cent” article. Good stuff.
3) If you’re ever in Sheboygan, I highly recommend Trattoria Stefano or its “sister restaurant” across the street (owned by the same folks). Their menu was impressive and their prices budget friendly. Plus they let us sit and be all loud for nearly three hours and never once gave us the evil stink eye.
4) Come back on Friday – I’ll be giving away some of the Basa Body lotion. And, no, it doesn’t smell like coconuts.
Reposted with permission from Mommy Always Wins.
Menu Plan—Save Time & Money
January 22, 2009 by jyl johnson pattee · 6 Comments
Andrea Deckard is a stay-at-home mommy with an amazing husband and three energetic boys. In her *spare* time she loves to shop with coupons and make files to track her savings and organize her home. Stop by Mommy Snacks for zero-calorie Snacks to Save, Earn, Live and Learn.
It’s 5 o’clock. You are exhausted. The last thing you want to figure out is what you are going to eat. And, oh yeah, you have to make it too! So, in an effort to maintain the energy you have left, you opt for take-out.
Does this sound like you?
I’ve been there more than I care to admit! For me, to avoid the overspending of either take-out or grocery shopping at the last minute, I started Menu Planning. Menu Planning is simply creating a menu for your family meals. Here’s what it will do for you.
- Prevent headaches
- Save money
- Save time
Here are a few tips to help you if you are interested in Menu Planning: 
What does your family eat?
What they *actually* eat. I have a Menu Planning Recipe Box that includes the meals my family eats the most. This is a great resource to utilize as you are creating the meal ideas for your family and will be helpful as you plan too.
What is on sale?
With the list of your family favorites, look at the grocery ads to find ingredients you can prepare on the cheap. You will probably have items in your pantry or freezer that you can use as well (stockpiling items at low, low prices is a good thing to consider). Your menu plan will help to prevent last minute trips to the store.
How often will you Menu Plan?
I personally plan my menu by the week, but some plan by the month. Just pick a frequency that works for you and start! With your list of meal ideas and grocery list of menu ingredients, creating your actual menu plan will be an easy step. 
Creating your Menu Plan
Keeping a written/printed menu plan is the easiest thing to do. Each Sunday, I print off our Menu Plan for the upcoming week and pull or print required recipes. I then clip all recipes together and hang on the fridge so I know where they are when I’m ready to cook. This step helps to execute your plan. I can quickly look at the menu plan and get meat thawing in the fridge or bring items up from our stockpile. So, when it’s time to cook, the prep is done and I just prepare our feast!
Menu Planning helps tremendously, but sometimes life gets in the way and I don’t prepare each meal as planned. But, at least I have a plan in place so I don’t overspend trying to pull something together on the fly. I feel better about what I do accomplish because at least I took the time to prepare a plan. And, knowing I saved time, money and a few headaches makes it worth it for me! * Photo Credits: Cocobucket29, autumlovr
Note: This coming Tuesday will be the First
MomItForward’s “#GNO Gab & Give” on Twitter!
What does that mean? STAY TUNED!!
