A Tasty Treat!!!

I was just thinking about what I should make for a treat for a small get together we are having, and I remembered this delicious treat!!!  It is so good, but incredibly simple to make, that I thought I would pass it along! 

Apple Dip

1- 8oz package of cream cheese
3/4 cup of brown sugar
1 container of caramel (usually found in your produce section)
1 package of Skor Bits (or whole Skor bars crushed)
4-5 Granny Smith apples, sliced

Mix together cream cheese and brown sugar until you have no lumps.  Spread thinly on a platter.  Microwave the caramel for about 15 seconds to make it easy to spread.  Spread on top of cream cheese mixture.  Top with the Skor bits.  Use the apples as dippers!!!

Enjoy!!!!

Back to School

As a parent, you love your child--as a mom, you love back to school!!! Even though I only have my Grade Oner back at school, the house is so much more quiet. A little routine goes along way. We are still adjusting to the early morning wakeups, but within a week I think we should be back on track.

My son had finally started to take a greater variety of food in his lunch. Hopefully we are past the days of just jam sandwiches. I guess the key was to make it fun!!! We have a toasted waffle sandwich, with jam (it is not a great change, but I am okay with baby steps!!), mini turkey bites, vanilla milk with ice cubes (no warm milk!!), and thanks to my aunt who knit some apple/pear sweaters, we take take those fruits with out them getting all bruised!

Only 1/2 year of lunches left to make--for the world's pickiest eater!! I have a made a few of the recipes of out Deceptively Delicious, and my kids have like just about all of them. They are none the wiser to knowing they have vegetables lurking under the surface!!! I sometimes just use jarred baby food if I can't find the fresh fruits and veggies required. 

Another favourite of ours is Silly Snacks.  The bright pages entice the children, along with the simple recipes---most of the items being fairly common. 

Upcoming Trip to Disney World

In just over 1 month, we will embark on our 8th trip to Disney with our kids.  My husband and I went twice before having kids, and have been back 8 times since with them.  Our first trip as a family is when our now 6 1/2 year old was only 5 months.  That was our first trip with a baby!!! 

We usually try to go twice in a calendar year, for 2 weeks at a time.  To keep costs down, we sometimes drive down to Montana (Great Falls) or Washington (Spokane) and then fly out of an airport there.  Airport parking is reasonable, especially if you stay at a hotel on site.  We have even flown into Tampa, and then driven to Orlando.  It is only about 1 1/2 hour drive.

We have rented a 6 bedroom villa to stay at while there.  We are travelling with another family that has 2 small children as well.  The villa comes equipped with a full kitchen, private pool and hottub, and room for everyone.  The total cost for the 2 weeks was only $2600 USD.  I do realize that we are not at the resort, but we rent a vehicle, and it is easy to drive in the Kissimmee area.  

Since we are travelling with another couple, and all have young children, we find it convenient to stay in a villa.  We can feed the kids breakfast in the morning--whatever they want at a fraction of the cost of eating out, we can put the kids to bed in separate rooms, and then still hang out as adults while keeping an eye on our children.  The pool is right out the back patio door, and the hot tub is always available. 

We have rented through Villa Direct (a management company) before, but have gone through VRBO (http://www.vrbo.com/) recently.  We found that VRBO prices are usually more reasonable, and also offer free use of baby equipment--strollers, playpens, fullsize cribs (sometimes), baby monitors (sometimes), etc. 

We like to stay in an area that is close to Disney (under 10 minutes away).  Some of these areas are Indian Creek, Emerald Island Point, Windsor Hills, Oak Island Cove.  You can take a back route to Disney which cuts out the traffice of 192.

I make my grocery list ahead of time, and then after we have arrived, we usually stop at a Super Centre Walmart or Target.  They seem to have the best prices on groceries!  Since we have multiple couples going, we all mark our reciepts, and throw them into the pot.  At the end of the week, we tally up who has paid what, and work it out from there.

Well, that should be good for one night--more to come soon!!!

New to the Blogging World

Just thought I would try this out.  I am forever searching the internet to find out little tidbits of information about everything kid-related!!!  Since up til now, it has always been a "take" relationship on my part, I thought I would give back. 

A little background on me:

I am a 29 year old mom to 4 wonderful boys--5 if you count Dad!!!
I have 4 boys, ages 6 1/2, 5, 3, and 18 months. 
We live in the Calgary area of Alberta. 
I stay at home with the boys, and provide taxi service to all the activities that we attend.

My goal with the website is to provide travel tips (we do like to travel, and I think we have gotten fairly efficient at it....).  We travel mainly to the USA, but have ventured to Europe and even Thailand and Vietnam with our 4 boys.  As well, just updates on different issues we experience at home--things like potty training, listening issues, sleep issues, etc.   

I am always open to ideas, and would love to get questions, suggestions, etc!!!  

Thanks so much for reading!!!