I have very fond memories from when I was a child, of my dad in the kitchen, making Rice Krispies Treats. Once in a while, he’d change it up, and toss in chocolate chips, or M&M’s, or even drizzle them with chocolate. Now, I have children, and I love making Rice Krispies Treats with them.

When I was given the opportunity to participate in the Rice Krispies challenge, I couldn’t say no! I thought it was a great chance to show off one of my favorite party treats using Rice Krispies! This is such a fun recipe, and the kids love it… Warning: it’s very high in sugar!!! LOL What fun would it be without it?!?!

Rice Krispies Treats Sushi

Ingredients:

6 cups Rice Krispies

40 large marshmallows

3 Tsp Butter

Dehydrated Fruit (Mangoes, Apples, Apricots, Pineapples)

Gummy Worms

Green Fruit Rolls

Make Rice Krispies Treats per instructions on the box.

Spread the Rice Krispies Treats on a cookie sheet. Make it no more than 1.4 in thick. One trick I’ve learned, instead of using a spatula, put a quart size sandwich bag on your hand, and lightly spray with non stick spray. Use your hands to spread and flatten out the Rice Krispies Treats.

I’m also giving away two Rice Krispies™ Snap™ Crackle™ and Pop™ Bowls here on Mommy Brain Reports!!! (Winner will be selected randomly on Friday, Sept. 3 at 5pm EST). All you have to do is leave a comment! Yes! It’s that easy!!!

You can tweet about this giveaway as many times as you’d like for extra entries! Leave a comment each time per entry!!!

**Disclaimer: I am participating in this contest for a campaign with Rice Krispies and The Motherhood! I was given a gift card for supplies and compensated for my time. Rules for this contest are located here: http://web.mediacdt.com/docs/Motherhood_Rules.pdf

This is more for the Jacksonville, NC area, but I figured I would tell everyone about this anyway…

So, the TaeKwonDo school that my girls and I have attended since April has started offering a new fitness class in addition to traditional TaeKwonDo. It’s less martial art and more of a fitness program… Kisado

I’m sure you’ve heard of various High Intensity Interval Training workouts, the ones that tell you that you can lose tons of weight in only a few minutes of a workout… I never believed in them, until now.

My husband and I have been volunteers to test out the new Kisado class at Tiger Rock TaeKwonDo Academy here in Jacksonville, and after each class, I’ve felt awesome. The classes are only about 40 minutes long, including warm up and cool down stretches. I’m not the most fit person… but I’m working on it, and I am so excited to have these classes now! TaeKwonDo has been an amazing workout, but adding this to my routine is going to really help me! I love that the workout is all about me. I do how much I can, rest when I need to, and just jump right back into it. I work up such a sweat that I’m leaving puddles on the ground… gross, I know… but darn it.. it’s so awesome…

Anyway… If you are in the Jacksonville, NC area, come by Tiger Rock TaeKwonDo academy! The Kisado classes start the Wednesday after Labor Day at 630 am or 11am . I’m already seeing results… I’m feeling better, and have more energy… I’m actually looking forward to classes now!

**Disclosure: I was not compensated in any way for this post. I just really love the class, and figured I’d share something very important in my weight loss journey. I’m down to a 16 from a 22, and wearing regular sizes now!!! No more plus sizes!!! WOOT!

I remember back to when my mom would throw clothes out if they had stains on them, or they were dubbed play clothes or home clothes only. Luckily, I don’t necessarily have to waste the girls’ clothes. I have had to fight all kinds of stains, and some have been easier than others to deal with… Honestly, stains have probably always been the worst part of anyone’s laundry regimen, and Wisk seems to have been able to do something about it.

Enter the new Wisk Deep Clean with Stain Spectrum Technology….

Have you seen the special new teaser commercial which recently hit the airwaves?? It formally introduces Wisk with Stain Spectrum™ Technology in a new red-hot bottle. Not only does it look cool, but their new, enhanced formula brings the science to stain-fighting, helping moms everywhere tackle a full range of stains ranging from oils to proteins.  They’ve come a long way since battling those pesky rings in the 1970’s and 1980’s. Talk about nostalgia… Check out this Wisk classic “Ring Around the Collar” commercial.

*Disclosure: I am working on a campaign for Wisk and the new Stain Spectrum Technology & will be compensated for my time. Thoughts and opinions are always 100% mine.

Ok Ok… that was trying a little hard there with that title… but read on a bit, and you’ll see why I thought of that…

We’ve all heard about various “frequent shopper” cards, and coupons, or rewards you can get for shopping with some of your favorite stores. I’ve signed up for so many of them, I have to have a separate key ring for all of those little plastic tabs.

*side note: I’m so glad they started making those little plastic tabs! My wallet was looking a little thick.. and it had nothing to do with money being in there… because there wasn’t any :)

Anywho… So, a few months back… OK, almost a year ago, I was shopping at my local KMart. They had awesome sales on bed sheets, and my girls were going to be getting their big girl beds, so I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. When I got up to the checkout counter, the cashier asked me if I wanted to sign up for the new “Shop Your Way” rewards program. Once she explained it all to me, and assured me that it was a FREE program, I signed up. I’ve signed up for similar programs, and never really got much from them. I just don’t shop that much! *gasp* Well, I like to shop at outlet stores, and Walmart is where I do most of my daily shopping, so rewards cards don’t really get scanned a lot here. This card, though, was going to prove itself this weekend.

Over the last year, we’ve made a few good purchases at our local Sears. Sears seems to have become one of our first choices for some of our purchases.  We’ve found an employee there, Steve,  that has really helped us make some great purchase decisions . He’s the reason we keep going back to Sears for many of our purchases… Ok, sorry, I keep getting off course on this post..

So, anyway, today, Hubby and I were talking about having to do the yards, and making sure we edged the lawn. Well, one of our purchases a few months back was a new Craftsman Weed Trimmer. We purchased that particular one because we loved the option of being able to purchase more attachments for it and convert it into just about any useful tool. It just so happens that this weekend, the edger attachment was on sale. We headed over to Sears after a few other errands and grabbed that edger attachment. When we got up to checkout, hubby reminded me about the rewards card. The cashier that helped us asked if we wanted to use some of our points towards the purchase. I had no idea how many points we had in the account, so I said sure… I figured any little bit would help out. It just so happened that I had enough to cover the entire purchase of this edger attachment… That was over $64 after tax. I was so surprised. Seriously… We walked out of there not having to pay a single penny, and we still had some points left over. Absolutely amazing. I never thought that all of our purchases between KMart & Sears would have added up to so much of a reward!

The Shop Your Way Rewards program is good at Sears, KMart, Land’s End and a couple of other affiliate stores. If you frequently shop at these stores, and haven’t signed up for the Shop Your Way Rewards program, ummmm.. WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR??  LOL…  I’m definitely going to be shopping at Sears and KMart just a little bit more… Those small purchases add up too! Totally check it out!

And now you know why I said that I was Saving some “Sears”ious Money… :)

**Disclosure: I was not compensated in any way for this post. I just thought I’d share a cool experience today!

My girls are past the infant formula stage.. .Waaaay past… but I still keep up with the information since I have a lot of friends with babies. I’ve written before about our choice to use Parent’s Choice formula with our girls, and the fact that store brand infant formulas, like Parent’s Choice are FDA regulated and must be made nutritionally equal with the national name brand formulas. Just thinking about the formula gives me great memories of my girls as babies.

Well, the other day, I was shopping at my local Walmart and noticed what I thought was a new infant formula on the shelf! I had to take a second look! It was Parent’s Choice! They have an incredibly cute new label on their formula! Check these out!

I absolutely love the new look! It’s cute, and easy to read… and honestly.. it really stands out on the shelf!

I truly do hope that more parents will consider saving money with store brand infant formula! There’s no reason to pay the higher prices of the name brands! All they are doing is paying for the name… and their marketing budgets! Really! Did you know that the higher prices are to cover the company’s marketing efforts??? .. All of their magazine ads, tv ads, and all the samples that they give out to hospitals and pediatricians are all paid for by the consumer. Funny how that works eh??  Just remember, saving money does not mean you’re sacrificing your baby’s nutrition. You’re not. My girls used Parent’s Choice, and they are healthy, strong, smart girls… They rarely ever get sick, and they didn’t have any weird issues as babies. Take a look at the product labels, and see for yourself!

Another big announcement is that Walmart will begin selling Parent’s Choice online with free shipping – noteworthy for parents who live in New York City and in areas where they are not close to Walmart. You can still save money!!! That’s great news!

You can go to Parent’s Choice’s Formula Finder to see which formula might work best for your baby.

Check out their Savings Calculator to see how much money you could save!

and…

Get Free Samples of several of their products!

**Disclosure: I work with Parent’s Choice in Social Media. All opinions are my own based on my personal experience with the product. Be sure to check with your pediatrician before changing anything in your baby’s diet.

I’ve written before about my family’s decision to eat better, and really pay attention to the kinds of foods and ingredients we put into our bodies. Well,something else we’ve talked about, but haven’t really tried yet, is to watch what kind of cleaning products we use around the house. I’ve heard of people cleaning with vinegar and water, but have yet to be able to really do that. The last time a bottle of vinegar broke in my kitchen, it stunk like crazy for a couple of days… no matter how much I mopped/rinsed it. I just couldn’t figure out how people clean with it… I’ve always been a big fan of bleach, especially in the bathroom and kitchens. For some reason, I haven’t really felt the rooms were clean unless they emanated with the scent of bleach… but all of that is hopefully going to change over the next month or so.

I’ve been given a chance to try out Seventh Generation products! To be completely honest, I had heard of them, but never really considered using them. I think I’ve been pretty closed minded about my cleaning products… Recently, though, I’ve been doing some more research, and seeing stories of people with respiratory issues, cancer and reproductive issues caused by the chemicals used in their homes. I mean, according to the EPA, the air inside the average home contains two to five times more pollution than the air outside. How crazy is that? It really makes me think about what we’re using in our home.. and if we’re harming ourselves in the house, what about the planet? Washing chemicals down the drain can’t be good for the environment, right? You can read a lot more about this and more healthy suggestions on Seventh Generation’s 7GenBlog!

Seventh Generation makes environmentally safe “green cleaners” which are all made from non-toxic, biodegradable ingredients like pure vegetable oils, natural minerals and hydrogen peroxide. You may be thinking (as I did at first) that the cleaners sound great for cleaning up spills, and stuck on things on the stove or counters… but what about germs??? Other brands have disinfecting cleaners that kill 99.99% of germs… Well, have you ever looked at the ingredients/warning labels on those? I never really did.. It’s actually scary! Seventh Generation has a line of disinfecting products that also kill 99.99% of germs BOTANICALLY… It’s powered by CleanWell, and uses thyme derivatives to naturally disinfect. It’s also registered with the EPA. All products that they have with scents are scented with essential oils instead of chemically created scents.

On a conference call that I had with Jeffrey Hollender, Co-Founder of Seventh Generation, he told a story about a customer. The mother was cleaning house, and her toddler had gotten into the cleaning cabinet and taken a handful of dishwasher detergent and put it in her mouth. The mother, rightfully excited, called 911, spoke to Poison Control, and when they asked her what dish detergent her toddler had swallowed, she replied “Seventh Generation”… The Poison Control operator told her that she was lucky, and that all she had to do was make sure her child drank a lot of water. If it had been any of the other conventional dish detergents, the situation would have had a completely different outcome, which probably would’ve involved a hospital stay. Wow.. I haven’t been able to get that out of my mind.

So, with all of this information, for the next month, I’m going to be using Seventh Generation products anywhere I can in my home in hopes of creating a safer environment for my family, and preserving the planet in the process. Stay along with me for the ride, and if you want to join in the challenge, you can now get Seventh Generation Products at your local Walmart and on Walmart.com!  I’d love to hear more about your green ideas, and what you think about the statements I posted above! If you have any questions about Seventh Generation, Walmart’s commitment to sustainability, or how to live greener, and live better, please leave me a comment and I’ll be sure to get answers for you!

Join me, along with my fellow  Walmart Moms, Sheena of Sophistishe, Jennae of Green Your Décor, Jenn Fowler of Frugal Upstate, and Denise of Wholesome Mommy, on our four week journey to live a more sustainable lifestyle in the Seventh Generation/Walmart sustainability challenge.

*Disclosure: I am a participant in the Walmart Moms (http://www.walmart.com/walmartmoms) program. Seventh Generation( http://www.seventhgeneration.com/) has provided me with products.  Walmart has provided me with compensation to blog about attempting a more sustainable household for a month. Participation in this program is voluntary. All opinions are my own.