My family and I had the chance to visit the Oneida Community Mansion House a few weeks ago. It is a fabulous old building, that was the headquarters for the utopian Oneida Community in the late 1800s. The Community only lasted about 30 years before it disbanded and morphed into a silverware company.
This post is part of a sponsored series with ConAgra Foods and the Child Hunger Ends Here. All opinions are my own.
Last month I told you about the Childhood Hunger Ends Here program sponsored by ConAgra Foods. Childhood hunger is an invisible epidemic in the country, with an estimated 17 million kids suffering from food insecurity. And this problem becomes even worse in the summer! During the school year, 21.5 million children rely on free or reduced-price meals to help them keep from going hungry. When school is out, only 2.3 million children participate in the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP). This means there are millions of children at an increased risk of hunger during the summer.
You can help by purchasing participating ConAgra Foods products and entering those codes to trigger meal donations. Look for the red pushpin in grocery stores and purchase specifically marked packages of select ConAgra Foods, and enter the codes online at www.ChildHungerEndsHere.com or right here in my blog sidebar. For every code entered ConAgra Foods will donate the equivalent of one meal to Feeding America, a nationwide network of food banks.
My daughter and I had the pleasure of attending the opening production of the Finger Lakes Musical Theatre Festival season, Singin’ in the Rain. The performance was fabulous, and it is wonderful to see such talented actors here in Upstate NY.
The story is based on the classic movie starring Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds, and is set in the 1920s. The story is about silent film stars Don Lockwood and Lina Lamont, and their struggle to transition to talking pictures. It turns out Lamont’s voice is awful, and not at all suitable for talking movies. So the studio finds fresh faced actress Kathy Selden to dub her voice, and of course romance develops between Lockwood and Selden.
I participated in a campaign on behalf of Mom Central Consulting for Cascade. I received a product sample to facilitate my review and a promotional item as a thank you for participating.
When it comes to washing dishes the less I have to do the better! So I am always looking for the most advanced dishwashing detergent around. Cascade has been my favorite brand for years, and I always use their Action Pacs in my dishwasher. So I was happy to try out their latest innovation, the new Cascade Platinum Pacs.
This new product is designed to deliver the most powerful clean available from Cascade while simultaneously helping to maintain and clean your dishwasher interior. It has a triple action cleaning recipe that is designed so that it scrubs away the need for stuck on food, eliminates pre-washing and contains grease fighting power. The biggest difference between this and other Cascade Pacs is that it is designed to help prevent hard water build up on dishes, glasses, and even the interior of the dishwasher.
I love acrobatic dance, it is so amazing to watch and see the artists defy gravity! It has become so popular now that it is even cropping up in commercials, like this Natural Spring Water commercial, which features a yoga routine that turns into an acrobatic dance number with lots of water and splashing.
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I am a member of the Collective Bias® Social Fabric® Community. This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias and their client.
Now that my kids are teens they are always on the go, going to sports practices, scout meetings and part-time jobs. So I am always looking for quick ways they can get an easy meal. A quick chicken snack can be just the pick me up they need to keep going with their busy schedules.
Another thing I find with my teens is that we frequently end up with extra kids at meal time! And let me tell you, those teenage guests always have big appetites, just like my kids. This week is the start of exam week at the high school, which means only a half day of school for the kids with morning exams. My 17 year old is homeschooled, so she doesn’t have to take the exams, but many of her friends do. She invited a friend over for the afternoon yesterday after his exams ended, and we made wraps out of Tyson Chicken Fries to feed the hungry teenagers.
Disney’s Planes is coming to theaters everywhere August 9th. To celebrate Father’s Day they have releases a cute e-card, and some activity pages. We loved Cars, and can’t wait for this movie which is set in the same world.
My family always enjoys playing games together, and card games make a nice change from board games. We recently had the chance to review a new card game from Hasbro, the Bejewled Frenzy Game.
This game is designed for ages 8 and up, and can be played by 2 –4 players. Game play is fairly simple, as the players race to match gems and build the largest stack of cards. It sounds fairly simple, but there are 70 cards with different shapes and colors of gems, so it is more challenging than it sounds. You receive points for each match, and at the end of the game the player with the most points wins.
Disclosure: I wrote this review while participating in an influencer campaign by Mom Central Consulting on behalf of HealthyWomen and VISTAKON® Division of Johnson & Johnson Vision Care, Inc. and received a promotional item from Mom Central to thank me for taking the time to participate.
This time of year the sun is bright, the weather is warm and there are lots of outside activities and family gatherings. But it is important to keep in mind the need to protect your family’s eyes from the sun during all these activities! It is even more essential for children, because researchers estimate that a significant amount of lifetime exposure to UV rays may occur by age 18, and that children’s annual dose of UV radiation may be as much as three times that of adults.
My family is really looking forward to The Lone Ranger, which is being released on July 3rd! Westerns are one of our favorite genre of movies, and having Johnny Depp and Armie Hammer in a western sounds like the recipe for a great movie!
