Quick and Easy Homemade Fudge

I used to go to Gatlinburg every year when I was a child. One of my absolute favorite parts of the trip was going to one of the many candy shops and getting a pound of delicious fudge. 

When I decided I wanted to make some of my own fudge, I looked up countless recipes and talked to many women who made great fudge. Most of the recipes included a candy thermometer and close babysitting of the confection for nearly an hour.  I have never had much luck with a candy thermometer, so I simply gave up.

I was making a batch of no bake cookies for my future husband the other day when I realized that they were basically like fudge with some oatmeal stirred in.  So I started experimenting.  The resulting  recipe takes only five minutes, and tastes like the decadent fudge I remember as a child. It is rich, creamy, and moist.  The future hubs and all of the hobbitses have already demolished half of the pan!

Quick and Easy Homemade Fudge

2 cups Granulated Sugar

3 Tbsp. Cocoa Powder 

1 tsp. Vanilla Extract

1 cup Peanut Butter

1/2 cup Milk

Butter (enough to grease pan)

Start by putting the peanut butter and vanilla in a medium mixing bowl, then butter a small metal pan.  This way everything will be ready for the last few steps, as they must be done very quickly.  

In a medium saucepan on medium heat, combine cocoa powder, sugar and milk. It will start out pretty dry, but after the sugar has 'melted' it will be about the consistency of chocolate syrup.  

Stir regularly until the mixture comes to a rapid boil.  I'm not talking a few bubbles on the edges, I'm talking a full on boil.  

Let the mixture boil for exactly one minute.  

As soon as the minute is up, pour the chocolate mixture over the peanut butter and vanilla. Stir vigorously for about two minutes or until the peanut butter is thoroughly incorporated. 

 Pour the fudge into the buttered pan to cool, smoothing the top with a spatula.  

Allow to cool thoroughly, slice into squares, and enjoy!!!!

Finding Free Summer Activities

Finding Free Summer Activities

Summer is a time of wonder for kids.  For the adults in charge of making Summer special though, it is a time of great expense.  It doesn't have to be this way though.  There are tons of free activities you can take your kids to where they can have a blast.  With a little planning, you can keep your kids busy all summer for just the price of gas.  While I can't give you direct links as they are different in every area, I can point you in the right direction.

City Website

A good place to start your search for free activities is your city website.  Here you can find links to the library website and the parks and recreations website, as well as information about any upcoming parades and festivals your city is doing.  

Library- Most libraries have tons of activities for kids.  Summer reading programs are a great form of entertainment, as they usually meet weekly.  Kids will be able to read a book or two, then have song and craft times.  It's not only great free fun, but it can also help keep your kids fresh on their reading skills for the Summer.  Apart from summer reading programs, which usually have activities for ages 2 and up, there may also be special readings, author visits, etc.  I usually add anything interesting from the library's calendar to my own calendar so that the kids don't miss out on anything.  

Parks and Recreation-  Another great place to look for free activities in your city is the parks and recreation website.  Here you can find a calender of all of the events that will be at your parks and civic center.  This can include everything from a pizza night at your civic center's gym to a great festival at the park with free admission!  Again, I usually add anything interesting to my personal calendar so I am sure to remember important dates.  

Festivals, Fairs, and Shows

Searching for festivals in your area is a bit trickier than finding your city website, but not much more so. All you have to do is do a Google search for either events or festivals in your area.  A search in my area turned up a mac n cheese festival in a nearby town!  I didn't know there was a mac n cheese festival anywhere, let alone 20 minutes away.  My point is that you never know what you may have been missing out on for years by not doing this simple search.  Many festivals have free admission, so this one is definitely worth a try, even if the event is 30 minutes or more away.  You can always pack a cooler and save even more, as venders at these events can be a little pricey.  

Church Activities

Another amazing and often overlooked place to find free things to do with your kids is your church calendar!   Apart from vacation bible school, your church may also have a church camp, or other outings for youth.  Not all of these may be free, but if you have a hard time paying for them, you can often talk to the members who are organizing the events, and something can be worked out.   

Adventures in Toilet Training Infographic

I am sharing this for a reader who sent this to my e-mail addy, Christine@FrugalMommyChristine.com . I found it very interesting.   It looks great, Jaimie!

1

The Straight Poop: Adventures in Toilet Training

This isn’t your mom’s potty training — or even yours, for that matter. Children are going diaper-free at older and older ages. Is this change a result of better knowledge about child development or simply because we have better diapers today? And how can you make your baby’s toilet-training process go — ahem — smoothly?

Toilet Training Has Changed

Age by which most children are toilet-trained
1957: 18 months
Today: 36 months
Why have things changed? 
Disposable diapers: 90% of American babies wear disposable diapers
Long-term use of disposables could help foster a sense of complacency, both on the part of parents and kids:

• Disposable diapers are less time-consuming for parents to deal with.
• Wet disposables are more comfortable for babies than wet cloth diapers.

Change in conventional wisdom: Most parenting experts now advise waiting until the child shows interest in toilet training to start the process.
Potential pitfalls to this process:

• Children can become too accustomed to wearing diapers.
• The longer a parent (usually the mother) is a servant for the child, the more difficult it can be to make the child see the parent as an authority figure.

Elimination Communication

A growing number of parents in the U.S. are subscribing to a theory of toilet training that could mean forgoing diapers altogether. Also called natural infant hygiene, potty whispering and infant potty training, supporters contend you can start training a baby to use a potty almost from birth.

How? By paying attention to the child’s schedule, body language, feeding times and verbal cues.

It may sound crazy, but it’s how about half the kids in the world are raised. About 50% of the world’s babies will never wear a diaper and are fully potty trained by a year of age.

Step by step
Here’s how elimination communication works:
Baby grunts, indicating a need to defecate, or squirms, showing he’s about to urinate.
Reading these signals, take the baby and hold him over the toilet or place him on a potty-training toilet.
As he’s using the toilet, make a special sound (perhaps a “shhh”), so the baby realizes the connection between the sound and the experience.
You can still put your baby in diapers, but when you know he needs to go (if he’s just woken up or just been fed, for instance), you should take the diaper off and place him on or hold him over the toilet.

Source: Early-Childhood-Education-Degrees.com

Beach Body 21 Day Fix Review and a Giveaway

 21 Day Fix™ Review

This post is sponsored by Beachbody.

I have been carrying some extra weight since the birth of my first child nearly 4 years ago.  I had just started losing some of that weight when I found out I was pregnant with my son. The extra weight has made me feel self conscious about myself for quite some time.  That's why I was very excited to get the opportunity to review the 21 Day Fix program by Beachbody.  

The 21 Day Fix is both a diet and exercise program.  Unlike many diets where you end up feeling starved though, on this program I couldn't even eat all the food some days.  Each color of container represents a different type of food- protein, vegetables, carbs, fats, etc. You create a personalized plan for yourself using your calorie needs (they help you calculate this with a very simple formula).  Each range of target daily calories allows you a certain number of each container to spread throughout your day.  With my Calorie Target of 1200 to 1400 calories I was able to fill the green (veggie) container 3 times, the purple (fruit) 2 times, the red (protein) 4 times, the yellow (carbs) 2 times, the blue (healthy fats) 1 time, the orange (seeds like sunflower and dressings) 1 time, and 2 teaspoons of nut butters (such as peanut butter) and healthy oils every day.

This diet was very 'doable'.  There are tons of options for each food group, and you can use as much spices and herbs as you would like.  In addition to the food goals, you also have a daily goal for water intake.  This was pretty easy to follow too, because they give you plenty of options for dressing up your water by adding natural flavors.  The program also allows for some amount of tea or coffee each day! Being able to have my tea in the morning (my coffee maker is broken) was something I REALLY liked about this program.

Now, for the exercises. . . There is one 30 minute exercise every day. These rotate on a pre-made plan.  My fitness level before beginning this program was embarrassingly low.  The first day of this program was VERY hard, but I managed to get through it by following the modified exercises.

In each video, they break it down into 60 seconds of an exercise with a short rest in between.  The trainer in the video encourages you to push through, and reminds you to not look behind at the exercises you have done or the exercises that are coming up- only worry about the 60 seconds you are working on right then.   

At the end of the first day's exercise, I felt exhausted and was sore the next morning.  The next day was worse. The third day was no worse than the second day, but I still didn't feel great.  By the fourth day though, the exercises started getting easier, and I even managed to do some of the exercises without doing the modifier.  By the fifth day, I was adding a 30 minute walk with the kids to cool down.

Here are my before and after measurements.  I am only 12 days into the program, so I still have 9 days left, and I expect to lose even more!

                                     BEFORE                                       AFTER

CHEST                          39"                                                   37 1/2"

R ARM                         13 1/2 "                                             12 1/2"

L ARM                         13 1/2"                                              12 1/2"

WAIST                         38 1/2"                                              36 3/4"

HIPS                             43"                                                   41 3/4"

R THIGH                      25 1/2"                                              24"

L THIGH                      25 1/2"                                              24"

TOTAL INCHES           199 1/2"                                            189"   10 total inches lost!!!!

WEIGHT                      176lbs                                                170lbs     6 lbs lost!

I will update later with my full results after the 21 days are over.  I am really excited to see how much I will end up losing.  I am already having to wear a belt with my jeans!  If you would like to try the 21 Day Fix for yourself, you can visit their website ,  21 Day Fix or you can head to savings.com to enter their giveaway!

Enter Giveaway

Chalk Preschool- A free Online Preschool

Disclaimer: This is a sponsored campaign with Mums the Word Network and Chalk Preschool . All opinions are my own.

Chalk Preschool

The FREE Online Preschool!

My little Laura will be four this year, and it's time to think about preschool.  I have been battling with whether I would be able to teach her at home or if I would need to take her to a pricey preschool to receive this vital early learning.  That's why I got really excited when the opportunity to bring you a  review of Chalk Preschool came up.  

When I first signed up for my account (all free, and it isn't even a trial period!), the first thing I noticed was that in addition to the student section, there is also a section for parents.  Here you can learn about the program and what you can do to help your child along, as well as get advise on using the program, and preschoolers in general.  I also found the  Chalk Preschool Blog very useful.

When Laura saw that her new lessons were taught by real teacher in the video she got very excited!  "Is that my new teacher?" she asked.  I hadn't really thought of this when I was looking through the site on my own, but having an actual teacher on the screen holds her attention much more than any educational programming, because it gives the appearance that someone is actually talking to and teacher HER.  

This is the screen that the students see, with the video (which can be played full screen) for the current lesson playing, and the other lessons within that subject below.  You can skip around, or you can use the very handy "PLAY ALL" button, and the videos will play back to back in order.  This made the site very easy for Laura to navigate on her own.

Each day there are 4 sets of lessons- weather, literacy, math and science, and art.  Laura's favorites were the math-science and the art.  She felt so proud of herself for being able to call out answers, and LOVED the art projects.  I personally liked that included in the weather lessons are also lessons about "today"- what day, month, and season it is.  They also cover what day yesterday was, and what day tomorrow is.  I think after a couple weeks of these lessons, she will naturally learn the days of the week, and what they actually are, instead of just their names.

Each day there are printables that accompany the lessons for the day.  Laura called this her "homework" since she did them at the end of the videos for that day.   They also give suggestions on additional activities you can do with your child to help reinforce the preschool lesson plan.

The art projects are very fun and help to add a new layer to the preschool curriculum.  They all use items from their suggested supplies list.  The list is very comparable to what you would expect to see at a brick and mortar preschool- glue, safety scissors, construction paper, etc.

The first art project was a simple one that will be used in future lessons for counting, sorting, etc. We painted the ends of 25 craft sticks with 5 different colors (5 of each color) by dipping them into small cups of paint.  Laura was so excited to be playing with the paint, that she did not sit still long enough for me to get a good picture.  

So, what is my overall opinion of Chalk Preschool?  I LOVE it!  We can have the homeschool atmosphere and flexibility, with the benefit of having a teacher separate from Mom or Dad who actually explains things to your child.  Laura has been doing this program for 4 days now, and has already learned so much.  I think within several months she will be reading and writing.  She has learned to print 4 letters in both upper case and lower case, and knows all about vowels.  SO much more than I expected when I heard it was free.

Please show some love and "like" Chalk Preschool on Facebook.

For happenings and news, please visit the Chalk Preschool News Room

Carrie Elle Meal Planner Review and Giveaway

Carrie Elle Meal Planner Review and Giveaway

Disclaimer:  I received one of these planners to facilitate this review.  All thoughts and opinions are my own.

After a search to find a meal planner with all the features she wanted turned up empty, Carrie Elle  decided to just make her own.  A few months later, she started her own Etsy shop to sell her new creations.  I was given one of these Meal Planners to use and review.

I have been using my Carrie Elle meal planner for a month now, and would probably be lost without it now.  You can see some of the benefits of meal planning on my recent blog post, 5 Ways Meal Planning Saves You Money.  What is so nice about her planner, is that the shopping list is built in to the weekly planning pages!  You can plan out your meals and your shopping list right on the same page, and then tear off the perforated shopping list before you make your store run.  

The planner also includes monthly calendars, if you want to plan your meals a month at a time, and some blank pages at the end for your favorite recipes, notes, or whatever you need.  The planner is very nicely made, with good thick pages, and a nice splash proof cover, and a nice spiral binding.  The pages are not marked with specific dates, so, if you fall off of your planning for a few weeks. . . no worries!  Just pick back up on the next page.

Carrie has been kind enough to agree to give one of you, my readers, the chance to win your own Carrie Elle Meal planner!  Simply Enter using the Rafflecopter below! Good Luck!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

This blog is not responsible for the shipment of prizes.

If you would like to see your product or service featured on Frugal Mommy Christine, please e-mail Support@FrugalMommyChristine.com. 

Hallmark Inspirational Women Mother's Day Giveaway Ends 5/8

Welcome to our Hallmark Inspirational Women Mother's Day Giveaway~

Frugal Mommy Christine is please to promote this giveaway hosted by Tammie's Reviews, Giveaways and More and sponsored by Hallmark.

Who inspires you?  For me, it is my mother.  She went through so much when we were growing up, yet always managed to stay calm and collected.  Looking back I think she should get an award for it!  I am a mother myself now, and think back to those stressful times when she held us all together whenever things get crazy around here!

You can read Tammie's Reviews, Giveaways and More's review by clicking HERE. I cannot wait to hear about all the wonderful stories about who inspired you with their wisdom, their courage or even just an open ear.

On to the giveaway~

This giveaway will be live from 5/1 and will end on 5/8, starting and ending at 7 p.m.

This is open to US only. No P.O. boxes.

All entries will be verified

Winner will be chosen via Random.org

Winner will have 24hours to respond.

Winner must be 18 of age or older

3 readers will win a Hallmark prize pack.

Enter below using the easy Giveaway Tools widget and Good Luck to you.

Entry-Form

Disclosure: We are not associated with any of the companies named above. No purchase is necessary to enter. Void where prohibited by law. The odds of winning are based on the number of entries received Open to the US 18+ only. Confirmed Winner(s) (by Random.org) will be contacted by email. Winner(s) have 24 hours to respond before a new winner is chosen. No purchase necessary. Void where prohibited by law. The sponsor(s) will be responsible for product shipment to winner(s) of this giveaway. My blog is not responsible for product shipment/delivery nor did I receive compensation. Only 1 prize per household. This event is in no way administered, sponsored, or endorsed by, or associated with, Facebook and/or Twitter, Google, Pinterest. This disclosure is done in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission 10 CFR, Part 255 Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements. Entrants must only enter with either one email address, IP address and/or Facebook account, anyone found violating these rules will be disqualified. It is at the sole discretion of the admin of the giveaway if the winner has met the rules or not.

Why not join our Facebook Group to find out about the latest Blogger Opps or contact me pankuch1605@hotmail.com and see how I can promote your product for you. For any questions or problems about this Giveaway, contact Tammie at pankuch1605@hotmail.com

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