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Archive for the Category "partytime"

UBP14 Author: Apr 06

Well, I’m late to the party. Again. And I’m totally unprepared for visitors. Again. But that hasn’t stopped me yet!

My name is Erin and I’m a SAHM to two girls, ages 5 and 2.5. We’re Disney fanatics and I’m always dreaming of travel. We live not far from the mouse house and are getting in all the visits we can before the weather hits boiling. Spring and fall are definitely our busiest times of the year.

Oh, I’m sorry, I don’t have any drinks or snacks out. Please, help yourself to the fridge and if you finish something, please make a note on the whiteboard so I can replenish.

When I’m not taking care of the girls or trying to keep the house vaguely clean, I love to read and play PC games. World of Warcraft and Star Wars: The Old Republic are my faves right now. Sometimes I’m on Steam, too, but that’s pretty rare. If I have any free time after reading and games, I also crochet and blog. 😉

Probably the most important thing to note about me blog-wise is that I mostly blog from my iPhone, and since I’m still learning, I don’t often include pictures or links. If anyone has tips on how to do this easily, please share! One day, I’d like to skip that particular disclaimer and surprise people with the information that it was all done on a mobile device! 😀

So, I have a question for all you visitors:
What’s your favorite part of the UBP?

Mine is watching all the Twitter accounts come alive with new conversation and seeing the renewed interest in blogging from those of us who have been too distracted to do it (myself included).

Well, I was going to link to some of my recent posts, but somehow I broke that. I’ll work on a separate post over the next few days to make up for it!

Happy UBP14 everyone!

Category: Getting to know me, meme, partytime  | Comments off
#UBP’13 The Party is Here! Author: Apr 10

Ultimate Blog Party 2013

I’m excited to participate for a 4th(!!!!) year in the Ultimate Blog Party hosted by 5 Minutes for Mom. 😀

Welcome to my humble abode! I’m the mom of two girls, ages 4 and 17 months. I read, crochet and play World of Warcraft and Star Wars: The Old Republic when time and money allow. I love to cook and have recently started using my freezer to take the stress out of dinner time.

This little slice of the blogosphere is where I do my dreaming or try to make sense of the randomness inside my head. I also try to document happenings in our family life, but it is more important to me to LIVE it than blog about it. So I get around to things in my own time, for example my Story of Prague that took me six months to write. (And the pictures STILL aren’t up due to various difficulties!) 😉

In addition to all those quiet, at home activities I mentioned earlier, we are HUGE Disney fans. Since we live in Central Florida, it just made sense once we had kids to become annual passholders, so you can find us there about once a month. We usually stay at Fort Wilderness with our popup camper, but we have stayed at several of the resort hotels (Animal Kingdom Lodge, Boardwalk, The Dolphin, and The Yacht and Beach Club).

Speaking of Disney, we just returned from a Friday through Tuesday stay at Fort Wilderness! Our girls just love the Aquatic Play Area at the Meadow Swimming Pool and riding around the campground in a golf cart. I think they would be happy if that was all we did. 😉 But we did spend some time at the Flower and Garden Festival and let them play on the Oz playground as well as visits to the other parks. Those pictures will also appear for Wordless Wednesday one of these days. 🙂

I also love to travel in general, but it’s a lot more difficult with 2 young kids in tow. With the help of obsessive planning and our popup, we hope to get back to trips other than Disney in the near future. St. Augustine’s Anastasia State Park is next on my list, and we’ve already stayed at one of my other personal faves, Fort DeSoto Park.

One last note about me and my blog. At the time of this writing, NONE of the reviews that I have on my blog were sponsored and any time I talk about a product or location it is because I either loved it or hated it. I do occasionally use Amazon affiliate links, but those are few and far between. While I wouldn’t mind receiving free products, I find that reviews requiring me to blog mean my posts aren’t genuine. I want to write when I feel like writing about whatever I feel like writing about.

Let the party continue! 😀

Category: Getting to know me, partytime  | 9 Comments
Wordless Wednesday Flashback Author: May 09
Category: Alyson, holiday, partytime, Wordless Wednesday  | Comments off
UBP 2012 Author: Apr 20

I’m getting an uncharacteristically late start this year, but life around here is definitely more hectic than it has been in previous years!

Hello, my name is Erin, and welcome to my lil corner of the internet. 🙂

I blog very infrequently about things that are on my mind, my kids, and, on rare occasions, hot topics. I hate the feeling that I’m forced to publish content here, so I make sure that I only post because I want to, not because anyone thinks that I should. I’m active on Twitter, and read and comment on blogs whenever I can.

However, since darling daughter #2 was born in October, there is only a few minutes every day that I devote to blogging. I spend the majority of my day out and about with the kids, either playing in the backyard, at the YMCA, or at story time. The girls and I are also big shoppers, altho it is pretty difficult to shop with both of them. By the time they’re both in a cart, there’s no room to buy stuff! 😉

Whenever my husband has free time, we’re a Disney family, and recently purchased a pop-up camper to take the kids traveling.

Before I became a SAHM, I worked as a certified pharmacy technician for a local supermarket and am still passionate about pharmacy and nutrition and educating others about these topics, which is why my treatment for gestational diabetes still irks me. I am still labeled as having unresolved gestational diabetes, and when I get that definitively straightened out, I’ll write about it.

In what little spare time I have left after the above activities, I LOVE to read and I also play World of Warcraft and Star Wars The Old Republic.

In the blogging world, I try to participate in 5QF with Mama M, Toddler Talk Thursday, and Wordless Wednesday. I recently posted about, and am still looking for advice on how to deal with a fear my older daughter has.

Leave me a comment saying hi, I’d love to check out some new blogs!

Category: Getting to know me, partytime  | Comments off
Ultimate Blog Party ’11 Author: Apr 01

 

Ultimate Blog Party 2011 

Welcome fellow party goers! Pull up a chair and have a snack!



Beverages are self-serve from the fridge, please help yourself. 😉

My name is Erin and this is my little corner of the internet. I usually write about things that I’d like answers to, encouragement for, or my response to “hot topics” from Twitter, so I post infrequently. The one exception being 5 Question Friday with Mama M, which I seem to always be participating in!

This year, I’ve participated in Top Ten Tuesdays with Sluiter Nation (twice!), professed my love for Keurig, and asked questions about my 2 year old daughter’s changes in behavior. I also recently made a big announcement which was followed by a confession… 😉

Feel free to click around and make yourself at home. I’ll be perched on a bar stool with a diet root beer dreaming of all the fun prizes to be won… 😀

Category: Getting to know me, meme, partytime  | 10 Comments
This Is How We Do It Author: Dec 31

Celebrate Christmas, that is! (Yes, Christmas. I’m behind. New Year stuff coming shortly.)

Christmas is a big deal in our house. For my husband, it’s about the opportunity to buy gifts for friends and family and watch their faces light up. While this is also important for me, I just enjoy the warm, fuzzy feeling the decorations give me, the opportunity to bake, and the increased niceness of people. Well, until you get to the last couple days before Christmas and all the procrastinators are out and angry that they’re not done yet. 😉

We were all spoiled this year, which was a bit surprising to me. Everything I’ve read in the last few weeks told me to expect hugs or small tokens under the tree, because Christmas is all about the kids. Well, the same quality (if not quantity) of gifts was given to us by our family and friends.

Here’s a few pictures of the Santa magic and our Christmas Day.

If anyone knows where I can buy a bigger house to fit all the new stuffz (preferably in Central Florida), shoot me an email. 😉

Now, it’s time for me to walk away from the computer and go back to enjoying the warmth of the season. Unfortunately. I hear the cool weather will be returning though!

Happy Holidays!

Category: Alyson, holiday, partytime  | One Comment
D-Listed Blog Party Author: May 17

Please pardon the randomness of this post, as I’m joining a blog party I just discovered. I’m still working on the post that was making me smile last night, so have no fear, it will be here in the near future! But in the mean time…

Welcome to my little corner of the internet! I am a mom of one and a total foodie. This blog is for my random thoughts as they pertain to life, and I’m trying to launch a second blog so I can talk about food. Let’s see, what else can I mention very quickly about myself? I love my daughter, my husband, reading, video games, going to the movies and to the beach. I am learning something new everyday about the juggling act that is motherhood and am really enjoying it despite the downer moments. Unlike many other bloggers out there, I do not write to be popular, but to allow people to share my opinion or debate it constructively. I enjoy hearing what others think on all subjects, especially when they can back up their statements with facts!

Feel free to look around, comment or email if necessary, and subscribe to my RSS feed if you like what you see. I look forward to visiting your blog soon!

Category: partytime  | 5 Comments
UBP10 After Party Author: Apr 16

I, like many others I’m sure, am very relieved that the Ultimate Blog Party Mclinky will remain active, because I became overwhelmed about halfway through the week trying to visit as many blogs as possible. It reminded me a lot of my behavior at a real party when I reach the halfway point and wonder, “May I please pause the party, go home and recover for awhile, and return to this good time at a later date?” With the UBP, I CAN!!! I visited approximately 65 new blogs (and I promise to check out more!) and while I like them all, it is impossible to keep up with all of them in the way that I would like. Three of the blogs that have already made my blogroll are: The Mommyologist, The Amateur Kitchen, and Nolie’s Place.

Who doesn’t love The Mommyologist? I mean really, with Mom Sexy happening April 26th, that’s a blog I need to be reading. We ARE all sexy, whether we feel it or not. And while I never had the opportunity to anticipate the arrival of What the Heck? Wednesdays, it is something I might be using to help me express some of the smaller frustrations that might be piling up. Everyone needs a way to release their negative emotions before they explode.

I love to cook, so I definitely will be keeping up with The Amateur Kitchen. Her description says it all, “I find recipes so you don’t have to. I cook them. I photograph them. I taste them. And then I tell you about it.” I know I read a lot of recipes in magazines and wonder if that strange ingredient combination actually works in the dish. Now I won’t be wondering any more when I re-create recipes from The Amateur Kitchen.

Nolie’s Place is a blog that kinda makes me feel like I’m at home, if that makes any sense. There aren’t any flashy ads or a thousand reviews to wade through before you get to her real thoughts and feelings content. Everything is written very cleanly and the emotion of the post really shows through. If you read this, I’m sorry it’s not a glowing review of your blog, but it does give me a warm and fuzzy feeling to check in on you. 🙂

Those are just a few of the people I’ve visited from this year’s Ultimate Blog Party and I hope to visit and connect with more in the near future. However, it won’t be today, because I spent the day taking care of my 15 month old daughter AND a friend’s 5 year and 18 month old sons. Oh my, what a shock that was, but not a story for this post. Maybe another day. So for now I’ll be relaxing in my recliner with a heating pad and enjoying the last bit of a quiet Friday night. Good night everyone, it’s been a great UBP.

P.S. Oh, and this is one of the cutest kid pics I’ve seen this past week from Adventures in All Things Food. While the blog didn’t make my top three, this pic has made me smile every time I’ve visited this blog.

Category: partytime  | 2 Comments
Party On! Author: Apr 11

Normally I wouldn’t write about the meals I make (I’m trying to get a separate blog together for that), but I just had to share this one. When I was blog-hopping as part of the Ultimate Blog Party ’10, I came across Donielle’s Italian Cream Cheese Chicken Casserole. It sounded fantastic, so I picked up the ingredients at the store and vowed to make it for dinner this week. The opportunity came quickly when I found out my friend, Jennifer, would be joining us for dinner this evening. Perfect! Comforting casserole for dinner.

I opened the Word file where I had saved the recipe and started making new recipe notes so that I could cut the recipe roughly in half. Then my creative cooking brain cells took over. I have a bad(?) habit of not following recipes as they’re written, but constantly adding, subtracting, and substituting ingredients to make them fit my vision, and this recipe was no different.

I used Barilla Plus rotini, substituted peas for broccoli (since surprisingly I didn’t have any already in the freezer), added sun-dried tomatoes, used 1/3 less fat cream cheese, and used turkey stock instead of chicken broth because I had some homemade left in the fridge. I also added a crunchy topping with approximately 1/3 cup of panko bread crumbs and ¼ cup freshly grated asiago cheese. Oh, and I used McCormick Italian Herb seasoning grinder instead of the Italian dressing mix.

It was delicious, and even my 15 month old inhaled it. Thank you, Donielle! 🙂

Category: partytime  | Comments off
Ultimate Blog Party ‘10 Author: Apr 08

Ultimate Blog Party 2010

Hello fellow party goers! Welcome to my lil spot on the big world wide web. My name is Erin, and although I am usually the shy one at events that I’m not hosting (more on that in a future blog post), I am going to do my best to create a fun-filled party atmosphere here during the UBP.

What's a party without food and a few balloons?

Oh yeah, and presents too! 😛

I am new to blogging, my blog just went live in March. I am first and foremost a stay at home mom for my beautiful 15 month old daughter Alyson. In addition to all things mom, I also enjoy all things FOOD and NUTRITION. One day I hope to go back to school to become a Registered Dietitian. Reading and World of Warcraft round out my list of personal likes. I also like when my husband can tear himself away from both his school work (he’s working on his doctorate in Business Administration) and his work work and we can spend time together as a family. Any activity that brings us together is a good one. We recently got to spend the day at Epcot with our daughter as part of our anniversary weekend at Walt Disney World.

Let’s see… Other random things about me… I was born, raised, and still live in Central Florida and am not sure I could survive in a place that doesn’t have theme parks and beaches all within an hour’s drive. I have a Bachelor of Science degree in the Management of Information Systems, but I discovered that wasn’t my passion in life and one day hope to pursue another degree. I am a Certified Pharmacy Technician and am really proud of that. Even though my previous employer didn’t think it was a stepping stone to bigger better things, I do, and know that there are bigger, better pharmacies out there who do as well.

Please feel free to peruse my blog and leave constructive comments and criticisms.

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Almost forgot to list my prize choices! There are a ton of great giveaways going on during UBP, but my top 3 choices are:

#71 $50 Bear Bucks Build A Bear Workshop gift card (Always a favorite place to visit at the mall!)

#15 $15 Disney Store gift card

#83 Disney Mickey 5-in-1 Tasty Baker by Pop Art (My husband grew up a Disney kid, so this will be a house favorite!)

And if those are already claimed, any of the following would be great to acquire as well:

32, 107, USC3, USC15, USC32, 49, 25, 38, 48, USC41, 61, 37

Category: partytime  | 25 Comments