You know how on those cold winter days, when nothing sounds better than a hot mug of Cocoa.  You would have to heat up the water or milk over a stove or in a microwave.  And if you were making multiple cups for others, you would be at the microwave for what seemed like hours, heating and stirring and heating and stirring.  After all that work of stirring, it was never good enough, there were clumps and it never tasted like the Hot Cocoa you would get in a cafe.  Even though it wasn’t quite the best, we did it any way, those were our options for Hot Chocolate made at home.  But now, lucky for us Hot Chocolate lovers, they have finally invented the Dream Machine and it’s called the Bialletti Hot Chocolate Pot and it’s exclusively from Williams-Sonoma.

Bialetti Hot Chocolate Pot

You will absolutely love this Hot Chocolate Pot.  It is so easy to use and makes the best tasting hot chocolate. All you do is add your milk, shaved chocolate or favorite cocoa, and then sit back and watch as the pot creates a perfect blended mixture. The best part is that it creates a rich foam and creamy froth.  So this winter and holiday season you can sit back and enjoy in your own home, great tasting hot chocolate.  What more could you want?

Right now the Bialetti Hot Chocolate Pot is on sale, was $99.95 and now $79.99.  So it is a little pricey, but well worth it.  For those frugal shoppers I did find three similar items.  They all got great reviews.

The first one is found at Target.  Called The Bodum Hot Chocolate Frother for $39.99

Bodum Hot Chocolate

The second one is found at Bed Bath & Beyond. Called The Back To Basics Cocoa Latte for $29.99

Back To Basics Cocoa Latte

And the third one is found at Walmart.  Called The Mr. Coffee Cocomotion for $23.84

Mr. Coffe Cocomotion

They all accomplish the same thing which is,  automatically heating and mixing hot chocolate into a frothy, creamy, tasty drink.  So which ever one you choose from, the Bialetti Hot Chocolate Pot or the ones I found at the other retailers, you will be pleasantly happy with your purchase.  Chocolate has never been Hotter!

Image Sources: William-Sonoma, Target, Bed Bath & Beyond, Walmart, and flickr.com

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Every year my family and I do as much as we can to give during the holidays. There are many different ways we choose to give back to the community and others. One of my favorites is Toys For Tots. I love the idea of it all, that every kid should be able to open a brand new toy on Christmas.  I love that during the holiday season I see all the Marines helping assist in making this happen.  It is a joy to witness all the boxes filling up with toys over the few months of October through December, knowing how many kids will be touched by the gift of others. I just love it.

Toys For Tots began in 1947. It was the idea of of the wife of Colonel William L. Hendricks, Diane. She had made a Raggedy Ann doll and asked her husband Bill to deliver it to an organization in Los Angeles, that would give it to needy children during the Christmas Season. When Bill discovered that no organization like that existed, Diane encouraged her husband to create one. And so Toys For Tots was created. In 1948 the Marine Corps adopted the idea. From there it grew into a nationwide organization. Over the last 59 years, Toys For Tots has distributed more than 370 million toys to more than 173 million needy children. It is an very inspiring story from how it was created to what it has become over the years. To read more about Toys For Tots story click here.

So this was the first year that my boys really got into it. They are both 4 years old. They picked out the toys that they would love to give, and even though we had to explain it a few times they seemed to understand and enjoy it. It was so sweet to see them hand over the toys to the Marines and shake their hands. When we were walking away, I told them how proud I was of them. Both of my boys looked up and said, “Mom, when can we do it again?” It made me so happy that they enjoyed it so much, I told them we can do it again real soon.

I look forward to doing Toys For Tots every year with my boys, among other things that involve giving and sharing. I love this holiday season so much.  I really do believe when you give, you can’t help, but feel you received something greater than the gifts you give. Especially seeing the examples we are showing our children. Teaching them the gift of giving.

For more information and Toy Drop-Off Locations for Toys For Tots, visit them at ToysForTots.org.

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Christmas is almost here and most of us are already preparing. Setting up the decorations, shopping, planning parties, and just getting in the Spirit of the Holidays. I love this time of the year so much that I start planning for Christmas the day after Halloween. I know, I’m one of those holiday freaks. If I could have my house like The Griswold’s, from The Christmas Vacation, I would. But I made a promise to my neighbors I would never take it that far.

In order for me to get in the spirit of the Holidays and start all the preparations, I start listening to Holiday Music, literally the day after Halloween. I can’t get enough of it. So I wanted to share with you my 15 favorite Holiday Soundtracks. I would’ve added like 50 more but I had to cut it off at some point. There are so many choices out there that it’s hard to pick my absolute favorites, but I did my best. This list includes some of my favorites from the past and some new ones just released this year. I hope that you’ll check some of these out and that they will become some of your favorites as well. You can get these at Amazon, iTunes, or your local Walmart or Target.

New Releases This Year:

1. What A Night! A Christmas Album by Harry Connick Jr.

Image Source: Amazon.com

2. A Swingin’ Christmas by Tony Bennett

Image Source: Amazon.com

3. A Lovely Way To Spend Christmas by Kristin Chenoweth

Image Source: Amazon.com

more…

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Thanksgiving is almost here. Which means there’s a lot of planning and preparing that needs to be done. With all that work, it helps to have some good kitchen tools. So I chose six of my favorite must haves to help prepare with the Thanksgiving feast. I found my items at Williams-Sonoma. Most of the following items are Williams-Sonoma exclusives, and can be purchased at their store or online. You can also shop around and find similar items at places, such as Target, Bed Bath and Beyond, or Macy’s.

Turkey Roaster

The top of my List would have to be the All-Clad Stainless Steel Roaster with Rack. What I love about this Roaster is that it is Stainless Steel for easy cleaning. It has very large sides, it’s deep so that reduces splattering. Then the handles which help for easy lifting. Wonderful!

Retails for: $159.95 - $199.95

more…

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The other night was an unusual night for my family, in that being, my husband was away for the night enjoying a basketball game with some friends. What’s unusual about that for me in my family is that it is rare my husband is ever away. He works and plays from home. So my twin boys are used to him always being around. Our usual routine for the evening is, I’ll do dinner, we eat and hang out for awhile. Then when it’s time, my husband and I get the kids ready for bed, then I give kisses and off to clean up duty on the house while my husband does story time. This has to be one of my boys favorite times of the day. They love how he interacts with them. If he’s not reading from a book, he’s making up some crazy, action filled story. My husband has a way of telling stories. He acts everything out whether that be rolling on the ground or jumping from the beds. Every story is action packed and has many different characters and strange voices that go along with those characters. A lot goes into story time. It’s filled with lots of laughs and fun. So you can see why my boys look forward to this time with their Dad every night. I love that my husband does such a wonderful job with his stories and enjoys this time with his boys.

So this one rare night when my husband was going to be away for an evening I was a little nervous to tell my boys I was going to be doing story time instead. Especially since in the past they have told me my stories aren’t as funny as Daddies. Which hurts a little, cause I do try. After we finished with dinner, I told my boys to clean up their dishes and head up to bed. They gave me a sigh and said, “but what about Dad and our story.” I explained once again that Dad was gone for the evening and I would be doing a “really cool story.” They sighed again and said, “o.k.” Not the reaction I was looking for, but was willing to take. It’s much better than a tantrum or whine fest. Off we went, they brushed their teeth and got into their pajamas. As we were walking towards their beds one of them went and got a frisbie that was left in their room and two markers and set them in the middle of the room. He then explained to his brother, “now you play music, while I dance with Mom.” He then told me to get down on my knees, while he put one arm around my back and held my hand out with his other hand. He said, “Mom, let’s dance.” more…

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I heard about this website from a friend of mine. We both have young toddlers running around our homes, and while they’re running we’re chasing them trying to clean up their messes. Now I will admit most of their messes are just the usual clothes thrown every where and toys in every room of the house (these are the easy messes). But then there are the real messes these little ones make. Like ketchup all over their clothes or a boxed drink spilled on the carpet. Whatever it may be these are the messes that are stressful and sometimes very hard to clean up. I will admit that these messy spills are not always my kids, my husband and I have made those similar mistakes here and there. So as I was telling my friend about a recent incident one of my boys had with some juice stains on the carpet, she told me about this wonderful site. My friend said that this site is a great resource for anyone with a cleaning problem. The site is called How To Clean Stuff.net. This site covers literally everything from good old fashioned stain removal to cleaning your kitchen or bathroom, to cleaning a babies finger nails. I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to have a one stop resource on your cleaning inquiries. Love It!

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I’m sure most of you heard of the Kindle either before or (definitely) after it was mentioned on the Oprah Show this month. If you were like me you have big plans to get it for yourself as well as for your friends or family members as a great Christmas Gift this year, but there may be a few things you want to know before rushing in and spending $359.00 ($300 with Oprah discount til Friday Oct. 31) on the new “it” item.

First for those that are not familiar with the Kindle it is an electronic book reader that wirelessly and without a computer downloads books, magazines, newspapers, Blogs and RSS for your reading pleasure. It does not take a computer and it does not take a pre-existing Internet connection; it runs off of Sprints very reliable EVDO Internet. You can browse nearly 200k titles on Amazon’s site from the reader and download them within minutes to your reader. It is in my opinion one of the best ideas in consumer electronics in the last 10 years. It seems to be a must have for anyone that reads frequently.

So I in preparation for buying many before this Friday, I had my husband research it a little more to make sure it was worth getting (he doesn’t take everything Oprah says as doctrine) and he found some interesting things.

Now even though many of us are just hearing about the Kindle it officially launched in late 2007 and there has been a lot of mixed messages from early users, as well as a lot of speculation as to a new and improved 2.0 version. If you remember all the hype behind the $500 plus iPhone only to find that the 3G was soon to be released making the old version obsolete within a year of production, you could see why I got worried when my husband started to tell me the same thing about the Kindle. So I did some digging and here is what I found. more…

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www.513coupons.com

With all that’s going on in the economy these days, we can all use a little relief, any where we can get it. I for one need help at the grocery store. I am use to just buying whatever and not even looking at the prices. I wish I was more of a savvy shopper, but I’m not, so any help I can get is much appreciated.

So recently I heard all this buzz has been around this women’s site, called couponmom.com. She has everything you need to know about coupons and saving money on her site. It’s wonderful! Everything from free coupons to free samples, as well as some very helpful money saving tips. I especially love the restaurant coupons and free offers since my family and I tend to eat out a bit. Along with couponmom.com I found four other really helpful sites, that I think you’ll enjoy. They are: retailmenot.com, couponcabin.com, currentcodes.com, and fatwallet.com. These sites can help us have fun shopping, while still saving money.

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