Ready for Easter!

Look at my boy! He is growing up so quickly and in this suit? He looks like a little man! Since Easter is fast approaching I decided to go shopping at Walmart to find some Easter fashions for Mekhi. I was pleasantly surprised to find some really cute 4 pieces suits for less than $20.00! I of course picked the suit that was accented with purple. Love it! 

I was debating between this suit and one that had a handkerchief in the pocket, so distinguished! And I know Mekhi enjoys dressing like his daddy so I know he will enjoy wearing it. Sometimes it is challenging finding clothing for boys but I was very pleased with the selection for Easter at Walmart. Honestly, I doubt that he will be dressed up on Easter, we usually spend the day together at home, but I know this suit will be an option for him on future occasions when he has to dress up. 

If you are on the looking for a reasonably priced outfit for your son this holiday season, be sure to check out Walmart. I know you will be surprised by what you find! 

Disclosure: I am a Walmart mom and have been compensated for this post and provided funds to purchase the suit but as usual all opinions are my own. 

Hard workers

Everyone knows that boxers are super hard workers. We have to keep our humans in line, supervise social interactions with other dogs, and be sure that our toys are regularly exercised and rotated. It's exhausting! But some of my LBR buddies work even harder than that. When their humans go to that work-thingy, they do it out of their very own houses! (Ahem, Momma, what's up with that?!) So the dogs of course have to work even harder supervising their human at their job.

LBR alums Sky and Saber have such a tough job, they have to tag-team to watch their human!


LBR fosters Klein and Harlee make their human take a quick break to check the LBR website!

"Any furever homes asking about us yet?"

LBR alum Durango is just exhausted by all this snoopervision.


LBR foster Bruno tries to convince his human it's time to take a break.


LBR alum Trinity found the best solution -- make them stop to look at how pretty you are!


Good job, my furiends! I'm kind of glad that my mom works somewhere else so I can take a well-earned nap during the day instead.

Oh, and if you're in the Dallas/Ft.Worth area, don't forget....

Roses for Rescue is in ONE WEEK!! Woohoo, let's rock this plant stand!

Easter Gluten Free Cake Pops

With Easter fast approaching I wanted to come up with an appropriate treat for my son's pre-school class. I decided to make pastel colored cake pops - delicious and just the right amount of sweet without going overboard! For this project (indeed it was a project since I've never attempted to make cake pops before) I decided to use white chocolate (despite knowing it is more difficult to work with than dark chocolate) and pastel colored sugar. 


Of course, as a busy mom I had to take some shortcuts and decided instead of making a cake, crumbling it after it baked and forming hand rolled balls, I purchased a brownie pop baking dish. It cut time and mess down considerably! 

I also purchased cake pop sticks, Baker's Joy non-stick spray and a cake pop stand. The next time I take on this project I will just purchase a block of styrofoam because although the stand was helpful when letting the chocolate harden I was unable to transport the pops using it. With the exception of the sugar crystals and the white chocolate I had all of the other ingredients needed to make the cake pops in my pantry and refrigerator. I adapted a cake pops recipe I found on Malibu Kitchen to make my actual pops and I love the outcome

Gluten Free Vanilla Cake Pops
1 cup Gluten Free flour 
¾ cup sugar 
1 ½ teaspoon baking powder 
Pinch of salt 
¼ cup vegetable oil (I omitted this and somehow my cake pops were still extraordinarily moist)
½ cup Almond Milk
2 eggs 
¼ teaspoon pure vanilla extract 
Baking spray 
1 14 oz bag of vanilla flavor chocolate
Edible sprinkles to decorate 
A Bake Pop pan (available from Walmart) 
Cake Pop Stand (available from Walmart) 

Directions: 

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 
• Put the flour, sugar baking powder, salt and oil in a bowl. 
• Using an electric mixer beat on slow speed until you get a sandy consistency and everything is combined. 
• Gradually pour in half (1/4 cup) of the water and beat until the water is just incorporated. 
• In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs, vanilla, and remaining water together for a few seconds. 
• Pour egg mixture into the flour mixture and continue beating until just incorporated. 
• Scrape sides and continue mixing for a minute more until the batter is smooth. Do not over mix. 
• Spray both sides of cake pop pan with baking pam. 
• Using a liquid measuring cup, pour mixture into pan.
• Bake for 20 – 25 minutes.
• Melt a small amount of candy coating in the microwave.
• Dip the end of the cake pop stick into the coating, then insert into cake ball. 
• Place cake pops into freezer for 10 minutes. 
• Heat large batch of candy coating in microwave and prepare your topping bowls. 
• Remove your cake pops from the freezer. 
• Dip cake pops in candy coating. 
• Sprinkle on additional toping of topping bowl. 
• Use a cake pop stand or Styrofoam to hold your finished cake pops.

Disclosure: I am a Walmart Mom and have been compensated for my time to write this post as usual all opinions are 100% my own.

Watch the birdie!

When LBR dogs are looking for furever homes, we mark them as dog-friendly, cat-friendly, and kid-friendly. I think maybe we need to add a new category for bird-friendly.

LBR alum TyBo says, "Oooh, is this a snack?"


"I am not sure what to do with this thing."


" Mom, get it out of my face."



In other news, you may remember my momma's good buddy from pet fairs, LBR foster Pink. Isn't she pretty?


Well, Miss Pink has started her very own blog, Diary of a Deaf Dog. She's telling all about her life with LBR and how deaf dogs aren't really any different than hearing ones. Please check her out and leave her some nice comments on her first post so she'll keep sharing with us!

Wordless Wednesday

Lit Boutique

Located in the heart of the North End on 236 Hanover Street, Lit Boutique offers a wide range of fashion forward clothes. 

  

Manager Jess, believes that the urban woman should work hard and play hard, and her clothes should too.
Lit Boutique is also located on 223 Newbury Street and online at litboutique.com.

Pure Indulgence!

I admit there are times when I have cravings for sweet treats. I TRY to stay on task and keep them to a minimum or find substitutes to keep my sweet tooth at bay.

Strawberries are a favorite of mine and I've discovered Philadelphia cream cheese Indulgence- chocolate cream cheese! Pairing dark chocolate and strawberries of course is delicious and wait for it.......each individual tub has only 110 calories and 7 grams of fat! I'm sold! This is the perfect sweet snack for me- with no guilt!!


Indulgence will be a staple in my home and even if I don't have berries I can certainly enjoy it straight out of the tub alone!

Disclosure: I'm a Walmart mom and am compensated for my time and was provided with samples for review. As usual all opinions are my own.

Welcome to our school community, Sedrack!

Every year we grow vegetables in our school garden and use them in school or sell them to parents. This year our Year 6 Justice Group invested some of the money we raised in a developing business in Uganda. The owner of the business, Sedrack, is a 31-year-old married man living in Fort Portal, Uganda. He has been selling goats for six years now, and he got the capital to start the business from brick laying. His major challenges now are the steadily increasing price of goats and the difficulty of finding customers.

Sedrack's dream is to educate his children to higher levels and to diversify his business to include cattle sales. He needed this loan to buy more goats for sale.

We will keep track of our investment and when Sedrack repays his loan later in the year, we hope to re-invest in another developing business and therefore continue to encourage communities to become less dependent on charitable donations and build sustainable businesses of their own.

Give a man a fish...you feed him for a day.

Teach a man to fish...you feed him for life.

Lao Tse, 400bc

 

We Love Books!

Just to demonstrate their love of books, our teachers dressed up as their favourite book characters. Can you spot them?

We know how important it is to be a good reader and to enjoy books, so we are making a big effort to raise the profile of books and authors in our classrooms.

Who is your favourite author? To find out about new authors why not visit this website ?

Don't Be a Bat, be a Bee!

What better way to spend a morning than in the company of good friends, drinking refreshing tea and tasting delicious homemade cakes?

That's exactly what we did after our act of worship led by Year 5 when the children told us about equitable trading and workers' rights. £70 was raised for Fairtrade.

They also took this opportunity to remind us of our duty to be custodians of the earth and protect our planet. They are now our eco-rangers and anyone using energy unwisely, (like a bat, which sucks energy,) gets, "Busted!" Be Energy Efficient-BEE!

DON'T BE A BAT BE A BEE

Well done Y5 and Mrs, Clausen, Mrs Brown and Mrs Minns and all of our eco-rangers.

 For more information about Fairtrade, please visit Fairtrade

For the Love of Loden

This Spring updated versions of 'Trachten", the traditional German and Austrian alpine clothing have appeared on the fashion runway, in numerous stores, and in the Style & Fashion section of the Weekend Wall Street Journal (1-28/29-2012) . Fashionistas of yesterday also favored this style - Millicent Rogers, Wallis Simpson and Edward were among its fans.

Trachten clothing includes:

• Jackets and capes made of loden, (a type of felt) embellished with antler horn, bone or engraved silver buttons.


• Hats adorned with wild boar bristle pins and hunting medals


• Lederhosen (leather shorts with suspenders)


• Dirndl dresses (a layered costume consisting of a blouse, vest, skirt and apron).

If you're still confused -

just think 'The Sound of Music'!

I, too, have a bit of a Loden past. When I was a teenager, our family took a summer vacation to Europe. We found a low cost air fare on a charter flight, but there was a catch. We had to become members of a traveling German singing group, who had booked the plane. The group looked something like this:

One stop on our tour was Salzburg, where we found a tiny little shop that sold traditional folk clothing and costumes. I entered as a naive teenager from Upstate New York, and came out as Maria von Trapp in my drindl and grey loden jacket. My younger brother picked out a fetching pair of lederhosen shorts.

In college, I returned to Europe as an art history student. Living in Florence Italy I became enchanted by the heavy green loden coats worn by the Florentines. Searching out a resale shop, I purchased a used loden coat. It kept me snug and fashionable during that long ago Italian Spring.



Many years and many lodens later (including a coat and several jackets like the one below)...

Guess what I found last week at the local Goodwill resale shop?
You guessed it - a Loden Coat!

Still tracking trachten,
Marjorie

Simple Skin Care

I have really sensitive skin so I am very particular when it comes to the things that I use on my face. My adult acne can flare up if I am not careful and utilize the wrong products so when I was asked to try out the new Simple product line at Walmart made specifically for sensitive skin I was intrigued. I've been using the products for a couple of weeks and I have to say I am certainly impressed.  Here is my video review of the products.

All of the products are available at Walmart and they are less than $7.00 each. I was able to purchase all four products for $25.00! I will be keeping the Simple line in my skin care arsenal! If you have sensitive skin (and even if you don't), I'm sure you'll like this line too! 

Disclosure: I am a Walmart mom and was provided with the products and compensated for my time but all opinions are 100% my own - as usual. 

National Puppy Day

Today is going to make Maggie Mae swoon, because it's National Puppy Day! How else could I possibly celebrate that than with a post all about the puppies of LBR? First, the current lineup:

I didn't think Marilyn Monroe would be with us more than a week, but she's taking her time to find her furever home.


Bently got rescued along with his momma from the shelter, and he loves his new foster home.


Tulip sez, "Shh! Iz hiding."


Handsome Moby is all better after his fight against Parvo. Isn't he gorgeous?


And, of course, a few puppies from LBR's past. Who could forget little Tuna Roll (now Trinity), one of the Wasabi pups, LBR's most recent litter?


And, of course, her big brother Sake (now Bonsai).


Here's cute little Peter doing the boxer head-tilt.


Little Junebug is practicing her pouncing in the grass.



Clue is sharing his observations of the world with his foster brother, LBR alum Ivan.


And, of course, we can't forget the most famous pup in LBR's history, Baby Perseus. This little guy was surrendered to us at only 24 hours old, and his entire puppyhood was shared with LBR's facebook fans. He's now known as Huxley and is a completely gorgeous boy!



I hope you enjoyed your puppy post! But remember, these puppies may be cute, but shelters are full of dogs that used to be cute little puppies. Spay or neuter your pets, and prevent cute little guys like this from growing up abandoned or worse, being put down in some shelter.