VTech Baby Amaze Doll: Toddler Sized Fun!

The product was provided to me for review purpose. All opinions are my own.

Grace is in the "I love babies!" stage and I adore it! She carries at least one baby
with her wherever she goes and if we forget to bring one, then I hear about
the missing member of our group until we return home and she is reunited
with her friends. She prefers to have two babies with her at all times,
and if for some reason she is only able to have one baby, she keeps telling
me, "Two babies?! Two babies. Two babies!" until we get home and she can
have two babies with her again.

When I opened the nondescript box that our
Baby Amaze Learn to Talk & Read Baby Doll was shipped in,
I knew the moment that I got the box open that Grace was going to love her.
She is a bright, and cheery baby and she talks!!!
Sure enough, when Grace saw her, she grabbed her and was very distressed
when I told her we couldn't open her until the next morning.
She stuck her little hand in the tester hole and tried to get Baby Amaze out herself.



Once she got the box open the next morning and learned that when she
pushes the buttons that her baby talks and sings with her, she was hooked!
She also loves to read to herself and to me, so it is perfect that Baby Amaze
comes with her own board books that they can read together.
It is so awesome to develop a love of reading and
 concepts about print at such a young age.

It really is AMAZing that grace can talk to Baby Amaze Learn to Talk & Read
and the doll will learn and repeat. She has already learned the big kids' names
and Grace (and the big kids) love it!
She also encourages your little one to engage in nurturing role playing
by asking for her pacifier, bottle and more.

The four different activity buttons make playing with Baby Amaze a lot of fun.
Grace especially loves the Music Time and Reading modes.
She's a natural singer and loves singing with her baby. I like that it plays
familiar tunes and the baby hums along with Grace.

The Baby Amaze range of products is available exclusively at Toys"R"Us stores
nationwide and online at Toysrus.com.

I'm so glad that Grace loves her Baby Amaze doll and is learning nurturing
behavior - even as the youngest of our family.
She is a sweet little doll and I know we'll have a lot of fun playing with
her together.

RECIPE: Hot Cocoa Cookies and {ELF}ing Your Neighbors

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #BakeInTheFun #CollectiveBias

I love baking during the holidays! And I especially love taking favorite recipes
and putting a new spin on them. I love to see the holiday themed M&M’s® that are released
each year andthink of a fun way to incorporate them into one of my favorite cookie recipes and
just bump themup a notch. It's fun to create something delicious and then share it with friends
and neighbors during the holidays.

So when I stopped at Walmart to pick up my groceries for the week and saw the
M&M’s®display with all of the holiday M&M’s® in one place, I had to grab
one of each bag! In addition to the M&M's® Holiday Milk Chocolate, M&M's® Holiday Peanut,
and M&M's® Holiday Peanut Butter, they also had M&M's® White Peppermint and 

M&M's® Hot Chocolate!!!! The M&M's® Hot Chocolate spoke to my heart
and I knew just which recipe I was going to use them with - Hot Cocoa Cookies!!! 

I also had to grab the Pillsbury™ Funfetti® Holiday Cake Mix because I think that I
need to try these adorable M&M's® Holiday Snowflake Cookies because they are
so festive and I love a good cake mix cookie! And whenever I'm making cookies,
we always have to have a gallon of milk on hand because what is better when you're testing
a new cookie recipe, than a nice tall glass of milk!

Isabella loves doing holiday baking with me. We put on our Christmas aprons, turn up
the Christmas music, and enjoy working together to make something
delicious for those we love.She was a great taste tester when I whipped up this new
 recipe and gave it the thumbs up and assured me that I could win
a holiday baking challenge for sure!

In fact, the MARS Holiday #BakeInTheFun sweepstakes is going on right now!
If you vote for your favorite photo, you are entered to win one of eight KitchenAid® mixers!

Holiday #BakeInTheFun

 

M&M's® Hot Cocoa Cookies

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cups butter

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

3 1/4 cups flour

1 cup hot cocoa mix

1 tsp salt

1 1/4 tsp baking soda

1 9.4 oz bag M&M's® Hot Chocolate

1 1/4 cups tiny marshmallows

3/4 mini chocolate chips

small jar of marshmallow creme 

Directions:

 1. Heat oven to 375°F. Combine butter and sugar and beat until light and fluffy.

Add in the eggs and vanilla and mix well.

2. Add in the flour, hot cocoa mix, salt and soda. Mix until well blended.

3. Pour in the M&M's® Hot Chocolate, tiny marshmallows, and mini chocolate chips

and stir in by hand until well combined.

4. Drop onto line baking sheet 2 inches apart. I used my cookie scoop to get just the right

amount of cookie dough.

5. Bake for 9-11 minutes and then cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before

transferring to a wire cooling rack.

Since these are Hot Cocoa Cookies, in addition to the tiny marshmallows baked inside
the cookies, I thought it would be fun to top the cookies with some marshmallow.
So I heated marshmallow creme in the microwave for 10-15 seconds, spooned it
into a medium size storage bag, snipped a little off one corner, and then piped the
marshmallow onto the top. It really put the flavor over the top and was a big hit with
the family!

Now all we need to do it to package them up, put them with my ELFed notes and instructions,
and go ELF our friends and neighbors with some yummy treats!
If you've never ELFed someone, it's just like the Halloween tradition of BOOing.
You bake up some delicious treats, print out the instructions, and stealthily leave them
on the porch of an unsuspecting friend or neighbor to spread some Christmas cheer!

Be sure when you serve up your Hot Cocoa Cookies you do it with a nice big
glass of ice cold milk!
One of the most requested food items at food banks is milk, but because people don't
think to donate milk to local food banks, they can only provide less than one gallon
per person per year! Think of all the essential nutrients and protein more than
46.5 million Americans, that rely on Feeding America food banks,
are missing out on each year!

This holiday season The Great American Milk Drive is delivering
gallons of nutrient rich milk to families in need.
For a small donation at pourmilklove.com The Great American Milk drive will donate
a gallon of milk to a needy family in your community.
You can learn more about the need for more nutritious foods in American food banks
and how your small donation can make a huge impact by logging into milklife.com/give.

Be sure to check out even more holiday recipes and share with me your

favorite holiday cookie recipe in the comments below!

I'd love to see what you're baking up!

And don't forget to grab your coupon

to save $1.00 on ANY TWO (2) M&M's® Chocolate Candies, 8 oz or larger.

TOO Cute Tuesday: Linky Par-Tay! #260

We had such a great time at Knott's Merry Farm this weekend.

It got me all in the mood for Christmas!

But first, it's Thanksgiving this week and I need to get my apron on

and get to baking the rolls and the pies!

What are you making for your Thanksgiving feast?

Don't forget to make your Fancy Turkey Headband!

Now onto TOO Cute Tuesday!

What did you make this week that is TOO Cute??

Come link up!

Rules:

• Must be made by you.
• Link up to the specific post - not your main blog.
• No Etsy shops or giveaways please :)
• Please post the button or link back here so more people can join in the fun.
• Visit some of the other participants and leave them some LOVE!

TOO Cute Tuesday will be open Tuesday-Saturday.
On Saturday or Monday I'll highlight some of my favorites
and then we'll start over on Tuesday!


<a border="0" href="http://funkypolkadotgiraffe.blogspot.com/search/label/Too%20Cute%20Tuesday" target="_blank"><img src="http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p12/mormishgirl/Blog/TooCuteTuesdayNEW.jpg" /></a>

This post brought to you by:


 
I changed the linky party so that the most recently uploaded project will show up as number one. This way everyone gets a chance on top. So, look in the first spot for your project, not at the end. Thanks!!!

Fancy Turkey Headband {Tutorial}

It's turkey week (aka Thanksgiving) and so it's time to bust out your glue guns and feathers
and make a fabulous Fancy Turkey Headband. It's not secret that I love making fun and
festive shirts for the holidays and turkey shirts have been some of my favorites.


However, now that I have two girls and I love making bows, I had to make fancy turkeys for
their their hair to go with their awesome shirts. So, last year, I rounded up some supplies I had
on hand and made cute matching headbands the girls could use over the next few years.

I had most of the supplies on hand from various craft projects over the years.
I also lucked out to find a small piece of brown polyester satin in the remnant bin at
Joann Fabric, so the headbands probably cost me about $1.00 in new supplies.

SUPPLIES:
* 1/4 yd Polyester Satin Fabric
*feathers
*googly eyes
*scrap pieces of black and orange felt
*candle
*5/8" fold over elastic
*scissors
* glue gun

STEP ONE

Cut your circles in various sizes. I didn't use a pattern. I just decided how big I wanted

my biggest circle to be and then made each one a little smaller.

I made six circles, but I think it would be cute with eight if you made your biggest

circle a little bit bigger.

STEP TWO

Carefully melt/singe the edges of your circles. You'll want polyester satin fabric because it will

melt. If you happen to end up with a cotton satin fabric, you'll know pretty quick, because it

will just burn. It's not hard to do, but just don't burn yourself!

STEP THREE

Starting with your smallest circle, stack the next biggest circle behind it and glue them together.

Continue until all the circles are glue together from smallest to biggest.

STEP FOUR

Make a little beak out of orange felt and glue it and your googly eyes to the smallest circle.

Such a cute little turkey face!

STEP FIVE

Time for some feathers! You can put as many or as little feathers as you'd like.

I wanted one of each color and arranged them like so. I cut a felt circle that was smaller

than my largest satin circle and glue the feathers to that piece of felt.

STEP SIX

Glue the feathered felt piece to the satin circles, with the feathers sandwiched between the felt

and the satin.Then, cut your fold over elastic to the measurement you need, overlap the edges,

and glue the overlapped edges together and then glue to the felt circle.

Approximate fold over elastic headband sizing:

0-3 months  about 14"

3-6 months 14"-16"

6-12 months 16"-18"

12-24 months 18"-20"

2-5 years 20"-21"

5+ years 21"-23"

STEP SEVEN

Cut a smaller piece of felt and glue over your fold over elastic. This gives the elastic a little

more stability and keeps the glued portion from rubbing on your child's head.

And now you have an adorable Fancy Turkey Headband for your girls to wear!

They have been a big hit wherever we go. I've had several people stop me to take a picture

and I had one mom beg me to make them to sell. So, if you want to be a hit at your Thanksgiving

dinner, grab a polyester satin remnant, some feathers and your glue fun and make your own!

I've always been a fan of "bigger than your face" hair bows and headbands, so these fit my

style perfectly. However, if they are a little too big for you, you could make them on a smaller

scale and I'm sure they would be just as cute . . . maybe . . .

Come on, look at that face, it's adorable, right?

Are you like me? Do you like making themed shirts and accessories for the holidays?

I'd love to see them if you do! Don't forget to link them up to TOO CUTE TUESDAY

so that I can check them out!

I hope you have a fantastic Thanksgiving!
Thanks for stopping by and tell me what you think of my over-the-top headbands!

Baby Lock Rachel Sewing Machine Giveaway!

Today I’m over at Skip to My Lou as part of the Bake Craft Sew and Decorate series. I am sharing a Dolly and Me Ruffled Scarf , these are quick to whip up for holiday gift giving. In fact, you won’t want to miss all the handmade gift ideas!

I have joined over 100 bloggers to share some amazing homemade gift ideas……..Plus I get to be part of an amazing sewing giveaway too. See Below…  

This is one is sew AMAZING! She is a gem and her name is Rachel.

One lucky winner will receive this beautiful…

Baby Lock Sewing Machine ($799 Value) and $100 Worth of Fabric from Riley Blake Designs.

Ready to take your sewing to the next level? The Baby Lock Rachel is the star of any sewing class, and she's here to help you. This computerized sewing machine is equipped with 50 stitches and push-button features to make every project easier. The value is $799. Click here for more details.

Riley Blake Designs colorful fabrics include cottons, flannels, sparkle cottons, organic cotton, knits, dreamy, and laminates in a range of designer and basic prints. You will love this beautiful fabric.

Wait for rafflecopter to load and enter there...

<a Rafflecopter giveaway

TOO Cute Tuesday: Linky Par-Tay! #259

So sorry I'm late! I'm sick and sleepy and I forgot what day it is :)

But this weekend the kids went to the Irvine Park to have the fantastic

Alicia Marie could take their pictures.

I was nervous how Grace would do, but she performed and I think

she got some great shots!

Now onto TOO Cute Tuesday!

What did you make this week that is TOO Cute??

Come link up!

Rules:

• Must be made by you.
• Link up to the specific post - not your main blog.
• No Etsy shops or giveaways please :)
• Please post the button or link back here so more people can join in the fun.
• Visit some of the other participants and leave them some LOVE!

TOO Cute Tuesday will be open Tuesday-Saturday.
On Saturday or Monday I'll highlight some of my favorites
and then we'll start over on Tuesday!


<a border="0" href="http://funkypolkadotgiraffe.blogspot.com/search/label/Too%20Cute%20Tuesday" target="_blank"><img src="http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p12/mormishgirl/Blog/TooCuteTuesdayNEW.jpg" /></a>

This post brought to you by:


 
I changed the linky party so that the most recently uploaded project will show up as number one. This way everyone gets a chance on top. So, look in the first spot for your project, not at the end. Thanks!!!