Grilling! With decent hot dogs!

Ed is the grill master around here, and as it turns out, that's probably a good thing. Those things are hot, dirty, and forgetting stuff on them is not a good idea.

However, in the spirit of feminism and my "I can do anything" spirit, I tried grilling.

Look, I'm grilling! It's fun. (Not really - really it's very hot, just as I suspected.)

A friend of mine that normally summers in North Carolina is here in Arlington waiting for the arrival of her third child. She might be more concerned about what her children eat than anyone I know, so it was with great excitement that I was able to invite her over to taste Applegate's Natural Uncured Beef Hot Dogs. Her children not only gobbled them down, she happily took the rest of the package home to enjoy.

They are hot dogs, so they are super easy to cook - just heat them through. So it wasn't hard to go from this...

to this!

Applegate gifted me two packages of the hot dogs, so I am totally ready to impress whatever sports' team finds its way to our home next.

I have decided to retire my grilling spatula (or whatever you call that long tool). I do a lot of the cooking around here these days, and grilling is one place that Ed owns. I'm happy for him to keep ownership of the grill. I much prefer sitting around waiting for the food to be cooked.

Cheers!

Elaine

I received two packages of Applegate hot dogs, bottles of Sir Kensington's Ketchup and Mustard (totally delish - seen in picnic photos later this summer, I guarantee). 

Keeping the Mosquitoes at Bay

I'm not sure what the final total rainfall this past week was, but it was a lot. The toddler sandbox that still gets play as Helen's favorite watering hole was filled to the brim. Water was pooling on the side of our house, which inspired me to at least temporarily fix some of our many drainage problems - getting completely soaked in the process. I also ran 9.5 miles but that is only because I didn't get the email or text suggesting we cancel until I was already sitting in front of my friend's house. And by that point, I was ready to run (my friend and her neighbor, another friend, decided to join after all which was super nice of them).

And now we sit and wait for the swarms of mosquitoes that will surely thrive in all this water that has been left behind. Our backyard has the worst mosquitoes - and they bite during the day and in the evening. We've done a lot of work in our backyard to get rid of them (mostly getting a lot of air circulating through there, and getting rid of standing water before it is around for more than a couple of days) but still, they persist.

We leave bug spray on our screened in porch at all times so that anyone who dares venture out beyond the screens can try and protect themselves. But last weekend, I tried something new! We had friends over for a BBQ on Friday night, and when Helen went out to play ping pong with her friend, I turned on the Stinger All Natural Mosquito Lantern. I placed it beneath the center of the table.

The packaging claims it'll keep mosquitoes away over a 225 square foot area, and by the looks of Helen's legs, it actually worked! Which is awesome, because we love hanging out not just on the deck, but the patio beside it. And normally, we get enough mosquito bites to be driven back to the safety that screens offer.

When I'm brave, I'm going to try weeding the garden with this lantern nearby. I'm thinking it might be possible to NOT have to put on two layers of long sleeves to keep from getting bitten!

The Mosquito Lantern is super easy to use - just put this little strip that looks like a piece of Juicy Fruit gum in a holder in the lantern, drop in the batteries, and turn it on. Almost like magic!

Elaine

I received the Stinger All Natural Mosquito Lantern as a gift from Stinger. I'll be purchasing additional ones for my annual Oktoberfest party, in a bid to keep the mosquitoes out of the party!

Hot Nails! for Helen

Helen is totally a girl's girl. She insists on wearing dresses and skirts most days, she'll often add a necklace to her outfit, and the idea of painting her nails is truly thrilling.

Unfortunately for Helen, she has me for a mom. And since the pottery phase of my life, when I was in the studio 2-3 times per week, my nails have been very short and not painted. When I was working on pottery, this was by necessity. Now? It's just convenient.

However, our au pair is the opposite of this. She actually won a contest on Facebook that awarded her every single color of nail polish from some company. She has A LOT of nail polish, and she almost always has toes and fingers painted. This definitely intrigues Helen.

Enter - Hot Designs, and their awesome nail polish pens. One side is polish, the other side is a pen. I received a sample of the polish/pens. And...if you are my au pair with a penchant for nail polish, you can do things like this with the polish and pens. My daughter loves the designs.Check out more on their facebook page.

Hot Designs is giving fans the chance to win the ultimate beach package including a $250 Target gift card by entering at GetHotLooks.com/contest. Just submit a selfie of your summer style using the hashtag #WinHotLooks and at-tag @GetHotLooks on Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, or @Get_Hot_Looks on Instagram.

So...go enter the contest. Win some bucks and enjoy your fabulous nails. You can compare them to my completely colorless nails. Yours will be prettier, I guarantee. But...maybe when I'm at the beach in a few weeks I'll give them a try myself. I'm thinking it'll make for some fun bonding time with the three nieces of mine that will be with me.

Elaine

Seriously? It's National Ice Cream Month?

This month's nutty inbox message was the announcement of National Ice Cream month. I have no idea if this is a real thing, and I guarantee I'm not going to look that up. Because whether or not it's true, it's a great idea, and I plan to celebrate. Besides, the message came from the folks at Real@ Seal, and given that they are dairy folk, they should know about National Ice Cream month, right? I was asked to complete a mission involving two tasks and then blog about it. Easy-peasy. Results are below.

First task - figure out what the Real@ Seal is. Here's what I learned. Although I instantly recognized the seal when I saw it, I had no idea what it meant. To get the "REAL@ Seal", your product must not contain dairy substitutes AND it must be made from US dairy - nothing imported. I'm all about staying away from dairy substitutes. They frighten me, in fact. Fat free whipping cream? Are you joking? REAL@ Seal products need not be organic. The "REAL@ Seal" can be very tiny - like the size of your pinky fingernail. I'm not sure if this is intentional or not, but when specifically looking for the seal, I had difficulty finding it. It can be found in the dairy aisle AND on the shelves. I found a can of Carnation condensed milk with the seal on a shelf while I was in the baked goods aisle shopping for cupcake ingredients.

Also learned while figuring out what the seal is - the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for America recommend that everyone age 9 or older gets 3 servings a day of low-fat or fat-free milk. Children 4 - 8 should check-in with 2.5 servings a day, and children ages 2 - 3 should get 2 or 3 servings a day. This actually made me feel pretty good because I am haunted by a nagging feeling that my milk-striking daughter, Helen, gets fewer dairy servings each day than her pediatrician recommends. I'm guessing Helen gets 2 servings a day, which seems pretty close. I probably get fewer than my recommended 3 servings, and I'm probably even pulling down the US average which is 1.8 servings per day. So I bought some cheese and have been eating it to try and catch back up. Clever, eh? Who says blogging can't be good for you?

See the teeny-tiny "real seal"?

Second task - create a new ice cream dessert.

Game on. This is actually the part of the email I received that interested me most.

I am in the process of baking cupcakes for a friend's wedding. In addition, Ed decided to bake brownies with the little people last weekend. Talk about ridiculous dessert fortune in our home! We even have whipped cream!

And so I present to you...

The Whipped-Red-Velvet-Brownie-Sundae - made with actual milk products, not fake ones (even the buttermilk and sour cream in the red velvet cupcake were REAL@ Seal products)!

This dessert is delicious, and meets all of Helen and Connor's very stringent criteria for super dessert. Actually, there is exactly one criteria. It must involve multiple desserts placed together in one product so that it counts as ONE treat.

Verdict: Although I had difficulty finding the Seal, and I found a few products to be inconsistently labeled - as in one size had the Seal, another of the same item did not have the Seal (unless I missed it), I now at least know the REAL@ Seal means U.S. - and actual dairy, rather than some partially hydrogenated substitute (or whatever that no-fat whipped cream thing I left on the shelf was made of).

I am now challenging myself to come up with additional ice cream desserts, because what's the point of learning it's National Ice Cream month if you're not going to spend it eating ice cream?

Elaine

Happy National Ice Cream month, y'all. Thanks for bringing this critically important event to my notice, REAL@ Seal.