Dinner Time & a Giveaway

I don't know about your house, but at our house pasta is the go to meal when I just don't know what to cook! My boys love spaghetti {with meat sauce} and they also like almost any other kind of noodles {as they call them} with white and red sauces. I love that all I have to do is bring a pot of water to boil and simmer my sauce, and then dinner is on the table....plus pasta with a little bit of Ragu sauce is a really affordable meal! I also have fun mixing up the combos of pasta and sauce. One of our favorites {besides traditional spaghetti and meat sauce} is farfalle {aka bowtie} with Ragu Classic Alfredo sauce. I add a little bit of sauteed chicken and some steamed broccoli and we have well rounded and nutritious meal!

If you are on facebook, you can head over and check out the awesome community on the Ragu Sauce Facebook page called Mom's the Word on Dinner. You can join the conversation and share what works and doesn't work at your house for dinner. You can also find great tips and tricks as well as new recipes. To kick off the newest conversation in the Mom's the Word on Dinner community....When Dinner Gets Tough, they have a great video full of awesome ideas and tips! Though I don't know how much I agree with buying my kiddos video games in exchange for eating dinner, we have used dessert as a bribe to get them to eat their veggies before:) 

Now for the giveaway! The great people at Ragu would like to give one of my lucky readers a $20 Visa Gift Card to help them get dinner on the table! Who wouldn't love to have $20 extra dollar the next time they headed to the grocery store!?!

 To enter:

Tell me your go to dinner when you are short on time or just don't know what to cook.

Tell me your favorite way to enjoy Ragu sauces.
Follow Random Thoughts of a SUPERMOM! on GFC.

Follow me {@SUPERMOM_Kelli} on twitter.
Tweet about this giveaway and include a link to the giveaway and @SUPERMOM_Kelli in the tweet. Dinner Time & a Giveaway from @SUPERMOM_Kelli Enter for a chance to win a $20 Visa card thanks to Ragu! http://t.co/970Rdis  Make sure to leave a comment for each thing that you do. This giveaway is open to U.S. residents only and will end next Friday, August 19th at noon CST. I will use random.org to pick a winner! Good Luck and thanks for entering!

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Disclaimer: I was given a a jar of Ragú® Old World Style® Traditional pasta sauce and a $20 Visa gift card in exchange for sharing about the Ragu Mom's the Word on Dinner program. I chose to share this with you because we really do love Ragu at our house, and that picture at the top is a jar of Ragu sauce that I bought with my own money:)

Scrambled

No, I'm not talking about eggs:)

Lately I feel like life is scrambled...jumbled...a big crazy mess. I know it's just because we are busy with the new school year starting, but man even this summer it felt like we never slowed down. And I know even though we have a vacation coming up, life won't slow down then either {We are a go, go, go kind of family on vacation...no time to relax by the pool when there is stuff to see!}. It has gotten so bad lately that even an afternoon nap with Eli isn't helping:)

I feel like life has become a big jumble of  busyness with school, planning and research for our Disney vacation, and watching Jason helping work on the Airstream. Other than my Disney Countdown, I haven't had time {or wanted} to craft in weeks....hence the lack of craftiness here on the blog:) I still have stacks of projects waiting for my attention in the dining/craft room, I just don't have the time or energy! The deadline {9 more days} for making vacation themed crafts is quickly approaching so I hope I find the energy soon:) I'm hoping to make the boys some fun t-shirts for Disney and I have some water bottles for them that are screaming for a few vinyl Mickey's...plus they need autograph books and some sort of birthday hat for Grant to wear since we will be there on his actual birthday!

I did start back jogging this week. And even though it is WAY TOO HOT to be jogging in Mississippi, it felt good to be exercising again. I'm hoping I'm not the only one who thinks summer is not the time to exercise, but the time to enjoy ice cream cones and stay cool:) I was kind of disappointed with my jogging though....back in May I had worked up to doing over 2 miles, and after not keeping up with it this summer I was only able to manage 1/2 mile at a time! I'm hoping to do a modified version of Couch 2 5K and get back closer to where I was at the beginning of the summer.

Jason and I spent a little time yesterday sorting through the kids' collection of Disney Movies in preparation for our trip. He made a list of some movies to add to our collection, and I spent a few minutes alphabetizing the ones we have....because organization makes me happy:)

I also spent part of the day making a list of things we need for vacation.....ponchos, water bottles, and first aid kit are the first few things on my list.  We will be prepared for rain, heat, and boo boo's:) Now on to the dreaded packing!

Since I haven't been all that fun, crafty, inspirational the last few weeks, I figured I would share a few amazing links I have come across lately.
*Check out Jen's awesome kitchen sneak peek...I love the color of the pantry door!
*Julie shared this really yummy recipe that is on my To Make list...and she not usually a recipe kind of blogger!
*Amanda shared a hilarious post about her new swagger wagon:)
*One of my newest blog finds is Leslie's blog The Mommy Therapy. She is real, and honest, and FUNNY!

Eleven Days

According to Eli, in eleven days we will be on our way to Mickey Mouse's house. We are all excited for a fun vacation, and the boys are even more excited that we will be celebrating a birthday or two while we are there. I think counting down to anything makes it seem more fun and it keeps the "how many days until..." questions to a minimum.

{check out some of my other countdowns here, here, and here}

So here is this year's Countdown to Disney!

After almost two months with no birthdays, I am finally changing out our happy birthday sign and putting a little Disney in it's place:) Here are the supplies I used for our Countdown to Disney:

I started by adding squares of scrapbook paper inside of three small frames.

Then I used my Silhouette software to type up the numbers 1 through 11 and the words "days until Disney". I used a couple different fonts just to keep it fun:)

I used my Silhouette to cut the numbers and words out on black vinyl.

The words were added to the glass part of two of the frames using transfer paper.

{BTW, I am having issues with the Silhouette transfer paper not being sticky enough...anybody else have the same problem, or know of something better to use instead?}

The numbers were added to the Disney paint chips that I picked up at Home Depot. I knew these would be great for a Disney themed craft the second I saw them:) I grabbed a few colors just to make it more fun, but you could always do them all the same color too...maybe red!

I used some double stick tape to attach the paint sample to the glass of the last frame, and then hung them back on the board. To change out the days, we simply have to pull off the paint chip and attach the next numbered paint chip with double stick tape.

While I'm planning and packing for Disney, the boys will be counting down the days until we are at Mickey Mouse's house!