Progresso

It's late October, and for most of us that means fall weather! ok, so we really haven't hit fall yet in Florida; but that hasn't stopped me from pulling out Progresso's super yummy soup!

I just had a bowl of their light Chicken Pot Pie Style soup & it sure was tasty! I am a HUGE chicken pot pie fan, do I was very excited to try this soup. The only thing missing was the flaky pastry shell! It was more soup like (naturally) than regular pot pie filling, but still tasted yummy. It had chunks of chicken, potato, carrots, peas and celery in it; not just a few of each like a skimpy pot pie, it had a lot! This soup is also part of their 100 calorie line up! How great is that?

Thanks to the lovely people at Progresso & BlogSpark, I received this Progresso pack of goodies shown below! They are so generous that they are giving me a second pack to give away to one of my lucky readers!! This pack has 2 cans of delish Progresso soup, a travel soup mug with spoon in the lid (perfect for lunch at work!), large water bottle & a lunch bag! Now how to win! Unfortunately for me (but lucky for you!) I am having computer issues so I'm having to do my whole post via my iPhone. So entry is super simple! Leave me one comment telling me what your favorite soup is! Saturday, November 3rd, I'll randomly pick a winner from the comments. Good luck!!

In addition to the lovely soup gift pack, if you go to http://goo.gl/WbbPS you can download a coupon for $1.25 off the purchase of 4 cans of Progresso soup!

Disclosure: The coupons, information and gift packs have been provided by Progresso® through MyBlogSpark.

Using random.org our winner is Sunshine!! Congratulations!

Fun & crazy nail art

Yay for my first Saw it, Pinned it, Made it post! I truly want this to be a regular series of some sort. I need to get moving on that! One of my favorite Pinterest boards has to do with fun make up, hair and nails. I think part of it is because Disney Look dictates all of the above- we have to have neutral/natural color hair, make up and nails every day at work. For this reason I tend to do a crazy nail color like blue or green, or color changing in the sun, wear more jewelry & get henna tattoos when I'm on vacation. While I was on maternity leave, I decided to try some of the designs I found on pinterest!

In June, I was a bridesmaid in my best friends wedding. Jill's colors were pink & green. We had green dresses & almost all the girls ended up with some shade of pink as our toe nail color. The pink I picked was a fun summer shade that reminded me of watermelons. After I got back to Florida, I redid the pink & went to work on my art project! I had pinned fingernails & toenails, but only did my own toes.  I wanted to start small.  I did green tips French manicure style. I then took a wooden cuticle tool & dotted black polish in a tear drop shape to make the seeds. I did 3 seeds per toe, not too many so it's crowded & not too few so you couldn't tell they were seeds. All in all, it didn't take too long to do, it wasn't that hard & I really liked how they turned out! I got a lot if complements on them too!

My watermelon toes! 

My next set of Pinterest inspired nails came in July. For July 4th actually! I decided to do some American flags, similar to some I had pinned. They started out easily enough, a nice base coat of red. I'm right handed, so anything I do on my left hand looks great, anything I do on my right hand looks like a 5 year old did it. I then took a small, thin paint brush to make the rest of it. The one I used had stiff bristles & I feel that they helped a lot in keeping my lines (mostly) straight! I used Making Memories blue (waterslide) acrylic paint for my star base. I made a small rectangle at the base of my nail. After that dried I used Making Memories white (spotlight) acrylic paint to make my stars and stripes! Since the bristles on my brush were already in a thin line it was pretty easy to make my stripes. I just used the corner of the brush to dot my stars. Like I said, the left hand turned out great, the right hand, not so much. I was happy to see that all the layers of paint and polish came off easily with regular polish remover too!

My supplies.

My flag nails!

Have you found any fun nail ideas on Pinterest and tried them out?  Please share if you have!  Pictures would be great too if you have any! 

Kmart's BIG Layaway Giveaway!

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Kmart for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

It is not too early to start shopping for your holiday gifts this year! If you're hesitant about starting because you don't want any gift hunters figuring out what they are getting, you should check out Kmart's free layaway.
Right now Kmart is even doing something special-  It's time for Kmart's Big Layaway Giveaway! Now through November 17, 2012 you can win some great prizes!  Each week there will be one winner per store, yes EVERY week until November 17th! All you have to do is put your items on layaway and you have a chance to have your balance paid off! What a great prize!

If you're not familiar with Kmart's layaway program, let me tell you some of the great things about it!  It covers ALL merchandise in the store, it's available year round, there is NO minimum item or transaction amount, it's available nationwide and online, you can shop in one state and pick up your items in another one, it has several contract options, you can shop online and pick up in the store, and there are no service fees! There are a lot more perks with Kmart than with other big name retailers.
I would love to win big with Kmart! With Cole's first Christmas coming up and with him getting bigger and needing a new carset in the somewhat near future, I could find a lot of things to put on my layaway list! What would you put on layaway?

Fall Gardening

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Scotts Miracle-Gro for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.
Yes, you read that right... Fall gardening. Fall and gardening aren't really two words that commonly go together. However it is easy to Find beauty in the Fall and make a lovely garden with Miracle-Gro. Fall is a great time to give roots time to grow and store nutrients and gives the plants more time to grow an established root system.


If I were to start fall gardening, I think I'd go for an edible garden. Although, pretty fall colors would come in a close second. I would have to have tomatoes.  Tomatoes fresh from your own garden are THE best! Then, because it's fall, I'd want to make homemade tomato soup! I love this recipe on http://allrecipes.com for garden fresh tomato soup, it serves 6.

Ingredients

• 4 cups chopped fresh tomatoes
• 1 slice onion
• 4 whole cloves
• 2 cups chicken broth
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons white sugar, or to taste

Directions

1. In a stockpot, over medium heat, combine the tomatoes, onion, cloves and chicken broth. Bring to a boil, and gently boil for about 20 minutes to blend all of the flavors. Remove from heat and run the mixture through a food mill into a large bowl, or pan. Discard any stuff left over in the food mill.
2. In the now empty stockpot, melt the butter over medium heat. Stir in the flour to make a roux, cooking until the roux is a medium brown. Gradually whisk in a bit of the tomato mixture, so that no lumps form, then stir in the rest. Season with sugar and salt, and adjust to taste. 

Be sure to like the Miracle-Gro Facebook page where you can chat with other gardener, share stories, get tips, and just have fun! 

Upcoming Events in OK, CA & UT

Here is the Chesapeake Energy Arena (formerly the Oklahoma City Arena) information and upcoming schedule! We also have the information and schedule for the Oracle Arena located in California and the information and upcoming schedule for the EnergySolutions Arena (formerly The Delta Center) in Utah.  There are a lot of great shows and events coming up, so check them out if you're in the area.

***I recieved compensation for this post. All opinions are 100% mine. For my full disclosure policy, click here.***