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Cleveland National Air Show 2010 – Review

By Tired Mom Tésa · Comments (1)

Monday, September 6th, 2010

Happy Labor Day! I hope you are enjoying the extra long weekend with your family.

We are having a wonderful weekend. My parents and Grandma came into town for a visit. Yesterday we went to the Cleveland National Air Show. The only one of us who had ever been to the show before was Tired Dad Dave. Since living in Cleveland, I’ve seen the planes fly over various places around town and have always thought it looked like a fun show to attend. I was excited when I found out we had the chance to go this weekend. It was a great way to celebrate the reason why we have an extra day off this weekend.

Everyone had an amazing time and I highly recommend the show. It was incredible to see the acrobatic acts. Kora loved watching the planes tumble, twist, and turn. Logan liked searching for the planes when they flew out of sight – it was his version of Where’s Waldo. We were also able to go inside and walk around a wide variety of airplanes and helicopters. The kids even got to sit in the cockpit in a big Continental plane, which thrilled Kora to no end. She even told us she was going to be a pilot when she grew up!

Here are just a few photos from the day:

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Categories : Events, Reviews, Travel

Tags : Air Show, cleveland, Events

Quesadillas, George Foreman Evolve Grill, & Oneida Tranquility Blue

By Tired Mom Tésa · Comments (2)

Sunday, September 5th, 2010

The other night Tired Dad Dave and I were in the mood to grill quesadillas. We decided it was a great opportunity to try out our new George Foreman Evolve Grill. The grill is an updated version of the old classic, with a few fancy new features including: a variety of removable dishwasher safe plates, an 84 square-inch cooking surface, an adjustable hinge, and more.

My favorite feature of the new Evolve Grill is the interchangeable plates. Our box arrived with a regular grill plate, a cross-hatch plate, a baking pan, and an insert for making sliders. Not only can you use the grill in the same manner as the original version, but you can also bake lasagna and brownies, get those restaurant style cross-hatch grill marks on your meat, or cook up some mini-sliders for the kids.

As if that wasn’t enough variety the George Foreman Healthy Cooking website will soon be offering additional plates for sale as well including:

a griddle plate
a waffle plate
omelet plates
panini plates
a cupcake/muffin plate.

We decided to try out our favorite quesadilla recipe:

Grilled Ground Turkey Quesadillas (serves 2)

2 (8 inch) flour tortillas
2 cups ground turkey with taco seasoning
1/4 cup of diced black olives
1/4 cup of sliced mushrooms
1/4 cup of sliced avocado
1 cups shredded Cheddar cheese
1/2 cup salsa
1/4 cup sour cream

Directions

Pre-heat George Foreman Evolve Grill to 325.
Top each tortilla with ground turkey, black olives, mushrooms, avocado, and cheese. Moisten edges of tortillas with water. Fold tortilla in half and place on the grill.
Grill quesadillas 5 minutes or until cheese is melted. Remove quesadillas from grill and let stand 2 min.
Mix a small amount of the salsa and sour cream together and spoon on top of quesadillas or use as a dip.

The grill was very easy to use. After a simple pre-heat it was ready to go. We placed the quesadillas on the grill and closed it up.

Comments (2)

Categories : Food/Restaurants, Gadgets, Home & Garden, Recipes, Reviews

Tags : food, Kitchen, Recipe

Taking Just Jen To Carrabba’s

By Tired Mom Tésa · Comments (1)

Saturday, September 4th, 2010

If you asked me to guess who in our family loves to go out to eat more, I’d be hard pressed to say. I’ve always enjoyed trying new restaurants, Tired Dad Dave is a fan of visiting old favorites, and Kora & Logan are happy going anywhere if it means they get to leave the house.

Since we don’t get out to eat as often as we’d like (which actually is good for both our waist-lines and budget), when we do have dinner out we all feel like it’s a special event.

Last weekend we had the chance to try Carrabba’s Italian Grill.

I was excited to wear my new Butterfly T-Shirt from Just Jen.

Isn’t it so cute?

Read More→

Comments (1)

Categories : Food/Restaurants, Home & Garden, Reviews

Tags : clothes, Custom Clothing, Dinner, Meal, Restaurant

My New ‘Do and Conair Infiniti Pro Giveaway

By Tired Mom Tésa · Comments (228)

Friday, September 3rd, 2010

My hair was in dire need of a vacation.

I tormented it for too long with a hair dryer that was on the fritz. Every day for the last couple of months the hair dryer would slowly chug to a start and then it would suddenly blow out air the temperature of the sun. I’m not kidding. It was so hot, I couldn’t stand for it to blow on my hands, neck, or ears for more than 2 seconds.

I also just learned that I’m forcing it to be an unnatural length for its type which is thick, but very fine. While at the gym yesterday, one of the morning talk shows did a hair style segment and a professional stylist said fine hair should never grow past chin length. Apparently, whenever it gets any longer, it’s becomes too weak and the ends start splitting leading to frizz.

This was a real “a-ha!” moment for me. Whenever I’ve cut my hair short in the past, it is so healthy and shiny. So I get excited and start imagining what it would look like lots longer. I grow it out, hoping it will look like this:

Instead it always ends up looking like this: Read More→

Comments (228)

Categories : Gallery, Giveaway, Home & Garden, Open Giveaway, Reviews

Tags : Celebrity Hairstlye, Giveaway, hair, Hair Style

Wordless Wednesday: Good-Bye Malibu

By Tired Mom Tésa · Comments (4)

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010

We said good-bye to our Chevy Malibu today. It was sad faces all around.

We really did enjoy our month with the Malibu. If you are thinking of purchasing one or just have questions about the car in general, please feel free to ask and I’ll do my best to answer based on our experience with it.

Thank you again to Chevy for partnering with me in the Gotta Love Chevy NEO campaign.

Comments (4)

Categories : Chevy, Reviews, Vehicles

Tags : Chevy, Gotta Love Chevy NEO, Malibu

Toy Story 3 Buddy Packs

By Tired Mom Tésa · Comments (2)

Sunday, August 29th, 2010

Kora & Logan love everything Toy Story, except the actual movies. They’ve seen the first and second movies and while they try their best to like them, Logan always ends up scared and Kora always cries. Our children are incredibly over-sensitive when it comes to Disney movies. I have no idea where they got it from. Ahem…

You would think their reactions to the movies would mean they want nothing to do with Toy Story at all, however it’s just the opposite. Whenever we are shopping they pounce on anything Toy Story related, they enjoy coloring pictures of the characters, and they are always asking for the Toys Story toys to be added to their Christmas list.

We recently had the opportunity to review some of the Toy Story 3 Action Figure Buddy Packs and they were an instant hit. The action figures are 2 inches high and each Buddy Pack pairs a character with a favorite buddy or arch rival. To add to the fun, some of them even have moving parts.

Comments (2)

Categories : Kids, Reviews

Tags : Disney, Gifts, Kids, Toy Story, Toys

Hitachi LifeStudio External Hard Drive Review & Giveaway – CLOSED

By Tired Mom Tésa · Comments (654)

Saturday, August 28th, 2010

This giveaway is now closed.

As I’m sure is common with most parents these days, thanks to digital cameras we have tons of photos and videos of the kids. It seems we add more images and movies to our computer every day and as the computer gets overloaded it starts to run slower and slower. Soon we’ve eaten up all of our memory and our desktop has essentially become a digital photo frame. We can’t do much else on it but look at all those pictures and videos which, while it’s fun, is obviously frustrating as well.

To solve our problem we turned to the Hitachi LifeStudio Mobile Plus External Hard Drive.

Some of the features of the Mobile Plus that interested us include:

A 500 GB capacity along with a detachable 4 GB Micro SD USB Key (see above photo).
The LifeStudio Software automatically finds and organizes photos, movies, music, and files into a very cool, futuristic 3-D wall where they can be easily viewed all in one location.
It allows you to post and access photos through Facebook, Flickr, and Picasa all through the same software.
It offers automatic local and online backup and you can access your files from any computer or smartphone, or share with others using a web link.

Comments (654)

Categories : Closed Giveaways, Gadgets, Giveaway, Reviews

Tags : Computer, External Hard Drive, Hitachi, LifeStudio, Technology

What I’ll Miss Most About the Malibu

By Tired Mom Tésa · Comments (2)

Friday, August 27th, 2010

Well, our time with the Chevy Malibu is almost up. While I loved lots of things about the car, I think I may miss all of the music features the most.

We’ve been so spoiled with the XM Radio in the Malibu. I have loved being able to scroll through hundreds of stations and listening to all kinds of music and talk shows and Tired Dad Dave will miss the endless number sports stations. I don’t know how we’ll ever go back to just 2 screens for our favorite stations, when we’ve had 6 screens with 6 stations on each for nearly a month. And no more 90s on 9? Sigh. The drive for every day errands just won’t be the same.

Comments (2)

Categories : Chevy, Reviews, Vehicles

Tags : Chevy, Chevy Malibu, Gotta Love Chevy NEO

Moon Dough Review

By Tired Mom Tésa · Comments (5)

Thursday, August 26th, 2010

Kora and Logan love to play with Play-Doh, so when we were presented with the opportunity to review Moon Dough, I quickly agreed.

Moon Dough is similar to Play-Doh, but the best thing about is – it never dries out, you can use it again and again. It’s hypo-allergenic and wheat free as well.

The texture of Moon Dough is a bit different but very cool. It is soft and marshmallow-like. The kids liked it and were able to work with it easily.

We were able to test out the Moon Dough Barnyard and it was an instant hit. The barn has animal molds in the roof where you put in the Moon Dough. Then you turn the crank on the back of the barn and out rolls an adorable horse, cow, sheep, or hen. The detail on the animals are amazing – you can see their facial features well and the sheep come out with cute swirls on their sides.

Comments (5)

Categories : Kids, Reviews

Tags : Gifts, Kids, Toys

The Malibu & Michigan

By Tired Mom Tésa · Comments (3)

Wednesday, August 25th, 2010

This past weekend we took the Malibu on a road trip up to Michigan to visit my side of the family and to do a little celebrating.

We attended a small birthday party for my Grandma who turned 95, a big birthday party for our niece who turned 4, and gave my parents a card and gift in honor of their 34th wedding anniversary.

The Malibu made the trip more luxurious than usual. We enjoyed all the storage space for our phones, sunglasses, and fast food sodas as well as the extra leg room and large trunk space. Our favorite feature on this trip was the radio controls on the steering wheel which we used to scroll through the hundreds of XM stations without ever taking our eyes off the road.

While Tired Dad Dave and I listened to music up front, Kora & Logan entertained themselves by reading books, using their Tag pens, and playing with silly bands in the back. The 3 hour ride was smooth, we sailed along easily, and it wasn’t long before the kids were asleep.

Comments (3)

Categories : Chevy, Reviews, Vehicles

Tags : Chevy, Girls on the Go, Gotta Love Chevy NEO, Malibu

Dakota’s Personalized Gifts Review & $50 Giveaway – CLOSED

By Tired Mom Tésa · Comments (192)

Monday, August 23rd, 2010

This giveaway is now closed.

And The Winner Is…

Congrats Allison! You have email.

Thank you to everyone who entered and good luck next time.

******************************************************************************

This past weekend we traveled to Michigan to celebrate our niece’s 4th birthday party. She loves all things pink and princesses so it should have been easy to find her a gift, however I wanted to give her something a different and personal. So when Dakota’s Personalized Gifts contacted me for a review, the timing couldn’t have been better.

Dakota’s Personalized Gifts is an online store that offers personalized gifts and gift ideas. Just some of their products include: embroidered baby blankets, personalized baby apparel, gifts for twins & triplets, kids birthday gifts, engraved jewelry, items for green living, wedding & anniversary gifts, and more.

I chose the Embroidered Fish Pink Beach Towel for our niece, Belle. It arrived in record time and was so soft with such vibrant colors, I knew immediately she would love it.

And she did:

Comments (192)

Categories : Closed Giveaways, Giveaway, Home & Garden, Kids, Reviews

Tags : Gift, Gift Ideas

The Measure Up Bowl

By Tired Mom Tésa · Comments (3)

Sunday, August 22nd, 2010

All right. I admit it. I’m terrible at portion control. For whatever reason, I find it too much work to reach into the kitchen drawers to pull-out the measuring cups prior to pouring a bowl of cereal or scooping out a dish of ice cream. I know that’s just me being lazy and if I was serious about eating the proper portions I would take the extra effort to measure everything out before I eat it.

Thankfully one day I was browsing blogs and the power of the internet landed me on the site of the Measure Up Bowl. It’s a bowl that takes the extra effort out of portion control.

The inside of the bowls are clearly marked with measurements so it’s “Portion Control in a Bowl.”

See how the measurements are labeled inside the bowl? Pretty neat, huh? Here I measured out a 1/4 a cup of bread crumbs for a meal I was making. The bowls make pre-measuring ingredients a snap too. Read More→