Honey Bunches of Oats Tropical Blends Giveaway & Review

Post Honey Bunches of Oats has gone tropical! My friend Rally introduced me to Honey Bunches of Oats a few years ago...it was a long-time fave cereal of her and her hubby. I tried it and got totally hooked. It is more exciting than some of those old boring Cheerios but not junky like a lot of those kids cereals that are out there. Now they just came out with a new version:  yummy Post Honey Bunches of Oats Tropical Blends.  A perfect blend of whole grains with only 120 calories per serving. Not too shabby, right?  Not too shabby, right?  Here are the stats:

10g Whole Grain
120 Calories
6g Sugar (Honey Nut Cheerios has 9g per serving!)
9 Essential Vitamins and Minerals
No Trans Fat
0.5g Saturated Fat
No Cholesterol

The box makes me feel like I am on a tropical island with the sun shining down on me each morning too!  I love tropical fruits so I was really excited to try this new version.  It even looks and smells tropical which is divine this time of year.  It has delicious mango flavored flakes blended with real shaved coconut.  Combine that with coconut flavored granola clusters in the perfect size and you have a great new cereal to wake up to on any morning. It tastes great straight out of the box or with your fave milk or almond milk. I even tried it with coconut milk and that was delicious too.  I gave my little one a snack the other day with a small cup of Greek yogurt topped with the Honey Bunches of Oats Tropical Blends and she thought that was a fun snack.  It disappeared in about 2 minutes. You have to let me know if you come up with some fun ways to use it yourself. Let me know what you think too.

Don't forget to enter the Escape to the Tropics Tropical Trio Sweepstakes from Purex, Outrigger Hotels and Honey Bunches of Oats here.  One lucky winner will be sent on a tropical paradise vacation to Outrigger Waikiki on the Beach! Enter to win a chance to spend your days relaxing underneath the warm, Hawaiian sun and your nights exploring Waikiki’s never-ending nightlife.  You can also win a free box of Honey Bunches of Oats Tropical Blends by entering the Rafflecopter giveaway below!a Rafflecopter giveaway

Post provided a free sample of their Honey Bunches of Oats Tropical Blends so I could review them. However, all of the opinions expressed here are my own.

Rainy Day? Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter Fun and cheap kids activities

•   Send secret messages to one another

That tiny little piece of white paper may look like it doesn't hold any secrets, but your little one knows it says, “Find me hiding in back of the playroom couch at 2:00 p.m. ”  Show your child how to write, send, and decode messages just like a real secret agent.  You can do it using inexpensive household items you most likely have right now.
Invisible Ink Recipe:

Ingredients:

Baking soda
tap water
mixing bowl
Qtips/cotton swabs or a small paintbrush
white paper
grape juice concentrate

Mix ¼ cup of baking soda & ¼ cup of tap water in a bowl, stirring until the baking soda dissolves completely. Dip a cotton swab or small paintbrush in the “ink,” then use it to write a secret message on a sheet of white paper. Once the ink has dried completely (you can use a hair dryer to speed it up with your supervision), your child can brush the paper with grape juice concentrate to make the invisible message reappear. (The message is revealed through a chemical reaction that happens when the grape juice interacts with the baking soda.)
For even more fun, you can set up a message-writing station and a decoding station, with one or more child at each. Very little kids can act as couriers to carry the secret messages between the stations, and older kids can make messages even harder to crack by disguising the words with a code (like A=1, B=2, C=3, and so on).

• Make a Star Map:

What you’ll need: Tape or glue, black construction paper, cardboard, pencil, glow-in-the-dark paint or ink


Spark a lifelong fascination with the night sky by introducing your child to bright, easy-to-recognize constellations like Orion the hunter or Perseus (or, if you’re up early, the Big Dipper, which can be seen in the morning).
Get started: Glue or tape a sheet of black construction paper to a piece of thick cardboard to make it more durable. Use a pencil to trace a constellation (print out traceable templates at kiwimagonline.com/starmaps), then draw a circle where each star is located, making the brightest stars the biggest (about the size of a penny), and dimmer stars the smallest (about the size of a pea). Use glow-in-the-dark paint or pens to trace the outline of the constellation and to fill in each star circle. Once the paint is dry and it’s dark outside, use the glow-in-the-dark star map to find your constellation in the night sky.
Double-check your child’s work—and identify other constellations nearby—with a stargazing app like The Night Sky ($.99, apple.com/itunes). Hold your phone or tablet up to the sky, and the names of the constellations in your field of view will appear on the screen.

What you’ll need: Tape or glue, black construction paper, cardboard, pencil, glow-in-the-dark paint or ink
Time commitment: 30 minutes

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Crowdtap #HotelTMonsterBowl Monster Bowl Party

#HotelTMonsterBowl
Crowdtap and Hotel Transylvania invited me to celebrate on February 3 with not just another old regular Superbowl party but a Monster Bowl Party! How could I say no to that?  What’s the special twist? Hotel Transylvania just got released on DVD and BluRay January 29th, just in time for SUPERBOWL XLVII!  If it sounds like fun then you should join Crowdtap yourself to get in on the fun too! We were sent a fantastic digital party kit with all sorts of monster games, puzzles, and even party ideas for the adults kids too.  The best part:  We got an early private screening copy of Hotel Transylvania to watch!  Everyone was excited about that.

Hotel Translyvania has a unbelievably star-studded cast that includes Adam Sandler as the voice of Dracula, Selena Gomez as Mavis, Kevin James as a clumsy and loveable Frankenstein, Cee-Lo Green as the musically talented Mummy, and Andy Samberg as the hotel’s human intruder, Jonathan. Plus many more!  My little one just loves Selena Gomez too! I love them all and that makes the movie even more fun, right?

I was excited to hear about exclusive Blu-Ray & DVD bonus features:

• Deleted scenes
• “Problem (Monster Remix)” by BECKY G FEATURING WILL.I.AM
     Music Video & Behind-the-Scenes
• Filmmakers’ Commentary
• GOODNIGHT MR. FOOT Mini-Movie

Blu-Ray Exclusives:
• Meet the Staff and Guests: Voicing Hotel Transylvania
• Making of the Hotel: The Animation
• Progression Reels

This is such a great family movie. It has wonderful elements of family, love and accepting others that you will feel comfortable sharing with your children. Mavis has a close relationship with her father which is sweet to see. The kids will love that Mavis & Dracula have these amazing vampire powers. They can turn into bats in a flash. It must be so cool to fly like that!  

It has a lot of silly humor too and pokes fun at our ideas of what we think people are.  It is nice because it shows children  how important it is to look beyond someone's skin and not judge them by silly things like religion or skin color or whether they are a monster or human.  It is a great movie for the whole family!

I made a bunch of yummy appetizers and snacks including my healthy version of the Scream Cheese Taco Dip below:

Scream Cheese Taco Dip
INGREDIENTS:
2 (8 oz.) pkgs. low fat cream cheese
1 (16 oz.) carton low fat sour cream or fat free Greek yogurt
1 can bean dip
1 pkg. low-salt taco seasoning mix
1 c. grated Cheddar cheese
INSTRUCTIONS:
Soften low fat cream cheese, then add low fat sour cream or Greek yogurt gradually mixing with mixer. Add bean dip and taco seasoning. Beat on low speed until well mixed. Put in casserole dish and top with Cheddar cheese. Cover the casserole and heat in oven at 325 degrees for 30-45 MINUTES, until heated through. Serve with DORITOS or FRITOS.

I also made Sweet 'n Scary Meatballs, homemade Chicken Vampire Nuggets (organic chicken cut up, dipped in beaten egg then rolled in a mix of panko, wheat flour and spices) with Monster Dip and Dracula Chip Cookies.  All new recipes that I thought up and they were a hit!

We had downloaded the Hotel Transylvania Goldrun app and Hotel T Monster Party apps to the iphones and ipad so the kids could have some fun playing the games together. Several of the kids also brought their own iphones so they downloaded the apps too.  They had a ton of fun with the apps.

Disclaimer:  I received a digital entertainment package including a movie screening from Crowdtap with activities and ideas for this party.  All the opinions as always, are my own.