Cybros, Inc Sprouted Grain Bread Review

The other day I got a big box of fresh baked bread from The Sprouted Bakehouse.  It included a baguette, raisin bread, 7 grain, and a large package of dinner rolls.  It looked great and very fresh, it was super soft and looked like it was just baked.  My first instinct was to look at the labels, and I was pleased to see there are about 65 calories per slice and no high fructose corn syrup. or any other sweeteners except for molasses!  The list of grains is quite impressive.

This morning, my oldest son, who loves raisin bread, decided on a piece for his breakfast.  I don't eat raisins (I've said I'm picky, right?)  and his response to the first bite "Mmmmm".  If an 8 year old likes it, you know it must past the test!

The regular bread made delicious peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch, and got rave reviews.  Being soft but not soggy after sitting in a lunch box with jelly all day speaks strongly of a bread!

And for the grand finale, I made meat ball sandwiches tonight!  I made sausage and ground beef meatballs and flattened them a little bit to work better for the sandwiches, and used some spaghetti sauce I had, toasted the baguette with some mozzerella cheese and was quite please how quickly the sandwiches disappeared!  So fast I forgot to get a picture!  The bread didn't get hard in the oven and didn't fall apart under the sauce, which is a plus when you have 3 small boys eating, nothing worse than a meatball sandwich falling apart mid bite.

I am so pleased with how healthy this bread is, and how tasty it is.  Bread is the one thing I try to make and am not usually successful with.  I think I will be getting some more quickly shipped fresh bread!

I won this from It's Yummilicious and all opinions are mine alone.  Thank you It's Yummilicious and The Sprouted Bake House!

St Patrick's Day!

St Patrick's Day is this Saturday!  My kids are convinced that because my husband is of Irish decent that he is friends with the Leprechauns (I had nothing to do with that haha).  So every year they plague him with a million questions and ask if he can let them see one, very cute.  This year I think I'm going to make basic cupcakes with just a bit of green food coloring, it doesn't take much I learned after making my son's birthday cake this past February and used less than half the food coloring it called for and it was still very red.  And for dinner I'll be attempting to make my first corned beef brisket with cabbage, carrots and boxtys.  Have you had a boxty? They are really yummy! 

 All you need is cold mashed potatoes, I be sure to add cheese and garlic, then make into small balls.  I dip mine in egg then cover in bread crumbs, I usually use panko and regular bread crumbs.  Fry until golden brown.  Simple Irish food!  And my boys all love them too!  I first had them at McGuire's and they are a splurge but worth it if you love potatoes! 

  I usually try to find a fitting craft to do, which having all boys is difficult, but this year, we are going to be very busy between the Louisville Kid's Fair, the boys get to see Spongebob and lots of other neat stuff AND we are going to be tilling the yard for our garden.  I am so excited that spring sprung a bit early this year, a week ago we had snow, now it is 80 degrees, so now we get to think veggies and get to work.  We spent about 70 dollars on seeds and are hoping that will yield enough produce to freeze some for next winter too.  

Busy weekend ahead!  Hope you all have the Luck of the Irish!  

What are you going to do for Easter?

This is the first Easter in a long time that I'm away from my parents!  I'm not huge on a lot of Easter festivities because of all the candy but I do enjoy seeing the boys get excited for their baskets and egg hunting.  Our Easter bunny usually leaves each of the boys a book or a toy and just a few pieces of candy including of course Peeps!  I love those little chicks and bunnies especially once they are a little stale.  We usually read a book to teach the boys what Easter is really about.  What are your Easter traditions?

P.S. The Peeps page has a giveaway for an awesome Easter basket!

Review of Murals Your Way

Yay!  My first review!  A few weeks ago I received an email that I'd won my choice of a Dinosaur Train mural from Murals Your Way and Mom on Timeout and I was so excited.  I am obviously a dinosaur fan and my boys enjoy both dinosaurs AND trains, so it was a win for all of us!  I choose Next Stop the Triassic Period and measured out my youngest's wall since he never gets anything this cool at age 2, and his birthday is coming up.  I was able to choose the design, the size, and customize it with Ayden's name.  That was about 10 days ago. Yesterday a large box arrived via FedEx and I was so excited!  I was really going to save it for his birthday, I REALLY was... But I couldn't wait until May.
So after pretty much tricking my lovely husband into doing all the hard work last night, we had a mural up!  It came in 3 large pieces and was a bit tricky at first.  I do warn you, our's is 8 x 10 and it takes a little work, best to have at least 2 pairs of hands.  We realized it was easiest to just pull a little of the backing off starting from the top and laying the mural over towards the front.  It took about an hour to get it all up and smoothed out, then we had to cut a bit of excess off the bottom, that is how it is made in case you have irregular walls (which we apparently have).
But at the end of the day, we have an amazing mural!  I think it looks very nice.  The images are clean and were easy to match up.  It sticks well once you get it smoothed out and my kids, who's opinions are probably the most important, they were so excited!  They really loved that it said "Ayden's Train" on it and couldn't wait to imagine themselves on the train when we were getting it up.
So, it was a little tricky to get up, but not too bad considering the size, but it looks so great up!  Thank you Murals Your Way and Mom On Timeout, we are thrilled to have such a fancy wall!

Pizza Night!

I think my little dinosaurs are part Ninja Turtle, we go through so much pizza!  One of my favorite meals to make (because there is usually no fussing about eating it!) is home made pizza.  It is delicious and a great way to sneak veggies into the picky eaters.  I am a bit picky too, so this even works for me.
First I use King Arthur's Crust recipe and make two crusts, they are BIG crusts if you get them rolled out you may just want one, but we like a thick crust and let's face it, I'm feeding bottomless pits by their own account.  While the dough rises, I make the sauce.  I really wing it here based on what I have in the house.  Usually I use a can of tomatoes or tomato sauce and tomato paste but today, I had some fresh tomatoes that were on the verge of not being so fresh.  So today's sauce 3 tomatoes, 1 can of organic tomato sauce (small can today), then I used 2 large peppers, I usually use smaller sweet peppers that are red, orange, and yellow, I love the way they smell and give the sauce a good color!  But today I had these larger sweet peppers so in the sauce they go!  Then I add onion, not a whole lot so it is not over whelming, about 1/4 of a small onion chopped up. Then carrots. Yes, carrots, my oldest son doesn't love carrots so I try to be a little bit sneaky. I add a LOT of carrots chopped up because once it cooks no one ever knows they are there.  Once all the veggies are chopped and in the pan, I use a deep skillet with a lid, then I add 1/3 cup olive oil (I use extra virgin) then I sprinkle in salt, a little bit of sugar, usually brown sugar, then garlic, basil, and other Italian seasons to taste.  Once that simmers about half an hour, I slather it thickly on the crusts and cover it in cheese.  Bake as the instructions of the crust call for which is usually less than 30 minutes and serve!  I know this is a very basic recipe, lots of people make home made pizza but I love mine so much I wanted to share.  If you add something else to your sauce, please share!  I'd love to try it!

A few instant win games

I don't know if I've ever won an instant win game aside from some Burt's Bees back at Christmas but they are fun and quick to play!  So here are a few to give you a thrill!
HBO and ATT   Chance to win a trip to Ireland or other prizes!

Kroger's Bake Off  Vote and register to win prizes including a $500 Kroger card and a baking kit.

A golf trip to Scotland with lots of perks!

and Honest Tea is giving away a Citizen Folding bike and other great prizes!  I will be playing that again tomorrow!
I'll add more to the list soon!

Enter to win a trip to Ireland!

Wouldn't this be a great surprise?  To win a trip to Ireland thanks to International Delight!  You can enter every day and it is a quick entry!  Plus 15 people win a year's supply of creamer!

Win a $5 Amazon card!

I couldn't wait!

Swagbucks

By now, I'm sure you've heard of Swagbucks but have you really heard how great it is?  I love Swagbucks!  It is really easy, you can use it as a search engine to win, do surveys that are often quite fun (some may even result in a product test!), polls, so many options on how you can earn Swagbucks.  I usually cash my Swagbucks in for the $5 amazon cards because it is the best exchange rate 450= $5 amazon.  You can find just about anything you need on Amazon from flour and cooking supplies to kids toys.  It is free to join, free to use, and really pays! I don't know anyone that uses Swagbucks that doesn't love it.

Win a Luxury Stay from K'nex!

I don't know about you, but I grew up with K'nex and I am entering this! It runs through December, so plenty of time to enter for this vacation stay!

New Site!

I am not a huge fan of Pinterest, but I do use it occasionally, I just don't understand it I suppose. BUT there is a new site that may actually make sense!  It is called ReClipit and you reclip coupons and deals!  Interested?  You may want to sign up here and see what it is all about!

Why I Choose Organic

For many years, I've bought things using coupons and stockpiled the best deals on whatever was on sale.  My kids staple breakfast food was PopTarts and I used pre packaged food as much as possible for both cost and time efficiency.  But then my husband started watching documentaries like  Food, Inc and realized there really was a difference in the food I'm feeding my family.  Everyone says, but organic is so expensive!  Well, organic may be expensive today but consider what is going into conventionally grown food and consider the correlation between the increase in processed foods and illness.
GMOs, which are genetically modified organisms are seeds built by humans like Monsanto to withstand poisons like Round Up so that the corporate farms can grow these disease resistant veggies and not have to worry about killing them when they spray them with weed killers.  These seeds have been humanly engineered and some seeds are now becoming resistant over time and recently these companies have worked on new "bigger, better" seeds that could withstand a chemical like Agent Orange. Yes, that means your food has been sprayed with weed killer that is not meant for human consumption, it could in the future be sprayed with an AO type chemical, and that doesn't just wash off of everything.  Porous fruits like strawberries are almost like sponges and maintain some of these chemicals, they don't just wash off!  During the making of these monster seeds, e coli is also injected in the seeds to make them resistant to disease, almost like they are immunizing the plants, which does help in their survival rate, they are nearly indestructible but this is a very unnatural process these seeds are going through.  The chemicals we are ingesting with these products include pesticides and arsenic that affect our long term health and play a part in things like ADHD.
There are so many other reasons that I use organic, but I'll get off subject for now.  We do still use plenty of conventional products, as it is expensive to eat organic, we just try to balance.  My kids still get happy meals from time to time and they still get Pop Tarts as a treat on some trips to the grocery. However I try to stick to organics as much as I can because I feel like they are so much better in the long run for us and for the environment.  Soon, I will share our garden that we are about to start with you all as well!  

Finding Balance

Trying to be organic on a budget is not an easy thing to do.   We were living in Panama City, Florida, where organic choices are very slim.  Pretty much if you want organic you get whatever Publix has in their Greenwise section, which I've learned some of shouldn't be there! Let's just say there are some cereals marked "natural" that are not natural by any means..   We moved to Kentucky a month or so ago and the choices here are much wider!   There is Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, and The Fresh Market.  Today, I am going to go to Trader Joe's or Fresh Market, let's see how well I do getting the things I need to feed a family of 5.  I don't buy everything organic, my boys still love kool aid and Big G brand cereals like Frosted Toast Crunch and my youngest loves Lucky Charms.  It surely is a balancing act, but I've found making things from scratch that I can, like cookies, ice cream, tortillas and pizzas, it helps balance the budget a little better!   What are you doing on this beautiful Sunday?

Meet the Dinosaurs!

Okay, they aren't really dinosaurs, but sometimes they pretend to be!  Let's face it, 3 little boys pretend to be almost anything BUT little boys most of the time.

My first born, Conner is 8 years old.  He just returned to public school within the past few weeks as we've moved from Florida to Kentucky, I've been home schooling him for the past year.  Conner is my oldest and therefore used to being the center of attention, and will do just about anything to maintain that status of glory in his eyes.

My middle dinosaur, who is obsessed with Spider Man, is Trenton aka Chicken. He is 5 years old and has the most vivid imagination of any child I have ever met.  He is a video game genius and very loving, however is still in the throw a fit to get my way because Mommy is wrapped around my finger mode. 

And finally, my youngest, who most the time is a dinosaur (or Batman) he looks a little sleepy here, but he goes strong all day. He is going on 3 and learning new words and new tricks everyday.  His best friend/pillow is our dog Houdini and he is the most mellow, independent child.  He is the only one of my boys that is content playing quietly with toys, while his older brothers feel they must be heard 24/7.  

So those are the dinosaurs!  My 3 sweet, very different little boys that I'm sure if you follow along, you will hear lots about as they are my everything.  

My First Blog Post!

Welcome to Dirt and Dinosaurs!  I know what you are thinking, ANOTHER mom with a blog?? Yes, yes it is. Let me just take a moment to introduce myself, my name is Juli, I am the mother of 3 amazing, witty, sometimes smelly boys.  I am married to a great man and love my family.  I am a deal seeker, but I am a strong believer in organics and giving back.  I have lots of views on so many different topics from dinosaurs and other stuff that my boys and I enjoy together, to politics.  I am very excited to share things with all of you and will be posting anything and everything I find interesting very soon!  Thanks!