How to make Muno cake from Yo Gabba Gabba...Try it, You'll Like It!

If there was one thing Olivia wanted for her birthday (besides a pink trumpet) it was a Muno cake. "Who's Muno?" you ask...Muno is the big, red, bumpy cyclops from the Nick Jr. show Yo Gabba Gabba.

I have to admit if there was a Yo Gabba Gabba cake to make - the Muno cake is probably the easiest. Thankfully she didn't want a Plex cake or DJ Lance Rock!

Here's how to make a Muno cake:

What you'll need:

• 1 box cake
• Red food coloring
• 1 container of white icing
• 1 package of oreo cookies
• 1 plain large sugar cookie
• Red gum drops

1. Bake a box cake in a 9x13 dish. Make sure to put a lot of cooking spray in the bottom of the pan so you can easily remove the cake
2. Let the cake cool completely. 
3. Carefully remove the entire cake from the dish and flip or slide onto a jelly roll pan.
4. Using a sharp knife, trim only the top corners off the cake. 
5. Reserve about 2 tablespoons of white icing
6. Mix the rest of the icing with red food coloring in the mixer
7. Spread the entire cake with red icing
8. Spread the reserved white icing on a sugar cookie and place the icing-side up on the cake as Muno's eye
9. Twist the top off an Oreo and place it in the center of the sugar cookie as the 'eyeball.' 
10. Place the red gum drops all over the cake being sure to leave enough room to make the mouth. 
11. Separate about 10 Oreos and remove the cream.
12. From two of the cookies, carefully scrape the cream out and cut into triangles to use as Muno's teeth. Set aside.
13. Crush just the cookie part of the Oreos in the food processor. This will be used for Muno's mouth.
14. Draw Muno's mouth (like a crescent moon) on a piece of paper. Cut out the insert. 
15. Gently lay the piece of paper with the mouth cutout on the cake (the gum drops will hold it off the icing.
16. Sprinkle the crushed cookie crumbs into the mouth cutout so the crumbs form the mouth shape on the cake.
17. Remove the paper and add more gum drops in the area of needed.
18. Place Muno's teeth over his cookie crumb mouth
19. Try it, you'll like it!  

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Halloween Cake Pops! Yum!

We were invited to a neighbor- hood Halloween party and since this is our first Halloween living here I thought I better bring something to impress! I knew just the perfect dessert when I volunteered to make something sweet - Halloween Cake Pops!

Inspired by cake pop master Bakerella and my friend Linsey who made an entire barnyard of super cute farm animal cake pops for her son's birthday I decided to make my second batch of cake pops.

My first attempt was bride cake pops for my sister's bridal shower- they were A LOT of work because of all the detailing. Each had a 5- pearl necklaces and 3-flower bouquet all of which I had to 'glue' on individually. This time I figured I'd make pumpkins (not jack o' lanterns with faces) with nothing but some sprinkles and a tic tac stem.  The candy corn cake pops were a bit more labor intensive because I had to triple-dip them to get the three colors.

Cake pops are a relatively new phenomenon and they're quickly gaining popularity thanks to Bakerella and her awesome cake pop blog and cookbook. She's got tons of ideas and has inspired me for sure - of course mine never look nearly as good as hers. Anyway, here's basically what you do:

• Bake a box cake according to the package directions
• Let it cool completely 
• Crumble the cake (I put it in the food processor)
• Mix it with 3/4 container of icing
• Put the mixture in the fridge to harden up slightly
• Form into 1" balls (one cake mix makes about 40 cake balls)
• If you want to shape the balls into something else such as the candy corns or pumpkins do this now, but always make balls first
• Line the cake balls on a cookie sheet and put in the freezer for at least 2 hours
• In a deep microwavable dish, melt chocolate melting wafers according to the package directions (if it's not thin enough add a little crisco)
• Remove and work with just a few of the cake balls at a time so they're not out of the freezer too long - they soften up quickly
• Dip the lollipop stick about 1" into the melted coating
• Insert the dipped part of the stick into the bottom of the cake ball (or top - ie brides)
• Dip the entire cake ball into the coating, tapping the sides to remove the excess coating
• Stand the cake pops up in a pre-punched/drilled piece of styrofoam to dry 
• NOTE: If you want to add sprinkles (like I did on the pumpkins) do this quickly before the coating dries. For other decorations add them later using a little of the coating as 'glue' 

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Rice Cereal and Tummy Troubles

In typical #2 baby fashion, I don't have a shot of Blake's first meal. Here's Liv 

So in between breastfeedings Blake's been chowing down lately on all kinds of homemade baby food - avocados, pears, apples, sweet potatoes, butternut squash, and papaya. Unlike with Olivia and under the pediatrician's advice we started him on the fruits and veggies rather than the traditional rice cereal.

But the last few days it doesn't seem like the pureed produce has been satisfying this growing boy. So I figured we should add in some rice cereal to give him some real substance. I made him a decent size portion yesterday morning and served it to him with the pears. He ate it all and seemed to like them together. Plus, he seemed to stay content longer.  I gave him more rice cereal at dinner along with some squash. He ate that, too.

I put him to bed like normal and about five hours later - around midnight he cried out. I let him cry for a few minutes to see if he'd settle himself down, but he didn't. So I went in and he was all curled up. He likes to suck/play/bite on his feet so I figured he was fine. He went back to sleep for a little while (not sure how long since I was half out of it myself) but then woke up again. This continued forever, it seemed. Thinking it was teething I gave him some tylenol....when that didn't work I realized his poor stomach was in knots. That's when I realized the rice cereal must be causing his tummy troubles.

The next morning I checked online and sure enough rice cereal has been known to cause upset stomachs in babies who are already have sensitive bellies. All the advice was the same - switch to baby oatmeal.

So we switched and wa-la - no more tummy troubles! Happy Baby = Happy Mommy! Read more!

Melissa and Doug Coupons, Free Shipping, and Codes

What kid's toy room isn't half made up of Melissa & Doug toys. The classic wooden toys are a must have for moms...but they can be pricier than other, lower quality toys.

Check out these Melissa and Doug Coupon Codes to save you money! (Check back often as we continually update our Melissa & Doug offers)

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Free Shipping on all orders over $75 Read more!

Working Online - So how much money am I really making?

I've blogged extensively about my online money making adventure - but there's one question that people always ask when they seem semi-intrigued enough to actually take the plunge themselves. 'Can I make real money writing online?' The answer is yes! I was among the skeptics when I first started this little writing adventure more than two years ago. But from the day I made my first .08 I was hooked.

For a year and a half my PayPal account saw growing earnings every month. Since my second baby was born in May, however I have had signficantly less time to write and let's just say time is money. The good thing about writing for Examiner.com however is earnings are residual - meaning you can keep earning money on articles you wrote months, even years ago as long as there's still an audience searching for it online.

So let's get to the meat of it - in January 2011 I had my highest earning month ever...up from .08 I made in November 2008.  Here's a breakdown of my two main online income sources:

Examiner.com: $4,099.00

Ehow.com: $727.03  

Making memories with my kids: priceless

I should point out that when I received my monthly payout in January from Ehow.com I had not written for that website in over a year. All $727.03 was passive residual income. eHow no longer pays their writers. Just a few short months after this payment, the website contacted writers with buyout offers. I accepted the offer and my article library now belongs to eHow and no longer provides me with that nice monthly residual income.

I continue, however to write for Examiner.com. Until January 2011 my earnings went up every month - but this became my peak. After January things got a little crazy in my life - we moved out of state, lived in temporary housing while we bought a new house and sold our other one, I was pregnant, had a toddler and then of course in May had my son. So here's what my monthly online earnings have looked like from February to August 2011 (I haven't received my September earnings yet).

February Examiner.com: $2,403.54
                     eHow.com: $ 542.80

March Examiner.com: $2,161.82
                 eHow.com: ENDED


April Examiner.com: $1,982.46

May Examiner.com: $1,716.34

June Examiner.com: $1,182.01

July Examiner.com: $1,164.26

August Examiner.com: $2,061.14

As you can see, I never did get anywhere close to that $4,100 level again, but I have had days where I've earned hundreds on just a few articles. My highest earning day was in April where I made a whopping $700 off just 5 or 6 newly published articles!

These days my monthly Examiner.com income hovers closer to $1200- $1500 with only an hour or two of writing a day (that's the extent of coordinated naps). But, I don't think that's too bad - if you consider my hourly rate. Besides, I'm not only paying a few bills...it's helping pad the savings. 

Since my writing time is so little I'm now working on coming up with more passive residual income sources that don't require so much daily effort to earn money. Of course, these will take weeks, months, if not a year to make a significant impact on my monthly earnings - but it may not take nearly as long as I expect. Afterall, I did go from making .08 a month to making close to $5,000 in just over two years times!

Click here to learn about working online for Examiner.com. Apply today and start writing about what you're passionate about.

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Mom Deals of the Week 10/17-10/24 (Halloween, Coupons, & Melissa & Doug steals!)

DEAL OF THE DAY: Tuesday


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Toys:
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Read more!

Diary Free Breastfeeding Diet Ideas - For babies with sensitives tummies

Click for details from Amazon.com

Let me just start off by saying I love cheese. I could live on cheese. But I'm nursing and my son's little belly just can't handle dairy. Around 2 months old, when we got his reflux under control we realized his stomach issues weren't over yet. That's when we realized that dairy seemed to be upsetting his stomach. He'd have out of control gas and he was in obvious pain.

The pediatrician recommended I cut out dairy from my diet since the most common food allergy in kids is to an antibody in cow's milk.  Diary can pass through breastmilk to babies. However, it's not really possible to 'pump and dump' because dairy can last in your system for up to two weeks. The suggested giving it two weeks and then have a 'big dairy day'-to see if that was the reason Blake was so fussy.

I gave up the dairy and was very strict about it at first - I saw a noticeable change in Blake after about a week. Then on that big dairy day he was back to Mr. Fussy Pants. So I'm back to my dairy free breastfeeding diet.

In the three months I've been dairy free I've found the hardest part is remembering to check labels.
When you have two kids you tend to just eat whatever is fast, convenient, and in front of you - thank you to all of those who've suggested I check and make vegan recipes, but honestly that's just not practical when I'm trying to get lunch on the table between preschool and naptime.) But if I can't eat cheese, yogurt (my go-to breakfast), pizza (my go-to dinner), put milk in my tea (my go to morning drink), cream cheese..yada yada yada..what do I eat?
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Hawaii trip and our most precious souvenir!

I've mentioned our fifth anniversary trip to Hawaii a few times - but did I mention we died and went to heaven for two weeks in September 2010?! It felt like we saw every inch of Maui and Kaua'i by foot, helicopter, horseback, and car!   But in between the horseback riding and the relaxing, I actually blogged! My blog 'The Silent Traveler' was a great way to remember every day and detail of our trip.  (I later used the blog posts and pictures to create a snapbook photo album.) It also allowed our family and friends to travel along with us - virtually of course. I have even used it as a guide book for friends who've followed in our footsteps to the beautiful Hawaiian islands.

Pregnant, but didn't know it yet

So I thought I'd share it on the this blog, too - just in case you're thinking of taking an anniversary trip - or maybe to give you a reason to take one.

PS Our most precious souvenir was delivered nine months after our return. Read more!

The best digital cameras for kids - New Mama Approved

Nikon D3000 - great for shooting kids

If you're like me you have one of those convenient point and click digital cameras that you can stick in your diaper bag, purse or hubby's pocket on a family outting. But if you're like me you also have a whole bunch of pictures taken a good second or two after the 'money shot' or at least your kid's smile.

We really started to realize how many shots we were missing when my now 3 year old daughter started moving and grooving around the age of 1. So with her and our five year anniversary trip to Hawaii in the back of our minds - we decided it might be time to look into a better digital camera. We wanted a digital camera that could snap pictures almost instantly to avoid that dreaded delay.  We settled on the fact that we wanted a DSLR - a beginner level SLR - in layman's terms 'one of those big cameras with the lenses.'

Read more!