Share a Snack, Share a Smile!

This post was sponsored by NABISCO as part of an Influencer Activation for Influence Central and all opinions expressed in my post are my own.

ALWAYS ON SNACK MODE

Summer break might be officially over, but summer itself is still in full swing! We aren't completely on our full Fall schedule yet, and aside from school we are still able to enjoy our favorite summertime activities during our free time. We still get to play with friends, splash in the pool, ride around on the boat, and soak in all the laid back feels summer has to offer before the real chaos begins. 

Regardless of the season, one thing continuously remains a constant - my kids are snacking machines! I learned long ago not to ever leave the house with out a diaper bag full of options for that inevitable moment when one of those adorably tiny voices would state they needed a snack. Which also inevitably turns into an epidemic. Because once one tiny voice utters the word "snack", any human under the age of 18 with in a 15 mile radius will also instantly become hungry too.  You best be prepared. 

As The Cutes have gotten older, not much has changed. Their appetites are larger, and the amount of snacks those tiny little bodies can consume only to hear 30 minutes later they are "starving and need another snack" is shocking. Where does it all go?!

In Summer I notice my tiny little humans seem to crank it up a notch. All those cannon ball contests, lightening bug finding sessions, and countless backyard soccer games all seem to make their appetites insatiable. I had to up my game in the snack department and start bringing larger portioned options everywhere I went. At some point I was nervous a rolling suitcase might seriously have to become my new accessory. 

Each of my children have different snacking preferences. Some prefer saltier snacks and some prefer sweeter options. Personally, I am an equal opportunity snacker, and take full advantage of sampling their snacking choices. 

When we are grocery shopping at Walmart I let the kids go through and pick out what snacks they want each week. 

They rotate what they love the most but our staples seem to be Honeymaid Grahams, Ritz Crackers, Swedish Fish, and - my personal favorite - OREOs. Walmart has such a great selection of NABISCO snacks, and are always well stocked in the Family Sized packs. It makes shopping so easy! 

The Family Sized packs are perfect for sharing and are also typically packaged in easy to travel with resealable containers. So in the off chance The Cutes and their friends don't consume every single last crumb, we can reseal them and bring them again on our next pool or playground adventure.

SHARE A SNACK, SHARE A SMILE!

Now even as our lives transition over to back-to-school mode, not much in the snacking department changes. The Cutes lunch boxes get filled with their favorites and they can often be seen on the sidelines of practice munching and laughing along with their teammates. NABISCO has so many fun ideas and recipes you can make with their snacks too. I love perusing their Snack 'N Share Board on Pinterest for inspiration!

With summer still on our minds, and snacks always on our brains, we decided to take our snack sharing to the next level. The first week of school for us really does fall smack in the middle of summer. So we thought why not try keep that summer vibe alive as long as possible? 

The Cutes wanted to bring one of their favorite summer snacks to share with their new friends. So we grabbed several of the family sized packs of Swedish Fish, and created these fun fish inspired printables. 

We packaged up a large scoop of those yummy gummy fish into a treat bag, and tied one of the fish themed tags to it with curling ribbon. 

The kids were so excited headed to school to share a little taste of summer with all of their friends new and old. 

They said it brought a HUGE smile to their new friends faces! 

ENTER TO WIN THE SNACK 'N SHARE SWEEPSTAKES

Now outside of our own little extra fun with our snacks, NABISCO is having a little fun on their own. They are hosting the Snack 'N Share Sweepstakes where you can win $10,000 and the chance for lots of other great prizes too! All you have to do is share a picture of your family and/or friends enjoying their favorite NABISCO snacks throughout the summer. How awesome is that?! I mean that's at least a month or two of snacks covered right? 

Shop Walmart this summer for your go to NABISCO snacks, snap a few pictures, and you could be a winner! Just share your picture on social media with the hashtags #snacknshare and #sweepstakes.

• NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. Open to residents of the 50 United States, D.C., and Puerto Rico, 18 and older. Sponsor, related entities, their families and those living in the same household are ineligible. Ends 11:59 pm ET on 9/5/18. Void where prohibited.
• Visit the Snack 'N Share Sweepstakes page to play and for details including free method of entry.

What are some of your kids favorite summertime snacks? Do they prefer a salty or sweet snack? 

Come spend the day with us on:

| Instagram | Pinterest | Facebook | Twitter |

Let's Start the School Year Write: Round 2

Today was filled with all things back-to-school for our school aged crew Magnolias. We had had "meet & greet" throughout parts of the day, and then we were off to wrap up some last minute back to school tasks. New shoes have been purchased. Our pantry is ready for any and every lunch box request. First day of school outfits have officially been chosen. We have one more day of summer left and then it's official - school is in session.

Excuse us while we go cry big puffy tears in our goldfish. 

We know we've lamented about this over and over again on this little blog, but we just love summer. So we are going to ignore all the rest of the back-to-school tasks, and soak up that last 24 hours like it is our job.

In all honesty we are so prepared for the first day there really isn't much left to do! Meet and greet followed up by a day full of errands allowed us to get more than ready. We made back-to-school prep as easy as possible on ourselves. We even recycled a meet and greet idea that we used last year.

This little "Start the School Year Write" gift idea was such a huge hit last year for all teachers that we decided to use it again.

I found these super cute notebook planners at Target in the Dollar Spot, grabbed some of my favorite pens, and then printed the printable I created last year. We wrapped it all up, and done!

Super easy, and still just as loved today when received by our new set of teachers.

Now off to enjoy our last day of freedom, I mean Summer...

To grab the free printable and check out how we did this last year, visit the post HERE. Also check out some of our other favorite back-to-school gift ideas for teachers! 

Back to School Gift Baskets

Back to School Bookworms

Apple Theme & Fun Cocktail/Wine Printable for Moms

"Donut You Know I'm Excited to Meet You!"

(These make for great ice breakers, especially when you have shy children.) 

Come spend the day with us on:

| Instagram | Pinterest | Facebook | Twitter |

Making Post Game Snack A Grand Slam! {printable}

Sports season is here! All though it never officially stops for us. But during the Spring we are in full sports mode and there's no stopping until June.

We spend our weeks racing from practice to practice, eating dinner somewhere around 4:30p.m. and then again (because kids are always hungry) at 9:00p.m., and doing homework/answering emails/returning phone calls amidst the chaos of it all.

We spend our weekends cheering on the sidelines of rainy soccer fields, jetting off to a variety of cities for two-day cheer competitions, and keeping scoreboard for the little league team all day long.

Our cars are loaded down with enough sporting goods that we could open our own Dicks, and we're burning all those hard earned hotel rewards points from swiping our Amex at Target at a mind boggling rate for out of state competitions and tournaments.

And we wouldn't change a single thing.

Well other than holding practice in anything under 40 degrees. We're southerners, it should be against the law! #mommydoesntdocold

We love that our kids are so active and enjoy a variety of activities. We were both the same way growing up and love seeing what our children are into as they get older and become comfortable in their own interests. Now we know it will change as they get older, and their interests will evolve, but for now we are happy to support them in whatever they choose - even if it means we ate an old granola bar for dinner and our cars have the scent of au de sweaty child.

Being a sports mom means you have a lot of duties. Most importantly - the after game snack.

If you don't bring your A game in the after game snack department you'll be ejected faster than you can say #momfail. 

With so many kids in so many different activities though, we learned long ago to keep the actual snack portion of the snack time super easy. No pinterest worthy sports themed snacks coming from this crew. There was a time way back in the day that we had time for that, but now we go with healthy already prepared snacks that we know kids love. 

We choose the kids favorite Slammers pouches, a crunchy snack or granola bar, and we package them up with waters or our favorite sports drinks. We package them all together with a cute printable and then we are ready to go. 

The best thing about this is it looks like we put a ton of effort into it to make it pretty and themed, but really we let the snacks do the talking and we lay claim to after game snack hall of fame. 

During basketball season I was inspired by these Slammers pouches to create a fun themed printable. These are our one of our favorite protein packed snacks, and they are perfect for refueling little athletes. There are so many yummy flavors to choose from and our kids love when we freeze them as a post game treat. 

I had made a soccer printable and a few other sports ones a few years ago, but I needed to add basketball and baseball into the mix. These are some of our favorite go-to snacks, and with the fun sayings and flavors it was easy to pair together a fun printable with a healthy snack with just a few seconds of effort. 

For basketball season I came up with partnering the orange Epic pouches with a printable that read "Let's Make Snack a SLAM DUNK"!

I attached it with curling ribbon to the actual pouch, passed out orange sports drinks with it and we were all set for a yummy after game snack. 

Now that Spring sports are in full effect, I recycled the idea for soccer reusing my already made printable. Then I got inspired again by the pouches and created a new printable for baseball season. 

I easily came up with the theme "Let's Make Snack a GRAND SLAM!". See lots of cute, not a whole lot of effort. :) 

And I've been wanting to use this stash of Take Me Out to the Ball Game ribbon for years. I was so glad to find the perfect time to use it! 

I put all our snack goodies together in a lunch bag and tied them up. Super easy, and looks great for a quick grab and go after game snack. 

Now we can reuse these over and over the entire season and not even give two thoughts to our game day duties. Just a quick print on our printer, and a quick shopping trip to our pantry for all the snacks.

Now you can win at making your post game snack a grand slam too. Here are the downloads for the printables for you to enjoy!

Download the Baseball snack printable. 
Download the Basketball snack printable. 

What sports sidelines are you cheering from this season? Do you have a favorite after game snack that your kids love? Please share because our post game snack duties are out of control this season and we love sharing snacks the kids actually will eat! 

Come spend the day with us on:

| Instagram | Pinterest | Facebook | Twitter |

**Part of this post is sponsored by Slammers Snacks as part of our ambassadorship with GoGormet. All thoughts and opinions are our own!

Special Treats for Special Helpers {Printable}

Only four more days until Christmas!! I am in full holiday panic mode! This post will be a quick one because I am feverishly trying to get everything purchased, wrapped, and just plain under control before the weekend festivities over take us. My personal goal this year is to not be wrapping gifts on the night of Christmas Eve.

Happens. Every. Single. Year.

This year I'm a little more behind than normal. I don't know why? I'm not sure if it's the snow that threw us for the loop, or the fact that the kids have 5,420 events to participate in, or perhaps Mr. Cute taking a man-cation right in the middle of it all. Take your pick.

So, I didn't actually begin to do my holiday shopping until late last week. And by shopping I mean several late night dates with me, a glass of wine, and my computer. Thank the good Lord for Amazon Prime.

I saw this idea on Pinterest and thought it was totally fitting considering my UPS, FedEx, and USPS delivery people were about to have a very close relationship over the next few days. Not to mention I feel all sorts of guilty each time crosses our yard/driveway. It's been pouring rain lately and they are getting soaked on their mission to bring my loved ones a little holiday cheer...or that pair of socks that they never knew they didn't want. 

Same difference. 

I saw people create little gift baskets with little treats and drinks to thank the holiday delivery crews for all of their hard work. I thought this was genius and I wasted no time in creating one of my own. And because I'm me, I created a little label to attach to all the goodies. It can be multi-purpose, but I thought it was perfect for all my holiday helpers. 

Download the "Here's a Little Treat to Keep You on Your Feet" printable.  

I pulled together some of our favorite holiday candies, some of our favorite snacks, and mixed in some bottled waters and sports drinks. 

I packaged everything up, leaving some snacks loose just in case of allergies or personal preferences. I attached the treat printable to various items and put it all in a little basket. 

Then I placed the basket on my front porch, and done! Such an easy way to say thank you! 

Here's hoping it brightens up their day, and maybe kind of sorta makes up for the physical therapy they are about to need from my late night ordering sessions. 'Tis the season!

Are you ready for the holidays?!

Follow us on Pinterest HERE.

Follow us on Instagram HERE.

Follow us on Facebook HERE.

Follow us on Twitter HERE.