Happy 4th! Celebrate all year with the NEW Red, White, and You Candies from Sweethearts {Review}

Happy Independence Day to everyone! I hope that your 4th will be filled with lots of fun, family, fireworks, and, of course, food! With all of the excitement it can sometimes be easy to forget the true reason behind our celebration this time of year, but Sweethearts has come up with a brand new way to help us celebrate America and remember the important people who have gotten us where we are today - the brave men and women who have fought, and are fighting now, for our country and freedoms. We all know and love the traditional Sweethearts, you know with all of the mushy gushy love sayings, that are a Valentine's Day staple. But, this year Necco has decided to something new with their Sweethearts for the 4th of July (and beyond!) - Red, White, and You Sweethearts. These are the classic Sweethearts in patriotic colors featuring sayings to honor our soldiers and America. Example sayings are "home safe", "I love you", "thank you", and many more. I think it's an awesome idea and that these will become a staple for all of our memorial celebrations, including Independence Day.

Here is some information from the Necco website about the new Sweethearts:

"The classic Sweethearts you know and love were already a part of the fabric of American culture, but now they’ve taken things to the next level. We’ve taken our Sweethearts and redesigned them to incorporate new All-American colors, phrases and packaging. Red White & You Sweethearts are a sweet and simple way to show your true colors – the individual candies come in red, white and blue (strawberry, blueberry and vanilla crème). They are also fat-free and gluten-free, so everyone can express their patriotism and feel great about it!"

These Sweethearts are awesome by themselves, but Sweethearts sent along some great ideas of how you can incorporate these candies into fun family crafts and treats. We decided to try out the flag cake, and it turned out so cute (kind of...lol...the Sweethearts were cute anyway!). Now, as you can see, it's no piece of art (EG wanted to "help"...a lot!) and the numbers of stars and stripes is off, but it's the thought that counts (right?), and it made for such an easy and festive treat. I'm sure you guys can think of some fabulous ways to use these candies, but here are a few more suggested by Sweethearts:

- Party Favors: Wrap up the boxes in festive scrapbook papers, and add pipe cleaners, stickers, and other embellishments to create fun party favors.

- Flag Cookies: Roll out cookie dough, cut into rectangles, add a popsicle stick on one end (to make a flag handle), bake, and then decorate with Sweethearts and red, white, and blue icing to make Flag Cookies.

Check out the new Red, White, and You Sweethearts at a store near you, and make some fun of your own while celebrating our awesome country!

All You Need is Love...and a Little Creativity - Valentine's Day Ideas for the Family

In light of the current economic crisis, and my recent desire to simplify my life as much as possible, I was inspired to create a blog post for families out there looking to make Valentine's Day a little more meaningful this year...and for little to no money.  I decided that this year I want a Valentine's Day filled with love...real love that doesn't need all of the commercial "fluff" to be experienced.  Thus began my search for some great, low-cost (or NO cost) Valentine's Day ideas that were still fun and festive.  Lucky me, there were lots of ideas to choose from!  I would like to share a few, okay several, of them with you so that you have some great activities to choose from as well.  I hope you find something you can use!  

One great website I stumbled upon was Family Fun.  They currently have a whole section of their website devoted to Valentine's Day with tons and tons of ideas that you can look through.  And the best part of all is that I found most all of them to be pretty budget and family friendly (hence the name I guess).  They have everything covered from recipes to printables to games.  There is something for everyone!  I especially loved the Crayon Hearts idea as a fun valentine that can be reused and isn't junk food.  I actually purchased crayon hearts for my daughter's daycare group before I found this and thought about how easy they might be to make.  I might go ahead and make some with her just for fun!  And don't stop at just hearts; you could also do x's and o's, cupids, etc.  Whatever you can find a mold for!  This is a great, easy idea for any holiday really, just change up the colors and mold.  For all of you moms out there who want something edible but are tired of junk food, I thought the Healthy Hearts were a great idea.  The only supplies you need are watermelon slices, orange slices, and bamboo skewers.  Makes a cute, festive, healthy, edible treat!  These were just two of my favorite ideas, but there are literally hundreds of others you can check out.  They even have how-to videos for some of their Valentine's Day crafts and recipes.  It's definitely worth your time to look through their website!

Some more great ideas I've acquired from friends, other websites, etc. are as follows:

- Sounds obvious, but I'll say it anyway.  Instead of store bought valentines, make your own!  All you need is some construction paper, markers/crayons, glue, accessories (googly eyes, sequins, glitter, stickers...), and some imagination.  A super cute idea (from the Family Fun website...lol) is to take a clothespin and glue two paper hearts side by side on it to make "wings".  Then add pipe cleaners for antennae and write your message on the wings.

- Put a different spin on the Christmas Advent calendar and make a countdown calendar for Valentine's Day.  Choose a simple, special activity to do with your loved ones on each day of the countdown.  If your child(ren) is old enough have him/her help decide which activities to do.  They don't have to be elaborate, just something you do together (i.e. moms and daughters might want to paint each other's fingernails one day).

- On Valentine's Day morning, have a special breakfast together with special Valentine's Day food.  You can easily "Valentine-ize" any foods by using a heart cookie cutter and/or red food coloring.  Pancakes and toast are super easy to cut out.  For snacks later in the day, you can make heart sandwiches or rice krispie treats.  Also, pretty much anything red or pink looks festive...how about a Valentine Smoothie from strawberries and raspberries?

- Create a Valentine's Day treasure hunt that leads to a small gift or a fun activity.  Place the clues on paper hearts.  If you're really creative, handy with a GPS, and it's going to be nice outside, create your own Geocache that leads your family to a favorite place in town (i.e. a restaurant or park).

- Have all family members write "love letters" to each other and deliver them on Valentine's Day morning.  Create and decorate bags or mailboxes for each family member in which to collect their "deliveries".

I hope you've found an idea or two that you can use and I'd love for you to comment with your own!  It doesn't have to take a lot of money to create a memorable Valentine's Day filled with love.  But, whatever you decide to do this Valentine's Day, be sure to include the best gift of all...your time.   :)