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We’ve talked about keeping the kid’s brains going during the summer…I’ve recently learned about a subscription box, Hoot for Kids, that does just that! Born out of the belief that toys foster growth and developed by a team of pediatric occupational therapists, HOOT for Kids (which stands for Hands on Occupational Therapy) curates a customized Treasure Box filled with toys hand-picked based on your child’s age and developmental learning needs.
I had created an unboxing video for you guys, but something happened and it didn’t make it to the computer…While the video would have shown the little man’s reaction better, I think the photos my other son took sum it up nicely.
After you sign up, you fill out a short questionnaire about your child. These answers help them to select toys and activities based on your child’s age and developmental stage &curatee the perfect box! They target areas such as fine motor, gross motor, sensory, strength, oral motor, and visual perceptual. Your child will receive 3 or more toys in their box depending on the plan you choose, and you will have the opportunity to select extras to put into the box.
So what came in our box for our 4-year-old?
Blue Triceratops Eraser
Wooden Train Whistle
Robot with Puzzle
Wooden Disappearing Coin Trick
He was more and more excited with each item he pulled out of the box! Okay, so how do each of these keep his brain going over the summer?
Even though the triceratops is an eraser, it is a large eraser and can easily be used in imaginative play, color sorting objects to match it and as an eraser when coloring or practicing early writing skills.
The wooden train whistle is another perfect toy for imaginative play. Pair it up with a cardboard box train and you have a day of play.
Puzzles are always a good thing to have on hand. It takes matching skills, concentration & patience to complete a puzzle.
The wooden disappearing coin trick has possibly been his favorite out of the Hoot for kids box. It didn’t take long to teach him how to do the trick and he was off wowing his brothers with his newly learned skill.
Right now you can get $5 off your Hoot for Kids box using code 5OFFBOX17
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received one or more of the products or services mentioned above for free in the hope that I would mention it on my blog. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

This blog post was sponsored by KING’S HAWAIIAN® but the opinions are all my own. #GameTimeGrilling #AD
It’s my favorite time of year…pumpkin pie baking in the oven and football on the tv! Being from Texas, we love our football…and we get to watch it 6 days out of the week! We watch my sons’ 8th-grade team (who is undefeated so far this year) on Tuesday nights & NFL or College Thursday-Monday! Since Sunday is really the only true family day we have during the week, we love doing backyard tailgating. Lots of food, variety of drinks and plenty of football on the TV.
When watching Football at home…just like the tailgaters at the major league games…it’s all about the food, so we headed over to our local HEB to grab all our favorites. There I can find everything we need for recipes new and old. I love creating new and exciting recipes our kids and guests will love. There’s nothing like ending a party with “can I have that recipe?”
We picked up lots of goodies like chips & dip, little smokies, hamburger meat, frozen meatballs, King’s Hawaiian® Rolls & BBQ sauce. HEB carries a large selection of King’s Hawaiian® products…We have used King’s Hawaiian® in many backyard tailgating Sundays. Everyone love the sweet Hawaiian rolls mixed with Texas BBQ.
The new King’s Hawaiian® BBQ sauces come in four flavors to compliment any meat.
Original Sweet Pineapple
Smoked Bacon
Kona Coffee
Big Island Lava (spicy-sweet)
I decided on the original sweet pineapple & Smoked Bacon. I’ve always used the King’s Hawaiian® rolls for mini pulled pork or ham & cheese sandwiches…but I thought it was time to create something new and fun…and of course delishious since they have new BBQ sauces to pair with the rolls! I have two recipes for you because I loved them both! We made Sweet Pineapple Mini Meatball Subs + Smoked Bacon & Pineapple Sliders.
Sweet Pineapple Mini Meatball Subs A sweet and tropical twist on a meatball sub
King’s Hawaiian® Mini Sub Rolls
Frozen meatballs
King’s Hawaiian® Original BBQ Sauce
Pineapple Dices or Slices (in juice)
Bell Peppers (Diced)
Pineapple Juice (from can of pineapple)
Place meatballs, BBQ Sauce, Pineapple Juice into Crock-pot.
Cook on high for about an hour then turn on low to keep warm for guests.
Place 3 meatballs on mini sub rolls top with BBQ sauce, diced pineapples & peppers.
My Sparkling Life https://mysparklinglife.com/
Smoked Bacon & Pineapple Hawaiian Sliders
King’s Hawaiian® Original Sweet Rolls
2 lbs Hamburger Meat
King’s Hawaiian® Bacon BBQ Sauce
Bell Peppers (Diced)
Pineapple Dices
Mix 1/2 cup of BBQ sauce into hamburger meat.
Pack meat into mini burger (slider) forms
Grill until done
Place mini burger (slider) onto sweet roll
Top with BBQ sauce, pineapple & peppers
My Sparkling Life https://mysparklinglife.com/ Which recipe will you try?
Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored post.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via a cash payment, gift, or something else of value to write it. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

In Disney•Pixar’s new animated film COCO Dia De Los Muertos is brought to life as we follow Miguel on an extraordinary journey through the stunning & colorful land of the dead to unlock the real story behind his family history. COCO was inspired by the deep roots and traditions in Mexico that center around the Dia de los Muertos holiday. Dia de los Muertos is about family, traditions, and remembering those that have paved the way for us to be who we are.
Fun Fact: The team that worked on COCO spent over 3 years visiting Mexicos’ many markets, plazas, workshops, churches, haciendas, and cemeteries, soaking in the culture, true meaning and significance of Dia de los Muertos.

It’s been a few weeks, and I’ve had time to process all the awesomeness that took place on my trip to Anaheim for the D23 Expo & Disneyland Diamond Celebration. This was a once in a lifetime event that I will never forget. Myself along with 24 other bloggers were invited by Disney to attend this event August 13-17 2015. If you live within 100 miles from me, you probably heard me open the invite email! I was so excited to be invited back ( Last trip was in February to the McFarland USA Event ) and to such and amazing event.
I could hardly contain my excitement even though there was only a two week time period between the invite and the trip. Since this was after all a Disney Expo, I couldn’t help but pass up the opportunity to dress up and do a little bounding! So I spent my two weeks putting together outfits and making costume/bounding accessories. Then had my son take this photo of me dressed with a sign that reads D23 Expo or Bust, and with many of us doing this it landed our group in the Orange County Register!! AMAZING!
That’s a great start to the trip right!!
The big day finally came, and I was headed out the door to catch my flight to Anaheim! I was so excited I could hardly stand it! Only 5 hours between me and magic! Well at least that’s how it was supposed to go…but my hour layover in Houston, turned into 6 hours due to a plane malfunction. A little tired and worn down, I finally reached the Hyatt Regency Orange County Hotel around 8pm. It’s a good thing the group was grabbing a drink and a bite to eat at the bar, because lord knows I needed both!
DAY 1
The Expo day is here!! It’s time to get ready to head to the most anticipated event of the year, D23 Expo! Tink was wide awake too, ready to see all the magic and fan-fasim.
We got there a little early because we had an exciting opportunity to sit in on a small showcase for the new Playmation games coming this fall…Let me tell you, this game is going to rock this house!
After that we headed down to check out the exciting new show The Muppets have created…okay, the men behind The Muppets created it, but let’s be real…it’s all about those furry little things and has been since I was a kid. When it came time for Q&A, you could tell just how much these little puppets have ment to people from all over the world.
After that amazing panel…yes you will hear amazing a lot in this post…we were able to explore the show floor and let me tell you, the creativity of the costumes blew me out of the water!
There were plenty of booths to check out with Disney, Marvel and LucasFilm inspired products. You know I just had to stop by American Tourister to check out the new Star Wars Line ( Review to come! ) and I found a few other gems along the way like the SMS Audio headphones…who wouldn’t want a pair of those!?
We ended our first D23 Expo day at the Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios: The Upcoming Films, Hosted by John Lasseter panel. I was taken back by just how many people were in this panel! 7500 people were waiting to hear the latest announcements and surprises from Disney and Pixar Animation Studios! They did not disappoint! So many announcements, a few special guest, and a surprise birthday celebration for Toy Story to end it all! It was all to much to put here, but you can read more about the amazingness in my Animation post.
So how do you end an amazing first day…why, you head to Disneyland to enjoy the Diamond Celebration of course!! This was my first time to Disneyland, and it’s been like 16 years since I’ve been to Disney World, so I was stoked!
We jumped right in and grabbed out fast passes for Indiana Jones, grabbed some dinner & Dole Whip, then headed over and rode The Pirates of the Caribbean! After Pirates we rode Indiana Jones then ran to catch the Light The Night Parade. Both rides are amazing by the way…a must do! The Light The Night Parade was spectacular, so many lights and of course the characters that you know and love!
After the Parade we stuck around to watch the Firework Spectacular! I’ve seen Disney fireworks before, but you forget just how magical they really are. Disneyland has taken them to a whole other level for their Diamond Celebration!
CONTINUE TO DAY 2 ==>
Check out all my panel posts to learn more about each:
Animation Film Slate | Parks & Resorts | Silly Symphony | Playmation | The Legacy Collection |Disney Shorts | Live Action Film Slate | Disney Interactive
This event was part of an all expenses paid press trip to Anaheim for the #D23Expo, all experiences and opinions are 100% my own.

Big Hero 6 releases on Blu-ray today, & with that I have a special treat to share with you..my exclusive interview with the voices of Hiro & Tadashi…Ryan Potter & Daniel Henney. Watching them at the interview table together, it was sorta like they had known each other their whole lives, even though they had just met at the premier…they had a fun back and forth that made us all giggle. It’s fun hearing how much they are like their animated counterparts.
Q : Ryan, how excited were you to work on this film and did you geek out over all the science.
Yeah, it wasn’t necessarily a love for robotics and science. It was more for just a love of creating and, you know, within robotics, there’s so much you can create, and I had the Lego robot kit,
I had a lot of models and robot builds and all these different things that I just loved piecing it together. So, it wasn’t necessarily a love for, like, robotics and science, but more just wanting to be able to kind of put the things that were almost trapped in my mind.
– Ryan Potter (Hiro)
Q : You’ve been in a Wolverine movie already, and now you’re in the Marvel Big Hero 6. Were you a big comic book fan as a kid?
I mean, not huge, but I was definitely into them. I was into, like, Spiderman, Incredible Hulk, stuff like that. It’s still very surreal, though. It doesn’t get, like, oh, this is my normal Tuesday, you know, fighting Wolverine and dying in a helicopter. That’s not normal for me. I mean, it’s still very surreal. This movie was very, very special. It didn’t, I mean, it felt like it- you could feel the, the Marvel influence, but it was just a whole, just a whole other beautiful experience. It was just bigger than anything I’d done before. – Daniel Henney (Tadashi)
When asked about how they are like their animated counterparts, they had some interesting answers.
I dress just like Tadashi. I always have. I don’t usually wear suits, so like there’ll be days when I, like, I walk out of my house and I’ll take a look in the mirror, and I, I look just like Tadashi. I wear a cardigan and a baseball hat. – Daniel Henney (Tadashi)
I didn’t go into that room acting at all. I went into that room simply being myself and living in those circumstances, I mean, a lot of the emotional stuff, it was just like, the creators of the film made a really comfortable environment, so I just revisited a lot of things that I felt before. – Ryan Potter (Hiro)
Being Disney’s first multi-racial, multi-ethnic character was a huge honor for them to be chosen to play the roles..
Like, we would’ve, we would’ve paid them to, you know, cast us – Ryan
You didn’t pay? – Daniel
Daniel talks about how it’s a more personal experience for him…
I grew up in Michigan. When I was growing up, there was no one on TV that looked like me. If there was, they were a martial artist, and they had very heavy accents and I couldn’t understand what they were saying. My father’s Caucasian so I had that connection, but yet, I was very much Asian. So it’s very satisfying to know that we can do projects like this now, that can give children that little moment, where they say, ‘Oh, I can do that because they can do that.’ – Daniel
And while Big Hero 6 celebrates family, it’s also about so much more..
The characters are all geniuses. The film does celebrate science and robotics, and just being a smart person, but what it really celebrates is being yourself, and these kids just happen to be very smart. Every single one of these kids are all brutally honest in who they are, and they’re proud of it. They don’t shy away from who they are,. So yes, it does celebrate robotics and science, but it also celebrates just being a nerd. It celebrates being an outstanding young man and having high morals, and being a strong independent woman, and it celebrates simply being yourself. – Ryan
So what’s next for these guys?
A TV show here in the states for Daniel, & & college for Ryan. I see big things for the both of them and can’t wait to see what they do in the future!
Be sure to pick up your own Oscar winning Big Hero 6 today!
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Visit the Website
Available on Blu-ray, Digital HD and Disney Movies Anywhere TODAY!
Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored post.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via a cash payment, gift, or something else of value to write it. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”