My husband is an amazing cook. Every winter, he makes a huge pot of this soup – usually it’s more like minestrone, but this year, he decided to leave out the beans and focus on the veggies instead. He and I have very different approaches to how to cook soup. His takes longer, but I will have to admit that the broth in his soup is incredibly rich, complex and delicious.

The reason he does this only once a year is because he futzes with the broth for over an hour before he even puts any solids into the stock. Some years he has had to correct the seasoning so much that we ended up with two pots of soup. But this year I forced him to write everything down and I gotta say he done good.

This recipe makes a LARGE amount of soup – we make it in one huge batch and freeze in smaller serving sizes.

Prep Time: 3-4 hours

Tomato Vegetable Beef Soup

Add all these ingredients below in a large pot

3.75 quarts (15 cups) filtered water

3/4 jar 8 oz of “Better than Bouillon” lower sodium beef bouillon

(2) 20 oz cans of tomato sauce

(2) 20 oz cans of diced tomatoes

1/4 cup of red wine

1/4 cup of Worcestershire sauce

3 tbsp oregano

3 tbsp basil

1 tbsp salt

1/2 tbsp celery salt

1 tbsp pepper

1/2 cup sugar

5 tbsp onion powder

2 tbsp crushed or pureed garlic, or 5 crushed garlic cloves

1.5 oz fresh spinach (finely chopped) (half a bag)

Simmer above ingredients for 1 hour

Add

2 lbs of beef round roast cut in 1/2 inch pieces

Simmer for 1 hour

Add

16 oz bag of baby carrots, coarsely chopped

1 pound green beans, cut in 1 inch pieces

Simmer for 30 minutes

Add

1 pound fresh broccoli florets

3/4 lb medium pasta shells

Simmer for 30-45 minutes until shells and broccoli are fully cooked

After running kids activities blogs for over two and a half years, I’ve found out a thing or two about what kids like. And kids like Tinkerbell.

No. Kids LOVE Tinkerbell.

Actually, maybe it’s us moms that love her so much. Honestly, if you go watch the original Disney Peter Pan movie, Tink is a horrible jealous stalker-type that embodies all of the worst female stereotypes you can possible imagine. But we love her anyway, don’t we? Maybe it’s because in more recent movies she has cleaned up her act. Or maybe it’s because she’s so freaking cute. Or maybe it’s because we all have a little bad-girl inside of us and it’s way more fun to watch Tinkerbell act that way than it is for us!

Everything Tinkerbell

Anyway, here are some of the posts I have put up over the years that people seem to luuuuvvvvv…..

Tinkerbell Pictures (several early Disney concept sketches through Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure)

Tinkerbell Coloring Pages

Tinkerbell Pumpkin Stencil

Free Tinkerbell Crossword Puzzle

Tinkerbell Party Ideas

Tinkerbell Costumes

My son is a Wii fantatic. He could play games on it all day, every day. Since most of the Wii games we have simultaneously give him indoor exercise, I’m not complainin’. So when I was given the chance recently to check out the new Tony Hawk Ride game for Wii, I jumped on it!

My son is almost 10, which is the starting recommended age for this game. I think even kids as young as 8 could play it, as long as they are pretty coordinated. It’s probably best for teens, and even adults will be able to play. I wish you could have seen the moment I brought out the game box, because my son just about passed out. He made goofy noises, jumped up and down, and hugged the box. Seriously, he was that excited about it.

For the uninitiated, the game is a full size “skateboard” that is a game controller for the Wii – though it also comes for the PS3 and Xbox 360. It comes bundled with the game disc for anywhere between $90 and $120, depending on what deals are out there. You “ride” the skateboard to play the game – like this:

Setting up the game was a little tricky, but not too bad. It took us a little while to figure out how to get the board game controller turned on (it went on right away the first time, but then we figured out that you have to hold the button down to get it to go on again). It was frustrating only until we figured out that it was a simple solution, which made me feel somewhat silly. And then you have to ‘calibrate’ the board, which my son was able to do on his own without my help, so it was pretty simple – the game walks you through it.

One the game was ready to roll, I have to say I had pretty high expectations and I was impressed more than I thought I would be.

This game is flipping cool.

There are several modes of play, from an easy ‘free skate’ to more challenging courses that require that you learn to do tricks. There also is a half-pipe mode that is entirely different than the skateboarding mode. I tried skateboarding back in the 80’s, and quickly found that my kind of coordination is NOT the kind of coordination needed to be a good skater. So I’ve never bee into it – but this game was hard to resist. After an hour or so, I kicked my son off the board so I could try it. Sadly, I’m just as uncoordinated now as I was back then. But even though I was flailing around our front room on the skateboard controller, it was still a blast and I’ve played it again since.

Tony Hawk Game Pros and Cons

Again, the game has a brain dead easy tutorial on how to do them. I do appreciate the attention to detail they paid on making sure the game was easy to learn. The setup could get complicated fast, and they have plenty of ‘experiential’ learning features that walk you through the game and skateboard tricks, step by step.

Probably the biggest drawback is that due to my kids’ allergies, we don’t have carpeting in our house. The game comes with adhesive padding for use on hard floors, but it’s clear that the controller works best on carpeting. I’ll probably end up buying a small rug for the room – one with a no-slip backing, because this thing really can slide around. Technically not that big of a deal, but enough of a deal to mention it.

The best part of the game is that my son l.o.v.e.s. it. And so do I! You couldn’t ask for a better game for kids to play when they are cooped up in the house on cold or rainy days. And there are so many different courses and play variations that it will be a very long time before the game is ‘played out’. It is most certainly great exercise, and the coolness factor is really beyond words.

Disclosure - I received this game at no cost as a review copy. I received no other compensation for this review, and the opinions are 100% mine. Additionally, now that I’ve tried the game and see how much use we will get out of it, I would totally buy it anyway. Even at the top end of $120, I think it’s completely worth the price, and at $90 I’d pay for it again in a heartbeat.

My kids actually love doing worksheets year-round, especially when they are fun worksheets or have lots of cute pictures on them. I am even able to sneak in plenty of skills review in the summer by giving them worksheets mixed in with their coloring pages.

And on the days that my kids forget their homework, I’ve found alternative worksheets for them to do so that they don’t think they can get out of doing their class assignments! The thought of having to do MY homework in addition to their regular homework usually motivates them to check their homework folders before they leave school!

We have a big collection of printable worksheets on Animal Jr. and on our newest Woo! Jr. Network addition, Classroom Jr.!

Teacher Worksheets to Print

Language Arts Worksheets

Synonyms and Antonyms Worksheets

Fun Math Worksheets

Seasonal and Holiday Worksheets

Spring Math Worksheets: Counting Money

Spring Math Worksheets: Addition Color by Number

Christmas Math Worksheets: Addition and First-Then Logic

Christmas Math Worksheets: Addition and Subtraction

Winter Themed Printable Multiplication Worksheets

Printable Valentine’s Day Multiplication and Fractions Worksheets

You might also like these “How Do Plants Grow?” activities, free paper crafts, or this collection of Where the Wild Things Are lesson plans and activities.

Last night I had a blast being one of the panelists for MomItForward’s Girls Night Out (GNO) on Twitter. Crayola was their sponsor for the evening, and they shared some really great links I thought our Momsational readers would love!

You can get printable Crayola coupons from E-Incentives – right now there is a $1.00 off any Color Wonder product coupon available.

More Crayola Coupons

If those coupons are expired, you can receive a 10% off discount code when you sign up for email updates at CrayolaStore.com! Be sure to check out their CrayolaStore.com sale items, too.

Target.com is offering $5 Off Crayola products if you enter code TC9DEC04 Through 12/24/09

Lastly, if you love coloring like we do, please check out our Woo! Jr. Kids Activities Network, with lots of printables and coloring pages!