Start The School Year Off With Water Bottles, A Baking Pan, and a Popsicle Maker + Giveaway

The past few weeks have been SO crazy. The boys went back to school and I started on two new teams at work. We went to the ocean one Saturday. Another weekend we went to my mom’s to celebrate her 70th birthday. I’m gone at night during the week for soccer, church, date night, and who knows what else shows up on the calendar. That being said, I’m behind on my reviews. Today I’m finally able to sit down and hopefully finish a few!

I think I’ve mentioned once (or a a dozen times) that we live in a small house. On top of that, we have well water. Well water at my house isn’t drinkable. Last month we got a water dispenser. This month we have reusable water bottles. We’re on the right path!

The Reduce WaterWeek Kids bottles have come in handy! Since we’ve stopped using plastic water bottles, because of our water dispenser, these new Kaleidoscope bottles have been awesome. The boys are used to the plastic bottles and want to be able to drink water and then put a lid back on like they used to.

What I like, that comes with these bottles, is the holder. Instead of the bottles being knocked around the fridge, they sit in a little white fridge tray. There are 5 that come in a set so that you can use them for your child’s lunch for school. We used them on our trip to the ocean. The kids each got one and Fred and I shared one. Super convenient and easy to tote around. The bonus, because each bottle is different colored, there was no mixing them up like you would a plastic disposable bottle!

Now, this next kitchen gadget is fun, but has been somewhat of a challenge for us. lol In a good way and it’s been an amusing time of playing “getting to know you.” Let me introduce you to the Freiling ABC 123 Baking Pan.

I’m not a foodie, but I love baking. This was challenging because there were no English directions that came with it. Not that it necessarily needed them because it’s a baking pan, but because we weren’t sure what temp we should bake the dough at or for how long. Everything was in German and in European degrees.

Our first attempt was amusing. We thought we had converted the temp correctly, but just a couple of minutes in the cookies were already burning. Those went right into the trash. The great part in all of these attempts is that you use so little batter mistakes aren’t a big deal.

The next attempt had us dropping the temp and the time we cooked them. I also hovered over mom’s oven like a hawk. After they’d cooked for a few minutes I could tell they were cooking faster than what I wanted so I pulled them out after another minute of baking. Several of the cookies didn’t turn out right because I didn’t put enough of the batter in the letter. Shoot the moon!

Finally they started to turn out right and everyone’s interest was piqued. Unfortunately, with everyone so interested in these letter and number shaped cookies, every time I turned around another letter or number had disappeared. So not helpful.

I was so impatient that when I tried to put the icing on the cookies, they were too warm and the icing just slid off. Yea, rookie move, but everyone was chomping at the bit to eat them. And no, you won’t see the picture I took of the cookies frosted because they were too embarrassing to capture “on film.” We were celebrating mom’s birthday so I redid yet another couple of batches so that I could spell out Happy 70th. She thought those were so stinkin’ cute, and so did we!

Next…oh, next we have the Zoku Triple Quick Pop Maker! Coolest. Thing. Eh-ver! We were all riveted to this awesome gadget. By now I think everyone, aside from my mom, had heard of Zoku. She kept watching it with fascination. lol

I wanted to have fun and do a theme with the pops. I searched Pinterest for some inspiration and man did I find it. There are some seriously amazing ideas on there. Endless suggestions. I also watched a couple of videos to learn how to use the Zoku. I wanted to get creative right from the get-go, but was missing the Character Kit. I couldn’t find it at any stores near us and didn’t have the patience to order it. lol I did find the Tools Set and bought that because I knew it would come in handy!


So, I’m not sure if you’ll be able to tell, but I wanted to go with a Star Wars theme. Now…hahahaha…I’ve got a LOT to improve on. Figuring out how to use different fruits or veggies to be different shapes like a belt or a patch or who knows what else. =)


I had the darndest time getting the fruit to stick because I didn’t have the Character Kit to keep everything in place. Next time I’ll have it an they’ll turn out better. Practice makes perfect, eh?

Ahead of time, I figured out what I thought might make good coloring for the Star Wars characters. I had to figure out which ones I wanted to do, too. After I got them finished I thought of various ways to improve on the finished product. Next time I tell ya.

For the flavors, I used sour apple Kool-Aid for Yoda, Gatorade for the Storm Trooper, coffee & creamer for Chewbacca, and black cherry Kool-Aid for Darth Vader. I think next time I’d do something for ears, add black for the Storm Trooper, dip the wookie in crushed cookie crumbs for “fur”, and add more red to Darth.

If you could spell something out with the baking pan, what would it be?

a Rafflecopter giveaway