The Brumwell Chronicles

I love a good game night, and in order to have a good game night you have to have a good game. Sometimes that can be hard with a bigger (crazier) group of friends. We have had game nights in the past were it has taken us more time to explain the game and rules than it took us to play the game. Not fun! I got a chance to host a game night for Tryazon with a new game from USAopoly. They are a leading developer and manufacturer of board games, collectibles, and puzzles. Their partners include marquee brands and licencors such as Disney, Nintendo, Warner Bros., Cartoon Network, HBO, FOX and CBS. Their 2009 release of Telestrations®, earned them the #1 Party Game by Board Game Geek, and since then they've kept growing with other award-winning games: Telestrations After Dark®, Harry Potter™ HOGWARTS BATTLE™, Tapple®, Rollers®, Nefarious™ The Mad Scientist Game, and many more. Blank Slate is a fun and quick to learn game where you pick one of over 250 Word Cue cards (front and ba...

I've kind of delayed writing this post for a bit now because it is hard to write about as well as not knowing what exactly to write. It is a bit of a confusing story, even for people who are close to me so I thought the best way to write about it is to start at the beginning so some of this some of you might already know, a lot of you probably don't. I grew up with my mom, step-dad, older sister, and a younger half-sister. Most of my childhood all I knew about my bio dad was his name, that he was a good artist, and that he liked cars. Family members of mine that knew my bio dad always said how much I looked like him, which was a mixture of curiosity and pain. I always wondered what this mystery man looked like and more about where I came from or who I was. There were a lot of different stories among my family members on how things with my bio parents played out and if he wanted a relationship with my older sister and myself or not... it was all very confusing and fuzzy as a ...

My kids LOVE mini muffins! We eat them at breakfast, as a snack during the day, or on trips. They are healthy and easy to eat for everyone. The key to a great banana muffin or banana bread is really ripe bananas. It makes the flavor strong and the bread sweet. I like to freeze my bananas so that I can use them when I'm ready.  You can put your bananas directly into the freezer when ripe and then peel them when your ready to make the bread, which is what I used to do and it makes for very cold hands and it's kind of gross because they are very mushy.  Now I just peel them and throw them in a gallon freezer bag or Tupperware container and pull them out as needed. This also works great for making Banana Swirl. (Daniel Tiger recipe of just blending frozen bananas, kind of like a banana ice cream, but much healthier)  This recipe is simple, easy, delicious, and doesn't require a mixer. (Although works perfectly with a mixer if you prefer) Just good ol' fashion fork or whis...

Kids say the darnedest things. As a mom I spend a lot of time trying to work with my kids on what they say and using good manners, correct grammar, and growing their vocabulary. My recently turned two year old is working on colors and shapes still and while we are pretty good at some colors there are others that some days he knows the color, and other days he doesn't. Is it just my kids that do this because I swear they just do this to annoy me. Today Max was holding a pink baseball and I asked him what color it was.. he looks at it and tells me that it is black. I tell him no, it's pink. He looks confused and again tells me that it is black. I again tell him that no it is pink. At this point, Max is getting mad at me, because he knows for certain that the ball is black. He looks at me like I am getting on his last nerve and tells me, no mama, ball black! I start walking over to him and say no Max, the ball is pink. He looks me dead in the eyes as I'm kneeling down to his...