December 29, 2014 by Krista

Countdown Goals Printable

Welcome my friend! I’m so thrilled you stopped by. Do you set goals at the beginning of a new year? Do you stick with them? That’s the hardest part, for me. But, having them smack in the way where I can see them helps. And that’s how this Countdown Goals Printable was created.

Back in 2014, I had a goals printable that people went ga-ga over (you can check that out here) and it ended up being A LOT more popular than I expected. I wanted to create another, similar, design with a little more focus. And that’s where this goals printable came into play.

I love this goals printable because it’s short and sweet. It will make you really think about and focus on what you REALLY WANT this year. And it’s perfect for kids too, so you can set goals together.

So, what is that ONE new thing you are going to try this year? Let it push you out of your comfort zone a little bit! You got this!

Want an insider tip? Use the other goal areas to help you reach that one new thing. Learn about this new thing, read books on it, research and you’ll be so ready to take on that goal it’ll be a piece of cake.

I know I always do better when I feel prepared and have an idea of what to expect or how to accomplish something. The best goals are rarely ever ones we just fall into and everything happens to luck out.

That’s not how life works!

So, get out there and make it happen. Plan it out! Prepare! AND CONQUER!

You can download your free copy and set some goals. Get the kids involved and set some as a family, if you want to go crazy. Good luck!

DOWNLOAD YOUR GOALS COUNTDOWN

December 19, 2014 by Krista

Deep Cleaning with Bissell this Holiday Season

This post is sponsored by Bissell. I was provided with product and compensation for this review; however, I pinky swear and cross my heart that all opinions and content are my own, 100% honest and original.

Christmas is quick approaching! Next week, can you believe it?! If you’re anything like me, you’re running around crazy with last minute preparations and a to-do list longer than your days and your nights are filled with wrapping gifts and deep cleaning. Anyone else out there? It can’t just be me! And, apparently I wasn’t busy enough with three boys, a husband who has traveled more of the past three weeks than not, and all the holiday hullabaloo I seem to get myself into, so we have had at least half a dozen illnesses run a muck through our home in the last two months! I am so sick of my family being sick!

It’s the perfect time of year to get rid of the things you no longer need, use or want in your home, nasty germs and bugs included. The kids are on winter break now and I am determined to rid our home of things that make us sick. It has, admittedly, been much longer than it should have been since the last good deep cleaning. I’ve opted to try and avoid the post holiday clutter and mess by doing a little prep work before! So, when I was offered the chance to try out the BISSELL ProHeat 2X® Premier 47A23 Upright Deep Cleaner with Scotchgard Protector solution I pretty much jumped at the opportunity… because I wanted to steam those pesky little germs right outta here! And partly because I have three boys, and that equals dirty carpets… but mostly for the germs! And a little bit for the dirt.

With Scotchgard, you can help prevent stains before they even happen. So, when your mother-in-law calls two days before Christmas and announces they’ll be in town, you can invite her right over with a promise that the carpets are clean enough to eat off of! Or when tipsy Aunt Lisa spills her red wine on New Year’s Eve, Scotchgard’s 2X Professional Deep Cleaning Formula has got your carpets protected. I imagine that’s somewhat akin to grape juice and my toddlers, no? Thank goodness for white grape juice (and wine?)!

So, let’s get to the nitty gritty here. The actual machine. You now know you should want one… here’s what it can do, just to cement that yearning in your heart a little more. I decided to tackle my dining room.

And since you’re thinking it… why, yes, I do live on a mini golf course. Seriously. Green carpet. Did you hear that? I know it’s hard to get past the green, but I was actually referring to the second part. Carpet. In the dining room. Helllloo, who puts carpet in a dining room?! Not someone with three little boys, I’ll tell you that much. However, I find myself feeding my kids in a carpeted dining room at least a million times a day. One day, I will replace it with Pergo or a nice fancy hardwood floor, but until that day I have carpet in my dining room. Which is synonymous for “I have food smashed deep into my dining room floor.” Time to change that… at least for Christmas. So I cleared out the table, chairs and other easily movable furniture, vaccuumed for the first time in days (although it looked more like years) and got ready for some deep cleaning.

The Bissell ProHeat 2x Upright Cleaner was super easy to use. I have never before in my life used a steam cleaner and have only seen my mother do it a handful of times. The ProHeat’s instructions were descriptive, but not confusing and the illustrations were clear and understandable. It was a total breeze to fill the internal bladder compartment with Bissell’s cleaning solution and the water tank was easy to latch, lift and maneuver, carry and ultimately get it placed back onto the machine correctly. It took me between five and ten minutes to get the machine prepped for cleaning (after I read the instructions, which took at least that long because my kids could sense I was trying to actually be productive and do something. Ever read with a two-year-old tapping the back of your book?).

Running the machine was almost as easy as filling it! If you can vacuum, you can steam clean with the Bissell ProHeat. Seriously, it was that easy and familiar. The trigger handle was easy to use, even with my small hands. I didn’t feel like I was out of control at all. The entire machine is relatively light and easy to maneuver. I daresay it was even fun… kinda like when you get a new washer and dryer. All of a sudden, I want to steam clean everything. And the Scotchgard 2x Professional Deep Cleaning Formula smells great, making this even more enjoyable. I was a little bit worried that the solution would make my house smell like a chemical plant, but it left my home smelling clean and not like a cleaner. A lot like laundry, without all the folding and ironing. People still iron, right?

About an hour and a half after I started, I stood admiring the cleaner’s patterns in my fresh carpet. And then I turned around and saw that I had reached the part I was absolutely dreading. Clean-up. I was horrified that I’d have to untangle gobs of carpet fuzz and hair from the bristles and that it would be nearly impossible to get it nice and clean. Guys, guess what? All I did was run hot water through it to clean it out and then I pulled out a few fuzz balls. That’s it. It took me twenty minutes to get everything cleaned out, rinsed out, put away and ready to store. That’s totally do-able! I didn’t need any special tools or cleaners and the machine wasn’t leaking water all over the floor afterward.

One other thing that totally impressed me with the Bissell ProHeat 2x Steam Cleaner was that it only took my carpets a few hours to dry! I had the entire room put back together before dinner time. I often fail to err on the safe side and jump the gun, but definitely within 6 hours or so, the carpet was dry. I did have the sun shining in from one window, but I was still impressed I didn’t have to pull out the fans and blow the room dry overnight. I remember hating when my mom cleaned the carpets at home because they would be wet FOREVER and the TV was then out of commission for The. Whole. Day. My boys were pretty disappointed when they didn’t get to eat in the family room because the dining room carpet was already dry… and I almost cried at the thought of all that food they were potentially going to drop all over my clean floors, but they did great. I’d call that a good day.

A successful first time use of a product for me comes when I say, “yeah, I’ll get that back out and use it again.” And I already have plans for my family room next week… I might discover it’s a good thing I started in the small room, but my family room will have fresh and fluffy carpet for Christmas if I have my way. I’m excited to try Bissell’s other cleaning formulas and am seriously wondering if the 2X Pet Stain & Odor Formula will get rid of the “boy” smell that seems to be seeping out from under my boys’ bedroom door. A momma can hope, right?

You can save $1.00 on Bissell’s cleaning formulas with the coupon below and it’s good until the end of next July, so clip that baby and tuck it away for whenever your Spring Cleaning Fever hits. It feels even cleaner when you know it was a dollar cheaper and then you can splurge on that candy bar in the check out line. See what I did there, I just practically gave you free chocolate… or whatever might be your poison of choice. So, what are you waiting for? Clip that coupon!

December 10, 2014 by Krista

{Printable} Stocking Stuffer Idea: Kid’s Christmas Coupon Book

Lately, I have been having a really hard time with all the shtuff in my house. It’s driving me crazy. Clean up has been a serious hassle the last few months and I think a big part of it is that not everything has it’s “place”. How do you put something away when it has nowhere to go?! So, I have been trying to focus on minimizing. Trying being the keyword… we won’t talk about how far Christmas is going to set me back, but from the number of times the UPS guys have showed up at my door recently, I’m going to kick myself next month. Anyway, while I don’t plan to move my family to a 300 square foot log home built from a single tree somewhere in a pristine forested location anytime soon, I swear I will quit tripping over toys on my way from one room to the next.

And, there’s this other thing… I think it’s called exhaustion. I could be wrong, I’m so tired I’m not thinking clearly. I’m going on 9 months straight of nights interrupted by at least one boy. I’m tired… that’s probably also why my house is a mess. You know what they don’t tell you when you have your third kid? You will never sleep again… and, even though you are constantly running, you still won’t be able to keep up with … life.

All this inspired me. Yeah, it’s okay, I’m not sure how either… This year my kids aren’t getting any more shtuff. Okay, that’s a lie. They are. But, I’m going simple for Christmas this year. Santa might get European cookies from Costco this year. Don’t worry, I happen to know Santa likes those. I’m giving my kids the ultimate gift.

I’m giving my kids time. More specifically, my time. With this Kid’s Christmas Coupon Book. But it’s also a gift to myself. We get memories and some fun activities to do together and I get to feel less guilty when I’m focused on things like those pesky toys I keep tripping on and the dang dishes that are piled so high we can’t use the sink anymore (and, someday, maybe a little me time?) instead of making bento lunches and paper plate crafts. The paper plates will get their turn.

Get your FREE copy of the Kid’s Christmas Coupon Booklet

and give your favorite kids the gift of a bit of your time! Includes cover page and 9 activities in high resolution and watermark-free. Save and download to your computer and then print! There is an Extended booklet also available with 2o more activities and a blank template page to make your own coupons in my Etsy Shop.

December 8, 2014 by Krista

Gluten-Free Peppermint Brownie Pie {Krusteaz Blogger Bake-Off} and Giveaway

This post is sponsored by Krusteaz Blogger Bake-Off Contest. I was provided with product and compensation for participating in the contest. All content is 100% mine, honest and original. And delicious.

I will admit, first and foremost, that I have very little experience with gluten-free cooking and baking. We are a household of baked goods and grains, especially wheat. So, I was a little nervous about coming up with a gluten-free recipe. But when I learned about the new line of Krusteaz gluten-free mixes, I thought it might be the perfect way to dip my little toesies into the gluten-free pool.

There are four mixes available in Krusteaz new gluten-free mixes line: Gluten Free Blueberry Muffin Mix, Gluten Free Buttermilk Pancake Mix, Gluten Free Honey Cornbread Mix, and Gluten Free Double Chocolate Brownie Mix. That’s right, double chocolate… Being a bit of a chocoholic myself, that’s the mix I chose to make my recipe from.

PEPPERMINT BROWNIE PIE

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Baking Time: 48 minutes

Difficulty: Easy (Super Duper Easy, actually)

Yields: 16 pieces

Ingredients –

For the brownie pie:

– Krusteaz Gluten Free Double Chocolate Brownie Mix

– 1/3 cup water

– 1/3 cup vegetable oil

– 1 egg

For the frosting:

– 3/4 cup whipping cream

– 1/4 cup sugar

– 1 tsp peppermint extract

– 3 candy canes, crushed

– Red food coloring, optional.

Directions-

Brownies:

– Mix the brownies according to the directions on the back of the box. Simply add in the oil, water and egg and mix until well combined.

– Pour into a lightly greased 8-inch pie pan and bake at 325F for 48-52 minutes, as directed on the box. I did the minimum 48 minutes and it was perfect. Depending on your oven, you may need a few minutes longer.

Whipped Frosting:

– While the brownies bake, combine whipping cream, sugar, peppermint extract. and 4-6 drops of food coloring if desired.

– Beat with an electric mixer until cream is light and fluffy, approximately 3-5 minutes. Do not over mix! Store in fridge until brownies are completely cooled.

– Once brownies are completely cooled – don’t jump the gun, you’ll get a puddle of melted cream! – spread the whipped frosting over the top of the brownies.

– Sprinkle crushed candy cane pieces – yep, those leftovers from last year work just fine – over the top of the frosting.

– Store pie in the fridge until ready to serve. Yields approximately 16 pieces. Obviously, you can cut bigger or smaller pieces to fits your needs. A “piece of pie” is not defined in proportion to the pie as a whole… so cut that 1/4 slice and have at it.

– Store any leftovers in the fridge. I didn’t cover mine and had no issues with it drying out. It also kept the candy cane pieces from turning into goo. But it was only in the fridge for two days… and I may or may not have eaten the whole dang thing myself… I’ll never tell.

This turned out to be the perfect way to try my hand at gluten-free baking. I didn’t have to spend 800 hours googling “is … gluten free?” The brownie mix has a brown rice flour base and gave the brownies a little bit different texture than what I typically think of brownies. My teenage sister thought the brownies themselves weren’t sweet enough, but I really liked that they weren’t overly sweet. The whipped frosting on top was the perfect sweetener for her, but didn’t create a sickly sweet, too-rich dessert. This would make an excellent gluten-free addition to any holiday parties you’ve got coming up! It’s topped with candy canes, after all. If that doesn’t scream “Happy Holidays”, I don’t know what does!

Would you like to try out the new Krusteaz’s mixes too? Well, how about a fun giveaway?! Up for grabs is two boxes of each new gluten-free mix, a cute Krusteaz tote. and a great spatula (can you have too many of those?!). Giveaway runs until December 21, 2014 at 12am. Winner will be announced on this post and notified by email. Good luck!
a Rafflecopter giveaway

December 5, 2014 by Krista

What I Wish I’d Known Before Switching to WordPress

So you may have noticed I didn’t post much last month. While I have been crazy busy – and not just in real life – that’s actually not the main reason why. You also may have noticed a new layout and design here on While He Was Napping. Weeelll, I did it. I switched to WordPress. So, that’s the main reason I’ve been MIA out here on the front end. I’ve been trying to get everything all set back up and functioning. I wasn’t exactly planning to move before the end of the year – as if my life isn’t busy enough without having to learn a new blogging skill set, figure out servers and FTP clients and redesign my whole site. Although “redesign” is a loose term here. But here I am. So how did I get here?

There’s a lot I want to share and a lot more that I could say, but there are hundreds of articles and posts on moving from Blogger to WordPress; believe me, I think I read them all. This isn’t a how-to, mostly because I really have no idea how to do it. I couldn’t give you a step-by-step if I wanted to. But, I can give you some info and a heads up that might make your switch a bit easier. These are the things I wish someone had told me before I plunged in head-first.

– Research, research, research! I had planned to spend the next three months researching just what I wanted out of my move. That’s not what happened at all! I was flying by the seat of my pants. The ideal move would take 2-3 days to completely get everything transferred and set up. I’ve been trying to get things ironed out for nearly four weeks… because I’ve had to do things by trial and error, rather than having a good idea of what I want and how to get it. Try to choose a theme (Genesis is highly recommended and it’s the one thing I didn’t really think much about. So, far I’ve been happy with it) and a child theme, if you choose, before you start your move. I decided to buy the Genesis framework and add a child theme later if I couldn’t get things to look the way I wanted. I’ve tried about five child themes… so check it out before you jump into the fire. Take your time and make sure you feel comfortable with moving before you do it! That’s my biggest regret.

– Not all hosting companies are equal. This is where I got into trouble. As I mentioned, I wasn’t planning to switch before the end of the year. But I started looking at hosting companies and the one I was considering had a sale going on… and it ended in TWO DAYS! I debated as long as I could, but I didn’t want to let the deal go so I decided . I’ll just transfer over slowly, I though. Except, I learned pretty quickly, it doesn’t work that way. But I’ll get there in a minute. After doing some research, I discovered the hosting company I’d chosen had notoriously slow page load speeds for blog-type sites, but did well for sites that were more commerce-based and not so content heavy. And, while it was a good price, it wasn’t that much lower than this hosts regular costs. I totally fell for that “SALE!” banner. I realized I needed to look for a hosting service that fit my needs, not the cheapest one I could find. Decide what is important to you (load speed, dedicated server space, commerce friendly options, downtime, etc) and then look for a deal on that. I ended up switching server hosts and that set me back about 48 hours in my transfer. Then I had to go through the process of getting my original purchase refunded. Helpful hint: if you do end up needing to switching hosts, do it and then try to get your refund. It’s harder for them to convince you to stay if you’ve already moved.

– If you aren’t setting up a new domain, you need to switch everything over as quickly as possible. More accurately, once you start the transfer process, don’t stop! Why? Because people can’t access your Blogger site and your WordPress site at the same time if you only have one domain. I was going down a list of steps I’d found “to successfully transfer your website” and stopped for the night after doing something I really wasn’t sure I’d done correctly, let alone what it actually did. It was changing my server name. It took me almost 24 hours before I realized that all outside links (Pinterest, anyone?) linked to my new WordPress site… that had absolutely nothing on it. Whoops. And it took me a whole day to get things moved over to where it was all accessible again.

– The Set Up. There’s A LOT more set-up than I realized before you even get to the whole transfer part. I had this vision in my head that transferring over my 1,000+ posts and nearly 5,000 comments would be the hard part. HA! Because I wasn’t purchasing a domain name from my hosting company (I did that a couple years ago through Blogger and Google), I had the option of moving my domain. Everything I read, it sounded like it was advantageous to switch, so I decided I would. But, I didn’t know how. It was just a whole ‘nother step. Then there’s choosing a theme. And a child theme. Then comes the importing part…

– The WordPress Jargon. Theme. Child theme. Plug-ins. SEO Optimized. Responsive widgets and themes. CSS styling. While I has heard these terms, I didn’t really understand them. Genesis is an awesome theme, but the design is incredibly simplistic. Unless you are good (and I mean like pro level ninja skills) at coding or simplistic black and white is your ideal design, you’ll want a child theme. There are probably hundreds of thousands of child themes out there. Choosing one is like picking the perfect grain of sand from a beach! Because I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of child themes, I ended up choosing one of the child themes offered from Studio Press, for simplicity sake. And they had a 30 day guarantee (that I actually ended up using). But I had no ideas for redesigning my site and that took some extra time.

The best plug-ins depend on what you what your site to do. I tried a lot, I mean A LOT, of plug-ins and have it narrowed down to about 8. But you have to have an idea of what you’re looking for because there are almost as many plug-ins as there are child themes. And when WordPress is updated, developers have to update their plug-ins to make sure they remain compatible. Not all developers do. So, some plug-ins don’t work like they used to. You have to spend some time checking them out.

Responsive pretty much just means that the theme or widget will adjust to the many, many, many screen sizes that are out there. That way things look good when they are viewed, regardless of whether it’s on a large desktop screen or a tiny little cell phone. Definitely a first world problem, getting your internet site to look good on any size screen, but design is an important part of a website.

– WordPress ISN’T magic! So after I transferred everything over my Google Analytics stats almost doubled. I was in heaven and actually thought, “wow, WordPress really is magic!” You guys, it’s really not. It’s a great blogging platform and can do amazing things, but it’s not magic and it won’t double your page views at the snap of your fingers. And turns out, the Analytics plug-in does the same thing as when you paste the code into your theme manually. Can I just tell you how disappointing it is to cut your monthly page views in half when you think you’re this awesome rock star completely dominating a new platform? It’s a sad day. However, your page views shouldn’t really drop much either. I don’t get tens of thousands of page views a day, but my traffic stayed pretty consistent through out the transfer.

– WordPress also isn’t Blogger. Did Captain Obvious just walk in the room? I know what you’re thinking, ‘hello, duh!’ right? But let me explain. I’ve been blogging for over 5 years. On Blogger. The longer I spend on WordPress, the more similarities I can see and realize it’s really not that different. But, when I first got here, I was so frustrated with the new layout and that I couldn’t figure out how to make things do what I wanted them to. I had to let go of my

– ‘No Coding Needed’, not ‘No Coding Allowed’. Confession: I can’t code… but I think I can. My friend, Christina, very accurately described it as “you know enough code to get yourself in trouble”. The beauty of WordPress is that you don’t need to code… well, anything… if you don’t want to. But, I had gotten it in my head that I WASN’T ALLOWED TO code anything. And that’s not true. I don’t suggest messing with your parent theme, since that’s usually the basic functions, if you don’t know exactly what you’re doing; but absolutely play with your child theme, if you want to. Change fonts and colors and the form of your site, without messing up the function, by making adjustments to your child theme. You CAN code, but you don’t have to.

– You CAN move to WordPress yourself! Sure, it’s overwhelming. But as long as you back up your site, you should be okay (I actually created a complete duplicate of my Blogger blog content on a separate .blogspot blog, just in case I completely screwed things up). If you get stuck and can’t undo a major mishap, simply reset everything and start over. Not really what you want to do after a week of work, but the option is there if you really need it. I’m sure it would have been easier and possibly less stressful to hire someone to do the transfer for me, but I’m glad I didn’t. I really couldn’t afford to hire someone and I talked to people who did, and things still got messed up! I have this weird control freak thing and if something’s going to get messed up, I’m gonna be the one to do the messing. With Google, you can do anything. In my many searches, wpbeginner.com came up time and time again. Awesome tutorials with step-by-step instructions all broken down. And they have a YouTube channel to really walk you through things. It’s an amazing resource, so bookmark that baby if you’re going to be moving soon.

I wasn’t planning on switching to WordPress but my unplanned move taught me a few things. I’ve only been here for a month, but it’s been a good move so far. I don’t regret starting with Blogger and I don’t even wish I’d switched sooner. I think the timing was good. Another confession: I actually really only switched because I couldn’t figure out a way to make gallery pages that didn’t require a huge chunk of work – I haven’t gotten that far yet. My biggest regret is not knowing enough beforehand. Knowledge is power, people. School House Rock was right.

DOWNLOAD YOUR GOALS COUNTDOWN

Get your FREE copy of the Kid’s Christmas Coupon Booklet

PEPPERMINT BROWNIE PIE

Privacy Policy