Cackleberries.com proudly presents our ‘Drawing Lessons & Drawing for Kids‘ Series.  Every week we offer a new and exciting video tutorial as we teach you and your children the basic steps and processes behind drawing.  These art lessons are specifically designed with children of all ages and skill levels in mind as we teach you how to create and produce quality artwork.  For our entire collection of drawing lessons and how to draw features, check out the drawing lessons tab on the right of the page.

This week, we have yet another great lesson for you as we go back to our farm animal series and present……….

How to Draw a Cat

We sure hope you liked this week’s Drawing Lessons and Drawing for Kids Feature!

The Cackleberries Team

Back again to help make your life easier, Cackleberries.com has great kids snack recipes for you and your family.  Saving you time in the kitchen, you will surprise and impress your family as we provide a new and exciting recipe each and every week.  To view all of our past recipes, click on the ‘recipes’ tab on the right side of the page.  So just like every other Monday, Cackleberries.com has another tasty snack recipe for you and your kids.  We know you’ll enjoy it!

Just like that, four weeks and four great Independence Day and Canada Day appetizer snack recipes have come and gone.  Today, we have our last instalment as Cackleberries.com is happy to bring you part 5 of 5 in our latest snack recipe series.  To bring this recipe feature to a close, we decided to provide you with some delicious and visually pleasing beverages to enjoy at your national birthday party.

So in our last recipe in this series, we present to you…….

Blended Beverages and Iced Libations

Ingredients

• Kool-Aid packets – Colours and flavours are up to you!  Be Adventurous!
• Ice
• Water
• Sugar
• Alcohol (for adults only!!!!)

Quantities

for each packet of Kool-Aid, add 2 cups of water, 1/2 cup of sugar, and 4-5 cups of ice, depending on preferred consistency

Directions

1. Place all ingredients in a blender and mix
2. For the daring, make a few different flavours/colours and add a layer of each on top of one another in a glass for a eye-catching drink!
3. Serve and Enjoy

Have a safe and fun holiday and please be responsible!

The Cackleberries Team

Welcome to the Cackleberry News!  Today, we feature our Children’s Stories and Bedtime Stories Series.  To read past story releases, click on the‘children’s stories’ tab on the right side of the page. With great lessons for children and fantastic art, these children’s stories are a great tool for parents trying to teach and help children learn to read. Watch for the next children’s stories release every Friday as we offer a brand new and unique Cackleberries Tale!

Today, we present to you……

A Bird in the Hand,

featuring Speckles

in video format below

and in text format

A Bird in the Hand,

featuring Speckles

It was a beautiful Spring day in Oville.

The birds were singing, the bees were buzzing, the flowers were in full bloom…

…and high up on a branch 3 baby birds were chirping away, waiting for their mommy to return with some food for their hungry tummies.

All of a sudden, one of the chicks was chirping so hard, that it chirped itself out of the nest and fell right off the branch, heading straight towards the ground far below.

Thankfully, Speckles had been standing right underneath the whole time. She was watching the chicks until their mommy arrived and caught the falling baby bird just in time!

Speckles wanted to fly up to the nest so she could put the scared little one back in it’s home. But, the nest looked so high up and the task seemed impossible.

With the helpless bird in her hand, she felt that she had to try. Determined, Speckles closed her eyes as tight as she could and flapped her wings as hard as she could…

All of sudden, Speckles felt herself lifting higher and higher and when she opened her eyes, she was staring right into the nest that the baby bird fell out of.

Quickly, she placed the chick safely back in the nest and looked down at the ground. It was then she realized how she managed to reach the branch that had once seemed unreachable…

…looking down she saw 2 familiar faces smiling up at her. Joe and Digbee had lifted Speckles up without her noticing and helped her reach the branch.

Speckles was so happy that the baby bird was safe in it’s home and even happier that she had such good friends to help her out when she really needed it.

THE END

We hope you enjoyed today’s Children’s Stories and Bedtime Stories release!  Se you all next week!

The Cackleberries Team

Cackleberries.com has another set of hit viral videos doing the rounds on the Internet!

Today we have a video so good, we will only feature it today.  This incredible video was part of a contest that occured a while ago that the American Association of Retired Persons put on, asking contestants aged 18-30 to make video’s portraying how they saw their lives at 50 years of age.  The following video won second place and is quite frankly amazing.

Watch, enjoy, and be amazed!

The Lost Generation

Hope you liked today’s video and check back tomorrow for our Children’s Stories and Bedtime Stories release!

The Cackleberries Team

Just like every other Wednesday, Cackleberries.com has another article to help all you parents out there find a bit more time in your day.  To do this, we present our regular How-To Series where we try to answer questions and provide insight into topics parents may have an interest in.

Today, we pick up on last week’s article about the importance of family meals by discussing ways to make planning family dinners just a little bit easier on you.

so for today’s Topic, we discuss……

Five Top Tips for Planning and Making Family Dinners Easier

Ideally, dinner should be a nice relaxing event where you and your family get together after your respective days to talk and be in each other’s company. However, it is often a stressful event to plan and execute every night of the week. Many moms have been busy all day, either at work or with household chores and errands. Often times, the importance of a family dinner gets overlooked due to the effort involved in preparation. If you find yourself struggling to produce a homemade dinner consistently, the best way to organize yourself enough to make sure family dinner is not a dreaded task is to plan ahead and make a list.

1. Get Fresh Ideas on the Web

It’s inevitable that sooner or later, you and your family will get bored of the same old meals. At some point, Taco Tuesdays will get stale. When this happens, try using the internet to find fun and different meal ideas. You’ll come to find that there is a huge variety of options and choices when it comes to sprucing up your usual dinner ingredients.

2. Watch for Deals

Always be scouring the mail and store flyers for cheap deals or dinner items. Many stores will be doing promotions on certain items that you’ll be able to scoop up in quantity for cheap prices. Pay close attention as a lot of stores will compete with one another. Their discounts are your gain.

3. Plan your Meals in Advance

Try to create a meal schedule for the week. This one act will go a long way in helping you with sticking to a dinner plan. Even if your plan is not completely specific, it will give you a foundation for what you’ll need and when you can prepare it. For example, if you plan to serve chicken, rice, and vegetables one night, you can decide later whether to make those ingredients into a stir-fry, a curry dish, or any other option you feel like. By having a plan for dinner, you’ll be much less likely to stop and pickup fast food or order in for takeout. Also, if you plan a menu for the week before your grocery shopping excursion, you’ll be more inclined to stick to your list, saving you money along the way.

4. Prepare and Cook Meals Ahead of Time

If you have a scheduled dinner plan prepared, you can now look into pre-preparing meals for the week. You can make this into an evening event where you and your family make a bunch of different dishes that can be cooled and frozen in sealable containers until the day of serving. Not only does this save you time every night but it is also a great way to spend time with the family. If your children are old enough, each person can be assigned a specific meal, or, if your children are too young for that, they can be given other tasks to help out.

5. Make Sure to Use Leftovers

Be sure to utilize leftovers! If you find that week in and week out, a bunch of leftovers are piling up in your fridge, make sure you plan a leftovers night into your meal schedule. Good food should not be wasted and by simply heating up a few different dishes, you can save a bunch of time and serve a meal medley for the family to partake in.

With these handy tips, you should find yourself with plenty of time left in your evenings to relax and spend quality time with your loved ones. By enlisting your families help with the dinner preparation, you’ll not only enjoy dinnertime more but you’ll enjoy the meals more too knowing that it was a family effort.

Good luck and Happy Eating!

The Cackleberries Team