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How to Make your child’s room POP, by putting wooden letters in picture frames. Baby Name Wall Art

05/17/2013 by Leave a Comment

A week or so ago I posted a picture of my daughter’s name that is hanging in her room. Due to popular demand of the picture I have decided to post a little tutorial on how I did it. Feel free to pin!

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Filed Under: DIY Projects with kids, How To, Kids, Living Tagged With: , , , , ,

How to Make your own-LARGE-sized Family Scrabble Board

05/16/2013 by Leave a Comment

I came across this sweet idea to make a homemade scrabble board. Once I saw I instantly knew I HAD to make it. But…I had to figure out how to make it on a budget. And guess what? I did! I knew the perfect spot to put it as well, I was just overall giddy about this project!

how to make a magnet board for my kids art

Filed Under: DIY Projects with kids, How To, Teaching Tagged With: , , , , ,

Top 20 Refreshing Iced Coffee Recipes

05/16/2013 by 1 Comment

top 20 refreshing iced coffee recipes

If you have been reading my posts lately you may have caught on that I’m a big coffee fan.  I’m one of those people that needs to have their coffee in the morning otherwise you don’t want to get in my way.  Just recently I hosted a Dunkin Donuts coffee party that was nice.  During the party we were talking about iced coffee.  We spoke about how hot coffee is great during the winter months but when it comes to the summer there is nothing like an iced coffee to start of your day.  It’s also great for a midday break or when you are hitting the beach or just lounging outside reading a magazine.  Now when I was growing up iced coffee was pretty simple.   You brewed some coffee let it cool a bit then poured into a thermos or some other container.  You added some ice, cream, and sugar and you were good to go.  Nowadays there are so many wonderful flavors of iced coffee out there who knows what to pick.  Here are some great recipes that I would like to share with all of my readers.  Be sure to tell me what you think and feel free to share your own concoctions.

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Filed Under: How To, recipes Tagged With: ,

How to make a Unique Cherish for a lifetime Mommy & Me gift using Salt Dough and your child’s hand print

05/13/2013 by 5 Comments
Mother’s Day is coming up, and I have the perfect gift that can be from your little ones to you. How many of you have kids who don’t know it’s Mother’s Day because they are too little to realize it? With my help of this wonderful tutorial I will show you how to make the PERFECT Mother’s Day gift.
mothers day gifts
Filed Under: Art, DIY Projects with kids, How To, Kids, recipes Tagged With: ,

Star Trek Child Costume Review

05/23/2013 by Leave a Comment

Guest review by Katie Hale, You Brew My Teakatie hale

Our family is proud to declare that we are Geeks.  With two software programmers and a budding genius 5 year old in the midst, it’s a given that we would be pretty “geeky”.  And part of that badge we wear proudly is the fact that we are huge Star Trek fans and are indeed “Trekkies”.  We both grew up on Star Trek reruns as kids and then watched all of the television series that have come through over the years.  When we saw the trailers a few months ago for the upcoming release of the latest Star Trek movie Star Trek: Into The Darkness we knew we would be in line on opening weekend with all of our fellow geeks.

If you’ve ever went to a movie premier or an opening weekend of a Geek movie, you know that costumes, themed t-shirts and all manner of character apparel is going to be seen.  Of course we had Star Trek t-shirts to wear ourselves, but we knew we needed to grab something for our 5 year old son to wear to the opening weekend event.  He loves playing dress up and he especially loves Spock from the Star Trek series.  So, thanks to the generosity of the Wholesale Costume Club, we chose to pick up this adorable Spock costume from Star Trek costumes for kids selection  for my son to review for us!  It was the perfect costume for him to wear when we went last weekend to see the newly released Star Trek movie.

Star Trek II the Movie Child costume

When the package came to the door, he was excited because it was one just for him.  In typical costume design, it was packaged in the clear vinyl package with both the blue officers shirt that Spock was famous for wearing and a pair of black stretch pants that had attached booties to cover his shoes with so the ensemble was complete.  He is just a few weeks shy of his 6th birthday but we went ahead and ordered the medium which says it fits a size 8-10.  I wanted this costume to last more than a few months and considering it is excellent quality material, it has just enough extra room for him to grow.  The pants were a bit on the long side but easily rolled down for him to wear without any problem.  He specifically liked the booties that covered his shoes.

TheLogicalChoice

We really loved how thin the fabric was and that even though it was long sleeved, on a warm late Spring afternoon he was perfectly comfortable wearing it as we walked around the shopping center the movie theater was in.  My son was definitely the hit of the “party” as we stood in line for over an hour waiting with another 100 people to get into the Saturday afternoon showing of the movie.

As this summer is full of awesome Geek themed movie releases I will definitely be looking to Wholesale Costume Club for other options for us to wear to those events!

I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. All opinions are mine & mine alone. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

Filed Under: Costumes, Movies, Reviews Tagged With: , ,

Who or what is Fairy Hobmother and why they visit my blog?

05/23/2013 by 7 Comments

 

fairyhob

Yesterday when I opened my inbox I found a pleasant email note from the Fairy Hobmother! Fairy Hobmother is actually a guy (He also know as Matt Mitchell) I’ve seen him around the blogosphere before spreading light and joy to bloggers and readers alike. I was quite happy that he decided to visit my blog and to take a look at my site. You can also see his public profile on Twitter @fairyhobmother And I think he is from England.

This is what he said in the email:

“I saw a comment you left on a post about me and followed it back to your blog. It’s clear that you work very hard on it, and I think that your hard work deserves to be rewarded. I’d like to send you a gift in the form of a $50 voucher for Amazon to have a little fun with.

All that I’d ask is that you let your readers know about me and my mission. I don’t need much, just a little note, and as an added bonus if any other bloggers comment on the post I may well pay them a visit too!

 If this sounds like something that you would be interested in please let me know and I’ll send you a little more information.  I look forward to hearing from you. In the mean time take care, and keep up the good work! Matt, aka the Fairy Hobmother”

So I replied to him and said yes, I would be very interested. I need that $50 Amazon gift code to purchase a gift for my husband and my father for Father’s Day.

Today he replied to me again thanking me for spreading the word about him. All he asked for a small note about him which you can see above and if I am kind enough I would link back to his web site.

Now for those of you who may be wondering who is this Fairy Hobmother, He travels from blog to blog to website to website leaving rewards for those who believe in him. Not bad right? Who doesn’t love fairy goodies… especially fairy goodies in the form of monetary compensation?

So what do you say? Do you believe in the Fairy Hobmother? He did mention: “As an added bonus if any other bloggers comment on your post I may well be paying them a visit in the near future!” Simply leave a comment here on this post and just maybe the Fairy Hobmother may visit you too!

So tell me Have you seen these Fairy Hobmother posts floating around? What do you think? 

Disclosure: This is a sponsored post on behalf of Fairy HobMother and I will be receiving a promotional sample to thank me for participation. All opinions and writings are mine and mine alone.
Filed Under: Offers

5 Natural Ways to keep mosquitoes out of your yard

05/22/2013 by Leave a Comment

how to keep mosquitoes out of your yard

With the summer approaching however slowly this year I find myself doing allot more outside work.  Preparing the gardens, raking leaves, sweeping, pulling weeds, cleaning windows and more.  Most people I know welcome summer with open arms especially after just going through a long cold winter.  It is great to see the trees and flowers blooming, hear the birds singing and feel the warmth of the sun on my skin.  With all the good things that summer brings I’m also reminding of some of the bad things that come as well.  To me its not so much the heat of the humidity that will be coming it is the bugs that will be coming out.  The spiders, ants, wasps, hornets, roaches, and worse of all the mosquitoes.

Those pesky little bugs that can be pretty aggressive are a big nuisance.  They make going outside in the evening hours unbearable at times.  If you want to do anything in the evening you have to spray yourself with chemicals, light candles, and turns on a bug light.  You can also spray your yard with chemicals but who knows what kind of damage that can do to the environment let alone your family.  With this in mind I have been doing some research regarding more eco-friendly ways to repel mosquitoes and other pesky outdoor creatures.  [Read more...]

Filed Under: GARDENING & LANDSCAPING, How To Tagged With:

Back Support for Chair or Auto Seat Cushion Review, LumBuddy

05/22/2013 by 1 Comment

Anyone that spends hours at a time seated during the day knows something about back pain.  Whether you are in front of a computer at work, driving in your car/truck, answering phones, or any other job that requires you to be seated you will agree that the back takes the brunt of the punishment.  For me I occasionally suffer from lower back pain and stiffness as well as neck and shoulder pain.  I spend anywhere from 5-7 hours per day in seated in front of the computer.  Of course these are not consecutive hours but they do take their toll on my body.

To help me deal with the negative effects on my body I have tried a variety of different things.  For example I have tried a using different types of chairs even going as far as using one of those large exercise balls to sit on.  It wasn’t that bad but it got kind of annoying after while since every couple of days I would have to add air to the ball.  I have also tried several different lumbar support pads some with heat and massage, others with gel and/or memory foam padding.  Most of them are pretty good and did offer some relief and support. One complaint I had about all of them was the lack of air circulation they provided.  During the summer my back would get hot and sweaty.

Recently I had an opportunity to review a new lumbar support product on the market called LumBuddy from Contourliving.com.

Lumbuddy Back Support Cushion

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Filed Under: Healthy Living, Reviews Tagged With: , , ,

Little Cosmetics Pretend “Fake” Makeup that look realistic (Review)

05/20/2013 by 2 Comments

Not too long ago I did a review of a makeup for young girls.  It was basically a kid friendly makeup kit aimed at the pre-teen market.  My daughter loved it my husband and I were not really big fans.  We are of the opinion that make up should not be worn by young girls even if it is only for play.  I mean as a girl I recall trying on my Mom’s lipstick and eye shadow as a young girl and her not being too happy.  She would always say, “You don’t need to make yourself look older, trust me.”  Of course as a young girl my friends and I would always want to look older and more mature.  I guess at the time we didn’t realize it could attract the wrong type of attention.  Maybe that’s why Mom’s do really know best.

            So not being a big fan of kid make-up I was happy to get the opportunity to review a pretend play makeup kit.  The kit I’m referring too came from a company called Little Cosmetics.

fake makeup

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Filed Under: Reviews Tagged With:

What are the Healthy Pasta Alternatives?

05/16/2013 by Leave a Comment

Healthy Habits: How-Tos

Healthy Pasta Alternatives

Give into your carb cravings with these healthy whole-grain choices

Healthy Pasta AlternativesAmericans eat nearly 20 pounds of pasta a year most of which is the white, refined kind. Unlike whole grains, refined ones are stripped of fiber, vitamins, and nutrients. They trigger blood sugar spikes and crashes, which can lead to overeating and weight gain, says Anne Mauney, MPH, RD. While all carbs cause mouth bacteria to produce cavity-causing acid, refined carbs speed up the process. Switching out regular pasta for these options can save your waistline and teeth.

Veggie AlternativesVeggie Alternatives

Strands of roasted spaghetti squash or julienned zucchini noodles are perfect pasta alternatives. These veggie noodles are similar in texture to spaghetti, but are much lower in carbohydrates and calories and higher in some vitamins, says Mauney, who offers nutritional counseling at AnneTheRD.com. Whereas a cup of spaghetti contains 220 calories, a cup of spaghetti squash has just 42. At that rate, you could have two cups and still be saving calories.

Barley  Barley

Barley is a versatile grain with a hearty, nutty flavor. Sub out white rice or pasta in soups for this delicious whole grain, which is packed with nutrients like selenium, tryptophan and copper. Barley’s fiber boosts intestinal health, may lower cholesterol and can prevent blood sugar spikes. What’s more, it may also reduce the risk of heart disease.

quinoa   Quinoa

Quinoa, which is technically a seed, is higher in protein than pasta or other grains, and includes notable amounts of iron and fiber,notes Mauney. Similar in size and texture to couscous, quinoa is complete protein containing all nine essential amino acids. It also has twice as much fiber as most other grains. With a relatively short cooking time, quinoa makes a fast and tasty side dish or stir-fry base.

Oodles of Noodles   Oodles of Noodles

If you’re craving pasta and quinoa won’t do, try soba noodles. Made from buckwheat, soba noodles contain all eight essential amino acids. Look for 100 percent buckwheat soba noodles, as many brands are made with a combination of refined wheat. Many grocery stores also carry whole wheat pasta. Look on ingredient labels for 100% whole wheat or 100% whole grain,says Mauney. “Anything that’s noted as “enriched” or doesn’t say 100% whole has been refined.

 

Filed Under: Food, How To Tagged With:

Is Palmolive Soft Touch Dish-washing liquid really soft on your hands?

05/16/2013 by Leave a Comment

Are you wondering what’s new in the world of dishwashing liquid?  Well if you are I would like to share some new products with you that have are being introduced by Palmolive.  Most of you have used or at least heard of Palmolive dishwashing liquid.  Myself I remember seeing their commercials on TV growing up and always wondering what dishpan hands were.  Now that I’m older and have washed my share of pots and pans and dishes I can surely tell you what dishpan hands are.  To me dishpan hands are when your hands get all dry, red, and chafed as a result of washing too many dishes.  The phrase dishpan hands is even in the dictionary.

Palmolive Ultra Soft Touch

            Now the two new products from Palmolive that I want to introduce are supposed to be much gentler on your skin.  The first product is Palmolive Ultra Soft Touch with Vitamin E.  I have been trying it out for several days now and it appears to be smoother and silkier when compared to Original Palmolive.  It also seemed to be gentler on my hands.  I will have to see how it holds up over the long-term but for now the results look promising.  [Read more...]

Filed Under: Living Tagged With: ,
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