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Join Me at The Ultimate Blog Party 2011

Ultimate Blog Party 2011

This is the second year that I will be participating in the Ultimate Blog Party (UPB). This is a party for bloggers to connect with other bloggers, mostly moms, but there are singles and Dads participating too. It is fun blog hopping and meeting new bloggers and supporting those I do know.

There are many great prizes again this year and by the looks of it they are still accepting prize donations (they encourage us with the statement “with a link back from a blog with a PR of 6!” ;-)). You can see the prizes we are donating above under the tab Ulimate Blog Party 2011.

Those of you who are new, my blog is not only about product reviews, but our family life as well. I am a Christian, have been married for nearly 17 years and have eight children. My interests include a wide variety of things: faith, family, homeschooling, gardening, organic farming, business, entrepreneurship and much, much more! I consider myself a woman who wears many hats as a wife, mother, beginning organic farmer, business owner of three businesses: a virtual assistant business(this includes all my blogging work too), independent Young Living distributor and fledgling farm.

I have a few contributing writers who help keep fresh content on this blog and we cover several topics regularly during the week:

Monday: Motivation Monday
Tuesday: Heath & Garden
Wednesday: Wordless Wednesday
Thursday: Thrifty Thursday
Friday: Faith & Family Reviews Friday Giveaways
Saturday: Is wide open!
Sunday: Sunday Smiles

Join me as I visit other blogs participating in UBP 2011.


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Spring Planting: Wordless Wednesday & Linky

This was a week or two ago. When I was there yesterday, without my camera of course, these plants had grown a lot in the past week.

Feel free to add your own link below with a comment and we will reciprocate! :-)


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Answer to Sunday Smiles Video Quiz

Here’s the answer to last night’s quiz on why Go Go Boy was giggling:


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2011 Ultimate Blog Party

Ultimate Blog Party 2011
Last year I participated in 5MinutesforMom.com‘s Ultimate Blog Party and enjoyed meeting new bloggers and reading about their lives. This year I plan to join the party again, meeting yet more new people and participating in some great giveaways. Hope some of you will join us.


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Shop With Me Mama’s BOGS Giveaway

I am writing this post to gain extra entries to Shop With Me Mama’s BOGS giveaway. BOGS are all weather footwear and many of their boots have handles on the sides to help you pull them up! How cool is that? Anyways, those are not the ones that are being given away but a pretty pair of ankle type ones are for little girls and those are the ones I am trying to win for my daughter. ;-)

You can enter to here.


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Saturday Rewind

I know, I know, I have not been posting this week. I did not get to Monday Motivation or even a Wordless Wednesday! And I have plenty of photos to share. So I thought I would try to catch you up on the happenings around here with a quick little Saturday “rewind” post this morning.

Family/Work

We have been incredibly busy. On Monday we went on a maple syrup tour with friends and had a lovely time learning about maple syrup. The tour was very hands on for the children, who were able to help find a hole to drill in the maple tree, do some of the actual drilling and taste maple sugar. It was a beautiful sunny day. Then I had to work for a couple of hours by attending a meeting with area farmers. I could have even gone out that night to a nutrition meeting, but thought it would have been a bit much to say the least.

Then the past couple of days I have worked a couple of hours at my colleague/friend’s greenhouse helping get her caught up on her seed planting. Onions, kohlrabi, lettuce, broccoli are all sprouted! It is so exciting. Can’t wait to munch on some of those fresh organic veggies! Yummy!

My husband was able to attend yet another farmers meeting last night and learned some new things about what our county is doing to preserve farm land in our area. Do you know that there is a farmer who is 93 who is still driving his tractor and farming? He is the last farmer in his family. Quite amazing. I bet he has some stories to tell.

The children have been enjoying getting to play outside more now that it not only warmer, but DRYER. Yes, we are getting rid of the mud pit out back (out back, what am I Australian? Just kidding! Would love to visit Australia, so I am not implying being Aussie is a bad thing).

Baby boy is on the move, crawling, walking along furniture and wouldn’t you know it, he donks his eyebrow square with a corner two nights ago. I couldn’t sleep last night for fear he’d break his wound open again. It is bad, but not bad enough for stitches. I need to hurry so I can relieve the girls from “holding” duty. Yes, I am “holding” him captive by cradling him in our arms to keep him safe while his owie heals.

Here he is, but he’s quite happy despite the “check mark” owie. The children think it looks like a check mark, what do you think?

Techie Problems

My laptop had to be sent to be repaired, again. My dear husband and three year old were playing beside me while I was typing away and dear son did one of his somersaults and smacking his head against my screen cracking it pretty much from top to bottom. :-( Thankfully, the accidental warranty/insurance covers it. I was worried it wouldn’t. Oh and Nookie’s head is just fine. Obviously he hit it hard, but I don’t remember him even crying much. He’s a tough little cookie….has to be with two big brothers.

My faithful Green Drive is not working properly either, so I have been trying to get the company’s help on figuring out what is wrong. So far they have not asked me to send it back, if only it could be resolved easily without sending it back or risking losing all my data and photos.

Our printer is also on the blitz, I just think I need all new office equipment, what do you think? Maybe I should enter one of those business grants/contests and see if I can win. The thing is I have tried and usually give up because it seems that no one votes for me when I try to promote it. Maybe I give up too soon though and an entrepreneur should not give up easily.  (Can you hear me pouting here….believe me I am pouting!)

So that about sums up the rollercoaster week we have had, how about you, what is new in your neck of the woods?


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Weekend Poll

I am seriously considering redesigning the look of Faith and Family Reviews (FFR) and would like to get a feel for what you think of when you come to visit. So in lieu of that I would like to conduct a weekend poll or week long poll (I will continue receiving feedback until I find hear from enough readers). Therefore, would you humor me and give me a word, phrase or sentence for what you think of when you come to visit FFR? I need inspiration if I am going to approach a graphic designer and ask for a new theme because to be honest, I am drawing a blank. Yeah, I know I should know what I am all about but if I don’t get your feedback how will I know what draws you here? I have been told that this WordPress theme is pretty popular and that my sidebar needs centering, those are the things I am starting with, thus the request for feedback. I thought if I knew what you thought of when you visited, then I could possibly come up with an image or two or three that I could create a theme from your input, make sense?

Or if you are a blogger, maybe you can share your experience in changing the look of your blog.

Let your comments/sharing roll…..and please don’t let this post be silent in the comment section! (hint hint!)


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Beware of Entrecard

Ok, some of you seasoned bloggers will probably think me naive for using Entrecard, but I did use them for over a year. Not that I noticed any traffic increase, but I kept my end of the bargain in keeping their button on my side bar – here and at my professional website. However, last night while my daughter was working on a little project for me she came across the Entrecard button on my professional site and let’s just say the image on it was not appropriate for a business site. I was appalled and sickened not only that my daughter was the one to find it, but that it was even on my website!? Needless to say, I wanted to warn all new bloggers (and old) not to use Entrecard if you are at all family-friendly. Why take that risk? If I had known, I would never have signed up. Plain and simple.

Entrecard heard from me this morning and I have now deleted both banners from off my sites. I will not be using them again, I don’t care how many point thingys I have accumulated. It is just not worth it.

Lesson learned: Nothing is ever really free, it comes with a price. In this instance it was my reputation. :-( It still sickens me to think about it. What WERE they thinking? And just how many potential clients came across it? And how long was the filth even rotating on the ad? Did I miss something when I read through their terms and conditions? Beating myself up just a little…..

Bloggers beware of Entrecard.


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Friday Giveaway Linky

That time again, so feel free to enter your favorite giveaways right here and don’t forget to leave a comment before you go. Remember to enter our current giveaways as well.


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St. Patties Day Giveaway over at Arms of a Sister – Win $110 CASH!

Ok, I just want you to know right off that I am blogging about this giveaway so I can gain more entries myself! But hey, feel free to enter too! Who wouldn’t want an extra $110 in their pocket? We all have bills to pay, right? (Don’t forget to enter our current giveaways too!)

Arms of a Sister is hosting a giveaway that she and ten other bloggers to offer a CASH giveaway. How “green” is that? ;-) Just had to bring green in for the money aspect and St. Patrick’s Day too.

So head on over and enter to win $110 for you and your family!

”Giveaway


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