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PottyCover Review

Posted by Brande on April 2, 2012
in Diapers and Accessories, Family Stuff, Health, Parenting, Personal Care Products, Reviews, Safety

“Mommy, I have to go potty!” The one phrase that makes my skin curl when we are out. All I can think of is all the germs and gross encounters in a public bathroom.

Problem Solved! Here’s the PottyCover. It covers the sides and front of the toilet not just those little doughnut things that slide all over. “Double layered with soft non-woven fabric on top, coated with a layer of plastic on the bottom to keep away from germs and wetness.” So, now you and/or your child can actually sit on the toilet when you are out. Each PottyCover is individually wrapped, so you can toss some in your diaper bag or purse. These cannot be flushed, you’ll need to toss them in the garbage when you are done. Don’t forget to wash your hands!

The PottyCover is available online at Amazon.com, Ebay.com, Bed,Bath & Beyond, and Buy Buy Baby (also available in the store).

PottyCover Review

I want to buy these by the dozens! What a great idea! We went out to breakfast with extended family and my daughter (3 years old) needed to use the potty. It was a stress-free ordeal! I just put the PottyCover on and she was able to sit and hold on without me trying to hold her. No more wrestling with toilet paper trying to cover the seat. Anyone can use these not just your kids. I need to stock up!

Faith and Family Reviews received the following product in exchange for writing a review. While we consider it a privilege to receive free products to review, our reviews are our honest opinion and thoughts of the product.

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Pre-Order KIWI’s New Cookbook!

Posted by Brande on March 31, 2012
in All Natural Products, Articles, Books, Eco Friendly Products, Family Stuff, Food and Treats, Health, Health and Nutrition, News Worthy, Organic, Recipes, Shopping

I just got this email! KIWI Magazine is all about natural and organic ways of living. LOVE IT! They just came out with this cookbook for families with food allergies. It will get released on April 10 but, you can pre-order it through Amazon.com.

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Zero Water Review and Giveaway (2 Winners)

Posted by Brande on March 30, 2012
in Cleaning, Coupons, Deals, Family Stuff, Gift Ideas, Giveaways, Health, Health and Nutrition, Houseware, News Worthy, SALES, Saving Money

STOP BUYING BOTTLED WATER!!! ZeroWater is here to help save the Earth with it’s water filtration system. ZeroWater has a “patented 5-stage water filter system and is the only system certified to meet the Food & Drug Administration’s standards for Purified Bottle Water.”

Let’s talk water and TDS (Total Dissolved Solids) – TDS is the substances in your water that make it “taste salty, bitter or metallic.” I live in the Northeast and have well water.

I used the TDS water meter provided

I tested our tap water and here’s the results.

That meter reads 126 as the glass stood there for a few minutes it went up to 129. Which in my area of the world is normal for tap water. Most of the US falls into the 051-200 meter reading. The ZeroWater filter will produce about 24 to 40 gallons of water for my area. As the meter reading rises the gallons of water reduces, because the filter has more substances to clean.

I buy bottled water for my family to drink. If I drink my current tap water from the faucet, frankly it tastes like dirt. I’ve tried other filtration devices and they haven’t worked.

Here’s what happened to the meter when I put my tap water through the filter.

The meter dropped to 001! WOW!

For the heck of it – I tried bottled water.

That one was 046!

The Pitcher -

It fits well in the fridge, has a place on the lid to put the TDS meter and a little spout on the bottom. I don’t even need to take the pitcher out of the fridge! My only concern in the future would be a leak from the spout. So, far all is well an no leaks! Hooray!

The Taste – It improved my water taste tremendously! No more dirt water and I can finally stop buying bottled water! ZeroWater recommends that you change your filter when you TDS meter reads 006.

World Water Day was officially on March 22!

Visit ZeroWater’s Website or on Facebook to learn more about their products!

Want more!? Use the following code MC30 for 30% off your own 10 Cup ZeroWater Pitcher !

My Review – Great product. As I said earlier my water tasted terrible. With the ZeroWater Pitcher, I don’t have to buy bottled water anymore! I can save money and the environment!

“I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour by Mom Central Consulting on behalf of ZeroWater and received a water pitcher to facilitate my review, two pitchers to giveaway, and extra filters to thank me for taking the time to participate.”

There’s a giveaway! No, wait there’s 2 GIVEAWAYS!!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Factory Tours USA

Posted by Brande on March 29, 2012
in Deals, Education, Family Stuff, Free Stuff, Fun Stuff, News Worthy, Parenting, Saving Money, Thrifty Thursday, Travel

Spring Break and Summer are getting close, what are your plans? With gas prices soaring and admission into places doesn’t seem to be getting any lower, family fun is getting expensive! Try this site Factory Tours USA . I did a spot check and from what I could see, most of the Factory Tours are FREE, granted I’m sure most have a gift store at the end. By going on a tour, you and your family are having fun and don’t even realize they are learning! There are many great places to visit. There are just about 50 categories ranging from candy to racing teams to musical instruments to mines and mining. You can search by state too. Here’s the website! http://www.factorytoursusa.com

Happy & Safe Travels!

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FREE “Dummies” Books

Posted by Brande on March 29, 2012
in Articles, Books, Downloads, Ebooks, Education, Encouragement for Moms, Family Stuff, Free Stuff, Parenting, Products for Dad, Products for Mom

I’ve used “Dummies” books before and they are helpful. Check out these 3 that I ordered. “Living the Boomer Life for Dummies“, “Well-Being for Dummies“, and “Retirement for Dummies” – Get these FREE Dummies books as a download if you need them faster or in hard copy. They are available at REAL Powered by Humana, which so far, for me at least, seems to be an equally good site for various information about work, family, self and play. If you look near the middle of the page you will see Marketplace that’s where you will find these “Dummies” books too. They are on the right side of the Marketplace link.

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Going Green with The Gigglin’ Garden Gang #GoGreenNGiggle #Cbias

Posted by html404 on March 23, 2012
in Books, Eco Friendly Products, Family Stuff, Farm Stuff, Fun Stuff, Gardening, Gift Ideas

As you all know, we are all for going green and living a healthy lifestyle while making use of the earth’s resources in a responsible and sustainable way. We desire to be good stewards. You are also familiar with our farm journey. That’s why when we were introduced to The Gigglin’ Garden Gang we were excited because it was right up our alley!

In recent years our family has enjoyed planning, preparing and planting our garden. This “Go Green and Giggle”® Book & Tote Garden Activity Gift Set fits perfectly with our fun family activities, but first I had to buy it.

Shopping Online for the “Go Green and Giggle”® Book & Tote Garden Activity Gift Set

First I went to GigglinGardenGang.com. They have some fun music playing that my little guys zoomed over to the computer to “see” being so use to music videos we watch. The website is very easy to navigate and very pleasing to the eye.

To order the product I had to click on their Amazon link to the left side of their home page:

Once I clicked the link it took me to The Gigglin’ Garden Gang’s Amazon shop:

From there is really was a piece of cake, click add to cart:

Amazon will then confirm that the item is in your cart:

After that just click to place order:

Completing the order was a matter of imputing credit card info or editing personal information. I really did not have to do much because we do have an Amazon account so most of my information was already stored. It really is that simple and took less than 5 minutes to do! I love shopping online, can you tell?

Green Children-Friendly Activities

If you are looking for sustainable activities to do with your children on Earth Day, which is only a month away, the “Go Green and Giggle”® Book & Tote Garden Activity Gift Set is the perfect one to choose! Our children loved it! Of course, I only bought one so they all had to share. It contains the “Go Green and Giggle”® Book, the tote, the greenhouse with six soil wafers, sunflower seeds, a sticker, a coloring sheet of Sunflower Suzi and a CD featuring Sunflower Suzi singing cute little songs – a Theme song and a Go Green and Giggle Rap & Instrumental – my children loved listening to it! We played it a few times while doing our planting activity and they just asked again as I was typing.

The kit unpackaged.

My four year old holding the greenhouse.

Individual components of the kit. The sunflower seeds were tucked safely on the back page of the book by Sunflower Suzi after all she is providing them to us, right?

The soil wafers up close.

The sunflower seeds.

We added warm water to the soil wafers. The children took turns and actually did very well pouring the water! Very little mess, surprisingly! lol!

Each of the children planted a seeds. We actually had 7 sunflower seeds in our package. Our oldest did not participate. She was on her laptop!

As you can see from the greenhouse tray there are actually 12 cells in which to plant. The directions recommended taking it off, but we kept it on and decided to plant the extra sunflower seed as well as some snap peas. My daughter experimented last year with seed saving and these are actually seeds she saved from our snap peas. We hope to do more seed saving this year! All a part of stewardship and being sustainable.

Baby even helped!

Ta-da! All done with the planting!

We really had fun. I read the book to the children, then they sat and read it. Very cute illustrations and funny little jokes that made us giggle! We hope to get permission to use those in our farm newsletter in the future!

What a great rainy day activity too! I was glad to be able to keep my children busy this morning since they couldn’t go outside!

Connect with The Gigglin’ Garden Gang Online

To connect with the Gigglin’ Garden Gang on their social media sites, please visit:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/GoGreenNGiggle (@GoGreenNGiggle)
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/sunflowersuzi

This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for

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Kids & Lemonade Stands – Wordless Wednesday

Posted by html404 on March 21, 2012
in Business, Family Stuff, Food and Treats, Fun Stuff, Wordless Wednesday

It has been unseasonably warm here in Chicago and we are loving it so much that my children asked if they could have a lemonade stand! A quick call to the city and we were cleared that there was no city ordinances against kids having lemonade stands. Good thing I had ingredients etc. that they wanted/needed!

Our children made the cookies – oatmeal chocolate chip – and the lemonade (with organic lemon juice and organic cane sugar). They had a lot of fun and made a little bit of money. They are hoping to raise enough for a dog and with their combined efforts up to this point are about half way there if we choose to get a dog from the local dog shelter.

Even though we live in the country our city has about 20,000 and we are considered rural. However, at certain times of the day, especially early morning and late afternoon we get a fair amount of traffic. We had some generous people stop and leave tips. One lady left a $16 tip because she wanted to help the children get their dog! If the weather holds out, the children want to do this right through the weekend and who are we to squelch their entrepreneurity?

Oh and they found that their five year old sister in a pink dress holding their lemonade and cookie sign was a very effective marketing tool! My husband said, “No one can resist a cute little girl in a pink dress.” So we are shouting out our thanks to our neighbors and those who drive by our house every day for supporting our kids!

One last thing….you know you live in the country when you meet a neighbor for the first time and she gives you a hug! (Really happened! She said she was a huggy person…) Let’s just say we really get a kick out of the friendliness of the people here at our new house/town.

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Preventing Mold on Berries

Posted by Brande on March 20, 2012
in All Natural Products, Cleaning, Eco Friendly Products, Family Stuff, Farm Stuff, Food and Treats, Gardening

I had a friend of mine sent me an email about preventing mold on berries. Not sure if it works, fresh berries don’t stay in our house very long. They are usually gone before any molding sets in. Here’s the tip:

Prepare a mixture of one part white or apple cider vinegar and ten parts water. Put the berries in the mixture swirl them around. Drain, rinse (if desired) and pop in the fridge. The vinegar kills any mold spores and other bacteria that might be on the fruit.

I can see how the vinegar would kill the mold, it works great as household cleaner.

Has anyone done this and does it work?

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Bingzy Bee App Review

Posted by Brande on March 19, 2012
in Education, Family Stuff, Fun Stuff, Parenting, Shopping

Join Bingzy Bee as your child has fun through this new learning app! Just released in January, this app is available for iPhone, iTouch, & iPad. This adorable character is directed for your younger ones (ages 2-6). There are 4 activities to choose from: “Bingzy’s ABC Song”, “Song & Games”, “Letter Drag & Drop”, and “Bingzy to the Rescue”

Bingzy’s ABC Song – This great little song goes through the alphabet and sounds out the letter, give you a picture, than gives you a word. Perfect for your little ones learning the alphabet

Song & Game – Starts with Bingzy’s ABC Song, then you play a game after the letter D. For example, Letter A is Ant. The app gives you the picture of the Ant and give you _ NT your child then must pick the correct letter out.

Letter Drag & Drop – Similar to the Song & Game section. Except, you get the picture of the Ant and give you _ NT your child then must pick the correct letter.

Bingzy to the Rescue – Save Bingzy’s friends by loading them in the rescue copter in alphabetical order.

My Review

This is a great app for my daughter (3 years old), we are still working on our ABC’s all the way through and this is perfect for her! She’s not quite to the Letter Drag & Drop and Bingzy’s Rescue. But, this is what makes it a great app. She can use it for years to come. At last check this adorable & useful app is available on Itunes for only .99!

Follow them! Here’s Bing Note’s Information!

Website: http://bingnote.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bing-Note/70588121848

Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/bingnote

Faith and Family Reviews received the following product in exchange for writing a review. While we consider it a privilege to receive free products to review, our reviews are our honest opinion and thoughts of the product.

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Organized Days & Seed Update – This Week’s Monday Motivation

Posted by html404 on March 19, 2012
in Family Stuff, Farm Stuff, Food and Treats, Fun Stuff, Gardening, Monday Motivation, Saving Money

There is always something to do around our home, whether it’s housework, work or whatever. For this week’s motivation I want us to work on organizing our days better to get more done across the board, especially once we have the garden and chickens. It’ll be easier once summer comes, I think, but for now we need more organized days as not everything is getting done that needs to be done lately. It doesn’t help that all the children have been sick the past week, but still when we get behind on things it is time to pull up our boot straps and get back at it. I may blog less this week as we catch up, just depends.

Seeds and Veggie Plants

On Friday afternoon I was able to get onions, kale, parsley, leeks, spinach, cabbage and Swiss chard planted. You should see the children’s seeds! They are no longer seeds, but little plants! It’s amazing how they sprouted and grew in the last week!

And here are the seeds I planted on Friday, March 16. Again, as you can see I used what I had to save money, instead of buying seed flats I used the big foil roasters and lasagna pans. Hey it works as I got 40-45 seeds planted in each! I did buy 4″ pots to replant everything into and we’ll reuse the egg cartons and pans to plant more seeds for succession planting.

Fun!

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