Archive for Fun Stuff

The Backyard Safari Outfitters Review

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

Safari Review Collage-edit

Our children love to play outside. I love that they have the freedom to play outside when they want and they have the space to roam freely over our property. They make up their own games and create their own “toys” and “weapons” for whatever animal or battle they are fighting.

The Backyard Safari Outfitters offers some wonderfully fun products for kids who love to explore, be outside and examine nature up close.


The Backyard Safari Outfitters Review

We received a Magnifying Glass, a The Critter Shack, The Essential Cargo Vest, Mini Lantern and Scoop Net from The Backyard Safari Outfitters. Our children loves the products and have been having a blast with them catching lightening bugs, butterflies and even baby chicks with the scoop net! They look so cute dressed up in The Essential Cargo Vest.

All of the products are holding up surprisingly well considering we have five children making use of them. Even the scoop net has withstood chick catching. It has come apart but not broke. The mini lantern even came with batteries in it. I was impressed, as most battery operated toys do not come with batteries.

The Essential Cargo Vest has so many hooks and pockets, I am sure all of The Backyard Safari Outfitters products could be clipped or carried in it! It was great to see the children make use of the hooks so they could hang the lantern, pocket the magnifying glass and have their hands free to carry their scoop net and critter shack. Very inventive.

We are very pleased with The Backyard Safari Outfitters products and would like to try more of their products in the future. Two thumbs up from us!

Visit www.backyardsafari.com for more information or to shop their products.


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Bookboard Review and Free Trial!

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.

BookboardLogo

Mechanimals, Me and My Dragon, The Lucky Day Picnic, Doors in the Air are only a few of the wonderful books available through Bookboard.com.  This app has over 400 books available to unlock with up to 4 children’s accounts (up to the age of 12).   Once the books are downloaded, they can be read offline.  Currently, Bookboard is available for iPads with iOS 5.x or higher.  Bookboard recommends using and iPad2 or later version.  However, they do work on an original iPad they are just slower.  Bookboard says on their website that are adding other devices and platforms in the future.

BookBoard2

 

Bookboard sets goals for your children and parents can check their progress through the app as well.  Once a goal is reached, your child is rewarded with more books unlocked to continue their reading.

BookBoard1

Bookboard Review and Free Trial

 

Head to Bookboard’s website for a FREE TRIAL!  If you and your children enjoy it you can purchase a subscription for only $8.99 if you pay per month or if you choose the 6 month subscription its $29.94 or $4.99 a month!  In the aspect of things if you purchase one book will cost $4.99. Here you have unlimited reading at your fingertips!

Here are a few on the many subjects that can be found on Bookboard: Smithsonian Series, Berenstain Bears and The Boxcar Children!!

My daughter is just learning to read and just loves the iPad. For us this is a great learning tool and we really enjoyed our books.  You can join today to get your FREE TRIAL too!!


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Back to School with KIWI Shop

Back to school time! We received a fabulous back to school kit from our the KIWI shop that included eight back to school products. KIWI is a natural, organic online shop offering eco-friendly, organic products for parents, kids and the home.

Back to School with KIWI Shop

Below are the products we used and reviewed:

Wean Green 4 oz. Wean Cubes, 4-Pack, Garden – I loved these little glass cubes! Not only are they cute and colorful but great for little snacks. I wouldn’t necessarily send my children to school with them because of the glass material but from a storage stand point they are great containers to have in the cupboard. Though a little pricey.


LiceLogic Repel Conditioning Hair Spray
– I don’t think all the girls have used this product yet but one of them said they did try it and liked it. We’ve never had an issue with lice but now that we have this hopefully we will continue to enjoy a lice free life!

Facial Gel Cleanser
– I know one of my girls has tried this product and she says she liked it and how it made her skin feel softer. She was experiencing a bit of a pimple outbreak on her nose and forehead and she stated this Gel Cleanser was helping get rid of it.

Back to School with Kiwi

Eco Lunchbox – made of stainless steel and very sturdy. Love this as well as the crocodile one for younger children.

Safari Bento Box, Green Crocodile – is super cute and our son loved it for his new Vegetable Crayons!

Back to School with KIWI 4

Vegetable Crayons – My almost 3 year old loved “his” organic vegetable crayons! They were easy for him to handle and fun to use. The only thing negative I noticed is the colors are not as dark as the crayon, even the dark blue and green or red for that matter.

Back to School with KIWI 3


Kids AlternaVites STRAWBERRY 30 CT
– all of our children liked the AlternaVites, except for our 14 year old. They reminded her of the antibiotic she use to have to take before she went to the dentist (she use to have a heart condition). All the children who liked the AlternaVites, asked to have their vitamins. That’s always a good sign in our house….when they don’t run away when it’s time to take any sort of supplement! ;)

Back to School with KIWI 2

Artterro Handmade Paper Bookmaking Kit – Our children enjoyed working on the bookmaking kit together. The only thing the younger children needed my help with was the book binding. This kit makes a great rainy day craft project or a 90 degree plus day.

Back to School with KIWI 5

We really love the product mix offered for back to school! It was fun for all of us to go through the products and test them out.

If you would like to win some cool back to school products from KIWI shop, please visit their giveaway to enter: http://www.kiwishoponline.com/back-to-school-giveaway


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Brutus the Hog – Wordless Wednesday

This is Brutus the Hog. He is a heritage breed Tamworth pig. We met him on one of our trips to a local farm to purchase turkeys. His owners said he climbs into his water trough every day to do this (see photo below) and makes a ton more work – because the trough has to be washed out every day rather than weekly or however often the farmer deemed best. We thought it was hilarious that Brutus did this.

Brutus the hog in a trough_edit

Brutus the Hog_edit

Then what does our cow do a week later? Yes, Miss Moo climbed in her 25 gallon water trough and cracked it! Argh! Those stock tanks are not cheap. Thankfully, we had purchased ours used, but still they are hard to come by in good shape even when purchasing them used. So she now has to use her hay bucket for water.

My husband is interested in raising some heritage hogs. They are really fun to observe. Not sure at what point we’ll get to raising hogs but thinking of all the bacon we’d get from a hog makes our mouth water!


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Happy Family #hfbrightside



Readers familiar with our blog and family know that we value healthy eating and living. We try to promote products our family is personally interested in and enjoys. We review a lot of green, eco-friendly and organic products because we want to use products that are safe for the whole family. As beginning organic farmers, we desire to eat organic foods, including snacks, because we want to provide only the best food possible for our children. Their future health depends on it.

Happy Family

Happy Family Products_edit

Happy Family offers organic meals and snacks for infants and toddlers (older children will love them too – ours did!). They are also great for traveling.

Happy Family products are a wholesome start for babies and are organic meals and snacks that your toddler will love, ours did!

Happy Family Puffs

Specific Happy Family products include: Happy Baby, Happy Tot, Happy Bellies, Happy Puffs, Happy Yogis, Happy Squeeze and more. Our children loved everything we tried and have asked for more! If you want to learn more about their full line of products or specific nutritional information, visit www.HappyFamilyBrands.com

Happy Family – Bright Side Campaign

As parents of eight children, we know how hard it can be at times to get a child to eat what is put before them. We do not require them to eat a plateful of something they do not like but they have to at least try a little bit of it. We learned that the hard way with our oldest child when she was little and now our youngest children thank us (or maybe not) for our foresight. (wry smile). We actually made her eat a bowlful of broccoli for fussing about it. Amazingly, she loves it to this day. However, we no longer require a full portion of anything be eaten if a child does not like it! That’s our “Bright Side” story because it did end well for all of us and we can laugh about it now. Though at the time it was an ordeal.

Happy Family’s Bright Side Campaign is a campaign that shares:

Stories in a a humorous light on food and feeding challenges that parents have through sharing funny stories told by top bloggers that are then acted out by improv troupe the Upright Citizen’s Brigade.

Happy Family wants YOU to share your personal “Bright Side” or funny feeding stories about food and the challenges that come with raising your children. Part of this campaign includes a sweepstakes. Happy Family will pick a funny feeding story to award $20K towards a child’s college education (the rules and regulations are on their Facebook page). To share your story or to view the contest rules visit: https://www.facebook.com/HAPPYFAM/app_512040132171168

For an example of a funny feeding story, watch the video below of Fellow blogger’s, Jim Lin from Busy Dad Blog, special feeding tactics – be prepared to laugh!

And don’t forget to share your own funny feeding story on Happy Family’s Facebook page for a chance to win $20K towards your child’s education! https://www.facebook.com/HAPPYFAM/app_512040132171168 . If you share your story or link on Twitter, be sure to use the hashtag #hfbrightside.


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100 Baby Chicks: Cornish Rock and Freedom Rangers

Another big day here at the Gould farm. 100 baby chicks arrived…all ALIVE at that. That’s impressive. We were expecting the worst to be honest, especially when the Postal worker mentioned they were not doing very well when we received the call. These cuties are just a day old and made their journey in the 90 degree temperatures we’ve been experiencing here in Chicagoland.

We purchased 50 more Freedom Rangers, which did really well growth wise, except for that last day, and of course our first batch’s journey was not quite so successful. Here’s to hoping and praying we don’t lose a single one! Freedom Ranger broilers take 12 weeks to mature, so are a little slower growing than their counterparts, the White Cornish Rock.

FFR Second Batch of Broilers Collage

The White Cornish Rock are what you would find in the grocery store. These will take about 8 weeks to mature and be ready to be processed. You will never taste a better chicken until you’ve tried free range, pastured chicken. I don’t want our family to go back to store bought chicken after tasting our first batch of Freedom Rangers. We’ve tasted friend’s pastured chicken and that is pretty much what got us turned on to raising our own.

Our children delight in the arrival of new little fur babies.

Here’s to truly all natural, farm fresh poultry! Cannot wait to have a freezer full of these…yummy!


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Wood Pallet Herb Garden – Wordless Wednesday

Wood Pallet Herb Garden – Wordless Wednesday

FFR Pallet Herb Garden
If you click on the photo it’s not so blurry. I don’t know why the editing program does that to photos!

This post was inspired by http://www.repeatcrafterme.com/2013/05/wooden-pallet-herb-garden.html?showComment=1372278599739&m=1 but I did not originally hear about it from her. I can’t even remember where I learned of this unique way to recycle pallet and plant a wood pallet herb garden. All I remember is seeing the idea and liking it. Then when we got our bags of soil, still on a wood pallet, I told the family I wanted to keep the wood pallet for an herb garden.

This was very easy to do. I just took a small roll of landscaping fabric and stapled it to the bottom of the wood pallet. Then my husband and I filled it up with about 2.5 bags of organic soil mix (sorry cannot remember the size of the bags right now), added some perlite and then planted our herbs.

We planted from left to right: rosemary, chives, curly leaf parsley, oregano and basil in the last two rows. These plants all came from a friend’s farm. She specializes in transplants, has a greenhouse; and since we never got our herbs planted from seed we got these from her. I’ll have to let you know how well the plants grow in this wood pallet herb garden, as this is the first time we’ve tried growing something this way.

We still have fennel, more parsley and oregano to plant, as well as all our fall planting…amidst everything else – one monthly market, a weekly market and possibly a corporate market for just five weeks this summer. Oy!

So much to do and so little time….We cannot wait to cook with our own herbs and share them with our CSA members (Consumer Supported Agriculture) and customers! Here’s to hoping the plants yield enough for all.


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Wordless Friday: Family Circle


I did write for permission to use this.

I’m starting a new trend with a Wordless Friday post. I needed something fast and this has been sitting in drafts for such a time as this. I love Family Circle comics. Don’t you? Real life at its finest. Can you relate?


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Polly Pocket Lea Fashion Collection and Wall Party Tree House

“I participated in a campaign on behalf of Mom Central Consulting for Polly Pocket. I received product samples to facilitate my review and a promotional item as a thank you for participating.”

Polly Pocket Lea Fashion Collection 1_edit

I have to admit we do not buy a lot of toys. Easy to understand when you realize and understand we’ve been buying real, live animals instead. Nevertheless, one thing our children have always, always enjoyed is people figures of any kind, which is why the Polly Pocket Lea Fashion Collection and Wall Party Tree House appealed to me for our youngest daughter.

Polly Pocket Wall Party Tree House 1_edit

Ever since we got the packages, Blondie and her brothers have been pretty much playing with them non-stop, except when chores have to be done and they are called away from them. Blondie has been quite generous in sharing her new toys. However, the youngest has been teasing her quite a bit and taking things on her- aggravating to say the least.

The Polly Pocket Lea Fashion Collection and Wall Party Tree House have been a huge success here at our house and I have a funny feeling more will be added in the future if Blondie has anything to say about it – especially when it comes to using her own money!

Polly Pocket Wall Party Tree House 2_edit


What My Daughter Likes About Polly Pocket Playsets

Polly Pocket Wall Party Tree House 3_edit

They are fun!

They are fun to play with!

They are easy to carry around.

I like to change Lea’s clothes.

I like that I can put Polly Pocket’s tree house on the wall.

I like to play me and Polly Pocket’s friends are playing around.

Mommy note: The pieces are very small so be aware if you have little ones younger than four.

We would highly recommend a Polly Pocket Playset for the little girl in your life. They are very inexpensive, at least for our children’s birthday or Christmas budgets. If you have birthdays or need a late end of school year gift, we would like to share that purchasing either of these Polly Pocket products is easy if you click on the Amazon Social Store below.

Enjoy! We are! ;)


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Tips For Keeping Kids Entertained

This is a partnered post by a guest writer.

Avoiding in-car boredom on your summer break

It’s the time of year when we’re all taking to the road with the kids in tow, and it’s time to get your thinking cap on to find ways to keep the kids entertained. We all find long car journeys boring, but for excitable kids with heaps of energy, they can be an even bigger challenge.

PassSmart have written a few tips to keeping in-car boredom at bay, which, hopefully, will keep the dreaded “are we nearly there yet!?” away.

Design their own game

Getting the kids to create their own game is bound to keep them occupied. If you’re going on holiday or a day trip, they could design a game to do with your destination. So, for example, if you were on your way to Disneyland, a) you’ll have some VERY excited kids, and b) they could draw or write a letter to each Disney character they want to meet.

By keeping their mind on the destination you’ll be able to keep them thinking about what they’re going to do rather than the boring journey which comes first.

Plan you breaks

Keeping Kids Entertained

Plan your breaks strategically to make sure the kids get a chance to get out of the car and stretch their legs. The more energy they use up during your stop off, the less restless they will be in the car. Try and stop off somewhere where they can get out of the car and have a little run around. This isn’t always possible, but you could consider taking a scenic detour to find somewhere away from the main roads.

Beware the sugary snacks

The best part of going on a road trip is often the in-car snacks, but try not to let them over do it with the sugary treats. Staying still in the car is tough at the best of times, let alone on a sugar high! Instead pack snacks with a natural energy boost like fruit, nuts and raisins. For something a little more appealing, you could make your own ice poles with fruit juice and pack them in a cooler bag, ready for lunch.

You don’t, however, have to cut out the sweets completely! Instead, try to impose an evening curfew for sweet snacks and, ideally, let the kids have them before you stop off for a break so that they can burn the energy off.

Old-fashioned fun

You don’t have to have an iPad, a portable DVD player and a Nintendo DS to keep the kids happy in the car. Great old-fashioned games like I-Spy or lorry spotting are fantastic ways to keep the kids occupied, and, you never know, you might even have fun too!

Take it in turns to choose a game you want to play and the kids won’t be able to complain about your choice of entertainment. You can even put an educational twist on some in-car games, like, for example, the alphabet game. Get the kids to read license plates and think of an animal/food/country/color relating to each letter. You might be surprised at how long in-car games keep the kids occupied for, and, best of all, they won’t cost you a cent!

Avoid music battles

Trying to decide what music to listen to in the car can be a headache in itself, but there is a way to keep everyone happy. Unless you all have different devices to listen to, you’ll know that someone has to compromise. Get the kids to choose 5 songs each and then take it in turns to play one of their choice. You may have to listen to a few Disney classics, but at least there’ll be no squabbling to contend with!

Finally, drive safely and enjoy your trip!


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