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CordaRoy’s Beanbag Bed Review

Posted by html404 on October 3, 2013
in Bedding, Deals, Furniture, Home, Reviews, SALES, Shopping, Uncategorized

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.

If you had to choose an area of your home as your favorite, which room would it be? When I typed that question, I thought I had my favorite room in mind but as I thought about it, I have more than one favorite. I was going to say my bedroom because I spend a lot of time there sleeping and just getting away from the noise of our busy household, but as I thought more about it, I realized how much I like our Kitchen and dining room area too. We spend a lot of time in these two rooms preparing and eating meals, doing school work and just living, being together.

What is essential to your favorite room? A comfy place to sit and relax, right? Well, I have a product that fits those qualities! It’s CordaRoy’s Beanbag bed and chair combo.

About CordaRoy’s

CordaRoy’s was recently featured on ABC’s popular show called Shark Tank. The owner of CordaRoy’s, Byron Young, was able to secure a deal with one of the sharks, Lori Greiner, who has her own show on QVC-TV.

CordaRoy’s is a unique company in that it offers a beanbag chair that is also a bed. The beanbags come in a variety of sizes: Kids Sleeper, Full Sleeper, Queen Sleeper, King Sleeper and King Sleeper Sofa. The other unique quality is CordaRoy’s beanbag cover. It’s made of quality corduroy that not only comes in a lot of cool colors but it is also removable making it easy to clean – and yes, it is machine washable! Prices range from $129-$599 for the beanbag sleepers. CordaRoy’s also sells extra covers, pet beds and footstools.

CordaRoy’s Beanbag Bed

To say we were excited to receive a CordaRoy’s full size beanbag bed to review is an understatement! I actually made my daughter wait to open the box until I was done work and ready to take photos.

CordaRoy’s beanbag bed arrived in a fairly small box that looked like this:

There is a special way to unpack the box so we had previewed this unpacking video supplied by CordaRoy’s. I share it just in case you are interested in it:

My daughter excitedly opening the box!

Inside we found a neatly packaged cover, instructions and guarantee on top of the vacuum packed beanbag bed.

My daughters unpacked the bed like pros and got it into it’s slate chenille cover (blue is my daughter B’s favorite color!). Here she is with our youngest, sorry the photo is blurry, I have an issue with my family remaining still while snapping photos!

Here is CordaRoy’s beanbag as a chair, which my daughter uses to read and do schoolwork on by day:

This is CordaRoy’s beanbag as a bed, which my daughter uses to sleep on at night:

And yes, she gave me permission to post this last photo, as it shows her utter delight in her new CordaRoy’s beanbag bed!

B’s CordaRoy’s Beanbag Bed Review

B says the beanbag chair is the perfect size for her to curl up alone or to share with one of her teen sisters or with two younger siblings. She says if she puts it at the right angle it makes a perfect throne! She thoroughly enjoys her new chair for reading and doing her school work. She says it is fairly easy to unpack into a bed at night.

B thinks her beanbag bed is lovely and squishable like arms hugging her. It makes a lovely nest for sleeping. It stays warm when she gets up. For example, she got up and was gone for an hour and a half to pick veggies for our CSA boxes and to milk Miss Moo and her bed was still warm when she returned to it after her shower! She says it is very soft and that she loves it. As she stated above about the chair, she says the beanbag bed is fairly easy to pack up into the beanbag chair.

One of our sons wants to steel B’s new beanbag bed and the rest of the children really, really like it! I still need to take a few moments to try out her beanbag chair and her beanbag bed, I just haven’t yet. I’m going to have to do it while she’s out milking because then I’ll know it’s vacant!

Shop Now for a 15% Discount!

CordaRoy’s is offering Faith and Family Reviews’s reader a great little deal! If you place an order at www.cordaroys.com on or before October 12, enter the coupon code BEANBAGREVIEW (no space) and you will receive a 15% discount on your purchase of one CordaRoy’s sleeper! Hope you’ll take advantage of this offer as CordaRoy’s beanbag bed will make a great gift or addition to your favorite room!

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V8 V-Fusion Refreshers

Posted by html404 on October 2, 2013
in All Natural Products, Family Stuff, Food and Treats, Health and Nutrition, Reviews, Uncategorized

Faith and Family Reviews received the following product and a gift card 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.

We recently tried V8 V-Fusion Refreshers and were pleasantly surprised by their yummy flavors.

What are V8 V-Fusion® Refreshers?

New V8 V-Fusion Refreshers are a light and crisp juice drink with a 20-25% blend of fruit and vegetable juices that come in four delicious – and unique – family pleasing flavors. Made with both fruit and vegetable juices, V8 V-Fusion Refreshers are naturally sweetened, contain no artificial colors, flavors or preservatives and are an excellent source of Vitamin C.

V8 V-Fusion Refreshers are available in four tasty flavors, Black Cherry Berry, Cranberry Grape, Tangerine Passionfruit and Peach Strawberry, providing premium juice refreshments that will make the whole family happy.

We received Tangerine Passionfruit and Black Cherry Berry in 46 oz bottles. The ingredients of these two V8 VFusion Freshers are as follows:

Tangerine Passionfruit: Water, reconstituted vegetable juice blend, (water, concentrated juices of sweet potatoes, carrots), reconstituted fruit juice blend, (water, concentrated juice of apple, tangerine and passion fruit), sugar, contains less than 2% of citric acid (for flavor), natural flavoring, passion fruit concentrate, vitamin C (absorbic acid).

Black Cherry Berry: Water, reconstituted vegetable juice, (water, concentrated juices of purple carrots, sweet potatoes, carrots), reconstituted fruit juice (water, concentrated juice of apples, cherries, strawberries, red raspberries, black berries), sugar, contains less than 2% of citric acid (for flavor), malic acid, natural flavoring (contains pomegranate juice), vitamin C (absorbic acid), natural flavor.

All these ingredients do not look so bad to the naked eye, but the natural flavoring is obscure so I’d like to know what exactly it is, pretty please, V8?

V8 V-Fusion Refreshers Review

I turned to my dear husband for V8 VFusion Refreshers review photos, because as you know he adds a definite umpf to my blog posts. Remember, he’s the one who turns his nose up at most veggies, so getting him to drink something with the word vegetable in it was progress in and off itself. The children are easy!

Hamming up his taste testing….

Tentatively bringing the cup to his mouth….

Taking a drink…..

Mmmmm…..surprisingly good!

Ahhhh…..the Black Cherry Berry is refreshingly good!

Therefore, we have a winner! Both the V8 V-Fusion Refreshers Black Cherry Berry and Tangerine Passionfruit were a big hit among the children as well. They even asked if we could buy more. We found the V8 V-Fusion Refreshers were tasty, tasting more like fruit juice than vegetable juice. Personally, I preferred the Black Cherry Berry over the Tangerine Passionfruit because the Tangerine Passionfruit flavor tasted something like peach to me and I’m not a huge peach fan. Nevertheless, it didn’t stop me from going back for more later in the evening!

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LeapReader “Ready, Set, Read & Write!”

Posted by 278Wife on October 1, 2013
in Books, Downloads, Education, Family Stuff, Kids Stuff, Parenting, Reviews, School, Techie Stuff, Technology/Electronics, Travel, Uncategorized

I received free LeapFrog products in order to host the LeapFrog sponsored MommyParty. The opinions expressed here are my own.

I am thrilled that I was able to be a host for the LeapReader “Ready, Set, Read & Write” Party, sponsored by Leapfrog! LeapReader is the complete learn-to-read-and-write solution. It combines reading, writing, and listening into one easy and fun system. LeapReader uses books, flash cards, workbooks, audio book apps, music apps, and even trivia apps to enhance the learning experience. If you’ve never tried a LeapReader, you must. It is lifechanging! My son and I call it a magic pencil, since it knows everything.

The activity book that came with the LeapReader was great. It really taught us how versatile the LeapReader was. For example, we turned to the page featuring “Cars” and the LeapReader read it to us. It also had a game to play, and it would sound out the words for you if you touched the words with the LeapReader.

When we turned the page to the “Leap and the Lost Dinosaur,” my son loved pointing the LeapReader on the different pictures and learning fun facts about them. He was engaged the entire time, and was learning. It is the best of both worlds! Another page he loved was a game you played with the “Muscular System” page. The LeapReader would give you a clue and you had to point to the answer. For example, touch the muscle you smile with. We played that for a good ten minutes.

The LeapReader flash cards were a hit, too. You are able to mix and match letters to build words. It has rhyming, spelling, and singing games as well. My son’s favorite were the singing games. If you touch one of the pictures with the LeapReader it sings a song, spelling and sounding out the picture. It actually made him start to remember how to spell the words, it was very catchy! My favorite feature was the included sight words list. Just touch the word with the LeapReader and it would say it.

We attempted the Writing books, but my son was more interested in hearing the stories than writing. Some of my friends’ kids came over and tried them, and they had a ball! The LeapReader really tells you step by step how to write Upper and Lowercase letters, while saying letter sounds. I found it amazing that the writing magically appears on the special paper.

Each of the writing activity sets includes a workbook filled with fun activities as well as extra writing paper so you can practice. The activity books are so interactive that the kids are constantly engaged.

The Get Ready for Kindergarten book is a must for all preschool aged children. It teaches letters, vowels, beginning sounds, blends, patterns, numbers, skip counting, math, months, seasons, community places, and more. This was my son’s favorite book. He plays with it almost daily. There is so much to do on each page, that he rarely does the same thing twice.

My son really enjoyed reading the Monsters University LeapReader Interactive Book, too. You can either touch on the book picture and it will read it for you, or you can touch word by word to read and follow along. For now my son likes to listen to it, but I’m sure in no time he will be wanting to touch word by word. This will then teach him how to read.

I am absolutely in love with the LeapReader “Ready, Set, Read & Write” system. In additon to all of the workbooks, flash cards, and books you can buy for your LeapReader, you can also download apps to put on the LeapReader. Mine was conveniently loaded with two audio books, learning music, and a trivia app. Let me just tell you how amazing this is for travel. My son brings this in the car, plugs in his headphones, and enjoys listening to the stories and music. With a touch of a button you can switch between apps. The LeapReader is lightweight so I carry it in my purse or diaper bag when we are out and about so he is always entertained and more importantly, learning. The best part is that no batteries are required. Simply charge it with the included USB cord and you are good to go!

I can honestly say that this LeapReader is life changing. I will be telling all of my mom friends about how great of a learning tool this is. It is great for reading, writing, and listening skills. My son has yet to become bored with it, and continues to ask me to buy more books or apps for him. I love that he asks me to buy him books rather than toys. The LeapReader is definitely going to create lifelong learners for all children who use it!

www.LeapFrog.com

I received free LeapFrog products in order to host the LeapFrog sponsored MommyParty. The opinions expressed here are my own.

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Dots on Tots

Posted by 278Wife on September 27, 2013
in Baby Products, Children's Clothing, Clothing, Eco Friendly Products, Fashion, Organic, Reviews, Uncategorized

Dots on Tots is a company striving to provide high quality organic cotton hats for babies and toddlers. Skin sensitivities are becoming more and more common among babies. By using organic materials, babies’ skin can be protected and parents can have peace of mind. Dots on Tots features innovative hat designs for girls and boys all made from natural, certified-organic cotton. They specialize in ear flap hats to protect babies from outdoor elements such as cold and wind, as well as providing protection from ear, nose, and throat infections.

My daughter had the pleasure of wearing Dots on Tots’ organic cotton Ear Protection flaphat. The natural, eco-friendly material was ultra soft and very lightweight. It’s perfect for Fall right now. It keeps her head nice and warm without overheating. The ear flaps fit securely over her ears, but were not too tight to where she was trying to pull them off. It has a nice velcro closure under the chin that stayed secure. She felt very comfortable in it.

We always go for walks in the stroller and my daughter tries to fall asleep, but sometimes she wakes up from the cars passing by or the dogs barking in the neighborhood. I noticed these noises did not bother her while she was wearing the hat, and she actually napped longer!

Dots on Tots also sells Noise Reduction Hats, which include special inserts for the ear flaps to reduce outside noises. These would be great for sporting events or any high crowd level attractions. Dots on Tots hats come in a variety of styles, sizes, and colors. Their materials are very soft and of high quality. What a great product and company!

Visit them at www.dotsontots.com

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Fencing – Wordless Wednesday

Posted by html404 on September 25, 2013
in Animals, DIY Projects, Uncategorized, Wordless Wednesday

Our version of fencing!

Fencing supplies from Premier One.

Hubby pounding t-posts.

Baby boy helping. Sorry the photo is blurry. I was disappointed when I went to download it.

End product – fenced in pasture for Miss Moo! And we need to move it again since she has just about sufficiently cut this pasture down. Since she respects the electric fencing, we only needed to put up one strand of fencing compared to three strands or 4-7 strands for escapee horses and goats!

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Picking to Win with Capri Sun Big Pouch

Posted by html404 on September 21, 2013
in Contests, Family Stuff, Fun Stuff, Home, Kids Stuff, Uncategorized

Capri Sun Big Pouch

Our teens and tweens sampled three flavors of Capri Sun Big Pouch products this weekend for the first time. GASP! I know! They’ve had regular Capri Sun pouches, just not the Capri Sun Big Pouch. Capri Sun Big Pouch Fruit Punch seemed to be the flavor that was enjoyed the most, as Capri Sun Big Pouch Maui Cooler and Capri Sun Big Pouch Strawberry Kiwi were more faintly flavored according to my crew. Our teens enjoyed drinking Capri Sun after our “Pickers Adventure” and after working hard fencing for a couple of hours. We had to put up more fencing for our cow since she grazed through her new pasture this week. Oh the joys of rotational grazing! Capri Sun Big Pouch products are available at Walmart for just 88 cents a piece!

Capri Sun Big Pouch and American Pickers on History

Mike Wolfe, creator and star of American Pickers on History, in conjunction with Capri Sun Big Pouch are sponsoring a contest called Picking to Win with Capri Sun Big Pouch for you all to enter! The grand prize is a trip to Nashville, Tennessee. Contest winners (and 3 guests) will meet and do a half day pick with Mike Wolfe, creator and star of American Pickers on History. How exciting is that to all you pickers and history lovers! To enter the contest all you have to do is go to the highlighted link above, enter your name, email, address, birth date, phone number and agree to contest rules. Then upload a photo from your picking adventure of what you found on your pick and you are done! Takes no time at all.

100 other winners will win a picking kit. The items included in the picking kit Capri Sun Big Pouch contest are: Messenger Bag, Magnifying Glass, Gloves, Bandanas, Flashlights, Journal, Pen, T-shirt, Kid Pickers Book (signed by Mike Wolfe, creator and star of American Pickers on History) and Carabineers.

Capri Sun Big Pouch Pick Adventure

As I mentioned in my intro, we went on our own picking adventure. We love antiques and history so my teen “Om” and tween “JAG” helped me pick in the barn we are renting. When we made the agreement to rent the barn it was “as is” so a lot of OLD stuff was left in there. We assembled our own picking kit of gloves, a bag, flashlight, pen and notebook. My son and daughter grabbed a Capri Sun Big Pouch Strawberry Kiwi and our picking kit, then we headed to the barn.

We discovered a couple of old milk cans, an old gas can, thermos and bridle or halter as shown in the photo collage above. We have no idea the value of any of these items but we’d love to find out! I entered the photo of my son in the Picking to Win with Capri Sun Big Pouch contest. Be sure to enter your own picking photo!

Feel free to follow Capri Sun Big Pouch on Twitter (Please use hashtags #shop #CapriSunPickers and #cbias) and Facebook. Have fun picking!

What are your favorite places to pick? Your favorite pick items?

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Back to School with Claratin

Posted by Professor on September 21, 2013
in Uncategorized

“As a member of the Children’s Claritin Mom Crew, I receive product samples and promotional items to share and use as I see fit. No monetary compensation has taken place and any opinions expressed by me are honest and reflect my actual experience.”

I have a son who is an allergy sufferer. He suffers not only from seasonal allergies but dog allergy as well. Claritin has been our lifesaver! Here are some allergy tips to remember during the back to school season!

Back to School Allergy Tips

1. Be sure to have Children’s Claritin, the #1 pediatrician-recommended non-drowsy allergy brand, on hand!

2. Multi-vitamins are building blocks to having a strong immune system. Make taking a multi-vitamin part of your child’s daily routine.

3. Let there be light! Mold doesn’t like sunlight, so try to keep your curtains open during the day. Should be easy during the summer months!

4. Did you know that most pillows trap allergens, dust mites, and bacteria? Monitor the cleanliness of the pillow your child with allergies sleeps on and replace if necessary.

5. Back to school season means lots of laundry for many moms. Be sure to remove laundry from the washing machine promptly. Allowing wet clothes to sit in the washer means mold can quickly grow there.

6. Monitor pollen counts and adjust outdoor before and after school activities accordingly. Dry, windy days can be particularly high in pollen.

7. Showering or bathing at the end of the day as opposed to the morning can be helpful in removing allergens from body surfaces and hair.

8. Stay hydrated! Always send your child to school with a bottle of water. Drinking lots of clear fluids through the day can help get rid of toxins and flush out body.

9. Peak pollen production typically occurs in early morning, so try to plan outside activities at other times of the day.

Also do not forget to vote Play with Children’s Claritin & KaBOOM! www.facebook.com/Claritin

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A Surprise for Lily

Posted by html404 on September 19, 2013
in Books, Family Stuff, Girl Stuff, Kids Stuff, Reviews, Uncategorized

This review was written by my second oldest, “B”.

A Surprise for Lily is another great book. The fourth in the series written by Mary Ann Kinsinger and Suzanne Woods Fisher. I really like the Lily Lapp books. Lily has grown and matured so much throughout the series. A lot happens in this installment.

Lily’s cousin, Hannah, and her family moves away and her grandpa passes away. I really felt bad about it for Lily because Hannah was her best friend. Lily misses them very much. Lily’s brother, Joseph, finds/gets a dog which he names Dozer, short for Bulldozer. Joseph loves his pup and makes excuses for every naughty puppy thing he does, such as: stealing boots, pulling clothes off the line and digging in the garden. Lily does not quite appreciate Dozer’s talent for getting into mischief. I like Dozer, but could understand why Lily found him annoying. He caused Lily and Mrs. Lapp an awful lot of extra work.

The long awaited baby “sister” arrives and turns out to be a new brother, much to Lily’s disappointment. Poor Lily, she waited so long for a sister.

Other news, Danny started going to school with Lily and Joseph, a new family comes to town, the Hershbergers, who have six children (3 boys and 3 girls). One of the boys, Harvey, who is nine and a bit of a trouble maker…..until Lily’s mother helped the new teacher (Teacher Judith) with English classes and outwits him. He suddenly never acts up again. I don’t think I could have treated Harvey the way Mrs. Lapp did. She did an amazing job.

Aaron Yoder still plagues Lily but she, Aaron, and Harvey actually became friends in this book, after the boys helped Lily in two incidents – both involving Dozer, who she learned to appreciate and love. I loved the fact that Harvey, Aaron and Lily became friends, it showed how much Lily had grown up.

Two thumbs up from “B”!

“Available August 2013 at your favorite bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group.”

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Alphie the Squid App Review

Posted by Brande on September 17, 2013
in Downloads, Fun Stuff, Kids Stuff, Products for Dad, Products for Mom, Reviews, Techie Stuff, Technology/Electronics, Uncategorized

Alphie the Squid App Review

Help Alphie the Squid to grow up big and strong on this new app. Guide Alphie through the maze of the ocean floor, along the way you need to watch out for riptides, sharks and other obstacles. Alphie needs eat along the way to help him battle the riptides, there are little fish along the way for Alphie. You earn points by finding treasure and treasure fish!

The animation of this app is vibrant, inviting, & funny and the music is great! This app is addicting for adults, yet very friend for kids. This Alphie helps kids with swiping action as well as learning about fish.

Check out the Alphie Trailer on YouTube!

Alphie is available for iPhone, iPad, iPod, and android products.

Don’t forget to like Alphie on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.

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Why is Organic Dairy So Important? #FightPesticides

Posted by html404 on September 17, 2013
in All Natural Products, Family Stuff, Farm Stuff, Food and Treats, Health, Health and Nutrition, Home, Organic, Safety, Uncategorized

This post is part of my application to become a Stoneyfield ambassador and I will receive Stoneyfield coupons for my participation. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Why is Organic Dairy So Important?

I know our family knows why organic dairy is so important but thought I’d share with you our reasons for wanting to eat and drink organic dairy to the point of owning our own cow. As you know, organic anything can be expensive, especially when buying for ten people. A huge reason for our buying a cow is so we could provide fresh milk for our family (and animals because we do share!). You also know from our Mariano’s shop, organic milk is around $7.99 per gallon at Whole Foods and Mariano’s. However, our reason for feeding her organic feed and hay is to be free of harmful pesticides (and GMOs – Genetically Modified Organisms) often used on crops. Now that we have our own pasture and hay, we know without a doubt our milk is organic, free of harmful GMOs. We have been supplementing Miss Moo with certified organic feed because when we brought her home she was underweight and want to fatten her up so she’s a good weight for her age and stage of lactation. We also know exactly what Miss Moo is fed, how she how the milk is handled and how she is cared for. We like knowing where our food comes from, and for our large family that means we are raising our own at this stage of our lives.