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Kids II Taggies Bedding and Bouncer

This review was made possible by Double Duty Divas and Kids II. I was provided the featured product free of charge to facilitate my review, but all opinions are 100% mine.

Kids II Taggies Bedding Review

My four month old daughter LOVES touching and feeling different textures.  The Taggies Owl Crib Bedding Collection arrived at a perfect time for her to really explore.  The 4 Piece Crib Set contains a brightly colored polka dot crib sheet, a matching diaper stacker with an owl perched on top, an adorable owl and polka dot textured comforter, and a coordinating cribskirt.

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When I put the polka dotted sheet in the crib and laid my daughter on her tummy on it, she was enthralled!

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She probably stared at all of the dots for ten minutes straight.  I don’t cover her up in her bed, so I use the comforter for tummy time.  She had a ball, touching all of the polka dots, and looking at the whimsical owls.  Her favorite part of the comforter were all of the “Taggies” placed around it.  The tags are satin-like and of all different colors.

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The Taggies Owl Comforter has now become her new favorite tummy time spot!  I loved how soft the materials were and that it is machine washable.  The colors are so bright, yet very soothing at the same time.  It is a perfect bedding set for any little girl.  My daughter sure enjoys it!

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The Taggies Owl Crib Bedding Collection can be purchased at Buy Buy Baby.


Taggies Soft ‘N Snug Bouncer Review

My daughter is one of those babies that likes to be held at all times.  It’s very cute at times, but not when I want to get something accomplished!  I was very anxious to try the Taggies Soft ‘N Snug Bouncer.  First of all, it was super easy to put together, it took less than five minutes.  The only tool required is a screwdriver to put the batteries in.

Bouncer1

This bouncer is very unique in that it has two positions so it can either be upright or reclined.  This is great if you wanted to use it for when your baby takes naps.

Bouncer3

It features hanging plush animal toys, and a Peek-A-Boo blanket.  The bouncer has a removable headrest and a sunshade, too.  I love that it has music and vibration, and that you can use them singly or simultaneously.  When I put my daughter in it, she loved it right away.  I think she felt very secure.  She loved batting at the hanging toys and feeling all of the “Taggies” all around the bouncer.  Her favorite, though, was the Peek-A-Boo blanket.  She loved snuggling it and looking at all of the brightly colored tags.  She didn’t care too much for the vibrations, but she enjoyed listening to the music.

Bouncer2

The bouncer is very lightweight, yet sturdy.  It is one of the nicer ones I have seen.  I would highly recommend the Taggies Soft ‘N Snug Bouncer.  It has so many great features and my daughter loves it!

The Taggies Soft ‘N Snug Bouncer can be purchased at Babies ‘R Us

To see all of the many great Taggies products go to their website here.

Check Taggies out on Facebook.

See the Taggies Instagram Page.

 

**All photos copyrighted by Kim H. All rights reserved.”


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Kwickeye Review

This is a sponsored post.

What is Kwickeye?

Kwickeye is a social platform that lets you follow products/services that friends want for their kids and also makes it easy and fun to surprise moms and kids with the things they love!

Kwickeye has a “quick add”, or “Kwickadd” as they like to call it, button that is very easy to install, much like Hootsuite’s or Wishlist’s, simply drag it to your bookmark toolbar and voila! it’s installed. This makes it convenient to add products you like from any online store to your Kwicklist. Your Kwicklist enables friends and family to see the products on your list and allows them to comment, provide recommendations or opinions or maybe even purchase the product for an upcoming gift! You can also receive surprise notifications of an anonymous gift!

Kwickeye logo

Kwickeye was founded by a mom – Gayathri Santhanam, an entrepreneur with technology background. She has two adorable kids, Aadit(6) and Anishka(3). She lives in the San Francisco BayArea. The site was featured on CNBC as one of the most promising startups globally.

You can find Kwickeye on Facebook here.

My Kwickeye Review

Kwickeye has a wide variety of products displayed on their site. From clothes, books, toys to organizational tools for mom – I found a fabulous daily organizer from Pottery Barn on that I would love to put in my office. I also found eco-friendly clay, Pure (organic snack bars) and sweet clothing for children.

I like the idea of Kwickeye and can see how helpful it would be to busy moms, moms with family close by and far away and be a general help to moms who attend a lot of birthday parties. Moms and kids could just look up their friend’s lists and pick a cool gift based on their Kwicklist. Eliminating unnecessary gifts and returns. Bonus!


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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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PowerMyLearning

This is a sponsored post.

We love getting educational products, digital or otherwise, to review. It’s fun for the children and changes up our routine a bit trying something new.

PowerMyLearning.org Review

PowerMyLearning is a free, educational website for teachers, parents and children. This site covers all the core subjects of education: Math, Language Arts, Music & Art, Social Studies, Science, Technology, World Languages and My Life (or what we old-timers would consider “Health”). There is a lot of interactive activities and my children enjoy visiting this website. The site does require creating a free account but it’s painless. Just like any other site registration.

My children really loved Biology – they love anything to do with animals – imagine that considering we live on a farm! They also loved the Who Am I section in Language Arts.

Here’s what my children had to say about the site:

Power My Learning

“O” (13) – Picked up on misinformation. She said, “They got stuff like the gods and goddesses wrong in the solar system. They said the goddess of Agriculture was Aphrodite when everyone knows that is Demeter. Aphrodite is the goddess of love and beauty. They said the same thing about Mars, he is the God of War.” Can you tell she’s studied Greek mythology? Thanks to Percy Jackson.

“JAG”(9) – “It’s fun. I didn’t like the millions of years. I liked the stuff about rocks and stuff like that. I like the science things. Actually, I like a lot of it.”

“Blondie” (7) – “It was cool. I didn’t like the fact that there was no “playground” (another site we have used has a “playground” for recess etc., which was actually PBS kids TV programming and computer games) I like their games. My favorite game was the car racing game.”

“Nook” (5) – First he said he didn’t really like it then he changed his mind and said he likes it. Rather fickle little boy, eh?

Overall, I would have to say the children thought it was fun and I thought it was informative and a good site to use as a supplement to their homeschooling material.

PowerMyLearning is revamping their site with a launch date of September 3! We are excited as we thought the site was not very user friendly for mom or children. So this was great news to hear!


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Recipes Using Heinz Apple Cider Vinegar #HeinzVinegar

“I participated in a campaign on behalf of Mom Central Consulting for Heinz Vinegar. I received a product sample to facilitate my review and as a thank you for participating.”

We like using vinegar for many things around our home, not just for cooking but also for cleaning. Did you know if you sprinkle baking soda and then pour vinegar over it and scrub it whitens and cleans like a chemical cleaner but without all the harmful fumes or potential side affects? We use apple cider vinegar for our horse and cows intestinal needs (the nice way of writing about it since I will be talking food in a few minutes!)


Heinz Apple Cider Vinegar

We recently tried a couple of different varieties of Heinz® Vinegar: Heinz® Apple Cider Vinegar and Heinz® Unfiltered Apple Cider Vinegar. Pretty similar products except the unfiltered apple cider vinegar is cloudy and thicker. Both have similar tastes and results in the recipes we used them in, in my opinion. I had never tried either of these products before, just Heinz® Distilled White Vinegar. They also have a few other varieties as well.

Heinz® describes their apple cider vinegar products in this way:

Bottled at the peak of freshness, Heinz Apple Cider Vinegar begins with fine quality apples and crystal clear water to deliver a mellow flavor ideal for brightening up salads, flavoring a main dish, pickling or topping off a cool beverage. For vinegar in its most natural and wholesome form, , check out Heinz Unfiltered Apple Cider Vinegar. It retains the “mother” of the vinegar – a compound created naturally during vinegar’s fermentation process, and is best used in cooking to bring out refreshing flavors, as well as other unique uses.

Heinz® Apple Cider Vinegar 1

Badly Burned Pot Cleaned Up Using Vinegar

Heinz Vinegar Cleaning Test-edit

Sweet and Sour Meatballs

Sweet and Sour Meatballs-edit

adapted from Ruby Hatfield’s recipe in one of the Cooking for Miracles cookbooks I purchased as a teenager to support the children’s hospital in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Serves 4-6

Meatballs

1 lb ground beef
1 egg (beaten)
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon soy sauce or Bragg’s Liquid Aminos
1 small onion (small or fine)
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1-2 tablespoon ground sage

Mix all ingredients together and form into balls. Brown, pour off any excess fat.

Sweet and Sour Sauce

1 cup water
1/3 cup cane sugar
3 tablespoons Heinz® Apple Cider Vinegar or Heinz® Distilled White Vinegar, whatever you have on hand.
1 can pineapple chunks with juice included
1 tablespoon soya sauce or Bragg’s Liquid Amino
3 tablespoons ketchup

Add together. Simmer for 30 minutes. Thicken with 2 tablespoons cornstarch, mixed in 1/4 cup cold water. I often double this for more sauce. Well, now we probably triple or quadruple!

Sweet and Sour Meatballs and Rice-edit

We serve it with rice and veggies or a salad.


Berry Vinaigrette

from Heinz Website

Apple Cider Vinegrette 1

A light and refreshing dressing. Also a wonderful accompaniment to grilled salmon or chicken. Can be made a day in advance. We added sunflower seeds to our salad.

Heinz Apple Cider Vinegar Dressing 1

Ingredients

2/3 cup Heinz® Apple Cider Vinegar** (we used Heinz® Unfiltered Apple Cider Vinegar)
1/4 cup sugar**
1 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 cups cut berries (raspberries, strawberries or blackberries)

Directions

Whisk all ingredients together in a medium bowl. Cover and store in refrigerator. Serve at room temperature. Can be made a day in advance. **If preferred: Replace with Heinz® Distilled White Vinegar Use 1/3 cup of sugar instead of 1/4 cup Makes about 2 cups Prep Time: 5 minutes.

You can gather more recipes here, as well as visit the Heinz Vinegar Pinterest board.


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Be Pawsitive Organic Pet Treats

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.

Our 18 month old puppy, Padfoot, loves to eat. We try to eat as much organic as possible ourselves and try not to leave our pets behind in that process. All of our animals are fed organic feed, with the exception of our horse but we are not going to eat him or products produced by him. We tried him on an organic grain briefly but because of how worn down his teeth are he couldn’t chew it properly.

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Be Pawsitive Organic Pet Treats

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When we were invited to do a review of Be Pawsitive Organic Pet Treats we were very interested trying these for our pooch.

Padfoot BePawsitive-edit

Be Pawsitive Organic Pet Treats are loaded with rich fruits and berries. When you buy a box of Be Pawsitive treats you provide a box of treats for a shelter dog too.

Customers can choose from one of three monthly subscription options for as low as $18 per month. Subscription plans are as follows: monthly plan at $24/month, $66 for three months ($22/month) or $108 for six months ($18/month). Customers can also give the treat box as a gift. For more information or to order Be Pawsitive’s monthly treat box, please visit www.bepawsitive.com. The “Buy One, Give One” campaign is part of Be Pawsitive’s company philosophy, and is available at all times.

Be Pawsitive Organic Pet Treats Review

Padfoot responded really well to the treats we received from Be Pawsitive. Our daughter used them only for training. He has been sitting when anyone comes over to him, he is coming better and listening more.

He loved the rawhide card and had so much fun with it! We think he thought it was a toy at first because he acted really fiesty and wanted to play, as you can see from his playful stance in the photo below.

Padfood with Crunch Card-edit

Padfood with Crunch Card 2-edit

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We also received “power berry” dog biscuits. Not only did Padfoot love them but our cats also liked them! The ingredients are all natural and organic and almost all the ingredients except the olive oil and bananas come from the USA – yay!

Be Pawsitive organic pet treats gets two thumbs up from us!


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Halo SleepSack

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.

Having the opportunity to try the Halo SleepSack could not have come at a better time.  Up until about a week ago, my three month old daughter could not fall asleep without being swaddled.  Last week, though, she started kicking off the thin blanket I had swaddled her in and started waking up because she was cold.  She also rolls a lot in her sleep, so the swaddle would come undone.  The Halo SleepSack became my lifesaver!

Halo1

The Halo SleepSack is basically a wearable blanket.  It has no sleeves, so it can easily be worn over your baby’s sleepwear comfortably.  The arm holes are the perfect size, not too snug and not too large.  The SleepSack comes in a variety of sizes and styles.  My daughter will definitely be able to wear the size Small for a very long time.  It’s roomy enough for her to still kick and move her body without it affecting her sleep.  My favorite feature of the Halo SleepSack is that it has an inverted zipper.  You can only appreciate this feature if you are lucky enough to change a diaper in the middle of the night!  Since it zips from the top down, you only have to unzip part way to change a diaper without completely disrupting your baby’s sleep.  The material is lightweight so your baby will not overheat, and the prints are adorable!  The best part is that it is machine washable.  I plan on buying another one so I have a spare when this one is in the wash.

Halo2

I absolutely love the Halo SleepSack.  I use it as a “sleeping cue” for my daughter.  When I put it on her she knows naptime or bedtime is approaching.

Halo3

Halo Innovations’ mission is to help babies sleep safely.  They have definitely achieved this goal with the SleepSack.  Go to their website to see a variety of products they offer for the many different sleep stages of a baby.  They also have some great tips on safe sleep habits for your child.  Remember “Back is Best” when putting your baby to sleep!

www.halosleep.com

 

 


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Ultimate Back to School Bash

Back-to-School-Bash-20131-300x290

Still shopping for back to school supplies? Have you thought of entering giveaways to see if you could win some cool back to school products? We are participating in the Ultimate Back to School Bash! The giveaway will run from August 18th at 12:01 am and run through August 31st at 11:59 pm.

Currently, the giveaway prizes include the following list, valued at $202, but growing fast:

**More prizes being added daily!

Bloggers, you are welcome to sign up as well as This is a free event! Each blogger will get 1 free link, either Facebook or Twitter. Please say I referred you. Sorry for the short notice but Today is the last day to sign up!

 


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TWR360 Free Christian Programming

TWR360 Faith For Your World 2

Even though TWR is the world’s largest Christian radio broadcaster with missionaries around the world and has been around for nearly years, I think this is the first time I have heard about it. They have created a brand new beta consumer platform TWR360 and are harnessing the power of technology in the digital age to reach new listeners for Christ. As I stated, the site is currently in beta and the official consumer launch is January 1; new programming is being added between now and the end of the year. What a great free Christian programming resource.

TWR360 Free Christian Programming

Like any other online account creation, creating a TWR360 account is very easy.

Here are my favorite programming:
Unshackled!
Adventures in Odessey (listed under the program schedule)
Children’s Bible Hour (listed under the program schedule)
Children’s Story Hour (listed under the program schedule)
Family Life Today

I found the site a little hard to navigate and the search engine for the site didn’t seem to bring up programs I searched for that were on TWR360’s programming schedule. So I think that is something they should improve upon during this beta stage before their official launch in January 2014. Otherwise I thought it was a resource Christians and others should know about as they have a decent variety in their programming schedule.

You can find TWR360 on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.


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Back to School with Old Navy #myONstyle @OldNavy




Back to school season is here already, can you believe it? I still have shop to for school supplies but I did take one of our children, our third oldest daughter shopping at Old Navy as a treat and she needed more immediate things than the rest. Old Navy has their back to school promotion going on right now in all U.S. stores – $10 and under – from 8/3 thru 8/14. Old Navy is also inviting parents to come into stores to take a picture of their kids rocking their favorite Old Navy back to school looks in front of the store’s Step and Repeat!

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FFR Old Navy Store_edit


Back to School with Old Navy

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FFR Old Navy Gift Card-edit
Old Navy Gift Card – Accepted via my iPhone since our printer is not working!

I have to admit we headed for the clearance section first. Not only did the bright colors attract my daughter but we wanted to make the most of our limited budget. It would have been easy to spend it all on one or two items, but instead we came out with eight things! Not too shabby, eh?

Old Navy Omi in Children's Section-edit

My daughter is still growing, as a matter of fact she’s taller than me by a couple inches, not saying much since I am only 5’3. I say that because we now have to shop in the ladies or women’s section just so we can get the height part to fit her. We did sneak a peek at the girls section to get a feel for what was available for my youngest daughter. The girls section was tucked all the way back in the left hand corner of the store, but very easy to find.

FFR Old Navy Bright Shorts
She loved these shorts, but wished they were longer or pants!

FFR Old Navy Clothes-edit
O with her clothes selection – 2 dresses, 5 pairs of socks, including horse socks and a pair of black leggings.

FFR Old Navy Horse Socks

Old Navy Kids Section-edit

Don’t forget Old Navy’s Back to School promotion – $10 and under – and consider getting your kids to show of their back to school fashion style in front of the store’s Step and Repeat! After you upload your photo, enter to the Multiply Your Sweet Style here: www.nick.com/OldNavy! It includes an Old Navy $1000 shopping spree, $500 cash to play in L.A and a shopping experience with Jennette McCurdy and Ariana Grande from Nickelodeon’s Sam and Cat!


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