We have a change of plans. Instead of our normal Faith and Family Reviews Giveaway today, on Sunday we will be featuring 12 Days of Christmas Giveaways! We had a ton of reviews and giveaways to feature and as we were scheduling them we discovered some of them were getting pretty close to Christmas and many of these things would make wonderful Christmas gifts. That’s when we decided to do a week’s worth of giveaways to give you all a chance to win these products and receive them in time for Christmas. We may still feature our Friday Giveaways in December, but we may also take the month off. So gear your typing fingers up to enter some great giveaways! A huge thank you to the generosity of the companies sponsoring the giveaways: Organic Boutique,Big Skinny, Diamond Earrings, Frecklebox, Lillebaby Eurotote (via Mom Spark and Happy, Healthy Moms Product Review Team) , Progresso (via MyBlogSpark), 77kids (via The Motherhood), EZ Socks, EllaWrap.
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.
It’s been a long time since we had our Back to School product guide, however, we still have this one last product that we need to write up a review about – the Plantronics Voyager Pro. You have to be careful about these phone accessories because they all are not necessarily compatible with all phones. This was the case with us. Then we decided to get new phones with a new carrier and bingo, the Plantronics Voyager is now compatible with my new phone.
While I don’t consider myself tech savvy, I can usually manage to figure most things out for myself over time. I found that setting up the Plantronics Voyager, which is simply an expensiveBluetooth ear piece that allows you to talk on your cell phone handsfree, took me a day or so to understand how this thing worked and I still have not quite figured out one aspect to it that was installed on my laptop.
That said I thought the Plantronics Voyager Pro was very nice, had good sound, and fairly easy to use once set up. However, for it’s fancy price of $199.95, I thought that it should stay behind my ear better than it does. I wear glasses so because the arm of my glasses sets behind my ear causing the Plantronics ear piece to not set well on top of it. Any slight movement and the Plantronics Pro pops out of place. I have been disappointed and the ear piece has been sitting in the pocket of my shoulder bag ever since. So much for keeping up with technology, eh? But I cannot be fiddling with the ear piece trying to get it to stay in place while driving or typing for that matter. It just isn’t safe or productive use of my time.
After last week’s Thrifty Thursday post about 12 Tips to Save on Groceries, this week we actually have a coupon to share! Thanks to General Mills you can save on a upcoming meal(s). Love Coupons? Hamburger Helper fans you’ll love this too! Just go to the link below for your grocery savings.
Faith and Family Reviews received the following product for free through TheMotherhood.com and Marie Callender’s Meals in exchange for writing a review. We are also are receiving a stipend. While we consider it a privilege to receive free products to review, our reviews are our honest opinion and thoughts of the product and monetary compensation does not affect our views of the product.
We were given four FREE coupons to purchase Marie Callender’s Meals, which are prepared frozen meals found in the freezer section of the grocery store. We bought the Honey Mustard Chicken, Honey Roasted Turkey, Three Cheese Stuffed Rigatoni & Chicken and finally the Fettuccini with Chicken & Broccoli. We were suppose to offer a couple of them as giveaways, but I have a large family to feed here so we used them all for our family. So what would have cost close to $22.00 for meals only cost us a couple of dollars.
The size of these meals is rather small, but we managed to share them between all nine of us and I was even able to get a taste of each one of the meals. Thankfully there were lunch leftovers to feed to the children who were still hungry after trying Marie Callender’s Meals or else we would have had some hungry little tummies still.
The meals take about an hour to cook, which is a long time considering it is a prepared meal meant to save you some time. My husband and daughter picked these up on their way home from volunteering at a local food pantry, so by the time they got home, the meals were cooked, it was 8:30 that we ate. We were so hungry that I completely forgot to take pictures of the meals! And they didn’t bother to use a couple of pie coupons for dessert, so we were unable to try those and tell you about them in this review. Hopefully, we will pick up pies this week and be able to tell you about those as well.
The Marie Callender’s Meals do not look quite as tasty as the box covers. The Honey Roasted Turkey is featured in such an attractive way that it looks like might almost be eating a Thanksgiving look-a-like, when in reality the potatoes, gravy and turkey were all combined together making it look like a pile of brown mush. Regardless of how it looked, it still tasted amazingly well.
So even though we gobbled up these meals without taking pictures and we were hungry when we ate them, their overall taste was good. I think my favorites were the Fettuccini with Chicken and Broccoli and the Three Cheese Stuffed Rigatoni & Chicken. I could have eaten more of both and my children were kind enough to leave a second little portion of the Fettuccini before letting their brothers finish it off. The veggies in one were kind of soggy, I thought. I believe it was the Honey Mustard Chicken. Sorry, I ate so fast it’s a bit of a blur now that it is 4:30am.
My husband thought the onions in the Three Cheese Stuffed Rigatoni & Chicken were too big. Onions are a big turn off to him anyways. He loves the flavor they can give to food, but if they are visible it ruins the meal for him. Therefore, he returned his plate to the kitchen with a pile of onions left on it, while one of our daughters offered to eat the onions for him. 😉
I didn’t hear any complaints from the children and considering there are seven of them, that is a good thing!
Marie Callender’s Meals besides the classics mentioned above, also offer fresh mixers and fresh flavor steamers. And some brand new baked meals that our store did not have: The new meals are a twist on classic comfort food recipes – Vermont White Cheddar Mac & Cheese, Scalloped Potatoes and Ham and Chicken, Spinach and Mushroom Lasagna. Check out their website for more information and to locate stores near you. Our Jewel store did not carry all of the meals.
This new Health & Garden Tuesday will encompass all things related to health, nutrition, gardening and even our wee beginning farm adventures, as they relate to our family’s interests. It may just include an article that we read and liked or it may be what we are learning or experiencing in every day life. Please feel free to chime in with your own thoughts and ideas as well.
I have been going to some free educational classes this year. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate Audrey as a person and as a teacher. The first meetings were held at the beginning of the year and the last few were held just this fall. The topic: pure, therapeutic grade essential oils. The classes are very informative, not to mention interesting health education, especially if you do not know a lot about essential oils and how helpful they can be. I attended all of her classes she held this year, which was between 10 and 15, I believe. During the spring classes, I took our two older girls to many of them. They enjoyed them as well. Audrey switches a couple of classes each session so there is some new material covered as well. We are hoping to enjoy gleaning from them again in the new spring session.
This past weekend was the last class, which was on Healing Oils of the Bible. Extremely interesting and so much information to absorb! I should have been posting about each class as we had them, but didn’t think of that until now. I loved learning more about these oils that I had heard about all my life as I was taught the Bible or read it for myself. It was interesting to learn about their life giving properties and how using them can benefit our health. Truly enlightening to say the least. I still haven’t sorted out everything in my brain, so I plan to read over our notes and continue learning and absorbing this great health education.
Audrey’s classes are held in a building on her property called The Oil Drop Inn…. It’s the top of their barn! 🙂 Is it ever cozy though. Very homey and inviting. It’s like her own workshop. I felt a wee bit spoiled as she would always save her big comfy chair for me since I was the only nursing mama in attendance.
I am already looking forward to her spring classes. The amazing thing is that Audrey will travel to teach her classes. She just loves teaching and has been using essential oils for over 10 years. She is also an independent distributor, but has only been one for about 4-5 years. I feel privileged to know her and now have the opportunity to work as part of her downline in the business side of Young Living.
~ Cleaning and purging. Cleaning Walls and hoping to start painting! But I fully realize that my aspirations are much greater than I could ever humanly accomplish with this large family of mine. So by God’s grace, I will get done what I am meant to get done. Didn’t get much done at all in making a dent with the house.
~ Swimming. Got to the Y three times and hoping to get at least that many trips in per week.
~ Field trip to Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry. Lovely day in the city. Only got to see one floor so we hope to go back again soon.
~ Lunch with Friends. This was canceled due to my friend’s youngest having a cold. 🙁 We are rescheduling.
~ Getting rid of a mouse critter in our garage! One of the girls spotted it this morning….eeeewwwwwwww! We set traps and caught two, so we are hoping to get anymore that might be out there as well.
~ Regular every day stuff – refereeing, teaching, training children to be the best they can be with God’s help. This is never ending in our family. We have lots of room for improvement!
Hope you all are staying motivated as we head into winter. I’d love to hear some of your ideas for staying on top of things and keeping your motivation running so you remain an effective mommy/parent/friend/sister/daughter etc.
This week’s Motivation:
~ Cleaning and purging. Cleaning Walls and hoping to start painting! But I fully realize that my aspirations are much greater than I could ever humanly accomplish with this large family of mine. So by God’s grace, I will get done what I am meant to get done.
~ I start a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) course this week and have a few meetings away from home. Thankfully, my husband’s work schedule is flexible that he is able to be with the children while I am gone.
~ Finish up our business plan finally and finally submit it.
~ Get to the Thrift Store.
~ 77Kids holiday charity event! Looking forward to that! Thanks to The Motherhood and 77Kids.
Congratulations to Elle for winning our E-Mealz giveaway! Thanks to all who entered and thanks to E-mealz for sponsoring this great giveaway. Winner chosen by random.org
E-Mealz is the perfect solution for all the pressure and stress that comes along with going back to school. E-Mealz.com in an on-line meal planning resource, designed to take that daily and weekly grocery shopping and budgeting pressure off your plate. This simple tool is invaluable when the chaos of work, school and activities pile up, and create stress for even the most experienced family cooks. But family connection around the dinner table with a home-cooked meal saves more than time and money. Dinnertime can direct your attention to your family and draw everyone closer together in a special way. It is a unique opportunity to decompress and re-connect on a daily basis. E-Mealz is dedicated to offer a practical and budgeted way to make that intentional effort a reality for every family. They are a Christian company started by a stay-at-home mom who wanted to make life easier for other busy moms out there! You choose the store. They provide the plan! Each week you will receive a brand new plan AND a complete aisle-by-aisle grocery list.
So do you want to win a 3 month service from E-Mealz that you get to pick the plan? Enter below!
Mandatory Entry: Tell me why you want to win.
Extra Entries (Please be sure and leave a comment and link for extra entries):
1 Entry: Like Faith and Family Reviews on Facebook. Please do not unlike us after the contest is over. Isn’t that a form of dishonesty? Just sayin’. Put yourself in our shoes, ok? Thanks!
2 Entries: Follow Faith and Family Reviews on Google Friend Connect (on the our right side bar).
2 Entries: Tweet about this giveaway, but only one tweet per day please. Include your tweet url with your comment. You may write your own tweet or use this one:
Giveaway: Enter to win a 3 month meal plan from E-Mealz! @faithfamilyrevw! http://faithandfamilyreviews.com/?p=3881 Please share! Thx!
5 Entries: Blog about this giveaway and link back to this post and E-Mealz.
1 Entry for every comment you leave anywhere else on this blog, but please leave a link with your comment!
1 Entry for every comment you leave anywhere on E-Mealz blog here (http://blog.e-mealz.com/), but please leave a link with your comment!
Details:
This giveaway will run from November 12th to Sunday, November 25th at midnight CST. The winner will be chosen through Random.org. E-Mealz will contact one winner so they can choose their plan. Winner will be contacted via email on or before December 15th and will be asked for their contact and other pertinent info. Winners will have 48 hours to send me their info at [ffr] [giveaways] [at] [gmail] [dot] [com] (without spaces and parenthesis). Please note: This giveaway is offered internationally.
One2One Network is offering The Great BlissDom Conference Package Giveaway and I have entered to win. I have never been to a blogging conference yet and would love to attend this one, which is being held in Nashville, TN. This post is earns me another entry to the giveaway! I came across another opportunity to post about another giveaway offering a Blissdom conference pass, so bear with me. I’ll be sure to spread them out though! 😉 Can’t tell that I really, really, want to go, eh?
Here’s what they said:
We are going to be giving away conference passes to three lucky One2One bloggers for BlissDom’11 in Nashville, TN January 27-28. There are three levels of prizing and all include a full conference pass ($399 value).
BlissDom is the premiere conference for women who find and express their bliss by publishing online. Speakers and panels feature the best blogging, public relations and social media pros gathering to mentor new and old friends alike.
This is Blissdom’s most exciting year, with even more incredible content, events, networking and surprises scheduled than ever before. This year’s mantra – Think Big. Be Bold. Create Your Bliss. Whether you are a blogging newbie or maven, BlissDom’11 is designed to superserve everyone!
Check out this video highlighting the experience at last year’s BlissDom:
Ok, I missed last week’s motivation, but I was trying to start my vacation, well, from one client, however, I kept myself busy with another client’s stuff and farm and family stuff! What can I say? I can always find something to do! We even went to see a house near where we hope/plan to farm next year, but we really need to get this house fixed up before we can even try show it!
Last week’s Monday Motivation:
~ This week I am very thankful for two friends, Sarah and Professor, who have agreed to review products and write reviews. As an introduction, Sarah is our pastor’s wife, mom to seven and a former nurse. She enjoys gardening, healthy living and eating. Professor is my neighbor and friend who is mommy to three and an English Professor at the University of Phoenix online.
~ Since we were so busy last week, this week we will be staying home except for our outings to the YMCA to swim, which we all love. The children are improving. Two of them passed the swim test to swim in the deep end, so now they can really work on their endurance. We might even try the open rock climb this week. Rock climbing is on the agenda for this week! And the boys are now going under water, one of the girls has been brave enough to go off the diving board so our YMCA membership has now become our Christmas gift to ourselves!
~ Getting some client work done and preparing for some time off from one client for the month of November. Puttering on other business projects. This is ongoing.
~ Hopefully complete and submit our business plan to the Farm Business Development Center.This is ongoing as I figure out our projected income and expenses! The end is nearer than it was though.
~ Cleaning, cleaning, cleaning. So thankful we live in a small house that it will just take a little direction and participation from yours truly to hopefully get things in tip-top shape, well, as much as they can be with ten people living in under 1200 sq. ft! We’d love to entertain over the holidays and are simply not comfortable doing so until we purge and clean! The children have worked hard to keep things going while I was pregnant, worked and healed from having Sir Eats Alot, but I am well now and raring to go! Let’s see how much Sir Eats Alot cooperates. Ongoing, ongoing, ongoing…..
~ We are also revising Tuesday’s column to include health posts, so it will be Health & Garden Tuesday. I know we all desire to remain healthy during the winter season, so we hope to share what we are learning about building up our immune system and preventive ideas as well. Have some extra things to share that others have learned or are learning in this column as well. I just have to get the posts written up.
Hope you all are staying motivated as we head into winter. I’d love to hear some of your ideas for staying on top of things and keeping your motivation running so you remain an effective mommy/parent/friend/sister/daughter etc.
This week’s Motivation:
~ Cleaning and purging. Cleaning Walls and hoping to start painting! But I fully realize that my aspirations are much greater than I could ever humanly accomplish with this large family of mine. So by God’s grace, I will get done what I am meant to get done.
~ Swimming.
~ Field trip to Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry.
~ Lunch with Friends.
~ Getting rid of a mouse critter in our garage! One of the girls spotted it this morning….eeeewwwwwwww!
~ Regular every day stuff – refereeing, teaching, training children to be the best they can be with God’s help.
Congratulations to Nicole! You won this giveaway! Thanks to all who entered and to the wonderful sponsors! Winner chosen by random.org
I was provided with coupons to try the new Yoplait smoothies as well as a Kitchen Aid Blender. Thanks to Yoplait for providing me with the product, and information, and thanks to KitchenAid® who provided me with a 3-speed KitchenAid® blender through MyBlogSpark
Are you among the seven out of every ten individuals who don’t eat the recommended two servings of fruit per day (1 full cup)?
Yoplait® Frozen Smoothies are a quick and easy solution to help you get those important nutrients, plus a whole lot more, and now they’re available in a new, delicious Blueberry Pomegranate flavor!
Each package of Yoplait Frozen Smoothies contains one full serving of fruit (1/2 cup) and only 110 to 120 calories per serving. In addition to containing live and active cultures provided by Yoplait® yogurt, when prepared with skim milk and made according to package directions, Yoplait Frozen Smoothies are also a good source of calcium.
Yoplait Frozen Smoothies are very easy to make and were actually featured on the TV show The Biggest Loser, which airs on Tuesdays at 8/7c on NBC. (I’ve only heard of this show, I have never watched it though.) To whip up perfectly blended smoothies in a snap, simply empty the package containing Yoplait frozen yogurt chips and frozen fruit into your blender, add skim milk, and blend. It’s so simple. You can even use the handy Smoothie button on your new 3-speed KitchenAid® Blender, which blends ingredients at optimal speeds for deliciously smooth results. In just two minutes, you can enjoy a great tasting Yoplait Frozen Smoothie as a guilt-free breakfast, dessert or snack!
Found in the frozen fruit aisle of your local grocery store, Yoplait Frozen Smoothies come in four delicious flavors, including: Blueberry Pomegranate, Triple Berry, Strawberry Banana, and Strawberry Mango Pineapple.
Our Review
Our family was sent coupons for Yoplait Frozen Smoothies and tried the Blueberry Pomegranate and the Triple Berry. We found them very easy to make. It was more difficult to find the flavors we wanted and needed for the review! 3-4 stores later we found them. Everyone enjoyed them as we love smoothies. Yummy! Personally, I preferred the Blueberry Pomegranate, but that was just me.
I am not sure that I would spend the $3.00 to make two smoothies, as we usually just get the yogurt and use the fruit we’ve frozen to make them. But these would be great for families on the go since milk is an ingredient most families readily have on hand or families with limited freezer space. A little package for two smoothies, at $3.00 a piece, for our family of ten just isn’t economical, you know? That aside, the Yoplait Frozen Smoothies are very tasty.
So do you want to win two VIP coupons to try Yoplait Frozen Smoothies and a 3-speed KitchenAid® blender with a special smoothie setting??? Then enter below!
In the meantime, you may want to try the smoothies so we have been provided with a link that you may visit to receive an online coupon for $1.25 off any one flavor of Yoplait Frozen Smoothie. Be sure to click on the “Print Coupon” as well as the pink bars intitled “Delicious Flavors”, “Good for You”, “Feedback” and “Tell Friends”:
Mandatory Entry: Tell me which two flavors of Yoplait Frozen Smoothies you would like to try.
Extra Entries (Please be sure and leave a comment and link for extra entries):
1 Entry: Like Faith and Family Reviews on Facebook. Please do not unlike us after the contest is over. Isn’t that a form of dishonesty? Just sayin’. Put yourself in our shoes, ok? Thanks!
2 Entries: Follow Faith and Family Reviews on Google Friend Connect (on the our right side bar).
2 Entries: Tweet about this giveaway, but only one tweet per day please. Include your tweet url with your comment. You may write your own tweet or use this one:
Giveaway: Enter to win a Kitchen Aid blender and Yoplait smoothies! @faithfamilyrevw! http://tinyurl.com/27udpox Please share! Thx!
5 Entries: Blog about this giveaway and link back to this post http://faithandfamilyreviews.com/?p=5168 and to Kitchen Aid, Yoplait, and My Blog Spark.
1 Entry for every comment you leave anywhere else on this blog, but please leave a link with your comment!
Details:
This giveaway will run from November 5th to Sunday December 5th at midnight CST. The winners will be chosen through Random.org. My Blog Spark will be sending 1 winner 1 prize pack that includes two VIP coupons to try Yoplait Frozen Smoothies and a 3-speed KitchenAid® blender. Winner will be contacted via email on or before December 15th and will be asked for their contact and other pertinent info. Winners will have 48 hours to send me their info at [ffr] [giveaways] [at] [gmail] [dot] [com] (without spaces and parenthesis). Please note: This giveaway is offered to USA and Canada only.
