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Reduce Kids WaterWeek Review

Posted by html404 on August 10, 2010
in Eco Friendly Products, Product Guides 2010, School

I received the following product in exchange for writing a review. While I consider it a privilege to receive free products to review, my review is my honest opinion and thoughts of this product.

Kids-Girls-WaterWeek

We featured Reduce Kids WaterWeek in our Back to School Product Guide, but since we actually received a Girls Set, we are also posting a review of this product.

WaterWeek Kids

WaterWeek™ offers the ONLY true solution to end the costly and wasteful purchasing of bottled water without giving up convenience. Just fill, chill & go!™

• BPA free
• 10oz capacity
• Saves consumers an average of $500 per year!
• Includes fridge tray that slides neatly into your fridge.
• Dishwasher and freezer safe.
• This size is perfect for school lunches.

Green Quality
Eco friendly bottles! WaterWeek™ makes it easy and economical for consumers to reduce the 25 million bottles being disposed everyday. Now you can save on kids lunches too!

Retail Price: $17.99 for a set of 5 eco friendly bottles.

Faith and Family Review

We really like the concept of the WaterWeek and see how it would benefit those attending public school each day. However, me have to be honest and tell you that we did not use them as they were designed. We allowed our younger children to choose a water bottle for their own and they even saved one out for the new baby to use next summer. 🙂

Love the holder for the refrigerator to keep them all in one place. The bottles are perfect for little hands. The caps are screw on, which the children haven’t had a problem with, but I have. I like the ones that are either like a straw or flip top so the children cannot easily spill the contents or lose the cover. That is my only negative though. When the covers are screwed on tightly, they do not leak.

The colors are bright and the designs fun.

Visit www.ReduceEveryDay.com for additional information about the company or to find out more about the other products they have to offer.

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Bendaroos Review

Posted by html404 on August 9, 2010
in Fun Stuff, Kids Toys

I received the following product in exchange for writing a review. While I consider it a privilege to receive free products to review, my review is my honest opinion and thoughts of this product.

We featured Bendaroos earlier today in our Back to School Product Guide under Part 3

Bendaroos- 500 Pack ($19.99) These products are so cool for raining days when your kids are super bored or for school for art day! 500 Bendaroos® Building Sticks In Rainbow & Neon Colors. Includes a simple To Use Fun Guide With Step By Step Instructions How To Make Your Favorite Characters! It includes 10 Traceable Templates. No Glue, No Stains, No Mess. How cool is that for kids and MOM! 🙂 We will be reviewing one soon.

bendaroos

With all that is going on this week with this Back to School Product Guide, it was really helpful to receive the package today containing the Bendaroos. This children’s craft kept our six younger children busy for a couple of hours this afternoon while my oldest and I were working. They kept bringing us their creations and telling us what they were and how they made them.

At first the children made the different objects on the cards included in the Bendaroos kit, but the last going off they ventured out to create their own individual flowers, spiders, donuts, people etc. They had a lot of fun!

Initially, one of the children was frustrated because his shark was not staying together. There seems to be a little bit of an art to get the bending sticks to stay together because some bending sticks together better than others. That may have been caused by how each child handled his or her project, how firmly they pressed the sticks together or perhaps the template design; some of them required bending them at different angles etc. I found when I tried fixing his project, it did go back together easily enough, but I am not sure it stayed firmly in place for the duration of the day.

The youngest children, especially, required more assistance than the older ones. Perhaps dexterity and coordination all play a part in how easy it is for each child to manuever the bending sticks too. I know one thing, those two things (dexterity and coordination) got lots of use today!

The children enjoyed showing all their projects to Daddy when he got home. I think Bendaroos was worth the time and entertainment that our children gained from this great children’s activity. Truly there is no mess other than maybe little pieces of bending sticks that are left over, but I found the children used up everything very well.

Here are some of the children’s creations:

Tiger ready to devour something:

Bendaroos Tiger

Butterfly:

Bendaroos Butterfly

Bear:

Bendaroos Bear

Circus Seal:

Bendaroos Circus Seal

Shark:

Bendaroos Shark

Horse:

Bendaroos Horse

Pretty neat, eh?

For more information on Bendaroos, please visit http://www.Bendaroosstore.com/default.aspx and www.Bendaroos.com And be sure to check out their contest on Facebook! They are also hosting a a special Facebook contest for parents and teachers. Until September 10th Bendaroos will be giving away 10 – 500 packs to 10 lucky winners each week! See: http://www.facebook.com/bendaroos

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Monday Motivation – Back to School Product Guide

Posted by html404 on August 9, 2010
in Monday Motivation

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Last week’s Monday Motivation:

~ Surprise the children with a trip to the mini golf place we went to on Friday! I just want to get these things in before baby comes. Didn’t happen. Hoping it happens this Tuesday night!

~ Go to the movies on Wednesday for “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs”. Didn’t happen, we watched it here at home with a free trial from Netflix.

~ Start going weekly to the midwife. Appointment went fine. Baby was not head down any longer though. 🙁

~ The older two girls have been asked to help at a farm dinner at one of the farms we have volunteered at, so we will not have our big girls for about three hours that evening. They haven’t been away since they helped at Grandma’s house, so I am sure they will enjoy it. They had a wonderful time!

~ We have Men of Valor and Women of Virtue with our church. The ladies and girls met and had a nice time of fellowship, but the men cancelled their event for the month.

~ The garden. We really need to plant a few fast growing plants that we started inside, just to see how they do compared to our direct planting in the spring. Things like lettuce….We are so very behind on the garden!

This Week’s Motivation:

~ To get our Back-to-School Product Guide finished and introduce you all to some new and exciting products! This is our main priority this week as far as the blog goes. Special thanks goes to my oldest “Virtuous” for all her time and help on it. Couldn’t have done it without her.

We plan to feature 2-3 posts each day on the topics I mentioned:

Monday: School Supplies Products
Tuesday: Lunch Products
Wednesday: Fashion Products
Thursday: Eco Friendly Products
Friday: Technology/Electronic Products

So be sure to check them all out!

~ I really have too many things on my mental list of “to dos” that I am not even going to bother going list them all out here. What gets done, gets done and what doesn’t…well…doesn’t.

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Sam’s Club Back-to-School Event & Gift Card

Posted by html404 on August 9, 2010
in Education

Disclosure: The Sam´s Club Plus Membership, gift card, information, and giveaway were all given to me from Sam´s Club and General Mills through MyBlogSpark.com

As we mentioned the other day in our Sam’s Club $25 Gift Card Giveaway post, we still needed to head out to Sam’s to spend my $25.00 gift card for my General Mills/Box Tops for Education products. So over the weekend we did. We couldn’t find any regular Cheerios, so we got Honeynut Cheerios and two big boxes of Ziploc bags that will last us a long time, we hope. They will be very handy for sandwiches and freezing the rest of our garden produce! We were also able to find a few other things that are yummy and needful for quick lunches, picnics and snacks, like peanut butter!

Honeynut Cheerios

Ziploc Sandwich Bags

Ziploc Sandwich

Ziploc Freezer Bags

Ziploc Freezer

Don’t forget to enter our giveaway and let us know what you’d buy with a $25 gift card to Sam’s Club during their Back-to-School Event.

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Bloggin Mamas Cruise

Posted by html404 on August 8, 2010
in Blog Stuff, Contests, Fun Stuff

This event is sponsored by Healthy and Happy Mom and The Moms on Vacation Travel Club.

Attention Mama bloggers, this is especially for you!

What is it?

Healthy and Happy Mom and The Moms on Vacation Travel Club want to see what it is like to be you. They want to know about your blog, why you started it, how you make it happen everyday, and what makes your blog the best. They want you to submit videos of a day in your life. They hope to feature your submissions daily on our Youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/blogginmamas

More Resources:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=115743541809817

http://www.youtube.com/blogginmamas

http://blogginmamascruise.com/wordpress/?p=561

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FFR Friday Giveaway – $25 Sam’s Club Gift Card Giveaway! CLOSED

Posted by html404 on August 6, 2010
in Faith and Family Reviews Friday Giveaway

Congratulations, CJ Mommy! You are our Sam’s Club Gift Card Giveaway Winner!

Sam's Club Gift Card Giveaway

Winner chosen by Random.org #36 entry.

Thank you to all who entered! We appreciate all the help in making our third giveaway a success!

Thank you to Sam’s Club, General Mills and MyBlogSpark.com for sponsoring this giveaway and providing a way to get some much needed back to school items!!

Disclosure: The Sam´s Club Plus Membership, gift card, information, and giveaway were all given to me from Sam´s Club and General Mills through MyBlogSpark.com

giveawaygrandmabutton

Sam´s Club Back-To-School Event

17621_SamsBTFEInClubHndout_r8ONLINE.ai

Join the Sam´s Club Back-To-School Event from Aug. 11 through Aug. 31 and earn more cash for your school. At the Sam´s Club Back-to-School event, you can get a head start on your collection and find 6 Box Tops on participating General Mills products. With your favorite Box Tops for Education brands at a great value, Sam´s Club is your one-stop destination for all your back-to-school supplies you need to send your kids off to school with confidence!

In addition, Sam´s Club is giving you the opportunity to earn even more Box Tops when you upgrade to a “Plus Membership.” From Aug. 6 – Aug. 13, or while supplies last, visit the Member Services Desk of your local Sam´s Club and upon payment for your Plus Membership, you will receive a certificate for 150 Bonus Box Tops! For more information on how you can take advantage of the Back-to-School event at Sam´s Club, visit www.samsclub.com today!

I hope to head to Sam’s Club this weekend for my goodies. Whenever we get there, I’ll let you know what we buy for our family.

Bonus! Sam’s Club and General Mills are offering one reader the chance to win a $25 Sam’s Club Gift Card! Check out the details below for a chance to win!

Please Note: This giveaway will only run for one week!

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Required Entry: Simply leave a comment telling me what Box Tops for Education products you would buy with the gift card!

Extra Entries (Please be sure and leave a comment and link for extra entries):

1 Entry: Name your must-have item that you’ll be purchasing from Sam´s Club this back-to-school season.

1 Entry: Follow Faith and Family Reviews on Twitter.

1 Entry: Like Faith and Family Reviews on Facebook

1 Entry: Like General Mills on Facebook

1 Entry: Like Sam’s Club

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 $25 Sam’s Club Gift Card @faithfamilyrevw! http://tiny.cc/SamsClubGiftCard #myblogspark Please share! Thx!

5 Entries: Blog about this giveaway and link back to this post.

1 Entry for every comment you leave anywhere else on this blog, but please leave a link with your comment!

Details:

Please note: This giveaway will only run one week – from August 6th until August 13th at midnight CST. The winner will be chosen through Random.org. Winner will be contacted on or before August 15th, so they will be able to participate in Sam’s Back to School Event thru August 31st, and asked for their contact info. Winner will have 48 hours to send me their info at [ffr] [giveaways] [at] [gmail] [dot] [com] (without spaces and parenthesis). Our giveaway sponsors will ship one $25 Sam’s Club Gift Card directly to the winner. Please note: This giveaway is open to the USA only.

Thanks and have fun!

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Back to School Product Guide

Posted by html404 on August 5, 2010
in Eco Friendly Products, Education, Fashion, Food and Treats

backtoschoolproductguide2010

Even though we homeschool, back to school sales are on our minds too. After all we need school supplies just like everyone else. We are looking forward to taking advantage of the IL tax break starting August 6th, I think.

Thanks to a HARO query, we have many wonderful products to share with you over the week or two starting on Monday! Bear with us as we try to post as many of them as possible. We received close to 100 pitches, however, not all of them will be featured. We are trying to narrow them down to our favorites and ones that we think best fit our Back to School Product Guide.

Here are the categories we will be covering:

School Supplies

backtoschoolschoolsupplies

Fashion

backtoschoolfashion

Lunches

backtoschoollunchproducts

Eco Friendly Products

backtoschoolecofriendlybutton

Technology/Electronics

backtoschooltechnologyandelectronics

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Thrifty Thursday – $5.00 Mini Golf Night

Posted by html404 on August 5, 2010
in Saving Money, Thrifty Thursday

thriftythursdaysbutton

This week’s Thrifty Thursday is about the weekly mini golf deal we found near to us, so maybe you could check out your local miniature golf courses in your area to see what kind of deals they offer during the week.

If you remember from my anniversary post, we went mini golfing and guess what? It was $5.00 for each of us. This is a Tuesday and a Friday special at this particular miniature golf course. They run this special from 5 pm to 9 pm. We thought it made for a cheap date night!

This is also the same place we had hoped to take the children to as a surprise last night, but it never happened. Lord willing, next week! With all of us, it won’t necessarily be cheap, but it’s still affordable for a rare treat. None of the children have ever been mini golfing, so it will be interesting to see all their reactions. Plus it will make a wonderfully fun memory for all of us!

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ObamaCare Update

Posted by html404 on August 4, 2010
in Family Stuff, Health and Nutrition

I know that I don’t usually post much about politics, but this is family related and of interest to our family because we are hoping and praying that ObamaCare does not get implemented. We also applaud the Virginia judge who has the best interest of the citizens of the state of Virginia at heart as he goes into legal battle regarding mandatory healthcare for everyone. May more judges and legislators join him in this fight for our constitutional rights!

Here is an excerpt from Betsy McCaughey from her Opinion Story on Wall Street Journal.

Photo Source: Associated Press
Its about the Constitution A federal court denies the government’s motion to dismiss the challenge

By: Betsy McCaughey August 4, 2010

Last November, a reporter asked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi if it was constitutional for Congress to require Americans to buy health insurance. Ms. Pelosi responded, “Are you serious?”

On Monday, U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson got serious. He denied Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit brought by the state of Virginia challenging the new health law. His ruling stated that it is far from certain Congress has the authority to compel Americans to buy insurance and penalize those who don’t.

Judge Hudson’s ruling paved the way for a trial to begin on October 18, with possible appeals all the way to the Supreme Court, a lengthy process. Some states will likely delay creating insurance exchanges and slow down other costly preparations for ObamaCare until its constitutionality is determined by this case.

If mandatory insurance is declared unconstitutional, the entire health law could collapse like a house of cards.

Judge Hudson ruled that the court must do what Congress failed to do-apply the Constitution.

Ms. McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York and author of “Obama Health Law: What It Says and How to Overturn It” (Encounter, 2010). For more information, visit Defend Your Healthcare.US

This is additional information from an email we received with the article above, just for those interested:

The enactment of the Obama health law is a bruising blow to American freedom and medical excellence. But the war is not over. There can be no negotiation between freedom and coercion.

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