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Cherished Sight & Sights #seemoresights

Posted by html404 on July 9, 2012
in Uncategorized

I think many people, including me, take good health for granted. I enjoy being healthy, but I don’t always make decisions that are good for my health. I don’t get enough exercise and still eat junk sometimes – I try but I really like chocolate and desserts, know what I mean? It’s not just my health I take for granted it’s having all my limbs and all my senses in tact. Just take eyesight as an example. Sure I wear glasses but I enjoy seeing everything around me and have been able to do so since I was born. Can you imagine life without your vision? I can’t. It’s hard enough stumbling through the dark house late at night from my recliner to my bedroom. I cannot comprehend not seeing all the beautiful things round me.

There are so many things in my life that I have experienced from visiting beautiful Costa Rica, the Calgary Stampede, Canada’s capital Ottawa, to the birth of each of my children, our family vacations to Florida, Texas, Georgia and Kentucky. Not to mention my surroundings where we live and where I grew up. I love taking a drive or walk down our road in the morning when there’s hardly any traffic and just enjoying the countryside or simply looking out in our backyard or walking through our fields. Or stopping to watch our chickens and turkeys in their moveable pens. Or what about watching our puppy run all over the yard. Or our children playing with the kittens. These are all sights I have the privilege of seeing every day and would miss without my vision.

My family and I live so close to Chicago we have the advantage of not only enjoying the country but also city sights. We love driving down Lake Shore Drive and seeing all the boats on the water in the summer time or taking in the dolphin show at the Shedd Aquarium or visiting the zoo and all it has to offer. What impressed me most when I moved to Illinois was how tall the buildings are in a big city like Chicago. Coming from the beautiful city of Halifax, Nova Scotia, a metropolis like Chicago makes Halifax (maybe 350,000 people, Nova Scotia doesn’t even have a population of 1 million) seem very small and quaint. I also love the Chicago skyline, it’s one of the things we always point out to our children when driving into the city. It’s very picturesque. If there were no such things as glasses, my husband, five of our children and I would not be able to clearly see all of these wonderful places. I am very grateful for my eye sight and eye wear.

One of the ways our family takes care of our eye sight is by regular eye check ups that includes checking the health of our eye as well as updating our prescription glasses. Did you know there are places and events that offer free eye exams? Transitions Optical will have a free vision exam booth at the Taste of Chicago Festival this week. Visitors will be able to receive on-site screenings as well as use their fun photo kiosk that will be available.

You can learn more about Transitions lenses, the official sponsor of sightseeing here: http://seemoresights.com/

Visit the sightseeing tour stop in Chicago: http://seemoresights.com/SightseeingCityTour/Chicago.aspx

More information about the Taste of Chicago event: http://www.explorechicago.org/city/en/supporting_narrative/events___special_events/special_events/mose/taste_of_chicago.html

Dates/Times: July 11 – 15, 2012 • Chicago, IL • Grant Park • 11 am – 9 pm

Here’s to taking care of our cherished sight and cherishing the sights we are blessed to see with our vision. Leave me a comment telling me your favorite sight this summer.

“I received compensation to participate in a SocialMoms and Transitions Optical blogging program. The opinions and ideas expressed here are my own. To read more posts on this topic, click here.”

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Post Bowls of Hope SIMPLE Service Project #PostCFK

Posted by html404 on July 6, 2012
in Giving Back/Charity, Uncategorized

Last week we went shopping at Walmart for Post Bowls of Hope SIMPLE Service Project #PostCFK. You can see all the photos of my shopping trip here. We purchased two boxes of Post Original Shredded Wheat for our family and Post Honey Shredded Wheat for our local food pantry. We also reached out to our church, homeschool group, food co-op and family. We only had a couple actually respond 🙁 Due to time constraints and distance, I did give people the option of just donating to their own local food pantry so they could help people in their own towns. Therefore, there may be more who donated but just didn’t let me know. It’s a little disappointing that more are not open and willing to give to those in need. I understand money being tight etc., but we are talking about a donation of less than $5. How many pay that in their Starbucks coffee or a trip to lunch at a fast food restaurant? Give those up for a day and that equals a box of cereal, know what I mean?

We donate to our food pantry several times throughout the year. I have had a box set aside to donate since our last Champions for Kids event. This project gave me the opportunity to finally take those boxes over. My husband and I went over and discovered it was closed due to it being July 4th. I would have thought they’d still be open as the needy still need to eat on the 4th of July too. They have such unique hours – 9-3 on M, W, F – that without a car during the day, it’s hard for me to get over there unless my husband is off from work. Due to my husband not being a able to get home in time today, we are going to take the food over next week. We have a small box of personal care products and a small box of food items.

In the past when I have asked, the food pantry has stated that they have a need for protein, so I would like to add a few cans of tuna to our box to help with that need since I forgot to pick some up last week. We do have two small jars of peanut butter in our box, but that is not a lot. The food pantry just doesn’t receive a lot of protein.

So has this campaign motivated you to help serve those who may be suffering from hunger? If so, please leave a comment and feel free to connect with Post and Champions for Kids at the following links:

Post’s Facebook
Post’s Twitter Handle
CFK’s Twitter Handle
CFK’s Facebook

“I am a member of the Collective Bias™ Social Fabric® Community. This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias™ and Champions for Kids #CBias #SocialFabric. All opinions are my own.”

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Ningxia Red Part 5 of the Slique™ Kit & Giveaway

Posted by html404 on July 3, 2012
in All Natural Products, Giveaways, Health, Health and Nutrition

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I am going to finish up my Slique™ series (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4) that I started months ago and just dropped. The last product to give an overview and review of is Ningxia Red. It is a drink made of Ningxia wolfberries, which is a berry full of antioxidants. It is native to the Ningxia province in China and is thought to prolong life since the residents of the Ningxia province are known for their longevity.

Ingredients in Ningxia Red are:

It took us a little time to get use to the taste of Ningxia Red as it has a different taste. It tastes much better chilled. I think all of us drink it now except one of our boys, but he’s a pick pot anyways.

Since January, I have experienced slightly better vision. I got glasses when I was 16-17 years old for driving, sports and reading the chalkboard at school. Once I had my glasses I never wanted to have blurred vision so I just wore my glasses all the time, even for reading. Now I have been taking my glasses off to read, use my iPhone or journal because my sight is blurry for close reading. Hard to believe, but even my husband said that he’s never known me to have to do that in the 20 years he’s known me.

“The Slique™ Kit is a compilation of products designed to maximize weight-management success and improve overall health. Each of the five products in this kit—Slique Tea, Slique Essence, Balance Complete™, Essentialzymes-4™, and NingXia Red®—work together to enhance nutrient absorption, supply required nutrition and fiber, increase energy, and control appetite by reducing cravings.”

The retail value of this kit is $275 and you can enter to win your own Slique™ Kit below! Due to the value of this giveaway, I will run it for four weeks and you can tweet and do the bonus entry every day!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Animals, Cleaning, 4th of July Plans & Monday Motivation

Posted by html404 on July 2, 2012
in Family Stuff, Holidays, Monday Motivation

I don’t know where the days go sometimes. It’s July already. It seems like we have been mostly cooped up with the 90 degree temperatures we have had last week and again this week. Hot. Hot. Hot. It’s teaching our children diligence in taking care of the farm animals. Did I tell you we lost our second bunny due to the heat 2-3 weeks ago? The wind picked up that day and ended up knocking over Darth Vader’s cage, we had checked the chickens and due to having checked the bunny earlier after playing with him none of us thought anything of Darth Vader. Well, the children found him and he must have been at death’s door because no means of cooling him down or giving him water revived him. 🙁 We’ve had a farmer friend who has said something to the affect that on a farm there is death. We have certainly found that out fast and furiously. Some of the children want to replace the bunnies and some do not. They’ve started a bunny fund, so we’ll see. We are working on visiting a breeder in the area.

Cleaning

Ever feel like you have to spring clean every day, week or month? I do. Sigh. Over the weekend I scrubbed our dining room carpet and steam vac’d it. It was getting so grungy and dirty. Then I had the children working on their rooms and the play room. Thankfully the girls restored the storage room to neatness last week. So we’ll have lots to give away tomorrow when the “give away” truck comes.

I still have to get at the office yet again due to the children having their laser printer in there for printing off coloring pages and things not getting put away after our last event. It looks like a tornado went through it.

Slowly but surely things are getting cleaned again. It feels so good to organize, now if only we could all get into the habit of daily maintenance maybe things wouldn’t get so out of control!?

4th of July Plans

The 4th of July is only a couple of days away. Our children asked if we could have the “cousins” over and my brother-in-law expressed an interest in coming up to see our pooch and the other animals last week, so we are going to see if they have plans. Nothing like the last minute, that’s my husband’s style. I think we will grill something on our camp stove and I found this yummy looking dessert, I can’t remember what it is called but I pinned it so I could find it easily! It’s a Red Velvet Triffle from Rebecca Parrsons at MomItForward.com

Source: momitforward.com via Theresa J on Pinterest

Monday Motivation

This is a rambling Monday Motivation, but my brain is in ramble mode. My motivation this week is to get the living room and hallway carpets cleaned. Makes me fell so good to get the house cleaned and sparkling.

I also have some paper work to do….actually a lot of paper work to do between the businesses and getting something completed for my husband.

I have been watching the new season of Extreme Weight Loss, have never watched it before, but that show is really inspiring. That and watching some food documentaries has made me want to try losing weight again. At least I am motivated to, but as far as a plan of action and execution goes…not sure where I am with all that yet. I may kick off that motivation with a Slique Kit giveaway! So come back tomorrow to check out the giveaway and the final review of the last product!

Tell me how you are keeping your pets cool in the heat? Do you have an cleaning projects you are working on? What are your 4th of July plans? What about weight loss goals? Leave me a comment below to tell me.

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Sunflower and Sunshine

Posted by html404 on June 29, 2012
in Cleaning

We have five senses and of those five senses, smell is probably the one that evokes the most memories. I know when I smell burning leaves and grass when I pass the state park in the spring time, it takes me back to my childhood when my mom would burn our grass every spring or fall. Or baking bread can take me back to my grandmother’s and mother’s kitchen. Pumping gas can take me back to my teen years when my parents co-owned a gas station and I worked there pumping gas in the summer or on weekends when they needed help. Of course these are good smells that trigger good memories, but bad smells can trigger bad memories too.

What do you think of when you hear sunflower and sunshine? I think of bright, fresh and pretty. I cannot think of ever really smelling a sunflower and I don’t remember if a sunflower has a scent. I know sunshine really doesn’t have a scent, but I’d like to think it has a nice heated scent, you know what I mean? But I do know neither of these have a strong scent.

This week we tried using Gain’s Sunflower & Sunshine scented laundry detergent. I have to say that I chose the scent because I liked the name, but also because I thought it was the least aromatic from the sample cards I used to choose a scent. It turned out it’s stronger than I thought it would be. It smells a little flowery and almost has a citrus scent. Like most laundry detergents, it’s a strong scent and you can smell it when the cover is on.

Each of us has our own unique sense of smell and we won’t all agree on what our noses like or dislike, but that’s ok. Tell me what you think sunflower and shine smells like? Leave your answer in the comment section!

Faith and Family Reviews received a bottle of Gain Sunflower & Sunshine in exchange for writing a post about this scent. All opinions are my own.

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Post Bowls of Hope for Kids #PostCFK #CBias #SocialFabric

Posted by html404 on June 28, 2012
in Uncategorized

I have always had the heart to help people. How I have chosen to help others has evolved over the years. When I was in my teens I helped by babysitting, cleaning up the kitchen for the parents, taught Sunday School, helped with youth group and visited the elderly. I continued to do some of those things upon getting married, but once I had children I was limited to how/when/where I could help others because I wasn’t physically able to go into people’s homes as I was as a single person or married woman without children. Since I want to be a good example to my children and show them ways to help others, it has taken some creativity and even some waiting at times for opportunities to arise where my children and I could help others together.

In the past, we have helped a thrift store (that supports a crisis pregnancy center), local food pantries, a woman’s shelter in the last Champions for Kids project, Ronald McDonald House as well as regularly giving away items to local charity drives. Not to mention individuals who have come across our path, like a lady who stood in the middle of a busy intersection with a sign asking for clothing for her children. I had several really little ones at the time and we were traveling home as a family when we came across this lady. She was struggling and needed girls clothing for her daughters. We ended up meeting her the following week at the same spot to give her some of my girls’ clothing. I kept in touch with her for a while and eventually lost touch with her. Then there was the time when we treated a man to a bus ticket and another time my husband gave his winter gloves to a homeless man in Chicago.

The needs around us are great and one person or one family is not going to meet all of these needs. But if each person or family does their part then we can collectively make a larger impact for good. That’s why we are participating in Post Bowls of Hope SIMPLE Service Project. This project is the challenge to buy 2, give one Post cereal to a family, charity or food pantry of your choice. We bought Shredded Wheat, as it was one of the more healthier choices available to all that was on the shelf at Walmart.

In the upcoming week we are going to solicit our family, friends, homeschool group, church and neighbors to help us collect healthy food for our local food pantry. We have a box of stuff we’ve been waiting to take over that we will include as well as a box of Post Cereal that we just purchased. We are hoping many will get on board so that we will have even more food to give to the food pantry next week. This will certainly help child hunger in our area.

For more information about this #PostCFK SIMPLE service project, please connect here:

Post’s Facebook
Post’s Twitter
CFK’s Twitter Handle
CFK’s Facebook

What about you? Are you up for this challenge too? Leave a comment telling me who you would like to help.

“I am a member of the Collective Bias™ Social Fabric® Community. This content has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias™ and Champions for Kids. #CBias #SocialFabric. All opinions are my own.”

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Toys for My Boys

Posted by html404 on June 27, 2012
in Baby Products, Family Stuff, Fun Stuff, Kids Toys, Reviews

In a consumer driven age it’s hard to keep “the stuff” at bay. I have always been one to go through my belongings and get rid of stuff. I can thank my mom for that trait or habit. Our home growing up was never cluttered with stuff and that’s the way I have strived to be, I just have double the people my mom did. It gets tougher when you have eight children, especially when they are home every day. Some of you have the advantage of purging while your kids are at school, I don’t have that luxury. I can’t throw out things they really want to keep, but are useless and take up space. You know all those little trinkets, drawings. They are wonderful but I can’t keep every single one my eight children make or I’d live in paperville! Thankfully, the older my children get the better they are becoming about keeping things to a minimum – that does not mean they are neat about it though!

We have always been on the conservative side of toys too – didn’t want to live in toyville either! So when our children receive toys it is usually something that they have really talked about or we thought they would play with it long term, a figure or little people or an educational toy.

People figures have always been a favorite in our house and something our children never really get tired of playing. Our children recently saw a transformers trailer and so we thought our four year old would enjoy playing with the Transformers Rescue Bot. It is really easy to transform and both our little boys love playing with it. It retails for $12.99.

Here’s a little video with my daughter showing how it works before we let the little boys have it, as I didn’t want to have to hunt for it!

Now my littlest guy gets a kick out of the Playskool Poppin’ Park Squeezn’n Pop lion toy. It’s this little toy lion that has a circle mouth where you can place a ball, then you squeeze and out pops the ball! Junior laughs every time. This is a toy for little ones 18 months and up.

Love these new toys for my boys!

Have your children received any new toys lately? If so, what?

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.

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Wordless Wednesday – 2 New Kittens

Posted by html404 on June 27, 2012
in Animals, Family Stuff, Farm Stuff, Wordless Wednesday

We added a couple more critters to our ~~ark~~ farm…2 new kittens!

Meet our fluffykins:

Princess Moonstone, a fiesty female!

Severus, a mellow male!

Photos are my daughter’s.

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Fluffy Fourth of July Gnome’s Naturals Giveaway!

Posted by html404 on June 26, 2012
in Baby Products, Giveaways, Organic

The Fourth of July is only a week a way, can you believe it? Have you ever heard this about corn, “Knee high by the Fourth of July?” Well, the corn behind our house is over six feet tall, it’s growing just fine. Enough about farming, right? On to the giveaway….

We are helping promote the Fluffy Fourth of July Gnome’s Naturals Giveaway. Sponsored by Gnome’s Naturals and hosted by Life With Levi!

Whether you’re just starting out using cloth diapers or already a fluffy pro, this giveaway prize offers something for everyone.

One lucky winner will receive the ULTIMATE cloth diaper stash starter pack, valued at over $415!!!

This amazing prize prize pack includes:

THREE ones & twos All In One Diapers
ONE AppleCheeks Bamboo Little Bundle
ONE AppleCheeks Microterry Little Bundle
TWO Tots Bots Easy Fit or Tini Fit Diapers
TWO Rumparooz G2 Pocket Diapers or Little Joey Newborn All In Ones
ONE Bummis Beautiful BASIC Kit
SIX Organic Cotton Prefold Diapers
ONE Bummis Super Snap Wrap
ONE Bummis Super Lite Wrap
TWO Snappis
ONE AppleCheeks Storage Sac Pail Liner
ONE M Monkey Foot Designs Wet Bag for when you’re on the go.
ONE KalmSkin Travel Size Cloth Diaper Safe Rash Stick
ONE Bag of Rockin’ Green Laundry Detergent
ONE Clean Cheeks Wipes Concentrate
ONE 6 Pack of AppleCheeks Cloth Wipes
ONE Mini Shower Diaper Sprayer
ONE Pack of AppleCheeks Flushable Diaper Liners

That’s all the diapers AND accessories you need for 18 diaper changes!!

Gnome’s Naturals is a cloth diaper and natural parenting store owned & operated by Lori Whitlock. As a mom of a toddler, Lori is always searching for great natural products for herself and her family. When she finds products that she loves, she sticks with them. Lori created Gnome’s Naturals to share those products with you. As a cloth diaper blogger, Lori has tried almost every cloth diaper on the market and strives to carry only the best of the best.

In addition to some well known brands that Lori loves, Gnome’s Naturals also carries work at home mom (WAHM) made items in the store. Make sure you check out the WAHM Spotlight section for products that are handmade by moms in North America. Lori is a huge proponent of moms supporting moms and she hopes that by retailing some mom-made items, she can help support them financially as well.

If you’re new to cloth diapering, Gnome’s Naturals offers several different cloth diaper trial packages. Beyond cloth diapers, Gnome’s Naturals also carries a great selection of baby carriers, baltic amber teething necklaces, breastfeeding products, and more.

Ready To Win?

Just enter using the easy Rafflecopter form below.
All entries are optional – be sure to come back often to complete the daily entries, since the more entries you have, the more chances you have to win!

Giveaway open to residents of the US & Canada. Contest ends Friday, July 6th.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Hungry for Change Shares Top 10 Food Additives to Avoid

Posted by html404 on June 26, 2012
in Downloads, DVDs & CDs, Food and Treats, Health, Health & Garden Tuesday, Health and Garden Tuesday, Health and Nutrition

Do you know what’s in your food? I mean really know. Do you care what’s put in your food? If you don’t, you should because what’s in your food is or will eventually make you sick.

On Friday I received an email from Hungry for Change. By the way, I love the work they are doing! In the email they shared a link to top 10 food additives to avoid. I think you are going to be surprised! If you go to the link below you can read about the food additives to avoid, as well as download a 1 page shopping guide:

http://www.hungryforchange.tv/top-10-food-additives-to-avoid

You can also check out their documentaries, Food Matters (I am going to re-watch this and post about it next week) and Hungry for Change. They share a little bit about these food documentaries at their other site: http://www.foodmatters.tv/

What’s stopping you from changing your eating habits? Self-discipline and just saying no to the bad stuff is my problem. It helps if we don’t bring junk into the house.

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