Our family enjoys giving when we can, which isn’t as often as we use to give. We feel it is an important aspect of our parenting and beliefs to give back. That is why giving charity gifts during the holidays has appealed to us. It helps us take the focus off ourselves and what we get onto others and what we can give. Usually the season of giving is Christmas for us. We never really thought about too many other holidays to be honest. Have you?

I know I wrote a little Mother’s Day 2013 Wordless Wednesday post the other day, but motherhood is a wonderful enough blessing (and challenge, I might add) that’s worth mentioning again. Most of us in North America are not as challenged as mothers in third world countries. We haven’t had to see our child struggle to survive because there isn’t enough food. Nor have we had to see our child battle health issues because there is no doctor available to help diagnose what is wrong with our child. We have access to health care, food, clean water and educational resources. Does that mean other mothers don’t care? No. It’s because these things are not readily available to them for their families. That’s why I wanted to share an idea I never even thought about – giving charity gifts in celebration of Mother’s Day 2013 to help other mothers provide these things to their families.

Unicef offers a variety of charity gifts to give back. Perhaps you have yet to send your mom a gift – you could send her your gift and tell her you also gave a gift in her honor for Mother’s Day. Or maybe you would like to send a gift of your own in celebration of your own motherhood to help other mothers in need.

For a glimpse of the charity gifts offered, here’s a list:

- Mother’s Day Measles Vaccine to protect 100 or 200 kids
- Mother’s Day Family Water Pack
- Maternal Health Kit
- School-in-a-box
- Therapeutic Food
- Pencils
- Story Books
- First Aid Kits
- Footballs
- Bicycle
and more…

You can check out all the Mothers Day 2013 giving opportunities at this link provided.

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I've nursed all eight of my children but have never had a nursing pillow, even though I've always wanted to try one. Amazing, eh? Since I am still currently nursing my two year old, I decided to accept the offer of reviewing and writing about the Mombo nursing pillow. The mombo nursing pillow is made with a two-sided design called Firm2Soft, which my son and I can attest to its softness. We used the soft side and while we were in our nursing session my two year old's little hand could be seen stroking the fabric. It was so sweet. However, the soft side could be used for tummy time with infants. The firm side is recommended for nursing time. The Mombo also has a vibration feature which we did not make use of, though the little round plastic device did capture my younger boys' attention. Mombo has an assortment of styles and slipcover fashions. You can choose from Standard, Deluxe or Nude™. We got the Deluxe. We got the Lion King design and my little guy loved it. Even at two he was tugging on the little flaps, lion and monkey and exploring it with pleasure. The Mombo is very easy to use, it's attractive and comfortable for both mom and baby. I like the zippered slipcover because it will help keep the Mombo clean. I also like that both my hands can be free to do work on my laptop or hold a book….when I'm not playing with my son that is. A word of caution, I am a plus sized woman and could squeeze the Mombo securely around me, but it did fit snuggly. At least it didn't shift around as my bed pillows use to when I used those for nursing! Mombo can be found as  Comfort & Harmony on Twitter and Comfort & Harmony on Facebook.  Mombo™ products are available at Toys R Us. Be sure to check out other mombo™ products available and get something for yourself or an upcoming shower gift! Don't forget to enter our giveaway below! Mombo Giveaway All you have to do to enter is leave a comment on this blog post telling me why you want a mombo™ (is it for you? A friend? A loved one?). All other entries are optional. Have fun!  Rafflecopter giveaway

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The whipped cream is homemade from our own cream – yummylicious!

And I bought these for the purpose of having a Mother’s Day flowers photo….we ended up giving them to Grandma on her special day too….

How was your Mother’s Day? Were you given the royal treatment too?

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Our family loves yogurt. We’ve even made it ourselves and plan to do it again once our garden is planted. So when a Wallaby Yogurt review opportunity presented itself I agreed to do it. We had tried Wallaby Yogurt before but had not tried their new Greek Yogurt.

Wallaby Organic Greek Yogurt is smooth, silky, creamy and yummy. If you don’t know the difference between regular yogurt and Greek yogurt it’s the thickness and texture, in my opinion. It stays on the spoon better for kids (and adults too!) Sometimes, but not always Greek yogurt has less sugar in it. It depends on the brand and of course the fruit flavor.

My hubby brought home blueberry because it’s one of my personal favorites. The yogurt and blueberries were in separate sections like so:

Then I mixed them together like this:

The only thing I didn’t like was the curve of the container made it hard to get all the blueberries out of the bottom. I actually used the end of my spoon to get as much as I could out and added to my yogurt. The more blueberries the better in my book. Spoken like a true Bluenoser (person from Nova Scotia ) I think one of those new inventions shown on the show Shark Tank called Spatty (and the larger one Spatty Daddy) would have come in handy to get all the blueberries out.

Otherwise the yogurt was delicious and definitely one we’d buy again.

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Do you have a child who has bedwetting issues? It is a very common experience, but one we are often loath to discuss. In part because maybe we are embarrassed and also because we do not want to cause our child any unnecessary shame that may be imposed upon them if others know. We have had 2-3 children who have struggled with bedwetting. As parents it concerns us when our child has a problem and we want to do everything we can to help them. One of the ways we help our children is by providing an overnight sleep pant. It makes clean up easier and less embarrassing for the bedwetting child.

When you have a child in diapers and a child in sleep pants, like we do, it can get pretty expensive buying these products every month. We recently tried White Cloud Sleep Pants, which offers a budget friendly solution for parents of bedwetters. Each package retails for just $7.75. That’s a price most families will smile at as they head to the checkout lane. White Cloud Sleep Pants come in either S/M (15 count) or L/XL (12 count).

So far we’ve experienced no leakage at night, which makes all of us happy!

We really like Wal-mart White Cloud Sleep Pants. The sleep pants fit our child nicely and our child says they are comfortable. Our child who is wearing them says they are softer than the others we were previously buying. That was their first comment after wearing them only one night! This child also is not ashamed to wear them. Then again we’ve worked hard not to give them cause to be embarrassed but have determined this is a part of the growing up experience for them and us. We act like this is normal and they will eventually outgrow it, just as other children have. This child also liked the colors and design of the sleep pants. Other than smile, they really didn’t have much of a reaction to them. They were just glad we had a fresh supply of them again, as we had run out!

Our overall experience with White Cloud Sleep Pants has been very positive.

Did you know that over 5 million kids a year experience bedwetting and it is one of the most common experiences during childhood development?

White Cloud Sleep Pants have been developed to provide exceptional comfort and leakage protection while looking like underwear. White Cloud Sleep Pants offer thin, discrete absorbent protection for your child. They have soft, stretchy sides that fit like real underwear, plus leak guards to help protect against leaks. The soft inner liner is hypoallergenic and treated with vitamin E and aloe for skin protection.

Each bag contains two unisex graphic designs and at $7.75, White Cloud offers exceptional value.

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of White Cloud Sleep Pants.

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This is another book that I read last month during the rain storms. When a Secret Kills is a part of the Deadly Reunions by Lynette Eason and is the last book of the series. Sniff, sniff.

I have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know the characters in this series. It’s sad when a series comes to an end after you’ve made the characters your friends, so to speak.

When a Secret Kills kept me reading on the edge of my seat…right to the end. It was suspenseful and the plot riveting. I loved the thread of trust some of the minor characters had to have in order to have faith that God would eventually reveal the truth the characters knew in their hearts. Ten years is a very long time to pray and trust for a wrong to be made right. This is so often the case in real life – God reveals His truth in His time and way, not ours. That fact is sometimes hard for us humans to swallow, especially when we want to be in control ourselves, but His time is always perfect.

I loved the captivating plot and the sweet reunion of a family long torn apart by a secret and a crime.

Two thumbs up and I can’t wait for Ms. Eason’s next series!

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

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Calling all bloggers! Here’s a FREE HUGE GIVEAWAY EVENT for you to join!

Open to ALL SELF HOSTED BLOGS only. No wordpress.com, blogspot.com, tumblr and the likes.

You’re entitled to ONE FREE LINK to your social media network in exchange of:

1. Posting an announcement post. Grab the announcement post here.

2. Posting about the giveaway event. The HTML code will be provided.

3. Promoting the giveaway AT LEAST ONCE A DAY.

Sign-up closes on May 19, 2013. We are taking up to 50 bloggers only. SO SIGN UP EARLY!

Dates to remember:

Start: May 21, 2013 12:01 AM EST

End: June 11, 2013 11:59 PM EST

GIVEAWAY PRIZE: $500 Visa Gift Card or Amazon Gift Code (or Paypal Cash equivalent)

Eligibility: Open WORLDWIDE

BLOGGER REFERRAL PRIZES:

1 WINNER – $80 Paypal cash

2 WINNERS will host a follow page (of Rafflecopter code)

Big thanks to our generous sponsors:

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By signing up, you agree with the terms mentioned above.

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Morton Subotnick’s Pitch Painter App is an award winning app that is available in your iTunes store for iPad with an iOS of 5.0 or later. Finger Painting and Music combine 2 things that your 3 to 5 year old love to do! Without the Mess!

First choose the regional instruments you’d like to play. The regions are Europe and North America, West Africa, Middle East, or East Asia.  Each region gives you 3 different instruments to choose from.

For example – Europe and North America has a Clarinet, Trumpet, and Piano.  When the clarinet is selected it will give you a tone of a clarinet, then just finger paint and the tone will follow your child’s finger.  Then change to a trumpet and get another color and sound.  Your child can record their music and play it back.  There are options to play the music backwards or upside down!

I really like this app, it’s soothing to the ears and fun!  My daughter really enjoying recording her finger painting music and playing it back for us to hear. It’s a big hit in our house!  I think your pre-school aged child will like it too!

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This is the first time we are raising meat birds other than turkeys. The Freedom Rangers will be meat for customers and our family. This may be the only batch we do this year. We’ll have to see how they taste and how they grow. They are a slower growing breed compared to the ever popular white broiler we find in the meat section of grocery stores.

We were gifted with a surprise package of Midget White turkeys. We had not ordered our turkeys and then we get a call from the Post Office saying we have some baby birds. After listening to messages we discovered the hatchery we bought from last year had a major system error and sent out last year’s orders by mistake! Since it was their error there was no charge. A blessing in disguise, I guess, since we had not yet decided what we were going to do about turkeys this year.

Our breeding pair of Midget White turkeys, which we kept from last year’s batch, are doing well. Brownie, the hen, has been laying an egg a day. A neighbor actually just dropped by and picked up 13 of her eggs to see if he could hatch them out in an incubator. He’ll be picking up another 7-10 next week. We’ll see how that goes. Brownie has actually been sitting on her eggs, as well as some chicken eggs, for the past three days. It’s the broodiest we’ve seen her so here’s to hoping she hatches out some baby chicks on her own. Now that would cause some excitement around our little farm!

Happy Wordless Wednesday! (or not so wordless )

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This past weekend I really flubbed up on a blog opp. I felt horrible, seriously, because in all honesty I was really looking forward to doing participating in the opportunity since it was for Chicago area bloggers. However, since I was already at the Long Grove Chocolate Festival I determined to make the best of a sad situation – I bought chocolate – of course.

Blondie and “B” were with me and we spent a little over an hour walking around the festival. Thankfully, we had arrived a little before opening time which enabled us to find parking very easily and we avoided massive crowds and lines during checkout. It definitely pays to be an early bird to popular Chicago events.

It was a beautiful day on Sunday for the Long Grove Chocolate Festival. We enjoyed stopping to smell all the tulips and daffodils in bloom. We rested on park benches and watched people. We visited a Christmas shop called, The Pear Tree Shoppe, the Scandinavian shop, the Irish shop, the Nifty Fifties shop as well as an antique store and others.

My girls were very pleased with our outing, especially when it came time to visit the Confectionary and buy chocolate! We treated ourselves to creamy chocolate fudge, a chocolate covered pretzel and a peanut butter cup with M&Ms on top. We treated those at home to a dozen apple cider donuts and chocolate coins.

All in all the girls thought we should get out more often as we absorbed warm sunshine and pleasant companions.

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