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TOS Revives Molly Green – Saving Money!

Posted by Brande on April 12, 2012
in Animals, Baby Products, Books, Cleaning, Coupons, Ebooks, Fun Stuff, Gift Ideas, Home, Money & Finances, Organic, Parenting, Recipes, Saving Money, Shopping

TOS (The Old Schoolhouse Magazine) revives Molly Green Magazine / Econobusters! Each week Molly Green is delivered to your inbox with tips, recipes and other inspiring ideas related to saving money! Molly Green Magazine / Econobusters offers decorating tips, pet care, health and beauty care for less. Let’s not forget tips on coupon clipping and “Abundant Blessings” (large savings for large families). With a paid monthly subscription to Molly Green Magazine / Econobusters you will receive “FREE Menu-Planning E-Book and Home Work: Juggling Home, Work and School Without Losing Your Balance E-Book“. Let Molly Green Magazine / Econobusters save you money too!! There is also “A Minute with Molly” a free newsletter.

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A Juicy Update

Posted by html404 on April 9, 2012
in Books, Food and Treats, Health, Health and Nutrition

Mysterious (or should I say juicy? ;)) blog title, eh? Here are a couple excerpt from an upcoming book review and giveaway….

A Juicy Update

The answer to whether or not young children should be allowed to drink juice on a regular basis has been a bit of a sticky one for years. After all, the fight against childhood obesity has most definitely included a focus on limiting sugary liquids. And juice—whether it is delivered in a box or carton, sippy cup or straw—most definitely contains sugar. In fact, when we set out to write the first edition of Food Fights, the latest research at the time had us all but convinced that fruit juice was almost as much to blame for childhood obesity (not to mention tooth decay) as soda pop. Sugar was sugar, after all, and it was hard to look past the fact that a 12-ounce serving of 100% grape juice had been shown to have 11/2 times the calories as grape soda. Additionally, a few small initial studies suggested a worrisome connection between obesity in young children and their fruit juice consumption. But unlike soda pop and its utter lack of redeeming nutritional qualities, 100% fruit juice has since proven itself significantly more worthy of further nutritional consideration. Several subsequent large national studies have revealed some interesting findings about kids, juice, nutrition, and obesity, not the least of which has been the lack of an association between drinking 100% fruit juice and an increased likelihood of children being or becoming overweight. These new findings have led us to reassess our take on juice, and to reformulate our own juice-related advice for parents accordingly.

A Convenient Juice Box

If and when you plan on incorporating juice into your child’s diet responsibly,we suggest the following approach:

• Make sure it’s pure fruit juice. Fruit drinks that aren’t 100% juice typically
contain added sugars and/or sweeteners that can up both the cavity and
calorie counts.
• Hold off on introducing your child to juice for at least his first year and
refrain from serving it in a bottle.
• Avoid letting your child sip on juice (or any other sugar-containing liquid,
for that matter) for prolonged periods. Whether by bottle, sippy cup, or
cup, bathing one’s teeth in sugary liquids can cause serious tooth decay.
• Consider diluting it with water.
• Encourage your child to eat fresh, whole fruits whenever available.
• Whenever possible, serve juice that contains pulp for added fiber.
• Make sure juice doesn’t entirely drown out your child’s interest in drinking
milk and water.
• Buy only pasteurized products (shelf-stable juices, frozen concentrates,
or specially marked refrigerated juices) to avoid potential diarrhea-causing
infections.
• While the American Academy of Pediatrics does suggest 100% fruit juice
as an acceptable part of a healthy diet, be aware that it’s wise to offer it in
age-appropriate moderation (none under 6 months of age and no more
than 4 to 6 ounces a day for older infants and children).
• Keep an eye out for warning signs of excessive juice intake, such as tooth
decay and “toddler’s diarrhea.” Not only do young kids tend to suck on
sugary liquids for prolonged periods when allowed, thus putting their newly
acquired teeth at considerable risk., but kids
between the ages of 2 and 3 tend to have the highest juice consumption—
in some instances enough to cause persistent diarrhea.

Come back Friday to learn more about the book and giveaway!

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Girls and Boys Bibles – Last Minute Easter Gift Idea

Posted by html404 on April 7, 2012
in Books, Family Stuff, Gift Ideas, Holidays

The NIV Girls Bibles if for girls 9-12 and not only does it have a Bible inside, but it also has a ton of extra features like a dream girl section where girls can use their imaginations, finding out what they have in common with great women of the Bible, words to memorize, and answers to questions that they have always wanted to find out about.

My girls really liked the notes on the side/bottom of the pages and the index in the back too. Most girls will love the frilly pink design and cute flowers that are scattered throughout. It also has a read the Bible in a year index is something that most girls will love and I know that my girls did. They will also love the list of verses to read when you are feeling bad or upset.

The NIV Boys Bible is targeted with boys ages 9-12 in mind. With tons of cool features and devotions designed to strength your boys walk with God parents will love that their boys are leaning values at a young age. The colors and textures in the boy’s Bible will appeal to them since it is very “manly” and they will love the metal cover. They will also love the gross and gory section that features all the weird and cool thing that you never knew was in the Bible. It seems to be very sturdy and I am guessing that it would last through even the most destructive boy.

Both Bibles are really nice and tweens will love the extra features. I’m not too crazy about the hardcover, but I prefer soft cover Bibles so that is just a personal preference. I think that these would make nice bibles for tweens and then you could “upgrade” to a more adult Bible when they reach their teen years and outgrow these.

The NIV Bibles can be purchased at bookstores nationwide and www.Zondervan.com A great last minute Easter gift idea!

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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Pre-Order KIWI’s New Cookbook!

Posted by Brande on March 31, 2012
in All Natural Products, Articles, Books, Eco Friendly Products, Family Stuff, Food and Treats, Health, Health and Nutrition, News Worthy, Organic, Recipes, Shopping

I just got this email! KIWI Magazine is all about natural and organic ways of living. LOVE IT! They just came out with this cookbook for families with food allergies. It will get released on April 10 but, you can pre-order it through Amazon.com.

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FREE “Dummies” Books

Posted by Brande on March 29, 2012
in Articles, Books, Downloads, Ebooks, Education, Encouragement for Moms, Family Stuff, Free Stuff, Parenting, Products for Dad, Products for Mom

I’ve used “Dummies” books before and they are helpful. Check out these 3 that I ordered. “Living the Boomer Life for Dummies“, “Well-Being for Dummies“, and “Retirement for Dummies” – Get these FREE Dummies books as a download if you need them faster or in hard copy. They are available at REAL Powered by Humana, which so far, for me at least, seems to be an equally good site for various information about work, family, self and play. If you look near the middle of the page you will see Marketplace that’s where you will find these “Dummies” books too. They are on the right side of the Marketplace link.

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Simon and the Easter Miracle Review

Posted by Professor on March 26, 2012
in Books

Synopsis:

The gospels tells of Simon of Cyrene – “”a man coming in from the country”” – who was ordered to carry Jesus’ cross. Over the centuries, his story has been woven into Polish folklore: When Simon the farmer brings his wares to market, little does he expect how he will be involved in the events of that very special day, nor how his produce – of bread, eggs and wine – will become important symbols of Jesus’ passion and resurrection, remembered throughout the ages. Together with sophisticated artwork, this picture book retelling of a traditional European tale is both thought provoking and engaging, with the events and meaning of the first Easter at its heart.

Our Review:

What a wonderful thought-provoking book! My children enjoyed the wonderful story and the vivid illustrations. The book was engaging to all of my children ages 3, 6, and 8. I especially liked that the book was in large format and hardcover…this let all of the children be able to read the book along with me and no one was craning their necks to see the pictures!

This is really a good book to read and then to discuss the passion of Christ with the little ones. It gives a different perspective and invokes thought about the Gospel for little minds. It truly weaves the Easter miracle and the message of peace in its words.

Being of Polish heritage I liked the fact that this was taken from Polish folklore…something my children and I discussed after we read the book. My children and I often read literature and tales from different cultures so it was nice to add a polish Gospel story to our repertoire.

For more information about this book or other Kregel publications visit www.kregel.com

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Going Green with The Gigglin’ Garden Gang #GoGreenNGiggle #Cbias

Posted by html404 on March 23, 2012
in Books, Eco Friendly Products, Family Stuff, Farm Stuff, Fun Stuff, Gardening, Gift Ideas

As you all know, we are all for going green and living a healthy lifestyle while making use of the earth’s resources in a responsible and sustainable way. We desire to be good stewards. You are also familiar with our farm journey. That’s why when we were introduced to The Gigglin’ Garden Gang we were excited because it was right up our alley!

In recent years our family has enjoyed planning, preparing and planting our garden. This “Go Green and Giggle”® Book & Tote Garden Activity Gift Set fits perfectly with our fun family activities, but first I had to buy it.

Shopping Online for the “Go Green and Giggle”® Book & Tote Garden Activity Gift Set

First I went to GigglinGardenGang.com. They have some fun music playing that my little guys zoomed over to the computer to “see” being so use to music videos we watch. The website is very easy to navigate and very pleasing to the eye.

To order the product I had to click on their Amazon link to the left side of their home page:

Once I clicked the link it took me to The Gigglin’ Garden Gang’s Amazon shop:

From there is really was a piece of cake, click add to cart:

Amazon will then confirm that the item is in your cart:

After that just click to place order:

Completing the order was a matter of imputing credit card info or editing personal information. I really did not have to do much because we do have an Amazon account so most of my information was already stored. It really is that simple and took less than 5 minutes to do! I love shopping online, can you tell? 🙂

Green Children-Friendly Activities

If you are looking for sustainable activities to do with your children on Earth Day, which is only a month away, the “Go Green and Giggle”® Book & Tote Garden Activity Gift Set is the perfect one to choose! Our children loved it! Of course, I only bought one so they all had to share. It contains the “Go Green and Giggle”® Book, the tote, the greenhouse with six soil wafers, sunflower seeds, a sticker, a coloring sheet of Sunflower Suzi and a CD featuring Sunflower Suzi singing cute little songs – a Theme song and a Go Green and Giggle Rap & Instrumental – my children loved listening to it! We played it a few times while doing our planting activity and they just asked again as I was typing.

The kit unpackaged.

My four year old holding the greenhouse.

Individual components of the kit. The sunflower seeds were tucked safely on the back page of the book by Sunflower Suzi after all she is providing them to us, right? 😉

The soil wafers up close.

The sunflower seeds.

We added warm water to the soil wafers. The children took turns and actually did very well pouring the water! Very little mess, surprisingly! lol!

Each of the children planted a seeds. We actually had 7 sunflower seeds in our package. Our oldest did not participate. She was on her laptop!

As you can see from the greenhouse tray there are actually 12 cells in which to plant. The directions recommended taking it off, but we kept it on and decided to plant the extra sunflower seed as well as some snap peas. My daughter experimented last year with seed saving and these are actually seeds she saved from our snap peas. We hope to do more seed saving this year! All a part of stewardship and being sustainable.

Baby even helped!

Ta-da! All done with the planting!

We really had fun. I read the book to the children, then they sat and read it. Very cute illustrations and funny little jokes that made us giggle! We hope to get permission to use those in our farm newsletter in the future!

What a great rainy day activity too! I was glad to be able to keep my children busy this morning since they couldn’t go outside!

Connect with The Gigglin’ Garden Gang Online

To connect with the Gigglin’ Garden Gang on their social media sites, please visit:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/GoGreenNGiggle (@GoGreenNGiggle)
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/sunflowersuzi

This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for

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Kids Consignment Sales!!

Posted by Brande on March 15, 2012
in Baby Products, Books, Children's Clothing, Clothing, Deals, DVDs & CDs, Family Stuff, Fun Stuff, Kid's Footwear, SALES, Saving Money, Shopping, Thrifty Thursday

Don’t pay full price!!! Kids grow in leaps and bounds, why pay full price when they just grow out of them within a few months?! I found this site this morning http://kidsconsignmentsales.com/. You choose your state and it gives the current sales coming up! In fact, I thought I knew about all the sales in my area. Low and behold, there’s another one, really close to my home. There are lots of sale starting soon for spring & summer clothes. I’m heading to one this afternoon! I love these types of sales and I hope you can get some good buys in your area too!

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Heart’s Safe Passage

Posted by html404 on March 12, 2012
in Books

Yep, read another book this weekend, however, I won’t have too many more book reviews to post as we get into gardening season. There just won’t be time to do much reading, not that there is now, but you know what I mean, right?

Heart’s Safe Passage is the second book in The Midwives series by Laurie Alice Eakes. I read the first one a year or two ago, I believe, and really enjoyed it. I am very pro-midwives, after all I have given birth at home with one for my last three births and have even studied midwifery at one point but had to put it aside when my husband got laid off. I find the history of midwifery compelling and dates back to the beginning of time in the book of Exodus in the bible.

I found this second book interesting as well, though again this novel was not so much about the midwifery as much as the spiritual and personal life of the midwife, Phoebe Lee. The story is set in the early 1800s and shares Phoebe’s story, which was only hinted at in the first book, as she helps her sister-in-law Belinda. Phoebe is a spunky little thing. I actually loved Phoebe’s spunk, she made up for Belinda’s character…one spoiled rich girl.

Even though this was a romance-y book, there were twists in the plot and a fair amount of guessing when it came to figuring out who was against Captain Docherty, what Phoebe would do in any given situation and how she and the two other female characters were going to survive their time on board a privateer brig (different than a ship).

Revenge, bitterness, forgiveness and healing are important elements in this book and when these are presented there is always something for everyone to learn.

Heart’s Safe Passage gets two thumbs up from me!

“Available February 2012 at your favorite bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group.”

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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Barefoot Executive Review

Posted by html404 on March 5, 2012
in Books, Business

It is always exciting to learn of a person who is doing what you want to do. In my case it’s work-at-home. I know, I know, I am doing that already, but let me finish. Work-at-home and make enough money to obtain financial freedom for our family. Those are my goals and have been during the last four years since my husband was laid off and earning less than he did. Carrie Wilkerson minces no words in her new book, The Barefoot Executive and how she reached her financial goals.

Carrie shares her own journey and the lessons she’s learned in this book. I pretty much marked my copy all up reading it because what she had to say is what I needed to hear/read.

Quotes I like from the book:

“You simply cannot spend your life in fear of losing your job, your health, your life or your wife. I decided that I had to create my own financial reality and job security. Was I afraid of failing? Yes, but I could continue being scared and broke, or I could be afraid and well paid. I chose the latter. At some point, you have to be more afraid of not trying than you are of failing. ~ Carrie Wilkerson”

“Never, never, never give up.”

“To live an extraordinary life, you must resist the ordinary.” ~ Frank Mckinney

“Most miss opportunity because it shows up in overalls and looks a lot like work.” ~ Ben Franklin

“I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.” ~ Leonardo da Vinci

Those quotes were just nibbles, I could add a slew more!

This past weekend I spent time going through Carrie’s websites, videos, blog etc. and I must say I was impressed. Impressed but still skeptical, but only because that is my nature. I am impressed because in some ways she echoes what I have heard in the past but Carrie has more credibility than the others. Carrie has made her money. She’s been on CNN, Forbes, Lifetime.com, Success and others. She’s established herself as an expert and I want to learn from her. There are not too many business books I go ga-ga over but I have gone ga-ga over The Barefoot Executive.

If you have ever been waiting, waiting, waiting for something and then it was all of a sudden right in front of you, wouldn’t you be in relieved? Excited? That’s me. I feel like this book was written specially for me at this time in my life.

You may learn more about Carrie and her book at http://BarefootExecutiveBook.com/

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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