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Tag Archive for Family Stuff

Bingzy Bee App Review

Posted by Brande on March 19, 2012
in Education, Family Stuff, Fun Stuff, Parenting, Shopping

Join Bingzy Bee as your child has fun through this new learning app! Just released in January, this app is available for iPhone, iTouch, & iPad. This adorable character is directed for your younger ones (ages 2-6). There are 4 activities to choose from: “Bingzy’s ABC Song”, “Song & Games”, “Letter Drag & Drop”, and “Bingzy to the Rescue”

Bingzy’s ABC Song – This great little song goes through the alphabet and sounds out the letter, give you a picture, than gives you a word. Perfect for your little ones learning the alphabet

Song & Game – Starts with Bingzy’s ABC Song, then you play a game after the letter D. For example, Letter A is Ant. The app gives you the picture of the Ant and give you _ NT your child then must pick the correct letter out.

Letter Drag & Drop – Similar to the Song & Game section. Except, you get the picture of the Ant and give you _ NT your child then must pick the correct letter.

Bingzy to the Rescue – Save Bingzy’s friends by loading them in the rescue copter in alphabetical order.

My Review

This is a great app for my daughter (3 years old), we are still working on our ABC’s all the way through and this is perfect for her! She’s not quite to the Letter Drag & Drop and Bingzy’s Rescue. But, this is what makes it a great app. She can use it for years to come. At last check this adorable & useful app is available on Itunes for only .99!

Follow them! Here’s Bing Note’s Information!

Website: http://bingnote.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bing-Note/70588121848

Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/bingnote

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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Organized Days & Seed Update – This Week’s Monday Motivation

Posted by html404 on March 19, 2012
in Family Stuff, Farm Stuff, Food and Treats, Fun Stuff, Gardening, Monday Motivation, Saving Money

There is always something to do around our home, whether it’s housework, work or whatever. For this week’s motivation I want us to work on organizing our days better to get more done across the board, especially once we have the garden and chickens. It’ll be easier once summer comes, I think, but for now we need more organized days as not everything is getting done that needs to be done lately. It doesn’t help that all the children have been sick the past week, but still when we get behind on things it is time to pull up our boot straps and get back at it. I may blog less this week as we catch up, just depends.

Seeds and Veggie Plants

On Friday afternoon I was able to get onions, kale, parsley, leeks, spinach, cabbage and Swiss chard planted. You should see the children’s seeds! They are no longer seeds, but little plants! It’s amazing how they sprouted and grew in the last week!

And here are the seeds I planted on Friday, March 16. Again, as you can see I used what I had to save money, instead of buying seed flats I used the big foil roasters and lasagna pans. Hey it works as I got 40-45 seeds planted in each! I did buy 4″ pots to replant everything into and we’ll reuse the egg cartons and pans to plant more seeds for succession planting.

Fun! 🙂

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2012 Wildflower Reference Guide

Posted by Brande on March 19, 2012
in Education, Family Stuff, Farm Stuff, Free Stuff, Fun Stuff, Gardening

This is great for you and your kids. I can see two plus’ to this already!

A) You need to be outside to use this reference guide

B) You and your kids are learning and it’s fun! Kinda like a treasure hunt!

Go an get your Wildflower Reference Guide at http://shop.wildseedfarms.com/inforequest.asp

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Free Bloomin’ Onion at Outback!

Posted by Brande on March 18, 2012
in Business, Coupons, Deals, Family Stuff, Food and Treats, Free Stuff, Fun Stuff, Restaurants, Saving Money

Tuesday, March 20th is the first day of Spring! Hooray! Go and celebrate with a FREE Bloomin’ Onion from Outback Steakhouse!

Here’s what you need to do! Tell your server that you’re there to “Bloom Into Spring”. That’s it!

There are other coupons on their site also!

Happy Spring!

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Couponing for Good: A Donation to Turning Point #CBias #AllYouCFK

Posted by html404 on March 16, 2012
in Blog Stuff, Coupons, Family Stuff, Giving Back/Charity

I never thought about couponing for charity until I became involved in the Champion For Kids All You Couponing for Good campaign. Without a doubt it is an awesome idea, one I want our family to implement on regularly basis, which is why I am trying to get myself and my crew organized to hopefully do a monthly donation. Ask me next month to see if I have followed through! Better put it on my calendar to remind myself…..seriously.

Photo above shows most of the things we gave, but chips, tomato sauce and juice boxes are missing.

Shopping & Donating

If you haven’t read my first post about our shopping trip for our donation items, please read it here and see my complete shopping trip here. I was considering giving our goodies to our local food pantry but because I don’t have a car during the day, I decided to give our couponing for good donation to Turning Point instead because their hours were easier to coordinate with my husband’s work schedule.

Women’s Shelter

This week my children have all been sick in one form or another so unfortunately they did not go to the shelter with me. 🙁 Oh some of them wanted to but I really didn’t want to be the cause of others getting sick with runny noses, stuffiness, wooziness/dizziness and headaches! We’ll just keep those germ bugs to ourselves! Yesterday my husband was home all day because I had a meeting and needed the car, so after that was over my oldest helped me load up the car with what we had already purchased at Walmart, juice boxes and juice/vegetable boxes I picked up at Costco, plus a few extras I took from our own pantry. Then I drove to Turning Point to drop off our goodies. Champions for Kids encourages SIMPLE service projects like this to help children (and women in this case) in our own communities.

I have never been to a women’s and children’s shelter before but was kind of surprised at the surveillance cameras outside, the door buzzer and locked door. I found it sad and scary – not for me, but for the women and children (workers too) who sought refuge there. The building was well taken care of and clean. I am always timid when it comes to asking if someone would mind me taking their picture so I never did ask the ladies working there. Maybe one day I will once I get to know them better. It might be a great blog post to interview them!

After I rang the buzzer and was let inside, the woman who let me in asked if I needed a cart, which I was grateful for and I only dumped one bag off the cart while rolling it in! I had to carry two bags, but the lady took those from me when I reached the door that she so kindly held open for me.

Our donation was appreciated and I was told to keep an eye on their website to stay current with their needs. It felt good to help a local organization assisting women and children in need of shelter from domestic abuse and violence.

Champions for Kids

To learn more about Champions for Kids visit:
Website: http://championsforkids.org/
Twitter Handle: https://twitter.com/#!/champions4kids
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ChampionsForKids

This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias. All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own. #CBias #AllYouCFK

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#HealthyHabits & Oral Care Challenge Update

Posted by html404 on March 16, 2012
in Family Stuff, Health, Health and Nutrition

Nearly a month ago we started the Healthy Habits & Oral Care Challenge, if you missed my first post about the Healthy Habits & Oral Care Challenge, please go back and read it here. We had our ups and downs of changing our individual daily habits, after all isn’t that why we give a challenge at least 30 days? I have heard some say it takes up to 90 days to successfully start a new habit or break an old one, while others say 2 weeks. Who’s to say, right? We are all different.

Depending on my work schedule, I improved my goal of getting back to brushing 2x/day and flossing at least 1x/day, even though I know our panel of experts recommended flossing 2x/day, but I wasn’t flossing at much, if any before the challenge. I was pretty much able to rinse 1-2x/day as well, just not consistent with the 2x/day recommendation.

My children were pretty stellar and I think some advancement has been made with certain ones that were really struggling. Consistency is key. A couple of the children really did not care for the mouthwash or were afraid of swallowing it (they know too much and read labels!). Another one of my children thought the toothbrush she had was too soft or not soft enough? I cannot remember now and she’s in bed early because she’s sick. 🙁 But that is just a personal preference.

I really liked the flavor of the alcohol-free mouthwash we got. Not sure if my husband even tried it (I don’t keep tabs on his oral care! :)), he’s putting the little ones to bed so I can work so I cannot really ask him right now! I think overall everyone in our family has been pleased with the experience. It has made us more aware of how important it is to be a good example of practicing healthy habits to the younger children and showing them good oral care.

Tips on Getting Your Kids to Brush, Floss and Rinse

● Make oral care fun (e.g., make it a game; brush, floss and rinse to music; etc).
● Reward their behavior (e.g., give gold stars for good oral care).
● Show, don’t tell – make oral care a family affair.
● Involve them in their own oral care routine by providing products like LISTERINE® Smart Rinse, which can make the daily routine more fun,
provides 12-hour cavity protection for kids and strengthens teeth 99 percent better than brushing alone.

These tips were provided by Dr. Kaneta Lott, DDS (pediatric dentist).

Need oral care products? Shop here.

Faith and Family Reviews received the following product in exchange for writing and participating in the Healthy Habits for a Lifetime Oral Care Challenge. We are being compensated by Johnson & Johnson and TheMotherhood. While we consider it a privilege to receive free products to review and compensation, our reviews are our honest opinion and thoughts of the product.

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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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How to Shoot a BB Gun – The Joys of Living in the Country

Posted by html404 on March 14, 2012
in Family Stuff, Farm Stuff, Fun Stuff

Our oldest son has challenged us more in homeschooling than any of our girls ever did and in order to get him to read we had to come up with certain incentives that were of interest to him and made him want to read for the end result. For him it was getting a BB gun. Even the promise of a $50 bill did not motivate him! He had to read a certain amount from January until his birthday in February then he could have his BB gun. He made the goal and on his birthday or the day after my husband took him to Farm & Fleet to buy a BB gun. However, he could not shoot his BB gun until he finished a certain amount of books….let’s just say he kicked his reading up a notch because this past Sunday he (and the rest of the family too) got to shoot his BB gun. The joys of living in the country affords us new experiences we would never had if we still lived in our townhouse subdivision and I have to say our children are happier for the change!

The Target – Nothing fancy mind you, but it worked for us!

The Master Teacher – An awesome Dad! (a must-have!)

The Students – Eager boys (and girls in our family’s case)

Teaching Safety – Especially to our younger crew (and NO we did NOT shoot at the target with them behind it! That’s why we were teaching THEM about safety as cute as they were trying to hid behind the box!)

Ready, Aim, Fire! – The REAL fun!

That about says it all! My husband was the only one to hit the target. Our two sons and one of our daughters hit the box when my husband decided that might be an easier target to start with. The rest of us missed!

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SchoolhouseTeachers.com

Posted by Brande on March 12, 2012
in Articles, Education, Encouragement for Moms, Family Stuff, Fun Stuff, Gardening, Gift Ideas, Parenting, School

Check out The Old Schoolhouse Magazine’s (TOS) reinvented Teacher’s Toolbox. I introduce SchoolhouseTeachers.com.

Click the banner above or here’s the link – http://schoolhouseteachers.com/dap/a/?a=3429

The topics of March include “Get Out and Garden!” , “This Day in History” , “Schoolhouse Kitchen”, crafts, lots of encouragement and devotions.

TOS is continually adding enhancements to SchoolhouseTeachers.com – Watch for Schoolhouse Clubs for Kids, freebies (for long-term members), and TOS digital back issues! With even more coming in April and beyond!

There are 3 different tiers of membership.

The Standard Membership includes –

Members-only access to lesson material from all of our expert teachers—Geography, History, Home Ec, Literature, Music/Singing, Technology, Writing and many more subjects in months to come

The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine delivered by TOS straight to your inbox monthly

All The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine digital back issues (easily searchable)

3 E-Books from the TOS E-Book Homeschool Library during the first 12 months of membership

After 12 months of uninterrupted membership, you’ll receive a $5 gift certificate to the Totally TOS section of The Schoolhouse Store.

Premium Membership –

Members-only access to lesson material from all of our expert teachers—Geography, History, Home Ec, Literature, Music/Singing, Technology, Writing and many more subjects in months to come

All TOS webinar Expo-to-Go recorded sessions ($60 value), including recordings of all future and ongoing Expos during length of membership

The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine delivered by TOS straight to your inbox monthly

All The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine digital back issues (easily searchable)

7 E-Books from the TOS E-Book Homeschool Library during the first 12 months of membership

After 12 months of uninterrupted membership, you’ll receive a $10 gift certificate to the Totally TOS section of The Schoolhouse Store.

Ultimate Member –

Members-only access to lesson material from all of our expert teachers—Geography, History, Home Ec, Literature, Music/Singing, Technology, Writing and many more subjects in months to come

All five 2012-13 Schoolhouse Daily e-Planners (more than $125 value)

All TOS webinar Expo-to-Go recorded sessions ($60 value), including recordings of all future and ongoing Expos during length of membership

The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine delivered by TOS straight to your inbox monthly

All The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine digital back issues (easily searchable)

12 E-Books from the TOS E-Book Homeschool Library (one per month) during the first 12 months of membership

After 12 months of uninterrupted membership, you’ll receive a $25 gift certificate to the Totally TOS section of The Schoolhouse Store.

BONUS for the Ultimate Membership for a limited time only!

Go and sign up, this is a great tool for any parent just not homeschoolers!

**The membership information was quoted directly from the SchoolhouseTeachers.com website.**

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First Alert Facebook Giveaway!

Posted by Brande on March 10, 2012
in Appliances, Family Stuff, Free Stuff, Giveaways, Home, Houseware, Safety

Head to First Alert’s Facebook Page – Enter for a chance to win 1 of 100 Prize Packs! You have until March 12th (Monday)!

Don’t forget to change you clocks one hour ahead & smoke alarm batteries!

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