Posted on

Artisana Organics Review

IMG_20150306_125650576A big thanks to Artisana Organics for the free products to try and review! All opinions are my own.

They sent me Coconut Oil, Coconut Cacao Bliss Spread, and  a variety of Squeeze Packs.

I was a bit skeptical about the squeeze packs actually tasting good. They’re made out of just the nuts without anything added. I was pleasantly surprised. They taste great. The Pecan Butter and the Coconut Butter were my favorites. Cashew and Walnut weren’t bad, but they’re not my favorite nuts so I didn’t enjoy them quite as much as the others.

These are made from organic nuts and there’s no added sugars, so you can feel good about your tasty snack! These are the perfect size for an afternoon pick-me up or on the go.

IMG_20150309_110536828The Coconut Cacao Bliss Spread was my favorite item! This stuff is awesome!

The ingredient list is so simple! “Organic Raw Coconut Butter, Organic Extra Virgin Coconut Oil, Organic Agave Syrup, Organic Cacao, Organic Cacao Butter”. Also it’s certified organic, vegan, and raw. I’m all about knowing what I’m eating, so I feel good about eating this.

IMG_20150309_121106806I tried it a few different ways. On crackers, on bread, warmed with strawberries and just eating it with a spoon(my favorite). This would also be an awesome addition to a smoothie or milkshake.

I had it sitting out on my counter and kept just grabbing a spoon and eating a bite, it’s so delicious!

It’s a bit thicker than peanut butter. I tried it on bread but it’s too thick to spread. So, no chocolate sandwiches for me :(. It works pretty well on toast though, because the heat softens it and it spreads pretty well this way.

If you don’t like coconut, they have 4 different kids of chocolate spreads. You’re sure to find one you love!

IMG_20150307_182442525And then the Coconut Oil. I haven’t used a coconut oil in a while so I’d forgotten how much I like it. All it has is coconut oil. Nothing else.

IMG_20150307_183217801You can use it as a lotion or a hair treatment, but I prefer to cook with it. I love the flavor it gives to popcorn! I just do mine on the stove, put some coconut oil in a pan, heat, add popcorn kernels, put the lid on the pan, and wait for the popping to stop. I added some salt after I finished popping and it was delicious!

IMG_20150318_181958659I also used it as a replacement for oil in other recipes. It’s delicious in brownies (the extra coconut flavor with the chocolate is awesome!). And then I used it to sauté some carrots. I was surprised by the results. Coconut oil fries up differently so I ended up with carrot fries. Which were so tasty! I’m definitely making these again!

Carrot Fries:

1 Tsp Artisana Organics Raw Coconut Oil

5 carrots peeled, cut in half, and sliced in 4ths (to make the fry shape)

Salt and pepper to taste

Place all ingredients in a skillet over medium heat. Fry until carrots are soft and golden brown on the outside. Stir often. Add another tsp of coconut oil if needed to keep fries from sticking.

They don’t sell the products on their site, but you can purchase them from several online retailers, including Amazon.

Posted on

The 5 Love Languages of Children

IMG_20150312_083230216I just finished ready “The 5 Love Languages of Children” by Gary Chapman and Ross Campbell.

I’m already familiar with the 5 Love Languages for adults so I was excited to get to review this book. As a mother with 3 children I’ve already noticed a difference in how each of them relate to me and others around them.

First of all, I was a little disappointed to realize that children need to be 6 or so before you can figure out what their love language is, though, this does make sense, because really you don’t start seeing much independence until kids are about 6. My oldest is 6 so for her, I can figure out what her love language is.

For little kids it can be as simple as role playing, as in “how would Suzie’s mom show her that she loves her in this situation?” Or “what’s something I did today that showed you that I love you?”.

For the younger kids (and my 6yr old), I’ll do what the book encouraged me to do, just show love in all 5 languages because it’s so important for kids to know they’re loved! Also, this will be a great book to read again in a couple of years just to see where we’re at then and remind me of ways to show love to my children.

Even if you’re kids aren’t old enough, this book has great suggestions for showing love to your children in all 5 love languages in all the different stages of their life. In fact, the authors often break suggestions down into age groups – which I found extremely helpful! Because how you show love to a 6yr old is often different than how you can show the same kind of love to your teenager.

For example, we were watching a movie the other night that scared my 6yr old. She spent the entire movie snuggled on the couch with me. This is unlikely to be a teenagers response or need when watching a scary movie.

I would recommend this book to parents of kids of all ages. It’s an easy book to read and it contains a lot of practical and helpful advice.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher for purposes of my review.

Posted on

4 Tips for a Successful Easter Dinner

I really love Easter, it’s such a fun holiday, and I enjoy the celebration of life, resurrection, and spring! Every year I host an Easter Lunch. With finishing prep as soon as I get home from Church, it’s important that things run smoothly! Here’s the top 4 things I do to make sure my meal goes as planned.

1. Don’t overload your oven or stovetop – You want all your food done at the same time. If you have to rotate items this won’t happen. I have two casseroles and a ham that are standard to Easter Dinner, but, guess what. This fills my oven. This year, my husband suggested a chocolate pudding cake for dessert, which is an awesome dessert but has to be whipped up and baked at the last minute. If I want to make this, I have two options, bake it after all the other food is out of the oven or put less in my oven.

I’m thinking that I’ll probably end up using my roaster for the ham and that will free up that oven space for rolls and dessert. The dessert is best hot so if it’s baking while we eat lunch that’ll work out great.

2. Minimize last minute prep – You don’t want to be chopping a salad, whipping up a gravy, making deviled eggs, and prepping an hors d’oeuvre all when guests walk in. As a rule, I try to only have one last minute item. If I decide to do deviled eggs I’ll make them up the night before. Also, any hors d’oeuvres will have to be made the night before.

I’m already mixing up a dessert and putting the final touches on my salad. So, nothing else can be last minute. You don’t want your guests coming in and seeing you running around like crazy trying to get stuff done.

Also, I usually set the table the night before. It’s tough keeping the kids away from all the pretty dishes so I’m not convinced that this saves me any time, but it seems like it should.

3. Make a list – I love lists! I have a list of items I’m making, a list of ingredients I need to buy, and a list of baking times so I know what to start making when. On the day, I’ll have a list of food that I’m serving so I don’t forget anything. There’s nothing worse than getting to the end of your meal and realizing that your salad is still in the refrigerator!

4. Don’t be afraid to ask for help – Feeling overwhelmed? Ask guests to each bring a dish. Salads, casseroles, and snacks all transfer well.

Just check with your guests and find out if they’re planning to use your oven or stove. I asked a guest to bring biscuits once – she makes great biscuits and I was envisioning baked biscuits in a basket covered with a towel. Nope, she brought the ingredients and mixed them up on my nice clean counter (that was all set up for food as soon as it came out of my oven). Then she needed my full oven to bake them!

Posted on

Neutrogena Hydro Boost Water Gel

Thanks to Influenster for the awesome product to try and review!

First of all Neutrogena Hydro Boost Water Gel is blue, and blue is my favorite color. I like to coordinate all my stuff in blue. My office supplies, bathroom supplies, etc. So I have blue sewing scissors, a blue tape measure, blue hairbrush, blue eyeshadow (actually, I just like this shade, but my blue is my favorite!), blue pens, etc. And now, I have blue face moisturizer!

IMG_20150227_085315200Enough of the blue. The only thing I don’t love about this product is it has a slight perfume smell. It goes away after I rub it all in and it’s really mild so it’s not really a reason I wouldn’t use this product. And it’s not a bad smell, I just don’t understand why it’s there. And it’s a bit different than the smell I’m used to from my olay face lotion so I wasn’t expecting it the first time.

As for the product itself, I love it! It rubs in quickly, and it feels a little cool (temperature) going on which is always nice in the morning – I need all the help I can get to wake up!. I have never used a face gel so I was very curious to see how this product differed from my usual face lotion. After just a week of using it, I don’t plan on going back to my lotion.

I have pretty clear, just slightly oily skin, so I don’t need anything special, but I am constantly fighting having oily skin by my nose and dry skin on my cheeks. If I use more lotion my cheeks are great my my nose just gets more oily. If I use less my nose is great and the rest of my skin dries out.

All that to say, I’m constantly looking for a product that will solve this problem, I just never thought to use a face gel. I’m so happy with this Neutrogena Hydro Boost Water Gel. It give my entire face all the moisture I need without causing any oily skin! Just the combination I needed. After a week of using it, my face looks more moisturized and more healthy than it ever has.

Neutrogena Hydro Boost Water Gel is a great product, it works really well on my skin, and it’s blue! I would recommend this product to anyone who’s looking for a new facial moisturizer, especially if you have combination skin like I do.

I received this product free for purposes of my review, all opinions are my own. @Neutrogena, @Influenster, #BehindTheGlow, #Neutrogena, #contest

Posted on

7 Favorite Green Foods

In honor of St. Patricks Day, I’m going with a green theme for my foods. There’s no way I’m dying any food green, so you know, green eggs and ham are just out of the questions! However, here’s my top 7 favorite naturally green foods.

lettuce1. Lettuce – We all love salads! It’s a great way for me to get my family to eat green leafy vegetables. My favorite dinner salad is a good “cobb” salad. And I use “cobb” rather loosely, because I don’t usually make a traditional cobb salad. I make a salad with lettuce, 2 types of cheese, 2 types of meat (usually sliced sandwich meat and bacon bits), sliced tomatoes, and ranch dressing. Makes a great protein-packed dinner for hot days in the summer!

th2. Granny Smith Apples – These were always one of my favorite apples as a kid. I also really like them in an apple pie, a nice tart apple with the sugar and such in an apple pie is so delicious! They’re also really good sliced up with some peanut butter.

IMG_17083. Peas – My now 6yr old loves peas. They were one of her first finger foods as a baby and she still loves them to this day! I used to just pop a bowl of frozen peas with a Tbsp of water into the microwave for about 1 minute for an instant snack. These days, with three kids I have to make more peas so I just boil them on the stove with a little bit of salt and everyone loves them! I can put peas in just about anything and my 6yr old will eat it because it has her favorite vegetable.

Green-44. Kiwi – I love these tart fruits as well (sensing a pattern here?). I don’t like the fuzzy peel, so I peel them, slice them into rounds and eat them with a fork. The best thing about this fruit? No one else in my family likes them so I get to eat them all!

step-2155. Grapes – Grapes are such an easy fruit. You can take them to a party, pull out a few for the kids to snack on, or slice them in half and toss them in a fruit salad. I like my grapes nice and firm, once they’re squishy I won’t eat them so I have to eat them up pretty quickly when I get them.

green_food_wwweasygreenlivingconz16. Broccoli – Another favorite in my family. The kids prefer to eat broccoli with ranch dip which is way easier than the cheese sauce my husband prefers. This is probably the only green vegetable that everyone in my family will eat! I prefer to steam it on the stove and eat it plain.

green-beans7. Green Beans – My kids only like canned green beans because they’re softer than fresh or frozen. But that just makes my life easier, I’ll dump a can of green beans in a pan, add a clove of crushed garlic and simmer while I’m making dinner. All 3 kids gobble them up. (some nights I don’t get any, I’m going to have to start making 2 cans if I want some). Easy and healthy!

Posted on

Beyond Meat Giveaway

Disney Parks and MomSelect provided me with an awesome box of Disney party supplies and sponsor products to host a #DisneySide party. We had a great time at our party showing our Disney Side – and celebrating a Birthday! Pics and info about the party are on my page here.

One of those party sponsors was Beyond Meat. They provided a coupon for a free Beyond Meat retail package. Unfortunately, there’s not a convenient Grocery store for me to pick up my free item so rather than just throw the coupon away I decided to host a giveaway.

Beyond meat has some tasty looking product, and I’ve had many people tell me that the products make great tacos, chili, and anything else you would ordinarily make with meat. They also have some great recipe suggestions here if you want some ideas. I love trying out new foods!

The winner will be picked at random and I will contact the winner by e-mail.

Thanks to Disney Parks and MomSelect for the awesome box full of Disney party supplies and sponsor products! I received free products in order to host a Disney Side @Home Celebration. The opinions expressed here are my own.

Posted on

Things I Can’t Live Without

Ok, so, most of these things I CAN live without, but having them makes life so much easier!

Coffee – I’m a mom, really this kinda goes without saying. Baby up all night? Just have an extra cup of coffe, or two, in the morning. One of my favorite brands is Green Mountain coffee. I tried this a while back free from Bzzagent and it’s now my favorite brand! They have some awesome flavors and their coffee is strong but not bitter. The perfect coffee in my opinion. Plus, they sell it at my local Kroger and it’s no more expensive than Starbucks so I have no excuse not to drink the coffee I like!

Dust buster – I can’t live without this thing. My husband helped me research the best one on Amazon and I ended up with a Black & Decker one. The only thing it doesn’t do is liquids, but none of the dust busters that would do liquids had good reviews so I figured I’d rather have a good dust buster that doesn’t do liquids than a bad dust buster that does. This things is awesome! Cleaning under the couch? I bring the dust buster along and sweep up the crumbs every couple of minutes so they don’t end up all over my house. It’s great for cleaning out the car, corners in the kid’s rooms, and any emergency crumb cleaning like the 5 crumbled crackers on the couch this morning and the cool-aid powder all over the floor.

Roomba – ok, so, this is a new one for me, but this saves me SO MUCH time! I actually still use my broom (I have wood floors) but it’s awesome to turn on the roomba and let it get all the smaller dirt and crumbs that I missed. My floors are so much cleaner now. And that’s a good thing being as my toddler spends a lot of his time on the floor still.

Take N Toss Cups – Sippy Cups for when they’re little and Straw Cups for the older kids. The cups are all the same so it’s just the lids that are different. They’re cheap, so when the lids get nasty – my kids chew on them – I just toss them out and buy a new set. They also make baby spoons, that I keep a supply of. The baby use them, and the kids use them for tea parties, stirring drinks, feeding dolls, and just about anything else they want to do that requires a spoon.

Wooden Spoons – They’re good for absolutely everything in the kitchen, from mixing recipes to cooking on my non-stick pans. I also have a set of wooden salad tongs. Just don’t put them in the dishwasher. but you can scrub them without harming them so washing is easy.

Posted on

My Disney Side Party

Thanks to Disney Parks and MomSelect for the awesome box full of Disney party supplies and sponsor products! We had a great time showing our #DisneySide!

There were several hostess gifts, A full-size box of laundry packets from All – which I’ve been wanting to try but didn’t want to spend the money and find out I don’t like it, so now I get to try it for free! Horray!

Also included was a Mickey Mouse pan and this awesome Duff Tie-Dye cake mix. Which you can purchase at Target. How did I not know about this already?!

My box was perfect! We celebrated my little girl’s 4th birthday this weekend and she wanted a Minnie Mouse party. Guess what! I got the Mickey and Friends box, she was super excited!

There was nail polish – the peel off kind, that I love for the girls – two Palace Pets, Minnie and Mickey party supplies and some fun Mickey Mouse party games like “pin the smile on Mickey”, Disney bingo, and a princess word search.

I already had her Birthday party scheduled at a local Bounce House place and I couldn’t bring food to that so I used the Minnie treat boxes to make the gift boxes for the kids that came to the party. I put in them the purple confetti that was packed in the box (it was used as packing material and purple is my 4yr old’s favorite color so this worked out really well). The Mickey Mouse Clubhouse pencils, crayons, stickers, and each child got a Mickey or Minnie luggage tag, and I assembled the Disney Diamonds and put candy in them. It made for a cute and easy treat box! I posted a video to my YouTube channel showing off my gift boxes!

The cake tower was so much fun! I didn’t have a way to integrate it into the party so we ended up using it for cupcakes on her actual Birthday and had a mini celebration on our own.

We have lots of family that lives in town, so, not to leave them out, we had another Birthday party the day after her party with friends (I know, 3 birthday parties, it doesn’t get much better than this).

I made the Mickey Mouse cake for this party. I had trouble getting the cake out of the pan – I ended up getting it out in pieces, piecing it together, and using lots of extra icing and it turned out great. Plus, everyone loves extra icing! The TieDie Cake mix is awesome! Everyone was so impressed with my cooking skills and it was so super easy! I’ll be making more TieDye cakes for parties. This is such a perfect party cake and really way easier to make than it seems it would be.

For my Sunday guests, I passed out the HP photo paper and we played the Disney games with the kids. Such fun! We had an awesome week of showing our Disney Side!

I received free products in order to host a Disney Side @Home Celebration. The opinions expressed here are my own.

Posted on

Love

As I sit here reflecting on soon to be 9 years of marriage, I think back to what started it all. Love. Yes, the warm, fuzzy, “I’m in love”, kind of love.

Nine years later, I’m still in love, there’s just a lot more than warm fuzzies to back it up. We’ve made it through 3 pregnancies and 3 births (the third one we delivered 5 minutes before the Midwife arrived), we’re in the midst of raising 3 little kids – some days the house is clean, other days it looks like I just didn’t care.

Not too much sickness, though there was that one time we were both sick with the flu at the same time. Never do that, especially when none of the kids are sick and you have a nursing infant. Apparently, my husband feels worse than I do when he’s sick, he got to lie in bed all day, I got to sit on the couch (or floor, depending on how many children needed lots of space on the couch) and watch kids tv shows all day. Yup, that was fun. Somehow I still love him.

The truth about love is you’ll do anything for it. You change your entire life for love, you marry someone, move in together, and make a gazillion changes to your life just for love.

Then, you add more kids to love. Speaking of adding kids, fun fact, our second child was born on our 5th anniversary. Good thing we celebrated the weekend before! She’ll never forget when our anniversary is.

So, nine years and three kids in, there’s so many things that have changed. We can no longer just go do whatever we want whenever we want to. Someone has to watch the kids. We’ve had to choose to focus on our marriage and on us. And we have to learn to agree on household rules so the kids know what’s a rule and what’s not.

The thing about love is all the hard work is worth it. It just grows the more you put into it, and the more you do for each other the more you love each other. So, after nine years of marriage, we’re more in love than we were the day we married.

Posted on

I Should Have Known Better

So, we all have them, those parenting moments, when we just should have known better! Really, I have no excuses, I’m the oldest of 8 kids and with 3 of my own now, I have plenty of experience with young children. So, when I say “I should have known better”, I really should have known better. So, here’s my top 5, “what was I thinking?” items.

1. Styrofoam – Guess what I just attempted to clean off the entryway steps? Yup, styrofoam, otherwise known as “static cling white snow”. It sticks to the broom, it flies up and sticks to my socks, and then it floats down to a few steps below just taunting me as I work my way down the stairs with the broom.

How did it get here? Well…the other day I was assembling a new shelf. And, like all packages, it came packed with styrofoam. Nice, long pieces of styrofoam, perfect for swords. Well, I felt that the kids would be better off playing outside (since the weather was beautiful) than they would be inside, on the couch, playing the iPad – it should be noted that this decision was a good parenting decision, I am getting my kids active. So, I suggested that they take the styrofoam outside and have a sword fight. Like children often do, they eagerly took all the styrofoam, only, they didn’t take it outside. They first had a sword fight in the kitchen, up and down the stairs, through the basement, and finally outside. I’ll be cleaning up styrofoam for weeks.

2. Glitter – I really could just say here that “I should have known better” and you would agree. No explanation needed. The other day at Hobby Lobby, the girls found a big bottle of glitter that was on sale. They love anything that sparkles so I got them some glitter. After we got home, I showed them how to put glue down on some paper and sprinkle a little glitter on. Of course, within minutes they had dumped out the ENTIRE bottle of glitter. Not wanting things to go to waste, I actually put most of the loose glitter back in the bottle for later. The next week, they did it again. This time, I threw it all away. I’ll still be cleaning up glitter for a month!

Not to forget the Christmas decorations that shed glitter everywhere. You’d think I’d learn and just throw them away! But, nothing beats glitter on everything for a month, right?

3. Pom Poms – you know, those things with the long strings that shed off when the kids breathe – or shake them or pull them off to use as confetti. I’ve been digging those plastic pom pom strings out of the wash for WEEKS! They’ve also managed to wind themselves around every vacuum I own and there is still somehow a hidden supply that produces a few new pieces every day. Who thought these were a good idea for children?

And after FINALLY getting all the pieces out of my house, someone gave my children 4 more for Christmas. I must think up a truly awful gift to give their child next year. Maybe a styrofoam house, or something with lots and lots of glitter!

4. Play-dough – so I usually have good success with this stuff but the last time the kids had it out it ended up everywhere! Probably because the baby felt that since it wasn’t good for eating, he should throw it. Fortunately, once it dries, it’s easy to sweep up and throw away. We’re just almost out of play-dough. Horray! And when we run out, I’ll probably buy more even though I know better!

5. Legos – I love the little things and I hate the little things. They’re constantly on the floor like little spikes for my feet. It doesn’t seem to matter how many of them I pick up, there’s always one more down there! I like that the girls enjoy building, but then baby boy comes along like Godzilla and smashes them all. I’m looking forward to the day when he wants to build instead of destroy!

It doesn’t help that we have my husband’s lego collection from when he was a kid, so there’s this endless supply of “new” kits to build. And don’t forget the giant tub of random pieces that I picked up at a yard sale last year. To top it off, I’m seriously considering creating a lego room for my son when he’s a little older. I probably should know better, but what would be the fun in that?