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Vindication Season 1 – Review

*Sponsored Post*

Pure Flix is a faith based family-friendly streaming video service. They originally started as a film studio in 2005 and in 2014 launched Pure Flix. In 2020 they became part of AFFIRM Entertainment. Their mission is to stream inspiring and faith-affirming TV shows, movies, and original series.

One of these series is Vindication. It’s Pure Flix’s very own Cop Drama and it’s returning for a second season this month! (September 2021). You can check out the trailer here.

I love a good cop drama show and it was interesting to see it from a more faith based perspective. I feel like most dramas like this are very formulamatic and Vindication didn’t exactly follow the usual form.

It was kind of nice, because I didn’t exactly know what to expect next. They spent a lot of time on the character / suspect’s life and almost no time on the crime itself and I was kind of surprised when it was magically solved at the end.

And it was cool to see how the suspect, even though he had struggles, in the end, made the right decision, and that decision probably saved his life.

This first episode was a lot more like a relationship drama and not so much of a cop show. So, I am looking forward to watching the rest of the season on Pure Flix because it is a fun show that’s more about the mystery than the drama.

#VindicationMIN

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Back To School

*Sponsored Post*

It’s back to school time, and I’m loving these fun products that help make learning fun! With homeschooling multiple grades it’s super busy at times, but also so much fun to see my kids learning!

I am loving this rug from KC Cubs! I set it out in our school area for my 4yr old and eventually gave up on taking a picture of it with no toys on it. It’s his favorite place to play!

I love how he’ll play with toys and then we’ll discuss a few letters and then he’ll go back to playing. The seasons have been a favorite topic of conversation with his older siblings. They know the seasons, but seeing them laid out by month has been super interesting to them.

This rug is comfortable and doesn’t slide around on my floor. Basically, everyone loves it! It’s the preferred toy and game area in my house suddenly. And I’m loving that we can naturally have conversations about letters, seasons, and days of the week while the kids play.

And, what’s a school day without good snacks? I’m loving these fun cookies from Dick & Jane!

Not only are they tasty, they’re terrific conversation starters! We even had to look a couple presidents up because none of us remembered what they did.

I think we spend more time playing with these than eating them. Which really isn’t all that bad. It’s definitely a fun way to start or finish our school day!

And, last but not least, this super easy cookbook from America’s Test Kitchen. Because a school day isn’t successful without a tasty dinner! And I don’t always have time to spend a lot of time in the kitchen.

Each of these recipes really is only 5 ingredients, which makes them all super easy to make. I’m loving the addition of all these tasty and easy recipes to the end of our school day.

With only 5 ingredients, even my older kids can make us dinner! It’s a win win. Good food, and they’re learning how to cook!

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Aerobie Football

Thanks to Tryazon and Spinmaster for the awesome Aerobie Football!

This football whistles when you throw it correctly, which is pretty awesome! And it’s small and light enough that even my 4yr old can throw it!

We practice in the back yard with it at first and then took it to a play date with friends. It’s an awesome toy and perfect for the fall and playing outside.

I am encouraging lots of outside play these days because the weather is beautiful! And fresh air and sunshine are so great for everyone!

We’re all looking forward to our next playdate at the park!

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Birthday Gift Ideas for Guys

*This is a sponsored post and may contain affiliate links*

I don’t know about you, but shopping for a Birthday present for my hubby is so hard! So, instead of looking for traditional guys gifts (what are those exactly anyway?), I got him some things that he loves. Good food!

Me’s Way

I love cooking, and hubby loves spicy foods. So, for a fun Birthday Present, I made him some well flavored stir fry.

I love a good chili sauce and Me’s Way is delicious! It has lots of spice and lots of flavor. We all know how important flavor is to a good stir fry!

This hand crafted, all-natural chili sauce is inspired by the creator’s Vietnamese roots. And I’m super impressed with it!

It has the spicy kick I expect out of a good chili sauce and it also has a lot of extra flavor (must be their super secret seasonings that they add!) that I’ve not had in a chili sauce before. Basically, It’s amazing and makes all my meals with chili sauce taste amazing!

Hot N Saucy

Back to the spicy food conversation… my hubby loves spice! One of our favorite hot sauce companies seems to be having sourcing issues (seriously, I can’t get the stuff anywhere!!!).

So, we’re once again on the hunt for a good hot sauce. I wasn’t a huge fan of the beet hot sauce – because beets are basically the one food that I can’t stand the taste of – but hubby thought it was good.

For both of us though, our favorite is the sweet potato & habanero. I LOVE a good habanero sauce! And the sweet potato addition to the flavor is just amazing!

Of course, Hubby’s favorite way to eat it is mixed with a little mayo and then used as a spicy fish sauce. It’s so good!!!

The Mayonnaise Cookbook

Speaking of Mayo and fish… this mayonnaise cookbook is one of those gifts that I say is for my hubby, but… it’s really for me. He just gets the benefit of me cooking with one of my favorite condiments.

How awesome is this fish sandwich with homemade mayonnaise sauce on top!

If you get this cookbook, you’ll also want to buy a bulk size package of mayo because you’re going to want to make sure you don’t run out.

My hubby loves fish sandwiches, and he was so excited about me making a super tasty one at home!

I also tried about a bunch of the different mayonnaise themed sauces in this book and have really eaten way too much mayo this month!

All in all, a food themed Birthday for hubby this year really has been tasty and fun for both of us!

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Teen Gift Ideas

*This post contains sponsored content and affiliate links*

For me, August is the month of Birthdays. Throw in some Back to School and end of Summer stuff and it’s just pure insanity! So, in honor of having my first official teenager this year, I put together a fun gift guide for my Girl.

Soo’AE

Skincare is super important for every teen girl. And what better way to kick off her teen beauty routine than with these awesome natural, vegan, cruelty-free, eco-friendly products from Soo’AE!

The face wash, face cream, and face masks are gentle and made with clean & green ingredients. So, they’re good for my daughter’s skin and good for the environment as well. I especially love that the masks are 95% natural!

We had a fun at home spa night with the masks and enjoyed hanging out with each other for a little while.

Spooky America

My kids LOVE ghost stories! Just as much as they love s’mores around a campfire.  And while I have no issues with them hearing / reading ghost stories, I do my best to make sure that these stories are age appropriate for them.

My daughter doesn’t know yet that there are 32 of these books and not just 2 – as soon as she figures that out, her Christmas list will be 30 books long…

My girls actually swiped these the minute they arrived and I had to go hunt them down just to photograph them (while the girls supervised so I didn’t “loose” any in my bedroom).

They told me that the stories aren’t really scary, but they’re very fun. And they want more of them. They’re also unwilling to let me borrow their books because they’re afraid I’ll keep them for myself!

These are definitely on my “need to buy the whole series” list!

Hogwarts Cookbook for Kids

I may or may not have been more excited about this cookbook than my daughter was. Though, my kids have been all about Harry Potter this summer! They had a friend at summer camp ask them about it and they all realized that they’ve never seen it.

So, our Summer family movie nights were all about Harry Potter. She was super excited about her new cookbook and has handed me a grocery shopping list a mile long!

So far, we’ve tried one of the sandwich recipes and everyone was thrilled with it.

 

Fidgets

My daughter was given an Amazon gift card for her birthday and guess what she rushed to buy? Fidgets! I had not idea that these things could come in this many different shapes, but there really is a lot of variety here.

And these days, when in doubt, a fidget for someone’s Birthday is the way to go!

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Elise Design Company & Infamous Swim

I received these super cute earrings from Elise Design Company to review.

Elise Design Company creates handcrafted jewelry that is unique and crafted with care. You can get personalized jewelry as well.

I love how fun and unique the jewelry is while still being a bit subtle and classy. I was sent several pairs of these super cute earrings to review. I kept this pair for myself and have been sharing the rest with my daughters and friends.

For a handcrafted earring, the quality on these is terrific. I’m super cautious about wearing studs because my ears a sensitive (especially to studs) and the wrong earrings can cause a lot of irritation.

I wore these for more than 12 hours one day and they didn’t bother my ears at all. And my daughter who’s ears are more sensitive than mine has been wearing hers for days with no problems. We both love it when we find an earring brand that we can wear all day!

I’ve had so much fun browsing the Elise Design Company website. They have these awesome initial necklaces and I’m just loving their geo stud collection.

The earrings I’m wearing are white and rose gold and they basically go with everything I own! And they have the cutest little popsicle earrings on their website for the summer. I just want to buy them all!

And as a great start to Summer Infamous Swim sent me and my girls these cute swimsuits to review!

They’re so adorable, affordable, and fun! They have the cutest matching swim sets for the entire family!

I love how they have all sorts of fun patterns in all sorts of different styles and they have sizes from baby to adult. The perfect place to purchase swimwear for our summer beach vacation!

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New Gary LeVox One On One – Giveaway

Many thanks to Capitol Christian Music Group for providing this product/product information for review.  Opinions are 100% my own and NOT influenced by monetary compensation.  I did receive a sample of the product in exchange for this review and post. #GaryLeVoxMIN #MomentumInfluencerNetwork

The new Gary LeVox One On One EP is out and available for streaming on your favorite media player! As a Rascall Flatts fan I was super excited to get early access to this new EP. And, it’s amazing! I’ve had it on repeat for days…

His name is synonymous with vocal power. … Literally, it means “The Voice,” and it only takes a few notes to hear where he got it. But for Rascal Flatts’ Gary LeVox, there’s always been a different, higher power at work.

Now withONE ON ONE, a solo debut fusing two of his biggest passions–music and faith–that higher power takes center stage. Arriving May 21 via Big Machine Records, LeVox’s new chapter kicks off with five soul-mining anthems and the resilient single, “The Distance.” And according to him, the timing is perfect.

After 20 years as front man to one of the most influential groups in Country history, Rascal Flatts’ Gary LeVox is embarking on a solo chapter that combines two of his biggest passions – music and faith. With his debut song, “The Distance,” the Ohio native unveils the empowering first taste of that mission, delivering an epic expression of the power of belief that’s tailor made for the COVID19 era. Grounded in the Flatts legacy, but clearly existing on a different sonic plane, the track features an exhilarating mix of LeVox’s stratospheric vocals and high energy instrumentation, encouraging fans of both Country and contemporary Christian music to never give up and it’s a message he knows by heart. Along with bandmates Jay DeMarcus and Joe Don Rooney, LeVox founded Rascal Flatts in 2000, and they went on to enjoy one of the most successful careers in modern Country music. Infusing the genre’s traditional sound with massive pop hooks, rock showmanship and faithful positivity, they scored 17 No. 1 singles and sold over 23 million albums, while also selling more than 11 million concert tickets and earning 40+ awards show trophies making them the most awarded Country group of the last decade. The group celebrated its farewell with TWENTY YEARS OF RASCAL FLATTS: THE GREATEST HITS in 2020, and LeVox will continue to pursue a career as a solo artist with the five track collection ONE ON ONE, released May 21 via Big Machine Records.

“One On One is my passion project and I have wanted to do this body of work for as long as I can remember,” explains LeVox. “I feel so honored to get to collaborate with such greatness throughout this project. BRELAND is a dream to work and sing with, as is the iconicMercyMe. Jonathon McReynolds, one of the greatest singers of our time and my dear friend, wrote a perfect song for us. And for my daughter Brittany and I to get to sing a song that Tauren Wells help craft just completed the collection. I couldn’t be prouder of this project, and the songs that we recorded. This is gonna be an amazing new season and I just hope everybody enjoys it as much as we did making it.

AND I get to give away a signed 8X10 poster to one fan! Head over to my Instagram Page to enter!

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Vooks Giveaway

Many thanks to Vooksfor providing this product/product information for review.  Opinions are 100% my own and NOT influenced by monetary compensation. I did receive a sample of the product in exchange for this review and post.

Try free for 30 days! Go to www.vooks.com to sign up!

What is Vooks?

  • Vooks is a streaming library of ad-free, kid-safe animated storybooks, trusted by teachers and enjoyed by millions of children around the world each week.
  • Vooks is an entire library of storybooks, brought to life, to help encourage the love of reading.
  • 100% kid-friendly and parent-approved!
  • Vooks strengthens literacy and vocabulary & promotes independent learning!
  • Vooks has free, fun and printable lesson plans!
  • Vooks lesson plans offer discussion topics, engaging activities, and more!

What do I like about Vooks?

  • The books are fun! Seriously, my kids have watched Ruckus on the Ranch a dozen times already.
  • So many books. We’ve been exploring Vooks for over a week now and haven’t seen them all yet.
  • Once you watch one you have to watch more. I love that it’s hard for my kids to stop at just one book.
  • It inspires play. My kids discovered that they can get our home speaker to play Ruckus on the Ranch and now we have a whole ranch / cowboy play that they’re planning for the backyard this summer!
  • It makes books fun. And now they want to read more books on Vooks and not on Vooks.
  • So many lesson plans! There might be a plan for every book, there’s a lot of them!

There are a lot of books on Vooks. And with 4 kids, it’s nice to have someone else read to my kids! The books on here are so cute and fun. There’s music, animation, and of course, all the words for the kids to follow along. There are 4 languages to choose from and from what I can see, it looks like all the books are available in all 4 languages. Which is pretty cool! There’s a Vooks app for devices and it works on an internet browser, so you have a variety of ways to view.

But, best of all, my kids love Vooks!

Want to check it out for yourself? Try free for 30 days! Go to www.vooks.com to sign up!

AND I get to give away a one year subscription to Vooks! Enter below and head over to my Instagram for a couple extra entries!

 

#VooksMIN #MomentumInfluencerNetwork #vooks #betterscreentime #vookspartner

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Crockpot Chicken Corn Chowder

I received this Fond Bone Broth free for purposes of my review. All opinions are my own.

As we head into the end of our school year, my schedule becomes hectic. And I resort to easy or crockpot meals a lot more often just to keep up with everyone’s end of year schedules and activities.

Fond Bone Broths are super flavorful and great for you! So, cooking with them is incredibly easy, because the seasonings I need are already there!

Crockpot Chicken Corn Chowder

3 jars Fond Bone Broth Tumeric, Thyme, Black Pepper broth
2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken
1 bag of frozen corn
4oz cream cheese
1/4 cup water
2 Tbsp corn starch

  1. Place bone broth, chicken, and frozen corn in crockpot. Cook on low for about 6 hours
  2. Shred chicken and add 4oz cream cheese
  3. While cream cheese is melting, stir together 1/4 cup water and the corn starch
  4. Add corn starch and water to the crockpot and stir until everything is mixed and slightly thickened.

If you want to make this a little more southwestern you could toss in some black beans, green chiles, or tomatoes – but in the interest of keeping everyone in my family happy, I didn’t add these in.

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Easter Baskets for Kids

I’m always on the lookout for fun and unique Easter Basket gifts. So, I went to one of my favorite artisan stores, Women at Risk International. And they did not disappoint.

The favorite item, is the little blue bunny I gave to the 3yr old. I’ve actually had parents ask me where I got it. It’s the perfect size for little hands and it’s so cute!

My 7yr old son loves his “ribbeting” frog. Just rub the stick up its back and it ribbets. So much fun! Every 7yr old boy needs one of these.

And my girls love their new scrunchies! Actually, I loved scrunchies when I was a kid and I’m thrilled that they’re back in fashion. We cannot get enough of these in my house!

And I love that I’m supporting a ministry that helps Women and girls who are in need!

Misfits Market is one of my favorite subscription boxes! It’s a weekly box of organic produce.

One of my favorite features, I go in once a week and pick my produce, and they have an add ons shop with all these great organic brands at a discount. Just in time for Easter they had these Yum Earth candies. I’d not tried this brand yet, but I’m super happy with them!

My kids love them and they’re super flavorful – I wish I had gotten a bag for just myself.

If you want to check them out, use my code COOKWME-PJ0UPY for $10 off your first box (I get $10 off my next box too!!!).

*I received this item free to review*

My girls are obsessed with squishys. They love playing with them, and have even repainted some of their old ones. They were incredibly excited to test these out for Easter!

Paint your own Squishy is available on Amazon. And my girls loved these! So much so, that they made a fun youtube video of them making them.

The squishies were super easy to make, and so creative and fun! They’re already exploring amazon to see what other paint your own squishys might be available.