Wife, Then Mama

You know what I love?  Magazines.  I actually have way to many subscriptions, but I honestly don't pay for any of them.  So I am going to share the wealth and give one of my readers a free subscription to one of the following magazines!  The winner can pick any one of the magazines on this list and I will send it your way :) Redbook Good Housekeeping AFAR magazine Elle Car and Driver Harper's Bazaar Marie Claire Road and Track Town and Country Woman's Day Martha Stewart Weddings Martha Stewart Weddings (digital subscription - NOT a paper magazine) EatingWell (digital subscription - NOT a paper magazine) Everyday With Rachael Ray (digital subscription - NOT a paper magazine) Parents Magazine (digital subscription - NOT a paper magazine) Seventeen (digital subscription - NOT a paper magazine) Family Fun (digital subscription - NOT a paper magazine) Entry -Form

Okay, so I am a couple of days late, but better late than never right? Today I am giving away a BabyComfyNose! These are sponsored giveaways, but they already sent them to me, so I will be mailing them out to the winners. To read my review of this product click here: BabyComfyNose Review One winner will receive a blue BabyComfyNose! Entry -Form

It is getting really close to New Year's, with means its resolution time! Here is an idea for a New Year's resolution you might actually keep:  Memorize more Bible verses.  It is a simpler goal than reading the entire Bible, and it doesn't involve diet or exercise, so its much more pleasant than weight loss. Scripture Stickies can help you learn new verses, and review the ones you already know. This giveaway is sponsored by  Scripture Stickies .  My Scripture Stickies review can be found  here . Entry -Form

Today is the Second Day of Christmas.  Tradition calls for giving away turtle doves, but honestly I don't know exactly what they are.  Plus I don't think they would mail very well.  So instead I am giving away a WooBamboo! toothbrush. WooBamboo isn't sponsoring this giveaway, but when they sent me a toothbrush for review, they actually sent me two, so I figured I would spread the wealth!   Up for grabs is a soft bristled, standard handled bamboo toothbrush. Entry -Form Don't forget to check out the "other days of Christmas"! The First Day of Christmas - Seven Sling

Today is the First Day of Christmas!  To celebrate I am giving away quite a few prizes, one everyday for 12 days! Some of these prizes are bigger than others, and most of them are "self-hosted", which means I am actually giving the items, not a sponsor.  They will all last until the end of January, because ending them on the 12th day of Christmas wouldn't really make much sense, seeing as how then some of them will only be open for 24 hours then. Seeing as how I am fresh out of both partridges and pear trees, on the first day of Christmas I am giving away a Seven Sling! Now in the interest of honesty, I don't really like this sling, and have not used it in forever.  It has only been used a few times and is in like new condition.  You can read my  Seven Slings review  by clicking the link.  This is my own personal item, and not sponsored by Seven Slings. I am not 100% sure what size this sling is, but it is either a 2, 3 or 4.  It is Black ...

I LOVE this!  The kids are split on what they think, but I think its the greatest thing since sliced bread!

Disclosure: I got this product as part of an advertorial. Have you ever thought about how many toothbrushes get thrown away each year?  Yeah, me neither, but apparently the number is over 2 BILLION!  Which is actually pretty low considering the 6 billion people in the world, and recommendations that toothbrushes be replaced every three months (which I don't do and I guess neither does most of the world...)  A toothbrush is small, but 2 billion toothbrushes is a lot to put in a landfill. Enter WooBamboo!  The exclamation point is in the product title, which makes me happy because I love punctuation.  I may not use it accurately, but I love it.  WooBamboo! is a toothbrush made of Bamboo.  Well the handle is made of bamboo, the bristles are made of nylon.  Bamboo bristles would probably suck. So the toothbrush is ecologically sound, but does it brush well? The answer is yes.  I will be honest, it feels really weird to be brushing your...

There is something people say a lot to foster parents:  I couldn't do it, I would get to attached. Honestly, I think they are trying to give themselves an excuse as to why they don't do foster care.  Which they don't need to do.  Foster care isn't for everyone.  You don't have to justify why you don't do it. But it can come off as a little hurtful.  I know they don't mean it that way, most of the time people are impressed that you do foster care (which probably warrants its own post someday). There is a variation of this, which is: Aren't you afraid that you will get attached? The answer to that is NO!  I am NOT afraid that I will get attached.  I KNOW I WILL!  I have!  But thanks, bunches, for reminding me.  Sorry, I know that was negative, but I have heard it A LOT in the few months we have be doing this. I am a pessimistic person, for the most part, but I tend to think the best of people.  When someone cuts me off, I as...

If you are anything like me, you are barely even started with Christmas shopping.  I don't know why, I mean I grew up with a mother that is done shopping before Thanksgiving.  I think it has something to do with never having money and having a husband that likes to just go to the store and get everything at once. There is still enough time to order things online, and Scripture Stickies would make a great stocking stuffer. Basically they are post-it notes with Bible verses printed on them.  They are inexpensive, removable, and should stick safely to pretty much any surface.  The purpose is to help you memorize verses by putting them in places that you will see them all the time. There are Christmas ones, which would go great in Christmas cards (although its a bit late for that now I guess).  There are lots of variety of verses, including God Has A Plan , Give Thanks , Keep Praying , and at least a dozen more.  You get to choose the translation (KJV, NI...

Coming Soon! I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com . Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

Reading is not something I really have time for anymore.  I have lots of free time, but its interrupted often, which doesn't work well for reading a book.  I lose my page and end up reading the same passages a few times.  So I do most of my reading in the bath.  Or while Michael watches anime on Netflix. I was recently given a chance to read Hidden Under Her Heart by Rachelle Ayala.  The review is due today, and I finished it at 12:30 this morning.  I have always been a procrastinator. Hidden Under Her Heart is the story of Maryanne Torres, a nurse who is trying to find love, but kind of sucks at it.  She meets Lucas and they have a roller coaster relationship, complicated by an unplanned pregnancy. From a critical point of view, the story has a lot of flaws.  There are some obvious grammatical errors, and the story was unevenly paced.  The characters didn't have a lot of development.   I had a first printing of the book, in newer...

You are going to touch a lot of pee.  Seriously.  I rarely touched pee before I used cloth diapers.  But between touching the diaper to see if its wet (because unlike a disposable it doesn't get mushy, so you have to check INSIDE the diaper for wetness) and taking inserts out of pocket diapers, I now touch pee on a regular basis. It gets less gross.  I mean it doesn't really get less gross, but it bothers you a lot less after just a short amount of time.  I initially tried to use diaper liners to catch the poop, but I was going through them quickly, and it annoyed me to throw the wet ones away.  Then I tried to scrape the poop into the toilet, so I didn't have to swish.  This was extra gross, and swishing, despite the fact that you will probably get poopy water on you is less disgusting, easier, and more effective.  There is always the option of a diaper sprayer, but my husband doesn't want to hook one up to the toilet. It doesn't have to be ...

Coming Soon :) I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com . Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

I am not a very smart person.  Well, actually I have been told I am intelligent, but when it comes to common sense, I am kind of lacking. Today I walked to the store with the kids.  Miss Baby was in the stroller, and Little Guy was in the  Comfy Joey ring sling .  I didn't need to go to the store, but I have a bit of a Dr. Pepper addiction habit, and I like to get out of the house, so we bundled up and went for a walk.   Now, something about my husband is that he likes quality.  Or at least the perception of quality, so we have Schlage doorknobs, because they are "nicer" than the Kwikset.  They also SUCK.  Apparently as a "safety feature" you can open the door from the inside even when it is locked.  That way when there is a fire you can get out of the house without fumbling with the lock.  Except you still have to be able to unlock a deadbolt... People with an insufficient amount of common sense do NOT appreciate this safety...

Right now I am watching the girls dance around like crazy.  Not abnormal in my house, we are dancing fools, but today we are listening to a new CD.  It arrived via UPS this morning, and while at first I told Hadlee whatever it was was not for her, it turned out that it was a surprise for ALL OF US! It was a sample CD from the new Disney Classics Box Set .  The Box Set has 95  songs, ranging from classic classics like Whistle While You Work from Snow White, modern classics (oxymoron much?) such as Be Our Guest from Beauty and the Beast, Disneyland songs like Yo Ho (A Pirate's Life for Me) from Pirates of the Caribbean and TV favorites from shows like Mickey Mouse Club, Lizzie McGuire, and Duck Tales. Some of the songs on the sample CD were not hits at my house, mostly the Disneyland songs, but since they are a little less "dancy" and unfamiliar to a four year old that has not been to Disneyland that makes sense.  Sadly, so far the favorite has been the son...

Who is the hardest person on your list to shop for?  I would guess that whoever that person is, they are a guy. If you are looking for an affordable gift for that hard to shop for guy (that has a beard) look no further than  Face Farmers - Beard and Mustache T-shirts .  Obviously these shirts are not for someone that needs a sentimental gift, or men that dress professionally, or men without facial hair, but for your mustachioed or bearded friend with a sense of humor, you probably can't get a better gift than one of these t-shirts. There are a couple shirts on the website that are inappropriate, but the majority of them are awesome. I was given this shirt to review.  I planned to give it to my step-dad for Christmas, but Michael saw it, and despite the fact that he only occasionally has facial hair he decided he had to have it. The shirt is high-quality pre-shrunk cotton.  I have only washed it once so far (Michael recently shaved so he can't wear it...

I love blogging.  Not only do I get to share my life with complete strangers (which for some reason is appealing to me) but I get to try amazing products in exchange for reviewing them! A product I received recently was a 10" Stainless Steel Earth Pan by Ozeri. Instead of poisonous PFOA, which is great at keeping things from sticking, but not great at not poisoning people, these pans use ETERNA, which doesn't release toxins, even at high temperatures. Good things about the pan: Oven-safe Stainless steel, even the handle.  This pan is by far the nicest of all my pans. NO STICK - I am a terrible crunchy mama and always use no-stick pans even though I know they are not super safe They have a magnetized bottom, so you can use them on induction ovens.  Not that we have one, but given my husband's penchant for new technology, I am sure we will as soon as we pay off our dishwasher. Supposedly you can use a lower heat to cook with this pan.  But since our stove...

When I saw Buttons Diapers, I REALLY wanted to try them.  They were totally different than anything else in my diaper stash, and they looked awesome! Alas, my bank account was near empty and I only had $22 in my PayPal account.  That was more than enough for a cover and inserts, but not for shipping.  So I contacted Amy at Buttons Diapers and offered to do a review in exchange for a discount so I could try them out.  She did way better, and offered to send me a cover, daytime insert, and nighttime doubler, free of charge, to review!  As if that wasn't generous enough, she also offered to host a giveaway for my readers!  So one of you lucky ladies gets to try Buttons Diapers too. Buttons Diapers are AI2 diapers (I believe, I am not a diaper expert, but there are two pieces, and no pocket, so I think all in two is an accurate description...).  They consist of a PUL cover and snap-in inserts.  They are one size diapers, fitting babies from 9-35 ...

I am not a great housewife.  In case you somehow missed that in all the posts I have written (or not written rather) this month. But there are a couple of things that make it look like your house is cleaner than it is. Shut everything.  Your house looks a lot cleaner if the cabinets are shut.  Same goes for the shower curtain. Make your bed.  Your room instantly looks much tidier. Collect all the dirty laundry in one place.  In my house this 2 minutes of work makes both bedrooms, the bathroom and the living room look much better. Stack the dishes.  My husband actually tricks me with this one quite often and it annoys the crap out of me.  Because if you take all the dishes around the kitchen (or house if you are as bad at housewifery as I am) and stack them in and right next to the sink the kitchen looks about a thousand times cleaner, without actually doing work.  Then I am all happy cause Michael cleaned up the kitchen for me, only to fi...

Yup, its official, I CANNOT blog about things 31 days in a row.  Or even like 7 days in a row.  We can't all be good at everything right? Anyways, I have completely ignored my schedule after the first two days.  It was to much, and to early.  I have however been keeping the house fairly clean. The other day Michael even said something about it, which is either an insult (at how I usually keep house) or a compliment, but I chose to take it positively. Since my schedule was not really right for me, I went back to an old stand-by:  FlyLady Bingo.  Now I love the idea of FlyLady , but because it is about making habits and I can't seem to make good habits for the life of me, I never get very far through her baby steps .  Plus she wants me to wear my shoes in the house , which is both gross and uncomfortable.  (Hmmm, FlyLady has 31 baby steps, perhaps I will skip one and do them all next month as a challenge.  You know because I love failing...

I was the happy receiver of a #MamaVoxBox from Influenster.  In other words, I tried this for free, but its still 100% my opinion. There were some pretty awesome products in the box, including a White Cheddar Microwavable Mac and Cheese cup from Annie's. I was completely stoked about this, because as anyone who knows me is aware, macaroni and cheese is one of my favorite foods.   Annie's has some fun infographics about cheese, including this one on the history of cheese. Cheesy! Anyways, I was really excited about this, and popped it in the microwave at lunch the day I got it.  The girls were a little jealous, but they survived. Sadly, I was not impressed.  The taste was pretty good, but the texture was kind of off-putting.  It is made with 100% real cheese, but honestly, the sauce was pretty slimy.  It wasn't super gross or anything, and I ate it all, but it was not really the quality I was expecting.   

See, I said I would have a giveaway for something that wasn't baby related, and I came through! Great things about this giveaway: This product is awesome! It is relevant to a wider variety of people It is open to Canadian residents Alright, review time! The DivaCup is awesome! It took me a ridiculously long time to be able to do this review and giveaway because I had a 99 day cycle right after getting the cup in the mail (for free, but this doesn't change my opinion!). So I had to wait awhile to try it out. Reusable menstrual cups sound gross, just like mama cloth, but they are actually great! They actually cover that on their website saying - "A common response we hear when we tell women (and men) about our product is “Ewww! That’s gross!”. With our culture’s fascination with disposables it’s no wonder this response prevails. However, once you take the time to learn about The DivaCup, and actually try it for yourself, you will be surprised at how clean and...

So, I am posting A LOT today.  Because I always forget to do the reviews from Tomoson until they write and remind me that they are due today. Anyways, I am a little bit neglectful of my dogs hygiene so she has amazingly long nails.  She also has not ever had them clipped. Daisy was NOT impressed with having her nails clipped, so I only did two of the twenty nails.  My husband wouldn't hold her down anymore because he had important things to do, like shoot down tanks on World of Tanks. I have always been pretty terrified of clipping my dogs nails, since I really didn't want to have blood spurt out her paws.  But these stainless steel clippers have a guard on them, so that eased my nerves a bit.  The clippers were really strong, and left the nails smooth. The clippers have a safety latch on them, which is good since they are on a spring (very good, I guess some clippers you have to pull them back open, which would be unpleasant). You can purchase the...

I have a confession: I suck at sending out greeting cards.  Other than Christmas cards, I don't really send any out.  Actually I might have skipped Christmas cards last year (if you are someone that usually gets Christmas cards from me and didn't, sorry, but I looked super fat in the picture on the cards) but this year I will be sending them! A possible solution to this problem is SendOutCards .  It is an easy to use system, starting with buying points.  You can either buy them as you go, or as a monthly fee.  Obviously the monthly fee gives you cheaper points, but it might be more than you need depending on how many cards you send out every month. The cards are well priced, with a two panel card can be as cheap as 62 cents, and even at the highest price they are only $1.98.  You can completely customize the cards, adding text in various fonts, decorative clip-art, even photos (there is an extra charge for adding photos). There is a large selection o...

I Just Joined Smiley360 So I should be getting more free products to review :) If you would like to join, click on the link above!

SUCCESS!!!! While I didn't follow my schedule, my house did get cleaned! For this I thank FlyLady Bingo !  If you have issues getting your house cleaned, I HIGHLY recommend FlyLady ! My whole house got picked up, dishes were ran, vacuuming done, and ALL the laundry was washed.  Sadly, I didn't manage to fold it or put it away, but I did change my sheets. Michael is going to have Saturday and Sunday off now instead of Sunday and Monday, which will be awesome for my schedule, and in turn for my house.

Wanna know a secret?  I am totally cheating and backdating this post.  I am actually writing it at 11:56 pm on the 12 of October. Anyways, "today" was Friday, and as such it was POPCORN PARTY DAY!  I did a tiny bit better than usual, but no where near well enough. I did however eat delicious popcorn and watch Enchanted with my two favorite girls (Hadlee and Miss Baby).  So the day wasn't a wash :)

Epic.  That is the word to describe this challenge.  Epic failure anyways.  I couldn't even manage to blog everyday.  Next week I will be restarting, but with a later wake-up time.  I can't handle waking up that early, I require more sleep than my husband does apparently.  Plus he told me that if I can't get up earlier than him and make him a "real breakfast" (sausage or bacon) not to bother because he doesn't like taking cold lunches and he can pour himself a bowl of cereal.  Tomorrow I will get the house back to clean, so that next week I can get back to doing things everyday.  My mom helped me out a lot while she was here, so the house isn't destroyed or anything, but it is cluttered. So for me it will be a 21 day challenge instead of 31.  But I don't have anymore planned interruptions, so I should get back on it on Monday :)

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I got a full size bottle of  Core  from  Immuno-Viva  to try out and review. Sadly, you are supposed to take 2 of them twice a day, so since I can't remember to do anything, far less to do it twice a day, so I don't know if it "works". They claim that it supports the skin, heart, and immune system.  It contains cold pressed black raspberry and black cumin seed oil (apparently taking 8 POUNDS of berries to get one HALF TEASPOON of oil.  It is non-GMO and full of Omega 3s. Like I said, I didn't take it well enough to vouch for its ability to improve my health, but I do have a positive (and very weird) word for it.  It isn't gross.  Usually vitamins and supplements smell horrible, taste nasty, and give you disgusting burps.  This one didn't.  It didn't smell great, but it didn't make you wanna puke either.  It didn't taste like anything really.  And disturbingly enough, it tasted good when I burped.  Kind of like tea t...

As usual, make sure you click on the pictures to enlarge them :) Carnation Milk  is still around.  In fact I opened a can of it the other night when I made macaroni and cheese and realized that I was out of milk.  I don't think we tend to give it to babies anymore though.  Instead we take all the fat out, add corn syrup and soybean oil, dehydrate it and give it to babies.  A big improvment? Tidykins doesn't seem to exist anymore, except on ebay.  Where they have snow suits for sale.  I like this ad though, I think its sweet :) Glendale doesn't seem to exist either.  But I do like these sleepers.  They are pretty cute, and available in "gay" colors. I don't know why these are called Little Ego's Cunning Creepers, in fact the name is pretty terrifying if you think about it.  I don't actually like this baby shirt/romper thing because the "non constricting waistband" (which means you don't need a belt-did babies really used ...

I should really give up now, since I am obviously going to be a giant failure at the Housewifery Challenge.  But, I won't.  Because I still have 25 days to get it right.  Plus the two days that I did manage to not suck, my house looked nice, and the day went well. I just don't do well with keeping up on things when I am not home all day by myself. Today was a nice day though, and although I didn't work on my house at all, I DID help Michael with some yard work this morning after church.  Then we went and ate dinner with our friends, and went back to their house to play games and watch YouTube videos (because we are all just that cool LOL). Tomorrow I will probably suck because its my birthday, so my mom is taking me shopping.  But maybe I can manage to do something :)

Have you ever had a day where you didn't do anything, but you were still exhausted at the end of the day? Today probably wouldn't have been very successful housewife-wise even if things had went according to plan.  But they didn't so I can pretend it was not my fault. Our car has broken FIVE TIMES since we bought it in like February.  It is a nice car, in theory.  But in reality it has cost us over $4000 in repairs, not counting this time.  It broke for the fourth time on Wednesday, when it started smelling like gas.  Michael figured out what was wrong and ordered the part, which my mom and I picked up on Friday.  This morning he fixed it.  He went to fill up the gas tank and the car alerted him that there was a problem with the fuel pump.  The light went back off, and he came home and told me to get me and the baby ready because we were going to trade the car in.  We cannot keep paying to fix it.  We already had to refinance the...

Well.  I am at a 50% failure rate for being a good housewife.  I couldn't drag myself out of bed this morning.  But it was Michael's birthday today, and so he didn't want me to make him lunch, because he wanted to eat out.  So it was a little bit better.  Then my mom, the baby and I got ready, and were gone all day running errands and shopping.  Good day, very unproductive. Tomorrow is another day, and hopefully I can get back on track.  

Well, the downside of having a blog that I update with my progress is that when I suck, I have to admit it to the world.  Or at least the tiny bit of the world that happens to read my blog. Last night our car broke, and so Michael borrowed a car from his cousin, but he wasn't able to get it until she got off work, and then he had to drive her home, so he didn't get home until midnight, so we were late to bed.  THEN Miss Baby woke up screaming for no apparent reason at 4:20 am, so I changed her diaper, and then snuggled her for about 15 minutes, and put her back into bed.  Which made her really mad, but she got over it.  So when the alarm went off at 6:00 I was NOT really ready to get up.  So I got up and made Michael breakfast and lunch, and promptly got back in bed. I still cleaned everything that was part of my morning routine, even though Miss Baby and I didn't wake up until 9 am.  I skipped getting ready, but I wasn't planning on showering today any...

Today's post is extra special!  It is a guest post, from someone very important in my life: My mom!  Since my birthday is on Monday I thought it would be nice to tell the story of my first birthday for Throwback Thursday, but since I don't remember it, I thought why not have my mom write it.  That and I am lazy, and any post that gets written by someone else is one less post I should be writing :)  My mom is a great writer, so enjoy! The awareness that a one year old does not necessarily grasp nor even enjoy a birthday party did nothing to dampen my excitement over celebrating my beautiful little girl's special day.  Money was tight, so it wouldn't be some grand event, but an afternoon at Chuck E. Cheese's with family and friends was on the schedule; it was to be a special and memorable day.   Special and memorable it was...   The day before her first birthday began with a trip to the doctor for a re-check.  Rachel had an infection re...