1/30/12

Tips for sinus infections

Have you ever had a sinus infection that just won't quit?!

I haven't had sinus infections until we moved from sunny, humid, sea level,  East coast of the USA, to the West side in a dry climate, colder weather, higher altitude state.  I've been in Utah for 2 years now, and have had more sinus infections than I can  count, as have my whole family.

tips for sinus infection
1. Always keep Vitamin C drops on hand.  As adults you can suck on these throughout the day, and they give you the Vitamin C your body needs without irritating your throat with fresh orange juice and or lemon juice in water.

2. Always keep spearmint gum on hand (I love Trident gum best) helps your brain to function well despite feeling clogged, foggy, and under the weather.

3. Always keep those Life Savor mints on hand (they are super strong and help your sinuses to run)

4. Make this tea and drink it up to 3 times a day

Cy- Lemon Tea
  • Fresh lemon
  • ground cyan pepper
  • pure honey or Blue Aguave
  • 8-10 oz water
  • box of tissue
What you do is slice the lemon in half and squeeze it all into your tea, I'll even cut off some of the fruit and let it float on top of the water.  Then pour in 1/10th tsp cyan pepper ( I usually just pour enough cyan pepper to cover the top of my glass).  Then pour in 1 tbs of the sweetener.  Heat in microwave for up to 2 minutes drink while hot, its kind of gross when its cool.  The cyan pepper will burn your sinuses so they start to run now you need the tissues.  The lemon and honey will sooth your sore throat, and the hot water will heat your body up from the inside out to help your body pump blood and the fighting agents to where your body needs them the most.

Do you have more tips on how to avoid sinus infections or sore throats? Share it below!

1/25/12

Melissa and Doug want you!

Have you heard, used, or seen any of the products that Melissa & Doug have in the stores?  I love them!  My kids have used tons of their puzzles, and we just got some of their games from the Orem Public Library's PERC center.

Well they are trying to reach 100,000 likes on Facebook and are offering a very large giveaway for it.  Help them reach their goal!  After all its still the New year and goals are very important.  Their products are so great, everyone should help them out!  Join in the fun and get a chance to win big!

Here's the link: http://www.facebook.com/MelissaAndDoug

1/16/12

Hooked on Numbers

Details: DVD, MP3 songs, activity pad, journal, wipe off crayons, stickers.  Ages 3-5.  The Crayons conform to ASTM D 4236 (child safety regulations).  This Super activity kit is an educational extravaganza that's packed with learning and fun.

Information: This was another educational tool I checked out from Orem Public Library's PERC center.  First off, my kids and I sat down and watched the DVD together, and to be honest we were all very glad it was done because it was very boring.  The Amazing story was the best part, but my kids didn't really like it (and I say this because they watch lots of different educational DVDs or TV shows like: Dora The Explorer, Leap Frog, Little Einsteins, Dinosaur Train, Super Y, The Mickey Mouse Club House, etc.)  Secondly, my 4 year old who can write, draw and is learning to read basic words didn't like the little Number Journal.  He found it very frustrating because he had to draw things without any type of guide line.  He also prefers white erase markers to wipe off crayons. The Numbers Activity pad was the best part.  Lots of puzzles where you have to read the instructions to get the correct answers.  This was a fun part to do with my 4 year old.  Myself and my children didn't like anything except the puzzles on the Activity Pad.















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ABC Sound Bingo

Details: Do-Re-Me&You produced ABC Sound Bingo: http://www.drmy.com
Phonics fun with letters, sounds and pictures.  Learn all 21 consonants.  12 double sided bingo cards (one side is pictures, one side is letters), 120 chips, and a CD with 24 letter sounds and words.  2 picture options for every letter available throughout the 12 bingo cards.

Information:  I checked this educational tool out from Orem Public Library's PERC center for 1 week.  As I played it with my kids, I had a very strong memory of playing something like this when I was really young.  I remember listening to a cassette tape with sounds or animals and letters and trying to find those on a Bingo card.  Growing up my siblings and I loved playing that game.  So its been very fun to find this game to play with my own children.  I love the old school toys that are refurbished and still around for my own children to play with.  I highly suggest this as a family game, its fun, easy, and very educational!  My 2 year old was a little bored but with help from Mommy he was able to still listen and look for letters and pictures that start with specific letters/sounds.  My 4 year old loved it!

















1/11/12

Autumn's Promise

Details:  How can an Englisher make Amish friends?  How can a recovering young woman's past help a troubled young man?  How can a widower move on in his life, learn to love and hope for marriage to a wonderful young woman?  How do two very different communities come together to bring two very special people happiness and love?  Shelley Shepherd Gray gives us a timeless love story full of learning to trust, learning to open up, heal, and grow, learning to be true to one's self.

Information:  I used to live within hours of an Amish community and even got to visit a special country community that had based their way of life off of how Amish live.  I have seen extreme plain Green living, and I have seen how people who aren't Amish give up worldly possessions because they feel they are following the will of God.  I personally know how it feels to be shunned because of mistakes (though not as hard a mistake as what Lilly Allen has had to go through).  I know how it feels to be thought of as strange and weird because of my religion, even though I'm Christian, most people don't see my religion as Christian because of how we dress, talk, and our beliefs.  I know what its like to be in "love" and then be rejected and eventually finding peace and learn to truly love again.  I know how to work on a farm, as I've personally grown up on 3 different small animal farms, where we had large vegetable gardens or small fruit orchards.  I can relate to so many of the characters in Autumn's Promise this book really spoke to me personally, about how different life is from what we imagine, what we dream and hope and how wonderful life is still with all those differences.  I highly suggest this book for books clubs, for a personal read, or for a challenge.  At the end of the book after the Author's note is a section of questions that help bring this book into your life!  I love it!

Extras:
Here is the website for Shelley Shepherd Gray: http://www.shelleyshepardgray.com/index.php
Her book is available at both Barns & Noble as well as Amazon.com
I bought my book in the used section of the Orem Public Library for 50 cents, but amazon.com sells it for between $2-$6.  Its totally worth it!

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Wheat Bread Even Your Kids will Eat

 I went to an activity last night that taught a group of women of all ages how to cook different types of artisan breads.  This was the favorite, and guess what?  My two kids who are super picky actually liked this bread!  Getting my kids to eat healthy stuff is hard, not because we don't eat healthy food, but because we don't have super healthy stuff very often.  And even though this isn't super duper healthy, its is healthy and yummy and moist and great!  The woman who made this recipe is from Texas, and well I lived in Houston for 10 years so I have a special place in my heart for food from my home state!

They don't like pumpkin soup, or lentils (granted I'm still learning how to cook with lentils), but they love rice pilaf and fruits and most vegetables...but breads  and soups are something my kids are super picky with.  I'm glad I went to that activity and learned how to make this yummy healthy bread, and its super easy.  You can use your kitchen aid, or a bosch, or elbow grease.  I'm including the recipe below, but here are a few pictures of what it looks like!














White Wheat Bread: by Pat Viehweg

2 cups washed whole wheat
4 cups water
6 cups very warm water (use drained water from Cooking wheat with water from tap)
1/2 cup sugar
4 packets/ 4 Tbsp active dry yeast
2 Tbsp salt
1/4 cup shortening
1 egg
14-15 cups all purpose flour

Combine washed whole wheat with the 4 cups of water, allow to soak overnight.  Fully cook (pressure or boil) whole wheat for 10 minutes or until soft, then drain but keep the water.  Use water from cooking wheat to combine with tap water to make 6 cups liquid.  Place in a large mixing bowl.  Add sugar and yeast together in 1 cup of water.  After yeast foams stir in salt, shortening, beaten egg and 6 cups flour.  Beat with mixer until smooth.  Stir in cooked wheat and enough of the remaining flour to make a moderately stiff dough.  Place in oiled bowl or pan and allow to rise 30 minutes.  Divides dough into 7 portions.  working on oiled surface (I find this more effective than flour) with oiled rolling pin, roll out air bubbles in each portion.  Roll up dough and form into loaves.  Place in oiled 4 1/2 X8 inch loaf pan.  Cover and let rise until double.  Bake at 350 degrees for 45-50 minutes.  Brush tops with margarine when loaves are removed from oven.  This also makes great french toast.

1/10/12

GeoSafari

Details: 12 plastic slides with insects on them to view under the light.  Games, codes, puzzles and more.  Easy usage, bright colors, fun, educational tool.  Sound on, off, and volume control.  Simple easy to understand instructions. For children 3 and older.

Information:  I checked this out from Orem Public Library's PERC center for 1 week.  My kids are ages 2 and 4 and love this!  This is a great parent child, or teacher child tool to use to help teach children about science, insects, listening to a question and then give the correct answer from what you see.  This company has a few different models, so I've posted a few different pictures, and prices that I've found on Amazon.com.  I highly recommend you buy or check out this product for your children to use at least once!  Its so easy my 2 year old knows how to turn it on, put the slides in place, and get to the easiest set of games.





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1/9/12

Most Loved Slow Cooker Creations


Company's Coming - Most Loved Slow Cooker Creations

Details: This is the best collection from the whole Company's Coming library, and put into the best crock pot recipes.  This comes with time-saving tricks and handy hints.  With the theory of "Never share a recipe you wouldn't use yourself", Jean Pare' knows what is best and how to get exactly what you want from your food in the crock pot.


Information:  Some of the best recipes I've found in the book are the Chinese Mushroom soup, Sweetish meatballs, Stuffed Chicken Rolls, BBQ Shredded Pork sandwiches.  I love that this book has tips on oven temperatures and altitude, and a measurement chart for different types of measurement conversions.  Jean Pare' and her Company's Coming library of cook books are wonderful!  I also have two other cook books from this group and just love them all.  I highly suggest this cook book if you love your crock pot!








Slow Cooker Creations

200 Slow Cooker Creations  by Stephanie Ashcraft and Janet Eyring

Details: 200 recipes for crock pots.  This is new as of 2010, so it contains fun new exciting popular crock pot recipes.  Contents include: 10 beverages, 13 dips and fondues, 37 soups/stews/sides, 13 pasta recipes,  41 poultry, 31 beef recipes, 30 pork recipes, 24 desserts and bread recipes.

 Information:  My Mother-in-law bought this for me back in April 2011, I didn't get a crock pot until September 2011.  I love this cook book, I never knew how many types of things we could cook in a crock pot.  But I love the lasagna recipe, the cake recipes, the sweet and sour chicken and the stir-fry chicken recipes.  My family eats  lots of rice, chicken, ground turkey, and pasta.  So being able to throw dinner into the crock pot in the morning or even the night before helps with my crazy small kitchen and my crazy life with my two very energetic kids.  Now here's some cool information.  You can buy this book at Sea Gull Books, Desseret Book Store, for around $13.  Or you can go online to amazon.com and buy it for $11, or get the Kindle copy for $5.  For those of you who love Kindle books, and love cook books this is a great buy and its totally worth it!



1/5/12

Discovery Toys

Educational Discovery Toys for Kids! 


Travel Tracks for kids is so simple and fun! And there are so many wonderful Discovery Toys out there.


Why this toy is so beneficial for learning . . . 

Discovery Toys Travel TracksThis is an educational hands on toy, not just because it can teach geography, earth science, problem solving, puzzle skills and fine motor skills, critical thinking skills and other life and social skills.  This is an educational hands on toy, not just because it comes with 2 wind up jeeps so your child can learn to share, or your children can learn to take turns, learn to wait for their turn.  They can also learn probability, and chance because the wind up jeeps follow paths the puzzle pieces create, and if an incomplete path or a path with a fork in the road, the jeep’s mechanism will compensate.  We found as we explored this toy that there are dozens of possibilities of how to make the tracks.  Your kit comes with 8 track puzzle pieces; that connect in many different ways!


Discovery Toys Travel Tracks  Learning is fun because… it's all about Discovery Toys  In the beginning, I found this at Saver's in Orem Utah, and paid $1 for this.  Saver's is a Thrift store, very similar set up like Salvation Army and Good Will, however, their store is a lot nicer.  There are organized racks of clean clothing, organized selves and bins for stuffed animals and kid's toys, books organized into sections like Kids books, informational, romance, etc.  This is a store that I really enjoy shopping at because we're on a tight budget.  So when I find a really good deal, I have to blog about it.  I mean who wouldn't want to know about an amazing product?  Ding! Ding! Ding!  I love hearing from my friends, from blogs, and peers what the best toys, and products are.  Especially awesome products for kids, because my kids rule my life right now.  My product review is from personal experience with this toy, and how my kids enjoyed using it.  As it is a Discovery Toy branded toy, I know it cost more than Thrift store pricing.  However, I'm very grateful that I was able to find it at such a good deal.  This was a great treasure that I found, because it introduced my family to the company Discovery Toys.  A company that focuses on helping children learn in fun exciting ways.  When you find a good company, with great products, you want to be able to easily purchase more products from them.  However, I have found that Discovery Toys is one of those companys where you need to find a Rep who sells the products, because only specialty stores sell these products.  
Discovery Toys Travel Tracks

Check out this Product... This was a complete hit in my house!  See, my kids love to put the puzzle piece travel tracks into different shapes, and change the pathways to have the jeeps travel through the topography type of map full of volcanoes, glaciers, beaches, forestry and lots of other land.  I found that for very young children this is a great parent child time toy, as you can help teach the child about the different geographic areas the vehicles travel through, and you can play one on one with your child as there are only 2 jeeps that come in the package.  With older children they will be able to place the puzzle pieces, interlock the pathways for the vehicles, and be able to create a whole new world of imagination play.  I like to think of this as an educational version of the popular Hot Wheels tracks.  The jeeps are child hand sized (roughly 2 inches or so in size)  The only negative thing about this set is if one of the vehicles breaks (like the wheels break) you can't substitute it for a vehicle you can buy in Wal-Mart or Target.  You have to go back to a company Rep who sells Discovery Toys, and work with them.  I highly suggest this product for any of the following: in the home, Preschools, Home school groups, Joy schools, Co-op schools, and public school media or class rooms.

Check out another one of our favorites, "Measure Up Cups"!



My Rating? A BIG Thumbs Up!

If you liked this product review, come check out Trio Blocks.

1/4/12

Reptangles



Reptangles: Turtles that snap
Fat Brain Toys Reptangles

Details: design, create, build, 24 geometry turtles in 6 different colors.  Learn, play, puzzle, create thousands of possibilities.  Some designs are like: Third Order Rotational Symmetries, Truncated Octahedron, Lesser Rhombicuboctahedron.  Can you flip, slide, and turn?  Two Reptangles can snap together in more than 100 ways.  More than 50 puzzles, over 80 structures, essential math concepts.  Ages 6 and up.

Information: We checked this toy out from the PERC center at the Orem Public Library.  My 4 year old can usually play with toys up ages 6, but this one is very frustrating to me as the parent.  These turtles are supposed to connect in tons of different ways, by just using 2 turtles.  But I struggle just to get the turtles to connect in 3 different positions.  I'm not impressed with this educational toy at all.  Trying to follow the instructions is impossible, it takes forever just to get the stinking things to connect.  I do not recommend buying this toy at all.  I've played with legos, kintex, tinker toys, Lincoln logs, and trio blocks.  I design beaded jewelry, and paint so I know I've got skills to be able to work with things that are complicated, but this product just doesn't work.

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1/2/12

Pure Protein Whey shake


Pure Protein 100% whey protein shake: frosty chocolate flavored

Details: Eat good, look Great!  140 calories, 0 trans fat, 2 grams sugar.  25 gram premium protein: supports lean muscle and strength, helps maintain a healthy immune system.  This is to be used as a food supplement only, not to reduce weight.  32 oz bottle of powdered chocolate whey.  This is a delicious fast acting protein powder that provides all of the essential amino acids needed to help support lean muscle, energy, vitality, and strength.  Provides gold standard cross flow When protein sources including Microfiltered whey protein isolate and ultra-filtered whey protein concentrate.  7 different options of how to use this whey protein.

Information:  I have been using this for 1 month.  In 6 years of trying different whey, soy, and other protein, weight-loss shakes, this is the best flavored and easiest powder to use.  I used to have to blend in bananas, frozen yogurt, berries, and all kinds of things into the other shakes that I've tried, but this I mix with water and drink it with nothing else blended into the mixture.  I love it!  I have already lost 3 pounds, and kept it off.  Even with all the junk food, candy, sweets and ice cream that I ate during the holidays.  I drink this for my breakfast, and then have a Fiber One 90 calorie brownie two hours later as a snack before lunch.  This holds me over, and keeps me from being hungry until lunch time, where I eat a smaller portioned amount of food.  I try to eat a peanut butter, banana tortilla sandwich, or celery and peanut butter with steamed veggies, and drink tons of water.  I highly recommend this as a great whey protein shake.  This can help you loose weight, because it gives you lots of energy and stimulates your metabolism, but I also combine it with exercising to equal the amount of no less than 500 calories burned a day.  I use an elliptical, and I lift weights, do jumping jacks, and have a whole system of exercising I got from Pinterest.com.  ( click on system to see my pinterest board for fitness ) I eat 6 small meals a day, and drink 16 cups of water or more a day.  I try to limit the amount of bread, sugar, and starches that I eat.  I also only eat chicken and turkey and tuna as meat.  On weekends I will allow myself to have a small amount of beef, like a burger.  I eat tons of steamed vegetables, and try to eat lots of fruit, but that doesn't always happen.  If you love to add fruits in your smoothies and shakes click on this link to get some of the best recipes that I've found.

                                                                                         My Rating