Category Archives: Product reviews

Jan28

No More Excuses! Stream Fitness Videos With Gaiam TV.

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No More Excuses! Stream Fitness Videos With Gaiam TV.

 

Oil Painting by Elizabeth Atalay

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My introduction to unlimited access to streaming fitness videos with Gaiam TV could not have come at a better time! I’m not much for New Years resolutions, but I do appreciate the start of the New Year as a great time to re-set routines. Since the holidays my fitness routine has faltered, and in 2013 I am determined to get back on track.  As many of you know, as a mom, having total control over your daily routine is not always an option.  The past few weeks have been a frustrating example of this for me, having just sworn to myself to get back to the gym, and start practicing Yoga on a regular basis. First a dishwasher debacle left me home on six separate days just waiting for service people in what seemed interminable time windows. When they say they’ll be there between 9am-12 noon, why do they come at 11:59 every time?!   Then this morning I am paying the price for what was a fantastic ski weekend in Stowe, VT.   After a fun day of skiing (despite the cold), we had to push it like we always do, and squeeze in a visit to the Trapp Family Lodge, and a tour of the Ben & Jerry’s factory before heading home.  They were both worthy side trips, but we did not get home until around 11pm last night.  Only two out of four of my kids made it to school this morning.

No more excuses though, Read the rest of this entry →

Oct4

Wine Not Whine; Love My Mommy Juice

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Wine Not Whine; Love My Mommy Juice

At the risk of sounding like Honey Boo Boo…… I love my Mommy Juice!  I have mentioned before one of the fun perks of blogging is being sent products to test out and to review on occasion.  I have to say, hands down, this was my favorite package that I have received yet!    These wines were so fun, that my plan was to save the bottles of Mommy Juice wine to  help celebrate my friend Julie’s upcoming birthday.  So here is my confession, after my final school Open House of the season (did I mention that I have four kids?!) I came home….tucked them all into bed….and I broke open the Mommy Juice. That’s it, there it is, (I am sorry Julie, there is still a bit left that I am willing to share with you!) but I have never tasted such a luxurious glass of wine! O.K., that may be the frazzled open house mom talking, but the truth is, it was really good wine!  I was pleasantly surprised that I liked it so much. Then I read about founder Cheryl Durzy, mother of 2,  who has worked in the wine industry since 1999 (hmmm, the year my oldest child was born).

Cheryl Durzy, founder of Mommy Juice Wines

Cheryl works at her family’s Central Coast Winery, Clos LaChance,  she sits on all sorts of fancy wine boards, and she passed with Merit the Advanced Certificate level of the Wine and Spirits Education Trust. In other words the wine tastes good because she knows what she is doing!   She decided she had to produce a wine called Mommy Juice because her kids would point to a wine glass whenever they saw one and exclaim “That’s Mommy Juice!”. How funny that we all call it that!

 

So now I had to break open the  bottle of  White to see if it lived up to the deep, rich, full bodied red.  The White Wine Mommy Juice is a Chardonnay, which is my favorite type of white to begin with, and the Chardonnay Mommy Juice tasted as good as the red! Crisp, not too sweet. Lovely. Is it wrong to be excited that I’ve found  a wine brand where I love the label as much as the taste!?

These are great bottles of wine to bring along as gifts for all sorts of occasions.  Your mommy friends, or friends who know what a busy mommy you are, will love them. Mommy Juice Wines can be purchased online , or ask for it at your local wine shop.  I guess I can’t show up with two opened bottles of wine to celebrate with, that would be as  uncouth as showing up with a half eaten birthday cake! I do plan on ordering more, so girlfriends don’t worry, I promise I will share next time!

 

* I received a complimentary bottle of red, and bottle of white Mommy Juice to review.

Aug12

The Biggest Brand You’ve Never Heard Of

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The Biggest Brand You’ve Never Heard Of

(I received free products from Li-Ning, all opinions are my own and not swayed by outside sources.)

After being glued to our screens to watch the Olympics these past couple of weeks I’ll bet this logo looks familiar to you. That’s because by now you have seen it on all of the Chinese Athletes’ Uniforms, and those of several other countries competing in the games. The brand is Li Ning and it is probably the biggest brand you’ve never heard of. Here in America that is, but it is the Nike of China. You may know the name Li Ning from the companies founder, he is the Chinese gymnast who won six metals for China in the 1984 Olympics. That was the first Olympics that the People’s Republic of China took part in, and three of his metals were gold. Li Ning himself lit the 2008 Olympic torch at the Beijing summer Olympics. In 1990 he had set out to create a sportswear company with global reach, and today Li Ning is the biggest name in Chinese Sportswear. The company has global athletic sponsorships past and present, including several American Basketball players such as Shaquil O’Neil and Jose Calderon among others. Li-Ning sportswear had sent me a very soft thin cotton sweat shirt to try out when they first entered the U.S. sportswear market earlier this year. Aside from wearing my sweatshirt that I love, I had not thought too much more about the brand until I noticed the logo on the women’s Chinese Diving team suits that I was admiring. Some of the Chinese uniform designs were my favorite, and they were all made by Li-Ning. I recently have noticed some ads for their athletic shoes along the sidebar of my computer screen as well. I’m not quite ready to switch out of my Nikes, and both brands are made in China, but I’m guessing with their new ad campaigns and great designs for the Olympics that the brand Li-Ning will not go unknown here much longer.

Jul27

My Favorite Summer Skirt

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My Favorite Summer Skirt

When I commented on how much I loved my friend Stephanie’s skirt one day she told me where to find them.

I bought two for myself and have worn them almost every day this summer.  I know they will be cute with boots and tights in fall and winter too, but I have to tell you this is the perfect summer skirt!  Made from recycled t-shirts they are each unique, soft, and easily washable.  I love these skirts made by Jupiter Girl so much I just had to share!

 

 

Jul8

I Got My Vox box! Want To See What’s Inside?

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I Got My Vox box! Want To See What’s Inside?

The contents of my Mom Vox Box

One of the fun perks to being a Blogger is receiving cool products to review.  This week I received my influenster Mom Vox Box, which contained mystery sample goodies for me to try out and give my opinion on.   It was so much fun to open the package and see what cool products I was lucky enough to score to test out.  Here is what filled my Vox Box of samples:

 

 

 

My favorite item I received in the  Mom Vox Box  is the box of Stash Tea! O.K., I loved it from the moment I saw the logo, but I do love tea, and the  Superfruits Tea Sampler contains several Superfruits Tea flavors and several Green Tea flavors.  They are made up of ingredients which are beneficial to your health and 100% natural. Green Tea has always been my favorite, but I loved their Goji Berry Green Tea which has a bit of citrus flavor to it .

 

I didn’t have a chance with  the hot pink imPRESS press on nails once my 13 year old laid eyes on them!   It’s for the best really because all I can think of with press on nails was the time my college roommate wore hers to work as a prep chef, and one of the customers found one in their salad later that night. It was hilarious (to us), and I crack up to this day just thinking about it! These do come in a super cute package that looks like a nail polish bottle, I’ll let you know how my daughter makes out with them….I’m just not letting her in the kitchen with them on!

I had to fight the kids for just a bite of this little treat, big mistake to make a big fuss and open my Mom Vox Box in front of them! Based on the one bite I was able to secure for myself before doling it out to the hungry masses, The Quaker Soft Baked Oatmeal Cookie in Raisin flavor was delicious!! The kids would agree, based on the fighting over who got the most and how big their bites were. Oy vey! The individual package would make it an ideal snack to pack for the any of us.

 

These DenTek dental floss picks are wonderful for travel with the family, I have actually used them before and would highly recommend them as an easy way to get your kids to floss or to take on the go in your bag.  They are really easy to use and really the only way my kids are able to floss by themselves, by the kids’ enthusiasm they actually enjoy using them!

 

 

I love the Nektar Honey Crystal packets I received.  Growing up with Beehives in my backyard we used honey to sweeten everything.  We used it in place of syrup on pancakes and in place of sugar in most things, but two places we always always used only honey were our tea and our oatmeal.  Nektar honey crystals actually make it possible to bring a natural sweetener with you in a way you could never bring honey, and it is all natural crystallized honey so it doesn’t contain the harmful chemicals some of the other sweetener packets do. I was really excited to be introduced to this product!

Remember how good Ivory soap smells?! I was excited to get a bar in my  Vox Box because I had forgotten that clean fresh smell! I love it, and I used to use it on all my kids all the time when they were babies. Somehow we have not been brand consistent in our soaps these past few years, I guess once I stopped worrying so much about sensitive baby skin.  Ivory soap still smells wonderful though, and I think we will be smelling more like it in the future.

I hope you enjoyed perusing my Mom Vox Box with me! I’d love to know what you think if you have a chance to try any of these products yourself!

 

*  I received a Mom Vox Box filled with the above free goodies for reviewing purposes.   All my opinions are my own and not swayed by outside sources.