Today I’m guest blogging at one of my favorite online spots, Wee Share! Come visit and learn a few new things about me (and see a picture of Darah and me pretending to be turkeys!).
Come Visit Me at Wee Share!
The Latest and Greatest from Earth Mama Angel Baby (GIVEAWAY!!!)
We are big Earth Mama Angel Baby fans in our house. What’s not to love? This company offers organic personal care products that are safe for every member in the house, young and old! The performance of their products is excellent, and I think the smells are simply DIVINE!
Speaking of smells, Earth Mama Angel Baby has some products that are designed with the expecting mama in mind. Many pregnant women experience a sensitivity to smells, often lasting throughout the entire pregnancy. The Happy Mama Hand to Toe Wash is ideal for a woman in this position. You don’t have to eliminate every product with a scent from your bathroom, after all. This product contains ginger, organic lime and organic pink grapefruit essential oils, all of which will smell wonderful to a sensitive nose, helping to ease that queasy feeling and lift your spirits! Hooray!
Even if you aren’t expecting, you will love the smell. I know I do! And I love the way it dispenses, as a rich foam. This is especially handy at bath time for Darah, as she is a wiggle worm and we’ve got to move fast to get soap on her!
There are some really great ingredients in this product, but what is even more important to know is what is NOT in EMAB products:
• No petrochemicals, petroleum or petroleum byproducts
• No 1,4-Dioxane, formaldehyde, or phthalates
• No sodium lauryl sulfate, cocomidopropyl betaine or other synthetic foaming agents or surfactants
• No artificial preservatives, parabens, phenoxyethanol, Quaternium-15 etc.
• No artificial emulsifiers
You can always feel confident about any purchase you make with this company. The only offer what is best for you, for baby and for the planet. Yay Earth Mama Angel Baby!
Win it!: One lucky Stuff Parents Need reader will win Happy Mama Hand to Toe Wash! The contest will run until May 30th at 11:59pm EST when a winner will be selected via Random.org. The winner will have 48 hours to respond before the prize is forfeited and a new winner is selected. Open to residents of the United States. Limit one entrant per household, please.
REMEMBER, YOU MUST FOLLOW THIS BLOG VIA GOOGLE FRIEND CONNECT TO BE ELIGIBLE TO WIN. YOU CAN SIGN UP ON MY SIDEBAR IF YOU DON’T ALREADY FOLLOW.
Mandatory entry: Tell me one other product in the EMAB line that piques your interest.
Additional entries:
1.Sponsor love: Like Earth Mama Angel Baby on Facebook
2.Blogger love: Follow Stuff Parents Need on Twitter
Be sure to enter my other currentgiveaways, found on the sidebar of my homepage.
Disclosure: I received a complimentary product for review purposes. The opinions expressed here are strictly my own.
Earn Rewards While You Shop and Search Online: Bing Rewards
Thank you to BING for sponsoring my writing today. To learn more about BING Shopping Rewards, click here. I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective, which endorses Blog With Integrity, as I do.
Oh, internet. I owe you one serious love song. And maybe a poem or two. How I adore you! You have changed my world so completely! Today I’m going to focus on one key way that you have changed the way I do things. You have saved me SO much time on a task that I both love and loathe: shopping.
When I was in college, I would hit the local mall when I was stressed out or just needed a break. It was VERY rare for me to actually purchase anything, but it was great to window shop. You could purchase clothing online at that time (this was 1998-2002), but since then the online shopping selections have EXPLODED, and the amount of time I have spent in malls has gone down right along with it.
You see, shopping is a good stress reliever. Sort of. Over time, I’ve found that the peace it used to bring me is often cut short by a few key things:
1. The traffic getting to and from the mall. I don’t so much like traffic. And I don’t like wasting time. And that’s what 20 minutes in the car each ways feels like. Just sayin’.
2. Honestly, this might sound crazy, but I think the selection of merchandise in stores is borderline pitiful as compared to shopping online. So I find shopping in brick and mortar stores to be a bit of a drag. In this season of my life, I have a much better sense for what looks good on me when I shop, so I do less browsing and more targeting searching.
3. I have a toddler. Have you ever shopping with a toddler? Me, too. ONCE. Not kidding. It’s payback for all the times that I would cry in the mall with my mom when we went shopping. I remember thinking that it was worse than a death sentence. Darah seems to agree. So I avoid it pretty much at all costs. The shipping fees I may incur for shopping online seem like such a small price to pay for avoiding having to subject both Darah and myself to shopping together.
4. Store hours. Let me tell you when I live my “non-mommy” life: between 4:45am and 6:30 am, between 1-2:30pm (but I’m stuck in the house because my child is sleeping) and after 7pm, at which point in the day I’m way too tired to schlep out to a store and shop. Especially if that means I have to put on makeup. Forget about it.
Online shopping I can do any time, in my pajamas, face NO lines, no traffic and easily hunt down EXACTLY what I’m looking for. It is bliss. I have been living in Chattanooga since August 2010, and I have been to the mall here exactly 1 time, and that was a few months ago. Wanna know why I went? Only because I felt really weird about the fact that I had never gone. I seriously don’t think I stepped inside more than 2 stores, and I got bored really fast. I have no idea why I would ever go back, unless I desperately needed something I could only get there, and I needed it today. Otherwise, I’ll just buy it online, thank you very much.
So now I want to talk about ways that you can make shopping online super efficient and fun. There’s actually a way to get paid for your searching efforts, which makes online shopping SO much more fun!
I’ve heard of quite a few programs out there, but this one is new to me, so it may be new to you, as well. It is called the Bing Rewards Preview and you can use it to earn credits that can be redeemed for gift cards, merchandise, and even charity donations. I just signed up and earned 250 credits just for signing up! Easy!
You can earn credits by installing the Bing Bar toolbar onto your browser. I like this option, as you can very easily watch those credits increase with your searches!
The other option is to just log into Bing.com and make sure you are signed in. You’ll see your Rewards credit counter in the top right of the header.
So how many credits do you need to get something you’d actually like to have? Well, a $10 Starbucks gift card will cost 1,338 credits. If coffee isn’t your thing, they have Sephora gift cards and those always popular Amazon.com gift cards. So log on and start searching. It literally pays to do your shopping online with Bing.
What about you? Do you shop online? Do you prefer going out to the stores to see and touch the merchandise before making your purchase? Do you take advantage of opportunities to make every search count online with something like Bing?
Tropical Traditions Organic Hair Oils: Fear Not!
The first time I got my hair cut in Chattanooga, the lady who did my hair told me that my hair needed DEEP moisturization ASAP. She said that I had very thick and coarse hair that felt very dry. Fortunately, she had the perfect solution for me with some product in her salon that cost well over $30. Uh…no thanks. I didn’t return to this hair dresser for 2 reasons:
1. She also told me that my hair was, “weird” due to it having different lengths in it (I lost a pretty decent amount of hair after Darah was born, and most of it has grown back in….yes, it looked awkward. I didn’t need her to tell me!).
2. She put such a hard sell on for me to buy these hair care products and it was my very first time ever coming to the shop. That really rubbed me the wrong way, as I felt like all she cared about was making my final bill larger, not actually helping me improve the condition of my hair in the best possible way. It made me very weary of her claim that I even needed extra moisturization, actually.
But like most women, I never did fully let go of that criticism I got that day at the salon, and I began to wonder a bit about different deep conditioning treatments. At one point, I came super close to purchasing some Moroccan Oil online, although the price tag (also around $30) made me chicken out at the last minute.
Two weeks ago, I had the opportunity to try out Tropical Traditions answer to the needs of my parched hair. They offer Organic Hair Oils, made with Gold Label Virgin Coconut Oil and a few other fabulous oils. They are priced a bit below the other products that have been recommended to me, and are on sale now starting at $18.99. There are testimonials on their website from satisfied customers, and if you just do a Google search for coconut oil as a deep conditioner, you will read countless stories of people swearing by it.
Knowing that every other product I have tried from Tropical Traditions has impressed me, I decided to give this a try. But I’ll be honest with you, I was pretty nervous about putting oil in my hair. What if I couldn’t get it to rinse out? What if it made my hair just look gross and oily? What if it smelled weird? What if it ruined my pillowcases? These were all thoughts I had, but I decided to trust in the reviews of so many other people.
I first washed my hair, and then I applied the product. This is an area where you sort of have to just use your best judgment. I started with an amount about the size of a quarter. I think I ended up doubling that amount for my hair, which is thick and past my shoulders. Once I worked it through my damp hair, I piled it on top of my head, grabbed a magazine, and soaked in a hot bath for about 45 minutes (which was SO nice, by the way). The directions on the bottle state that you can leave it in for anywhere between 15 minutes and overnight. After 45 minutes, I used a small amount of shampoo (probably about 2/3 of what I would normally use to wash my hair) and then rinsed it out. Then I dried my hair as usual.
I thought my hair looked shinier, and it most definitely felt softer, but I wanted to get Tim’s opinion. He will always be honest with me, and he reported that he thought my hair looked significantly shinier than before using the oil. Hooray! I apologize that I totally forgot to take pictures, but I promise you that the difference in shine was quite noticeable! And it did NOT feel weighed down of greasy.
I found my hair to be noticeably easier to manage for the next 2 weeks, which was just terrific. Now I have penciled into my calendar a once a month date with Tropical Traditions Organic Hair Oils. I’m a firm believer that it can add shine and smoothness to many different types of hair. If you’ve been thinking about trying out a deep conditioning treatment of some sort, this is a great way to go, and it is made with awesome organic ingredients! Also, depending on the length of your hair and how often you use the product, it could last you a really long time. I’m estimating that my bottle will last me at least 2 years!
Win it!: One lucky Stuff Parents Need reader will win Tropical Traditions Organic Hair Oils in your choice of scent (or you can choose unscented). The contest will run until May 29th at 11:59pm EST when a winner will be selected via Random.org. The winner will have 48 hours to respond to winning notification before the prize is forfeited and a new winner is selected. Open to residents of the United States. Limit one entrant per household, please.
REMEMBER, YOU MUST BE A PUBLIC FOLLOWER OF THIS BLOG VIA GOOGLE FRIEND CONNECT TO BE ELIGIBLE FOR A GIVEAWAY. YOU CAN SIGN UP ON MY SIDEBAR IF YOU HAVEN’T DONE SO, ALREADY.
Mandatory entry: Tell me anything about your hair. Any magic potions for keeping it beautiful? Any difficulties you haven’t yet figured out? Do you dye it? Ever tried a deep conditioner? Anything related to the topic works for me!
Additional entries:
1. Sponsor love: Like Tropical Traditions on Facebook
2. Blogger love: Subscribe to Stuff Parents Needvia RSS or email
Rare bonus entry: Subscriber to the Tropical Traditions newsletter (and hear about their sales!)
Be sure to enter my other current giveaways, found on the sidebar of my homepage.
Disclosure: I received a complimentary product for review purposes. The opinions expressed here are strictly my own.
I’m Hiring a Virtual Assistant (Wanna Apply???)
I have been so inspired by a recent post that went up on Simple Mom. She interviewed several bloggers whose work I admire, and who I sometimes compare myself to (always unfavorably…), and she revealed something that completely blew my mind:
They ALL have some sort of help in order for their work and family lives to remain at least somewhat balanced.
That’s the missing element for me. I have so many goals and dreams for this blog, and I can’t do any of them while I’m chasing Darah around the house.
And I have so many fun activities I want to do with Darah, and I can’t do any of them while I’m updating Prizey and Online-Sweepstakes and Twitter about the latest round of giveaways I have.
And don’t get me started on housework. I mean, seriously. Who has time to clean?! We clean a little bit every day, so usually one room in the house looks semi-decent. And all the rest look crap-tastic. It’s the truth!
So anyway, now I realize that all of these amazing women who are merging their professional and personal lives with a bit more finesse than I seem to be doing are not going at it alone! They have outsourced. And so, I’m going to try my hand at getting some help, too, and see if it frees up the time I need to do some of the things I find myself daydreaming about while engaged in some other urgent task that pulls me away.
I’m hiring a virtual assistant.
And before I post a gig on e-lance or somewhere else, I thought I’d start with my readers! You’ve at least got a bit of familiarity with Stuff Parents Need!
If you think you might like to apply, please send me an email at stuffparentsneed@gmail.com with a resume if you have one, and a list of your qualifications as they relate to social media (blogs, facebook, twitter) and marketing. Knowledge of WordPress is a must, as I’ll be moving over there in a month or so. I’m also interested in hearing just a little bit more about why you are interested in the position. Please include your desired hourly fee and the maximum number of hours you are available to work each week and the times of day/week that are best for you to work. I’ll be sending more detailed information to interested applicants so that they can decide if they are still interested, and we’ll set up skype interviews from there!
If you aren’t the right person for the job, but you know someone who might be, please send this link along to them and encourage them to submit your name and email address as their reference. If I hire a person you recommended, I’ll send you a $10 Amazon gift card as a thank you!
Ok, fingers crossed….I’m hitting publish…..NOW!
Find Your Pasta Personality with Carrabba’s (Fun Facebook Quiz and a Family Recipe!)
What’s your pasta personality? You have one, you know. We all do! Carrabba’s has a Pasta Personality Quiz on Facebook that can help you determine yours. Hop on over and take the quiz. Go ahead. I’ll wait!
Ok, what were your results? My pasta personality is spaghetti, which is just SO perfect considering what you’ll find below…
As part of this post, I’d like to share my family’s signature pasta dish. This is one of our very favorites. Tim’s family has been making it for who knows how long (longer than I’ve been on the scene, and I’ve been hanging out with him for over a decade, now!). It’s a pasta dish that has eggs in it. Sounds gross, I know. But stick with me….you’re gonna love it!
Spaghetti Carbonara
3/4 cup Parmesan cheese
1 tbsp minced garlic
1/2 cup olive oil or butter (we go half and half)
2 eggs lightly beaten
12 oz of turkey bacon, diced and cooked
1/8 cup dried parsley or 1/4 cup fresh parsley
1 lb spaghetti
Cook spaghetti noodles according to package instructions. Meanwhile, heat the oil/butter on medium-high and add the garlic. Saute 3-5 minutes. Mix the oil/butter/garlic mixture with the cooked and drained noodles. Add the eggs in and very quickly mix. The idea is that the eggs will cook onto the noodles . After the eggs have been mixed in, add the turkey bacon, parsley and Parmesan cheese.
And then get ready to die from the joy of this dish. It is so awesome!
If making a pasta dish at home is not on your list of things you wish to accomplish, then just head on over to Carrabba’s, where you’ll find some fantastic limited time special offers, which include seven dishes served with soup or fresh salad. And the price tag is awesome, starting at just $10! Here are a few examples:
Pasto Rambo – Named for the chef who created it, it’s made with shrimp tossed with imported Italian linguine, spinach, mushrooms, and tomatoes sautéed in our basil lemon butter sauce. Lobster is available instead of shrimp for an additional cost.
Parmesan-crusted Chicken – Topped with fresh arugula and grape tomatoes tossed in a hand-prepared lemon vinaigrette, served with choice of side. Substitution of wood-grilled chicken also available. Pairs well with Estancia Pinot Grigio.
Prosciutto-Wrapped Pork Tenderloin – Three pork tenderloin medallions wrapped with prosciutto, wood-grilled and topped with an apple and fig infused port wine sauce, served with the vegetable of the day. Pairs well with Coppola Pinot Noir.
Limoncello Bread Pudding – Back by popular demand! Brioche bread pudding made with fresh Madagascar vanilla beans and a rich custard, served hot out of the oven. Topped with Blue Bell vanilla ice cream and drizzled with Carrabba’s homemade Caravella Limoncello liqueur sauce.
While I still hold that my Spaghetti Carbonara will blow you away, I wouldn’t blame you if you put down your cooking utensils and headed for your nearest Carrabba’s. With over 230 locations, there’s probably one close by!
And don’t forget to tell me your pasta personality in the comments! Any other spaghettis out there???
Disclosure:I wrote this blog post while participating in the SocialMoms and Carrabba’s blogging program, for a gift card worth $50. For more information on how you can participate, click here.
Crafts Made as Easy as 1-2-3 (Seriously!)
Those of you with older children will not be the least bit surprised when I tell you that Darah seems to be doing new things every single day. Her sentences are more complex, she makes jokes, and she needs more stimulation than she used to even a few months ago. I’ve realized that I need to provide her with more opportunities to work on fine motor skills. One very easy way to work on this is through craft projects. Unfortunately, the mere mention of crafts is enough to give me hives. Not really joking.
Honestly, I just have NO IDEA where to start. Not only do I not have any good ideas floating around in my head, when I go online to get ideas (and there are billions out there, it seems) I just get completely overwhelmed. Enter 1-2-3 Textured Products, a company that has designed pre-assembled craft kits. Hallelujah!
We received a deer craft. This is absolutely perfect for someone like me, as it comes with almost everything you need to do a fun project. You see, not only do I not have a craft room, I also don’t even have a craft bin. And I certainly don’t have a craft gene. In fact, I’m so inept in this department that when I first saw the craft, I wondered what in the heck I was supposed to do with it. There weren’t specific instructions telling me what embellishment to put where! Fortunately, the back did have instructions, which said, “Encourage the child’s creativity by gluing the assorted textures on the supplied characters.” Oh yes, creativity. Got it. Now I just need to get some glue…
My house is small, and my desire to have even a box full of pom poms and pipe cleaners is nonexistent, but I’d be happy to have a box full of crafts just like this. Everything is pre-assembled like a Food Network cooking show. Just insert the child, bring a glue stick, and let the fun commence! My stress level doesn’t go up in the slightest when I think about doing a craft project with Darah using 1-2-3 Crafts. These are also great to take along with you when traveling, as you’ve got everything you need (except the glue) in one place. Cleanup is easy, too, because there won’t be too much material left unused when you are finished.
1-2-3 Textures Products offers various activity kits on their website, as well as acraft subscription service, which is a very cool idea for daycare and preschool providers, and for folks like me who don’t want to have to come up with the ideas on their own!
How do you come up with craft projects for your kiddos? I’d love to hear!
Disclosure: This is a MamaBuzz review. The product was provided by: 1-2-3 Textured Products for this review. All opinions expressed here are strictly my own.
Helpful for Many Reasons: Batiste Dry Shampoo (GIVEAWAY!!!)
I’m excited to be highlighting a product today that you might not yet realize you need, but keep reading, and you will! It’s called Batiste Dry Shampoo, and it comes in two scents: original and blush (which smells a bit more floral). It’s the #1 dry shampoo in the U.K. and now it is coming to the U.S.! This product is designed to revitalize greasy, dull and lifeless hair between washes. It is quick and very convenient. It basically works like aerosol hairspray, in terms of how you apply it. Give it a good shake, maintain a sensible distance from your hair, and get to work. I found that for me, just applying it to the crown of my head made the most sense. 
In my experience, I don’t think it made my hair look as clean as it does when it is freshly washed, but I also know that it made it look clean enough to go out and about with no worries that I might look “dirty.”
There are several reasons why this product is so useful. First, I can tell you that it DEFINITELY came in handy when we were without hot water for 6 days. I didn’t have to suffer through nearly as many cold showers thanks to having this on hand! So first and foremost, it’s an excellent product to keep in an emergency kit!
Second, we have all been told that you should not wash your hair every day. I’m in the habit of washing mine every other day, although I’d love to be able to stretch it to 3 days. If you are in a similar boat, but just can’t stand how “dirty” your hair looks in between washes, this product will help you get through that tough time until the oils in your scalp recalibrate (not a scientific term, by the way…I just made that up) and your hair doesn’t look as bad in between washes. So for me, I’ve been using this to help me make the move to washing my hair once every 3 days, and it has been working great! The end result is healthier hair!
Third, we all know that as parents, or heck, even just busy adults, there are times when a shower is a luxury that you just can’t afford in your super packed schedule. It’s true! I remember in college actually scheduling my showers in my planner during the last few weeks of school, when I was at my most stressed of the semester, or else I knew that I’d never ever get one! So when those days happen, and you know they do, you can turn to this product so that you don’t have to wear a ball cap all day or just feel moritified and like you are wearing a big sign that says, “I didn’t shower today…or the day before…”
Based on my experience with Batiste Dry Shampoo, I highly recommend this product to find a place in every busy parent’s bathroom. It is a lifesaver in so many ways!It is available for $7.99 through Ulta.com or Drugstore.com!
Win it!: One lucky Stuff Parents Need reader will win a can of Batiste Dry Shampoo! Hooray! The contest will run until May 28th at 11:59pm EST when a winner will be selected using Random.org. The winner will have 48 hours to respond to winning notification before the prize is forfeited and a new winner is selected. Open to residents of the United States. Limit one entrant per household, please.
IN ORDER TO BE ELIGIBLE FOR A GIVEAWAY ON MY SITE, YOU MUST BE A PUBLIC FOLLOWER VIA GOOGLE FRIEND CONNECT. YOU CAN SUBSCRIBE VIA THE LINK ON MY SIDEBAR IF YOU HAVEN’T ALREADY.
Mandatory entry: Tell me why you want to try dry shampoo! Have you ever tried it before? Anything relevant to the topic works for me.
Additional entries:
1. Sponsor love: Follow Batiste Dry Shampoo on Twitter
2. Blogger love: Follow Stuff Parents Need on Twitter
Be sure to enter my other current giveaways, found on the sidebar of my homepage.
Disclosure: I received complimentary products for review purposes. The opinions expressed here are strictly my own.
Honestly Better Than Homemade: Marie Callender’s Pot Pies
There are certain dishes that I have learned it is far better to pay someone else to make for you than to attempt yourself. My list of such foods consists of the following:
- fried chicken
- catfish
- anything that is deep fried
- Indian food
- crab cakes
- steak (I don’t have a grill….we ALWAYS overcook it on the stove or in the oven)
What am I leaving off? I’m sure there are several other things that you can think of that are best left to the experts (by the way, if you DO know how to successfully make any of the above items, you are invited to my house for dinner…bring the food!).
Then there are the things that I promise you can make on your own and they will taste just as good as the restaurant or store bought versions. Here’s my list of such foods:
- biscuits
- pizza (yes, sometimes the convenience is worth it, but the taste CAN be replicated!)
- baked potatoes (secret weapon: the crock pot)
- applesauce
- meatball subs
- pot pies
Today’s post is going to address the last item: pot pies. When I was growing up, I was a HUGE fan of pot pies…the frozen ones you could buy for virtually a song. I ate them on a weekly basis. One day I took a big bite out of one and the center was stone cold. It RUINED me on pot pies for several years.
As an adult, I still couldn’t bring myself to buy those frozen pot pies, but I decided to try my hand at making my own. I had great success with a few different recipes, and decided that what I made at home was so much better than anything in the frozen food section. Plus, it was hot all the way through! 🙂
And then I went to the Blissdom blogging conference and I got a coupon for a free pot pie from Marie Callender’s. I’ve eaten at this restaurant chain before, and I knew the food quality there was excellent, but I had never purchased her frozen food. Most frozen food is disappointing, so I need a compelling reason (like a free coupon) to even try it. And so I did.
CUE THE ANGELS SINGING, HERE!!!
This pot pie would make you slap your mama (if you have a mama who makes excellent pot pies, that is….my mom makes excellent Jell-o, and that’s about it). The chunks of chicken are huge and moist. The filling is thick and seasoned perfectly. And the crust….it tastes like it is made from scratch and filled with love. It puts my formerly awesome homemade pot pies TO SHAME. Seriously.
So the pot pie is coming off the, “homemade is best” list and getting moved to the, “let someone else do the cooking for you” list. Evidently I’m not the only one who has this opinion of the Marie Callender’s Pot Pies. Check out this article called “8 Grocery Store Products that are Better than Homemade (really).”
Since my first “Marie Callender’s Pot Pie Encounter,” we have purchased them quite a few more times, which is saying something, because we really do avoid frozen food (other than pizza and ice cream, of course!). FYI, they sell these in packs of 8 at Costco. Trust me, you’ll love them enough to get that many! You can also pick them up at grocery stores nationwide. I think the price for mine was a very reasonable $2.50. I would easily spend twice that amount making my own, and it wouldn’t taste anywhere close to as good as this does. I’d also be in the kitchen for an hour putting it together and baking it, and this pot pie goes from frozen to on the table in 10 minutes. You save time, effort, energy AND money, and the end result is tastier than homemade. I’m so glad to be a fan of pot pies once again. But only Marie Callender’s!
Disclosure: I have been compensated by Marie Callender’s and TheMotherhood for my time writing this post and reviewing the product. The opinions are 100% mine.
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