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Frugal Novice

SwimWays Twitter Party TONIGHT! (And a giveaway!)

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If you’re like me and love the chance to win fun prizes, be sure and join in on the SwimWays Twitter party tonight at 8PM Central (9PM EST)! They’ll be giving away some great swim gear, including this awesome pick-your-own Grand Prize:

Just use the hashtag #SwimSteps and make sure you’re following @SwimWays and @SwimProfessor! This Tweet Grid makes it really easy to follow along, if you’d like to give it a try.

 

In the spirit of giveaways, I’m also getting to host a giveaway here, right now! One of you lucky readers will win your choice of either Fishbites Soft Swimmies or a FishKicks kickboard! This contest is open to all US residents. Entries will be accepted until the end of the day (midnight CST) Thursday, July 28.

Mandatory Entry: Comment on this post and tell me about your kids’ swim skills. How comfortable are they in the water? When did they start swimming?

(Only valid after the required entry has been completed)

Please leave a comment for each extra entry – if you blog about this giveaway and get 2 entries, for example, comment 2 times.

  • Sign up to receive my newsletter {1 extra entry}
  • Sign up to get my updates in your e-mail {2 extra entries}
  • Subscribe to my RSS feed {2 extra entries}
  • Follow me on Twitter {1 extra entry}
  • Follow me through Google Friend Connect (over in the sidebar) {2 extra entries}
  • Click the Facebook “Share” button below this post to share it on your FB wall {1 extra entriy}
  • Click the “Tweet” button below this post to share it on your Twitter feed –  can do up to two times per day {1 extra entry per tweet}
  • Blog about this giveaway and link it back here; comment with the URL to your post {2 extra entries}
  • “Like” Frugal Novice on Facebook {1 extra entry}
  • Unlimited Extra Entry Option: Leave a NEW comment on as many other posts as you like and get one entry for each comment (entering another giveaway counts too). Be sure to let me know which posts you commented on below.

Note: I am a SwimWays ambassador. I did not receive any compensation or product for this post, but have received products in the past as a part of my ambassadorship.

Facercise DVD

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If you’re looking for a way to firm up your face and make it look younger, Facercise just might be the solution for you.

According to their site, Facercise is a series of synergistic facial exercises which has been successfully implemented by hundreds of thousands of clients worldwide.  Through proper facial exercise, one can strengthen and develop the facial muscles to achieve an improved, toned, younger looking face.

Clients see a visible difference in their faces in as little as 5 days, if the techniques are applied correctly. Facercise is internationally recognized as the alternative to costly botox injections and face lifts. Facercise has been voted “one of the top 100 beauty products in the world” by Harpers & Queen magazine. The New York Times described Facercise as “bending time’s arrow the other way.”

If you’d like to try Facercise for yourself, you can buy it online here!

Note: I received a product sample for writing this post. I was not compensated monetarily.

Wordless Wednesday – Love is in the Air

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Seen in the skies of west Texas:

I’m Ba-aack!

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I missed out on this week’s Menu Plan Monday because we were on the road! We went on a whirlwind road trip up to Illinois this past weekend to help celebrate my grandma’s 90th birthday! We got to spend time with her, my parents, brother, uncle, aunt and some other family too. It was great to see everyone and we are so glad we got to be a part of such a special occasion.

All in all we drove a little over 2,000 miles between Thursday afternoon and Monday evening. We are glad to be off the road! It mostly went really well thanks to snacks and the DVD player. Brian and I played a rousing game of “My father owns a grocery store, and in his store he sells…” Yep, we’re cool!

I thought I’d share some photos from our trip, since I’m too tired to write much more! :)

J occupied himself by playing games on my phone. He was apparently really focused on it!

C enjoyed his meal at Taco Cabana!

I let J draw for a little bit and turned around to find this. :)

C was just a little too tired to make it through a trip to the store & fell asleep sitting up!

My grandma blowing out her candles. The boys call her Gigi (G.G. = Great Grandma).

The boys with Gigi!

The road trip really went smoother than we could have hoped, but I thought I’d share a little video with you to give you insight as to how the end of our trip was… You can’t see much, but you can hear J whining and C letting me know what he’d really rather be doing.

Yup, good to be off the road. :)

Friendly Friday July 8

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Welcome to Friendly Friday! Please note – next week we’re going to start having Friendly Friday begin at 8pm Central Thursday nights. This will give you early-to-bed people time to enter too!

Remember, YOU can host the link list on your blog, too! Just get the InLinkz code and copy it directly into your post. The code is different every week, so be sure to get the new code when hosting Friendly Friday on your blog. Hosting the list is a great way to get even more traffic to your blog and make Friendly Friday more beneficial for everyone.

Thanks for joining the Friendly Friday celebration hosted by Christi at Frugal Novice, Xenia at Thanks, Mail Carrier and Charla at Healthy Home Blog! We invite you to join us every Friday to make more friends in blogville, get more blog followers and follow other great blogs out there.

To join in the Friendly Friday celebration, include your family-friendly link in our list, follow the hostesses in the first 3 spots and then start blog hopping! Visit other blogs on the list and comment to give them some blog love. Then take a minute to follow them through Google Friend Connect – this is a good way to keep up with other blogs, but also lets us show support to each other! Please DO NOT list your giveaways here, links must be to either your homepage or your Friday posting with your blog title. All others will be deleted.

When people comment on your blog and let you know they’re a part of Friendly Friday, return the favor and follow them back. This way everyone gets traffic and followers out of participating, and it’s a win-win situation. We would love for you to also grab our Friendly Friday button and post it on your blog and/or in a post – the more bloggers that find out about Friendly Friday and participate, the better!

Spotlight on Friendly Friday Followers! We love your participation and want to show it! In addition to gaining followers, each week we’ll select three blogs at random and will feature links and a write-up for those blogs in the content of next week’s Friendly Friday post. There are so many seriously wonderful blogs out there, and this will be a great way to highlight some of those each week. Say hello to the lucky chosen 3 for this week (and feel free to stop by and give them a little extra love):

Jennifer @ A Self-Confessed Foodie lives in St. Paul, Minnesota, and is a consultant for an IT consulting company. She has two blogs, enjoys photography, reading, traveling, scrapbooking, crafting,and playing with Maddy, her 3 year old Golden Retriever. Jennifer shares her recipes, restaurant reviews, product reviews, entertaining tips and much more! She says she “loves feeding people and frequently uses her friends and colleagues as guinea pigs.” By the way, she has some great tips and tricks for lemons.

The Life of Jennifer Dawn is where Jennifer shares about her life, her husband and toddler. They are expecting their second child after having two “heartbreaking miscarriages.”   She is not only a wife and mom but also a teacher, and she juggles all of this while still enjoying her hobbies, crafts, and blogging.  Jennifer shares these on her blog along with recipes, tutorials, and designs from her Etsy Shop.  Her favorite times are spending time with her family, and she feels truly blessed!

Sara @ “Deal”icious Mom is a wife, mom, and and a Special Education High School teacher.  She’s very busy but still has time for deal hunting and sharing her great buys, “deals and steals,” and freebies.  Sara also gives great tips on coupons and in-store and online deals.  Her tips include places such as Amazon, Target, Hobby Lobby, McDonalds, The Disney Store, just to name a few.  She in constantly searching for deals and invites her readers to leave comments if they know of a deal and would like to help.

Now that you know about these 3 wonderful blogs, it’s time for you to join in! Add your family-friendly link below and we’ll see you back here every Friday! And don’t forget, you canget the InLinkz code to share Friendly Friday on your blog!

All three hostesses appreciate followers through GFC and Twitter, and we’ll follow you back – be sure to leave a comment with your URL and/or Twitter username. Hope everyone has a great weekend! Don’t forget – next week Friendly Friday will begin at 8pm Central on Thursday night!



LovingEco & Environmental Media Association

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LovingEco is a members-only, social commerce platform, that offers unsurpassed and innovative eco-friendly products at exclusive price points (up to 70% off retail), without compromising style.

LovingEco is an advocate of ‘style for change’; an opportunity for people to make wiser choices about the products they purchase so that together, we can create a more environmentally and socially conscious planet.

This week LovingEco is working with Los Angeles designer, Alexx Jae, Bari Milken Berstein, Milk clothing store owner, and their favorite charity, The Environmental Media Association. Shop celebrity loved brand, Alexx Jae and Milk and 3% of net proceeds go to The Environmental Media Association.

 

More on LovingEco:
Through a series of limited-time and brand-specific sale events, subscribing consumers are given the opportunity to access and shop for eco-friendly, fair trade and natural products at a discount in fashion and accessories, beauty and products for moms, babies and kids. Each sale features the best ‘natural’ brands, which are hand-selected and available on a first-come, first-serve basis. Additionally, 3% of net proceeds from each purchase is donated to the current ‘tastemaker charity’ to help support a social or environmental cause.

More on Alexx Jae and Milk:
All fabrics from the line come from a closeout factory an are finished with a canvas label and water base ink logo. All without leaving downtown LA- making their carbon foot-print very small!

Customers include eco conscious celebs such as Emmanuelle Chrique, Amy Smart and Perry Reeves.

More on The Environmental Media Association:
The Environmental Media Association (EMA) launched an ongoing partnership with LAUSD to support gardens and greenery in urban schools across Los Angeles. In addition, Kellogg Garden Products has generously pledged to donate soil, fertilizer and compost to each of the partner gardens. EMA will directly support a number of school gardens through funding and celebrity mentoring via EMA’s Young Hollywood Board.

  

Energizer Batteries Winner

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Congratulations Lucy!

Weber Grill Review

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We love to grill, which I think I’ve mentioned before. And in Texas, it’s grilling weather most of the year, so that works out well for us. We grill a lot of chicken and veggies, and since eating at some friends’ house we’ve added pineapple to our favorites.

Most of the time when we’re grilling it’s just for the four of us, so we were pretty excited to review Weber’s Q220 Portable Gas Grill along with the Rolling Cart to house it on.

This little grill packs a lot of punch, and is a perfect fit for our family. Some of its features include:

  • Total cooking area = 280 sq in
  • 12,000 BTU-per-hour input
  • Stainless steel burner
  • Infinite control burner valve
  • Removable catch pan
  • Porcelain-enameled cast-iron cooking grate
  • Electronic ignition
  • Uses disposable 14.1- or 16.4-oz LP cylinder (not included)

I went to the store to buy the propane cylinder, and really liked how easy it is to just pick up the 16.4-oz cylinder from the camping supplies area. I didn’t have to go hunt down an associate to help me trade in my old propane tank, and it just cost $2.38 to buy the cylinder!

This grill is heavy duty. The lid, body, and cooking grate all feel solid.

There’s also a temperature gauge on the outside of the grill to help monitor the heat levels while cooking your food:

The size of the cooking grate is just perfect for a family of 4-6, in my opinion. There’s plenty of room and everything cooks evenly. We were really impressed!We grilled out four large chicken breasts for fajitas (recipe listed below) along with a pouch of garlic, and had plenty of room to add more if we had wanted.

The grill by itself is 26 inches tall (with the lid open). We’re planning a weekend trip down to the beach sometime later this year, and we’ll take the grill with us to enjoy a cookout. Its compact size is perfect for travel! I know we’ll take it with us to the park sometimes too so we can cook out, have a picnic and let the boys enjoy the playground.

The rolling cart that it comes with is a nice complement to the grill. It allows users to grill at a normal, comfortable grill height. This was important to us because for use at home we wouldn’t want to have the heat at our kids’ level. Having the grill up higher makes it easier to keep it out of their way. The cart is compact and folds up, meaning you could very easily take this along with you as well. It’s a lightweight piece, but provides a solid base for the grill to rest upon.

I would give this gas grill 5 stars. It’s well-made, convenient to use, doesn’t take up much space, portable, and does a wonderful job of cooking food. It’s also less expensive than larger, non-portable counterparts – yet another reason this is a great family grill! You can purchase the grill online or at local retailers.

I mentioned above that we used the grill to make chicken for fajitas – here’s the recipe for a marinade that we used:

  • 1 1/4 cups chopped cilantro
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons chile powder
  • 3 teaspoons ground cumin
  • 3/4 cup olive oil
  • Juice from 3 limes

If you’re looking for other grilling recipes, Weber provides a ton of options on their site, like this week’s foil-wrapped baby back ribs. Yum!

Note: I received the grill and rolling cart from Weber for review. All opinions in this post are honest and are entirely my own. I was not compensated monetarily for this post.

Wordless…Friday

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Happy 4th of July weekend, everyone!

Friendly Friday July 1

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Welcome to Friendly Friday!

Remember, YOU can host the link list on your blog, too! Just get the InLinkz code and copy it directly into your post. The code is different every week, so be sure to get the new code when hosting Friendly Friday on your blog. Hosting the list is a great way to get even more traffic to your blog and make Friendly Friday more beneficial for everyone.

Thanks for joining the Friendly Friday celebration hosted by Christi at Frugal Novice, Xenia at Thanks, Mail Carrier and Charla at Healthy Home Blog! We invite you to join us every Friday to make more friends in blogville, get more blog followers and follow other great blogs out there.

To join in the Friendly Friday celebration, include your family-friendly link in our list, follow the hostesses in the first 3 spots and then start blog hopping! Visit other blogs on the list and comment to give them some blog love. Then take a minute to follow them through Google Friend Connect – this is a good way to keep up with other blogs, but also lets us show support to each other! Please DO NOT list your giveaways here, links must be to either your homepage or your Friday posting with your blog title. All others will be deleted.

When people comment on your blog and let you know they’re a part of Friendly Friday, return the favor and follow them back. This way everyone gets traffic and followers out of participating, and it’s a win-win situation. We would love for you to also grab our Friendly Friday button and post it on your blog and/or in a post – the more bloggers that find out about Friendly Friday and participate, the better!

Spotlight on Friendly Friday Followers! We love your participation and want to show it! In addition to gaining followers, each week we’ll select three blogs at random and will feature links and a write-up for those blogs in the content of next week’s Friendly Friday post. There are so many seriously wonderful blogs out there, and this will be a great way to highlight some of those each week. Say hello to the lucky chosen 3 for this week (and feel free to stop by and give them a little extra love):

Started as a way to document her journey to getting in shape, Let’s Talk About Me is a blog sharing Sara’s thoughts on everything from awesome posts she has read to her daily life to a Stumble Me Friday Blog Hop and much more. You’ll never know what you might find next, but the fun in visiting is wanting to find out!

Carrie’s description of her blog reads as “Carrie Actually is a purposefully nicheless personal blog about my quest for a rich and fulfilling life as I recover from young adult cancer.” An amazingly talented writer, Carrie writes about anything and everything that interests her and is going on in her life and makes you immediately feel her friendly nature and knowledge on a wide range of topics.

Isabelle at Life Through My Eyes is a self-proclaimed quirky, random, sarcastic 25-year-old with a dry sense of humor that comes through in her posts about her life, her work, and everything in between. Stop by to find out what working, studying, traveling, baking or more is up next!

Now that you know about these 3 wonderful blogs, it’s time for you to join in! Add your family-friendly link below and we’ll see you back here every Friday! And don’t forget, you can get the InLinkz code to share Friendly Friday on your blog!

All three hostesses appreciate followers through GFC and Twitter, and we’ll follow you back – be sure to leave a comment with your URL and/or Twitter username. Hope everyone has a great weekend!



Cars 2 Prize Pack Winner

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Congratulations, Kricia!

Affresh Stainless Steel Cleaner – Review

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I’m a big fan of affresh products after having used their dishwasher/garbage disposal cleaner and washing machine cleaner, so I jumped at the chance to try their stainless steel cleaner for review.

I love our stainless fridge – it was one of the first purchases we made for our house, and it’s sleek and modern. What I don’t love? Streaks. Handprints. Smudges. With small kids in the house, it’s pretty much inevitable that our refrigerator and dishwasher start to look mottled, not all shiny and beautiful!

That’s where affresh Stainless Steel cleaner comes in – it’s a simple spray that makes it easy for your appliances to achieve their former glory.

Just spray the surface, then buff with a soft cloth. Simple! I LOVE that this is not an aerosol spray, and I love that the cleaner doesn’t drip all over the place. It makes it a lot easier!

Once I finished cleaning the fridge with the affresh cleaner, it was so shiny I had a hard time getting a good “after” photo for you! You can see, though, that it’s smudge and streak-free.

A little more about affresh:

The affresh® brand of products specifically helps keep appliances operating at peak performance, when used in conjunction with a regular maintenance routine as indicated in the appliance’s Use & Care Guide. First introduced in 2007, the products have evolved to include washer cleaners for traditional and high-efficiency washing machines as well as for dishwashers and garbage disposals, and a new line of cleaners designed to help clean everyday kitchen food spills and stuck on residue in the interior and exterior of household appliances. Affresh products are manufactured and marketed under the Whirlpool Corporation portfolio, the world’s leading manufacturer and marketer of major home appliances, with annual sales of approximately $18 billion in 2010, 71,000 employees, and 66 manufacturing and technology research centers around the world. For more, visit www.affresh.com.

Note: I wrote this review while participating in a campaign by Mom Central Consulting on behalf of affresh and received product samples and a promotional item to thank me for taking the time to participate.