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Tell me…do you try to use natural products in your house? What about natural cleaning products?

I confess…I have used the same product for YEARS on 90% of the house. I won’t name names, but it contains bleach and the (big) downside is that it is STRONG. Strong fumes, strong odor, everything. I would have to turn the vent on or open windows in whatever room I was using it in. Brett hates it. His nose starts to hurt and he gets a headache. Well, that can’t be good, but I figured “if it ain’t broke (as in it didn’t hurt MY nose or head) then don’t fix it.”

Well, now that Brett does much of the cleaning during the day and Trent is here, we have been more conscious about the products we’re using. Even more importantly, since I am pregnant, I definitely don’t need to be breathing harsh fumes or having skin contact with harsh chemicals. I always thought natural products were more expensive than other products, but that isn’t the case any longer now that you can get some great natural products at Walmart!

Walmart has added some fantastic natural cleaning products to their Great Value line…Great Value Naturals.

Here is some info about each product.

Great Value Naturalâ„¢ Laundry Detergent

Great Value Natural Laundry Detergent is not only 100% non-toxic and gentle for your family, it’s a powerhouse in your washing machine. You can expect cleaner, brighter clothes that smell fresher and feel softer—all for one great low price.

We received the full line to try. Yes, I get excited about getting cleaning products. It’s the OCD in me, I suppose!

The glass cleaner was an instant favorite. It gives a good spray that provides plenty of coverage and doesn’t drip down the mirror or glass. It wipes clean and I can’t even tell the differ ence from the popular non-natural brand of glass cleaner.

The multi-surface cleaner can be used all over the house…the kitchen, bathroom and anywhere that needs a little more power than the glass cleaner. It did take a little getting used to compared to my usual “bleach it all to death” cleaner, but it works and it’s safe and I don’t have to worry about Trent breathing it in (or hearing Brett complain!).

As we run out of certain products, we definitely question if we should make the switch to something more natural and safe and now you too can consider making the switch while saving money! Be on the lookout for more types of natural products to be released by Walmart Great Value brand in the near future. You can shop for these products in your local Walmart or online at Walmart.com!

To learn more: http://www.naturalpowerclean.com/index.php

 

I received these products in exchange for a review. All opinions are my own. Thanks for reading!

 

When it’s time for a holiday get together, Brett usually makes one of two things…mashed potatoes or sweet potatoes. And they are so so delicious. Like, so delicious that I secretly hope that no one eats them and we have a bunch left to take home. Except that never happens

For Christmas Eve, it was mashed potatoes on the to-do list. The bags of potatoes and mounds of butter were ready to be mashed into delicious goodness. But this time, Brett had a secret weapon to make his job easier…the Masha!

The patented ROTOR-CONE technology in the Masha uses a low speed rotor to force ingredients through an outer mesh.

This produces a perfect consistent mix in seconds. The Masha works brilliantly on the following: All types of potatoes, guacamole and refried beans, pastry, cake mixes, baby food and a lot more!

• Patented ROTOR-CONE technology uses a low-speed rotor to force ingredients through an outer mesh, producing a perfect, consistent mash without lumps, in seconds. 380 watts of total power for the heaviest mixing tasks.

• Metal drive gears and a powerful double reduction gearbox provide the muscle to drive the ROTOR at exactly the right speed for the perfect result.2 speed mixing bowl motor to insure efficient mixing of a variety of ingredients.

• A spring loaded mechanism locks the shaft when the power unit is detached, allowing the Rotor Blade to be removed with a simple turn and click.

• The Masha is compact, great to hold and easy to use with a forward-biased, non-slip handgrip and balanced weight distribution.

Normally, mashed potatoes involve mashing using a hand tool and lots of arm power. The Masha cut the prep time considerably and required hardly any effort whatsoever. Like a power tool for the chef.

Brett had his boiled potato pieces in a bowl, ready to be mashed.

You plug the Masha in and just stick the bottom into the potatoes. You’ll immediately start seeing it get to work, turning the pieces into perfectly mashed goodness.

The Masha has a comfortable hand grip and works so well that it never got clogged and didn’t spray any pieces outside of the bowl.

Just move the Masha around to get all the potato pieces and no time, you’ll have a bowl of perfectly mashed potatoes.

To clean, just pop the bottom off and clean in the sink or dishwasher.

The sleek design means it doesn’t take up much room at all in your kitchen. As mentioned earlier, the Masha would work great with cake/brownie batters (as opposed to hand mixers that make a big mess). As a parent that made most of our baby food, this would have been fun to try new recipes and methods of cooking for various baby food. I wonder if this would be good to mix drinks…hmmmm???

 

Buy:

NexGenStore.com

Amazon

 

I received this product in exchange for my review. All opinions are my own. Especially the one about Brett making the best potatoes…mmm.

Ever since we set up Trent’s nursery/playroom before he was born, we haven’t really added anything to it as far as decorations go. In a way, that’s a good thing, as it means we must have set it up pretty well to not necessarily NEED anything new. But fortunately, the way we set up his room was so that it would be easy to add anything to it down the road as long as it was colorful and/or Disney.

This week, we added something colorful to it…a name print from Gapingvoid Art!

About Gapingvoid Art:

Gapingvoid is a Miami-based art studio dedicated to the work of Hugh Macleod, a best-selling cartoonist and blogger renowned for his trademark characters and colorful drawings on creativity and innovation.

We’ve just launched our first ever kid’s item-custom lettered name art, for any child’s name. This is a perfect gift for a birthday, holiday, or for new parents.

These name art pieces come in several different colors, including the ones below:

We chose the blue name art, which has a blue male character and Trent’s name in colorful character letters.

We picked up a light blue frame from IKEA to display the print.

The frame matches the R in Trent’s name!

This was the easiest project ever…I just used a glue stick and glued the print onto the paper that came with the frame (one side was grey, the other was white) since the print was a tad smaller than the frame and I needed extra material around the edges..

Look at us with THREE photo projects this week! Maybe in a few years, we’ll have a fully decorated house (totally not holding my breath!).

This fun print would be a great gift or addition to a nursery or play room. Trent liked the characters on his print and kept pointing to them and smiling!

 

Shop children’s prints and more at GapingvoidArt.com

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I received this product in exchange for a review. All opinions are my own. Thanks for reading!

Last week, I posted about our backyard fun with rain, water drainage, tree trimming, cable line cutting, etc…fun times, indeed.

Well, today I will talk more about our backyard adventures, but this time I will focus on the pool.

Because we have a gazillion trees all around us, our pool doesn’t see nearly as much sun as I wish it would. This causes the pool to take an awful long time to reach a temperature comfortable enough to swim in. Of course, the kids don’t care one bit how cold or not cold it is, but us old fogeys do.

Luckily, with the trees trimmed back, there’s a lot more sun now, but back in the Spring, we wanted to make sure we got the temperature high enough for everyone to enjoy at Trent’s birthday party. Our solution? A solar cover (or solar blanket).

We had contemplated it the year before, but since I wasn’t out there enjoying the pool as much (and was inside taking care of a newborn) we passed and decided to wait until this year.

Surprisingly, there are several kinds of solar blankets/covers. They come in different colors and different bubble sizes, all with different purposes. Brett did his research and we ultimately decided on this one from PoolSupplies.com.

It is a rectangular Crystal Clear Solar Cover.

We also got the reel, which is a must have and makes it so easy to pull on and off the pool. We were going to just fold it up ourselves whenever taking it off, but the reel is so convenient and we probably cover it and uncover it more often since it is that much easier.

That photo is missing the pole of the reel, which arrived in another shipment the next day.

Whenever we are ready to swim, we just turn the reel and roll up the cover. It’s so easy. If we have guests over, we can roll the reel out of the way, since it has wheels on one side and is pretty lightweight.

Now for the fun part, our temperature increase results. We started out at about 67 degrees on 5/15. BRRRRR!

After 8 days, we had reached 77 degrees.

That’s a 10 degree increase in 8 days! But continuing with the challenge, we wanted to see how the cover kept the temperature up after several days of rain. A little under 2 weeks later, we were up to 81. Now that’s what I’m talking about!! So nice and refreshing without all the hypothermia.

I was so happy with the quick results. It has pretty much stayed in that area, as we just haven’t had very high temperatures in Tallahassee this year. We’ve also had lots of rain, which doesn’t help either.

 

The benefits of a solar cover/blanket that we’ve notice so far…

-Increase in temperature. Depending on the type of blanket you get, they are either meant to help increase the temperature or prevent the temperature from dropping at night by retaining the heat.

-Decrease in amount of chemicals needed. With the pool being covered, less chemicals evaporate, so we don’t have to put as much chlorine in. This also makes for less algae growth.

-Keeps the pool cleaner. All the debris from the surrounding trees just lands on top of the cover instead of inside the pool. We just clean it off and then scoop it up. It’s much easier not having to clean the pool as often.

 

And just because we have an inground pool, that didn’t stop us from getting a kiddie pool for Trent. He had some birthday gift cards to use at Toys R Us, so we got him this purple elephant pool.

He loves it!

You can hook a hose up to the elephant trunk for a little sprayer action. Or to drink out of. Boys…

He stayed in there much longer than he would have stayed in the other pool and he got to play with his toys in the shade too.

Add in his splash pad (similar here) and Trent has his own little water park in the backyard!

 

xoxo

Lynn

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I live in a house full of boys…a husband, a son and both animals are boys, too. Needless to say, I am constantly fighting to keep the house smelling like there aren’t boys and animals in here. I can’t use candles as much as I used to now that I have a 1 year old running around getting into things he’s not supposed to and knocking things over. I also can’t open windows because we would melt in our sleep from the Florida humidity, which makes me sad because I love the feeling of open windows with a breeze going throughout the house…it just makes everything seem so fresh and clean.

Well, I found a way to emulate that “windows open all day” clean air feeling…with CritterZone.

No filters! Filters are an annoying pain and are expensive. Virtually eliminate air pollutants by destroying them, rather than collecting them.

No chemicals! Cleaning the air without chemicals is environmentally smart and much better than covering odors with sprays. CritterZone is a safe, powerful, effective way to clean up the air.

Inspired by nature. Outdoor air uses the sun’s energy to clean itself. Indoor air is cut off from that cycle. CritterZone re-energizes indoor air so it can break down the stuff you want to get rid of.

 

When I first heard of Critter Zone, the name made me think it was a pest control product…but it is actually a pest ODOR control product. It is such a neat little device that packs a powerful punch. I had heard of air purifiers before, but not air naturalizers…but I honestly never thought we needed anything like that since we don’t have any smokers in the house and don’t live in a heavily populated area. Boy, was I wrong.

I plugged the Critter Zone into an outlet in our living room, since this is where the most action is…the animals pretty much stick to this room the most out of anywhere else in the house, it’s near the kitchen, and it’s where we all hang out most of the day. This was the room that guests walk into first, as well, so it would benefit the most from some clean, fresh air.

I plugged it in before I went to bed, while Brett was still working upstairs, but I didn’t tell him I did it yet. By the time he walked downstairs less than 2 hours later, he could tell a difference. He explained it as “if the windows had been open all day” – Success!

By the next morning, that feeling just kept getting better. I really could tell a difference when I walked into the room. We have a somewhat open floor plan, with the living room, dining room and kitchen all in the same area, and we can tell a difference in those areas. We’ve left it plugged in ever since. It’s been 2 weeks and the air still smells fresh and clean. Not only does the air smell clean, I have the peace of mind that the air that my family is breathing is actually cleaner.

It does make a quiet sound and you keep it plugged in 24/7, so keep that in mind when placing your CritterZone. You’ll want a good amount of air flow to reach the CritterZone to help it purify the most amount of air as possible. The CritterZone can help with odors from litter boxes, kennels, pet beds, and pretty much anywhere else that odors linger. Or it can just be used to help create a cleaner air environment for you, your family and guests.

 

Buy:

CritterzoneUSA.com - Use code PHOTOGRAPHER for $10 off your order!!!

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xoxo

Lynn

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I received this product in exchange for my review. All opinions are my own and honest.