I have to apologize for not picking the winner sooner. I had this brilliant idea to upgrade my blog to WP 2.7 yesterday, and well, things did not go well. It took me all day yesterday to get my blog back into working order. Now that it is working correctly, WP 2.7 isn’t too bad. It is just going to take some time to get use to it.
The winner is Jessica Gugel! I will be emailing her shortly for her information! Congrats!
This giveaway is over. Congrats to Kimberly and Janet F. I will be contacting your shortly!
I am quite use to living with hard water. When I lived in Wisconsin and when we lived in Aurora, we had hard water. Hard water is tough on a lot of things. However, one of the places you can really see it is in your bathroom. You will often find you have what looks like soap scum that you just can’t remove. That is where CLR Bathroom and Kitchen Cleaner comes into play. When we lived in Aurora, we used this cleaner every time we cleaned the tub. It was the only thing that take the “scum” we had off. I can only highly recommend it. Now that we live in a suburb of Chicago, we don’t have that problem quite as much. However, over the last couple of months, I have noticed that something is definitely going with our water. When you get water out of the tap, it is very cloudy (not sure what is causing that). I have also noticed that we are starting to get that “soap scum” again. I decided to pull out our go to fix: CLR Bathroom and Kitchen Cleaner. Guess what? It got rid of the mess in the tub yet again. I love this product, and I can only give it high reviews. Best of all, CLR has earned the EPA’s Designed for the Environment designation, so you know that it contains no phosphates, ammonia or bleach.
That being said, I am giving away two Cleaning Bucket prize packs! The Bucket will include CLR’s entire line of products and various tools to help you clean your house. Here’s what you need to do:
1. Leave a comment on this post. Check out their products here and tell me which ones you need in your house.
2. Twitter about this contest. Please leave me your username so I can verify.
3. Stumble this post. If you don’t know what Stumble Upon is, please read Lori’s post at Blogging Cents. She explains it extremely well.
4. Add this post to other social media sites like Digg, Kirtsy, Blogging Zoom, Reddit, Propeller, Etc. (1 entry for each social network).
For 5 additional entries,
1. Blog about this on your blog. Please give me the URL, so I can verify.
2. Add this to any forums you belong too. Please give me the URL, so I can verify.
3. Subscribe to this blog using either my email or RSS feed
4. Add my badge to your sidebar:
This giveaway will end on December 17 at 8:00 pm CST is available to US and Canada residents. Good luck!
Since I have a toddler, I thought the Toddler Tools book line would be perfect for my house.
Listening Time is a great book for teaching your kids about how to be good listeners. Both my eighteen month old and four year old like to read it. It is a board book, so it can’t be destroyed either. I love that it also helps to work on body parts too. The illustrations in this book are great, and really get across what we want our children to do. There is also humor intertwined into the story. It is short enough that it definitely keeps even the shortest attention spans entertained.
Bye Bye Time is another board book that is good for those really hard times when we have to say bye to our kids. It teaches our children how to comfort themselves when they are sad that we are leaving. There is also advice at the end of the book parents and caregivers to make this transition easier like prepping your child and to be ready for tears. The illustrations in this book are great too. Madison can tell me the story without being able to read it (which is a huge plus).
Naptime is another great book in this series. Like the other books, this is board book. It also has the tips in the back of the book to help parents and caregivers with naptime. I personally learned that Will should be getting one nap daily lasting 1 – 2 hours, and he should be getting 10 – 12 hours of sleep a night. This book is all about a naptime routine and getting your little one down for some much needed rest. Now, if this would only work on a 4 year old. 
She likes the book; it just has not motivated her to take a nap (she quit naps at 18 months).
The last book in this series is Clean Up Time. That is something we all need at our houses. This book rhymes, so it makes it all the more fun to clean up. This too is a board book and also has the tips at the end to help parents and caregivers. I personally agree with the “break it down” tip. Will doesn’t often get overwhelmed at cleaning up; he just thinks it is a game. However, Madison gets extremely overwhelmed if someone does not help her. By breaking down what you are going to do (pick up the blocks first), it takes away from how huge of project it is going to be.
This Toddler Tools series is a great bunch of books. They are books that are hard to destroy and have great lessons in them. I highly recommend them in anyone who has a toddler in their house.
The Puppetivity Pal is a great gift for babies and even toddlers. It is big enough to be used as a puppet, and also sits up on its own, so babies can enjoy it. There is just so many things on here to play with. The ears crinkle (which makes Will giggle every time). If you press the heart, the puppy barks. If your little one is teething, one paw on this puppy is a teether while the other paw is rattle. The tail squeaks. There is also a mirror on the foot, so your little one can look at themselves (and giggle). What I like best is that it has a link on the back that allows you to attach The Puppetivity Pal to any stroller, diaper bag, etc. This is one of the softest stuffed animals I have ever felt too. Will likes to just hug this like a little baby and carry it around. I love that I don’t have to worry if he falls with it, because it is sooo soft.
This is a great affordable gift for this Christmas season.
If you are a busy mom like me, you tend to struggle come dinner time. I know I do. If you don’t plan ahead, you never seem to have the right ingredients and you end up ordering out (which costs so much more!). The Month Of Meals e-book has some awesome advice to get yourself out of that rut. This book will help you stay home every night and not spend over $200 in groceries on dinner. I love how the Month Of Meals book not only gives me dinner ideas for a month, but they also give you a shopping list. If you stick to the list, you will walk out of the grocery store spending less. Now, there are some things in the book that I know my family won’t eat. Those are the nights I will substitute my own idea. I love how this book teaches you to plan ahead. They have print out lists for each week. They also have a shopping list for all the other things you will need throughout the week. The majority of the recipes are easy to make (which is right up my alley) and they require things that you should have in your house already. I also love that some of the meals are able to be frozen, so you have some meals for later on too! There are some great tips in here too (though I did know about the one that says don’t go to the grocery store hungry). If you are looking for a great book to help you in the kitchen, then check out A Month Of Meals. There is an 8 week money back guarantee, so you have nothing to lose checking it out! However, the book does pay for itself on your first grocery shopping trip!
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