Pin It Proudly Link Party #3

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Published on June 19, 2013, by in Uncategorized.

Hey! Welcome all to the Pin It Proudly Link Party #3! 

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I’m excited to feature a few of my (and your) favorite pins from last week:

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Spy Kit Gift from The Princess & Her Cowboys

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 Chocolate Chip Cheeseball from Plucky’s Second Thought

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 Sugar Free Popsicle from Enchanting Beginnings

 

Congrats on the features! If you’d like, you can grab a feature button over on the sidebar and display it proudly on your blog! 

On to this weeks hop!

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I have three new fabulous co hosts this week. 

click the logos to follow via pinterest, the links below to follow via bloglovin’/gfc

Follow the host & co hosts on Bloglovin:

A Mouse In My Kitchen

Vintage Marigold

My Kind of Introduction 

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Be sure to check out the first three pins (the ones from the host and co hosts) and repin them if you like them!

One more rule! No sponsored posts or giveaways please :) Thanks! 

Make sure you come back next week to see if your pin was featured!

If you want to grab a button, it’s in the sidebar!

If you’d like to co-host this hop, please Email me! .

Show some love for this months sponsors!

 

 

If you’d like to advertise on this blog hop, click here


Add Your Pinterest Accounts Here For Some Extra Fun

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A Toddler’s Summer Bucket List

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Published on June 19, 2013, by in activities, cheap, family, fun, kids, parenting, printable, toddlers.

 

I have a two year old and a one year old. On top of that, I babysit a 10 month old full time. It’s great. I love it. Keeping those kids busy can be a little tough though! I decided to make a quick list of things I can do with them when were bored one summer day. If you click the link under it, you can download it to have for your own. toddlerbucketlistcopy

Click here to download

 

If you decide to make paper bag puppets, this post will help you out. 

If you decide to make cookies, this post will help you out. 

Have a happy summer! 

 

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My Luxury 1st Product Review

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Published on June 18, 2013, by in fun, recipe.

Disclaimer: I received a free sample of product in exchange for this review. All the opinions expressed are my own. 

One of my favorite things I do as a blogger is help promote small businesses. Everyone has a dream of working for themselves, and I’ve gotten the privilege of meeting a few people who have made that dream a reality. One of them is Denise. Denise owns a company called My Luxury 1st. She specializes in hair products, specifically hair extensions made from real hair. 

Denise is married to her highschool sweetheart. A few years later, they welcomed their first baby. Fast forward a few years from that first little one and Denise and her husband had their second baby. Really soon after the second little one was born, she became pregnant with another baby (I can relate to that!) Denise felt strongly that she should make a plan to be a stay at home mom. She started off selling things around the house on eBay, and then started making her own hair clip ins. She quickly found out that other people liked what she was making, so she took the steps to make it into a full fledged business. She is so passionate about her business. She truly loves what she does and spends lots of her time coming up with new product ideas. 

So what exactly does she sell? 

Denise sells high end hair extensions. She has a variety of products including permanent, semi permanent, and clip in hair extensions, and hair care products. All of the extensions come in a variety of lengths and colors. They are all washable and can be styled in any way that your real hair can be styled because they ARE real hair. Awesome, right?

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How’s this for a selfie?

 

The extensions I got the review are the clip in ones. I got a strand of blue, red, and blonde.

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Upcoming holiday, anyone?

 

I have to say that I love them. They feel like real hair, they look like real hair (besides the fact that they are non-hair colors) and they look real. I’ve had a lot of comments on it and when I say it’s a clip in, everyone is a little surprised. Unlike dying your hair a bright color, these extensions are really bright and bold. I can’t ever get that bold color when I dye my brown hair without bleaching it, which, as we all know, is a little hard on hair.

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This is what it looks like when it’s clipped in. I then drape hair back over it to hide the clip.

The clip is like a little comb that you snap back and forth to set and unset. It’s super easy to instal. I can do it without a mirror and in about ten seconds. myluxury4   

 

I’ve curled this hair, straightened this hair, combed my hair when it’s in, my one year old has pulled on it, I have really put it to the test, and it’s passed. I would have LOVED to have some of this in high school, especially in a color that matched my prom dress or something fun like that. I am a huge fan of My Luxury 1st and I would for sure recommend them to a friend or to any of your lovely readers. 

Follow My Luxury 1st on facebook and tell her how awesome she is! If you’re looking to buy hair extensions any time soon, remember her. She’s quick, friendly, and best of all, she is a stay at home mamma. I can’t think of a better business model to support. 

Check out her Amazon shop to place an order!

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Summer Exercise Challenge: 100 Mile Summer

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Published on June 17, 2013, by in exercise, healthy, losing weight, motivation.

Hey lovely readers! Who else is excited for summer? So, usually, people try to get in shape before summer, or at least thats the idea, right? Well, if you’re anything like me, you missed that boat and are now really wishing you’d started working out a few months ago, right? Well, there is no time like the present! I am joining up with Jen at The Cutest Curliest and a few other bloggers to bring you all some awesome exercise challenges to get you/keep you in shape this summer. Stick with us and by the end of the summer, you will be so glad you did. Your future self will thank you for it. 

So, Jen is hosting two challenges and I am doing a running challenge. Jen is doing an ab challenge and a squat challenge.  You can find both of those in this post if you’re interested in doing one of them. You can do one, two, or all of them. I am in charge of a running challenge. I wanted to keep it simple, but still challenging. Even if you aren’t a runner, YOU CAN DO THIS. It doesn’t even have to be running, you can walk. The idea is that by the end of the summer, you will have walked/run ONE HUNDRED miles. Thats a lot, right? But, it’s totally do able and at the end of the summer you will be the awesome achiever of an amazing goal. Sound good? 

So I’ve set it up so you only have to run/walk three times a week. Seriously, you can do it. (I’ll probably say that at least five times during this post). Even if you walk and walk slowly, the most any one of these days would likely take you is an hour. You can handle an hour three times a week, right? 

Before you get going on this challenge (I have it set to start on a Monday) take some time to get ready. You need to have a good pair of shoes, some decent running clothes (cute clothes make a big difference, seriously!) and some basic running knowledge. The Early Morning Runner did an awesome series on running form that really helped me. I highly suggest you read it.

I’m going to be doing weekly check ins each week and a few tips that have helped me during this challenge. I am also hoping to post one healthy recipe per week because you can’t out train a bad diet. I would love for you all to check in and let me know how you’re doing each week! And, its totally okay if you miss a few work outs! That doesn’t mean you have to quit. Just get back on that horse. YOU CAN DO IT! 

If you have a blog, it’d be fun for you to tell your readers about this and post weekly updates so they can be motivated by your awesome success and so you can be accountable to keep up the hard work. If you do, leave me a comment so I can check out your post! 

So, here is your training program. You can click the link under to download it. This preview is just the first half of the program. As you can see, it starts off pretty easy with just 5 miles the first week. See, YOU CAN DO THIS! 

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Click here to download the 100 mile summer schedule

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Sponsored Post: Cascade Platinum Review

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Published on June 14, 2013, by in Uncategorized.

I participated in a campaign on behalf of Mom Central Consulting for Cascade. I received a product sample to facilitate my review and a promotional item as a thank you for participating. All opinions are my own. 

Because my family is sort of in limbo right now between houses, we have most of our stuff in storage, including our dishes. We bought some cheap plastic ones to use in the mean time. I have been surprised at how horribly our dishwasher washes these plastic dishes. Food was left on, and I had to pretty much wash the whole dish before hand if I wanted clean dishes when the dishwasher was done. 

I chalked the dirty dishes up to the fact that the dishwasher is really old. The whole cycle is only like 20 minutes, including dry time. I was using some generic dishwasher soap, but I didn’t really think that was the problem. 

Because my dishes were all plastic, they would often get overturned during a cycle and fill with water. Before I started using the Cascade Platinum Pacs, I was amazed at how dirty this water was. cascade2

I had the opportunity to try out Cascade Platinum Pacs. These bad boys have a triple action recipe that not only cleans your dishes, but your dishwasher as well. The water in the overturned dishes is much cleaner when I use the pacs. 

I decided to put these pacs to the ultimate test. Day old macaroni and cheese. I emptied the pot of all the noodles, but did no scrubbing whatsoever. The end result? A clean pot, no scrubbing required.

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I decided to also test these pacs out on a non-dish item. Does anyone else’s garbage can lid get super nasty after a few weeks? I decided to throw mine into the dishwashers and let these pacs to their magic. I’ll let these pictures speak for themselves. 

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As a part time food blogger, I have to take a lot of pictures of food. Cascade has partnered with Top Chef Gail Simmons to talk about why food presentation is as important as preparation. Eating starts with the eyes. If food doesn’t look good, it often won’t even make it into the mouth. Gail recommends Cascade Platinum to keep dishes perfect for food presentation. You can learn more about Cascade’s partnership with Gail Simmons by checking out the Cascade Facebook page. 

Cascade is doing some exciting things to promote the Cascade Platinum line. They are hosting a four week instagram contest with two weekly winners and one final grand prize winner. Week two: My Platinum Bite is currently in progress. To enter, you must register  and then upload an instagram picture showing your best bite and most creative use of sparkling silverware with the hashtag #MyPlatinum and the tag @MyCascade. Next week, week three, is called My Platinum Clink and is focused on sparkling glasses. The fourth and final week is called My Platinum Table. Week four gives you a chance to show your sparkling tablescape for your most special celebrations. 

 

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