Squinkies Zinkies Review and Giveaway (Closed)

Were Squinkies a hit this holiday season with your kids?  Do your kids want to collect more and more of these adorable, squishy collectibles?  Have you checked out Squinkies Zinkies yet?  They are the hot, new release from Blip Toys.  Like the original Squinkies, these new toys are incredibly soft, squishy and cute!  If you love the small size of Squinkies, you will love Zinkies. 

Zinkies are about half the size of the original Squinkies, but still have all the detail of full sized Squinkies.  They are so small that they are smaller than the tip of your pinkie!   New Zinkies Bubble Packs will be introduced initially with six unique sets and will include 12 different Zinkies, each with its own small bubble that pops open to reveal the “surprize inside.”  Characters include colorful little animals like monkeys, puppies and bunnies.  Also included in each set of Squinkies Zinkies is its own squeezer to place the Zinkies inside their hiding place and a magnifying glass to accommodate their tiny size. 

Each set also comes with their own "Display and Play" toy where kids can play with and store the newest addition to the Squinkies World.  Zinkies Sets include Hide n Seek Blocks, Peek A Boo Mushroom, Tweetings Birdhouse, Snug as a Bug Sunflower, Squinkie Girl Zinkies Teacups Theme, and Small Aboard Train.
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What do I love about the new Squinkies Zinkies?  I do love that they are so tiny.  They are so much fun to play with.  I am a fan of the playsets and the accessories included, especially the little squeezers that you can use to put the Zinkies in their playhouse.  It is great for a child to practice their hand - eye coordination skills.  The magnifying glass makes it a lot of fun to study each Zinkie more closely. 

Squinkies Zinkies are recommended for ages 4 and up.  They retail for about $ 12.99.  You will be able to find Squinkies Zinkies at retailers nationwide, including Target, Wal-Mart and Toys “R” Us.

Don't forget to check out all of the latest Squinkies offerings by visiting www.squinkies.com or by following the Squinkies Blog, Facebook page, or Twitter feed.

Would you like to win a set of Squinkies Zinkies?  Fill out the form below and enter for a chance to win!  The Giveaway will run from 3/8/12 at 8:00pm EST until 3/15/12 at 8:00pm EST.

Congratulations to Janet K, winner of the Squinkies Zinkies Giveaway.  The winner will have 48 hours to claim their prize or another winner will be chosen.





Thanks to Blip Toys for providing the items above in order to facilitate this review and giveaway.  All opinions are 100% mine.

DayLight Savings Time Help

Sleeping Through Daylight Savings Time

We dread this every year!  The "Spring Forward" is not as bad as "Fall Back", but either way, it inevitably disrupts schedules and sleep patterns.  Here are some tips to help your child transition a little easier this year.

Pediatric Sleep Specialist Whitney Roban, Ph.D offers tips to help your child transition.  Daylight savings time is approaching fast – this Sunday, March 11, in fact.  While losing an hour doesn’t seem like a lotto most of us, to a child, this means a whole new routine, especially when it comes to sleep.  Whitney Roban, Ph.D of Sleep-Eez Kidz has some tips to help make the daylight savings time transition super easy so every can enjoy spring!

Allow your child's internal clock to adjust to the time change over a period of several days instead of overnight. To do this you will need to move the bedtime earlier in 15 minute increments for the4 days preceding daylight savings. For example, let's assume your child has a 7:00 bedtime. On March 8th you will put your child to be at 6:45. On March 9th bedtime will be 6:30. On March 10th it will be 6:15. On March 11th bedtime will be 6:00. March 11th is daylight savings and that evening your child's internal clock will be set to a 6:00 bedtime which on this day will now be 7:00pm. You have slowly and successfully transitioned your child to his "new"bedtime.

Do not discuss the time change nor the change in bedtime with your child. Just stay firm and consistent, knowing that you are doing what is necessary and best for your child in relation to sleep. If you have an older child that can tell time and will resist the earlier bedtime,then change the clocks so that your clocks read the usual bed time. It is too difficult a concept to explain to a child and you do not want to waste precious sleep time arguing over bed time. Remember that you are the parent and must stay confident and in control of your child's sleep.

Keep your bedtime routine consistent. Do not make it longer because your child does not appear tired. It may take your child a few extra minutes to fall asleep as you adjust the bedtime. That is okay.Allow your child's mind and body to relax and fall asleep peacefully. Putting a child to bed when they are not already overtired makes falling asleep much easier for the child.

Most children do not get the required amount of daily uninterrupted sleep. Do not be scared of an early bedtime for your child. The more sleep your child gets, the better. The days preceding daylight savings allows parents the opportunity to provide more sleep for the family.The earlier bedtime will not make your child wake up earlier in the morning. In fact, the opposite is true. The more sleep our bodies get, the more sleep our bodies want!



About Whitney Roban, Ph.D:  Pediatric sleep specialist, founder of Sleep-Eez Kidz, and mom.  Whitney Roban lives and works by one philosophy: parenting is one of the hardest jobs, made impossible when a family doesn’t sleep.  Her mission is to give the gift of sleep to families through her information dissemination and emotional support based system.  For more information on Whitney and Sleep-Eez Kidz visit www.SleepEezKidz.com,  Facebook.com/SleepEezKidz or follow her on Twitter@SleepEezKidz.

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

Theodor Seuss Geisel is better known to the world as the beloved Dr. Seuss.  Geisel's birthday, March 2, has been adopted as the annual date for National Read Across America Day, an initiative on reading created by the National Education Association.

We are pretty big Dr. Seuss fans and couldn't let today go by without acknowledging this special day!  Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!!!! 

Below is a list of some of the great, free printables out there to help celebrate Dr. Seuss's Birthday.  Get printing and have fun!


Click HERE for free Dr. Seuss printables from Frugal Friends Network

Click HERE for free activities and printables from Seussville.com

Click HERE for free printables from atozteacherstuff.com

Click HERE for free worksheets and printables from abcteach.com

Click HERE for free printables, worksheets and coloring pages from familycrafts.about.com

Click HERE for activities and printables from edhelper.com

SunChips 6 Grain Medley Parmesan & Herb Chip Review

Something different is happening this year...there is a Leap Day and it is today! So what happens today?  A Leap Year consists of 366 days as opposed to a common year, which has 365 days.  During Leap Years, we add a Leap Day, an extra day on February 29. Nearly every 4 years is a Leap Year in our modern Gregorian Calendar. Leap Years are needed to keep our calendar in alignment with the Earth's revolutions around the sun.

It takes the Earth approximately 365.242199 days (a tropical year) to circle once around the Sun.

Note: The illustration is not to scale.

However, the Gregorian calendar has only 365 days in a year, so if we didn't add a day on February 29 nearly every 4 years, we would lose almost six hours off our calendar every year. After only 100 years, our calendar would be off by approximately 24 days!

Not only do you have an extra day in your year, but an extra lunch to pack for yourself, your kids, or your spouse. So is it going to be the same old, same old today? Or, are you going to try to spice it up a little and try something new?

I am always up for something new, but I want to try to eat a more healthier too. I want something healthy and delicious, so what's a girl to do? I found it! SunChips 6 Grain Medley Parmesan & Herb flavored multigrain snacks, are sure going to add some deliciousness to my Leap Day lunch. 

These new chips are a perfect combination of crunchy Parmesan & Herb flavor.  Not only are they awesome, but they have 21 grams of whole grains, 4 grams of fiber per serving, and 3 grams of protein.   How can you go wrong eating this snack?

Since SunChips 6 Grain Medley chips are just hitting store shelves now, Frito Lay always loves to hear what consumers think of their snacks. Don't forget to visit them on Facebook and Twitter!

Thank you Frito-Lay, who kindly provided me with one week’s worth of SunChips 6 Grain Medley Parmesan & Herb flavored multigrain snacks and a SunChips eco-friendly lunch bag (made from biodegradable cotton and canvas) to complete this review.  All opinions are 100% mine.

Kitchen Germs: How to Avoid Bacteria When Cooking

Love, love, love this article I recently read from WebMD!  We all try to keep our homes, especially the kitchen, clean and germ free.  Here are some great tips for keeping your kitchen free of bacteria, parasites, etc. while keeping your home healthy everyday.

By: Elaine Magee, MPH, RD
WebMD Expert Column

Want to avoid severe diarrhea, fever, vomiting, and abdominal cramps that can span several days? Thought so. These are all symptoms of food-borne illness that can be caused by kitchen germs.  As if the thought of those kitchen germs giving you food poisoning wasn't scary enough, the CDC estimates that every year about 76 million people in the U.S. become ill from pathogens or disease-causing substances in food -- 5,000 of whom end up dying from it.

Invisible Germs in the Kitchen

The truth is you can't see or smell most of the kitchen germs that grow on your food. They don't even change the color or texture of a dish. That's one of the reasons why I am absolutely rabid about keeping the food I eat and prepare as bacteria-free as practically possible.  The way I see it there are three ways that bacteria can enter our kitchens (and therefore our mouths): before, during and after kitchen preparation and cooking:

• Before: It's contaminated before we even bring the food home.
• During: it's contaminated sometime during the preparation and cooking.
• After: it's contaminated post-preparation and/or during storage.

The good news is there are lots of ways you can prevent bacteria from growing on your food, starting with these steps.

Step 1: Keep It Clean to Control Kitchen Germs

Face it, the way our mom's generation cleaned may not be the best way to keep kitchen germs from taking over. To start with a cleaner environment, here are a few tips:

• Sponges and Towels: These kitchen helpers can provide a warm and moist environment, with lots of surface area, and they're tough to really clean and sanitize. A plastic-type scrub brush makes a good alternative, possibly resisting bacteria a bit better. If you're going to use sponges and towels, wash them weekly in very hot water.

The CDC suggests microwaving sponges each evening for 30 seconds or placing them in the dishwasher, practices that can kill more than 99% of the bacteria.

• Countertops and Tools: Before you even begin to pull the food out to prepare, make sure all utensils and countertops have been cleaned with hot, soapy water before and after use. If you want to crank the sanitizing up a notch, wash them with a diluted bleach solution of one teaspoon bleach to one quart of hot water. And if you use antibacterial wipes to clean your countertops, throw them out after one use.
• Kitchen Sinks: You know that raw meat juice that you wash off your plastic cutting board and boning knife? It travels down the sink drain and into the disposal. So it's a great idea to sanitize your sink, drain, and disposal as often as possible using a diluted bleach solution of one teaspoon bleach to one quart of hot water.

Step 2: Reduce Kitchen Germs at the Store

Before you get ready to whip up something tasty, try these tips to help keep bacteria at bay while you shop:

• Meat: Wrap It Up: Put any meat you buy into a plastic bag before putting it in your cart. This keeps raw meat juices from dripping on the fresh foods in your grocery cart.
• Juice: Don't buy a bloated juice bottle. Bloating is usually a sign that at some point the juice hasn't been kept at the proper temperature and it's now spoiled.
• Produce: Some produce can become contaminated with salmonella, shigella, or E. coli during growing, harvesting, processing, storing, or shipping. It's particularly important that you wash your spinach, lettuce, tomatoes, sprouts, and melons before handling or cutting them.
• Canned Foods: You don't know where those cans have been, so wash the tops with hot soapy water before you open them. If you don't, whatever particles or bacteria linger on the lid will inevitably end up in the food as the lid dips down into the can contents during opening.
• Perishables: If you have perishable groceries and you will be in the car more than an hour, take a cooler along with some reusable ice blocks to keep the cold food cold until you can get it into the refrigerator or freezer.

Step 3: Kitchen Germs and Food Prep

There's no reason to be scared of kitchen germs. Instead, be informed, and develop safe food preparation habits.

• Wash Your Hands: Unwashed hands are the most common cross-contamination agent between raw meat, poultry, seafood, eggs, unwashed vegetables and ready-to-eat foods, according to a study on food handling behaviors published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association.

Wash your hands longer and more often than you think you should. Scrub hands together vigorously for at least 20 seconds with hot soapy water. It takes that long for the soap and scrubbing to remove some of the germs.

• Cutting Boards: Invest in three colorful plastic cutting mats, with one color for each type of food. For example, designate a green mat for cutting fruits and vegetables, a white mat for cutting fish, and a red mat for cutting up red meat products.
• Raw Meat: Don't let raw meat bacteria travel to other food in the kitchen. Discourage cross-contamination by keeping the raw meat, and any kitchen tool that comes in contact with it, completely separate from all the other food.
• Defrosting and Marinating: Marinate meat in the refrigerator -- not on the counter at room temperature. And defrost food the same way: in the refrigerator. You can also defrost food under cold running water, or in the microwave oven on the defrost setting.
• Eggs: Eating uncooked eggs presents a risk for Salmonella Enteritidis. Eliminate the risk and kill the bacteria by cooking the egg or egg-containing foods, or use pasteurized eggs. Egg-substitute products that you buy in the store are generally pasteurized and therefore don't present a risk if consumed uncooked.
• Wash Produce: Wash all fruits and vegetables under running water before eating, cutting or cooking, unless they're packaged and marked "prewashed." Produce with a tough outer skin, like melons and cucumbers, can be scrubbed with a clean produce brush and warm soapy water before you cut into them -- just in case there is bacteria on the peel.
• Cook It Thoroughly: Finally, keep in mind that no matter what, thoroughly cooking food helps destroy the bacteria.

Step 4: Post-Prep Tips to Fight Kitchen Germs

After the feast, there are a few kitchen tips that can help keep those leftovers safe for another delicious meal:

• Time It: Bacteria can multiply quickly on cooked food left out for more than two hours at room temperature. Refrigerate items in a timely manner.
• Avoid Room Temperature: There's a good reason why the rule of thumb is to "keep cold foods cold and hot foods hot." Bacteria multiply rapidly between 40 degrees Fahrenheit and 140 degrees F. So it's best to keep hot cooked food at 140 degrees or higher, and cold cooked food at 40 degrees or lower.
• Fridge and Freezer Temperatures: What temperature are your refrigerator and freezer? The refrigerator should be set at 40 degrees Fahrenheit or lower and your freezer at 0 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Leftovers: Store leftovers in shallow dishes (divide large portions if necessary) so they can cool down more quickly and reach the desired refrigeration temperature faster. And avoid packing your refrigerator so there is little space left. In order to keep the food at a safe temperature, cool air needs to circulate.

There you have it, four steps that can help you keep kitchen germs at bay, prevent bacteria from growing on your food, and help keep you, your family, and what you eat as healthy as possible.

No More Rack

nomorerack.com is a really cool website and the concept is so simple! Basically each day at 12:00pm, 8 fantastic deals go up for grabs. The catch..the deals are only good for one day. These deals are so hot that they usually sell out very quickly!

So you are probably wondering how this works. How can the prices be so low? Nomorerack.com is dedicated to searching for the best deals possible. Some of the merchandise comes from cancelled orders, overrun/overstock product and manufacturer closeouts. All of the products are brand new and guaranteed authentic. Purchasing products from these sources allows No More Rack to buy at deep-discounts that they then pass on to you.

You can start getting these great deals today!  Here is what you have to do:

1. Start adding the items you want into your shopping basket. Don't hesitate because remember these deals are ONE day only!
2. When you're ready to checkout you'll be asked to create a profile if you haven't already done so. Then you go through the usual order placement details; name, address, email etc... This generates your personalized profile for you so next time you come back we'll already know who you are – one less step for future shopping visits!
3. Confirm your purchase and make payment by using a credit card - Visa or MasterCard. You'll receive your confirmation email shortly. Now you're done!

And, did I mention the flat shipping rate of $2.00 per item? Not a bad deal at all!

Scrubbing Bubbles One Step Toilet Bowl Cleaner Review and Giveaway (Closed)

I admit it, I hate cleaning the toilet.  I will even go as far as to say that it is my least favorite chore in the house to complete.  I have even told my husband that I wanted a maid, just to clean the toilet. Of course, no maid have ever shown up, so that leaves me to contend with the toilet each week.

So, when asked if I wanted to review Johnson's new One Step Toilet Bowl Cleaner, I answered with a resounding YES!

Here is the claim, "The Scrubbing Bubbles One Step Toilet Bowl Cleaner system installs quickly and easily. Simply place the base on the floor and snap the Action Sprayer nozzle over your toilet rim--the nozzle securely fits any size bowl. Insert the included Scrubbing Bubbles One Step refill, then place the sleeve over the refill and you're all set. No batteries required.  The powerful cleaner tackles toilet rings, limescale and hard water marks."

So, I tested it out to see if it was true.  I was worried that I would not be able to set up the unit properly, or there might be a problem fitting the toilet.  The unit easily clips on nicely and seems capable of adjusting to many toilet types. The unit does stay firmly in place and does not interfere when using the toilet.  However, if you prefer, it can be easily and quickly removed in a few seconds if you didn't want it to be displayed while having visitors.

I love that this is a manual use device.  The two things I like about it best are that it is hands free cleaning and it does not use batteries.  And, no batteries means no unplanned sprays while using the toilet.  How unpleasant could that be?!?!?  I also really like that the One Step Toilet Bowl Cleaner is small enough in size that it is not an eye sore in your bathroom.

The amount of cleaner that is dispensed during each step is adequate. It uses a "unique 360 action sprayer" jet of cleaning solution that reaches the entire bowl, including under the rim.  The bottom of the toilet seat also gets a decent spray, enough to sanitize. It is recommended that you step on the pedal for 1 second, twice a day.  However, you can hold the pedal down a little longer if you really want to give the bowl a good spray.  Also, make sure you don't flush the toilet right away, or it will wash away the cleaning solution before it gets a chance to clean and disinfect. 

Another good thing I can think of, besides having a sanitized and clean toilet bowl when I am done cleaning, is the fresh scent that is left in my bathroom.  The fresh scent of the One Step Toilet Bowl Cleaner is also very welcomed!  The spray will sit in the bowl, both cleaning and refreshing it until a flush rinses it away. The scent is  also not overpowering.

Like products for your shower, the One Step Bowl Cleaner will not totally eliminate the need to manually clean your toilet. But, it will make the task much easier, faster and will prolong how often you do have to scrub the toilet.  If you ask me, that is GREAT!!!.  I might even start looking forward to cleaning my toilet now.

The Scrubbing Bubbles One Step Toilet Bowl Cleaner starter set comes with everything you need to get started, including the base, sprayer, sleeve, and one 18-ounce refill can of cleaning solution.  The cleaning-fluid refill lasts up to 30 days.

Would you like a chance to win a Scrubbing Bubbles One Step Toilet Bowl Cleaner Starter Set and Refill of your very own?  Fill out the form below and enter for a chance to win.  10 winners will be chosen!!!!!!  The contest will run from 2/23/12 at 9:00am EST until 3/1/12 at 9:00am EST.

And the winners are....

Veronica G.          Susan R.
Brian E.               Jamie D.
Chrissy S.            James C.
Bob K.                  LJ W.
Rhonda C.            Rebecca P.


All of your prizes are in the mail! 

Thanks to SC Johnson  for providing the product above for review and giveaway. All opinions are 100% mine.