Just For Kids Giveaway - Over $250 In Prizes!

Welcome to the Just For Kids Giveaway! We’ll be giving away five gift certificates to some of our favorite children’s online retailers for a total of $275 worth of prizes.

Our sponsors are fabulous so be sure to visit each of their websites to see all of the awesome children’s products they have available!  Here are the prizes we’re giving away:

1. $50 gift certificate to Glow Baby
2. $75 gift certificate to Polka Dot Pond Shop
3. $50 gift certificate to Lilly James
4. $50 gift certificate to Bumblebee Toys
5. $50 gift certificate to Juley Jules

Five prizes means you have five chances to win, so be sure to do as many entries as you can! This giveaway is open to US and Canadian residents only and ends on June 18th at 11:59 PM EST. Good luck!

And now the RAFFLECOPTER!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

FREE Uncle Sam Cereal Food and Erewhon Cereal COUPONS

This giveaway is for FREE FOOD coupons!  This giveaway only lasts for one week because the expiration date on the coupon is 6/30/12 so be sure to sign up if you can actually use these coupons.  To sign up and not be able to use them is just a waste of free food.  Thank you for agreeing to those terms.

http://www.attunefoods.com/products/Uncle-Sam-Healthy-Breakfast

There are three sets of two coupons per winner!  So you will receive a coupon for your choice of the Uncle Sam cereal product and...

http://www.attunefoods.com/products/Erewhon-Gluten-Free

Your choice of the Erewhon Cereal Product coupon.  Your choice means you go to the Whole Foods or other grocery store that carries these products and you choose the flavor that you wish to have!

BEFORE you enter the giveaway be sure to read the TERMS and CONDITIONS... this is for the USA only.  You agree that you are able to go to a Whole Foods or other store that sells these products before you sign up for the giveaway.  Thanks!

And now the GIVEAWAY... only lasts ONE week, so enter soon!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

All about KALE smoothies

I started drinking KALE smoothies (and progressed up the line of them into more scrumptious and vitamin rich ones) in the span of two weeks!

One of the first things I noticed about my KALE smoothies is that they are very filling and with all the additions to the smoothie I am finding that I'm more and more in love with them each day.  I want you to know that my husband was quite reluctant to try one but if I add some chocolate to one of them, I am sure I am going to win him over as well!  

Do you like dark leafy greens?   It is hard to get the benefits from these kale if you never eat it!   Do you have a hard time finding a healthy kale recipe that you and your family will eat? I never ate kale until I started making green smoothies. Now I crave kale!

A couple years ago, I wouldn’t have even tried kale. Now, I prefer to drink a kale smoothie every morning for breakfast.  I used to only add a tablespoon of Green Foods Green Magama to my juice smoothies.  If I can crave greens, there is still hope for you! 

I have seen my skin glow, my weight drop, and my bowels become regular from drinking kale smoothies.

On Dr. Fuhrman’s nutrient dense chart, kale is at the top along with collards. In order for a food to be nutrient dense, it must contain a high amount of nutrients with low amount of calories.

A great leafy green to begin adding to your smoothies is spinach. Its flavor is easy to cover up with fruit. I can add quite a bit of beneficial spinach without the smoothie’s taste changing. Here is an excellent article about the benefits of SPINACH SMOOTHIES.

Kale’s flavor on the other hand is harder to cover up. Start making kale recipes with 1-4 leaves of kale. Then, add more leaves as you adjust to the flavor.

Two secrets to tame down kale’s flavor

#1 - Blanch and freeze the kale before blending. Not only you can get more leaves into your smoothie, you can also save a lot of money by buying kale in bulk and then freezing it.

#2 – Add a delicious berry green drink  (for instance Green Foods, Green Magma) to help cover the flavor.  Click here to order this product (and I get nothing from you doing this, this is what I do and suggest).

Kale Recipes

Beginner Blueberry Kale Smoothie

1 large ripe banana, peeled

2-4 kale leaves
1 scoop protein powder

1 cup blueberries, frozen

1 packet of stevia (optional) or agave nectar (not too much)

1 cup pure water

Pour the water and toss the banana and kale into the blender. Blend. Then add the blueberries and stevia. Blend again until smooth. Enjoy! 1-2 servings

Tropical Kale Smoothie

1 large ripe banana, peeled
1 scoop protein powder

10 kale leaves

1 cup pineapple, fresh

3 dates, pitted

1 cup mango, frozen

3 ice cubes

1 1/2 cup pure water

Pour the water and toss the banana, kale, pineapple, and dates into the blender. Blend. Then add the mango and ice. Blend again until smooth. Very Yummy! 1-2 servings

Purple Tropics

1 large ripe banana, peeled
1 scoop protein powder

2-4 large kale leaves

1/2 cup blueberries, freeze-dried

3/4 cup pineapple, fresh or canned

1 packet of stevia (optional) or agave nectar (not too much)

5 ice cubes

1 cup pure water

Pour the water and toss the banana, kale, blueberries, pineapple, and stevia into the blender. Blend. Then add ice. Blend again until smooth. Enjoy! 1-2 servings

Purple Kale Smoothie

If you have a hard time drinking green kale recipes, try a smoothie recipe with beets. You only need a little bit, but it can disguise your green smoothie!

1 large ripe banana, peeled

3-4 large kale leaves
1 scoop protein powder

1/4 medium beet (To turn the smoothie purple)

1 cup blueberries, frozen

1 packet of stevia (optional) or agave nectar (not too much)

1 1/2 cups pure water

5 ice cubes

Pour the water and toss the banana, kale, and beet into the blender. Blend. Then add the blueberries, stevia, and ice cubes. Blend again until smooth. Enjoy! 1-2 servings

Creamy Avocado Kale Smoothie

1 large ripe banana, peeled

4 large kale leaves
1 scoop protein powder

1/4-1/2 avocado flesh

3/4 cup blueberries, frozen

1/2 cup strawberries, frozen

1 packet of stevia (optional) or agave nectar (not too much)

1 1/2 cups pure water

Pour the water and toss the banana, kale, and avocado into the blender. Blend. Then add the blueberries, strawberries, and stevia. Blend again until smooth. Enjoy! 1-2 servings

Advanced Berry Kale Smoothie

1 large ripe bananas, peeled
1 scoop protein powder

6-12 kale leaves

1/2 cup strawberries, frozen

1 cup blueberries, frozen

1 packet of stevia (optional) or agave nectar (not too much)

1 1/2 cup pure water

Pour the water and toss the banana and kale into the blender. Blend. Then add the strawberries, blueberries, and stevia. Blend again until smooth. Enjoy! 1-2 servings

Peachy Kale Smoothie

1 large ripe banana, peeled
1 scoop protein powder

10 kale leaves

4 dates, pitted

3/4 cup pineapple, frozen

1/2 cup strawberries, frozen

3/4 cup peaches, frozen

1 cup pure water

Pour the water and toss the banana, kale, and dates into the blender. Blend. Then add the frozen fruit and blend again until smooth. 1-2 servings

Now please tell me if this disgusts you, intrigues you, teaches you something new, or made you want to try one as soon as you get your hands on some of the ingredients!  MAYBE you would like to share a SMOOTHIE recipe of your own in the comments?  Thanks for all your comments and input!

Tomorrow:  Chocolate Smoothies (yes I have plenty of recipes for them!)  Hubby will be happy! 

Random Acts of Kindness and Special Thoughts

Random Thoughts and Inspirations

FREE!

Just "BE"

Sounds good to me!

And finally...

Planned my vacation on a budget! And it still cost us over $500.00.

This is our beach...  Oxnard Beach, California and yes, totally beautiful and we live here every day and can see this beauty as much as we want.  But even we like to get away and see some other places that are around us.

So I planned out in great detail a vacation to Long Beach, CA.  We were visiting two places and eating at Denny's and staying at the Motel 6 (because they take dogs).  I had it down to under $200.00 for 4 days and 3 nights and that included our membership to the Aquarium of the Pacific!  

What we didn't plan was the rock that some random car hit and it cracked my front window. And the car that hit the front end of my car when John was in the drug store.  The driver never left a note.

This is just a little note to say that you can plan everything for your vacation down to the last dollar and still get unexpected events that will cost you more than your vacation!  I plan to blog about our wonderful vacation in the days to come.

Pearl Mountain Image Converter Review and Giveaway

Conversations with Carolyn shares their review and giveaway of the Pearl Mountain Image Converter.

Pearl Mountain Image Converter is a photo converter as well as batch image converter, which helps you convert images to other formats, resize, rotate, crop, add watermark, apply effects and add border to thousands of images at a time. As a blogger and photography hobbyist, this is tremendous for me because I am able to add a watermark to any of my pictures and re-size them to be the perfect size for anything I need. One of my favorite hobbies is taking pictures. 

 Pearl Mountain Image Converter allows me to convert thousands of files at once in batch mode. It's a huge time saver. Pearl Mountain Image Converter supports the most popular image formats: BMP, JPEG, TIFF, RAW, PNG, GIF, TGA, and PSD, and almost all image formats. You can re-size your image for any different use; email, the web, Facebook, photo prints and much more!

You can save operations that you usually use as profiles and bring convenience to you in the future.  Pearl Mountain Image Converter lets you add image and text watermark for Image Copyright Protection. As a beginning photographer I know that this is really great for me and for the intermediate and professional photographer as well.

Here are some more great features I get with this program:

• Convert thousands of files at once in batch mode.
• Supports the most popular image formats: BMP, JPEG, RAW, PNG, GIF, TGA, and many others
• Convert between many different image file formats.
• Resize image for any different use, such as for web, e-mail, photo printing,Facebook, Pinterest, mobile phone, ipod/ipad/iphone, etc.
• Add image and watermarks for Image Copyright Protection
• Adjust image brightness, contrast and saturation in batch to make your images look more special.
• Apply border to images.
• Crop photos, removing unwanted areas.

... and much more.

I was so happy to do this review because overall I really had a need for a program like this and I just wasn't able to learn all about Photo Shop at this time.

And now the GIVEAWAY (there are 4 full version license codes available for this giveaway and they will come to you in your email but don't give your email in the comments, only in the giveaway, you'll see what I mean.)  Thanks and best wishes!

Disclaimer:  As a Tomoson reviewer I was sent the full free version to own and review.  I was not compensated in any other way.  Any opinions in this post are my own.  Also, FaceBook has nothing to do with this review or any part of the giveaway.  They cannot be held responsible for anything.


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Coconutty Pancakes aka Puff Pancakes

 Coconutty Puff Pancakes

Ingredients

3/4 cup flour

1/2 cup shredded coconut

1/3 cup nuts

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

2 eggs

3/4 cup coconut milk

1/2 cup crushed pineapple

1 TBL coconut oil

ingredients are ready

ingredients are split by dry on left and wet on right

Mix together flour, coconut, nuts, baking powder, and salt in a bowl.  In a separate bowl, combine eggs, coconut milk, and pineapple.

Stir the dry ingredients into the wet. 

Heat the coconut oil in a skillet (or in our case on the Avon Puff Pancake Pan)

Spoon batter onto hot skillet making pancakes 3 inches in diameter.  We of course did them in this Puff Pancake Pan.

Cook until puffed and dry around the edges.  Turn and cook other side.

Server with syrup of your favorite topping.  Makes about 16 pancakes or the "puff cakes" that we made.  

I used the Fat Toad Farm Vanilla Bean Caramel on mine!  I am so in love with their Goat Farm Products.   Feel free to visit them and check out their products.  The caramel is incredible! 

If you would like to purchase an Avon Puff Pancake Pan with Tongs from me please contact me at carolyncavies@yahoo.com  Thank you!

How I pray for my readers

I recently celebrated my 1^st year blogiversary.  I was really excited because I actually completed one year of a project that I set out to do.  This may sound odd but it’s been so difficult with the autoimmune diseases that I really never know what day I’ll be able to blog and what day I won’t. 

Along with thinking about blogging I thought about praying.  That’s because I started another project on Oct. 31, 2011 and that is my Prayer Journal.  I took a composition book and started journaling my prayers (because I suffer from something that is called, “Fibro Fog” and it’s very difficult for me to pray in the same way that other people may pray.)  

I don’t close my eyes, bow my head and think through my prayers in my head.  Instead I write them to God.

What you may not realize is that I actually pray for YOU!  It’s true.  I ask each week that God speak to the people that I write to through my blogging.  I have no idea who is going to read which post, nor what they will think when reading it, nor do I know what they are thinking unless they reply to the blog entry with a comment.

So I will write to you what the first two things that I wrote in my prayer journal say.  This may/may not surprise you.

1.     I need to spend more time listening to others than I do talking.

2.     I need to not be critical of others even if I believe those things are true.

When I write my prayers I pray I just talk to God as if I were writing a letter to Him.  It works for me!  When I come across someone online who is asking for prayer, I just write it out to God and commit it to Him.   I try to never embarrass anyone by asking them more than they want to share with me and in the left-hand column I have the section marked as this “Answered.”  This way I am committed to praying for this person until I find out that they have come to a conclusion of what they were asking for. 

So you may wonder about those first two prayers that I wrote.  Well they have not yet been “answered.”  I’m still working on them today and every day.  The one person that knows me best is God and then is my husband, John.  He never reads this journal but he knows about it.  I decided that I needed to amp up what I am doing in prayer about my husband and bought a journal with thought provoking questions and verses and comments.  It’s called, “Closer to MyHusband.”  I’ll still pray for him in my Prayer Journal but I will do more of this in that journal and commit more of my prayer journal to praying for you!

French Toast Cupcakes

French Toast Cupcakes:

1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted then cooled
2 eggs
1 tsp. maple extract
1/2 cup whole milk

Maple Glaze:

2 c. powdered sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
2 tbsp. butter, softened
3-4 tbsp. milk
1/2 tsp. maple flavoring

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line baking pan with paper liners.

2. Mix together flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt in a small bowl.

3. In a large bowl, whisk together butter, sugar and eggs until smooth. Make sure the butter is cool or you’ll have scrambled eggs.

4. Whisk in maple extract and then alternate between whisking in flour mixture and milk. 

5. Make three additions of flour mix and two of milk. Beat until smooth.

6. Scoop batter into prepared pan and bake 20-25 minutes until golden brown and tops spring back when lightly touched.

7. Cool the cupcakes on a rack for 10 minutes, then remove from pan and cool completely.

8. For the maple glaze, combine powdered sugar, vanilla, maple flavoring, butter and milk.

9. Stir well until the mixture has the consistency of a glaze.

10. Finally, cook up a ton of bacon till it’s nearly crunchy, then cut up the strips into teeny squares and sprinkle ‘em on top of the frosting.

SOBE LIFEWATER Review and Giveaway U.S. Only

A free sample of the NEW RELEASES of SoBe Lifewater Pomegrante Nectarine with Coconut Water and the SoBe Flavors with Benefits LipBalm and coupons (Free 20 oz. Bottle of Any Flavor SoBe Product ... Max Value is $1.79) is what I received from Bzz Agent to write this review!  And this is a favorite of mine so I am so happy to share this with all of you.  I am giving away here 3 of those coupons! 

In the above picture are other flavors that I buy of the SoBe Lifewater, only I buy the 0 calorie ones. The ones that I buy are:

Mango Melon, Fuji Apple  Pear (my favorite), Black and Blue Berry, Strawberry Dragonfruit and Yumberry Pomegrante.  Right now I have three in the refrigerator getting cold and 10 on hand waiting for me to refill the refrigerator!   

What a dilemma I have on hand when I go shopping weekly for my SoBe Water!  The free one that I received as a sample only has 80 calories and is sooo good.  I really never liked coconut water until I had this one and now I'm going to use a coupon myself and try that one again and the Mango Mandarin and give one to my husband of his choice.

SoBe Lifewater is available at my local Kroger store, Ralph's here in Southern California.  Be sure to look up your local Kroger store and try these out for yourself.  And for the winner, you are about to experience a real delight!

Here are some facts about the SoBe Lifewater:

1.  There are over 25 exotic flavors to choose from..

2.  There are no artificial sweeteners.

3.  New SoBe Lifewater with Coconut Water features flavor twists with Mango Mandarin, Pacific Coconut and Pomegrante Nectarine.

4.  Combinations like Fuji Apple Pear and Yumberry Pomegrante will leave you perplexed... and satisfyingly hydrated.   (I think that's what I really feel with the two mentioned here is that I can drink one of either of them and feel so full too.  It's great for my diet!)

5.  Sacrifice calories but not taste with 0 Calorie SoBe Lifewater.

(I used to drink Vitamin Water but that tastes nothing compared to this zero calorie water!) 

Learn mote about every SoBe offering by watching a short, transfixing video on each HERE!  And see the full line up HERE!  Here are Teas and Fruit-Flavored elixers.

And let's not forget the LIZARD!  Here is their story. While relaxing in South Beach (Miami) a lizard on the side of a local hotel caught the eye of the founders and all their logo problems were solved!  I love that lizard.  

Please use the comment section to tell me which of the waters that you would like to try and if you have ever had SoBe Lifewater before reading this review and giveaway.  Thanks!  

 Disclaimer:  As a bzzagent I was sent a campaign kit for SoBe Water (as pictured above).  This post is part of my sharing by word of mouth.  I was not compensated in any other way.  Any opinions in this post are my own.

And now the GIVEAWAY:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Happy Blogiversary to me Giveaway! USA only!

              HAPPY ONE YEAR BLOGIVERSARY TO ME!

That's right!  Here at Conversations with Carolyn we (John and I) are celebrating our blog's one year anniversary!  The year has gone by so quickly!  In the one year so much has happened but probably nothing quite as wonderful as John's retirement.  God really planned his retirement at the perfect time.  Two years early but not early enough for all the many things that we've gone through in the year.  If you're a first-time reader of this blog today, you will just have to go through the topics and see all that has happened.  If you have been with us for the year then you know various topics that we've covered!

Well, I could write more but let's get this party started!  I am giving away 6 gifts to you that we bought (just so you know you're not getting any freebies we received!)  There will be 6 winners.

These are the gifts:

 Beard head mustache (walrus black) that attaches to a beard head.

      Pink feather hair clip.

Blue and black feather hair clip.

Neon feather hair clip.

Cranberry Mango Scentsy Circle

Cinnamon Bear Scentsy Circle

Let's just jump to the RAFFLECOPTER now and get busy!  In the comment section which is mandatory, we would like to know one topic (or more) that you enjoy reading on our blog.  Thanks!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Shaklee Review & Giveaway!

I  (Courtney Reynolds-Pies) was fortunate enough that Renee, a mom and an independent distributor for Shaklee, asked me to do a review for Shaklee's products. I had heard of Shaklee before, but I knew next to nothing about them. After a very pleasant phone call with Renee, she taught me that Shaklee was the first company out there to offer environmentally friendly products. At the end of the call I could not wait to try out the products she was sending me!

Renee sent me 16 oz. bottle of Basic H2, a 3 pack of Get Clean Spray Bottles, 9 oz. jar of Scour Off Paste, and 16 oz. of Dish Washing Liquid Concentrate, along with a packet of information.

I want to first share some information on each product with you. Basic H2:

• Safe: Nontoxic, no toxic fumes, no hazardous chemicals, fragrance free, mild on your hands, pH balanced, and no chlorine.
• Here's the household uses for Basic H2: General cleaning, windows, mirrors, glass, pots & pans, floors, dusting, fruits & vegetables, handwashing woolens, nylons and all fine fabric, spot remover, aquariums, removing fish odors, removing boat algae, reducing odors in diaper pails (I use Basic H2 for this the most), wallpaper, frying vats, and many more.
• Personal uses include: Hands, Bathing, removing gum from skin, carpet or clothes, painting and dyeing, cleaning shoes, and cleaning eye glasses (another one I use frequently).
• You can use it for automotive uses, such as washing your car, cleaning the engine (will not affect paint, gaskets or insulating material!), cleaning the battery terminals, and helps get tires off easier when you're changing them.
• There's many other miscellaneous uses as well! The list just goes on and on!

Dish Wash Liquid Concentrate:

• Completely safe (non-toxic, hypoallergenic, does not contain chlorine, is mild on your hands, is pH balanced, and has no hazardous chemicals)!
• Very powerful (tough on grease, has long-lasting suds, and can use very little and it goes a very long way (one of the best parts).
• The second best part is that it is green; has natural ingredients, is biodegradable, has no phosphates or dyes, comes in recyclable packaging and is safe for septic-systems and graywater.
• Can also use for grout & tile, pans & stained dishes, pots, pans and PYREX, oven cleaner, mineral deposits in toilet bowl, and tough stains in sink.

Scour Off:

• You can use scour off on baked enamel, chrome, ceramic tiles, stainless steel, glass, porcelain, and most hard metal surfaces. (Do not use on gold, brass, copper, sterling silver, corian, or surrel.)
• There are many uses for the kitchen, bathroom, outdoors, and vehicles!
• Scour off is biodegradable, pH balanced, certified Kosher, and has no toxic fumes, no alkalis, and has a pleasant scent.

I (Courtney Reynolds-Pies)used the Basic H2 on my kitchen
stove.
Here is a before picture:
How gross, right? We had had a party the night before, so that would be why it's so nasty. I figured what better time than now to see if Basic H2 actually worked!
All you need are one of the spray bottles, the Basic H2 and I used a rag. You just fill the spray bottle with water, then put a 1/4 teaspoon of Basic H2. Then you just spray and wipe away! I let a couple of the spots soak because it was pretty stuck on, and it wiped away so easily! Here is the after picture:
What a huge difference! Another great thing about the Basic H2 is that there are absolutely no fumes! I can't even begin to tell you how much I hate cleaning because of the fumes almost all cleaning solutions put off. It's so nice not having to deal with it anymore! Next, I used the Dish Wash Liquid Concentrate.
I didn't take any pictures of the process because, well, who wants to look at dirty dishes? I didn't want to subject my readers to that! Haha! But let me tell you - I will not be using any other dish washing liquid! It got off grease and dried on spots on all the dishes, and I hardly had to use any of it! I swear, you can barely tell I used any of the stuff! This bottle will last me a long time! The Scour Off I used on the rims of our tires. Unfortunately I do not have any pictures of the before and after because our camera started acting up, but they have never been so clean! It was so easy to use, and although there is a slight scent to the paste, it was actually a pleasant one! Thank you so much for reading my review on Shaklee products! I can't wait to try some more of Shaklee's wonderful products! Thanks to Renee, I'm able to offer my readers a giveaway! I'm giving away a free membership to Shaklee, a bottle of Basic H2 and 3 spray bottles. This giveaway starts at 12:01am on 5/18 and ends at 12:01am on 5/26. The winner will then be selected and have 24 hours from the timestamp on the email I send to claim their prize. If the winner does not reply by 24 hours, then the next winner will be chosen and contacted. a Rafflecopter giveaway 



 
Disclaimer: I received one or more products for free. All opinions are strictly mine.(this is the review by: Courtney Reynolds-Pies)