Not Everyone's Mama

Who has a baby/toddler who hasn’t quite mastered silverware yet?

raising my own hand

Christiano wants so badly to use silverware like the rest of us, but he just can’t get it yet.  He tries and tries and tries some more.  Sometimes he gets lucky and gets something on his fork after stabbing 15 times (you know how easy it to pick things up with a plastic fork!).  Nothing stays on a spoon.  Nothing.  It gets flipped around, usually ending up down his chest or on the floor, unless he wings it as he is spinning it and it sticks to my refrigerator.  After a few tries, he ends up digging in with his fingers, which makes for a very messy baby.

I have found a genius invention!

You look at those and think, hmmmmm, that might work!  We’ll give it a try!

Let me let the company tell you a bit more about Little Grips first, then I’ll tell you how they worked for us.

An ergonomic design that takes advantage of a toddler’s stronger grasping and overall hand-movement skills, while still allowing them to learn proper feeding motions. You will see your child’s confidence build and messiness diminish.

• A toddler utensil designed for toddler feeding
• Comfortable non-slip grip that fits easily and naturally in your toddler’s palm
• Toddler feeding that ends frustation and builds confidence
• No-choke safety design with rounded edges
• Made from durable, high quality plastic and stainless steel
• Dishwasher safe
• Only $10.95! plus shipping and handling

We got the package in the mail.  I opened them up, threw them in the dishwasher (cuz I still do that), and when it was suppertime I placed them on Christiano’s plate and sat back and watched.

He knew just want to do.  Picked the fork up, stabbed a piece of chicken, put it in his mouth.  He looked at me with surprise in his eyes, and said….if you follow my blog, you know what’s coming…..I did it!

Yes he did.  The moment couldn’t have been more perfect.

Now, he even gets in the silverware drawer to get out his spoon and fork when it’s not time to eat.  He brings them to me and points toward the kitchen.  He LOVES them.  I think we need another set because I’m having to hand wash these for lunch and dinner (usually I run the dishwasher once a day, after supper) so he can use them for all of his meals. 

For those who are new visiting this post, Christiano just turned 16 months.

I think these are absolutely fabulous!  Who knew such a simple change in design to silverware could make such a big difference in whether he could do it on his own or not. 

He still gets messy (what toddler doesn’t?), but seeing him become more independent is so much fun!  Plus, I get more time to enjoy my own meal.  He doesn’t get frustrated and it just makes meal time go a little smoother.

You can buy Little Grips at their website.  They are not available in stores, though I hope they are soon!  I’d love to be able to run and grab these for last minute gifts that I am always forgetting. (I am constantly being told, ohhhhh…so and so’s baby shower is tomorrow, I thought I told you!)   Plus, I would love more colors!  Blue, green, pink, purple, they’d even be so much fun in a rainbow pattern!

Verdict?

Huge thumbs up for helping Christiano master a task that he really wanted to do, but didn’t have the dexterity yet to do on his own.  Excellent excellent product!

Thank you so much to Little Grips for sending us a set of Little Grips Utensils for Christiano to try out.  He loves them and so do I!

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Congrats to Jamie Lynn G and thank you to everyone who entered!

Have you seen these yet?  I thought they were the coolest thing ever! (If you see me work in the word pop, know I am referring to soda.  I’m from Iowa, it’s what we call it.)

Soda Stream sent me a huge box of goodies and I just kept pulling out more and more and more.

Look at everything they sent for us to try.

Possibly I should have cleaned off my table better for the picture.

Let me borrow a bit from the Soda Stream website:

Making carbonated water and soft drinks is simple! Turn tap water into sparkling water in under 30 seconds, with no clean-up. Enjoy the freshness and convenience of homemade soda and protect the environment at the same time. No heavy bottles to carry, store at home or throw away. Fizz to your taste and add the flavor of your choice to make your favorite drink. Simple to clean and reuse. With a variety of colors and silhouettes, you’ll be sure to find a soda maker to match with any decor.

We broke it out of the box and I have to admit, I was a little intimidating by the bottle of CO2, especially when I saw the license that gave me the permission to use it, but there was nothing to it.

We started out with the diet root beer flavor by a minority vote (Katiana’s vote).

Hooked up the CO2.  In shock that there was no plug, no electricity needed.  Soda Stream just got greener and greener!

Filled up the bottle to the line with water (purified no less).

Put the bottle onto the Soda Stream and pushed!

See those bubbles?  That’s what you get when you push on the button.  It says to push 3 times for average carbonation.  The kids are good with the 3 pushes, I’ve found that I need about 5 for my liking.  I’m used to diet pepsi and diet mt dew and I’ve got to have a lot of fizz.  Added a cap of the soda mix, put the lid on, and very carefully shook it.  It doesn’t tell you to very carefully shake it, but I have had pop fizz all over me one too many times after my kids’ shook up a can.  Didn’t want to do that here.

Now came the moment of judgement.  The taste.  All of us gathered around with a small glass in our hands and I poured it out.  We loved it!

Katiana wanted to make another flavor.  So we opened up the diet cranberry raspberry (someone at Soda Stream must have gotten the memo that I only drink diet pop.  Kidding, I didn’t tell them that, but I really only drink diet pop).  I added another push of the fizz and it was done! That was yummy too!

We’ve now tried all the flavors and I have liked all of them.  The kids favorite are the diet root beer, orange, and grape.

My favorites are the diet ginger ale and the diet cola.

The only one we haven’t tried yet is the energy.  I’ve been saving that for Pato.  I’m still nursing so I haven’t tried it and I don’t think the kids really need any extra energy.

The only one I wasn’t a big fan of was the MyWater Flavor Essence.  I have a sweet tooth.  The only flavored water I like is the ones with lots of a sugar substitute in it.  (So healthy, I know.)  Pato on the other hand loves tonic and flavored water without sugar, so this was right up his ally.

Ok, so now we have the facts that Soda Stream is green, no cans or bottles to recycle, no electricity to run it, you’re reducing your CO2 footprint by using this.

Because SodaStream uses water straight from the tap, the system makes traditional store-bought beverage bottles obsolete. That means less plastic manufactured, less plastic waste is created, and fewer bottled beverages must be transported from manufacturers to distrobutors to stores to homes.

Plus, I knew this, did you know this?

Bottled water is not safer than tap water

(Food & Water Watch Organization)

The bottled water industry has created a misconception in the United States that bottled water is cleaner, safer, and healthier than tap water. In fact, both regulation and enforcement of bottled water safety is weaker than of tap water safety. Federal, state, and local environmental agencies require rigorous testing of tap water safety.

Bottled water is a waste of money

(Food & Water Watch Organization)

Americans spent $10 billion on bottled water in 2005 and paid up to 1,000 times the cost of production, a major windfall of profit for the companies. Bottled water can costs $7.50 to $11.00 per gallon in the supermarket but tap water costs most customers only one-tenth of one cent per gallon.

Bottled water is bad for the environment

(Food & Water Watch Organization)

The United States is the world’s largest consumer of bottled water, purchasing 37 billion bottles in 2005. Our daily bottled water habit is bad for people and bad for the environment. Bottled water wastes fossil fuels and water in production and transport, and when the water is drunk the bottles become a major source of waste.

That’s the main reason I love my water purifier.  It takes away all of those issues.  Now I’m making our soda with our purified tap water.  Win win!

There is also the facts that with the Soda Stream you don’t have to carry heavy 2 liters or 12/24 packs of cans.  You’re not having to find places to store them.  And your not needing a spot to keep all of the empties until you take them to the redemption center.  That’s our problem.  We don’t have a spot to store all of the empty cans and bottles.

I’m going to link you to their nutrition page because Soda Stream beats the competition in those areas too, by about 1/3 in most areas, except for sodium, in sodium in blows the competition away with just 2 mg compared to Coke’s 35 mg.

Ask my kids how much soda they got to drink before we got the Soda Stream?  Jordan will tell you none.  I’ll tell you that they got 1 can of caffeine free root beer every one or two months.  I didn’t let them drink pop.  I didn’t think they needed the extra sugar and caffeine.  Since we’ve gotten this, I’ve let them have a glass of soda every other day usually.

I’m a horrible example because I, myself go through a 2 liter of diet pepsi or diet mt dew every other day at least.  That’s another reason I didn’t let my kids have pop.  When I don’t have one of those above every day, I get horrible caffeine withdrawal migraines that nothing will touch except for a can of diet pop.  I can say that I have lowered my own caffeine intake since we got the Soda Stream because I’ve been drinking the diet pop that came with it.  Have I completely cut out diet mt dew yet?  No.  But I’m hoping too.

Let’s talk cost too.  A 2 liter of diet pop in my area runs $1.75-$2.00.  That’s one 2 liter.  One bottle of the Soda Stream soda mix runs $4.99 – $5.99.  It makes 12 liters of pop.  12 liters of diet pop here would cost me about $24.00.  I could easily go through 6 – 2 liters in 8-10 days.  That’s quite a savings.  It wouldn’t take long for me to make up the initial investment and start saving money.

I’ll repeat, Soda Stream win win.  I can’t see a negative period.  Even the CO2 containers.  You can exchange those online with Soda Stream or if you have a retailer in your area that changes them out you can take the empty and exchange it there.  You can check here to see where there is an exchange location near you.  Just so happens there is 1 less than a mile from where I live.

All in all I was really happy with the Soda Stream so they get a

from us!  Tastes good, green, saves $$, better nutritionally, no storage issues, what more could I ask for?

Soda Stream has very generously offered to give one of my readers a Soda Stream for themselves!

How do you win?  Read on!

MAIN ENTRY:

Go over to Soda Stream and tell me your favorite thing about the Soda Stream.

MAKE SURE YOU DO THE MAIN ENTRY BEFORE ANY OF THE EXTRA ENTRIES! THANKS!

EXTRA ENTRIES:

• Become a fan of SodaStream on Facebook
• - Subscribe to my blog via email or reader
• - Follow @SodaStreamUSA on Twitter
• - Follow me on Twitter (either @HeatherM74 or @GiveawayChick – you’ll get all the giveaways from other bloggers that I enter on @GiveawayChick, either one is fine.)
• - Tweet this giveaway (1X/day)

Enter to win a SodaStream soda maker from @SodaStreamUSA and #HeatherM74 http://bit.ly/aPbhV4 ends 3/21 please RT! #Giveaway

• - Follow me via Google Friend connect
• - add my button to your blog (the 24/7 mom one on the right side)
• - comment on one of my other posts
• - blog about this giveaway with a link back to this post.
• - Digg, StumbleUpon, or any other social networking bookmark this giveaway.  (Not my site, the post.) There are links after each post.

- Check out this post for 3 extra entries on all of my giveaways through April 1!

Please leave a separate comment for each entry.

Giveaway ends on 3/21/10 at 11:59 PM CST. Only US entries. Winners will be chosen by random number generator. Winners will be emailed and must respond within 48 hours or an alternate winner will be chosen.

Thank you to Soda Stream for sending me a Soda Stream soda maker.  We have loved it!

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Congratulations to Merrie L!  I will be sending you an email right now.  You have 48 hours to contact me with your mailing address.

Thank you to everyone who entered!

What a treat we got in our house today.  Let me tell you!  Well, let me show you actually.  This came the other day.

Can you see all that?  The fine folks at Wilton sent me a box full of all this chocolate melting goodness.

Up there you’ll see the

Chocolate Pro™ Electric Chocolate Melter

Candy Decorating Bags

Sports Cookie Candy Mold

Hearts Cookie Candy Mold

and a whole bunch of Candy Melts (Dark Cocoa, Pink and White)

I know what your thinking.  How about that whole get in shape thing you have going on Heather?  Yeah, I ate a few too many goodies after we made them, but like every other Valentine’s Day (and holiday that we make candy) we send a lot off to school, some to family, Pato eats a lot of it, etc.

Every valentine’s day I attempt to make something chocolate coated.  I don’t have a double broiler, I didn’t have a chocolate melter.  I would put a big pan of water on the stove, put another pan in it, melt the chocolate and end up with clumpy, sometimes burned, always took a few tries to get it right strawberries, or marshmallows, or bananas.  We’ve covered it all in chocolate and it never looked pretty.  Not that we minded, it tasted good, once you threw out the burnt chocolate and got it right.  After using the Chocolate Pro™ Electric Chocolate Melter, I am totally disappointed that we can’t bring homemade treats to school like we could at Jordan’s first school many moons ago. I am envisioning the marshmallows stuck on lollipop sticks, half-dipped in chocolate, covered in sprinkles, and wrapped up with saran-wrap and a pretty ribbon all over again.  Last time we did that it looked so much better in my head than what we ended up with.

Let’s get to what I made today.

You can see where I’m going with this can’t you? (I know some people leave the stems and leaves on it.  I have 4 children people.  They can’t be trusted not to eat the leaves.)

Put the candy melts in the Chocolate Pro after warming it up and moving the switch to melt.

Melting all that chocolaty goodness

I only had one hand, there was no taking pictures while I was dipping.  Let me tell you how easy this was.  Like I said, I had one hand.  Christiano was feeling cranky all day again and I had him one arm while making the strawberries in the other.  It was so smooth, not lumps, no bumps, no burnt chocolate!

You want to reach right through that screen and steal my strawberry don’t you?  I used the candy decorating bags to drizzle the pink candy melts over the top. (Those just went in the bag, then in the microwave. 30 seconds, kneed, 30 seconds, kneed, start decorating.)  I’ll tell you now, it tasted as good as it looks!

Pato got home a little bit ago with the Oreos I requested for the cookie candy molds. Just in time! I had started writing my review and here he is.  I stopped and went to make some white chocolate covered Oreos for the kids’ teachers.

I drizzled the pink candy melts again and threw on some sprinkles.  Those haven’t hardened yet.

Again, still soft, but look at that!

Just wait. Are you ready?  Look at this one!

I realize that if I had been patient and let my pink harden a tad, the colors wouldn’t have run, but do I care?  No!  I think it’s so cute!  I said these were for the kids’ teachers right?  Yeah, Pato and Alyce and Nano have been sneaking in the fridge.  I need to get them in baggies before they are gone.

Is that not all fabulous.  I’m envisioning finding sugar free chocolate to make the kids treats with every once in awhile.  I had so much fun!  I could see myself doing this more than twice a year because of how easy it was.  With the stove method, I barely want to do it on Valentine’s Day let alone any other day.

All of that good stuff gets a HUGE -

for the easiest tools I have ever used to make these kind of treats and for making them prettier than I ever have in my life!  There was honestly not one thing I didn’t like about it.  Fabulous candy making tools! Thank you Wilton!

Your not going to believe this.  Ok, you might if you know Wilton and how awesome they are.  See all that stuff in the picture above?  One of you is getting ALL of it.  The same package that I received so you can dip, mold, drizzle, and decorate candy to your little heart’s content!  Want to win? Here’s how -

MAIN ENTRY:

Go over to Wilton’s shop and tell me something else that you would absolutely love to own.

EXTRA ENTRIES:

• - Become a fan of Wilton on Facebook
• - Subscribe to my blog via email or reader
• - Sign up for Wilton’s newsletter
• - Follow @WiltonCakes on Twitter
• - Follow me on Twitter (either @HeatherM74 or @GiveawayChick – you’ll get all the giveaways from other bloggers that I enter on @GiveawayChick, either one is fine.)
• - Tweet this giveaway (1X/day)

Win a Chocolate Pro & other fabulous candy making tools from @WiltonCakes & @HeatherM74 http://bit.ly/cokLiS ends 2/28 #Giveaway Please RT!

• - Follow me via Google Friend connect
• - add my button to your blog (the 24/7 mom one on the right side)
• - comment on one of my other posts
• - blog about this giveaway with a link back to this post.
• - Digg, StumbleUpon, or any other social networking bookmark this giveaway.  (Not the site, the post.) There are links after each post.

Please leave a separate comment for each entry.

- Check out this post for 3 extra entries on all of my giveaways through April 1!

Giveaway ends on 2/28/10 at 11:59 PM CST. Only US entries. Winners will be chosen by random number generator. Winners will be emailed and must respond within 48 hours or an alternate winner will be chosen.

Thank you to Wilton for sending me that huge candy making package! So wonderful!

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**CLOSED**

Winner has 48 hours from when I send them their email to respond to me.

Congrats!

I have the hardest time with figuring out how much coffee I need. I get up in the morning, make a full pot of coffee.  Some days I drink it all, some days I drink 2 cups throwing away a lot of coffee.  I waste a lot.

I wanted to try a one cup coffee maker and Melitta offered to let me try one from their Ready Set Joe line.  It is a line of non-electric coffee makers.  I thought why not?

That is the one I received yesterday.

Now, I’ll admit, I had my doubts.  How could just pouring hot water over my coffee make a good cup of coffee?  When I analyzed it some more while waiting for it to arrive I thought about how my coffee maker works.  It’s hot water going over coffee.  This should work!

That is what I received: the Ready Set Joe Single Cup Coffee Brewer and  Melitta Classique Supreme coffee from their Cafe Collection.  The coffee brewer came with some no. 2 cone filters that just made me giggle.  They’re so much cuter than my big huge ones that go in my pot.  I’m silly I know.

I got me some hot water (I actually put my water in the microwave for 2 minutes, but hot tap water would work as well – I think that would be a great way to be green with this, saving on electricity!) and got ready to make my coffee.

I like my coffee strong and the amount I used was just perfect I found.

Making the coffee

The end result

Now came the big test.  Would this coffee taste just as good as what came out of my coffee pot every morning?

It did.  In fact, it tasted better.  I think that’s a result of  the taste of the Melitta Classique Supreme coffee.  It was really really good.  So much so that I ended up making a second cup.  I’m not one who drinks coffee in the afternoon.  I have it first thing in the morning and I usually want one late at night (I know, perfect time to be drinking coffee, right before bed).  I could have drank coffee all afternoon yesterday, mighty impressed I was.

I don’t think I’ll get rid of my coffee pot just yet because there are times that I drink a whole pot in the morning (I think I’m going to switch to the Melitta Classique Supreme coffee though.)  This is perfect for me at night when I just want one cup.

I showed it to Pato last night and he was all for it.  There was some pointing at my coffee pot and grumbling about how much coffee I waste every day.

I had to test the filter cone while I was playing with it on one of my travel mugs.  It sat right on top of it.  That gave me ideas for when I have to leave early in the morning, don’t have time to drink a pot of coffee, and usually stop at the gas station to get a cup of their icky stuff.  I can just quickly brew some using the Ready Set Joe Single Cup Coffee Brewer and be out the door without wasting a pot of coffee that I didn’t measure out correctly.

Guess how much this convenience costs?  You’re not going to believe me when I tell you.  Seriously, try to guess, I’ll wait.

You can get the Ready Set Joe Single Cup Coffee Brewer on Melitta’s website for $5.99 for the cup and the filter cone!  Let me say that again.  $5.99!  Can you believe that?

Want the travel mug?  You can get the Ready Set Joe Travel Mug & Cone for $8.99.

For real!  I couldn’t believe the price either.

They even have big coffee pots.

The Gourmet 6 Cup Manual Coffeemaker is a whole $9.99.

And that wonderful tasting coffee I mentioned above?   The Melitta Classique Supreme coffee can be bought for $6.99.  I spend more than that on my coffee that comes in a big ol’ tub at the store.  It’s good, but not as good as their coffee.

Melitta Benz had it right when she first punctured the bottom of a brass pot and lined it with blotting paper taken from the notebook of her oldest son to make a cup of filtered coffee back in 1908 changing the history of coffee as we know it.  I must say I’m grateful because the way they used to make coffee just doesn’t sound as pleasant as what we make today.

The Ready Set Joe Single Cup Coffee BrewerReady Set Joe Single Cup Coffee Brewer gets a

for waste not want not and for making a great cup of coffee!

Melitta has offered up one of the Ready Set Joe Single Cup Coffee Brewer for a reader here at The 24/7 Mom! You’ll be just as impressed as I was when you get to use this and taste the cup of coffee you make!

MAIN ENTRY:

Visit Melitta and tell me another product of theirs you would like to try.

EXTRA ENTRIES:

• • - Become a fan of Melitta on Facebook. (leave your username)
  • - Subscribe to my blog via email or reader (right sidebar)
  • - Follow me on Twitter (either @HeatherM74 or @GiveawayChick – you’ll get all the giveaways from other bloggers that I enter on @GiveawayChick, either one is fine.)
  • - Follow Melitta on Twitter
  • - Tweet this giveaway (1X/day)

  Win a Ready Set Joe 1-cup coffee non-electric brewer from @MelittaUSA and @HeatherM74! http://bit.ly/6jlXk5 ends 2/6 #Giveaway Please RT!

  • - Follow me via Google Friend connect
  • - add my button to your blog (the 24/7 mom one on the right side)- comment on one of my other posts
  • - blog about this giveaway with a link back to this post and to http://www.melitta.com/index.html.
  • - Digg, StumbleUpon, or any other social networking bookmark this giveaway. (Not the site, the post.) There are links after each post.
  • - Add this giveaway to any site that allows you to list giveaways (sweeps site, giveaway link, etc. Just don’t spam. Make sure it’s allowed.)

  Please leave a separate comment for each entry.

  Giveaway ends on 2/6/10 at 11:59 PM CST. Only US entries. Winner will be chosen by random number generator. Winner will be emailed and must respond within 48 hours or an alternate winner will be chosen. NO PO BOXES. Winner will provide address to me to be given to Melitta who will ship the necklace.

• 

• Thank you to Melitta for sending me a Ready Set Joe Single Cup Coffee Brewer.  I loved it!

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I received the neatest most fun thing to do with my kids the other day from Playful Chef.

Playful Chef Kids Cooking Kits

This comes with:

• 5 delicious, easy-to-follow laminated recipe cards that follow a ten-system plan complete with helpful illustrations and color-coding

  An overview of how to teach your child in the kitchen

  Child sized cooking tools: whisk, spoon, spatula, pastry brush, mixing bowl, timer, baking pan, and safety scissors. Tools are all dishwasher safe.

  A cool, brushed denim tool belt apron for easy tool storage and handy access that is adjustable for all sizes

  A set of color-coded measuring spoons

  A set of color-coded measuring cups

  A kid-sized baking pan for baking special treats

  A kid-sized mixing bowl for mixing magic

Here’s some fun information from the Playful Chef website before we get started making sugar cookies:

You want your kids to appreciate good food and form healthy, life-long eating habits. Your kids want to play with their favorite grown-ups. Playful Chef encourages children, and the adults who love them, to roll up their sleeves and engage in fun cooking adventures together.

What can a 3-year-old do in a kitchen? A lot. Playful Life has designed Playful Chef Kits for 3-12 year-olds to help you tap into your kids’ eagerness to help and to learn from an early age. We’ll outfit you with the nutritional know-how, tools of the trade, and fun food facts you’ll need to get your little one cooking!

My kids have been begging to bust it open and play with it.  I’ve been waiting for a calm moment when everybody is doing what they are supposed to do and nobody is fighting.

I decided tonight was the night.  I put hamburger on the stove to cook for tacos and got all of the ingredients out to make the sugar cookies that came in the recipe book with the kit.

Too much fun!  First, the recipe is really really simple.  I had everything in my cupboards for them to use.

Somehow Kat got voted to wear the apron. It was a process of elimination with her and Jordan, he’s too big to wear it. I told Alyce she could wear it next time. See how proud Kat is in her apron with all the tools stashed in her pockets?

Katiana measuring out the sugar

Alyce pouring in the vegetable oil.

Katiana wisking away!

Jordan cracked the eggs, but he moved to fast, I was taking a picture of Katiana pouring in the sugar while he did it.  So here he is stirring in the flour. (Which was supposed to be added slowly, but when you have a 3 year old adding the flour, slow is a relative term. I do it mommy! Shaking my hand off of her as she pours all the flour all over.)

Child’s never stirred a double batch of chocolate chip cookies obviously.

We were going to roll it out and cut it with the cookie cutters, but (and this might have been the key to stirring the flour in slowly, Alyce) the dough was so crumbly when I tried rolling it out that I gave up and we made them into balls.  Not that big ball above.  Though that would make one heck of a sugar cookie!

Alyce rolling hers into a ball.

The cookie dough ready to go into the oven.  (The pampered chef rolling pin is not included in the set, that’s mommy’s favorite cooking tool!)

Our finished cookies.  And they were good!

The only thing I would change is that I would pour the flour in myself so that we might actually be able to roll out the cookies into the fun shapes.  I was also hurrying them because supper was done at the same time that the cookies were ready to go into the oven.

That was fun!  The kids loved having their size of tools to work with and Katiana and  Alyce LOVE the apron!

They also have the Playful Cooking Set For Older Kids which would be great for Jordan and Kat probably since she’ll be 6 in April, but Alyce wants to play too and this is perfect for her, plus the other kids are able to use it easily.

I love the fact that these are color coded.  We’re working with Alyce on her colors and that was really neat to be able to say, we need one full cup with the blue dot.  Kat knows her numbers and she was slightly insulted when I told her one of the orange dot.  Mom, I know what the number looks like.  Work with me and teach Alyce her colors, thank you very much!

I want to check out the Playful Chef French Cooking Set.  That looks so neat! I’ll admit it, I want it all.  I love to cook with my kids.  I just hate cleaning up the mess.

You know what was the most awesome thing about this was?  My kids were working together and I didn’t hear one cross word, not one mean name, just them talking to each other.  They were saying what part each one of them wanted to do, what they wanted to put on the cookies, how many they were going to eat when they were done.  That to me, was the perfect way to spend an evening.

For that alone, the Playful Chef Kids Cooking Kits get a

Thank you so much to Playful Life for the Playful Chef Kids Cooking Kit!

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I was so stoked to get to try out the Zuvo Water Purator.  You see, I hate our water.  It tastes like chlorine.  I go out of my way to not drink water from the faucet.  Jordan and Pato are the only ones who will willingly get a glass of water.

Here comes the box!  I opened it and my kids started fighting over who got to get the first drink of water.  (That’s a first!)

It is so cool looking!

We got the above counter model because our apartments won’t let us hook up the under counter model.  They consider it remodeling, I think they are silly, but they wrote the lease.

I tried to get pictures of how cool this thing looks when it’s running, it has an ultraviolet light that comes on when you turn on the water, but my camera flash just wasn’t capturing it, so you need to click here, then mouse over the Zuvo Water Purator on that page and watch it light up.  That is literally what it looks like, except there is a lot of cool bubbles and mini-hurricane going on inside of it as it rushes to fill with water and purify it.

I’m going to tell you how it works by borrowing from Zuvo’s site.

Step 1: Ozonation  In nature, ozone is generated by lightning and cleans the air where rainwater forms. The Zuvo Water Purator mixes ozone with incoming tap water to treat taste and odor contaminants and improve taste. Like chlorine, ozone is a powerful oxidizer. Unlike chlorine, ozone leaves no chemical residue.

Step 2: Ultraviolet Light  The ozone saturated water is flooded with high-intensity UV light – the same as the solar energy that cleans water in the upper atmosphere.

Step 3: Photo-oxidation  The Zuvo Water Purator combines UV and ozone in a patented process known as photo-oxidation which releases powerful oxidizers to further treat the water.

Step 4: filtration with lead removal Pure spring water is created by passing through fine particles in the earth. Zuvo uses the same principle by passing water through a Class 1 Particulate Reduction Filter, reducing chlorine taste and odor, lead, and tiny particulates.

Step 5: post-filtration UV The filtered water is again exposed to high-intensity UV light as it leaves the Zuvo Water Purator, ensuring that you get clean, healthy, great tasting water…just the way nature intended!

When you first hook it up, you have to let it run for 5 minutes before drinking the water.  My husband, who has never before worried about being the conservationist, said how much water is just going to go down the drain in the 5 minutes?  I said, get me a pitcher.  So, as it was flushing I caught the water and watered all my plants.  No water wasted there!

We cheated.  Pato and I got the first glass of water!  (The kids were sleeping.)  First thing I noticed, no smell.  Second?  No chlorine taste.  It’s how water should taste.  Just good water.  I was so happy!

Then we tried it out on the kids!  Jordan had already drank his fill of water and wasn’t cooperating when I got my camera out, so the girls decided to test it!  They had to be walked through how it works, because that’s just their inquisitive nature, then I turned it on and let Kat pull the valve on the faucet (it has a bypass set up so you don’t wash dishes with your filtered water).  Both girls filled up their glasses and started drinking.

Katiana drinking the water.

Alyce – FIRST TIME EVER she has willingly drank a glass of water!  EVER.  Without a fight.

They both came back for more.  And have since asked for water instead of their normal begging for juice as I beg for them to please drink water.

Pato’s reaction?  It doesn’t taste like anything.  Which means, it works.  Because our water had a bad flavor before.

I’ve got to share this from Zuvo’s site too, I knew this, but it still grossed me out reading it again.

When it comes to your body, you should be drinking the healthiest water you can. The better the water, the healthier and fitter your body will be. Tap water may contain lead, parasitic cysts, non-pathogenic micro-organisms and unpleasant levels of chlorine – some of which can pose significant health risks to you and your family, while others make your water taste and smell bad. The truth is bottled water is typically no safer or healthier than tap water and chemicals can even leach from plastic bottles into water.
With pitcher filters, your water is only as
clean as the filter you use. Zuvo’s patented Puration process uses nature’s own cleansing process right in your kitchen. It treats non-pathogenic organisms, taste and odor contaminants, reduces aesthetic chlorine, lead, and tiny particulates. The result? Healthy, clean, great-tasting water right from your tap.

This impressed me too!  It’s going to impress me a lot more when we don’t have to buy bottled water.  Our landlord pays for our water, so we’ll be saving a lot not putting out money on buying water at the store!  And the ice!  I buy our ice too because I don’t like the way it tasted before using it from our faucet.  I can make ice again!

I think my parents need one of these.  Since they had rural water installed, their water is safe to drink (vs well water that wasn’t), but they still buy bottled water because it tastes better.  I think they would save a lot too buying the Zuvo Water Purator.

I am really really really impressed by this.  Anything that will make my kids (and myself) want to drink more water is good in my opinion!

Check out Zuvo Water Purator! Then get one for your family!

This definitely gets a

for making my kids actually fight over who gets to get water first, for being something that makes my girls ask for more water, and for making water that I am loving to drink!

Thank you so much to Zuvo for providing me with a Zuvo Water Purator to test and review with our family!

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