It's green and it cleans...

I'm doing my first review. Upfront I want to tell you that I promise you that this isn't going to be one of those blogs that turn into all reviews. I'm not big into them, but feel that if it is something truly relevant to you and your blog then go right ahead. As long as you're honest. :)

Ok so EcoStore contacted me about reviewing some of their products. I read over the e-mail and I was immediately excited. All of you who know me know that I am passionate about products that both are good for you and the environment AND actually work. It's a win/win. So I responded to the e-mail and accepted.

EcoStore makes plant based, non-toxic Household Cleaners, Baby and Personal Care Products that contain No Nasty Chemicals(tm). Their products are available at MEIJER grocery stores (unfortunately not around my neck of the woods) but they do have free shipping on orders of $25 and more.

For my two products I chose Baby Shampoo and Cream Cleanser...

First, the Baby Shampoo.

I only use natural shampoos on my kids. Ever since I first heard about the fact that many baby/kids shampoos contain carcinogens I have not bought a shampoo that hasn't been all natural for them. I'm always on the look out for a better one as I have something that I would change about most that I try.

First impressions? When I opened the bottle K-Girl needed to smell it. She said it smelled good and I agreed. It's a pleasant smell, but nothing overwhelming which is wonderful. When I poured it out it was a bit thinner than some - this isn't a bad thing, just something I have needed to keep in mind as if I'm not thinking I'll pour more than is necessary. It suds up great though and definitely has "sculptability" that is a must with kids shampoo. ;) EcoStore Baby Shampoo left both of the kids with nice smelling, clean hair. It's competitively priced compared to other natural shampoos. I have no complaints with it and would recommend it to you.

I think I need to try some of the natural conditioners next though. I have an awful time with K-Girl's hair knotting up no matter what brand of product I use. EcoStore's conditioners all sound like they would be nice to try as well to fix those knots.

After much procrastination I did finally decide to try out my Cream Cleanser. Cleaning, yes even green cleaning, isn't exactly one of my favorite things to do so of course there was a little procrastination going on. The reason I decided on the cream cleanser for the second product was the fact that I really don't remember seeing a natural cream cleanser. Everything that I use has been spray so I was excited about something that sticks a little better.

I first put it to the test with my kitchen sink. I have no complaints at all. I think I actually heard my sink thank me...it was a much needed scrubbing. Afterwards it was shiny again - yay. Next was a little tougher job, my stove top. I can't tell you how many times I've boiled something over and made mental note that I needed to give it a good scrubbing. It's just one of those things that isn't high on my priority list. It gets wiped, but not often is shown that amount of love.

Here is my stove top before...

And after...

Isn't that one happy looking stove? It did really well on all the REALLY burnt on mess in the little burner trays - not perfect, but I don't think even nasty Clorox and a chisel would have them looking new either. Everything was clean though.

I did the cleaning with bare hands and a sponge since there's nothing to be scared of with this cleaner. Remember, No Nasty Chemicals(tm)?! The smell was "Lemon" according to the package, but it wasn't overwhelming. It did have a light pleasant citrus-y smell to it but I thought it seemed sweeter than lemon. It was not abrasive and didn't leave a residue on anything I cleaned. I was all around quite pleased with the product and thought it did a very good job cleaning - definitely able to hold it's own when up against its bigger nasty competitors.

I was very pleased with this experience with EcoStore and I think you would be too. Now something fun. EcoStore has offered two more of their products to any of my readers for free. So here's the deal - Just go over to EcoStore USA, check out their products, and come back and leave me a comment. Let me know what two products you would choose if you are picked to win and why. Winner will be chosen a week from today - Thursday August 6th - Sorry, no set time - whenever I get up and around and check the computer I'll post the winner. No extra entries for tweets or FB or anything like that but feel free to spread the news if you have friends that would also like to win free eco-friendly cleaners - maybe if they win they'll split the booty with you. ;)

Each person will be assigned a number in the order in which they comment. I will then place the numbers into Random.org's generator and have it choose the winner. The winner MUST have e-mail contact provided in comment or connected to their profile. Upon winning, winner must send me their name, mailing address, and phone number so I can pass the information along to EcoStore and get the 2 products of your choice out to you. If you are not comfortable sharing this information, please do not sign up for the contest.

I'd like to say thank you to Maggie at EcoStore for giving me the opportunity to try out these products and setting me up with a giveaway for my lovely readers. And good luck to all of you. :) Giveaways make me happy. I'm glad I'm able to spread the love.

A recommendation if I may...

Visit Angle over at SevEn cLoWn CirCuS for more Wordful Wednesdays

I recently stumbled upon this lovely combination after a particularly rough day and a lack of my normal Smirnoff Ice. Delicious and refreshing.



My only regret...
I'm out.

Tofu Tuesday #20

Brought to you by...
Kaci@Ellyphant & Kelli@Gohn Crazy

Tofu Tuesday is the place to share all of your vegetarian secrets. If you have a great recipe to share, a product to rave or rant about, or anything that has made being a vegetarian easier for you please share it. (And vegans, please jump in too!!) Feel free to grab the little button over there to the right. After you post come back here and link up down there with MckLinky. Make sure to link to your Tofu Tuesday post and not to your main blog address. I'm looking forward to reading all your posts!

I'm running a bit late this week. Sorry!

I was worried about this recipe but it turned out being quite good. Hope you'll enjoy...

Ziti with Sausage & Zucchini



Serves 6
Total Time ~ 25 min
Cook Time ~ 15 min

Ingredients:

• 1 package(s) (16 ounces) ziti rigate or wagon-wheel pasta
• Salt, to taste
• 3/4 pound(s) sweet Italian-sausage links, casings removed
• 3 medium (about 8 ounces each ) zucchini, each cut lengthwise in half, then cut crosswise into 1/4-inch-thick slices
• 1/4 teaspoon(s) coarsely ground black pepper
• 1 can(s) (28 ounces) whole plum tomatoes
• Grated Parmesan cheese, optional

Some obvious modifications necessary, right?! I used MorningStar's Veggie Italian Style Sausage instead of actual sausage. I was only planning on making this for our family, but due to a goof at the grocery store I ended up having to make this on Thursday when our friends came over - nonveggies. ;) They ate it and said it was very good, although they may have been being nice. haha So I wanted to make it feed more than the 6 that it said. I had 6 sausage links so I used all 6 in this. I only had 2 large zucchinis but it seemed like a decent amount. I also used the wagon wheels and used a full 16 oz box. Other than that I followed the rest of the directions - obviously adding the cheese as everything is better with cheese. ;) In the end it fed 4 adults and 4 1/2 kiddos with 2 nice sized helpings for leftovers.

Directions:

1. In large saucepot, prepare pasta in boiling salted water as label directs.
2. Meanwhile, heat nonstick 12-inch skillet over medium-high heat until hot. Add sausage meat and cook until browned, about 5 minutes, stirring frequently to break up sausage. With slotted spoon, transfer sausage to bowl.
3. Discard all but 1 tablespoon sausage drippings from skillet. Add zucchini, pepper, and 1/4 teaspoon salt and cook until zucchini is golden, about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Stir in tomatoes with their juice; heat to boiling, breaking up tomatoes with side of spoon. Return sausage to skillet. Reduce heat to low; cover and simmer about 5 minutes longer.
4. 4. Drain pasta; return to saucepot. Add sausage mixture; toss well. Serve with grated Parmesan cheese if you like.

And modifications to actually making it are rather straightforward. I made the "sausage" up as directed on the box. After that had cooked I took them out and cut them the same as I cut the zucchini and put them in their own bowl. I had to add a tiny bit of water back to my pan to cook up the zucchini. Once those were cooked up I followed the directions once again. At the end I put it all in a big serving bowls and tossed everything together then topped it all with the cheese. It was delicious.

False Alarm

He said "I poo-poo". I didn't pause to confirm. Sposies are too expensive for false alarms. So I did what any other momma might.

"Honey, could you grab me the tape?!"

Much better. ;)

You're probably wondering what a sposie is doing on my boy anyway. Well we are sort of but not really potty training. Every now and then E-Man wants to sit on the potty. Cloth is just a lot harder to get on and off - especially when you are doing prefolds, but even fitteds since you have a cover as well.

I was looking around over at Diapers.com and sure enough they had trainers in my favorite brand, Nature Babycare. I was so excited! We use their regular sposie diapers at night time and have LOVED them. It all started with a longer trip where sposies would be necessary. I blogged about that HERE. I'm still thrilled with Nature Babycare. I've been using them off and on and nightly for nearly a year and I have never EVER had a leak with these diapers. They put Pampers and Huggies and in my opinion even Seventh Generation diapers to shame.

Image from Diapers.com

So now that we are entering potty training times I will be using these more. There are cloth trainers, but I found when I was cloth diapering K-Girl that once the diaper loads significantly decreased I started running into issues with stink and whatnot. When we are using fewer diapers and have such a good alternative I think it's alright to say goodbye to cloth and go ahead with sposies...well, green sposies of course. ;)

Nature Babycare trainers are just as good as Easy Ups or Pull Ups. They slide up like underwear and the sides can rip incase of poopies. The differences? You aren't going to find all the nasty chemicals in Nature Babycare's trainers/diapers...oh and they aren't going to leak either. We've been through 2 1/2 packs of the trainers so far and they have held just as well as their regular diapers.

But still at price per potty they are too pricey (and wasteful) to toss it for a false alarm and now ripped side seams.

If you would like to try these diapers and have never ordered from diapers.com before you can use my referral code (gohncrazy). This is how it works from diapers.com faqs...

Every new household you refer who joins Diapers.com gets $10 off his/her first order of diapers ($49 minimum purchase). You get a $1 credit for each new referral, plus a $1 credit for every additional order your friend places. You can apply these credits to your next order.

It's a win/win as you get $10.00 off and I get $1.00 credit as well. Every little bit helps. :) I have nothing but raves for Diapers.com. I nearly always get the order within 2 days. Typically the day I send the order (unless Sunday), I get notification of it's packing and ready to ship that same day. I have only ever had one oops where they accidently sent the wrong size and they had someone there not the next day but day after with the new diapers and picked up the mistake pack. They were very nice about it and were eager to right things - including adding a coupon for my next order. I think that can happen anywhere and I don't hold grudges about goofs - it's all on how they deal with the goof (as long as it's not happening often). And shipping is free on orders over $49.00 which is easily done by getting multiple packs of diapers at a time which cuts back on how many times you have to order anyway. I highly recommend them.

Tofu Tuesday #19

Brought to you by...
Kaci@Ellyphant & Kelli@Gohn Crazy

Tofu Tuesday is the place to share all of your vegetarian secrets. If you have a great recipe to share, a product to rave or rant about, or anything that has made being a vegetarian easier for you please share it. (And vegans, please jump in too!!) Feel free to grab the little button over there to the right. After you post come back here and link up down there with MckLinky. Make sure to link to your Tofu Tuesday post and not to your main blog address. This is the first time I'm trying this new way to link up so hopefully it'll all go smoothly. I'm looking forward to reading all your posts!

I'm a bit of a slacker this week as I haven't had groceries in far too long. But I just got back and I've got some yummy meals lined up. I'm going to be making this recipe for the family tomorrow...tonight?....Tuesday evening. So I'm going to go ahead and post the recipe for you to check out and I'll be back to edit after dinner with a picture and my thoughts. I hope it tastes as yummy as it sounds. But something is telling me that I may have to warm up some nuggets or something for the kids...just a hunch. ;)

Bean & Cornmeal Pie
recipe is listed HERE; click on Dinner Pies on the left

2 cans black beans/kidney beans
2 cups chopped onions
1 1/2 cups chopped tomatoes
   {canned tomatoes work, just drain them}
1/4 cup salsa {I use hot}
1 large green pepper
1 cup frozen corn kernels
1 teaspoon cumin
2 teaspoons chili
1 teaspoon or more mixed herbs {i cheated & used Mrs. Dash}
1/2 teaspoon salt

Saute onions & pepper in a little vegetable stock & water till
tender (about 8 mins). Add tomatoes, beans, salsa & corn. Add
the spices and simmer while you get the topping ready.




Topping:

3/4 cup flour
3/4 cup cornmeal
3/4 cup skim milk
2 teaspoons baking powder
dash of salt
2 teaspoons sugar
dash of chili pepper
1 egg white
1/2 cup corn kernels

{Original recipe called for 3 or 4 tablespoons of oil
and 1 whole egg in the batter. I increased the milk slightly,
added about 1/2 more teaspoon of baking powder and used
just the egg white}

Sift together dry ingredients. Beat egg white & milk.
Stir into flour & cornmeal mixture - don't overmix.
Fold in the corn kernels, and spread batter over bean
mixture and bake at 375 degrees for 25 minutes.




I serve this with plain yogurt {reduced fat, can't get
fatfree around my neck of the woods} & extra salsa on the
side.

Ok so obviously we've had this for dinner tonight. YUM! It was delicious and I would definitely make it again. I'm not sure what I really had in mind. I prefer recipes with pictures. ;) Gives you a little idea what you're making. So this was the final product...

For the bean mixture - I didn't add the mixed herbs. I thought I had some Mrs. Dash but it was old...really old and met with the trash can. I also used mild salsa and slightly less chili powder because I didn't want it to be too spicy for either kiddo.

I made the topping as is listed on the recipe (with the modifications). The topping alone lacked some flavor, but eaten with the bottom layer it was perfect. I didn't add anything to mine like yogurt or salsa like the recipe suggested.

I think I'd do this again in a deeper circle baker so that the cornbread layer was a little thicker.

I was right about the kids. They didn't like it. K-Girl picked out some corn and ate some of the breading. E-Man ate a couple bites of breading and that's about it. Oh well. My kids are difficult to please. Well, actually not difficult. They just prefer some nuggets or something like that. Not real food. ;)

Oh well. I still consider this a success.

Things that make you go hmm

The Husband and I have recently rediscovered one of our favorite shows, Top Gear, and have now added it to our TiVo subscriptions. It's a fantastic show - yes it's about cars. But it's more than just a car show. It's got great humor as well. It's quite entertaining. The other night they were showing Season 12 Episode 4 - Racing on Fumes. It got me thinking.

Each of the three guys got to pick a car of their choice to drive from Basel, Switzerland to Blackpool, UK. They said this drive is roughly 750 miles. The catch? This was a race on a single tank of fuel. No fill-ups allowed. They all chose diesels which makes sense as they are more efficient than gasoline engines, but still 750 miles seems like an impossible length for any car. (My Jetta GLI only gets 300 something per tank!) And they were allowed to also choose whatever route they wanted to in order to get there.

Jeremy chose a diesel Jaguar XJ6. He chose a car that he figured would run out of fuel and land him very near his home as it did so. He drove fast with all the extras on. He was trying to throw the impossible race. James chose a Subaru Legacy Diesel and seemed most excited about the race. He picked the car due to the good mpg as well as the fact that since it's a little larger it would have a larger tank. Richard went with the Volkswagen Polo BlueMotion which claims to have a tank range of about 736 miles. They all chose slightly different routes as well. I'm not going to ruin it all incase you choose to look up the episode to see for yourself, but I will say that all of the cars eventually made it. I know I spoiled it a bit, but I won't tell you the winner...although Google or a click HERE would probably ruin that one for you quickly.

There is some confusion with the measurements and the conversion of theirs and ours. The imperial gallon is slightly larger than a US gallon. I found this other site that discusses this same topic and did the conversions for each car. So with credit given, they state that the Jag is listed at 32.3 mpg which is about 27 for us. The Subaru is listed at 56.6 which is about 47. The VW lists at 88.3 which is about 73.5 mpg. SEVENTY-THREE MILES PER GALLON!

Volkswagen Polo BlueMotion Image Credit:
driveblog.co.uk

My question after watching this show is why do we not have these options here?!

The United States does not have much in the form of choices of non-gasoline cars. We have the hybrids which get better gas mileage, but I don't know that they are the only answer. Finally this year Volkswagon is offering their Jetta TDI and Jetta Sportswagen TDI here. But aside from the VW is there any other diesel commonly available to us here? And why don't we have a car available that can get 73 mpg? The Jetta TDI only gets 41 mpg. Though it's better than other cars in comparison it is a LONG cry from the gas mileage of the Polo BlueMotion.

Before this show I had no idea there were cars out there that could do this. Why does our media make it sound to us like such things are not possible? They say things like they are constantly working to make better cars, but there are better cars available already...just not to us. I especially don't understand when a company like VW which has these cars can have them available in Europe but not in the US. I just can't make sense of it.

Some of our options:

Prius (hybrid) - 48/45 mpg
Ford Fusion & Mercury Milan Hybrids both get 41/36
Honda Insight (hybrid) - 40/43
Smart Car - 33/41 mpg
Jetta & Jetta Sportswagen TDI - 30/41

And the list just keeps going down.

Here is an article discussing the different options available in Europe than here and something noteworthy that I picked out -

"The most fuel-efficient cars in Europe all have fuel efficiency over 64 miles to the gallon..."

"In the United States, the top 10 most fuel-efficient cars have efficiency ranging from 30 miles per gallon to just over 60..."

And here is another great article on MSNBC and worth quoting -

"Adding insult to injury is the fact that nearly two-thirds of the 113 highly fuel-efficient models that are unavailable to American consumers are either made by U.S.-based automobile manufacturers or by foreign manufacturers with substantial U.S. sales operations, such as Nissan and Toyota."

It really is messed up, don't you think?!

Flutterby Butterfly

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

At the end of June we went on a field trip with my playgroup to a Butterfly House. It was such a neat place. The entire children's gardens were neat, but the butterfly house especially was not to be missed. I'm not a photographer by any means, but here are some of the gorgeous little butterflies we saw...

I sadly couldn't get close enough to this next flower to get a decent picture, but it was so neat to see so many butterflies trying to get on the same flower. Must have been on special flower.

This was perhaps my favorite of all the butterflies I saw. The light blue in the wings was such a pretty color. Yes, I think this was probably my favorite.

The other thing I liked was this orange butterfly up against the orange flowers. There's something about the combination that I think is absolutely stunning.

And like I said there was other fun things to do in the garden, like dancing with a pig...

chillin' with a cow...

and of course finishing with an ice cream cone...

And this made 5

I got to see Ani again.

This is the 5th time I was fortunate enough to be able to make it to an Ani DiFranco concert. She's my absolute favorite artist. The Husband went over the top and gave me two tickets to her July 9th concert in Baltimore for Mother's Day. I invited my best friend, Robin to come along with me as she and I have been to most of our Ani shows together. It was only fitting that I asked her.

The exciting part to this concert was it was the first concert I was to with general admission. I had always been somewhere that you were assigned a seat and therefore never got that close to the front. I told Robin that this time we were going to the front and she was equally as pleased.

When we got to the venue we passed by the entrance doors and could hear Ani doing her sound check. A friendly couple ladies told us to peak through the door and we would be able to see her. Sure enough...

there she was (middle in the white shirt).

Now I didn't have my camera as they said no cameras so all these pictures are with my phone which they didn't seem to have a problem with since EVERYONE had their phones out taking pictures. The quality isn't there, but still. These are all without a zoom.

Very neat start to the evening. So we went off walking around Inner Harbor until we decided to eat dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. It was delicious. After dinner we headed back to stand in line - doors at 7 and show and 8. We were left in and promptly grabbed our places just slightly off to the right of center stage and only one body back from the front rail. SO EXCITING!

The opening act was The Guggenheim Grotto which was two Irish guys. One who sings and plays keyboard and the other that sings and does the guitar. Great music.

When Ani came out on stage I just couldn't believe how close we actually were. The sound wasn't awesome, because we were in front of the speakers, but that didn't matter to me at all. What was awesome was to be able to see the detail - to see her expressions. Amazing.

It was an amazing show.

Here's one of her newer songs that I just love...



I look forward to my next show. Robin and I have been talking about taking the boys to the next one. Hopefully I'll be able to line up a babysitter to make that happen.

The end of one chapter...the beginning of another

As of this past Saturday a crib is no longer a necessary piece of furniture in our home. For 5+ years we have had the same crib set up and most of that time it has been home to one of the two kiddos. It is definitely a moment to sit and reflect on.

It's hard to believe that I no longer have babies. That's a chapter of my life that is over. I'm both relieved and sad. Babies are great to snuggle, but they are difficult as well. Especially having the baby that I did in E-Man, I think I can say good-bye to those days without regret. We're done with two and are happy with that choice.

When K-Girl transitioned to the twin bed from the crib (at about 18 months) my aunt gave us the old twin bed that she had. It was old but it served it's purpose. We had said that we would use it with K-Girl until E-Man reached the age of moving to a twin bed and then we would get her a new one. The day had arrived.

We went out and picked a new bed with K-Girl. We settled on a twin bed with a trundle. She wanted bunk beds but I just couldn't do it. For the extra money that they cost and the hassle of changing the sheets and the worry of someone falling out of the top it just wasn't worth it. So this was the perfect marriage of the need and the want. Now when sleepovers start we will have a place for friends to sleep. We didn't order the trundle piece at this time, but will have to order that soon. It's nice that it's an extra piece so we can order that when we get a little more cash in the near-er future (because we can't wait too long so they don't discontinue that bed style).

This is K-Girl's new bed...

And caught during a (very rare) nap...

Initially we had to put her bed rail on her new bed. We tried to convince her that she wouldn't fall out, but she wouldn't have it. After one nap and moving the old mattress on the floor underneath her bed to "cushion her fall should she fall out" she decided to take off the rail. This made us extremely happy as we could then transfer her old rail to E-Man's bed and return the $25.00 rail we had picked up the night before. And for what it's worth, she hasn't fallen out nor even come close. You see how she sleeps. It's more of a perpendicular position to the bed. She's not really going to roll off.

And now E-Man has inherited the hand-me-down bed. We did get him a new mattress as the one that was on there was in pretty sad shape and was old. It's amazing how looking at your child in a crib and then looking at the same child on the same day in a twin bed just ages them so much. He looks like such the big boy.

With help from E-Man, we settled on a transportation theme for his "big boy" room. (There was a very close second of robots.) We got the bedding, valence, and lamp. Now we need to strip the border we have up from the nursery theme and paint the top portion of the walls. The Husband likes the idea of using the yellow color from the bedding as the top portion of the walls and I think I agree. I had thought about doing a new border in a color resembling the street and then painting yellow lines down the middle and making a border that way between the two colors. The Husband is also thinking of making a stop and yield sign like on the bedding to hang on his walls as well. Hopefully within the next month or so we'll be able to solidify our plan and make it happen. It really drives the anal side of me crazy to have the jungle animal nursery theme and the cars and trucks together when they don't completely match. ;) So soon, and I will post pictures when we are finished.

Here's E-Man in his big boy bed...

All in all the move from crib to bed is going well. Naps are still going on as they had. Bedtimes have not been any more difficult since the switch. I'd say that it was time and he was ready. But it's still odd walking into his room and not seeing a crib as it has been in that room since we moved into this house 4 1/2 years ago.

*sniff sniff*

Tofu Tuesday #18

Brought to you by...
Kaci@Ellyphant & Kelli@Gohn Crazy

Tofu Tuesday is the place to share all of your vegetarian secrets. If you have a great recipe to share, a product to rave or rant about, or anything that has made being a vegetarian easier for you please share it. (And vegans, please jump in too!!) Feel free to grab the little button over there to the right. After you post come back here and link up down there with Mr. Linky. Make sure to link to your Tofu Tuesday post and not to your main blog address. (Please leave your link in the comments as Mr. Linky has been very temperamental lately.) I'm looking forward to reading all your posts!

Mmmmmm!! Guys, this was crazy yummy! It's easy chik'n parm.

I used...
Ronzoni Healthy Harvest Whole Wheat Thin Spaghetti
Bertolli Organic Tomato & Basil Pasta Sauce
Quorn Chik'n Patties
some mozzarella cheese
and some super yummy Pepperidge Farm Texas Toast in Mozzarella & Monterey Jack...and the healthy part of the dinner is over. haha ;)

Cook up the chik'n patties as directed on the package. Right before they are done pour some of your pasta sauce on top and sprinkle cheese on top of sauce. Put them back into the oven and cook just until the cheese is melted. DELISH!

I'm also a huge fan of the Healthy Harvest pasta. We almost never eat white pasta. Super yummy and better for you!

This was the first time we had tried the Bertolli pasta sauce, but I don't think it will be the last. The sauce had great flavor and it's a definite bonus that it's organic.

The official pictures

So it's official, the kids are another year older and we have the pictures to prove it.  Looking at the pictures makes it even more real to me.  Where have my babies gone and how did they turn into these little people so quickly?! 

Don't mind the variety in sizing and whatnot.  My scanner hates me and does not do well when I ask it to scan pictures with white backgrounds.  But you get the... picture, haha pun intended.  

K-Girl - 5 years & E-Man - 2 years

Oh my, the difference a year makes! Click here to view the kiddos last year.