My Family Archives - Page 12 of 15

Backyard Campout + $50 Kohl’s Gift Card Giveaway

April 15, 2016 by Tamara 41 Comments

Disclosure: This post is sponsored. While I was not paid to write this post I did receive product from Kohl’s.

The giveaway has closed. Thanks to all who entered.

I know many families who camp with little kids. Some as young as three weeks old. I applaud you parents out there who are so adventurous and have this camping thing down. Josh and I on the other hand do NOT have this down yet. We decided to play our first family “campout” safe and pitched our tent in the backyard.

This tent is not like any tent I remember from my camping and backpacking experience. It set up quickly and features a built-in closet with shelves and hanger bar to organize gear and clothes. It easily fit a queen size air mattress plus the two sleeping bags for the kids.

The kids favorite was the air mattress. And it wasn’t because it was super comfortable but because they treated it like their own personal trampoline. Josh and I didn’t have a problem with them jumping on it all because it is made that well. No need to worry about the mattress deflating.

Since we didn’t have any sleeping bags for the kids we ordered them each their own kid size sleeping bag. They look so cute in them and the kids seemed really comfortable.

We knew that our backyard family campout would be a big success in the eyes of the kids and to keep the fun times rolling we set up their very own Kids Coleman Wonder Lake 2-Person Dome Tent indoors. For the price (under $35), this tent is pretty awesome. If you were going backpacking or didn’t mind sleeping close to another person this tent can fit two adults. There wouldn’t be room for anything else in the tent with you but I mention it because it is well made and would work if you are on a budget or looking for a small easy to assemble two person tent.

Lastly we received this amazing Coleman lantern. This lantern has 4 detachable side panels that can be used to light up separate areas of your campground or combined for a more traditional lantern experience. When I told Josh I had ordered a lantern he wasn’t super thrilled until he took it out the box and actually saw how it worked. It runs off batteries and offers up to 75 hours of light.

For our backyard campout we grilled hotdogs and had chili but the highlight of our camping food was our oven made s’mores. They are super simple and easy to make. I was even able to find some GMO free marshmallows!

To make oven baked s’mores preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Lay 1/2 of the graham crackers on a cookie sheet. Top with chocolate pieces to cover. Use kitchen scissors to snip the marshmallows in 1/2 horizontally. Place the marshmallow halves on graham cracker. Bake until the marshmallows are puffed and golden brown, about 3 to 5 minutes. Remove from the oven and top with the remaining graham crackers, pressing down slightly to make a sandwich. Serve immediately, while still warm.

Now that we have done this backyard campout I feel a little more at ease to graduate ourselves to actually going camping in the woods.

Thanks to Kohl’s you have a chance to win a $50 gift card! You can check out their awesome selection of camping gear and let me know what you would purchase if you win! That is all you need to do to enter. Tell me what you would get if you win! Also I would love to know have you gone camping with your kids? Or where is your favorite place to go camping or hiking?

Good luck!

Winner is Amanda S., please check your email and respond back in 24 hours. Thanks to all who entered.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Filed Under: My Family, Sponsored Post Tagged With: Camping. S'mores, Coleman, Giveaway, Kohl's

The Elimination Diet

July 13, 2015 by Tamara 3 Comments

Josh and I love listening to podcasts and back in March I found myself listening to Underground Wellness and the host was interviewing Tom Malterre <—link to the interview. I had never heard of him or his wife Alissa before and was immediately intrigued by their book The Elimination Diet he was promoting.

Tom holds both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in nutrition from Bastyr University, has advanced training from the Institute for Functional Medicine, and over a decade of clinical experience. His wife Alissa is the blogger behind NourishingMeals.com. This website is filled with healthy, wholesome, gluten-free recipes. Check out her recipes. They are great!

Normally I am not one to run home and preorder a book but after listening to Tom talk I was convinced that I needed to have a copy. The premise of this book is to discover the foods that are making you sick and tired so that you can feel better fast. Sounds pretty great, right?

Both Josh and myself had reached a point where we were willing to try something drastic if it meant seeing changes in how we both felt. I had been dealing with chronic skin issues around my eyes and lips that would leave my skin red, irritated, and flaking off. It was pretty horrible and painful. Josh has had awful sinus congestion since I have known him. His nose is constantly stuffy. If you came to our house you would see the kleenex boxes in every room.

In April our family embarked on this journey to hopefully eliminate some of our skin, sinus, and digestion issues. We understood that this was going to be a process and we committed to giving 100% to this effort.

In order to be successful there are several major things we needed to be able to commit to:

Say goodbye to genetically modified foods. If you are unfamiliar about why this is a big deal here is a brief explanation. GMOs are organisms that have had a sequence of its DNA changed so it will produce different proteins. When I started really reading and researching about this I have never been more disturbed. Visit Nourishing Meals GMO-Free to read about why this is important and how to avoid GMOs or check out My City Was Gone from your local library to learn how Monsanto completely destroyed an entire town and how the town fought back and won a multimillion dollar lawsuit.
Say hello to organic! This was one of the big ones I was worried about. The main concern being $$$. But we have done it and honestly we are only spending slightly more because we haven’t been out to eat since April. I am still very amazed and proud of us that we have eaten all our meals at home and we have cooked all of them.
Reducing our chemical exposure. We packed away all our plastic water bottles and storage containers and invested in stainless steal or glass. Our cleaning supplies are already very non toxic so that wasn’t a drastic change for us and we switched up our toothpaste and toiletries to make sure they didn’t contain any parabens.
Use supplementation to support your diet. Oh my! This one was really tough for me. I am supper picky about supplements. Like very picky. If it hasn’t been third party tested it doesn’t come into our house and we won’t buy it. If you are unfamiliar with third party testing it is where a company pays for an outside source to test their products to verify what they say is in the bottle is actually in the bottle. I was relieved to see the products recommended for use in this book were from Thorne which is a very great company who uses third party testing.
Upgrade your kitchen (if needed). We own a food processor and Vitamix already but there were a few small items we needed to upgrade like our plastic cutting boards to wood and we bought a tortilla press and cast-iron skillet. Thankfully I was familiar with most of the items on the shopping list even if they weren’t staples in our pantry.
No cheating. If you cheat on this plan you will alter the results. I like the quote in the book “100 percent effort equals 100 percent results”. The smallest bit of irritating food can set off your immune system. You will not be able to pinpoint the foods that work and don’t work with your body chemistry if you cheat. If you think you might cheat or feel that it would be ok to cheat don’t do this diet. It isn’t worth the investment of your time and money for just a few weeks if you know you are going to go back to eating the same way you were before you started.

If you had told me 8 years ago before my husband and I were married that we would be doing this I would have had a really hard time believing you. Josh works for the fire department and every shift the entire crew pulls their own money together to buy food for the days meals. Josh loves eating at work with his crew and cooking for them. I have to give praise to my husband on how committed he has been during these last few months. He has brought his meals and snacks from home every shift day. Not an easy feat to accomplish by any means and I am super proud of him.

It has been over 3 months since we have started. All of our meals that we have eaten have been cooked by myself or Josh in our home. It has been a huge commitment but I can now gladly say that all the time, energy, and money that was spent has been well worth the effort.

What does this exactly looks like?

There are 3 phases to this program. Phase one is a two day detox which is all about the smoothies and soups. I skipped this phase because I was breastfeeding but Josh did this detoxification. We planned this to land on his 4 days off from work. Phase 2 is feeding your body with neutral foods and lasts for two weeks. We are currently in Phase 3 and this is when you reintroduce foods back into your system. You reintroduce one food every 3 days. If you have any symptoms during those 3 days you wait until the symptoms subside before you reintroduce anything else.

The book goes in to detail about why these foods are eliminated but the major foods you eliminate are…

Wheat
Gluten
Dairy
Corn
Soy
Alcohol
Beef
Pork
Chocolate
Caffeine
Citrus
Eggs
Nightshades
Tree Nuts
Peanuts
Sesame
Sugar
Yeast

I know that list can look very intimidating but I promise this is not a deprivation diet. You will feel amazing as you are healing your body. The book is written very well and the first half of the book gives the science and background about how the elimination diet works, preparing for the elimination diet, and how to heal yourself with this diet. The second half of the book contains the yummiest recipes! To me that is what sold me on this book. It guides you through the entire process and sets you up to have the best results possible.

Our favorite recipes from the book include brown rice tortillas, banana muffins, cucumber mint salad, coconut cinnamon roasted sweet potatoes, herb roasted salmon, chicken spinach burgers, chai spiced sunflower truffles, almond butter cookies, creamy rice cereal, coconut quinoa breakfast porridge, chicken apple breakfast sausage, and chicken vegetable soup.

I will also add that we followed this diet 100% while when went on a family vacation to San Diego. We had a full kitchen where we stayed and were close to a Whole Food and Sprouts. We planned ahead for our road trip and I cooked and baked for two days. Was it super fun to do that before we left. Not really, but it was pretty great knowing that we were going to be eating what we would have been eating at home. Deviating from the plan wasn’t an option for us and we made it work. You can make anything work if you are committed.

Our results

We are still in the elimination process. We have yet to introduce dairy, wheat, gluten, alcohol, or caffeine back into our system. What I can tell you is that based on the items we have introduced I have discovered several items my body does not agree with.

The first being citrus. I was so surprised by the massive stomach cramps I had. Horrible cramps where I was doubled over in pain. The worst part is I was drinking lemonade and lemon water every single day prior to starting this program. Crazy. Yeast also gave my really bad stomach cramps. Go figure, I was having kombucha daily.

When I introduced eggs back in my body started producing gas. It wasn’t fun or pleasant. And I immediately knew it was the eggs because it was the first time this had happened since starting the program. I also had a major break out on my forehead and neck. I used to have eggs in some form every single day.

Josh is fairly certain he will react to either dairy, wheat, or gluten once we challenge those. He has been feeling amazing since we started and his sinus issues are gone!

My skin issues have dramatically improved and I can’t tell you how amazing it feels. My lips are 100% better and my eyes are 95% better. They only time my eyes bother me is right before my period. They flair up slightly but nothing that is noticeable, they are just itchy. I was dealing with constipation before we began this and now I can say that is not the case anymore and have become very regular. Yay!

I highly recommend The Elimination Diet and think it is a great resource. If you have any unexplained symptoms or are struggling with achy joints, irritability, fatigue, bloating, brain fog, or weight gain the foods you eat everyday may be to blame. I do believe that everyone could benefit in some way from this program.

PS…If you don’t already listen to Underground Wellness it is a great podcast! Check it out if you are into health, fitness, and self-care.

Filed Under: Health, My Family, Nutrition, Personal, Recipes Tagged With: Alissa Segersten, The Elimination Diet, Tom Malterre, Underground Wellness

How I Convinced My Husband To Cloth Diaper Our Baby

June 17, 2014 by Tamara 11 Comments

If you had told me even a year before Caden was born that we would be cloth diapering him I would have laughed. I never thought this would be something I would be doing. We used disposables for the first few months of Caden life and while they were super convenient and easy to use we were spending so much money on diapers. As a family living on a very modest income I started rethinking my views on cloth diapering.

I began researching the benefits on cloth diapering, how much it would cost vs. how much our family would save, and all the ins and outs of exactly what I would be getting myself into if we decided to go the route of cloth diapers. I knew if I could create a solid presentation to my husband on the benefits of cloth diapering it would outweigh the initial upfront cost to purchase everything that would be needed.

If you or your significant other is on the fence about cloth diapering check out why Josh and I decided to take the plunge. There are lots of good reasons why cloth diapering might be the way to go for your family but I know it is not for everyone and that is ok. Read to the end to see the basics you need to get started.

COST OF DISPOSABLES VS. CLOTH

During Caden’s first month of life we used 287 disposable diapers. We were changing him every 1-2 hours during this time. Because newborns need to be changed so often I am glad that we didn’t start cloth diapering him until he was a few months old. To be honest I probably would have gone slightly crazy trying to keep up with the laundry. We will wait to cloth diaper our newborn daughter until she is a few weeks old just to make it easier on us.

Disposables: Let’s assume that you decided to buy your diapers from Amazon.com and you picked Huggies Little Snugglers Diapers to cover your newborns bum. For a box that contains 88 disposables you are paying $24.99 which equals out to $0.28 a diaper. And let’s also assume you are going to be using on average 60 diapers a week. Every month you would be spending around $66 for diapers and over two years this adds up to grand total of $1600!

Cloth: If you have ever looked into cloth diapering or currently cloth diaper your child you know how much one type of cloth diaper can differ from the next in price. So depending on what type of diaper and brand you buy your cost could vary greatly from mine. We spent $350 to build our stash of 24 diapers and to also buy several accessories. Over the last year we have added a few items that I feel were a must to make the process a little easier, so as of today our grand total spent is probably more around $500. Next week I will be covering my favorite cloth diaper brands, how much they cost, and why I love them.

PEE, POO, AND EWWW

Changing a babies diaper is not the worst thing in the world but at times it is not the most pleasant. While the ease and convenience of disposables diapers is wonderful I can honestly say that once you get into the routine of dealing with pee and poo in a cloth diaper it is really not so bad. Yes it does take a tad bit longer to clean up but I think it is worth a few extra minutes to save over $1000. I will be covering more on how we handle the poo in a later post. But I will say that because I was exclusively breastfeeding Caden until he was 6 months old we could treat all the diapers the same. Everything could go straight into the washing machine, poo and all (I know it sounds gross but trust me the breastfed baby poo washes away and does not leave a trace on your washer or diapers). This made cloth diapering an easier sell because we didn’t have to worry about rinsing anything off into the toilet for the first several months.

HEALTH CONCERNS WITH DISPOSABLE DIAPERS

As a parent and someone who has become increasingly interested over the years in products that are placed or come in contact with the body I think this is an important subject to bring up. The more research I began doing on this topic the more I realized that I had no clue as to what goes into these products to make them do the things they do.

Dioxin: Most disposable diapers are treated with chlorine and the byproduct left behind from this treatment is dioxins. If you look up dioxin in the dictionary here is what you will find…

a highly toxic compound produced as a byproduct in some manufacturing processes, notably herbicide production and paper bleaching. It is a serious and persistent environmental pollutant.

Dioxins are carcinogens, and while they can be found on diapers they are also found on sanitary pads and tampons. But to put things in perspective, a 2002 study that analyzed dioxin levels in four types of diapers didn’t find the most potent known dioxin (2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin) in any of the diapers tested. So while this could be considered good news, the fact remains that your baby might be exposed to minuscule amounts while wearing diapers.

Sodium Polyacrylate: If you have ever seen a disposable diaper explode you have seen the beads of the super-absorbent material that has been used in diapers since the 1980s to make them wonderfully pee-absorbent. sodium polyacrylate, absorbs 300 times its weight in tap water via osmosis. Some claim that this can cause skin irritations and allergic reactions. Sodium polyacrylate was removed from tampons in the 1980s after links to toxic shock syndrome, but it is still debated among experts if this is truly the cause for TSS or if women were wearing their tampons for days at a time causing a rich breeding ground for bacteria.

There are other suggestions that disposables diapers have been linked to increased asthma rates and also contribute to male infertility. I am no scientist and have not seen a study that can prove these claims but thought I would mention them so you know the health concerns parents have against putting their child in a disposable diaper.

DISPOSABLES DIAPERS COULD STILL BE USED

What? Didn’t you just tell us the health concerns behind disposables? Yes I did. I think as a consumer of any product, especially products you are going to use for your child, it is important to take a little time and research what you are planning on using. But I also was aware that cloth diapering wasn’t always going to work for everyone who watches Caden (including Josh and myself at times) or during special circumstances. So I told Josh we could still use disposables but we would try to mainly use cloth and see what happened. I think having a general plan is a great idea anytime you are trying something new. At first we tried to cloth diaper Caden at night. But over a few weeks the smell from his hemp insert started to reek. Like make your eyes water when we would change him in the morning. So to solve that problem we put Caden in disposables at bedtime each night. Disposables are also great to use if your little ones get sick with a stomach bug or if you are planning in being away from home for a long stretch of time.

ECO-FRIENDLY

While some will cite the added use of water used in washing cloth diapers as an environmental concern no less important than our ever filling landfills, it is important to note that a great deal of water is used to produce disposable diapers too. In addition disposable diapers contain petroleum-based ingredients, also a non-renewable resource. Many studies have proven that disposable diapers negatively impact the environment both in the production and disposal after use.

CLOTH DIAPER LAYETTE

If you have decided to take the plunge or are leaning that way here is what you can plan on buying to get you started. I will cover these items in more detail in the following weeks. This overview should give you a basic idea of what you will need. Depending on when you decide you will be cloth diapering your little one you can always include some of these items on your baby shower registry. Also check Craigslist too! I know it sounds weird but you can find lots of great deals on cloth diapers and accessories.

24 – 36 Diapers (I will be discussing my favorite types and brands next week)
Additional Inserts: these will add additional absorbency to your diapers and help prevent leaks
Wet Bag or Pail Liner: waterproof bag where you will store your diapers between washes
On The Go Wet Bag: waterproof bag for storing your dirty diapers when you are on the go
Cloth Wipes
Wipe Spray
Diaper Sprayer: attaches to your toilet to help remove solid waste
Detergent

There you have it! Those are the main ways that I convinced Josh, and myself, that we should cloth diaper our baby. The biggest selling point was the cost difference overtime between disposables vs. cloth. Now that we have Maisie we will be saving even more money because we already have everything we need to cloth diaper.

Do you cloth diaper or have you wanted to try? Why or why not?

If there is any other health, fitness, nutrition, mommy related product you would like me to investigate let me know. Chances are good I have already researched it and would be happy to share my thoughts and what I have learned with you.

Filed Under: Health, My Family Tagged With: Cloth Diapering