Happy St Patrick's Day

We love Charlie Brown and friends! So classic!

We hope everyone is having a great and green day! I know this year we are trying to think more "green" and St. Patrick's Day is a great day to think of new ways to be green. I love that later in our event we will be reviewing Eco-Kids products for art supplies and Sprig Toys for trucks made form recycled materials. I find myself looking harder for eco products than in previous years.
I want to start a mini compost pile so we can incorporate it into our gardening soil. I was browsing Eco Mom and found 3 great products to start with my little idea.

Bamboo Compost Pail

 

White Stoneware Compost Pail

 

Stainless Steel Compost Pail

 

 

 

NurturMe Foods Review and Giveaway

NurturMe is a baby food company that sells naturally grown quick dried baby food that come in light weight, palm-sized pouches. Each pouch has approx 2.5 oz of pureed baby food. You can mix the pouch contents with water, formula or breast milk and it is ready in seconds. The idea is similar to rice cereal where you add water or breast to create the consistency your baby will eat. The nice thing about these sweet little pouches is that you don't have to worry about carrying jars of baby food in your diaper bag, just pull out a pouch or 2 and mix it with your liquid of choice. Depending on the age of your little one, from 4 months to toddler you can add as little or as much liquid as you want. There is a bit more information about the mixing here.

There are 4 flavors to choose from scrumptious squash, hearty sweat potatoes, plump peas and crisp apples. I combined the squash and apples together to create a larger meal and to change up the flavor. He loved it! Yummy for sure!

I took a few pouches out with me on a lunch date with my girlfriend and it worked out great. I asked the waiter for a little bowl, poured out the pouch, added water (it was most convenient) and lunch was served. Not to mention no clean up for me! NurturMe is a nature conscious company that uses recyclable cartons made with wind energy and the with no jars to throw away this is a very "green" way to help the environment! I recommend this to Mom's with little ones who babies are eating their "first" foods and like the convenience of a eco-friendly company.

You can buy NurturMe foods online and at select Whole Foods stores and Babies R Us. 

This is a fairly new company and we look forward to more flavors in the future. They have a twitter campaign going on trying to get their product on the Mothers Day show on Ellen. I hope they get on and you can show your support by retweeting and tweeting to Ellen about it!
  
GIVEAWAY:

For our Moms Leaving the Workforce event NurturMe has generously offered one of our lucky readers the chance to win 2 pouches of each flavor (total of 8 servings) plus a BPA free "Nutritious" spoon

To Enter This Giveaway:
Mandatory entry is to Follow NurturMe on Twitter
*Leave a comment telling me your twitter name and be sure to leave your email address*

Extra Entries can be done after you leave a comment for the mandatory entry:
If the extra entry says 1 extra entry leave 1 comment and 2 extra entries leave me 2 comments and so on.

-Like NurturMe on Facebook +2

-Follow The Coupon Queen Bee on Twitter +1
-Like The Coupon Queen Bee on Facebook +1
-Enter any of the  giveaways during the Moms Leaving the Workforce event +2 for each you have entered.
-Blog about this giveaway and leave me the link to the post +5

*Limited to US residents; 18 years old and above. Giveaway starts March 17 , 2011 and ends on March 31, 2011 at midnight PST.  Winner will be emailed and has 48 hours to respond before another winner is selected. I was not paid for this giveaway or post. I was provided one of each of the flavors for free for this review.

Yum Yum Dishes Review

Yum Yum Dishes were created by a mother who after having her second child realized she was snacking too much and decided to do something about it. She started snacking out of a a small dish and in a short time was back to her original weight. Portion control is how the Yum Yum dish was born. It is a 4 oz. ceramic dish and inside it says, Yum Yum time is over. Pretty cute. It is really hard not to want to refill it, after all it seems so tiny. But you may think twice about refilling the bowl when it tells you that you are finished! haha

Children may find this as a cute way to know that their snack is over. I know that childhood obesity is an issue for many families and these bowls may help teach your child portion control. I have more of the problem with getting my son to eat more so these may also be useful for moms trying to get a child to finish their food until the bowl is empty.
Necessary for an adult? Not really but a super cute way to cut back on snacking and a great reminder to enjoy the little snack you are about to eat! I think this would be more helpful to children.
I did see on the Yum Yum Dishes website that Lisa Mosley, a contestant and single mom from the tv show Biggest Loser is now working with the company to give out a daily tip to your inbox. You can sign up here, bottom right hand side of the page.
You can follow Yum Yum Dishes on facebook and twitter for updates and sales.


** I was not paid or compensated for this post. The opinions in this post are 100% mine and may vary from other opinions. I was provided for free the item in this post for review purposes.

What make my own baby food?

While thinking of all of the ways I needed to save money when I left my full time job. One of the first things that came to my mind was how expensive jarred baby food is. I asked around on what other mothers were doing and then a friend suggested to me that I make my own baby food. With my 1st son I was working full time and I was all about convenience no matter what the cost. I bought the organic brand and never even thought of making his food at home, who has the time? My mother-in-law suggested it once years ago telling me it was easy and I wondered where she thought I would get the time. It just seemed so time consuming and coming up with a variety seemed like a daunting task. Now here I am 3 years later and I am making my my 2nd sons baby food. It is awesome! Not only is it quick, easy and cheaper I exactly what is going in his food. I make up a blender full of whatever fruit or veggie we have, fill up 2-3 ice cube trays and voila dinner is served! I totally recommend you give it a try.

*darn it! my mother-in-law was right*

Build a Dream Playhouses Review and Giveaway

We recently got the chance to review an item from Build a Dream Playhouses. They sell structures made out of cardboard that once you color them and put them together (easy) you get things like a snack shack, castle, spaceship, or a kitchen! I went on the website and showed my son the items they had and at first glance he wanted them all of coarse. There were so many different and cute ideas but he ended up going with the ice cream truck. I thought that he would have picked the castle but he said that he definitely wanted the ice cream truck and I told him to pick. All I heard about was how he was going to make "special deliveries" in his ice cream truck for a few days until the truck came to us in the mail. 

As soon as it was delivered we just had to open it! All of the pieces of cardboard came without any color on them; it was our job to create our own masterpiece. The cardboard pieces have lines on them like a coloring book so you know where to color and what. At first the project seemed a little overwhelming with just the two of us to work on it, my husband was still at work and my son was ready to drive off to make his deliveries the second he saw it. I called up my little sister to come over to help; we laid out all of the pieces and got to work. It was fun to see what colors my son chose for what and I have to admit I enjoyed coloring as well. I also thought a good way to cover larger surfaces would be to cut objects out of magazines and gluing them on, that my son thought was cool. He loved that idea and I let him use the glue stick so he was in heaven. That way we it felt like we had personalized it even more. 

When we were satisfied with our results we started to put it together, by this time my husband was home so he took over the job. It was very easy to do (according to him) everything was labeled by letters so even children could do it. It looked awesome and my son was ecstatic! The back doors open so that you can get in it was huge inside. The little ice cream decorations on top are so cute, but you also have the option to take those off and make it look like a regular delivery truck too. The truck is very sturdy and we were even able to color on it some more while it was "standing up" so we did not need to hurry like I thought we did. The nice thing about the product is that it is sturdy but also light weight. My son can easily pick it up and move it around so he can "drive" around and pretend to take orders for ice cream. 

We have been making "special deliveries" all week and having so much fun!

 The nice thing about Buildadreamplayhouses.com products is that they are 100% recyclable after you are finished and your child has torn it all up in time, which I know my son will do someday. It is made of cardboard and will not last forever so when it is ready to be retired you won't have any guilt about your carbon footprint. This was a great project for our family and would be great for a birthday party or special event. It would be fun to have a party and have several different items like the castle, space shuttle and the ice cream truck and let the kids use their imagination to go wild. After they are finished they can bounce around from each creation!

GIVEAWAY:

For our Moms Leaving the Workforce event Build a Dream Playhouses has generously offered one of our lucky readers the chance to win their very own Ice Cream Truck Playhouse.

To Enter This Giveaway:
Mandatory entry is to Follow Build a Dream Playhouse on Twitter
*Leave a comment telling me your twitter name and be sure to leave your email address*

Extra Entries can be done after you leave a comment for the mandatory entry:
If the extra entry says 1 extra entry leave 1 comment and 2 extra entries leave me 2 comments and so on.

-Visit the Build A Dream Playhouses site and leave a comment about another playhouse you like. +2

-Like Build A Dream Playhouses on Facebook +2

-Follow The Coupon Queen Bee on Twitter +1
-Like The Coupon Queen Bee on Facebook +1
-Enter any of the  giveaways during the Moms Leaving the Workforce event +2 for each you have entered.
-Blog about this giveaway and leave me the link to the post +5

*Limited to US residents; 18 years old and above. Giveaway starts March 16 , 2011 and ends on March 31, 2011 at midnight PST.  Winner will be emailed and has 48 hours to respond before another winner is selected. I was not paid for this giveaway or post.I was provided one Build A Dream Playhouse for free for this review.