Swimming Pool Safety for Summer!

It's summer again! Time for outdoor fun, swimming and cookouts! Unfortunately, drowning is the #1 cause of death in children ages 1-4. If you have a swimming pool or you plan to take your children swimming this summer, here are some facts you need to be aware of: (I found these facts on The Mommyhood Chronicles Blog)

• Drowning is the leading cause of injury deaths for children in the US between the ages of 1 and 4.
• Children in that age group have the highest rates of both fatal and non-fatal drowning, with half of all fatal incidents occurring in swimming pools.
• Analyzing national death and accident records from 2005-2009, the CDC report found that, on average, 3,880 people annually die in the US due to drowning.
• An estimated 5,790 people were treated in hospital emergency rooms for non-fatal drowning.
• The drowning death rate among men was 4 times higher than that of women, the study also found.
• Overall, drowning rates have dropped in the last decade and that's a good sign that prevention efforts are working, but that's not a reason to let your guard down, especially when it comes to our kids.

For me, pool safety is a must because my 4 year old, Jaden, doesn't have a fear of water. He never has. Ever since he was a baby, he wasn't afraid to put his head under the water and would just jump in any pool even if there was nobody there to catch him! I will be signing Jaden up for swimming lessons this summer. My community offers swimming lessons at 2 different places. The community pool at the park, and our local YMCA. Check with places in your town for swimming lessons for your children. It's usually not that expensive but really you can't put a price on your child's safety.

Here are some additional tips to prevent a drowning accident: (These tips are according to Philadelphia Attorney Ross Feller Casey.)

• Parents and children should learn survival swimming skills.
• Environmental protectors, such as isolation pool fences and lifeguards, should be in place.
• Alcohol should be avoided while swimming, boating, water skiing, or supervising children.
• Lifejackets should be used by all boaters and weaker swimmers.
• Caregivers and Supervisors should have CPR training.

With summer here and the sun blazing down in the hottest temperatures we've had in years, I urge us as parents, to be very careful with our kids around pools. Pools can be a great place for fun for our children and with some basic pool safety we can achieve a great summer! So have fun and BE SAFE!

Until next time, 

Make It Personal Personalized Invitation Review and Giveaway! Ends 06/14

My son Jaden will be turning 5 this summer! I almost can't believe it! Time has passed so quickly and now my baby will be going to kindergarten this fall! I believe that the 5th birthday party is a special one since it signifies him being old enough for school so I want to make this party as special as I can! What better way to commemorate Jaden's big 5th birthday than having personalized invitations to his party! I contacted the owner of an Etsy store called Make It Personal and she worked with me to create an amazing invitation for Jaden's big day! It was so easy and the owner of the store walked me through every step! All I had to do was email her a picture and the details for the party, then pick a design I liked from her many options in her store. You can browse her designs HERE! Then she emailed me back the link to my personalized invitation! You can see the finished design below--

 

Because this is a public blog, I had to block some of the personal info out. The white boxes are not normally in the original design! When she sent me the email with the invitation in it, I had to download it from there. Then I transferred it to a flash drive, took the flash drive to Walmart and used their picture maker there to print out as many invitations as I needed! So the design cost $9.00 and then to print out the number of invitations that I needed cost me $4.50! Not bad for personalized invitations that our friends and family will get to keep as a momento of Jaden's 5th birthday party! I don't know about you, but when I get an invitation or a holiday card from family or friends that has a picture of the kids or the whole family on it, I keep it in my photo album! Sometimes that's the only way that I have recent pictures of second cousins and some of my other entended family! It's my hope that people keep this invitation in their photo albums! 

It's also my hope that you, my dear reader, will contact Make It Personal for all your invitation or announcement needs! She not only offers birthday invitations for all ages, she also offers birth announcements, baby shower and wedding showers invitations, business card and logo designs, thank you notes and party games to print out!

You can also contact the owner at her Facebook page, and also at her Twitter page!  

Win It: Make It Personal is offering one Lucky Emerald's reader a $10 gift certificate to the store so you can personalize your own! Just fill out the rafflecopter below for your chance to win! Good luck!

 Disclaimer: The product(s) featured in this review were provided free of cost to me by the manufacturer. Opinions expressed are totally my own and are NOT in anyway influenced by monetary compensation.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Win $500 (US Dollars) Cash with ContestChest.com!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

100% Soy Jar Candles from We Make Scents Candle Co!

I am and have always been a HUGE candle lover! It's almost bordering on an obsession really! Anywhere I went, if I saw there were candles for sale, I would have to buy at least one of them. I've burned candles from literally hundreds of companies and after awhile, I started to learn what I liked and what I didn't like about certain candles. I learned that I didn't like paraffin wax because it burned too fast and didn't hold enough scent. I learned that certain types of wicks burned a hole straight down the center of the candle and didn't burn the outside edges. I also learned which candles would produce black smoke when it was blown out. So I took what I learned about each candle to create my own line of candles that burned exactly how I wanted them to! My family, friends, and I liked them so much, I decided to share them with others and open my own business selling the candles that I love so much!

Introducing, We Make Scents Candle Co! All the magic happens in my kitchen on my stove with love! I use 100% Soy wax so each half-pint candle will burn for 80+ hours and holds enough scent to travel from room to room. I also use lead-free wicks that are the perfect size for the jars, allowing the candle to burn evenly. Not just a hole down the center of the candle. I put 2 ounces of scent in each candle, which is at least twice the amount of scent in most candles on the market! You will definitely be able to smell these candles!

A few of my candles!

As you can see in the photo above, I also make scented tealights and wax tarts for tart warmers! Each tart and tealight is approximately 2 ounces of wax and is scented just as much as the full-sized candles. Each tealight will burn for about 2 hours and each tart can be melted in your warmer at least 4 times before losing scent. 

How to get your own We Make Scents candles:

Full-sized half-pint Jar candles sell for $6 each.

Tealights sell for $4 for 4

Wax tarts sell for $4 for 4. You can mix and match scents on both tealights and tarts!

Special offer for May: If you buy 5 candles, you get your 6th for FREE!

Go to my facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/WeMakeScentsCandleCo for all the current news and scent lists! You can place orders there by leaving a comment! You may also email me at daisies0999@yahoo.com with any questions or to place an order!

Here are a few of the scents I have right now:

Clean Cotton

Love Spell

Orange Dreamsicle

 

Very Vanilla

Pecan Pie

Hot Baked Apple Pie

Mulberry

Dragon's Blood

 I also have Cinnamon Bun, English Garden, Apple Harvest, Gingerbread, Sweet Pea, Black Cherry, and Cucumber Melon!

Here's what one of my regular customers had to say:

I have been a customer of "We Make Scents" since the very beginning, and I have bought candles from Tammy before that, I was very excited when she started making them again. During her candle making break I tried candles/tarts from Walmart and Scentsy, and neither of them were at all as good as I used to buy from Tammy! The Wax she uses isn't paraffin like theirs, so there's no residue when they melt, and the scent lasted so much longer, not to mention her great prices! I can't wait until I run out so I can buy more!  Kelli L.




Thanks for reading about We Make Scents Candle Co. and I hope you'll become a customer soon! 


Until next time,

Custom Glass Gem Table Decorations from personalizedpebbles Review!

Have you ever been to a party or a wedding where there are little personalized glass pebbles sprinkled around the centerpiece of the table? I have always thought they looked so elegant and it was such a nice personal touch! I recently had the chance to review a set of personalized pebbles from personalizedpebbles Etsy store! She sent me 10 large pebbles and 35 small pebbles in one bag that were personalized with pictures of my son Jaden on the large stones and different sayings on the small stones. I wanted to use the pebbles for my son's 5th birthday party in August so on the small stones, I had her put Happy Birthday, Jaden is 5!, and 8-1-2012. She also sent me a surprise bag that I wasn't expecting! The bag had 35 small pebbles in it and they had a variety of pictures on them! Birthday presents, a birthday cake, party hats, and balloons!

 

The owner of personalizedpebbles, Casey, is very nice and accomodating! She helped me to create my pebbles every step of the way! My pebbles came very quickly in the mail so if you are needing some for a party that is coming up, I would say order about a week ahead of time and you'll get them in plenty of time!

All in all, I am very pleased with how the pebbles turned out and what a pleasant experience it was to order from personalizedpebbles! She carries pebbles for baby showers, birthdays, bridal showers and weddings!


To order your own: Go talk to Casey at personalizedpebbles! The link for the ones in the top picture is HERE and they sell for $15.00. The link for the ones in the bottom picture is HERE and they sell for $7.50! That is so affordable!

Disclaimer: The product(s) featured in this review were provided free of cost to me by the manufacturer. Opinions expressed are totally my own and are NOT in anyway influenced by monetary compensation.

Until next time,

Xbox Kinect Bundle Giveaway Free Sign-ups! Open Now!

Techy Tribe and Mom to Bed by 8 is proud to present the Techy Summer Xbox Kinect Bundle Event from July 8 to July 22. This is a free blogger event and accepting signups now.

Join the Techy Summer Xbox Kinect Bundle Giveaway event today, grow your readership and offer a gamers must have giveaway!

• If you do not wish to post the announcement, send the $5 via paypal togoodnightmommyboutique@gmail.com with your email address and Techy Summer Xbox Event in subject line or notes portion of the form.
• Once you have posted your announcement or sent the paypal payment, fill out this form.
• You will receive an email from me with 7 days, confirming your participation. If you do not, please email me at teri@momtobedby8.com and I will check into it for you.
• Then around July 5th you will receive another email from me with the html code for publishing the giveaway.  Note it is required that you publish the giveaway html in full to be included in this event. I will verify links on July 22^st around 8am central and if you have not done so, your link on the rafflecopter will be removed. This keeps this event fair for all who joins.

Referral prize: The two bloggers who refer the most people will receive a $10 Amazon e-code for your effort. Just make sure to add on your announcement that they should add your blog name or url in the referred by section on the signup form. This bonus will be paid the on June 2^nd after your referral links have been verified.

Cook'N Recipe Organizer Review!

I like to cook, really I do. But I'm one of those cooks that needs a recipe or it's not going to turn out good! I was offered the chance to try out and review this amazing software, Cook'N Recipe Organizer! This program is so easy to use and it's a great way to manage all your recipes and organize them in a snap! With this software you can:

• Search the internet for recipes in seconds.
• Enter and organize your own recipes.
• Capture recipes from the internet.
• Adjust recipe serving sizes automatically.
• Email recipes to family and friends.
• Create weekly menus and make shopping lists
• Analyze nutritional value of any recipe.
• Print family cook books.

I tried out the Cook'N recipe software and was extremely impressed! I had a recipe that I had written down from a magazine that I wanted to transfer into the program so I just started typing the ingredients and there are so many ingredients already programmed in, once I started typing, the program basically finished it for me! When I wanted to type "1 Cup" all I typed was the C and the program dropped down a menu with all the possible words and Cup was the first one so I just clicked on it and it was filled in for me. Then I needed to type in Brown Sugar so I typed Br and again it dropped down and brown sugar was right that for me to click! It was so easy and quick to enter the entire ingredient list, I couldn't believe it!

 

Another easy way to get recipes is the capture button. I typed Chicken Quesadillas (one of my son's favorite meals) into the search bar on the Cook'N program and it pulled up several different recipes from different websites. Once I found the recipe I wanted, I pushed the "Capture" button and the program transferred all the ingredients and instructions into the recipe form for me! I didn't have to type a thing!

One of the features I absolutely fell in love with is the weekly menu and shopping list function! You can create a weekly menu with your recipes and then click on lists and it will create a shopping list for you with all the ingredients to make the items on your weekly menu! Amazing!

All in all, I was extremely impressed with the Cook'n recipe organizer! This is a must have for all of you out there who love to cook! Also, this program takes up much less room than having bookshelves full of cookbooks! And it's just so easy to use! Here's how you can get your own!

Buy It: Go to their website HERE and order either the download or the CD itself! It normally sells for $99.95 but right now it's on sale for $79.95! That's a great price for this amazing program! But wait, the kind people over at Cook'n are giving my readers another 50% off!!! Just use code mb-lucky during checkout! What a great deal! I hope you'll take advantage of this bargain!

Until next time,

 I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. 

Tombow Scrapbooking Adhesive Review

I started scrapbooking and making memory albums several years ago but I really started working hard on it right after my son was born almost 5 years ago. I have been pretty picky about the adhesive I used because I didn't want to ruin my pictures but I wanted them to stay put on the page I was working on! I have been using glue sticks that were acid-free and non-toxic and it was great because I knew it wouldn't ruin the pictures. The only problem I was having with the glue sticks is that once the glue dried, some of the pictures would come loose from the page.

When Tombow asked me to review their scrapbook adhesive, I was pretty excited to try it out! When I got my package in the mail, I was excited to find that they sent me one of their glue applicators and a refill for it! Tombow adhesive is acid-free and non-toxic and provides a strong instant bond for your pictures.

I had several pictures that I needed to put in my scrapbook so I got to try my new applicator right away! I turned my picture over and ran the applicator along the edges of it in a straight line. The applicator left a straight line of clear adhesive exactly where I wanted it! It doesn't dry like glue does so I didn't have to worry about placing the picture quickly, I could take my time to figure out exactly where I wanted the picture before placing it. I went ahead and applied the adhesive to all 4 pictures I was using, then mapped out where I wanted them on my page. I placed the first picture and pressed down on the edges and it didn't move! Sometimes, when I use the glue sticks, the picture will slide around because the glue is wet. That didn't happen with Tombow adhesive glue! I placed all of my pictures and I was finished for the day. I checked on the page the next day and tried to pull the pictures off the page to test the adhesive. Those pictures didn't move! I will definitely be using Tombow adhesive when I scrapbook from now on! It's amazing!

Buy It:  Visit this website HERE to purchase a Tombow Adhesive with Applicator for only $3.43! You can buy the refills there for only $1.78! Those are amazing prices!

Thank you to Tombow for providing with these products to review!

Until next time...

Hugs,

 I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.