Whimsees Personalized Cutting Board & $50 Gift Card Holiday Event Giveaway

I don’t know about you, but there’s something wonderful about personalized gifts. They’re perfect for absolutely any occasion or even sprucing up your own living space.

When I came across Whimsees as I was surfing the net one day, I fell in love! They’re not just any personalization company! Ginny and Emily are a mom and daughter team who have started this company! They’re products will make you want to hug them! Not kidding, that’s how I felt when I received my cutting board! I mean, I surfed their site for a veeeery long time and knew what I saw made me smile. When I had it in my hands…I wanted to hug it.

I’m sitting here trying to explain how much I love my new cutting board and that I’d love to have one of every product on their site, but I’m trying to figure out how to not overdo it. Before I talk about my cutting board, let me tell you about the other products they offer!

My search started with the Home products! They have fun ideas for the kitchen to the walls and even out to your yard! And not only are the products able to be personalized, some you can even choose which college you love! My extended family would go NUTS over all things VT Hokies!

They have fun products for Tech and Office. I’ve already started making a Christmas list to give to my kids and one will be a computer mouse! I don’t have one and really could use it! I think it would be fun to get a present for Doodle’s teacher that’s personalized from them as well!

Do you have a wedding coming up? Whimsees has ideas for the couple and even for the wedding party! Of course, it has my mind thinking about the future! heh heh heh A girl can dream and plan! =)

Now, you might be thinking about Christmas since it’s just over a month away! I certainly am and with my brother being in his new house and loving…I mean L-O-V-I-N-G…Virginia Tech, I think a yard flag that’s personalized would be perfect! Then again, he’s likes to entertain so maybe a cool Growler and glass set would be good for him. I’m going to need my mom’s input!

My favorite part of Whimsees is under the Gifts tab! They have an amazing selection of Faith Based products. Their cutting boards, lunch cooler totes, and phone cases can be personalized and also have a scripture included. They’re so beautiful!

This is where we come to the product I got to review, a gorgeous cutting board! As you can see from the photos above, it has a wonderful design that I had personalized to say, The Noble Family. The scripture underneath says, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” Joshua  24:15. I can’t wait to give this to Fred. He’s great in the kitchen and I know he’ll love it!

The cutting board is made of tempered glass with bumpers on the bottom. The large one is 15.5" x 11.5"! It’s huge and perfect for all of the cutting I do! Can you see WHY I’m in love with it? I know my BFF who is a whiz in the kitchen would love this as a Christmas gift! Oy, my list keeps getting longer!

If you order from Whimsees, remember their holiday deadline is December 6th!
Now you have the chance to win:

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Eli’s Cheesecake For The Holidays ~ Holiday Giveaway

Cheesecake

Yea, that one word has me giddy!

Eli’s Cheesecake is one of my favorite cheesecakes to eat! If I can get a dessert, especially for the holidays or a special occasion, it’s going to be a cheesecake. In fact, I’d rather have cheesecake on my birthday than anything else!

With Thanksgiving right around the corner, we’re all going to bring something with us for our family get-together because there will be a LOT of us there…4 families! I’ll be taking an Eli’s Cheesecake Original Sampler with me. Last year I tried out their Holiday Sampler and it was to DIE for!

I knew I wanted to work with Eli’s Cheesecake, but I wasn’t sure what I wanted to review. Let me tell you, going to their site to try and find just ONE thing to pick, not an easy thing at all!

Imagine having to choose from: Pumpkin Pie Cheesecake, Apple Bavarian Tart, Pumpkin Praline Cheesecake or Chocolate Caramel Pecan Cheesecake!

I know that people love different flavors of cheesecake and this is the perfect way for everyone to have a little bit of 4 different ones! The Original Sampler comes with these four flavors: Original Plain, Chocolate Chip, Strawberry, and Candy Bar made with Heath® Toffee Bars! I know, when I opened it up, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven!

I think the hardest part of getting a sampler is knowing where to start! Well, actually, the first place would be having it defrost. It’s sent frozen so that you can thaw it when you need it.
The hardest part of this was deciding what one to start off with! I went with chocolate chip! Oh my gosh, there’s not much more that I can say about it other than it was heavenly!

Next was the candy bar. Let’s just say, I’m a huge fan. I love that it has Heath® as the topping. I absolutely love that toffee candy and it was over the moon scrumptious.

As for the original plain and strawberry, they’re the perfect go-to classic flavors in my opinion. You just can’t go wrong with either! The pieces are cut into just the right size as well. The cheesecakes are extremely rich, as to be expected, so having them not too large is important and that means there’s more to go around than if you had larger slices!

Now, I’m excited that Eli’s Cheesecake is going to be giving away a cheesecake to one of you!!! I know, delicious win! Good luck!

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Emerson Creek Pottery Onion Soup Crocks ~ Holiday Giveaway

It’s that time of the year where I’m constantly wanting soups! I actually love making them from scratch and trying new recipes. This year the one thing I’m going to try and master is French onion soup. To go along with making my soups, I have really wanted soup bowls.

You know the ones I’m talking about. You see them and they make you think of being warm and cozy, especially during these cold months. With French onion soup, I think about the cheese melted over the edge. Man, I’m getting hungry just thinking about it.

I started researching soup bowls online when I came across Emerson Creek Pottery. I was immediately drawn to them because they’ve been around since 1977 and their products are handcrafted in the USA! That last point is always something that sways my decision towards a company!

When I was sent two Pinecone Onion Soup Crocks, I was so excited to fill them with steaming soup! What I hadn’t counted on was how extensive cooking French onion soup would be! lol I may have bitten off more than I could chew. I decided for the review that I’d use some chicken noodle soup for the sake of review otherwise we could still be waiting on my review.

The crocks are so well made! They’re thick and heavy, which adds to their appeal. I love that they’re handpainted. I feel like each one has a personal touch! They aren’t large so that definitely helps with portion control. I think they were definitely thinking ahead because if people are like me, I could eat a massive bowl of soup in one sitting and not blink an eye.

Emerson Creek Pottery carries a wide variety of housewares. And yes, I’d love to have a house filled with their products! I have a feeling Fred would like to go with a Blue Crab theme since Maryland is such a huge crabbing state and I’m pretty sure he could live off of them.

What I’m also excited about is the fact that I can actually visit their Log Cabin Outlet Store! They’re in Bedford, VA and it would be a fantastic day trip for Fred and I! Goodness, we have to think about what our housewares will look like when our “one day” happens. =)

I’m so excited to be able to give one of you the opportunity to win two of your own Emerson Creek Pottery Onion Soup Crocks! You will love having these on those chilly days!

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JABRA Wireless Headphones Review ~ Holiday Event

 
Back in June, Buddy got his first pair of over-the-ear headphones for this birthday. They were super cute, no-name headphones…that lasted a month! Ugh, no, we didn’t go with a reputable brand like Jabra. =( We went with a wired headphone that we knew nothing about. The plug literally came apart.

This year, when I started thinking of Christmas presents for the boys, I knew headphones would be on my list. We do a lot of driving and that driving is typically for a couple of hours. When we travel, the boys watch movies.

When we moved from Minnesota, we brought along our “watch movies in the car speakers”, but they broke at some point and the boys have been trying to wear in-the-ear headphones. Again, they have ones they got for free and kill their ears.

I was so excited to be able to partner with Jabra for the holidays. I was sent a pair of wireless headphones, that I promptly tried to set up on my computer, and promptly screwed up. lol I may have issues with some tech gadgets. I was able to immediately get them to work on my phone, and the instructions that come with the headphones, make it crazy easy.

The boys are CONSTANTLY using my phone to listen to YouTube videos and music and honestly, it makes me nutty! Oh, and the “reason” it makes me nutty? Have you listened to the same video 30x in one day? I’ve had the pleasure of it and wireless headphones are now going to be a Godsend! Bits of my sanity may be salvaged…maybe!

Now, I have to say I haven’t had a lot of use for headphones aside from when I used to mow our huge lawn. Other than that, I haven’t needed them like my boys. I had no idea that over-the-ear headphones would actually come back in style. I’m not so behind the times that I didn’t know that happened several years ago, I just didn’t have kids that needed or cared about them.

I have to say, “yay me” because I got to try out these awesome headphones before my boys. And tonight, while we were out shopping Buddy said to me, “You need to get me headphones for Christmas.” Oh yea, mama’s going to score gifts this year!

Let’s talk about the headphones! Fred came over to set up the Jabra headphones on my laptop so I could make sure how they worked and sounded. It only took him a couple of minutes and he was able to do what I couldn’t do!

Oh my gosh, the sound was SO clear! The controls are on the headphones and I am still on a “getting to know you” basis. Are your kids like mine and would have the entire set figured out before they got them out of the box? I was able to figure out the volume. That’s a start, right? hahahaha

As you can see above, they fold up easily and fit into this small bag for easy transporting. The headphones come with two cords. One you can use to plug with a USB into your computer to charge the battery and the other you can plug into your speaker. When I got the headphones, I didn’t realize that I could use it with my phone, too! Actually, when I turned the headphones on, they immediately told me to turn on the BlueTooth function on my phone.

I love that there’s a mic so if one of us is using the cell phone and a call comes in, we can leave the headphones on and take the call. I just have to remember that everyone else can hear me! heh heh heh

I can’t wait for Buddy to find these under the tree for Christmas. It’s going to be hard to hold him off for a month, but I’m tough, I can do it!

Do your kids have wireless headphones on their Christmas list?

Test Driving the Fellowes 63Cb At Home #sp #MC

It’s been almost a year since I started working from home. I’ve also been in my own home, paying my own bills for almost 3 months! Having both of those means I need to be very careful with some of the paperwork that comes through my house.

We’re not in Kansas anymore Toto. When the boys and I lived in our little town and recycled every other week, I wasn’t concerned so much about the papers I recycled. Of course I look back at that and understand I was extremely naïve and very lucky that my identity and personal information were never stolen.

Now I live in a home and pay all of the bills on my own. I realize that’s nothing new to most of you, but for me, I’m not used to doing it all by myself. So, in the past 10 months, I’ve managed to become a work at home mom, basically owning my own business as a subcontractor, and paying my own bills.

I had considered getting a shredder numerous times, but just never got around to it. I think at this point, we all understand how important it is for our personal information of any kind not get into the wrong hands. One of the easiest ways to protect yourself is with a shredder like the Fellowes 63Cb.
I still get paper bills in the mail, even after I’ve signed up for online billing. Mostly they’re just reminders, but I don’t want anything with my billing information being available to anyone. I may only get a few things in the mail, be it medical information, bills, or banking, but each of those give way too much access to important numbers!

What I typically do with the front page that has any information I might need for the future, I try to file it away. The rest of the papers, aren’t there usually at least 2 or 3, I’m going to start shredding. Usually it goes into the garbage, sits in a stack of papers, and yes, I’ve recycled them. Now they’ll become small, thin strips of paper that will definitely keep us safer.

My youngest, Doodle, has taken to shredding any paperwork he can possibly dig up! Obviously, that’s a concern because his enthusiasm could cause him to be a bit quick on the draw and not pay attention to what he’s doing.

Thankfully, the Fellowes 63Cb has what they call SafeSense technology. If the shredder detects a hand touching the opening, it shuts off. It also shuts off when the scrap bin is opened. Love those safety features.

You can use the shredder for up to 8 continuous minutes at which point, it will stop shredding for 20 minutes so that it can cool off. Taking care of your Fellowes shredder is essential! I had no clue that it needed to be oiled! I was talking to Fred and he said that might be why his shredder stopped working. He didn’t have a clue it needed to be oiled. I do wish that it had come with a small bottle just to tide me over.

With this awesome shredder, I know I’m in good hands and my identity at home is safe! I’m off to do more shredding. =)