Tooth Tissues!

I am so excited about our newest product: Tooth Tissues! These convenient wipes are for cleaning off your baby or toddler's teeth when brushing isn't an option. Developed by two dentists for use with their own children, I was delighted to see that this product is fluoride-free and paraben-free. This is a rarity these days!

I would have loved to have a product like this a few years ago. My youngest child has asthma and in his life we have sometimes needed to use oral or inhaled steroids. When he was just 3 he had such extensive cavities throughout his baby teeth that he needed oral surgery to deal with all of it. I ended up finding out from my dentist that the steroids (both oral AND inhaled) are quite damaging to tooth enamel, and that was probably to blame for my little boy's dental troubles. (none of my older children had ever even had a single cavity!) Now I know that it is important to have him brush his teeth immediately after any inhaler use, but for times when we are not at home and unable to brush, Tooth Tissues are going to be a big help!

My ten year old son and I tried out Tooth Tissues on ourselves, to see how it tastes and feels. We are happy to report that although there is a slight taste (not an unpleasant one) when using the wipes, there is no aftertaste at all. (I even drank some healthy lemonade right after using mine, and had no bad taste reaction at all) This product gets two thumbs up from us!

I Love the Homemaker's Mentor!

This wonderful place teaches so many of the lost arts of homemaking in a beautiful, gracious way. Subscribe for a month, a year, or just get the classes that you need. Either way....you are gonna love this!

Today I downloaded 3 of their resources:

Laundry Tips and Tricks (FREE!!)

Growing and Using Fresh Herbs

Kitchen Sparkle

I don't know about you, but I'm almost always up for some fresh inspiration and ideas. These downloadable lessons are very nicely done. I am quite impressed and really looking forward to digging into these soon!

Muffin Tin Meals--How Fun!

I found this post about using muffin tins to make fun meals for kids and thought it was really inspirational. You could do tons of cool stuff with healthy foods with these ideas.

My "baby" is 5 now, but I think all of my kids would enjoy this idea.

What would you put in a muffin tin meal?

(now I need to go dig up all of my muffin tins, and figure out how many more I will need to buy in order to have one for each child.....)

Make the holiday season easier this year

I have heard about this 12-week holiday planner for a couple of years now, and I guess that every time it came to my attention I was far enough into the holiday season that I didn't think it would be a help to me.

Yeah, well, this year is gonna be different.

Today I got a copy of this great book and I am so excited about it! The main thing that I was looking for in this book was organizational help. I was not disappointed!

The book has a great 12-week plan to help get everything done without lumping it all into the 11th hour.

There are a whole bunch of really helpful planning sheets, blank calendars, places to make organized lists, and other great things like that.

There are a lot of really yummy-looking recipes that did not strike me as the kind only Martha Stewart would make.

The Jesse Tree devotionals do look neat. Somehow I have never done any sort of advent devotions with my kids (ever!) but this look doable, and like something we would enjoy adding in to our regular school days in December.

The other thing I really like about this planner is that I can use it year after year. The lists and organizer pages can be printed out as many times as I need them. Which makes a ton of sense to me. (just the one grocery shopping organizer page will be a huge help to me all year long. I already have one printed out and ready for the front of the fridge....)

So, there is my encouragement to you to go take a look and see if this planner would be a handy thing for you for the rest of this year.

Click here for more details

Homeschooling ABCs

Yesterday I found out about a wonderful resource that I think will make a huge difference for those of you that are homeschool moms who aren't feeling quite as confident and at peace with the way things are going in your home school this year.

The Homeschooling ABCs course offers you 26 weeks of ideas, direction, and encouragement in your inbox to help you, PLUS over $200 worth of free curriculum and resources!

Check it out here.

White Bean Chili for the Crock Pot

This is what is in my crock pot right now. Super easy, not expensive, and for my anti-tomato children, this is a chili they actually enjoy. :)

Soak one pound of dry white beans overnight in the crock pot (without the heat on). I used navy beans, but Great Northerns work well too.

In the morning drain off the water, and add in six cups of chicken broth. The best choice I know of right now, for avoiding glutamates, is the Imagine Brand Organic Free Range Chicken Broth. It comes in cartons (like rice milk).

Also add in 2 teaspoons of minced garlic, and a chopped up small onion.

Cook on high for a couple of hours until beans are soft.

After that, sautee

3 Tablespoons of olive oil

3 teaspoons of minced garlic

another chopped onion

Once those are lightly cooked, throw in a pound of ground turkey, beef, or venison and cook it up, breaking the meat into small pieces with your spatula.

Add in 7 teaspoons of the homemade taco seasoning mix. (Recipe at the end of this post)

Once the meat is cooked, add it to the beans in the crock pot. Also add in about two cups of frozen corn.

Cook on low until it's time to eat! (when it's getting to within a half hour of dinner time, add one tablespoon of apple cider vinegar)

If you are not going to be home for doing those steps in the middle of the day, I see no reason why you couldn't just throw the cooked meat and everything else into the crock pot first thing in the morning and cook on low. **The one exception to this would be the seasonings. If you add salt to beans before they are cooked, they prevent the beans from getting soft. Not good! So, if you want to leave this chili to cook on low for the day, hold back the spices and just add them as soon as you are able to before eating, but after the beans are soft.

I used to keep a lot of leftovers on hand, but lately I am just freezing the leftovers into containers that are good sizes for my husband to take to work for a meal, or for us to have for dinner another night. This recipe makes a lot, so we will almost definitely end up with enough for two dinners for us. Especially if I serve some homemade bread or salad with it.

To make your own homemade taco seasoning just mix up:

6 teaspoons chili powder
5 teaspoons paprika
4 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
3 teaspoons onion powder
2 1/2 teaspoons garlic powder
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper

I just stick it all into a Tupperware spice container and have it on hand for times when I need taco mix. It saves money and helps avoid the unhealthy fillers that are in so many pre-packed mixes.