The Mom Jen, Author at Jen is on a Journey - Page 301 of 322

Tastefully Simple

May 7, 2010 by The Mom Jen Leave a Comment

I love home parties and especially when it revolves around food! As a mom who has a busy schedule during the week with kids’ dance classes until 8pmand baseball games until 7 pm, meal time can be a rush to make unhealthy choices or eating out. When I cook in the kitchen I want two things, one-good food and two-quick and easy recipes.

Tastefully Simple offers a wide selection of convenient, easy-to-prepare foods designed to help people spend less time in the kitchen and more time enjoying the rest of their lives. I can’t argue with that! My friend Jamey has been and independent consultant selling Tastefully Simple for a few years and I’ve been to her parties and been enjoying the food tremendously! From tasty appetizers to luscious desserts, their lineup includes more than 60 delicious, easy-to-prepare foods and gifts.

The best part, all of the products can be enjoyed right out of the package or prepared within minutes by adding only one or two ingredients! Their freezer drinks are superb and would be perfect for this summer’s entertaining. Watermelon margaritas, lemon slushies, and more can be made with or without adding alcohol!

My ultimate favorites include the dip mixes, the desserts, and the breads. If you haven’t tried their beer bread, you must! Truly, just add a beer a some melted butter and you have the most delicious bread around! I can’t say that I’ve found anything in their line up that I didn’t like!

Jamey sent me some of Nana’s Apple Cake to try out. I chopped up 2 regular sized apples, added to eggs to the mix and waited drooling for 45-55 minutes. The result was amazing! It says to wait until it cools, but I dug in straight from the oven! The cinnamon-y crispy crust makes it mouth-watering. Don’t have apples on hand, try peaches or pears too, wow!

Product was sent to me to facilitate this review. The opinions are my tried-and-true experiences and were not influenced by any source!

SodaStream Home Soda Maker

May 6, 2010 by The Mom Jen 1 Comment

My husband is a soda-holic. When we go to the grocery store he buys four to five 2 liter bottles and that lasts him about 4 days. Each month, we must spend $40 on soda, that’s $480 a year! When I heard about the Sodastream home soda makers, I knew this was something for our family to save some money and to try out our own “brand” of soda!

Home soda makers like Sodastream turn water into fresh sparkling water and soda in seconds. No more lugging or storing cases of bottles and cans from the store. No batteries, no electricity, no clean up! Carbonators make either 60 or 110 liters of soda, each drink being just pennies per serving.

The Fountain Jet was what we tried out and it was easy to put together. Carbonator can attaches to the back of the slim-designed soda maker, taking minimal space on your counter.

Minimum of 3 pumps until you hear a buzz. To add a little more fizz, add a few more pumps.
Our take: We were so hopeful that we’d love the Sodastream soda! The set up was easy and the instructions were simple that my older two children have now become experts at making their own soda! We like our soda fizzy, so even beyond the 3 pumps of carbonation, we added 2 for for good measure. Cola was our first flavor, and the taste is different from store-bought soda, you have to get used to it. Considering it has about 20g less sugar than name brands and it’s a Splenda/sugar mixture, you notice it upon first taste. My oldest LOVED the cola and sat down with the liter bottle and drank from it!

Fill the cap full of the syrup, add a little more or less depending on your taste.
Next we tried the orange/mango combination and that was a bit sour, not our favorite. Adjusting the amount of flavoring is something we’ll learn to do, for the orange/mango, I’d add more syrup. Ginger Ale tasted really good plus I enjoyed the sparkling water flavors, berry especially.

I’m not sure if this has gone over well with my husband. He is not ready to switch over completely to the Sodastream, but we’re going to continue to try and convince him.

A Fountain Jet set was sent to me to facilitate this review. The opinions are my tried-and-true experiences and were not influenced by any source!

California Blooms

May 6, 2010 by The Mom Jen Leave a Comment

Mother’s Day or any other, if roses were delivered to my door it would simply make my day! There is a happy, loving feeling that I get when I see a bouquet of flowers on my dining table, beauty in the beautiful colors of the petals. If I had my way, I’d send them to myself once a week.

California Blooms is a family owned and operated company based in California. The premier internet source for the freshest, boutique grown roses in the USA, the California grown roses are individually hand-selected and cut at the peak of their growing cycle, hydrated overnight and shipped farm-direct to your doorstep. “We are confident you will not find a fresher rose anywhere.”

About The Farm
We have partnered with one of the most highly decorated and world renowned growers of hydroponic roses. Their growing philosophy and techniques are focused on the art and hands-on experimentation of optimum growing and not producing mass quantities of generic roses. The family-owned farm has grown varietal roses for over seven generations, and has pioneered and perfected hydroponic growing methods. This has enabled them to consistently produce the finest and freshest roses available.

In traditional rose colors including an amazing green, California Blooms can be ordered and delivered in a 24 hour turnaround via FedEx Priority anywhere in the USA.

My take: The day my roses came, I had been down, so when I opened the box they were shipped in, the gorgeous orange color immediately made me smile and forget my woes for the time being.

The 2-dozen long-stems were fresh and beautiful, packed with ice to keep cool, I couldn’t wait to trim them up. They do come very leafy and thorny so when you do start working with them, beware.

I trimmed the stems, added the rose food (included) to the vase and added the water. They are an amazing sight, just brightens the room, and after a full warm days, they look great and have opened up so beautifully!

A bouquet of flowers was sent to me to facilitate this review. The opinions are my tried-and-true experiences and were not influenced by any source!

Electrolux Versatility Bagless Upright Vacuum

May 5, 2010 by The Mom Jen Leave a Comment

My favorite household chore by far is vacuuming. There is something so satisfying about sucking up stuff from the floor and leaving behind nothing but clean. So a large percentage of my house is hardwood flooring now, and stick vacuums are nice and easy for that. But, when it comes to bedrooms, and our 17 year old carpet in our house, we need something with a little more power.

The Electrolux Versatility Bagless Upright vacuum provides easy cleaning, floor to ceiling, with a large amount of power with it’s 12 amp motor. We had the opportunity to try it out in our home and so far we’re impressed. Here are the details:

14-foot cleaning wand–with a snap from the handle you can reach cobwebs on your ceiling, clean ceiling fan blades, and get those hard to reach places in your home that tend to trap dust and dirt. The want is light and I had no problem using it, not to mention I’m short so I can use the extra telescoping length.

HEPA filtration with charcoal—captures 99.97% of dust and dirt and absorbs odors. This is fantastic when 3 of us in the family have both indoor and outdoor allergies!

Quiet motor—our old vacuum is so loud, the kids actually will pick up and leave the rooms when I’m cleaning. The Versatility has a smooth, low rumble that doesn’t make you want to run and get earplugs!
Carpet/hard floor switch—I love that we can switch between the two! The really powerful suction on the carpets uses the brush rollers, and they retract to use on wood or tile to not damage delicate surfaces!

Attachments—The Versatility comes with a dusting brush to use on baseboards, furniture, vents, and blinds. The crevice tool gets into the tight spaces. The turbo nozzle is for stairs and upholstered furniture, there basically isn’t a surface you can’t clean! The turbo nozzle on the cleaning wand also worked brilliantly in our CAR! Our old shop vac works, but motor can deafen you, so we hated using it.

Bagless—Saves money on replacing bags, the canister is easy to open and replace when emptying.

After a full housecleaning, the dust cup canister was FULL of so much dirt we were shocked how much our old machine was leaving behind. The dust bunnies and fine dirt collected makes us feel good about the amount of CLEAN that is actually happening.

We could only really find one negative quality on the Versatility. The cord. It’s a mess and all over the place while in use. We would have loved a taut retractable cord on this machine.

Check out our slideshow:

You can purchase the Electrolux Versatility at Walmart for $299.99, well worth the money!

I was sent a vacuum for purspose of this review. The opinions are my tried and true experience and were not influenced by any source.

GiGi Swimsuits

May 4, 2010 by The Mom Jen Leave a Comment

It’s swimsuit shopping season ladies, are you ready? If you’re like me, I start to sweat when I think about buying a swimsuit. I start eating less and exercising more and suddenly go into summer-shock. What if we could find the “little black dress” of swimsuits that will love our bodies back? I think I may have found it.

The suit is known as the GiGi Swimsuit, and it’s designed for any woman who, post-baby years, is a little more self-conscious about their body. It’s not a miracle suit, rather it’s suit that aims to alleviate the horrors of swimsuit shopping happening so often during the spring and summer months. (Or is it this really an ongoing feud between body and dressing room mirror?)

The suit is very attractive and is made from a silky fabric from Spain making it really soft on the skin, and a bonus, the material has an SPF 50! Their unique 4-way stretch fabric is designed to pull you up taller, not stretch you wider!

My Take: When I tried on my suit in black, I grinned ear to ear. The halter top is so flattering and stylish, I felt like I was wearing a trendy suit. I wear an average C bra size and the top was just right without too much over-exposure. The back rests below the shoulder blades reducing “back-fat” and the ruching helps minimize my middle, my least favorite area! I do feel like I need to pull the back up higher, I guess I’m not used to it resting so low. I really feel good in this suit, and I think it was really important to pay attention to the sizing chart for the best fit!

The owner of the company has been there, and tried that suit on! Her solution is to make most women feel gorgeous this summer

Every girl’s been there. The cold dressing room, the terrible lighting, the myriad of suits in detestable prints, our white undies sticking out from under the leg elastic, our sun-starved appendages. It’s a sure recipe for self-loathing. Lucky for you, attention to detail is my forte. I’ve had a fabulous time creating a suit that truly complements almost every figure. My various sized female friends agree: GiGi is the most flattering bathing suit they’ve ever worn.

I was sent a suit to facilitate this review. The opinions are my tried-and-true experience and were not influenced by any source.