Feeding the wild birds with Chewy.com

I've always adored birds, I enjoy photographing them, hearing them sing and learning about them. I am fascinated watching them and seeing their unique personalities, however I've never really wanted to own a bird so instead of owning one I pamper the wild birds that visit my yard. I am a Chewy Influencer and I work with them on a monthly basis to review and promote different products from their site, when I saw the Kaytee basic blend wild bird food on the list of possible review items for the month it made me pretty excited.



Chewy sells this 20lb bag of bird seed for $11.99 which is a pretty fantastic deal! This mix of bird seed helps attract several different types of birds, depending on where you live and the type of birds in your area you may see several of the birds listed on the bag or you could just see the birds native to you. I generally get a variety of finch, sparrow, doves, curve-billed thrashers, starlings, woodpeckers, and northern mocking birds that stop by for a bite to eat and a dip in the bird bath.

This mixture has a combination of grains, corn, stripped sunflower seeds and black oil with added supplements  such as Vitamin A to help the birds during harsh winter months or even dry hot summer months. I have four different bird feeders in my yard all with various sized feeding holes and this mixture does well in each feeder, and as you can see all the wild birds are enjoying the easy meal. As always my shipping from chewy.com was extremely fast and it helped save me from having to lug this bag of bird seed from the store to my house! The bag was a little bit of a pain to open, I had to use scissors to cut it open otherwise I have no complaints about this product.

Do you feed any wild animals in your yard? If yes, what kind of animals visit your yard?, If the answer is no what is your favorite animal to see out in the wild?

Disclaimer- The products mentioned above were provided by Chewy for the review free of charge no other compensation was provided. However, no product compensation will influence the outcome of any review. My honest opinions are used in all reviews, they are solely my own & they may vary from others.My reviews are posted for readers in order to provide an informed decision before purchase.

Yasou skin care Review + Giveaway!

The changing weather can be a burden to your skin leaving you feeling dry and itchy, your skin may even look dull and flaky at times so it is important to keep hydrated and moisturize. My biggest challenge when searching for a good moisturizer is finding one that doesn't leave my skin feeling oily or greasy, So I am always willing to try a new moisturizer in hopes of adding it to my skincare routine. I recently received the chance to test out a hydrating body cream with essential oils by a company called Yasou.

"Yasou" is a common Greek greeting that is pronounced ya-soo, it means "A toast to your health". Yasou products are water based products that are vegan and gluten-free with natural contains CO carrier oils. Yasou is a US based female-owned company that is leaping bunny certified. Yasou creates face creams for day use and nighttime use, a lip elixir, hand creams and body creams.  The hydrating body cream I received comes in aroma free or with essential oils and comes in three different sizes 4oz, 6oz or 8 oz, I will be reviewing the 4oz essential oil cream. Note: All of the products sold on Yasou are vegan EXCEPT for the body cream because it contains honey and beeswax.



This hydrating body cream has several different oils in it, the essential oils are Lavendar, Cypress and Tangerine. The two scents I can distinguish the most are the lavender and I believe it is the honey (because it smells similar to another honey based product I've used), normally I am not a huge fan of lavender because it is normally overwhelming, however in this mixture it has a nice calming light floral scent with a hint of sweetness and from time to time I also get a hint of citrus (tangerine).  The body cream also includes certified organic extra virgin olive oil, certified organic jojoba oil, certified organic aloe vera along with rosemary extract and calendula extra.

The most significant thing I like about this cream is how quickly it absorbs into my skin, I am not left with a cloudy substance or slick feeling on my skin which I've experienced with other lotions and creams. In order to get the cream out you need to shake the container a bit and squeeze a little hard just like a shampoo bottle, the company has made note of this and is currently replacing their containers to a thinner jar that is easier to squeeze. After use my skin is left feeling cool and creamy to the touch, I can also see a noticeable difference in the moisture level of my skin when I apply this to my tattoos. A little goes a long way with this cream, a small dime sized amount is enough to cover both of my forearms to my liking. The bottle size allows me to easily carry this in my purse with me so I can take it with on the go, I also like the simple yet eye catching design on the packaging.

PRIZE ALERT:
One lucky reader is going to win a 4oz Hydrating body cream with essential oils.

This is open to US Readers only!! Please remember if you DO NOT leave a comment on this blog post as your mandatory entry into the giveaway then all of your entries will be void. Doing the Daily entries will increase your chance of winning. Winners have 72 hours to respond to the notification email! 

This giveaway ends on 03/08/2019

 Giveaway winners are announced on FACEBOOK, If you would like to see who won my latest giveaways please visit and like my facebook page.
 
Giveaway entry question: Please leave me a comment telling a product aside from the body cream that you'd like to test out.

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Disclaimer- The products mentioned above were provided by Yasou for the review + giveaway free of charge no other compensation was provided. However, no product compensation will influence the outcome of any review. My honest opinions are used in all reviews, they are solely my own & they may vary from others.My reviews are posted for readers in order to provide an informed decision before purchase.

A night of games with the family.

It's game time! Last week I posted a review of two fun games from Goliath games, today I'll be sharing two games with you one from Jax Games and one from Pressman Toys. For those of you who aren't aware Goliath games recently acquired Jax games, I was sent all four games together but since they are available on separate websites I thought it would be best to post the reviews separate as well.

Like most families we own a gaming console, tablets and cell phones that we enjoy using but it is nice to disconnect from our devices and sit down as a family to enjoy a board game, so we have a large game collection. Some games are only good for a few plays because you'll start to remember the answer cards and other games like the two below will always have a different outcome so they are able to be enjoyed over and over.

Sequence (Retail $11.99); Recommended for ages 7+ and allows 2-12 players at a time. This game can get pretty fast paced and it is a lot of fun, it reminds me of a super charged game of Bingo mixed with four in a row. To play you'll place a card from your hand down on the table and place a matching chip on the corresponding board number, once you get five in a row. Sounds easy right? It would be if the other players didn't get the chance to remove your chips, blocking you from being able to win. My kids have a lot of fun playing this game and even our youngest was able to pick this up quickly.

Do you think you have what it takes to make it to five in a row?

Rummikub (Retail $13+); Recommended for ages 8+ and allows 2-4 players at a time. I am not going to lie on this one, their website talks about how easy the game is to learn but between the four of us playing it was a bit confusing at first trying to figure out exactly how the game is played. The game is played using a number of tiles with different colored numbers and a "Joker" tile which can be played in place of any color tile or number. The objective of the game is to play every tile on your rack, the first to do so wins. Tiles are played in "Runs" such as 1-13 all of the same color, or all the 13's and Groups which are three or more tiles with the same number but different colors. We've only played this once so far but I look forward to trying it out again! The set we received game in a wooden box with wooden racks but looking around online it seems like most of the games come in a regular cardboard game box with plastic racks, the cardboard boxes of games can be ruined easily so I am quite happy with our wood box.

Disclaimer- The products mentioned above were provided by Jax Games & Pressman Toys for the review free of charge no other compensation was provided. However, no product compensation will influence the outcome of any review. My honest opinions are used in all reviews, they are solely my own & they may vary from others.My reviews are posted for readers in order to provide an informed decision before purchase.

Purina Muse cat food review with Chewy.com!

**This was not a paid post. My honest opinions were used, they are solely my own & they may vary from others.The products mentioned below have been provided by Chewy for the review  free of charge.**

There are a few surefire ways to tell if your pet is spoiled, it could be a giant pile of toys or it could be getting fancy foods. This post is about the latter and a rather special box of cat food Aleister received from Chewy. We received the Purina Muse creatables variety wet food pack which retails for $22.24. As always my shipping was extremely quick, I ordered on the morning of the 7th and I received my package the following evening.

This variety pack comes with four bags of crunchy bites, six pouches of gravy sauce and six containers of tender filets. It also comes with a small recipe book which you can use to customize your cats meals or you can customize your own. If you follow along with the recipe book two of them will include just the sauce and meat, however if your cat prefers it mixed in with dry food you can always cut the dry food portions in half or add it to the dry food you already have on hand.

All of the food in this pack is grain free and made with real fish + poultry, there are no artificial flavors, colors or preservatives and it is also free of corn, wheat and soy. Each item can be used together or you can give them to your cat as a treat or meal topper such as adding the sauce to their favorite food. For it being cat food it doesn't smell all that bad and if you were to just look at the meat cups without knowing it was cat food, you could mistake it for just a cup of shredded taco chicken. Aleister has been getting a bit of the royal treatment and won't eat it until everything is stirred up to his liking which gives us a chuckle. By the way is tail swishes from side to side as he eats and from the noises he makes while eating, we can tell he has a fondness for this cat food.

This pack is easy to use and Aleister is eager to try each of the flavors included in the pack. Price wise I don't think it is too bad if the pouches are spaced out a bit, though if you use all three pouches together as a meal you'll get six meals which comes out to about $3.66 a meal which can be a bit much on the wallet after a while. Aleister has enjoyed this brand quite a bit but I think we will stick with something a little more wallet friendly for now.

Do you have any pets? If yes, have you tried out Chewy.com? Their prices are pretty great and shipping is quick plus their product selection is massive. If no, what type of pet would you like to have if you could?

Goliath Games Review!

**This was not a paid post. My honest opinions were used, they are solely my own & they may vary from others.The products mentioned below have been provided by Goliath for the review free of charge.**

We are a big board game family, we usually play a board game every few days and sometimes we will play a game each night for several days depending on what we have going on for the week. We have a huge game shelf but we are always looking to add to it so when I was offered a chance to work with Goliath reviewing some of their board games, I couldn't say no! My kids and I were sent two different board games to test out together.

Wordsearch (Retail $17.99) - This game is recommended for ages seven and older, however my son who just turned six was able to play it just fine. I think this game is a lot of fun and it helps my youngest (who is in kindergarten) with his spelling and word recognition. Each person gets their colored tiles which fit perfectly into the half bubbles on top of the game board to highlight the words as you find them. The game features different inserts that have an assortment of words so you can switch which sheet you are using. How do you play? You slowly turn the outer wheel to reveal a new word then all of the players race to find the word on the board, at the end of the game the player with the most tiles on the board wins. If you have younger children and they don't want to race for the words, you can just have them take turns looking for each word. We kept our tiles in the bags but you can also place them in the corner pockets of the board to access them easier.

Googly Eyes (Retail $19) - This game is recommended for ages seven and older but again if your child is able to understand the game and are younger they are more than able to play this game. This is a big favorite for when we get together with extended family for a family game night because it is pictionary with a twist. Instead of just getting a word and having to draw it out to make people guess, you have to wear a pair of glasses with inserts that slightly distort your vision so drawing and guessing are a bit harder. This game needs to be played in teams of at least two, however you can have up to sixteen people playing. At this point though we've played the game enough that we know all of the words so it is easy to guess what everything is, I wish I could find re-fill packs for this game so we can keep playing. Some of our doodles didn't look anything like they should have which produced a lot of laughs and good times, the glasses have a Easy, Medium and Hard inserts to make the game exciting. When you are wearing the glasses you will kind of look like a mad scientist! The glasses can fit over regular glasses but depending on how comfortable the fit is you may want to take off your regular seeing glasses when using these. I like that they have different categories to draw such as characters or objects. If you win or not is up to how well you and your partner can doodle and guess! It is always fun to see who ends up winning. Depending on how many people are playing and how the dice rolls go we can get through a round in about half an hour.

Three very unique books from Candlewick Press

**This was not a paid post. My honest opinions were used, they are solely my own and they may vary from others.The products mentioned below have been provided by Candlewick Press for the review  free of charge.**

I've worked on and off with Candlewick Press over the last year and I am always excited to receive books from them because they have so many innovated books. I own dozens of books so you'd think I've seen it all right? Wrong! I am constantly surprised by the books Candlewick Press sells and I am going to be sharing three of them with you here today.

 A World Of Cities (Retail $25); Normally the books I receive all get get sent in one box, however this one was sent on it's own due to it's size. The book measures 10 5/8" x 14 9/16" which is larger than most infants! Along with it's large size this book is a bit different than your every day book because you have to hold it horizontally in order to read it. The book allows you the chance to visit dozens of cities around the world learning about what makes each one special all while sitting in your living room. I enjoy the amount of information and illustrations they included for each city. The colors and fonts on each page are eye catching and help keep the reader drawn to the book. My children seem to enjoy looking through this and learning more about each city. The only downside to this book is that it is hard to fit on the bookshelf.

Where's Waldo? The Spectacular Spotlight Search (Retail $18.99); When you first open this search book it may look it would be a little difficult to find Waldo since the pages are black, however this book has a magic search tool to help you out. The wand has a white star on one end and a smaller circle on the other end, when you slide the wand between the pages it highlights the characters above the white start/circle. The book makes it to where it takes a little bit longer to locate everything since it takes longer to search the page, this way the kids get more out of it. Along with Waldo each page has several other icons and characters for you to locate. Not only did the kids have a blast looking through this book, but I've had a great time looking through it as well. Where's Waldo was a favorite book of mine when I was growing up, it was always fun seeing all of the different characters and situations hidden in each image so I adore that they sent this book.

Ten Horse Farm (Retail $29.99); Almost all of us have either owned a pop-up book or have seen one sometime in our lifetime, but this pop-up books surpasses any I've ever seen. The scene on each page the most detailed and biggest pop-ups I've ever seen in a book. My kids love this book as well, and have a lot of fun flipping through it seeing all of the horses. Only one of the pages have had an accident where a horses foot came apart from the page so he no longer stands up but the kids don't seem to mind. This book is perfect for children learning how to read, it will keep them entertained and each page only has a few words on it so it will be easy for them to read. Want to see a short video featuring some of the pages being shown? Check out my Instagram to see the video I shared.

February Beauty & The Book Giveaway!

I am a big bookworm so I often peruse the book section when out shopping and if I happen upon a book that seems worth while I will usually pick up two copies, one for me and one for a blog subscriber to enjoy. I've hosted similar giveaways in the past and could never settle on a name I really enjoyed, so after thinking about it I decided to do a play on one of my most beloved movies Disney's "Beauty And The Beast", thus these giveaways will now be called Beauty And The Book. This giveaway is put together and sponsored by me, it has no affiliation with the book author or any of the brands that make the products included in the giveaway.

Valentines day is just around the corner and as you can see I've used the pink/red theme commonly associated with Valentines day for my giveaway. Following with the theme the book I selected for this month is called Dangerous Creatures, it is classified as a paranormal fiction and described as "a dangerous new tale of love and magic" the main character is a Siren and the book follows along with her journey. I was drawn to this book because of the cover and because it reminded me of the series The Mortal Instruments.As a bonus the cover even has red lettering and a heart shaped lollipop! 

Also included in the giveaway is a hair mask, two face masks, a bubble bath bar, three mini coconut orchid bath bombs, a coconut orchid lotion, a coconut orchid shower gel, three nail decal sheets, two one application lip gloss samples, a adorable sea creature sticker, a rainbow daisy stretch bracelet, two mini pens, a pocket mirror featuring flowers and says "Love In Bloom" (a local flower shop), a red dust plug for your phone, a Lord & Berry nude lip liner, a NYX matte lipstick in the shade Copenhagen plus chocolates of course! 

This is open World Wide!! Please remember if you DO NOT leave a comment on this blog post as your mandatory entry into the giveaway then all of your entries will be void. Doing the Daily entries will increase your chance of winning. Winners have 72 hours to respond to the notification email! 

This giveaway ends on 02/23/2019
 
 Giveaway winners are announced on FACEBOOK, If you would like to see who won my latest giveaways please visit and like my facebook page.
 
Giveaway entry question: Please leave me a comment telling me a possible theme you'd like to see featured for a "Beauty And The Book" giveaway.

OR

Tell me one of your favorite books.

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Send a Free Valentine’s Day card to the patients at a Children’s Hospital!

When ever I get the chance I enjoy doing random acts of kindness, it always brings a smile to my face knowing a simple gesture could make someone else's whole day or even week. Random acts of kindness don't always require a ton of money to do, they can be as simple as helping someone carry their bags, offering to lend a shoulder to cry on, sending a birthday card or giving a stranger a flower.

January is now officially over and we are headed towards Valentines day, I recently learned that many children's hospitals across the US offer you the chance to send Valentines day cards to the kids in the hospital. What will it cost you? Nothing it is completely free, you just need to fill out a short form with your name, a encouraging note or joke and select which card you'd like to be given out. After all the forms are in the hospitals print out the card and distribute them evenly among the kids. Many of the children in these hospitals will not receive the chance to have a card party like many school children do, which can make them feel left out so this gives them the chance to still have a card party!

I've put together a list of some of the Children's Hospitals I've found that participate in this event. There are dozens of Children's hospitals across the US, I've listed what I could find available online so if you don't see your local hospital I'd look on their website or contact the hospital directly to see if they participate.

Arkansas Children's - Also accepting craft supply donations

Boston Children's Hospital Trust (Massachusetts)

Children's Health (Texas)

Children's National (National)

Cincinnati Children's (Ohio)

C.S Mott Children's Hospital (Michigan)

Los Angeles Children's Hospital (California)

Lucile Packard Children's Hospital (California)

Phoenix Children's Hospital  (Arizona)

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital  (National)

Texas Children's Hospital (Texas)