Pumpkin Streamers

Our littlest pumpkin streamer.

Halloween is in full swing here in our house. Most of my decorations came out of the closet about a week ago, so now we've been working on our own. My daughter is 3 years old now, but she still has trouble with most of the advanced crafts. I saw a cute tutorial for a ghost windsock on Pinterest, and decided to try out something similar, a pumpkin streamer.




I found a cute, basic pumpkin outline here and rotated and flipped it to make a pattern. This pattern fits on an 8x11 paper, but it's easy to play around with the dimensions. It was the perfect size for my daughter to color, but I like the larger one for decorating. For them, I blew up the image to take up the entire sheet of paper. I printed them all on orange computer paper... mostly to use up my orange paper.

After printing up the pumpkins, we colored them and added faces. It's much easier for a preschooler to color on a whole sheet and cut the image out after. When all my pumpkins were cut out, we cut out crepe paper streamers also. Three to four feet is a good length for the streamers; shorter is easier to handle indoors. I then used a permanent glue stick to assemble them. I glued the streamers about halfway down the pumpkin, covered the other pumpkin in glue, and then sandwiched them together. After they were dry, I added a grommet to the top of each one. This gives them a nice sturdy hole to hang them by.

Large Pumpkin

DD's Pumpkin

This was a really fun, easy craft. My daughter got to color and then helped me pick out all the streamer colors and helped assemble them. They can also stay up through Thanksgiving too, which is nice!

All the Pumpkins

CleanWell Natural Hand Sanitizer Wipes

The final complementary product I received in my Naturals VoxBox was a sample of CleanWell Natural Hand Sanitizer Wipes. Having 2 small children in the house, I knew it wouldn't take long for a chance to try them out.

My daughter had chocolate all over her face, so I wiped her up with one of the CleanWell wipes. It cleaned her messy face well, comparable to using a baby wipe. The wipe itself has a light citrus fragrance and feels very durable, almost like fabric.

What makes these better than baby wipes is the fact that they're antibacterial. That also makes them a great choice for wiping off toys or restaurant high chairs. There's no alcohol in them, a feature I really like, especially in drier months.  My hands get really dry sometimes, and I like the idea of a sanitizing wipe that won't sting or worsen my dry hands. No alcohol also means it won't sting cuts when cleaning up boo boos.

I had never heard of the CleanWell brand before receiving my VoxBox, and after going to their website, I was surprised at the extensive product line they have.  I'd love to check out their portable sanitizers as a product for my first aid kit. I also learned on their site that the wipes are biodegradable, another feature that's important to me and would make me feel better about purchasing their packaged wipes.

LypSyl Intense Protection LypMoisturizer

I've been using LypSyl Intense Protection LypMoisturizer for a few weeks and really enjoy it. I tend to like beeswax products, so I was excited to try this out.

The tube is larger than most lip balms, and I have to say that the little bee on the side is my favorite part. You slide the little bee up and down to change the height of the lip balm, so adorable! I use lip balm throughout the day and found myself not having to reapply it constantly. I can easily go 2-3 hours between applications.  

The LypMoisturizer works great and has a smooth buttery feeling, not sticky at all. It also doesn't have a strong scent or heavy flavoring which is really nice. There's no color either, so it's great for my whole family to use.

I received my LypSyl Intense Protection LypMoisturizer for review as part of my Naturals VoxBox from Influenster.

Saguaro National Park

Two weeks ago the family took an overnight trip from Phoenix down to Tuscon to visit family. On our way home we took a detour through the Saguaro National Park. Both girls were asleep, and it was a nice drive for my husband and I to just take in the scenery. 

The park is best known for its saguaro cactus forest.

Despite living so close, neither of us had ever been through there before! It's amazingly beautiful there and is now on our list of places to camp, especially with family nearby to babysit the girls if we'd like.

The park also has many miles of trails to explore.

SheaMoisture Baby Bar Soap

Another item I received as part of my Naturals VoxBox from Influenster was SheaMoisture Baby Bar Soap. Even from my first impressions I was impressed by it. The packaging, scent and weight of the soap all felt very high quality. SheaMoisture also utilizes lots of organic and natural ingredients, which is wonderful for sensitive skin.

I used this soap both on myself and on my infant daughter and have found it works great for both of us. I hate using bar soap in the shower, so I've been using it to wash my face at night. My skin feels soft and smooth, and the bar hasn't irritated my skin or made it break out, which is often a problem for me. Before I used it on my daughter, I intentionally got some suds in my eyes and had no pain or burning. After testing that, I've been using it for her bath time and have noticed her skin is less dry. It's also helping her cradle cap, a benefit I read other mothers have noticed too.

SheaMoisture Baby Bar is a great soap. It smells wonderful and has a light, almost citrusy scent. I like that there's no heavy fragrance, a problem I've noticed in a lot of other baby products. It easily produces a heavy lather using either a washcloth or just my hands. After rinsing, it leaves a 'squeaky' feeling, which comes from all bar soaps, but is a side effect I don't really like.

After using my SheaMoisture Baby Bar for the past week, I'm very impressed and will be recommending it to all the other mothers I know. I usually don't use bar soap, but I needed to try it as part of my VoxBox. I ended up loving it and have been using it every day!

SheaMoisture has an extensive array of products, and I'm definitely interested in trying out more of their line, especially the lotions.

EBOOST Gave Me a Boost

One of the products I received in my awesome Naturals VoxBox was EBOOST energy supplement. I don't usually use energy drinks or supplements, so I was curious to see how it would work for me.

I waited to try my EBOOST until an afternoon when I was feeling sluggish. I grabbed the EBOOST, a glass of water and my camera.  There must be a fair amount of baking soda in the formula, because as soon as I dropped in the powder, it started to foam like a 5th grade science product. It foamed over the sides of my glass, hence the attractive product trial photo.

After cleaning up a bit, I tried a bit of my new foamy orange drink. The taste isn't very good. It's very salty (back to the baking soda) and doesn't have much of an orange flavor. If my opinion ended there, it would be pretty negative. EBOOST, however, worked great for me. About 20 minutes later, I felt wide awake and energized, much more so than I usually feel with coffee. And, unlike with caffeine pills, I didn't have any manic feeling side effects, just alertness.

They retail 20 packets for $28. That seems a little steep to me, but I don't use energy drinks often. I'd be more inclined to buy a single packet off the shelf on an as needed basis. I wasn't super impressed with the orange flavor either; I'd be interested in trying the lemonade and berry flavors. Despite the flavor issue and especially after seeing how well they worked for me, I plan on buying EBOOST again.

If you're interested in trying EBOOST, their site has product information, a location finder and a sample option.