Math (Muffin) Tin Monday

Muffin Tin Monday is always something to look forward to around here. There wasn't a theme today so I stole an idea from someone, but I'm not sure who. Each week I click through the links posted and get lots of great ideas; if this was your idea - Thanks!

I filled a tin with snacks - craisins, frozen blueberries, cheese pieces, pretzels, ducks, and marshmallows for a special treat. The girls had to roll a die and then choose that number of snacks from one of the tins. It was good counting practice and even Julia did very well with it. They stayed interested in this and took turning rolling the die and snacking until the tin was almost cleaned out. (Of course the marshmallows disappeared first.) I'd been looking for fun math ideas to add to our homeschooling days, and this was a great one. Check out Her Cup Overfloweth for more Muffin Tin Monday fun.

More About Lead, Safe Jewelry, and a Giveaway

I'm currently running a series of posts about Toxins In Toys. In my latest post, we talked about lead - where its found and more. I am subscribed to a recall email list and one of the things that I see recalled frequently because of lead is children's jewelry. Most of it is off brand jewelry that I wouldn't consider safe anyway, but the recalls do include some brand names such as American Girl, and Reebok. The Reebok bracelet was actually recalled because a four year old boy swallowed the heart shaped charm and then died of lead poisoning. The CDC has a report on the incident here. Here is a list of children's jewelry recalls.

As a mom of two little girls who love to dress up and be pretty, I'm definitely concerned about this issue. My girls do not have metal jewelry right now. Aside from the lead issue, I would also be concerned about charms coming off and posing a choking hazard to the new baby or little ones that visit our household. They do each have a special amber necklace that they can wear when they want to. They get so many compliments on their necklaces when they are wearing them, and the necklaces are a safe option for many reasons.

Amber is interesting in that it is not actually a stone, it is a fossilized tree resin, and has been used historically as a remedy for many ailments. When wearing a piece of amber jewelry, your skin warms the amber and it releases trace amounts of succinic acid which your body absorbs. Amber is credited for pain relief, restoring energy, strengthening the body's immune system, and more. You can read more about the benefits here. Personally, I'm undecided on how effective wearing amber is, but it certainly can't hurt. Its a natural substance, and looks great besides!

Inspired by Finn is a great little shop that sells amber jewelry. They sent us an amber necklace and bracelet for review. Here is a picture of Lucy with the necklace on:

We chose the light mix round bead necklace in 13 inches. The lighter colors are supposed to have more of the succinic acid. The string the necklace is made of is designed to stretch or even break if necessary. Each piece of amber is individually double knotted on the strand so that if the necklace does break you won't have little pieces flying everywhere. Lucy is very proud of her amber necklace and I can tell she feels very pretty when she's wearing it.

The bracelet that we received was for my mother in law. She has constant pain in her arms, neck, and shoulders from arthritis and other spinal problems. I asked her to wear the bracelet for a couple of weeks and let me know what she thought.

She said that the bracelet was somewhat helpful. She felt that it helped with the pain, although it was hard to tell. On a day where she did something strenuous and was in more pain, the bracelet didn't do much, but it did seem to help with everyday low level pain management. She's been wearing it every time I see her lately, so I it must be helping.

Its definitely interesting to read about the benefits of amber. I love these necklaces as a safe option for children's (and mommy!) jewelry. (Note: due to CPSIA regulations, the jewelry is recommended for ages 3 and up.) Inspired by Finn sells amber necklaces in adult and youth sizes, earrings, and more. As a side note, they have a huge selection of baby legs at a great price. (I have this organic wool pair for the new baby and they are so soft and nice.)

Inspired by Finn is offering one reader a necklace! If you'd like to enter the giveaway leave a comment on this post including your email address. The winner will be able to choose any necklace smaller than 16 inches. If you can't wait and would like to do some holiday shopping, you can use the code "blog" for 20% off. For extra entries, you can blog about this giveaway and leave the link in a comment, become a follower of my blog (or say that you already are), or both. The giveaway will close on December 11 at midnight.

Thanks for stopping by. Stay tuned for more on toy safety, toys reviews, and giveaways coming up soon.

**The giveaway is now closed. Random.org chose comment #13. Thanks for your interest!**

KidBean.com Product Review and Giveaway

This month I've been posting about Toxins In Toys and talking about some of the choices our family is making regarding toys. With our switch to natural safe toys, we've found some wonderful toy companies that have great high quality products. One of the stores that I've been impressed with is KidBean. They thoroughly research every company and product they sell, and will even tell you why they don't carry certain products. Here is a quote from their about us page:

"You can find natural, organic, earth-friendly children's products, like wooden toys and organic cotton baby clothes at hundreds of online retailers and an increasing number of local stores. However, you may notice that most of these products are made overseas from foreign components (such as organic cotton clothing made in India from Indian-grown organic cotton or wooden toys made in China or Germany). Were the workers who made them treated fairly? Which organic certification do they have (GOTS, CU, or..?)? What is the impact of their packaging? Are all the ingredients really safe?"

I love the questions they are asking! KidBean is a vegan company and very concerned about being green in every way they can. Just looking at the list of green things that they do at their office is inspiring. Also inspiring is the story of how the company started - a passionate mom wanting to stay home with her new baby girl, determined to start a business that sold earth-friendly, labor-friendly, vegan products. Today they are a thriving business with well over 750 products in numerous categories.

KidBean's toy selection consists of all wooden toys made here in the US. They focus on simple, open-ended toys that feed your child's imagination. The toys are all guaranteed to be lead free. Lucy and Julia had the chance to review the Uncle Goose Antics Ant Blocks recently.

Uncle Goose blocks are handcrafted in Michigan from basswood. They use child safe non-toxic ink on the blocks. The Antics Ant Blocks set has 16 blocks with ant trails, a queen ant and her eggs, little ant hill entrances, and even a spider. We are going to be studying ants as part of our My Father's World homeschool curriculum in a few weeks, so I thought this would be a fun set to have. I like the open-endedness of being able to create unique ant trails each time. It was actually not as challenging as I thought it would be since all of the pieces fit together in any way. Ross did point out that the ants were headed in certain directions and Lucy and I had them crashing into each other because we hadn't noticed that detail.

The girls both enjoyed playing with the blocks. Julia pointed to a couple of ants and said "maybe these are the friends and these are the mommy and daddy." In the photo she's yelling something about her king falling off the steps. Lucy had fun making a trail of ants running away from the spider and into one of the ant hill openings. The blocks are a nice big size - 1 3/4". We also received a sturdy canvas drawstring bag perfect for storing the blocks in. I'm not sure why, but they actually liked putting the blocks away in the bag - they normally don't do well cleaning up. Lucy and Julia give this toy two thumbs up for sure. The next morning after we had been playing with the blocks, Julia went straight to the closet and pulled them out again.

KidBean is giving away one set of Uncle Goose Blocks, your choice! (excluding the wagon) Uncle Goose makes a great selection of blocks including many other languages, bugs, and more. Visit KidBean and tell me what set you would choose. While you're there, check out their other great categories - bedding, clothing, diapers, and more. Leave a comment on this post being sure to include your email address. I'll close the giveaway on Dec 11 at midnight and use random.org to select a winner.

**The giveaway is now closed and a winner has been contacted. Thanks for your interest!**

Bosch Mixer Review

After saving my money from a couple of birthdays and Christmases and anything in between, I finally got a Bosch mixer! My old mixer wasn't great, and with being interested in baking my own bread and making more things from scratch, I really wanted a nice mixer. I've had it for awhile now and have made a few different things with it, so I wanted to share my thoughts.

I debated for a while between getting a KitchenAid mixer or the Bosch mixer. I first read about the Bosch mixer on blogs where people were making their own bread (and often grinding their own wheat as well!). The more I read, I kept running into rave reviews of the Bosch mixer. Looking up reviews on the KitchenAid mixer, I discovered that many people seem to have problems with it leaking oil or the motor burning up, especially when trying to mix larger batches of bread dough. I asked some mom friends on a private message board I belong to and several of them said that yes, their KitchenAid leaked oil (from the top, down into the mixing bowl). I didn't find as many reviews on the Bosch mixer, but the ones I did read were very favorable. The reviews all seemed to agree that the Bosch was a workhorse, lasts forever, and performed well.

This comparison chart (Bosch vs KitchenAid) from Everything Kitchens eventually helped me decide on the Bosch. The Bosch mixer has an 800 watt motor, while the KitchenAid's top mixer is only 575 watts. Bosch has a better warranty, but also weighs less and has a smaller profile which is better for my tiny kitchen. The bowl is a bit bigger, and the Bosch mixer does better at mixing bread dough. The prices are actually similar when you compare KitchenAid's top model to the Bosch mixer. I did discover after some research that the Bosch blender attachment is made of polycarbonate and therefore contains BPA. The blender attachment is optional and I will not be purchasing it unless they make it of some other material. The mixing bowl is polypropylene, a safe plastic, or you can purchase a stainless steel mixing bowl. I think the clear plastic lid may be polycarbonate, but the food doesn't really touch that part.

When I set out to purchase the Bosch mixer, Everything Kitchens ended up sending me the mixer and Nutrimill grain mill at a discount for reviewing them on my blog. Of course I enjoy chatting about things that I've researched and use in my home, and I thought you'd like hearing about my adventures with the mixer and grain mill. I'm definitely not an expert bread baker (or even cookie baker!) yet, but I'm having fun trying.

The mixer is short enough that it fits under my low counters, but I do have to pull it out each time I want to use it. There are suction cups on the bottom of the mixer (because its so powerful it can fling itself right off your counter without these I guess!), so I have to un-suction it every time I want to pull it out for use. I'd love to have more counter space so as to not have to move it every time, but that's just an issue with my small kitchen. I am able to store all of the attachments inside the mixing bowl, which is nice.

The Bosch mixer comes with a dough hook and french whisks. I also purchased the cookie paddles and the batter/ cookie whips, which are similar to the wire whips that come with the mixer, but they are a bit stronger for thicker batters. The whips and whisks are for pourable batters, and the cookie paddles and dough hook are for thicker doughs. All of the pieces, bowl, lid, etc, attach by turning them one direction or another until they click. I still get confused about which way I'm supposed to turn each piece, but overall its not very complicated to set up and use. There are also all kinds of different attachments you can buy for the mixer.

The Bosch is a bit different in the way that it mixes - the paddles or whisks fit down inside of the bowl and spin around, rather than coming up over the top like a KitchenAid. Here is a picture looking down into the mixer. I like this set up because one you put the lid on it completely covers the top and keeps in all of the flour dust when you turn it on.

I'm still working on finding a good bread recipe that we like, but the dough hook really does seem to do a great job at mixing and kneading the dough. I can put in all of the ingredients, leave the mixer to knead the dough for a certain amount of time, let the dough rise, then shape and bake the loaves. I don't find it to be any harder than using my bread machine, and I get better results. My bread machine seemed to make the bread crust a bit too dark for us, and then you get the weird shaped loaf too. With the Bosch mixer I can also make larger batches of bread dough at once. I have to try making bread a few more times with the Bosch, but I'm thinking of sending my bread machine the way of Craigslist, along with my old mixer.

I purchased the Bosch mixer and Nutrimill from Everything Kitchens and was very happy with their customer service. I received my items within just a few days of ordering them. They have a huge selection of all kinds of kitchen products, and have great prices. They told me that the listed prices for the Bosch and Nutrimill are from the manufacturers, but if you call and request a discount, the sales people are authorized to give you one. Another cool thing about Everything Kitchens is that they donate 1% of their proceeds to World Vision, an international humanitarian aid organization. I would definitely recommend purchasing through this website for their great customer service, focus on customer satisfaction, and their best price guarantee. You can read more about Everything Kitchens here, or visit their real live store in Springfield, MO.

The Bosch mixer comes with a great little cookbook and I'm still experimenting with different recipes - overall I'm happy with my new mixer! I'm going to be posting a review of the Nutrimill grain mill in the near future. I was interested in the grain mill not only to be able to grind my own fresh grain, but also to be able to use other lighter whole grains like spelt and white wheat. Check back soon for more about that. Feel free to email Santa Claus a link to this blog post if you're wanting to add these to your Christmas list.