Happily Blended Blog | Positive Lifestyle | NH Mom Blog

Working My Way Toned … Again

Published on August 20, 2010 by brandyellen in Brandy's Life, fitness

I’ve never been a person to pop diet pills, I personally feel they are a lazy way to try to lose weight. To me the feeling of pride and accomplishment with a daily workout routine not only helps with weight loss but boosts your spirits. Due to the leg issue I was and still am having I stopped my EA Sports Active workouts. Within just a few weeks of not working out I found myself feeling insecure about my body.

Without workouts my stomach and biceps were getting larger and it was happening fast. All my life the tummy and biceps were my trouble spots. After giving birth to three kids the trouble spots became even worse without a workout routine. So I am in need of focus and energy for a workout routine again. The insecure feelings cause me to become the “old Brandy” who questions everything and worries constantly. I refuse to become an insecure person and am a firm believer that my mindset is easier controlled with a workout routine.

I have taken measurements and weight as well as noted I am in a size 13 pants. I am determined to keep up with workouts this time and have even taken current pictures, that I can’t get to at this moment because my home server computer is down and the hubs is working. I plan to share my before photos soon and try to update with pictures as often as possible. I am serious about getting rid of that extra flab and I know with the support of the online community I will be able to do this!

Who’s going to work with me on this and help support each other? What has worked for you to keep up with a regular exercise routine?

Tags: EA Sports Active, Health, Physical exercise, Programs, shopping, supplements, Support Groups, Weight loss

6 Comments

Can You Defend Yourself?

Published on August 20, 2010 by brandyellen in Miscellaneous

Back in the day I used to be a bit crazy and would use self defense as an excuse when getting into an argument or physical confrontation with someone, however, that is different when you are talking about true self defense against a person or animal that you are in danger from. Whether you are male or female having self defense products such as pepper spray will give you the one up on your attacker.

Don’t think pepper spray will totally suck on that attacker or intruder? Well think about it, pepper spray is derived from hot cayenne peppers so head on over to your local produce place and pick up some of these and touch them, from there proceed to touch your eye. It will burn really badly, so please really do not do that for your own safety, hot cayenne peppers are nothing to mess with unless you are using them in something you are cooking!

Self defense is something many people lack, we are not usually trained self defense techniques in high school, however, there seems to be more and more classes on self defense and let me tell you what I know a can of good ol’ MACE will get that job done for you to deter your attacker from proceeding so that you can call for help or run fast as fast can be away from the situation.

So tell me, what types of self defense personal security products have you used? Have you ever taken self defense classes, how did they work out for you?

Tags: Cayenne pepper, Emergency Supplies, Home and Garden, Law, Pepper spray, Personal Defense, shopping, United States

1 Comment

Stylish Way to Feed Your Infant & Toddler @mommaus

Published on August 19, 2010 by brandyellen in Product Reviews

Today I get to introduce you to a new style of feeding products for infants and toddlers, it’s called mOmma and it’s all about entertaining your child and eliminating spills at the same time.

These are the coolest looking products and Baby K just loved using them! They kept him entertained and allowed a happier, more peaceful meal time for our family! AJ really liked the looks but the mOmma Warm Developmental Meal Set which included a warming plate, spoon and fork didn’t seem to be something he even wanted to try out. AJ is four and Baby K is 2 therefore it seems the products I happened to receive from Team Mom were more suitable for my 2 year old rather than my 4 year old, however, that’s not to say your 4 year old wouldn’t enjoy them. My 4 year old son is quite the stubborn little guy and shows little interest in anything that’s not related to a superhero!

The innovative collection of cups, plates and utensils blends form with function to transform a child’s breakfast, lunch or dinner into a moment of learning and pleasure. mOmma’s ergonomic design features a distinctive “roly poly” shape that allows cups, forks and spoons to rock back and forth when uncovered. The stylish collection comes in a choice of brilliant orange of vibrant green and is PBA and phthalate-free.

You can purchase these products on the mOmma US website as well as on Amazon and diapers.com.

Be sure to connect with mOmma US on Twitter and Facebook to get up to date news and information!

Disclosure: I received a mOmma non-spill cup, cup with straw, mOmma wash cleaning accessory and the mOmma warm developmental meal set for free in order to full facilitate this review for Team Mom and mOmma US.

Tags: children, Design, Ergonomics, facebook, Infant, shopping, toddler, twitter

2 Comments

CLOSED The Baby Bunch Crayon Rompers Giveaway

Published on August 19, 2010 by brandyellen in giveaways, Product Reviews

I am flat out excited to be working with The Baby Bunch again, this time I received Crayon Rompers and get to giveaway a package to one lucky entrant as well! As you know I don’t have any romper aged children so these great Crayon rompers went with my sister to a baby shower. The recipient loved them and thought they were just adorable along with the cupcake onesies I recently had up live on site from The Baby Bunch!

About The Baby Bunch Crayon Rompers

Each new baby can enjoy a colorful set of Crayon Rompers that come in three different colors being useful for both a boy or a girl. The Crayon Rompers include: one red one-piece, one green one-piece and one orange one-piece, each of these rompers look like a crayon {no joke}; the baby clothes are so cutely packaged in a box that looks like a crayon box. These rompers are made of super-soft 100% cotton and sized for infants 0-6 months, or up to 16 lbs.

Would you like to win these? Go ahead read on and follow all rules laid out to ensure your entry is not removed for not following the complete rules! VALUE IS APROX. $25

OPEN TO US AND CANADA – ENDS 11:59pm ON SEPTEMBER 1

First REQUIRED Entry – Head on over the The Baby Bunch and have a look around, what other product beside the Crayon Rompers appeal to you? Leave a comment below before doing any of the optional entries telling me which product(s) appeal to you besides the crayon rompers.

OPTIONAL Additional Entries -

“Like” The Baby Bunch on Facebook and leave a comment with your Facebook profile name.
Follow both @brandyellen and @BabyBunch on Twitter. Leave a comment telling me your Twitter username.
Blog about this giveaway linking to both this giveaway and The Baby Bunch (www.babybunch.com). Leave a comment with a link to your live blog post in a comment below.
Tweet up to THREE TIMES per day about this giveaway to both @babybunch and @brandyellen. Leave a comment with link to your Tweet below.
Follow Happily Blended through Google Friend Connect (right hand sidebar). Leave a comment with your username.
Subscribe to Happily Blended’s newsletter. Leave a comment telling me you did this.
Subscribe to Happily Blended Blog Updates via RSS or Email. Leave a comment stating which way you subscribe.

Disclosure: The Crayon Rompers were provided to me free in order to facilitate this review/giveaway. All opinions are 100% mine.

Tags: baby shower, Child, children, Cotton, facebook, Google Friend Connect, shopping, twitter

103 Comments

Happy Birthday Baby K You are TWO Today

Published on August 19, 2010 by brandyellen in Brandy's Life

I must start this blog post with a cute little video I took a couple nights ago of Baby K …

Oh Baby K it’s been a fast two years and you have entertained us the whole way! Sometimes a very active boy like your big brother and other times a sweet caring child like your sister. Oh you are the perfect mix of both your siblings and always keep everyone in the house smiling. The first to give a hug and kiss when someone is hurt.

We love you dearly sweet boy and we are happy that you are now officially a BIG TWO YEAR OLD BOY! Okay well I am not looking forward the “terrible twos” as they are called because we are already seeing a bit of that in you … guess Mama is going to have to get more sleep to keep up with you!

Enjoy your special day son, can’t wait to give you a big birthday hug and kiss!

Tags: Arts, Big Brother, Big Brother UK, Big Brother US, Programs, Reality-Based, Sibling, Television

13 Comments

How Giveaway Winners Are Chosen

Published on August 19, 2010 by brandyellen in Blogging Support

You know it was recently brought to my attention, that maybe many people who enter blog giveaways don’t realize how a winner is chosen. I wanted to take a moment to explain how I choose a giveaway winner and how most other bloggers do as well.

When a giveaway submission comes through to me first I find out if I am going to charge my giveaway fee for hosting it or receive the same or similar product package in exchange for hosting said giveaway. I then wait to receive whatever form of compensation I will be receiving and if a product is submitted I must take time to fully review the product so that I can share my opinion based on the family experience with said product.

Once I am ready to write up the giveaway I get online and log into my dashboard for my blog. I then write up the giveaway based on my normal practices and requests the sponsor has asked of me to include. From there the giveaway will run about 7-14 days depending upon the request of the sponsor or my personal feeling of how long I think the giveaway needs to run to fully be promoted.

The giveaway date and end time come along, I try to close the comments and if I didn’t then I delete any comments received after the end date/time. The next steps are easier written in bullet points so here goes:

I review all comments to ensure everyone followed the rules.
For those comments who did not enter correctly based on that particular giveaway rules I delete them without notice (as is usually written in all my giveaway posts).
After I get a total number of comments aka entries I open a new tab in my browser to go to Random.org.
Random.org has a true random number generator on their site on the right hand side that I place the number 1 and then the last number of entries into the number fields.
I then click “generate” one time to have it choose a number.
The number chosen is the winner so I go back to the other tab where my giveaway post is open and look at the numbered comments.
Once I get to the correct number I then know who the winner is.
After the process is complete I try to take screen captures but do not always do this to ensure I can include a photo so that there are no questions on who the winner is.
If I did take screen shots I will upload them to my site and include them in the winning post and schedule the post to go live at my next set posting date/time.

After the winner has been announced live, and sometimes beforehand, I contact the winner and let them know they won. I ask the winner to leave a comment on the winner announcement post and reply to my email with the information I need for that particular giveaway. So there you have it, in a nutshell “how giveaway winners are chosen” in a blog giveaway or at least a Happily Blended Blog giveaway.

Any questions? Any tips on what you do as a blogger for giveaway winner selections?