TaylorCrafts Engraved

*Disclosure: I have received product free for review. These thoughts are solely my own.

TaylorCrafts Engraves started when Tony and Belinda both lost their jobs in the recession in 2009-2010. When the holidays arrived, Belinda was thinking of gifts she could give and came up with the idea of a personalized cutting board. These were not only a hit as a gift but when they decided to try and sell them they were a hit as well! Their business blossomed over the years and they are now in a 3000 square foot space and partner with local wood mills and woods craftsmen in the local salt lake city area.

TaylorCrafts engraved now not only has cutting boards but other personalized products that all make amazing holiday gifts! One really cool product is the pizza board! These are made with bamboo which easily peels the pizza out of your oven without tearing it. Thats a far cry from the tongs and spatula I try and use!

Serving trays are another great idea! Maybe I should purchase these and give my husband a hint that I want breakfast in bed? These trays come in three different types of wood you can choose from for a style of looks. What is great is there is a list of ideas you can choose from for your engraving and if you don't see anything you like then you can talk to them about your own personal ideas!

Anyone that knows me knows that I am such a fan of personalized products. My family means everything to me and I love being 'us' as a whole being represented. It is so cool to walk into my kitchen and my cutting board is displayed proudly on my counter. I get so many compliments on it and others asking where it came from. My father in law was particularly impressed and was inspecting the wood and commenting on how nice it was. If you want to see all that TaylorCrafts Engraved has to offer you can check them out HERE.

Kraft Chix

*Disclosure: I have received product free for review. These thoughts are solely my own.

Krafty Chix is the handmade and boutique items for the every day chix. So many of the items on Krafty Chix are individualized to tell your story. As you browse through their website you will see something for many of the women, and some men, in your life!

One of my favorite, and one of their best selling products, is the 'Mamas little birdies' bracelet. My bracelet has a birdie for each of my three children and the color bead of each of their birth stone months. It is so personal to me and definitely something I cherish. I love being able to show it off and tell the story of it.

Another great gift item your loved ones can carry with you is the 'my greatest blessings' keychains. I got one from my mom, who my children call Gigi. It has a pink bead for her birth month and the family charm on it. She is always bugging me for things that say Gigi on it and I know she will love it! You can do so much of your holiday shopping on just the Krafty Chix website!

They don't just sell jewelry either. I love the Wendy Weekender tote. It is a great size to carry both me and my kids things! It is monogrammed with my initials and looks super cute!

If you are looking for something for the men in your life they have a Krafty Chux line. Bottle openers, koozies, cigar and drink holders are among the chux line!

Have I mentioned how awesome the prices are? There are things for any budget! I was amazed at how inexpensive most of the items are! Making your holiday shopping budget friendly as well! Go take a look for yourself!

Happy Wax

*Disclosure: I have received products free for review. These thoughts are solely my own.

Let me start with this: My house smells AMAZING. Seriously, I am meting Happy wax holiday collection and I can not get enough! Sometimes I just want to walk out of my house to walk back in and take a big sniff. The smell alone gets me in the holiday spirit! And do you see that graphic above? How cool is their beginning story? The little bear shapes are such a cute signature mark and I love that I can either add a few or more for a stronger scent!

Happy Wax is the first brand dedicated to making melting healthy, easy and fun. And it most definitely is! Their waxes are made with all natural soy wax, essential oils, and phthalate free scents . Want to know what my favorite part of their warmers are? The no scrape silicone tray! I have had lots of wax warmers before and switching scents an waxes is so tough! With Happy wax warmers I just have to bend the tray and pop out the wax! It is SO easy! The warmers are cute too and fit the modern family home!

If you are a forgetful mom like me they have a great timing system. With just the click of a button you can set your warmer to stay on for 3, 6, or 9 hours. Each little bear you receive has been hand poured! Yes, you read that correctly, an actual person poured the wax into a mold, making sure you are getting the very best! You are able to purchase either a tabletop warmer or a plug in warmer and for the table top warmer you can purchase other snap on wraps to change up the style! For the waxes, you have a number of different scents to chose from and you can purchase them in a 3.6 oz tin or an 8oz half pounder bag! Ready to check out what all the fuss is about? You can purchase everything HERE.

Elly Lu Organics

*Disclosure: I have received products free for review. These thoughts are solely my own.

Elly Lu Organics is owned and operated by two sister in laws that are married to twin brothers. How cool is that? After searching for similar products for their own children and being unsuccessful they decided to make their own line of whimsical stuffed toys. They are not only adorable but also eco-friendly. Part of Elly- Lu's mission is to minimize your exposure to harmful toxins. This is why their products are made exclusively from certified organic and environmental friendly materials. Another cool thing about Elly Lu is for every product sold they donate 1 dollar to a few select charities!

Elly Lu products are manufactured in certified "Garments without guilt" factories which align with fair trade principles. Every moment is a teaching moments so each toy comes with a tag with a fun fact about that animal.

Elly Lu has six copyrighted characters you can choose from and Norman the Narwhal has his very own book you can purchase! Each animal is approved for age zero months and up and the book is perfect for all ages! I think Cupcake the unicorn is my favorite! But both mermaids are a close second! Fun Unicorn facts:"This mythical creature is known for it's goodness and gentleness and ability to heal. One of the earliest records of a Unicorn was found in an ancient Greek text that described a one horned horse-like animal that was spotted in India. " For each Cupcake that is purchased, Elly Lu donates one dollar to support clean drinking water and free education to villages in India! You can find out more facts about each animal and how each one supports a different charity in its own special way!

You can purchase all of Elly Lu Organics cuddly animals HERE. And follow their adventures on Instagram @ellyluorganics.

Our Green House

*Disclosure: I have received products free for review. These thoughts are solely my own.

If you are looking for a great eco- friendly site for gifts for moms and babies then Our Green House is the place to be. Our Green House has organic, fair trade, natural, and eco- friendly gifts that you will love. Their website has tons and tons of amazing products that will fulfill all of your individual or gift giving needs!

One of the AWESOME features that really stuck out to me at Our Green House is the custom gift baskets! You can completely design a gift basket to send someone and watch the progress as you pick each piece! Your gift basket is complete in 4 easy steps: Choose container, choose the items, choose the ribbon, and write a message. You can easily add and remove items, watch the price tally to stay in your budget, and filter through thousands of products by a number of categories for easy searching! This is such a unique feature it makes making a gift basket for that special loved one in your life easy!

Our Green House was born in 2003 out of an Environmental testing company, Willow Environmental. After years of discovering amazing products they decided they wanted to share these products with all of you! Their goal is to inspire clean, natural living, by providing healthy homes to families. They are committed to finding the best new products to enhance lives while protecting the environment.

If you aren not feeling in the creative mood then Our Green House has remade gift baskets that you can choose from as well. You may choose to filter these by gender or gender neutral. These are beautifully designed and have something for every budget. You can find all of the amazing products Our Green House has to offer HERE.

Personalization Mall

*Disclosure: I have received product free for review. These thoughts are solely my own.

I love the holidays. I love decorating, and the smells, and the foods, and everything about it! I also love all things personal and that represent my family. Personalization Mall has everything you could imagine to make your holiday extra special and gifts for all the loved ones in your life. One of my favorite things on the site is the tree skirts. What a beautiful way to represent your family on Christmas morning sitting around the tree opening gifts. These are great for you or to gift!

One of my family traditions is to get a personalized ornament with our names on every year. I love seeing our family grow and adding new names to our bunch. Personalization mall has a wide variety of personalized ornaments for you to choose from. Know someone that just bought a house? Get them a ornament to hang on their tree for their first Christmas in their new home. New baby? There's an ornament for that! Just married and celebrating their first Holiday as a married couple? You got it!

Personalization mall doesn't just have Christmas decorations. They have something for everyone. It is a one stop shop for gift shopping! They have clothing, things for the home, frames, kitchenware, celery, keepsakes, school and office supplies, toys and so so much more! You could spend hours browsing their site and get much of your Christmas shopping done! And the prices are very reasonable as well! Right now their sales prices are awesome! Go check them out and see what all you can find and do some Christmas shopping while you're there! You can check Personalization Mall out here. Don't forget to check out the Holiday cards to send to your family and friends too!

Yookidoo

*Disclosure: I have received product free for review. These thoughts are solely my own.

Summer may be over but water fun has just begun! Who says you can't splash around in your bath tub? These awesome products are sure to have your little one having fun during bath time!

The Yookidoo's stack and spray tub fountain helps kids learn the basic principles of physics all while having fun in the tub!

This award-winning bath toy’s base draws water up through the center, allowing kids to stack each of the brightly colored boat characters to create different water effects.  Teaches children cause & effect processes and concepts such as such as full/empty, float/sink, and high/low.   

• 7 Unique Pieces each with Different Functions  
• Specifically designed for little hands  
• Easy for kids to turn on and off by themselves just press the orange peek a boo button.  
• Boats and characters can float around the tub.  
• For ages 1-6 years  
• MSRP: $26.95.  
  You can find the Yookidoo Stack and spray tub fountain on AMAZON.

Meet Yookidoo’s newest addition to their award-winning line up of bath toys- The Submarine Spray Whale! Little deep sea divers will fall in love with this battery operated submarine and friendly whale tub companion! The patented pumping system magically draws water from the tub, creating a safe, recycled water flow that streams through the diver shower head.  The diver shower head’s easy grip design allows little hands to direct the water flow anywhere in the tub for splish, splashy fun or into the whale to create a cool spraying action.    

• For ages 2-6 years  
• MSRP: $27.99  
  You can find the Yookidoo submarine spray whale on AMAZON.

Quack, quack!   Little ones have tons of pool fun with the candy-striped Yookidoo® Musical Duck Race that comes with four cute duckies that ring around the fountain.  Press the leaf-leaver to activate one of nine random sound and water effects and place a duck on top of the water fountain for even more water effects. This musical tub toy develops hand-eye coordination, cause and effect, and teaches colors and counting. MSRP: $37.99. Available online at AMAZON

My Magic Mud

*Disclosure: I have received product free for review. These thoughts are solely my own.

Are you looking for a natural toothpaste or tooth powder that gives you a naturally white smile? My Magic Mud whitening toothpowder and toothpaste whiten your teeth and improve your oral hygiene. My Magic Mud is black in color. It has a revolutionary formula leaving your teeth feel super clean and looking sparkling. Toothpaste comes in 4 delicious flavors: peppermint, spearmint, wintergreen, and cinnamon clove. I have personally tried wintergreen and it has a nice subtle taste that does not over power your mouth and left my teeth feeling super clean!

What are the benefits of using My Magic Mud you ask? First it whitens and polishes your teeth naturally. It also deeply cleans your teeth and removes the toxins with its activated charcoal. My Magic Mud is gentle on your enamel and reduces the sensitivity of your teeth and gums. My Magic Mud started as a simple home remedy by a mother of four looking for something safe and effective for her family and has blossomed into a successful small business.

My Magic Mud is so much more then a toothpaste and toothpowder. This company produces products that are vegan, cruelty free, gluten free, non GMO, and does not contain fluoride. It is everything you want and need in a tooth paste! It feels slightly different then an ordinary toothpaste and I always giggle when I am brushing and have black teeth but I am left with a satisfying feeling knowing my teeth are getting the best! I even had a dentist appointment recently and at that point have been using My Magic Mud for about a month and he said my teeth are beautiful. He did not even know I switched to a new type of toothpaste! You can purchase My Magic Mud for 9.99 here or look for other retailers.

Ark Therapeutic

*Disclosure: I have received product free for review. These thoughts are solely my own.

When this little guy started speech we were discussing ways to 'wake up' his mouth and tools we could use to help that. This is a whole new world to me so after discussing it and doing our research we decided the Zvibe by Ark Therapeutic was a good fit for J. The Zvibe is the ultimate vibrating oral motor for speech therapy, feeding therapy, and sensory stimulation. You can use it to provide tactile oral cues, to direct the articulators, and to wake up the mouth. You may also use it to increase oral awareness and tone, decrease mouth stuffing, drooling, oral defensiveness, texture aversions, to soothe, calm, and self organize, to improve focus and concentration, to work on oral motor exercises, and so so much more!

J had an open mouth posture before using the Zvibe and he was also drooling. He is almost 2.5 years old and when we first started speech he had about 10 words, for those unfamiliar 2 year olds should have around 200 words. The words that J did have were understandable by mom and dad but usually not others. He has been using the Zvibe for little over a month now and his mouth is generally closed and the drooling has stopped.

J increased his word count from 10 to about 45 words. Progress is slow but he is improving which is very exciting. Another way we use the Zvibe is for a calming device. Using the 'bite and chew' tip during a tantrum we us the Zvibe to try and divert his attention. He enjoys the calm, vibrating motion and the tip that he can bite down on. Many times this will help calm him down so we can try and figure out what his want or need is at that time. We use the Probe tip on his cheeks and to press down on his tongue and we use the Preefer tip to roll from cheek- over tongue- to next cheek. We also use the Preefer tip to roll it over J's lips.

The Zvibe is so easy to use and wash. The tips just screw on and to turn in on you screw in the bottom. Another tool that J likes to use to strengthen his mouth is a chew tool called a grabber. It has a handle he can hold and he literally just bites down on it. The Grabber comes in different toughness from soft to extra extra tough depending on your child's needs. Ark Therapeutic also offers many stylish chewlery depending on your needs!

If you are looking for a great starter kit they offer one with 2 chew tools, 1 Zvibe and 4 tips that come in a case for about 60 USD. You can find out more information about Ark Therapeutic and find something for all of your or your child's oral needs here!