What is your number one pet peeve when it comes to headphones?
For me, it is the discomfort as they don’t ever seem to quite fit as well as they should and not being able to lay down comfortably with them in my ears. No matter how much money I spend, the ear buds never fit in my ear lobe properly, come loose or they hurt. The same is true for my children, if not a bit worse as the ear pieces never seem to fit in their ears properly and are always popping out.
Frustrating right?
CozyPhones were designed to fit around your head with a stretchy, soft band to hold the ear pieces in place. Customers can choose from a soft fleecy material (for kids and sleep time) and a lycra material for when you want to get out and about with your headphones. Both materials are lightweight, flexible, washable as well as excellent in standing up to the day-to-day demands and abuse of children and adults a like.
Our youngest tried out the Kids Headphones in the What If Monster style.
He was so excited to try them on the same day they were delivered. He loved the soft fleecy material and the snug fit on his head that was neither too tight nor too loose. The stereo pieces need to be adjusted to your child’s head but that was quite simple to do and required minimal moving of the speakers once they were around his ears. He loved that nothing went into his ears and I loved that I didn’t have to listen to the same YouTube videos over and over again. He used his CozyPhone with our iPad but the CozyPhones can be used with Android, Samsung, Blackberry, Google, Apple and so many more electronic devices. The braided cord was just long enough to not get in his way as well as not tangle up on him.
For myself, I fell in love with the Lycra active headphones. The material was lightweight and cool which is perfect for workouts but also great for when I like to listen to my audiobooks in bed or my mediation music as I fall asleep at night. I found before when I fell asleep with the ear buds in my ears were sore and I could never lay on my side (I just can’t sleep on my back!). I fell asleep several times wearing the CozyPhones to bed. I would even wear these when I was at my son’s soccer games to listen to my audiobooks.
Both the children’s and adult CozyPhones are well priced at $19.97 and you can purchase them both on their website as well as on Amazon.
\
Make sure to follow CozyPhones on Facebook and Instagram to keep up to date with the newest products and more!
What is the biggest pet peeve you have about headphones?
Disclosure: I received the above mentioned product free of charge. All opinions expressed are my own.
From the author of the bestselling Sweeney Sister Series and Sweet Tea Tuesdays comes a new novel of passion, intrigue and redemption, Magnolia Nights.
About Magnolia Nights
Ellie Pringle has spent endless hours and countless dollars working with a therapist to remember the lost years of her childhood. She’s baffled and more than a little intrigued when the grandmother she hasn’t seen in thirty-four years dies and leaves her a fortune. The time has come to face her past in person. Still reeling from a recent breakup of a long-term relationship, and with nothing to keep her in San Francisco, Ellie packs her meager belongings and boards a plane for the South Carolina Lowcountry.
Standing in the entryway of her grandmother’s antebellum home on South Battery Street in Charleston, Ellie faces the first of many ghosts who will soon haunt her. On her first night in the creepy, creaking mansion, as she’s perusing the titles in a dusty bookcase, she comes across her deceased mother’s leather-bound journal. Her mother’s words create more unanswered questions and send her on a quest to find more journals. As Hurricane Lorene bears down on the South Carolina coast, Ellie encounters Juan Hagood, a handsome architect who has the talent to restore her dilapidated mansion and the charm to mend her broken heart. But as Ellie reads her mother’s diaries, they dislodge a stone in the wall that safeguards her memories, causing her world to come crumbling down. Revelations about her childhood lead Ellie on a harrowing journey of discovery that will hold spellbound until the dramatic conclusion.
My Thoughts
Magnolia Nights is another AMAZING novel by Ashley Farley. This book branches out to new characters, that I personally hope have their own series just like the Sweeney Sisters.
This novel has a bit of a dark and deep history. Ellie, our main character, has trouble remembering her past but it has so greatly affected her present. She has little glimpses of her past but can’t quite figure out if she is remembering something that happened or if it is her mind making up something. When she inherits her Grandmother (whom she hasn’t seen in years) home and fortune, she travels to where she spend the first years of her life with the hopes that this will help her gain back her memory. Her Father is dead set against this as he remembers just how bad she was when he had rescued her in the first place from her Grandmother’s home.
Against her Father’s wishes, she travels to the South to the home and begins to fill in pieces. As she finds her Mother’s journal, the world she thought she knew begins to tumble down. She uncovers a hurtful past with lies, emotional and even physical torture. Once these doors were opened, she can never turn back especially when she uncovers the greatest secret of all (which of course I can’t tell you BUT trust me it is a shocker!). It turns the book upside down and leaves our characters scrambling to understand, accept and try to learn how to move forward.
Magnolia Nights is a well written, planned out novel with excellent character development. Our ending leaves us hoping for another novel in this series – I just can’t wait to see what lays in store for Ellie and Juan (not to mention all of the family secrets they uncovered!). This was another excellent book by Ashley Farley that you will not want to put down – it was too full of excitement and surprises! It is a definite must read novel.
Ashley Farley is the author of the bestselling series, the Sweeney Sisters Series. Ashley writes books about women for women. Her characters are mothers, daughters, sisters, and wives facing real-life issues. Her goal is to keep you turning the pages until the wee hours of the morning. If her story stays with you long after you’ve read the last word, then she’s done her job.
After her brother died in 1999 of an accidental overdose, she turned to writing as a way of releasing her pent-up emotions. She wrote SAVING BEN in honor of Neal, the boy she worshipped, the man she could not save.
Ashley is a wife and mother of two young adult children. While she’s lived in Richmond, Virginia for the past 21 years, part of her heart remains in the salty marshes of the South Carolina Lowcountry where she grew up. Through the eyes of her characters, she’s able to experience the moss-draped trees, delectable cuisine, and kind-hearted folks with lazy drawls that make the area so unique.
Disclosure: I received a digital copy of this book in order to facilitate this review. All opinions expressed are my own.
Living a healthy lifestyle has always been important to me, much more so after having children! After I gave birth to my children I realized that I had to be healthier, not only for myself, but for them too. I had their future to think about. Where would they be without Mom or Dad? But what was a healthy lifestyle and how did I achieve that?
About a year and a half after having my second son, I began feeling tired all the time, my hair was thinning out, and I was just not myself—I knew that something was wrong. While I do deal with depression, I knew that this was above and beyond my normal range of symptoms and that it was important to see my family doctor. After a series of tests, we discovered that I was dealing with a malabsorption issue in my small intestines which was causing me to be deficient in several key vitamins, including Vitamin D, Iron, and B12.
This was a whole new learning curve for me; I had studied various courses during my university years on nutrition and the body, but I was not prepared on how to deal with my vitamin deficiencies and malabsorption. Working with a dietician, we came up with a few great ideas:
Nourish your body with nutrient rich, organic, and (if possible) local food (or even grow your own—gardening is a great stress reliever). We get many of the good things our body need from what we eat, so make every bite count. I know this can be easier said than done as parents. I can’t tell you how many times my meal has consisted of my kids leftovers!
Get enough exercise—plan it out! If it’s not in my agenda then I tend to ignore that it should be leg day, so having a commitment on a calendar is crucial for me.
Get the right amount of sleep. I know you are probably laughing right now—trust me, a part of me gets it—but getting enough sleep really is important. It will help your body recover and leave you feeling refreshed.
Many times, this is not enough.
Let’s face it—life gets in the way and we can eat improperly at times. We put the focus on our children instead of us and we definitely don’t get the required amount of sleep and nutrients. For myself (and many others), we have to supplement with vitamins and minerals in order for our body to absorb and get what it needs in order to work at top form. A daily regime of vitamins that includes multi-vitamin, iron, B12, Vitamin D, Calcium, and Biotin (I added this in when my hair started to fall out!) was worked out with my dietician, and my blood work is ordered and monitored twice a year to ensure my current schedule is working. Sticking to a healthy, nutrient rich diet is tough because, to be honest, it can be hard to meal plan for the week when you have so much on the go and need to supplement to ensure you’re getting enough.
But how do you choose the right type of vitamin when there are so many different brands?
When I purchase a vitamin, the brand has to meet these must haves:
Non-GMO
Gluten free
Free of artificial flavours, colours, and preservatives
Sundown Naturals® is built upon the philosophy to deliver 100% goodness, 100% of the time. They sell a range of vitamins to cover your health care needs—from heart health to immune health to energy support. The best part about Sundown Naturals® is that they are 100% GMO free, gluten and dairy free, and free from artificial flavours, colours, and preservatives. They are also the first broad line vitamin brand to be available at your local pharmacy that is 100% Non-GMO.
With my health conditions, I want and need to ensure that the vitamins I am taking in are high quality and the easiest to absorb for my body. I am confident that each time I take a Sundown Naturals® vitamin, I am taking in the very best to help fuel my body to perform at its best. I am getting all the good stuff without any of the bad stuff. Knowing that I am helping to fuel my body with high quality vitamins to keep it running at its best leaves me feeling confident and at my best.
What is the most important feature you look for when purchasing vitamins and minerals?
Make sure to follow Sundown Naturals® on Facebook to keep up to date with all the latest information, news and more.
Disclosure: This post has been sponsored by Sundown Naturals®. All opinions expressed are my own.
Girls today face an astounding degree of pressure to grow up fast, to be “perfect” in every way, and to be all things to all people. In this book, we learn their challenges and how to help them grow strong.
About Growing Strong Girls
Girls today face an astounding degree of pressure to grow up fast, to be “perfect” in every way, and to be all things to all people. They yearn to connect, but sometimes this yearning turns into negative, even destructive patterns such as passive aggressiveness, gossip, or excessive stress and anxiety. It’s heart-breaking to watch even the most confident little girls disconnect and lose their spark—and their way—when they hit the 9–14 years.
In Growing Strong Girls, educator and girl expert and advocate Lindsay Sealey reveals the tremendous power of connection to activate self-awareness, self-acceptance, and healthy social and emotional development. This wide-ranging and positive book is chock-full of ideas, tips, activities, stories and specific ways to connect with and equip girls to know and trust themselves, to create vibrant friendships and communities, and to step into their tween and teen years with resilience, bravery, confidence, and inner strength.
Lindsay Sealey bridges the gap between girls and the adults who want to understand them and the sometimes chaotic and confusing ways they act and express themselves. She explains the realities of girl drama and social pressure that girls themselves often don’t possess the maturity or communication skills to convey and models a way for parents, teachers, counselors, mentors, and companions on the journey to listen deeply and to start conversations with girls that actually go somewhere.
When the most important thing a girl needs is a secure relationship, an adult’s primary task is simple: spend time with her, listen, and draw out her core qualities so she knows who she is and so she can handle social pressures. Once a girl learns to connect inwardly with her true self, she can connect outwardly in healthy relationships and onward to meet the challenges of school and the wider world. Growing Strong Girls offers hundreds of practical ways to cultivate connection right now. Making a difference in the lives of girls is easier than you might think and powerful beyond measure.
The book explores:
Why “mean girls” are just girls who aren’t getting what they need in their friendships and why there is no such thing as a “good girl”
How parents can help girls make sense of their lives
Why nothing can take the place of that security in her life: not body image, not straight As, not social media.
The disconnect between self-conception as “sexy” and being ready for sex
How girls can learn to let go while guarding their boundaries
The basics of social emotional learning and how you can implement them at homework time
Conquering test anxiety by focusing on the process, not just the outcome
Bravery as an underrated quality in girls and the surprising number of brave role models in the media
My Thoughts
Have you ever read a book that just made you go wow? This is that book! I cried, I laughed but at the end of the day the message hit home. Girls are under such incredible pressure to look, behave and feel a certain way, that sometimes we get lost. If we don’t learn who we are in our youth, these same fears and uncertainties can last into our adulthood. I wish that I had this book in my youth but I am happy that I was able to read it now.
It is hard to even know where to begin to explain how important this book is for parents and caregivers. Our young girls are faced with pressures that can sometimes be difficult to appreciate and understand, sometimes we just don’t know how to connect with them or get them to open up to us. As I was reading this book, I saw my teen years – I saw my own struggles, I saw the struggles of other young girls and it broke my heart.
Each chapter focuses on a new subject that young girls face. Each chapters includes examples, quotes and my favourite part, a section on how to talk to your daughter, niece or granddaughter which also includes activities that you can complete that helps when you have a child who likes to express themselves through writing or art, versus talking. This book addresses everything from body images, to building friendships, boundaries, school, media and more. It addresses all of the most difficult topics that a parent will face with their daughter in an open and honest manner that really gets the conversation moving.
Growing Strong Girls is an excellent tool for all care givers and adults that are a support person for a young girl. The pressures they face are incredible and at times unrealistic. They need to be supported, encouraged and pushed to succeed but this can be difficult to know how to – especially during the teen years when children tend to pull away. This is a definite must have book in your home.
Lindsay Sealey is an Educational and Personal Development Specialist. As the founder of Bold New Girls, she positively influences the lives of young girls through the education and personal growth strategies she uses in her teaching, coaching and mentoring, focusing on helping girls with integrate social and emotional development with academic success, personal growth, and personal best.
Lindsay has more than 14 years of teaching and coaching experience working with kids of all ages and at all skill levels. She is dedicated to making a difference in the lives of young girls through her customized learning programs, curriculum, books, workshops, lectures and presentations, and knows the value in teaching the process of learning and understanding more than the content itself. Lindsay understands the importance of encouragement, patience, time to discuss thoughts and feelings, self-reflection, and the power of presence in the experiential process as she builds trust and safety in her relationships with girls.
When working with girls, she takes a preventative stance based on the core belief that if we can start talking with young girls early, we can facilitate learning and equip young girls with the necessary tools for ongoing growth and development, love and acceptance of themselves, self-compassion, positive risk taking, and optimal health and confidence!
Lindsay has created several inspirational books for young girls as well as empowerment workshops. She founded Bold New Girlsas a way of combining her love of learning and education with her passion for and dedication to mental health and personal development for girls. In addition to writing her upcoming book, she is writing curriculum and speaking at various schools throughout BC. Lindsay is committed to extensive, ongoing research in social/emotional development, education and learning, and the executive functioning skills and brain efficiency. Lindsay lives in Vancouver, Canada.
Disclosure: I received a copy of this book in order to facilitate this review. All opinions expressed are my own.
Shout! Factory walks down the Road Less Traveled with country star Lauren Alaina, when her first feature film hits DVD on September 19, 2017, in collaboration with MarVista Entertainment. Alaina shines in the leading role as a country singer dealing with family and career issues as she prepares to get married.
About Road Less Traveled
In Road Less Traveled, country music artist Charlotte comes back home to Tennessee a week before she’s set to get married, hoping to borrow her late mother’s wedding dress from her grandmother. But when she runs into her high school sweetheart, Ray, sparks begin to fly. As emotions with Ray get complicated and her record label continues to pressure her to write a new hit song, Charlotte questions if she ever should have left Tennessee in the first place and if she’s even marrying the right man.
The film is directed by Blair Hayes (Bubble Boy; Great Plains), and produced by Stacia Crawford (Sheltered; Forsaken), the film also stars Charlene Tilton (Dallas; The Love Boat),Jason Burkey (Coffee Shop; October Baby; Chloe), and Donny Boaz (Dallas; My All-American; Forsaken).
About Lauren Alaina
Alaina is fresh off of hitting the #1 spot on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart with her single “Road Less Traveled,” the film’s title track, which she co-wrote with hit makers Meghan Trainor and Jesse Frasure. The track was released on her hit album of the same name in early 2017. An empowering and autobiographical song, “Road Less Traveled” celebrates authenticity and marching to the beat of a different drum. Alaina, an iHeartRadio “On the Verge” artist, who finished as the runner-up toScotty McCreeryon the 2011 season ofAmerican Idol, has a second original song in Road Less Traveled, an inspirational love song titled “Holding the Other.”
Our Thoughts
The Road Less Traveled is an amazing movie about the amazing gifts and experiences we find when we force ourselves out of our comfort zones and shoot for the stars. It was a beautiful story of hope, love, faith and perseverance. Not to mention full of humour and some bad (but very funny) choices – including a horse ride with a lit up carriage!
I fell in love with the plot – we have Charlotte, a lovely young woman who wanted nothing more than to be a star. After a bad break up, she moved to the city aiming to be a song writer and singer. Through hard work and sacrifice she broke through and made a huge name for herself. When we meet her, she is about to be married to her new love. She would do anything to be married in her late Mother’s dress but fate (and family) are against her. Charlotte goes on a trip with her girlfriends in an effort to re-claim the dress. This is when it starts getting both serious and funny! We meet Charlotte’s family who range from serious to eccentric, how can you not fall in love with the Aunt who brews her own alcohol at home, that many refer to as poison! The girls start off creating a disaster but end up learning so many important lessons about life and love. I loved that while the movie centres around Charlotte, we also have the backdrop of her friends who are also struggling with relationships and confidence in themselves.
I loved Road Less Traveled. It is just a feel good, happy movie that you can watch with your girlfriends over a glass of wine or cuddled up with your spouse on a Friday night. It is a story of inspiration, hope, love and finding yourself.
The acting and music was fantastic – Alaina has an amazing voice and I loved her music through out the movie, especially the title track, Road Less Traveled.
This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Strictly Necessary Cookies
Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.
If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.
