Disclosure: This is sponsored content on behalf of Joules. All thoughts, opinions, and words are my own.
The weather here in the Midwest has turned chilly, blustery even. The leaves are falling, crunching underfoot, and making everything smell like Autumn.
I know, I know… you summer fans are groaning at the thought. Summer is great, but I am unapologetically, a fall and winter sort of girl. I love sweater weather, boots, football, hot cocoa and reading a book next to the fireplace. Even the thought of the first snow makes me deliriously happy.
When Joules asked me to share the items that I’d like to cozy up with in my ultimate Winter Wish List, I jumped at the chance. We absolutely love the Joules wellies, vests, and jackets, they get a ton of compliments. If you’re not yet familiar with the Joules brand, it is a British company and the quality is fantastic.
Now, I only need to convince them to bring their amazing line of home items to the US! I could definitely fill another wish list with those items.
October is my absolute favorite time of the year to visit Cedar Point. If you live in Ohio and haven’t been to HalloWeekends, you should definitely try to get there. Not only is the entire park decked out in its Halloween finest, but the cooler temperatures make it the perfect time for coaster riding. There are family friendly, mild spooky tricks and treats for your little ones during the day and up near the front of the park at night. If you’re a brave soul, there are scream inducing, frights for you too… and that is just the coasters! Ride all of your favorites in the morning, then hit the fright zones and haunted houses in the evenings.
So WHO wants to go to Halloweekends for free? Cedar Point wants to make that happen for one of you lucky peeps.
That’s right, we are hooking you up with a sweet FOUR pack of tickets (nearly $200 value!) so you can go enjoy a day at America’s Roller Coast during 2014 HalloWeekends. There are just THREE short weekends left, so this giveaway is going to be a quick one.
Maybe you’ll go this weekend?
Disclaimer: Cedar Point is one of my favorite blog relationships and I work with them several times a year. They provided (4) tickets for the giveaway as well as tickets for my family to enjoy Hallweekends. All opinions are my own.
Even though I can appreciate a great deal, I am not what I would consider a bargain shopper. You won’t find me trekking all over the city or doing twelve things to save $2, but I’m excited to happen upon a 70% off after Christmas sale or shoes in my size on clearance.
In other words, I like easy. You know what couldn’t be easier?
I was asked to provide my thoughts on the app, but you should know, I’ve been using Cartwheel for a few months now on my own. Target is one of my favorite places to shop and I really enjoy saving a few dollars on each shopping trip. The app is user friendly, can be downloaded for free from both iTunes and Google Play and can be used on tons of in-store purchases. You can sign in with your Facebook account, with your email, or your existing Target.com account. I use my Facebook account, but I don’t like apps posting on my behalf. When you sign up, during the authentication process, you can opt out of that or change your privacy settings so ‘only you’ can see it.
You begin with ten blank spaces and browse offers from categories like grocery or household essentials, adding in only the items you intend on buying. You can add or remove offers as you like and you will earn additional spaces as you earn badges. They are awarded for reaching savings milestones ($10, $25, $50, etc.), interacting with Cartwheel (example: adding an offer from a collection to your list), and via social sharing (an invited friend who joins Cartwheel).
My favorite feature of the app is found by clicking on the small bar code icon next to the search bar. Up pops a barcode reader on your phone, you just align the reader over any barcode on a product or any shelf tag and it will tell you if there is a Cartwheel offer available. If there is, you can add it with just one click.
When you are ready to check out, you just tap on My Cartwheel and your own personal barcode will appear on the screen along with your coupons. The cashier will scan it and your savings are applied. Plus, you can also use both a manufacturer’s coupon and a Target coupon up to the full value of the item in addition to Cartwheel.
My friends and I joke that it’s physically impossible to get out of Target without spending at least $50, even when you run in for just one thing. With Cartwheel’s savings, we just might manage to do that!
Leave a comment on this post and tell me your favorite deal on the Cartwheel app and someone is going to go home with a whopping $1000 gift card to Target!
Sweepstakes Rules: No duplicate comments. You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods: Leave a comment in response to the sweepstakes prompt on this post Tweet (public message) about this promotion; including exactly the following unique term in your tweet message: “#SweepstakesEntry”; and leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post Blog about this promotion, including a disclosure that you are receiving a sweepstakes entry in exchange for writing the blog post, and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post For those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry. This giveaway is open to US Residents age 18 or older. Winner will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail. You have 72 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected.
The Official Rules are available here. This sweepstakes runs from 1/30 - 2/28. Be sure to visit the Target Cartwheel on BlogHer.com where you can read other bloggers’ reviews and find more chances to win!
Disclosure: Castaway Bay provided overnight accommodations and water park passes, as well as four day passes to give away to one reader. All opinions are my own.
This has officially been the snowiest January we’ve ever had in Northwest Ohio. And while I love the snow, I don’t love the bitter cold. Today is our sixth unexpected day off of school this month, with number seven all but assured tomorrow. The kids are stir-crazy, as you might imagine. So when Castaway Bay invited us to join them for some family fun and a blissful 82 degrees, we started packing our bags.
We arrived to a warm fire and a huge pirate ship, checked in, and grabbed our Island Times. Each day the staff puts out this newsletter with all of the resort’s activities, be sure to grab one at the front desk! In it, you’ll find lots of children’s activities like face painting, story time with Snoopy, and times that you can catch the Peanuts Gang in the lobby for a photo or just a hug.
The water park was great. I loved the layout, open and in a big circle with one monitored entrance in and out, I felt really comfortable finding Dave quickly when we headed to separate areas with the kids. There is a large toddler pool with both small and slightly bigger water slides as well as fountains with a light spray. There is a big wave pool, several medium and larger sized water slides, and a huge waterslide that you tackle in a raft. There is the family funhouse full of shooting water, a big pool for water basketball and fun things like the cargo net crossing where bigger kids can try their hand at making it across the pool on floating rafts. There is also an indoor/outdoor hot tub that seats almost 100 people. I saw toddlers and 80 year olds alike, there was a little something for everyone and it’s extremely family friendly.
I would also like to note that in every single pool I paid attention to the safety issue, something that is really important to me. What I saw was a hyper-attentive lifeguard staff, and life jackets available for anyone who might need one. Obviously, that doesn’t make up for a lack of parental supervision, but I felt very comfortable with the level of staff to visitors. The lifeguards were really paying attention to everything going on in the pools.
Castaway Bay wanted to include you in the fun, so I’m giving away FOUR day passes to the waterpark, a $116 value! Leave a comment telling me your favorite snow day activity and enter the Rafflecopter giveaway.
I would call our household moderately socially and environmentally conscious. We’re probably a little more so than most Americans, but there are definitely areas that we could improve. We recycle, we compost though we aren’t fanatical about it, and we shop at our local farmer’s market whenever possible. We also try to support companies that make good choices with our purchasing dollars wherever we can. I think there are lots of ways to do simple, easy things to make a difference. Even if it doesn’t feel like a monumental contribution to remember to take the reusable bags to the store with you, just think what would happen if everyone made those small changes.
One of those little things is purchasing Fair Trade Certified™ coffee.
We are daily coffee drinkers at our house. Throughout the year, that makes for a lot of coffee beans. I like knowing when I buy coffee and consciously choose Fair Trade Certified that we’re using our purchasing power to make sure that people in farming communities are getting a fair wage for their hard work. Fair Trade, in essence, eliminates the middleman who often would pay a fraction of its value, and puts coffee farmers in direct contact with the roasters that are buying their product. These roasters, in turn, are also building sustainable relationships with farmers to ensure that they are using the land in an environmentally sound way, enabling them to develop the best product possible.
In 2000, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Inc., owner of Keurig and Green Mountain Coffee®, was one of the first roasters in the United States to offer Fair Trade Certified coffee to consumers. They sent us the Platinum Brewing System and a whole lot of Fair Trade Certified Green Mountain Coffee to try. I was a little hesitant to make the leap to a Keurig after being a traditional brew girl all these years. I have been pleasantly surprised at how easy it is to use and how much I like being able to freshly brew a single cup throughout the day. Since the K-Cup packs are only partially recyclable, I am also going to take the suggestion of a friend and buy their re-usable K-Cup!
Green Mountain Coffee is celebrating Fair Trade Month in October and confirming their commitment to Fair Trade with their new, Extra Bold blend, Fair Trade Certified™ Three Continent Blend. They teamed up with Kelly Clarkson who was sent on an adventure to visit a coffee farm in Peru. You can share in her experiences and learn more at Choose Fair Trade. Are you a coffee drinker, and if so, would you consider buying fair trade coffee?
Tell me and one So Wonderful, So Marvelous reader will receive a Keurig® Brewing System and a Green Mountain Coffee® gift basket!
Sweepstakes Rules: No duplicate comments. You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods: Leave a comment in response to the sweepstakes prompt on this post Tweet (public message) about this promotion; including exactly the following unique term in your tweet message: “#SweepstakesEntry”; and leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post Blog about this promotion, including a disclosure that you are receiving a sweepstakes entry in exchange for writing the blog post, and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post For those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry. This giveaway is open to US Residents age 18 or older. Winner will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail. You have 72 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected. The Official Rules are available here. This sweepstakes runs from 09/18/13-10/31/13.
It was destiny that two days before I left for BlogHer, Tate got a wicked stomach bug and we were using the Butt Paste on her little bum at every diaper change. As if I needed a reminder of how much I love this product. As a mom, it’s a pretty good clue when your two year old requests it during a diaper change.
At BlogHer, I got to meet and talk to Dr. George Boudreaux, the man who invented Butt Paste. We had a little chat and he told me the story of how his Butt Paste got from his little pharmacy in Louisiana to my neighborhood store.
Dr. Boudreaux was a neighborhood pharmacist. In the seventies, he started mixing up batches of cream for diaper rash for his customers. He experimented with his formula until it was perfect and word spread with local moms. One in particular took her baby to the doctor with a horrible diaper rash and her doctor sent her right over to George. She came into the pharmacy and requested some of George Boudreaux’s Butt Paste.
And the name just stuck.
He said at that point, he knew he was on to something and he decided to package it and sell it, but no one wanted to buy an unknown product with the funny name. He believed in it so much in fact, that he offered to retailers that he would buy back any product that didn’t sell and cover their shipping costs as well. They had nothing to lose and sure enough, it started to sell, albeit slowly.
Then, Al Roker mentioned Butt Paste on the Today Show and fifteen minutes later, retailers were calling, clamoring to get it into their stores. In 2004, Oprah had George on in a 5 minute segment about quirky ideas and the influx of traffic crashed the company’s website, their supplier worked for months to keep up with orders. In 2006, People.com ran an article asking what Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie should use on Shiloh’s little bum when she had a diaper rash, readers overwhelmingly recommended Butt Paste, so George overnighted a pound of it so they could try it themselves.
And the rest, they say, is history. I laughed when my friend recommended it, and now Butt Paste is one of my favorite baby products. I also love that the brand has a sense of humor and some fantastic, funny campaigns like this:
Dr. Boudreaux was part Cajun sweetness, part savvy business man, and all delightful to talk to. He spends a lot more time with his family these days and travels to every LSU football game, he even showed me his 2007 championship ring, a gift from the LSU coach. George, I didn’t have the heart to tell you that they beat my beloved Buckeyes to get it. He still does a few appearances each year on behalf of the brand and I’m thankful that BlogHer was one of them. It was such a pleasure to meet him!
Please share a funny story in the comments here or a silly photo of you and Butt Paste on Instagram. Boudreaux would like to give one So Wonderful, So Marvelous reader a $100 Visa gift card! That will buy a whole lot of Butt Paste!
Sweepstakes Rules: No duplicate comments.
You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods:
Leave a comment in response to the Promotion prompt on this post.
Tweet (public message) about this Promotion, including a link to the video located here and exactly the following unique term in your tweet message: “#SweepstakesEntry”; and leave the URL to that Tweet in a comment on this post.
Post (publicly) a Boudreaux’s Butt Paste-related picture on Instagram, including exactly the following unique term in the image description: “#SweepstakesEntry”; and leave the URL to that Instagram photo in a comment on this post.
Blog about this Promotion (including a link to the video located here and a disclosure that you have received a sweepstakes entry in exchange for blogging about this Promotion), and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post.
For those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry.
This giveaway is open to US Residents age 18 or older. Winner will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail. You have 72 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected.
