Wordless Wednesday (sort of)

Where are the kids?!?!

Matt and I were laughing so hard when we saw these pics of the kids displaying their Christmas gifts.

YouBar Giveaway WINNER!

Congratulations to

comment # 37

bettycd

Please email within 48 hours to receive your Gift Certificate!

Wordless Wednesday

YouBar Review and Giveaway!

*Design your own custom energy bar perfectly tailored to your personal taste and nutritional needs. Our Build-a-Bar page allows you to design anything from High protein low carb energy bars to gluten free protein bars. Each customized nutrition bar is handmade and Guaranteed Delicious. Build your own custom protein bar today! *
I was given the opportunity to sample several of YouBar products:
YouBar Breakfast Bar- What's not to love about this bar?!?! It was delicious. The Breakfast Bar combines coffee, cocoa and cinnamon for a mouth watering way to wake up. The Breakfast Bar gives you a convenient, delicious order of cholesterol-free egg whites, fruit and coffee.
YouTrailMix- Chocolate Peanut: Had lots of yumminess.. dark chocolate covered raisins, raisins, oat cereal, peanuts and more
YouTrailMix- Almond Drops: Good stuff here... chocolate candies, oat bran sesame sticks, organic figs, almonds and pistachio nuts!! What a great combo if ya ask me!!
YouShake-Blended Bliss: combines organic strawberries, organic bananas and organic vanilla for a mouth watering shake.
Vanilla Dream: My favorite shakes are always vanilla..and this shake was fantastic! It gives you a wonderfully creamy vanilla shake that combines the benefits of soy protein with pure organic vanilla extract.
Joel from You Bar was kind enough to offer my blog readers 5% off an order. Just use this coupon code at checkout: HLABLOG
That's not all though....One lucky reader will win a gift certificate to use on the YouBar site!
It's easy to enter, the hard part will be deciding what to order! Don't forget to check out the YouCookie products too!!

· MAIN RULE (this must be followed or no other entries will count!) Log onto the YouBar website and tell me 3 ingredients you would include in your YouBar

· 1 extra entry- subscribe to my RSS feed (or let me know that you already have) in a separate comment.
· 2 extra entries-Sign up to follow my blog.
· 2 extra entries- Write a post in your blog linking to my blog
· 2 extra entries- Write a post in your blog linking to the YouBar
· 1 extra entry-Follow me on Twitter.
· 1 extra entry-Tweet about this giveaway (be sure to include the link in your comment so I can check!)

……. Please be sure to separate your entries in the comment box.*
This giveaway will run through 11:59pm of December 27th and the winner will be announced by the afternoon of December 28th. The winner will be chosen by using Random.org from all valid entries and will be contacted via email. The winner will have 48 hours to contact me before they forfeit their prize. Giveaway is open to US residents only.

Pedometers and Kids!

My daughter was recently given a pedometer as a gift. After learning what it was for she was very excited to try it out. The first day she put in almost 5000 steps! Not bad for a 5 year old...or so I thought! ( personally, I think it's GREAT!) I looked up a few sites on the Internet about kids and pedometers.

*Studies showed that for 6–12 year olds, girls needed 12,000 steps/day and boys needed 15,000 steps/day to stay in a healthy Body Mass Index - BMI. The study reviewed research of almost 2000 children in the USA, Australia, and Sweden. The study was published in the June, 2004 "Preventative Medicine" by Catrine Tudor-Locke Ph.D. and associates.* click here for full article.

I know Amara is 5 so the study does not necessarily included her, but still! It took her quite a few trips up and down the steps with 10 jumping jacks thrown in each time to get over 5,000 steps! This was with her being active in the morning, at school playing inside and out and also being active at home. Whew!

A study put out by the same Catrine mentioned above came out with this pedometer walking guide:

Classification of pedometer-determined physical activity in healthy adults:

1) Under 5000 steps/day may be used as a "sedentary lifestyle index"

2) 5,000-7,499 steps/day is typical of daily activity excluding sports/exercise and might be considered "low active."

3) 7,500-9,999 likely includes some exercise or walking (and/or a job that requires more walking) and might be considered "somewhat active."

4) 10,000 steps/day indicates the point that should be used to classify individuals as "active".

5) Individuals who take more than 12,500 steps/day are likely to be classified as "highly active".

I think that giving a pedometer to a little person is a great idea. They can see the numbers immediately ( although you might get a little annoyed when your child asks you every 3 minutes how many steps now!?!? ). Giving them goals to reach is a fun way get their bodies moving. Amara really liked it when I suggested doing jumping jacks when she reached the top of the stairs. She decided to do them when she reached the bottom as well. I caught her doing them the next day as well without my suggestion. Her new goal is 6000 steps! I have no doubt she will make it either.

Element Bar Review

*Our made-to-order energy bars are chock full of tasty, whole ingredients and nothing you can't pronounce. Guaranteed to put fuel in your tank and keep you smiling.*

I was lucky enough to be sent the great tasting Crispy Cranberry Element Bar from Jonathan Miller; President of the company. This bar was fantastic! With ingredients that include organic apricots, peanut butter, sea salt and cranberries-- how could you go wrong?!?! The bar was moist and delicious!

*All-Natural, The Way You Like It
At Element Bars, we invite you to pick and choose the elements (or ingredients) that you want (or don't want) in your nutrition bar. We want to make nutrition personal again by letting you customize your bars to your liking. We are also committed to using unprocessed or minimally processed elements for your bars, in order to retain the maximal nutrition for you. *

I love what this company stands for in terms of healthy living and using such great high quality ingredients. You can build your own bars using anything you want or you can choose one of Element Bars custom made bars and you can even make changes to those!

The steps are easy to follow and you even get a nutrition label that updates as you add ingredients. Such a cool thing to watch: look here

I am looking forward to creating my own bars in the near future. I have so many ideas going on in my head as I type!

Take a look around the site and start building your custom bar today!

I highly recommend this product!

Stevia Extract In the Raw Review and Giveaway WINNER

Arla is the winner! ( comment #27)

Please contact me to receive your prize~

Congratulations!!

Stevia Extract In the Raw Review and Giveaway

*Stevia Extract In The Raw gets its delicious, natural sweetness from Rebiana (aka Reb-A) — an extract from the Stevia plant. This extract is the sweetest part of the plant and has recently been isolated to provide pure sweetening power without the licorice-like aftertaste that many of our predecessors exhibited. All you get is the sweet flavor without any calories. Unlike some of our competitors, Stevia Extract In The Raw does not use additional sweeteners such as erythritol (Truvia™) and isomaltulose and erythritol (PureVia™) to mask the natural sweetness of Reb-A Stevia Extract. The high purity level of our product eliminates any of the licorice-like aftertaste associated with less pure Stevia products currently in the market.

I love Stevia Extract In The Raw! I love the fact that it has zero calories and sweetens anything I want just as well ( if not better) than cane sugar. I really love this brand because it does not have an aftertaste as other stevia's do. I am a big tea drinker. I love the taste of a good flavored herbal tea, but must admit that I need it to be sweet. I have the biggest sweet tooth known to man-kind. I probably would not have 3-4 cups of tea a day if I did not use stevia. I would not be able to justify using a tablespoon of sugar up to four times a day! So glad I came across Stevia Extract In The Raw. It's sweeter than cane sugar so keep that in mind when adding it to your coffee or tea. I like mine extra sweet so this is not a problem for me. There is also a very handy chart on the website for further guidance.

A big THANK YOU to Keith; VP form Stevia Extract In The Raw for sharing this awesome product with me and and with you too!

For your chance to win a box of 50 packets of Stevia Extract In The Raw please follow these simple rules. The first rule must be followed in order to win!!

• Tell me how you would use Stevia Extract In The Raw in your lifestyle.
  

For more chances to win:

• Follow my Blog or tell me that you already do.


• Subscribe to my RSS feed/ or let me know that you already are.


• Go to Stevia Extract In The Raw website and choose a recipe you would like to try using the product.


• Follow me on Twitter (sidebar access)


• Tweet about this giveaway ( 1x/day)


• Blog about this giveaway linking my blog and Stevia Extract In The Raw website and link back
  

**You have quite a few chances! This giveaway will run through 11:59pm of Dec. 14th and the winner will be announced by the afternoon of Dec. 15th. The winner will be chosen by using Random.org from all valid entries and will be contacted via email. The winner will have 48 hours to contact me before they forfeit their prize. Giveaway is open to US residents only. Good luck!