2020 Holiday Gift Guide Giveaway for Parents & Families!

I'm excited to announce my 4th annual Holiday Gift Guide Giveaway! This year's gift guide is split into two posts.  Today I'll be featuring gift ideas for parents & families.  Soon I'll share gift ideas for kids & stocking stuffers.

I'll share a bit about each gift idea and at the end of the post you'll have the chance to enter a giveaway for ALL the gift ideas in that day's post!  Between the 2 gift guide giveaways, I've partnered with each of the brands and will be giving away over $1800 CAD in prizes and I can't wait to see who the winners are!

Dragonwatch: Champion of the Titan Games

The fourth book in Brandon Mull's Dragonwatch series (a stand-alone sequel series to Fablehaven) was recently released and Talia has just finished reading it. Stay tuned to the end of the post for a giveaway!

She's put together a summary of the book, her thoughts and rating of the book, and at the end of the post, you'll have a chance to win the book!

How to Find the Best Mattress for You! (Comparison Review: Endy, Douglas & Apollo Mattress from GoodMorning.com)

These days there are a lot of bed-in-a-box brands competing for our attention! What sets one apart from another and how can you possibly make a decision about which bed will be best for you?

I've had 5 different beds over the last four years (due to various unique circumstances) and learned a lot along the way about how to find the best mattress for you. I'm excited to share that with you and tell you how you can find the right mattress for yourself!

I have partnered with GoodMorning.com and was provided with a mattress and pillows in exchange for my thoughts. All opinions shared are my own. Affiliate links are provided should you decide to purchase GoodMorning.com products from my review. 

After too many uncomfortable nights on a mattress that wasn't a good fit for me but seemed to be fine for my husband, I finally logged onto GoodMorning.com and found The Mattress Matchmaker Quiz.

As I selected answers to questions about my current mattress, the position I sleep in, my budget, and more, I got excited about GoodMorning.com's focus on finding the right mattress for me personally- a contrast to the one-size-fits-all approach I had seen with many other mattress companies!

The First 2 Weeks of the 2020 Pandemic

Allow me to take you back into my journal for a few snippets from early March- specifically, the first 2 weeks of isolating at home, due to the pandemic of 2020!

Wednesday, March 11th

The World Health Organization declared the Coronavirus outbreak a pandemic.

First Time Beard Care - Urban Beard Review

I've got a thorough Urban Beard review for you of several different beard care products today! As a first time beard grower, Ken wanted to try a bunch of things to figure out what worked, what didn't, and even do a bit of a scientific experiment.

First Time Beard Grower

A few weeks ago I found myself typing "first time beard care" into a search engine. Our family had been in self isolation for several weeks because of the pandemic and Ken had a pretty healthy "isolation beard" growing. He was happy with its growth but finding it itchy and scratchy! The time had come to learn more about how experienced beard owners take care of their hair!

Urban Beard Products

Testing New Beard Products & Companies

Ken ordered a boar bristle brush and some beard balm online and when they arrived, we were both disappointed. The brush worked well but the balm didn't seem to do much for his beard except to make it smell terrible! It was so bad that he sent it back and I started doing research into beard brands. I came upon Urban Beard, a Canadian company based in Toronto that makes their own original, handcrafted products in-house.

We knew Ken wasn't the only dad growing his first time beard in isolation, so we got our hands on some Urban Beard products so Ken could try them and we could report back to you on his experience. This post has the details, his recommendations on products and product use, a video, and a giveaway where you could win some Urban Beard products for your own partner, as a belated Father's Day gift!

Board Games that Work Virtually

Whenever you want to visit with someone but can't get together in person, we suggest playing board games that work virtually! With a global pandemic, stay-at-home orders, social distancing, and limited social gatherings, we've been forced to find new ways to visit with friends and this is one of the best ways we've found to do it!

Today we're sharing a list of games that have worked well, and how we've tweaked them to work well over a video call.

We started by brainstorming some games we thought would work well across a video conferencing call, as long as both families had the game at home. Some of these would still work, even if only one household owns the game!