Touch and Brush Product Review

My family has been using the touch and brush as seen on TV Gadget/Product/toy for about a month now.

I usually purchase a gag as seen on TV gift for my wife every christmas and I almost bought this one because the kids were begging for it.  I didn't want to spend the $19.95 on it, but I was at Bed Bath, and Beyond and they had it for $9.99 and I had a gift card to spend so I figured what the heck.  So I picked it up and we have been using it ever since.  All I have to say is I LOVE THIS THING.  Ok, I'll say more, I'll start with the look.  It blends in and goes unnoticed even though it is suctioned on the mirror.  It did come with a sticky plastic thing so that it could be stuck to a wall, but I wanted to be able to remove it.  Function, it does just what it say.  You push your toothbrush in and out comes all the toothpaste you need.  This works esecially great for the kids.  The kids used to make a HUGE mess on the sink trying to put their toothpaste on their tooth brushes.  This thing is really cool.  You don't have to make any effort or mess putting toothpaste on your brush.  I know it sounds lazy and corny, but it really makes it more efficient and saves you from using too much toothpaste.

I give this product the dad seal of approval!

Thank you PBS

About 2 years ago after the digital tv switch, one of the public television stations was TPT Kids.  The only thing they played all day and night was educational tv shows for kids.  This was wonderful because you never had to worry about what the kids were watching.  About 6 months after we found this they decided to take it off the air and replace it with something else.  The kids no longer had their station.  After this happened, a major change took place on their website and it has gotten better ever since.
If you have children I recommend you check out www.pbskids.org.
If you do not have kids check out www.pbs.org because you can watch all the shows they have on the air.
There are tons of games and videos for kids to watch and they are great for all ages.

Does anyone have any kid friendly websites they would recommend?

A Broom for My Little Helper

In an attempt to be a good parents and teach our children about work, we decided to assign weekly chore to the children.  The girl, being 8 and 2 years older than her brother, gets different chores than he does.  Here chores every week are:

• Cleaning the litterbox once a week
• Keeping the 2 bathroom sinks clean all week
• Loading the dishes into the dishwasher at dinner time

The boy who is 6 does the following:

• Sweeps the main level and the 2 bathrooms
• Steam mops the areas that were swept
• Takes out the bathroom trashes 

If they complete all these things during the week they earn $5.  If they do not complete all the tasks, they are paid accordingly.  

There girl has no problems doing her chores.  After showing the boy how to do his chores the first time, I noticed a problem.  This leads us to the title of todays entry.  Being 6 years old and the height of a 6 year old, he is unable to properly handle a full size broom.  So, still wanting him to be able to complete his chores, I decided to modify one of our brooms.  

To modify the broom I removed the plastic cap at the top of the handle, cut the handle to his length and replaced the plastic cap on the top of the handle.  A very simple thing to do and now he has a broom to do his chores with ease.

Rango

My wife and I went on a date yesterday and we went and saw the movie Rango.  There were many people that had brought their small children to see the movie.  Based on the commercials and advertising I also thought that this was a kids movie.  The range of children was probably 3 to 10 years old.  I also did not realize that the movie was rated PG until I saw it in the beginning of the movie.  I think that the 10 year olds were probably alright with the movie, but everyone younger I would have steered away from the movie due to language and some scary parts.  The language was my biggest concern though.  I think that today tv and movies for children are adding language that our children need to hear.

The movie I thought was interesting.  There were some funny parts and the acting and CGI were excellent, but the movie had a weird factor to it.  Johnny Depp usually does a "different" style of film.  I have always like his films, but this one got a little long.  Overall, I would say this is not a movie for kids.  Adults can follow it and might still get lost in the story.  As a rating I would give it a B-.

Cleaner Review

This is the first of many reviews of products I will do.  I have used the normal household cleaners in the past when cleaning an apartment after my lease was up.  It has always seemed like too much work to get things clean.  So this time I decided to go with something a little stronger.  I saw an ad in the paper that Menards had industrial cleaners on sale and decided to give them a chance.  I chose this to try as the toilet bowl cleaner.

I picked this one because we have hard water and rust stains in the toilets.  They also had a neutral toilet bowl cleaner.  So far I have only used it on one toilet and it seems to had done a great job.  I will keep this review open for the long term to see how it stands up over time.

The Mission

The mission of this blog is to share and learn from others in the stay home world.  This is the first time I have been completely in charge of the house and considered in my job.  I am going to change things around the house so that it is easier to clean and is less cluttered.  Everything will have a place and I will work hard to keep things in their place.  I am a "piler" as my wife calls it.  When cleaning the table for dinner I will stack everything up and set it a side into a pile.  This pile is joined throughout the week by many other piles.  I am going to work harder at not making piles and throwing stuff away that needs to be and picking up everyday instead of letting it sit.

Another thing that I am new to is cleaning the whole house.  I was not a huge cleaner when I lived on my own, but now I am in charge of taking care of the house and it will have to stay clean.  I plan on implementing a weekly schedule for cleaning and doing the same things every week so that tasks do not get overwhelming.  And to go with the cleaning I have invested in cleaning supplies and tools.  Every time I purchase a new cleaning item I will post a review of it and before and after pictures of the job.

Another task I will be taking care of is the home's vehicles and any repairs that need to be done to the house.  I plan to do step by step lesson of any of these tasks.

The last thing I think would be fun to share is recipes of supper.  I always get tired of making the same old thing, so I think everyone sharing what they have will sweeten the pot.