MOLUK HIX Convertible Construction Cones Toy

Disclosure: I received product at no charge in exchange for my honest review. Post contains affiliate links.

Open-ended toys are toys that have no single specific purpose but rather allow the child to learn and play by exploring, experimenting, and discovering. MOLUK HIX Convertible Construction Cones is a fun set of four flexible silicone cones that convert to varying shapes and sizes.

HIX is safe for all ages and you will definitely get your money's worth with a toy that can be used in unlimited ways. I borrowed two of my favorite neighborhood kids to help me review HIX and I was fascinated by how many ideas they came up with using HIX cones.

Each HIX cone can collapse down on itself to make different shapes. Each cone has two small circles cut into one side of the cone, which makes many of the kids' creations appear to have eyes. The kids first counted the cones, named the four colors of cones, then began manipulating them with their hands. It's a great fidget toy!

As they constructed different creations, I stood back and snapped some pictures while listening to their conversation. The kids talked about using the cones for hats, animal ears, and hills for insects. They pretended the cones were ice cream cones, water cups, and measuring cups for baking. HIX cones are soft so they won't hurt your feet if you accidentally step on them!

I was amazed at all the ideas a seven year old and a four year old could come up with as uses for HIX construction cones. They had so much fun deciding how to use the cones and the ideas just kept flowing once they got started. No matter what adults think kids will do with a toy, kids will almost every time surprise adults with their creativity!

HIX construction cones are fun to manipulate, bend, fold, and scrunch. They help children grasp developmental skills like spatial ability, hand-eye coordination, fine motor skills, and of course gravity. It's like a crash course in childhood geometry! I highly recommend this toy for preschoolers and schoolagers.

  HIX is a great holiday gift idea for kids!

Order yours HERE!

Top Off Your Fall Fashion with a Tenth Street Hat #fashion

Disclosure: I received product at no charge in exchange for my honest review.

Now that we live in Kansas, we finally get to enjoy all four seasons and that opens up a whole new world of fashion choices that I didn't have while living in Texas. This fall, I'm topping off my fall fashions with a Tenth Street Hat, more specifically, I'm totally rocking life in my new Sydney, a wool felt hat with a floppy round crown.

I am so impressed with the amazing quality of my Tenth Street hat. It's made of genuine wool felt and features a generous 4" brim, an inner drawstring sweatband, and a waxcord band for extra bling. The sizing is one size fits all, but the inner drawstring sweatband allows you to make it a bit tighter if necessary. Mine fit perfectly right out of the box!

Wearing a hat in the fall not only tops off my fashion like a cherry on a sundae, it also helps keeps my head warm and even hides my bad hair days. We get a lot of wind sweeping across the plains here in central Kansas, and my Sydney from Tenth Street helps me keep the frizz down to a minimum on those breezy, brisk days.

Tenth Street offers a huge selection of hats for women and men. They have a 30 day, hassle-free return/exchange policy, as well as a one-year, craftsmanship guarantee on all hats - they will replace your damaged hat for free within the first 12 months. I absolutely LOVE my Tenth Street Hat! It's a great gift idea for the holidays!

Shop today for Tenth Street Hats at

www.tenthstreethats.com

FarmFoods Beef Sampler Pack - Steak Fajita #Recipe

Disclosure: I received product at no charge in exchange for my honest review. Post contains affiliate links.

The price of high quality beef at the grocery store is ridiculous, so we've been looking for better ways to budget for our monthly food costs, and FarmFoods is the perfect answer! FarmFoods believes consumers should know where their beef comes from and how it is raised. They work closely with specific American farmers who raise 100% grass fed beef with no antibiotics or hormones. We ordered a beef sampler pack consisting of 10 different types of steak for a total of over 10 pounds of beef.

My FarmFoods beef sampler pack arrived in just two days. All FarmFoods beef is vacuum sealed and frozen at the height of freshness, then shipped out in dry ice so you can simply open the box and put it all in your freezer. For our first FarmFoods meal, we selected the Beef Flap, a cut that is similar to a skirt steak. We decided to make steak fajitas with our beef and share the recipe with you!

Steak Fajita recipe using FarmFoods Beef Flap

Ingredients:
FarmFoods Beef Flap
1 tablespoon Worcestershire Sauce
Minced garlic
Salt and Pepper
Diced Jalapenos
Yellow onion ring slices (sauteed)

Directions:
Marinate FarmFoods Beef Flap and 1 tablespoon Worcestershire Sauce for one hour in a zipper closure plastic baggie. Remove from baggie and place on plate. Season both side of the beef with minced garlic, salt, and pepper. Preheat barbecue grill to 500 degrees F. Sear the beef on the grill for 3.5 minutes on each side (beef flap is best at medium rare). After removing beef from heat to plate, top with diced jalapenos and sauteed onion rings. Slice thinly and serve in tortillas with shredded cheese, diced tomatoes, and any other fillings you desire.

FarmFoods beef is SO incredibly delicious! We filled six tortillas with our beef and it could have been stretched to fill eight tortillas, enough to feed a family of four. I can really tell the difference between FarmFoods and grocery store beef. FarmFoods is so much fresher, and honestly, it looks way better than what we've bought for more money at the grocery store.

FarmFoods allows you to shop from the comfort of your home for high quality, farm raised beef. You can purchase cuts of steak, ground beef, stew meat, hamburger patties, roasts, ribs, organs, bones for broth, or even a 16th of a cow (25 pounds). FarmFoods works closely with Humboldt Farm, CA, Siskiyou County Farm, CA, Cunningham Farm, OR, and Howard Farm, ID, to bring your family excellent beef at rock-bottom prices!

Shop today at FarmFoods

and fill your freezer with farm raised beef

at great prices!

Any purchase of 10+ pounds of beef gets free shipping!

One Day Project - Door Makeover featuring the Deconovo Tie Up Curtain #renovation

Disclosure: I received product at no charge in exchange for my honest review. Post contains affiliate links.

We have now officially owned our 1888 Kansas farmhouse for one year! There are not very many "one day projects" around here, because most of our projects take weeks or even months. Finding just the right curtain for the back door of our house was the perfect reason to make a Door Makeover one of our "one day" projects. I absolutely adore this Deconovo Blackout Tie Up Curtain in light gray!

Made of 100% polyester, the Deconovo Tie Up Curtain is beautiful right out of the box. It measures 46" wide and 63" long, but can be used for any window smaller than that because the tie feature means you can make it as long or short as you want it on your window. It's also machine washable and can be dried in the dryer. It's soft, smooth, and durable. I didn't even feel a need to iron it before hanging it.

This is the back door that desperately needed a makeover. Okay, in all reality, everything in this house desperately needed a makeover since it hadn't been updated since the 1970s. Also, the gentleman we bought the house from was nearly blind so I'm sure he had no idea how rough the house actually was when we bought it. The window on the door measures about 23" x 25" but the horizontal blinds that came with the house are not appropriate to the late 1800s and early 1900s. The Deconovo tie up curtain fits our 100+ year old farmhouse better.

I've been painting the master bedroom the past few weeks and have developed a very tender elbow, so I smiled sweetly at my dear husband and asked him to tackle the back door makeover. He took off the old horizontal blinds, taped off the antique door hardware with blue painter's tape, filled all the old nail holes and screw holes in the wood door, sanded down the rough spots, and had the door and door frame primed by noon.

Two coats of white paint with a few hours of dry time in between coats, and we have a beautifully restored back door. I bought an adjustable 3/4" diameter curtain rod and my husband installed the two included brackets higher on the door than the horizontal blinds were hung, so we could give the door an illusion of more height. The door looks so good, and now the rest of the laundry room looks awful because we haven't painted that room yet...another project for another day!

It took me a few times toying around with the tie up strips until I liked my bows. The light gray looks so soft against the white. The polyester fabric is really easy to work with and fluffs perfectly where I want it fluffy. The whole look of the Deconovo tie up curtain is so much more inviting than the hard lines of the old blinds.

I took a couple of pictures last night (two pics above), then a few more today (two pics below), so I could show how it looks at different times of the day. The Deconovo Tie Up Curtain is a Blackout curtain, which means it helps to block out light. I can also tie up the curtains higher if I want lots of light to come in through the window. I love the flexibility of this curtain!

I have also seen pics of this type of curtain where the bottom hem is rolled up rather than bunched up into ruffled waves. There are actually four strips of fabric that make up the ties, two in front and two behind it. You simply make the bow by tying one front strip and one back strip together. Deconovo offers this curtain in lots of great colors and you can even choose from a rod pocket top or a grommet style top. I love the new look and all it took was one day!

Visit Deconovo on Amazon

and start planning your next makeover!