This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Purex. All opinions are 100% mine.

Laundry has never been my favorite chore. I’m not a big fan of lugging heavy laundry baskets up and down the basement stairs, not to mention huge jugs of laundry detergent and fabric softener. I think back to all those years, before Chris and I were homeowners, when we hauled our laundry to laundromats, back and forth carrying clothes and supplies. All those years I lived in college dorms, running back and forth to the laundry room, having to bum rides to Target to buy laundry detergent. Ugh.

Whomever the person was who came up with the idea for the Purex 3-in-1 Laundry Sheet, they should get a FREAKING MEDAL. It is pure genius, people. Each sheet is embedded with laundry detergent and a heat-activated strip that contains fabric softener and an anti-static. Toss one sheet in with a regular-sized load of laundry, then transfer the sheet along with the clothes to the dryer. Doing a small load of clothes? Cut the sheet in half!

What convinced me that this wasn’t just a gimmick was after we got a package of 3-in-1 Laundry Sheets to review. Clothes come out clean, static-free, and they smell really good. Anybody who lives in a dorm, an apartment, elderly people who can’t carry heavy bottles or boxes of laundry detergent, or anybody who just wants to buy ONE product instead of three needs to give Purex 3-in-1 Laundry Sheets a try! Go to www.trypurex.com/blog to get a free sample and find out for yourself – this sheet works!

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• Purex 3-in-1 Laundry Sheets (alwaysbcmom.com)
• This Sheet Works! (betterinbulk.net)

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If you live in California, Oregon, or Washington and own a home, this post might be useful to you. I live in Michigan so I can’t recommend this company personally, but I do own a hot water heater that broke down last year, and finding a company that could come right out and fix it wasn’t as easy as I thought. When you have no hot water at all, hearing someone say “we can come out in four days” is really not helpful. Fast Water Heater Co. asked me to let my readers know that they really are fast – call before noon and you can usually get someone out that same day.

Whether you have a traditional or tankless water heater, San Francisco Bay Area residents as well as residents of service areas in Oregon and Washington can get fast service including getting a new water heater installed and the processing of any required permits based on where you live. You can read more about what to expect from a Fast Water Heater service call by reading the appropriately named “What to Expect” page on the site.

The site also has a helpful “Articles” page with articles and resources on how to extend the life of your hot water water as well as tests you can do to determine if your water heater might need servicing, BEFORE it stops working and you are standing in a cold shower with a head full of shampoo   Not that I want anyone reading this to have their water heater break down or anything, but if it does, I hope this post helps get it fixed!

disclosure: you know how my Disclosure Policy page says that I occasionally get compensated by websites to post a review of their site? This is one of those posts.

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I am such a huge fan of JAKKS Pacific, because they make my daughter’s absolute favorite toys in the whole world – Puppy in My Pocket & Friends™ pets. Kaitlyn was beside herself the other day when a box arrived from JAKKS, with a Puppy in My Pocket, Kitty in my Pocket, and Jungle in my Pocket set. I have a Playmobil advent calendar on my desk that comes with little animals, and the Puppy in My Pocket & Friends animals have become part of the advent calendar scene. She can spend an hour sitting there playing with them all, it’s so cute. I highly recommend any of the “in My Pocket” sets as a terrific stocking stuffer or gift!

JAKKS Pacific also manufactures and licenses products for older kids, including a very popular doll this year based on singer Taylor Swift. Although I haven’t reviewed the dolls personally, I promised Janis at Jakks that I would spread the word about the dolls starting with a post here, I’m sure there must be someone reading Table for Five who has a Taylor Swift fan on their holiday shopping list!

There are two dolls available now – the Taylor Swift Performance doll for $19.99, and the Taylor Swift Fashion doll for $14.99. The “You Belong To Me” Performance doll includes an outfit featured in the music video and plays about 30 seconds of the song. I’d suggest calling ahead to Walmart to make sure they have the doll in stock.

The Taylor Swift Fashion Doll from Jakks will each be wearing an outfit based on a real outfit Taylor wore to an awards show, concert performance or TV appearance. The current doll is wearing a fitted black top, black and white ruffled skirt, fishnet stockings, and thigh-high black boots. According to the Jakks site, the Fashion dolls also include a second outfit in the package.

edited to add: The doll shown above in the black outfit will not be available until SPRING. That was my mistake. Shown below is the Taylor Swift Sundress Medley Fashion Collection doll, which is available now:

So, in addition to the dolls I showed you here, new Taylor Swift Singing and Fashion Dolls are expected to be available at all major retailers nationwide in Spring 2010.  I hope this helps some of you with your last-minute holiday shopping!

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PLAY-DOH Burger Builder is the 2009 Family Fun Toy of the Year Award Winner!

Cook up something extra special with this fun PLAY-DOH set and its tons of burger-building accessories! Mold pretend “burger patties”, “onions”, “lettuce”, “pickles” and more, press out “fries” and then use your special TWIST-A-CHIP tool to crank out the coolest pretend potato chips you could possibly serve up! · Super-fun PLAY-DOH set lets kids press, mold, twist and “cook up” a “burger” and “chips” meal that looks almost good enough to “eat”! · Includes 5 56.6g cans of PLAY-DOH compound, molds, press, plate, plastic knife, rolling pin, and TWIST-A-CHIP tool. · Ages 3 and up. Notice Parents: Contains Wheat. Non Toxic.

Hasbro sent us a Burger Builder set to review, and I have to admit, it’s pretty clever.  Once I showed Kaitlyn how to pinch off a piece of the colored dough and press it to form the “burger” parts, she had fun making the parts for me to assemble.  Here she is hard at work:

Your child can get as creative as they want with the colors, make a green burger on a red bun if they want,  I’m just a stickler for doing things the way they are “supposed” to be done, so I encouraged Kaitlyn to make the components the “right” colors. Here’s our finished “burger”:

The only part we had problems with was the extruder that squeezes out yellow strips that are supposed to be french fries. They come out in short little stubs that don’t really look fry-like at all, so we didn’t make too many.  Then I hit on the idea of rolling out the bright yellow Play-Doh into flat sheets and cutting it into squares to make “cheese” for our burgers. That’s how we like to eat  ‘em anyway!  Kaitlyn was happy with our finished result:

Hasbro’s PLAY-DOH Burger Builder has a suggested retail price of $14.99, but I found it through my Amazon Associates link for only $10! Click this link if you’d like to buy it from me and help me earn a nickel  - Play-doh Burger Builder
It’s a recommended gift for the holidays!

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Through SocialSpark, I got the opportunity to test out MyLife, a site where you create a profile for free, then you can search for classmates, friends, teachers, anyone who you want to find. They asked me to look up a former teacher, coach, or mentor, so I chose to look up some of my favorite teachers from High School and see if they still live in the area. I looked up my Band teacher, Mr. Barry, whose first name is Jim but I typed in James, and guessed at his age. Right away I got back that he still lives in the same town as our High School and that his wife and two children also still live there.

Mr. Barry wasn’t just my Band teacher for four years, he was a guiding force that got me through High School. Whatever problems I was having, when I walked through the Band room door, I could leave everything behind and just concentrate on making music for an hour. Mr. Barry was a talented musician and expected a lot from us, but he was also funny and easy to talk to. I worked hard in Band, I was in the Symphonic Band, Marching Band, and the Pep Band, and I always did my best to make Mr. Barry proud.

Thanks for helping me locate my favorite teacher, MyLife! Check it out for yourself and you might be surprised who you find!

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