This is a sponsored post in partnership with Carbona. All opinions are my own.

If you've ever had kids, or more specifically carpet in a kids' room, you will get where I'm coming from. For the last year, and up until recently, we had a carpet stain on display for all to see in our boys' room. That is until we found this magical cleaning elixir called Carbona 2-in-1 Carpet Cleaner. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start at the beginning.

It was about twelve months ago and it was one of those nights where according to the clock it was coming to an end, but you had a feeling that it was only the beginning. You see my oldest son said he had an upset stomach. At first we thought we has just trying to get out of eating his vegetables at dinner. However, after a good deal of complaining we got him ready for bed along with our other kids. But as any parent knows, just because you get your kids ready for bed, it doesn't mean that sleep is coming.

Well it wasn't long after we put our boys into their bunkbeds that we hear the oldest, laying on the top bunk, telling us he "doesn't feel so good." About 1.34 seconds after that he lost his dinner. Through the bars of his bunk bed. Onto the carpet. Well my wife and I divided and conquered. She cleaned the bed while I cleaned the carpet. Or at least I tried to clean the carpet. Then I tried again the next day. Then my wife tried after that. Let's just say that long after my son had won the battle against his upset stomach, the vomit had won the war against our carpet. Fast forward a year and we had pretty much given up on removing the stain, resigning ourselves to the fact that it had become a grim reminder of that fateful night where we tried in vain to get my son to finish his vegetables.

But that isn't the end of the story. A few weeks ago, my youngest (the one with the mud smeared feet in the photo above) decided to go from the backyard directly to his room, sloshing through the old stain and creating a new one. While on one hand we were grateful to cover up the old stain, mud wasn't exactly the most ideal way to conceal it. However, after many failed attempts we decided to try a cleaner that we had only recently discovered. It is called Carbona 2-1 Oxy-Powered Carpet Cleaner. We figured we might as well try it since nothing else had worked.

Ant-Man and The Wasp Lunch

I've been wanting to make this lunch for awhile. Ever since the first Ant-Man came out, he has been one of my son's favorite superheroes. That movie was pretty hilarious and I can't wait to see the Ant-Man and The Wasp, it looks just as good. So even though it's summertime I thought it would be fun to make this lunch.

This Ant-Man lunch includes some fruit, a treat (his mask), a sandwich with a Wasp on top, and a big ant. Read below for how I made it, but one other thing that I'm excited about is that Loot Crate is featuring Ant-Man and The Wasp in their subscription box this month. Not only that but the superheroes are teaming up with The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Bill and Ted. I have been a fan of Loot Crate for awhile and can't wait to see this box especially because it includes two collectible t-shirts. If you know me, you know I love my graphic tees. So you can head to their website and subscribe by July 19th to get our own box! Click on the link here. You can even get 10% off by using code LUNCHBOXDAD.

Parent Hack: Removing Those Summer Road Trip Shirt Stains

This is a sponsored post in partnership with Carbona. All opinions are my own.

We've all had those crazy thoughts, right? You know the ones. The thoughts where we think, "Let's just pile everyone into the car and drive!" It happens to the best of us. We load the entire family up and take off for the day. This usually happens in the summertime and we go to the amusement park, the fair, or the city two hours away that has the best aquarium in the state. It's a great way to bond, find out how much patience we have, listen to that annoying kids' music soundtrack 5,000 more times, and taste some fun roadside food.

If we're honest these road trips probably sound a lot better when we're planning them than when we grasp the reality of the cleanup situation when we arrive home. The car pretty much needs to be hosed out on the inside, there's a mystery substance stuck in your hair, and you're almost positive that your kids have more food on their clothes than in their stomachs. The truth of the matter is that these occasional day trips are part of parenting and they create memories that your kids will talk about forever.

Since the memories are worth the work, I want to give you one parent hack that we recently discovered to help with the road trip stain apocalypse. One of the hardest things to clean is the mashed in food on your kids' clothes. I know, I know, sometimes you wonder if you should just throw out the clothes instead of scrubbing them. Don't do it. You can rescue them! What has helped us is a product called Carbona Stain Devils. The crazy thing is that Carbona makes Stain Devils specially formulated for each stain. I learned that the cleaner that can get out ice cream is not the same as the one that can remove grease. This is why multipurpose stain removers aren't that effective. Let me show you how we used them to clean up our kids recently.