About 7 years ago I was pregnant with my third child. And like most pregnant women, the pregnancy was all I could think about. I belonged to an online forum of women who were due around the same time as me, and through the months we became like family. We knew about each other's personal lives, offered each other advice, and supported each other emotionally through good times and bad.

At the beginning of May, SantaRosaMom.com began a contest looking for the cutest baby photo. The prize was a MacLaren Quest Sport Stroller from My Baby News on Santa Rosa Ave. There were a lot of really cute photos submitted. There were so many cute baby faces that we wondered if it was even possible to choose just one....

When we were kids, my mom swore by the product Zout (about $4.79). She kept a bottle of it on the washer in the garage and a bottle of it in the kitchen under the sink, making sure it was at her disposal whenever a stain crisis occurred. And with three active girls, you can imagine we went through those bottles quick. I always like the smell of Zout, it has a really pleasant odor. And as far as I could tell it got the stains out pretty good. But I didn't test it against other stain removers, so I really wasn't sure how well it worked.

The sun was just barely rising when I shook each kid awake. "Come on," I whispered in each of their ears. "It's time to go."

Today's challenge: OxiClean. Want to know the result? Read on....

It was suggested in my "Laundry" blog that I write about tips on removing stains. Being that I have none, I am conducting my own little experiment on stain removal.....

When you were younger, and your mother begins to teach you the ins and outs of laundry in preparation for adulthood, there are probably lots of things that she failed to mention, or that you might have missed in the translation.