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Summer Grilling with Kroger

My latest Kroger campaign from Bzzagent was lots of fun.  For this one, I got to try Kroger brand free frozen slider patties, slider hamburger buns, chips, ice cream, and Big K Soda.

Sliders : I usually buy Kroger hot dog and sandwich buns and the slider buns were just as good as the larger hamburger buns. The sliders were the perfect size for my kids to eat, which was great for grilling with them! However, the slider patties themselves were a little greasier than the rest of Kroger hamburger patties (I’ve tried a lot of pre-made hamburger patties and Kroger is my favorite brand) so I was a little disappointed with them. I’ll definitely continue to purchase and grill with the full size hamburger patties but I’m not sure that I’ll purchase the sliders again unless they come out with a leaner variety.

Chips : I’ve tried store brand potato chips before and just hated them so I wasn’t really excited about trying the Kroger brand. I was really surprised. The chips are delicious! I tried wavy, BBQ, cheddar, and sour cream & onion. I liked all of them (so did my guests). Since these are much cheaper than Lay’s the Kroger chips are going to be my new favorite chip brand.

Ice Cream: Kroger ice cream is good, not as good as blue bell or graeters but it’s still good ice cream and terrific for keeping on hand for the kids.

Big K Sodas: I think Coke will always be my favorite softdrink but Big K Sodas are pretty good, and cheaper. And they have some fun varieties that the kids love. We tried blue raspberry soda first, not my favorite, but the kids think it’s great because it’s blue! Orange creme soda was good too, the orange was a little stronger than I expected, but still good. Vanilla cola is my favorite so far, and the black cherry soda is pretty good as well.

All in all, a fun campaign, with tasty food, and more ways to save money on my grocery bill!

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A night with the new addition

Life with 3 kids is definitely interesting. I do think I have the baby sleeping better now. Horray! He’s still up every 2-3 hours to eat but he pretty much slept from 8 to 6 last night just getting up to eat. It was so nice to not sit in the rocking chair with him all night!

However, he did leak through his diapers twice (I am really not liking Huggies diapers!) and my 2 yr old wet her bed (which never happens).

Oh, and the baby decided to roll over, I’m pretty sure he’s NOT supposed to be doing that yet! Which means, I can’t leave him anywhere unsupervised. I had seen him almost do it a couple of times so I’m not completely surprised, I do hope this doesn’t mean that he’ll be crawling early. The girls are going to have a tough time of it when he can get around and eat all their toys! I still haven’t figured out what’s going to happen to all the Polly Pockets…

When I started potty training my 2 1/2 year old a few months ago I did a lot of research on amazon and ended up ordering this Wet-Stop Twin Waterproof Mattress Cover for her bed. At the same time I ordered her a new Memory Foam Mattress. I like the mattress ok, but I’m not sure I want it for me when I get a new one – which I need to do one of these days soon since my mattress is almost 8 years old and not quite as comfortable anymore.

Since I had ordered the new mattress, I couldn’t have it getting wet so I had to order the mattress cover as well. She’s done really well. She had to have over a week of dry diapers before I would let her go without them at night since she wet her bed the first time she tried to sleep without a diaper.

It’s been a few weeks now of dry nights, and last night I think she wet her bed (she wasn’t entirely sure either). It smelled like she did, but apparently, the mattress cover I have is so absorbant that her sheets were barely wet. It definitely lived up to it’s high reviews! Thankfully, this means I just have to remove the sheets, mattress pad, and pillows (I don’t know how the pillow always gets wet) and wash and dry them. I probably needed to wash her sheets anyways. No drying out the mattress since it didn’t get wet! Which reminds me…I need to go switch the wash…

On another note, Huggies diapers don’t seem to work well for infant boys. I have a 3wk old and he leaked through his Huggies twice last night – and I’m changing him every 3 hours when he eats, so I was truly unhappy with the diapers last night. I haven’t had any trouble with the Pampers though, now I know why Pampers is my preferred brand. I am going to pick up some Kroger diapers today when I’m out shopping since this brand worked really well on my daughter and it’s half the price of the Pampers, I’m hoping they work just as well on the baby.

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Kroger Low Fat Icecream

For my latest Bzz Campaign I got to try a free box of Kroger Yogurt Smoothie Bars. I tried the mixed berry variety (they also have a banana strawberry kind as well but I’m not personally fond of banana or strawberry icecream so I haven’t tried this one). They are delicious. My kids love them as well. I think the girls think they’re cool because they’re pink but they also really like the flavor, and I really like the creaminess of these yogurt smoothie bars.

The Yogurt smoothie bars are Kroger’s latest addition to their low fat and sugar free frozen treats. They also have Fudge Bars, Fruit Bars and Ice Cream Sandwiches.

We tried the ice cream sandwiches as well and while they’re a little big for the kids to eat a whole one alone (which means that I get all the leftovers!) the kids love them. The cookie part is just crunchy enough to not be gooey like a lot of ice cream sandwiches. So the kids don’t end up with all the sandwich part all over their hands.

The Kroger brand ice cream novelties are all very tasty, and they come in regular varieties and sugar and fat free varieties. Plus I’m always looking for the cheapest ice cream to purchase for the kids since they eat through ice cream all summer long. I’ll be purchasing more of these next time I go to the store.

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BIC Mark-It Permanent Marker

I got to try a full package of BIC’s new Mark-It Permanent Markers from Smiley360. This has definitely been a fun product to try! In my package they sent three magnetic frames. I have 3 kids so I did one for each child. This one is my favorite.

There’s 36 markers in the package, so 36 different colors. Plus they sent 3 different glitter glue pens as well. These were hard to use but still lots of fun. The markers have almost no smell, which is nice for a permanent marker.

And then, a friend on pinterest shared an idea with me for drawing swimming suits on barbies. Me and the girls had way too much fun making all sorts of barbie swimsuits. The BIC Markers were perfect for this because they have so many different colors!

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Private Selection Flip & Serve Cakes

This campaign from bzzagent gave me one free cake. I ended up liking my free one well enough that I tried all 3 cakes. They were all pretty good. Not quite homemade but a great last minute dessert if I need one.

The three varieties are German Chocolate Fudge, Double Chocolate Molten and Amber Honey Apple Spice. None of them had toppings that quite dripped over the sides like they do in the picture, but they all still tasted good. The Apple Spice has a really nice spice taste, perfect for a fall dessert.

My favorite was the German Chocolate Fudge – of course, I love just about anything with coconut. The chocolate cake was rich and chocolaty and the coconut topping was just the right amount of sweet and gooey. I just wish there were two layers to this cake instead of just one!

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Green Giant Vegy Chips

Thanks to Bzz Agent I got to try Green Giant’s new Vegy Chips for free.

Roasted Veggie Tortilla Chips with Zesty Cheddarare crispy tortilla chips made with real vegetables like carrot, broccoli, and tomato, plus 17g of whole grain.

These were just ok. I felt like they could use a little more cheese. They had the same crunch as tortilla chips so the texture was good I would just have liked to tasted a little more cheese and a little less vegetable. Over all, not a bad chip but not my favorite.

Multigrain Sweet Potato Chips with Sea Salt are made with real sweet potatoes and 14g of whole grain, with 40% less fat than regular potato chips.

My whole family loved these. They have the same taste and texture as sun chips (which happen to be my husband’s favorit chip) so they were a definite win for us. And with 14g of whole grain, I’ll be purchasing these more often since we could all use a little more whole grain in our diet. Over all, my whole family (and any friends who tried them) loved this chip (even my sister who hates sweet potatoes.)!

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Bzzagent Men’s Products

I just received a notice from bzzagent.com (my favorite product review site) that they’re about to launch some product reviews for some Gillette men’s products. I get notices like this whenever they’re about to send out some Men’s products – you generally get a full size product to try and review – and I’m guessing there’s just not a lot of men that do product reviews.

All that to say, I really like this review site. You get free products to use and review, they ship the products quickly, and I always have fun.

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Daily Break

Trying out a new site for smiley360.com called Daily Break. It’s like a trivia site and you can supposedly earn prizes for answering trivia. It seems to me like it would take forever to earn a prize but I put the app on my phone and it is a lot of fun to play when I’m waiting to pick up the kids or something like that.

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Kroger Spring Dinners

I think this has been the most fun BzzCampaign so far! Thanks bzzagent.com!

I received a free pork loin, free cake mix & icing, free Mac & Cheese, and free crescent rolls. We invited some friends over for dinner, added a salad, and some mashed potatoes, and had a wonderful feast!

For the pork loin I just used a honey glaze so it was lightly sweetened. It turned out moist and delicious!

I forgot to get a picture before we cut into it, but you get the idea. Very tasty!

I sliced the leftovers really thin and we put some bbq on it for bbq sandwiches the next day. We all wished there was more!

For the chocolate cake. I added some marshmallow creme to the chocolate icing and had a chocolate marshmallow cake.

VERY yummy! I like to dress up my boxed cake mixes and this one turned out delicious! Definitely making this one again!

My kid’s favorite item was the crescent rolls.

I have to buy more of these every time I’m at the store. Everyone loves them so much and at $1 a can they fit great in my grocery budget.

The only item we didn’t really like was the mac & cheese, it was a little thin so we’ll probably stick to our usual boxed kraft mix.

Overall, we loved trying out some Kroger brand foods and sharing it and some great fellowship with friends! I really hope bzzagent does more campaigns like these because I’m always looking for an excuse to have friends over and show off my cooking skills (this time with a little help from Kroger)!