Posted on

Children’s Mucinex

I received a free Children’s Mucinex from Smiley 360 about a month ago and got to try it out when my child was sick last week. She had a pretty bad cold and I ended up trying the Children’s Mucinex as well as Benadryl for her cold.

Benadryl dried out her sinuses so I ended up having to use a moisturizing nasal spray as well to prevent nose-bleeds but otherwise benadryl relieved all her cold symptoms.

Mucinex seemed to clear up her cough but her nose dripped constantly (which drove her crazy – I think we went through a box of kleenexes in a couple of hours). So, I’m not sure that Children’s mucinex was really our best option for a cold. I am glad it relived some of the congestion but there are other cold products out there that seem to work better for me.

Posted on

Garnier Fructis Triple Nutrition Miracle Dry Oil

Garnier Fructis Triple Nutrition Miracle Dry Oil…a really long name for a very simple product.  NEW Garnier Fructis Triple Nutrition Miracle Dry Oil is a breakthrough multiuse formula that delivers rapid-action nourishment to treat your hair, body and even dry areas on your face with no oily residue.

  • Combines three weightless oils – olive, avocado and shea – to transform dry hair and skin
  • Made for everyday use on your hair, body and face
  • Instantly absorbs in a touch with no oily residue
  • Can be used on damp or dry hair
  • Available for suggested price of $5.99

I received a free Miracle Dry Oil product from bzzagent.com. After using it for a few weeks, at $5.99 this isn’t a bad deal, but I wouldn’t say it’s great.

Pros:

  1. I really love the smell of this product. It’s a little fruity and a little powdery at the same time.
  2. It honestly absorbs really fast, I almost don’t have to rub it in (which is nice since I’m 7 months pregnant and it’s getting hard to reach my feet…).
  3. My kids love being sprayed down with their “lotion” after a bath, so this makes it a lot easier to keep their skin from drying out.
  4. Yes, it does moisturize my skin really well.
  5. Doesn’t break out my face or leave it oily when I use it (I do spray it in my hand and then rub it on my face, I wouldn’t recommend spraying directly on your face).

Cons:

  1. When I used it on my hair (right after a shower) it weighed my hair down and after a few hours my hair looked really oily (almost like I hadn’t washed it for a week). It did the same thing to my kid’s hair as well so I don’t really like this product for hair.
  2. The spray bottle tends to spray oil all over – I have to either stand on a towel to use it or wipe the floor off when I’m done so I don’t slip (my kids love being sprayed with the oil though so I’m not sure if I would prefer a pump cap over a spray cap or not)

My opinion, I love it on my body and my face! It absorbs fast and moisturizes well. My kids love it because it makes putting lotion on fun. But I won’t be using it on my hair again anytime soon – maybe on a heavier or coarser hair it would work but it just didn’t do it for mine.

Posted on

Easter Eggs

Made our own easter egg dye this year and tried out a new way of dipping them.

1/2 C hot water

1 T vinegar

several drops of food coloring

I WAY overdid it on the food coloring so our eggs (and fingers) colored in about 5 seconds. Next year I’m using less food coloring!

One new idea I had from a magazine this year was to wrap the eggs in lace and then after they dry they will have the lace pattern on them. Maybe it was my lace, or the extreme strength of my egg dye, but it didn’t exactly work like I expected. It did still give the eggs some textured color which was cool and with the lace bunched at the top (bind with a rubberband) it made a great handle for the kids to dip the eggs without getting their fingers too messy.

Posted on

Easter Chocolate

I love making stuff in the kitchen with the kids and now that my oldest is almost 5 it’s gotten even more exciting. She’s actually able to do a lot of things by herself and supervision means I get to stand by and take LOTS of pictures!

One of the easiest projects I’ve found is the molded chocolate. I picked up a bunch of trays at a yard sale last year and I buy the chocolate when it’s 50% off after holidays so it’s really a pretty inexpensive project. I also got some flavorings over Christmas and we love using those. My husband found the blue cinnamon eggs to be a little unexpected so as long as guests are warned about the flavorings it’s all good.

The purple ones are peppermint and the brown are cherry. My favorite are the brown ones, you can’t go wrong with chocolate and cherry!

I did all the microwaving, but once the chocolate was soft my 4 yr old was able to do all the pouring and tray tapping (to get the bubbles out of the chocolate you have to drop the tray on the counter a gazillion times – which she loved!)

Add some coconut dyed green and you have a great, easy, edible, Easter decoration!

Posted on

Getting ready for spring

The start of our garden for this year. This is the first time I’ve started seeds inside and I have been shocked by how fast they grew. This is after less than a week from when I planted the seeds.

Now, if it would just warm up enough for me to go put the plants in the garden!

I let the kids pick the seeds this year so we have sunflowers, strawberries, corn, cantaloupe, pumpkins, and lots of different peas! I also got some hot peppers but they failed to sprout so after I plant these in the garden I’ll put some more soil in and try again.

Posted on

Simple Truth Organics

This has been one of my favorite bzz campaigns so far! Check out bzzagent if you want to get your own products to try and review.

There was lots of tasty free food with this campaign. All items are free from 101 artificial preservatives and ingredients so you can feel better about the delicious food you serve your loved ones. With a full line of products from meat and produce to dairy and canned goods, you’ll find Simple Truth and Simple Truth Organic exclusively at the Kroger Family of Grocery Stores. Plus, since they’re store brand, they’re cheaper than the name brand organics which makes purchasing organic a lot easier on my grocery budget!

Frozen fruit: I tried a bag of mixed berries. This was delicious! I made a smoothie for me and the kids (which I loved but because of the blackberry seeds the kids weren’t too fond of it). I also thawed the fruit and piled it on top of pancakes, then added some whipped cream. That was delicious! The fruit was just sweet enough to go great with my pancake!

The kids did not want fruit on their pancakes but after breakfast, the they ate whatever fruit was left in the bowl, so they definitely liked it as well.

Sparkling beverage: I just love that this has cane sugar in it – and a few other ingredients that I can recognize. I really like the taste of a drink with cane sugar and the Kroger Sparkling beverage is delicious! A friend of mine compared it to izzy beverages because it’s basically like carbonated fruit juice. Very tasty and something I’ll be buying again as a special treat for me!

Sweet Potato chips: These I wasn’t so fond of. They’re like baked chips so they’re thicker and chewier than my usual lays potato chips. They aren’t bad, they just didn’t satisfy my “I want something salty and crunchy” craving. If you’re looking for a healthy alternative to potato chips these are great though.

Almond milk: I was totally unprepared for the nutty flavor of almond milk since I’ve never tried any almond milk before. I tried the chocolate almond milk and the almond plus the strong cocoa flavor was pretty strong. I didn’t like it cold but it was delicious hot with some marshmallows or whipped cream. Just like a good, strong, hot cocoa!

I have a friend though, who loves almond milk. She prefers vanilla and she really liked the Simple Truth brand. It saves money and is just as good as a more expensive brand.

Health and Wellness bar: I stuck this in my husband’s jar of breakfast bars and forgot to keep an eye on when he ate it. So, I’m really not sure what he thought. He didn’t complain though so it must have been tasty. A breakfast bar with all natural ingredients really has to be tasty, I’m just disappointed I didn’t get to it before he did…

All in all, I really enjoyed this campaign. Pretty much everything was delicious and I love that they cost less than the bigger brands!

Posted on

Cafe Escapes

Yet another fun free product from bzzagent! Nescafe Cafe Escapes for your Keurig brewer. I got to try six different flavors, Chai Latte, Milk and Dark Chocolate Hot Cocoa, Café Mocha, Café Vanilla, and Café Caramel. Café Vanilla was definitely my favorite and Café Caramel was great as well. These two are their newest flavors and whatever they did different to them was totally worth it. I thought the other four flavors were a little watered-down tasting. The flavor was good, just kind of weak. So Café Vanilla and Caramel are the two flavors that I would purchase again.

This was such a great bzz campaign for February and March because it’s still cold out and hot chocolate goes with practically everything I want to do. From catching up on my “Once Upon A Time” episodes to reading my book of short stories, or just hanging out with my Husband in the evenings. I definitely enjoyed trying all these hot chocolate flavors!

Posted on

Free Shaving Supplies

Click Here to go to Harry’s shaving cream launch page. The more friends you get to sign up (just submit your e-mail) the larger the item you will receive when they launch. Free shaving cream at 5 friends, free handle at 10 friend, free shaving kit at 25 friends, and free blades for a year at 50 friends.

Posted on

Barley Bread

My 4yr old has been begging me for weeks to make her some barley bread. I think in Sunday School they heard the story of the feeding of the 5,000 and the little boy with the loaves had barley bread. My 4yr old definitely thought there must be something special about barley bread!

So, I found some barley in the cupboard the other day and decided to give barley bread a try. Luckily I have a wheat grinder so turning barley into barley flour was noisy but pretty easy.

Next, I had to find a recipe that only contained ingredients that I have on hand. Fortunately, that wasn’t too hard and this is what I tried:

Ingredients (Makes 1 Loaf)
  • 3 cups barley flour
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 2 tablespoons baking powder
  • 4 tablespoons sugar
  • 1/4 cup vegetable oil, plus extra for skillet
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 cup whole milk

    • Directions


    Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and lightly grease a 9 inch cast iron skillet with some vegetable oil and place in oven while preheating. (Why a cast iron skillet? It is the secret to a perfect crust.) If you don’t have a cast iron skillet then grease an 8 inch square pan and set-aside (not in oven).

    In a medium bowl, combine the flour, salt, and baking powder. Mix thoroughly.

    In a separate, smaller bowl, using an electric mixer set on medium-low speed, mix together the sugar, 1/4 cup oil, eggs, and milk. Slowly add the egg-mixture to the flour mixture until everything is just moistened.

    Pour batter into the cast iron skillet or prepared pan and bake 30 – 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean (internal temperature 190 degrees F. Cut into squares and serve warm.

    As you can see, it turned out light, fluffy, and crumbly, just like a cake. The barley was surprisingly mild tasting and my kids and I loved it!

    I’ll definitely be making this recipe again.

    Posted on

    Morning Star Farms Veggie Burgers

    Thanks to bzzagent.com I got to try Morning Star Farms veggie burgers for free. I tried the Grillers Original variety but they have several different flavors. I really wanted to try the Black Bean burgers but since they’re Spicy Black Bean burgers and I’m not a big fan of spicy I didn’t want to ruin my first veggie burger experience with a too-spicy burger.

    I was really surprised, the Grillers Original tastes just like a regular hamburger. It’s a little thinner and a bit less filling than the burgers I usually make but put it on on bun with some mayo, tomato, lettuce, and cheese and you can’t even tell that you’re eating a veggie burger.

    I think the texture is a little softer than a regular burger and these veggie burgers would be perfect for when my next baby is almost ready to eat meat. These burgers would be easy to chew and still provide a great source of protein for a toddler.

    I also tried one of the burgers my favorite way, just cooked and cut up with a little bit of ketchup on the side. On a sandwich I didn’t notice the texture difference but just cut up and eaten plain I did notice that the veggie burgers is a little softer than a regular burger. It wasn’t bad, just a little different than what I was expecting. I may try it with mushroom gravy over mashed potatoes next time, that would be pretty tasty, and the potatoes and gravy would compensate for the texture difference!

    I haven’t tried their veggie bacon yet but this recipe for a BLT and avocado looks delicious!

    I love BLTs and I’ve never thought of putting an avocado on before.

    Morning Star Farms has all sorts of great veggie recipes on their website!