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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)!

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Garnier Fructis Hydra Recharge Review

Thanks to Bzzagent I got to try a full set of Garnier Fructis Hydra Recharge products. Shampoo, Conditioner, and Moisture Plenish Treatment for free.

I have loved these hair care products! They’re all about putting moisture back in my hair and leaving my hair shiny and weightless.  The Hydra Recharge range contains superfruits goji berry, passion fruit and kiwi to actively replenish without heaviness. My hair is soft and shiny without being weighed down or oily. They definitely live up to their advertising!

The Hydra Recharge Shampoo has these cool “moisture beads” in it that make it really fun to wash my hair. It’s like a massage for my hair every time I use it! And on top of that, I love the mild smell of all the products, light and refreshing.

Next I use the conditioner and then right after that the Moisture Plenish Treatment, which is supposed to be in for 1 minute. So, I rub the Moisture Plenish Treatment in then finish the rest of my shower and then rinse it out.

I love the way my hair feels right afterwards and the softness lasts well into the next day so if I don’t get to wash my hair every single day it’s not a big deal. And with little kids, that’s a wonderful thing!

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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!

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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.

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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!

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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!

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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.