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Randoms Review

Not Random Review, but Randoms Review. I know, it’s confusing.

Thanks to Smiley 360 I got to try two bags of new Randoms candy for free.IMG_20150314_211220207
These taste just like regular gummy candy – which is delicious! – and they have so many fun shapes! I took a few pictures of some of my shapes with their corresponding real life items.

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Here my gummy fish is trying to join his friends in the fish tank. (these fish did not want to be photographed, my camera just didn’t want to focus)!

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And I know Christmas is long past, but I pulled out these two together and couldn’t resist a pic. It’s never to early to celebrate a little!

You can get a 10oz bag of  Wonka Randoms for around $3 on Amazon. A pretty good deal! And the kids will love eating and playing with their snack!

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EAS Sports Nutrition

Thanks to Bzz Agent I got to try some free products from EAS Sports Nutrition. I received a shaker bottle, some powder samples, a couple of bars, and a 4 pack of the drinks.

For sports nutrition products they all taste pretty good. The bars are pretty tasty but after a workout something liquid is nice. The drinks are the easiest for me to take along but they’re also the most expensive so I’ve defaulted to the powder. It’s a bit gritty but still tastes pretty good and with the shaker bottle they sent me with my bzzkit it mixes up pretty well.

My husband also gave this a try and he pretty much stole my shaker bottle. He loves it and the powder. The protein keeps him from being hungry all day at work as long as he drinks his shake within 30 minutes of his workout. He’s been taking the shaker bottle with the powder already measured and just adding water to it from the fountain at the gym.

Super easy! One container of powder lasts us about a month so it’s really not expensive to get some added nutrition to enhance my workout!

Also, as an added bonus, they have an online rewards site! (yes, I get 100 points if you sign up through my link). You can enter up to two product UPCs a month. I entered 2 for this month and had more than enough points to redeem for a new water bottle. I’m planning to get the shaker bottle next month. They also have some bigger prizes like headphones and such so there’s something fun for everyone!

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Crest Pro Health HD

Thanks to Bzz Agent I got to try Crest Pro Health HD for free!

This product is honestly somewhat of a hassle to use because you basically brush your teeth twice.

However, my teeth have never felt so clean after brushing! There’s not a strong mint flavor, which is nice. I’m not really fond of the taste of stage two either, it’s just kinda clean tasting.

You brush for one minute with stage one, add stage 2 and brush for one minute more than rinse. It’s actually pretty simple. And my teeth are so shiny and clean after brushing. After using this product for several weeks my teeth are a tad whiter than they were before – but they were pretty white to begin with. The biggest change for me is how clean my mouth feels!

I used my previous toothpaste for one day just to compare and I couldn’t believe how much dirtier my teeth felt all day! I’ll definitely be purchasing more of this product when my free product runs out!

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Artisana Organics Review

IMG_20150306_125650576A big thanks to Artisana Organics for the free products to try and review! All opinions are my own.

They sent me Coconut Oil, Coconut Cacao Bliss Spread, and  a variety of Squeeze Packs.

I was a bit skeptical about the squeeze packs actually tasting good. They’re made out of just the nuts without anything added. I was pleasantly surprised. They taste great. The Pecan Butter and the Coconut Butter were my favorites. Cashew and Walnut weren’t bad, but they’re not my favorite nuts so I didn’t enjoy them quite as much as the others.

These are made from organic nuts and there’s no added sugars, so you can feel good about your tasty snack! These are the perfect size for an afternoon pick-me up or on the go.

IMG_20150309_110536828The Coconut Cacao Bliss Spread was my favorite item! This stuff is awesome!

The ingredient list is so simple! “Organic Raw Coconut Butter, Organic Extra Virgin Coconut Oil, Organic Agave Syrup, Organic Cacao, Organic Cacao Butter”. Also it’s certified organic, vegan, and raw. I’m all about knowing what I’m eating, so I feel good about eating this.

IMG_20150309_121106806I tried it a few different ways. On crackers, on bread, warmed with strawberries and just eating it with a spoon(my favorite). This would also be an awesome addition to a smoothie or milkshake.

I had it sitting out on my counter and kept just grabbing a spoon and eating a bite, it’s so delicious!

It’s a bit thicker than peanut butter. I tried it on bread but it’s too thick to spread. So, no chocolate sandwiches for me :(. It works pretty well on toast though, because the heat softens it and it spreads pretty well this way.

If you don’t like coconut, they have 4 different kids of chocolate spreads. You’re sure to find one you love!

IMG_20150307_182442525And then the Coconut Oil. I haven’t used a coconut oil in a while so I’d forgotten how much I like it. All it has is coconut oil. Nothing else.

IMG_20150307_183217801You can use it as a lotion or a hair treatment, but I prefer to cook with it. I love the flavor it gives to popcorn! I just do mine on the stove, put some coconut oil in a pan, heat, add popcorn kernels, put the lid on the pan, and wait for the popping to stop. I added some salt after I finished popping and it was delicious!

IMG_20150318_181958659I also used it as a replacement for oil in other recipes. It’s delicious in brownies (the extra coconut flavor with the chocolate is awesome!). And then I used it to sauté some carrots. I was surprised by the results. Coconut oil fries up differently so I ended up with carrot fries. Which were so tasty! I’m definitely making these again!

Carrot Fries:

1 Tsp Artisana Organics Raw Coconut Oil

5 carrots peeled, cut in half, and sliced in 4ths (to make the fry shape)

Salt and pepper to taste

Place all ingredients in a skillet over medium heat. Fry until carrots are soft and golden brown on the outside. Stir often. Add another tsp of coconut oil if needed to keep fries from sticking.

They don’t sell the products on their site, but you can purchase them from several online retailers, including Amazon.

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The 5 Love Languages of Children

IMG_20150312_083230216I just finished ready “The 5 Love Languages of Children” by Gary Chapman and Ross Campbell.

I’m already familiar with the 5 Love Languages for adults so I was excited to get to review this book. As a mother with 3 children I’ve already noticed a difference in how each of them relate to me and others around them.

First of all, I was a little disappointed to realize that children need to be 6 or so before you can figure out what their love language is, though, this does make sense, because really you don’t start seeing much independence until kids are about 6. My oldest is 6 so for her, I can figure out what her love language is.

For little kids it can be as simple as role playing, as in “how would Suzie’s mom show her that she loves her in this situation?” Or “what’s something I did today that showed you that I love you?”.

For the younger kids (and my 6yr old), I’ll do what the book encouraged me to do, just show love in all 5 languages because it’s so important for kids to know they’re loved! Also, this will be a great book to read again in a couple of years just to see where we’re at then and remind me of ways to show love to my children.

Even if you’re kids aren’t old enough, this book has great suggestions for showing love to your children in all 5 love languages in all the different stages of their life. In fact, the authors often break suggestions down into age groups – which I found extremely helpful! Because how you show love to a 6yr old is often different than how you can show the same kind of love to your teenager.

For example, we were watching a movie the other night that scared my 6yr old. She spent the entire movie snuggled on the couch with me. This is unlikely to be a teenagers response or need when watching a scary movie.

I would recommend this book to parents of kids of all ages. It’s an easy book to read and it contains a lot of practical and helpful advice.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher for purposes of my review.

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Neutrogena Hydro Boost Water Gel

Thanks to Influenster for the awesome product to try and review!

First of all Neutrogena Hydro Boost Water Gel is blue, and blue is my favorite color. I like to coordinate all my stuff in blue. My office supplies, bathroom supplies, etc. So I have blue sewing scissors, a blue tape measure, blue hairbrush, blue eyeshadow (actually, I just like this shade, but my blue is my favorite!), blue pens, etc. And now, I have blue face moisturizer!

IMG_20150227_085315200Enough of the blue. The only thing I don’t love about this product is it has a slight perfume smell. It goes away after I rub it all in and it’s really mild so it’s not really a reason I wouldn’t use this product. And it’s not a bad smell, I just don’t understand why it’s there. And it’s a bit different than the smell I’m used to from my olay face lotion so I wasn’t expecting it the first time.

As for the product itself, I love it! It rubs in quickly, and it feels a little cool (temperature) going on which is always nice in the morning – I need all the help I can get to wake up!. I have never used a face gel so I was very curious to see how this product differed from my usual face lotion. After just a week of using it, I don’t plan on going back to my lotion.

I have pretty clear, just slightly oily skin, so I don’t need anything special, but I am constantly fighting having oily skin by my nose and dry skin on my cheeks. If I use more lotion my cheeks are great my my nose just gets more oily. If I use less my nose is great and the rest of my skin dries out.

All that to say, I’m constantly looking for a product that will solve this problem, I just never thought to use a face gel. I’m so happy with this Neutrogena Hydro Boost Water Gel. It give my entire face all the moisture I need without causing any oily skin! Just the combination I needed. After a week of using it, my face looks more moisturized and more healthy than it ever has.

Neutrogena Hydro Boost Water Gel is a great product, it works really well on my skin, and it’s blue! I would recommend this product to anyone who’s looking for a new facial moisturizer, especially if you have combination skin like I do.

I received this product free for purposes of my review, all opinions are my own. @Neutrogena, @Influenster, #BehindTheGlow, #Neutrogena, #contest

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Things I Can’t Live Without

Ok, so, most of these things I CAN live without, but having them makes life so much easier!

Coffee – I’m a mom, really this kinda goes without saying. Baby up all night? Just have an extra cup of coffe, or two, in the morning. One of my favorite brands is Green Mountain coffee. I tried this a while back free from Bzzagent and it’s now my favorite brand! They have some awesome flavors and their coffee is strong but not bitter. The perfect coffee in my opinion. Plus, they sell it at my local Kroger and it’s no more expensive than Starbucks so I have no excuse not to drink the coffee I like!

Dust buster – I can’t live without this thing. My husband helped me research the best one on Amazon and I ended up with a Black & Decker one. The only thing it doesn’t do is liquids, but none of the dust busters that would do liquids had good reviews so I figured I’d rather have a good dust buster that doesn’t do liquids than a bad dust buster that does. This things is awesome! Cleaning under the couch? I bring the dust buster along and sweep up the crumbs every couple of minutes so they don’t end up all over my house. It’s great for cleaning out the car, corners in the kid’s rooms, and any emergency crumb cleaning like the 5 crumbled crackers on the couch this morning and the cool-aid powder all over the floor.

Roomba – ok, so, this is a new one for me, but this saves me SO MUCH time! I actually still use my broom (I have wood floors) but it’s awesome to turn on the roomba and let it get all the smaller dirt and crumbs that I missed. My floors are so much cleaner now. And that’s a good thing being as my toddler spends a lot of his time on the floor still.

Take N Toss Cups – Sippy Cups for when they’re little and Straw Cups for the older kids. The cups are all the same so it’s just the lids that are different. They’re cheap, so when the lids get nasty – my kids chew on them – I just toss them out and buy a new set. They also make baby spoons, that I keep a supply of. The baby use them, and the kids use them for tea parties, stirring drinks, feeding dolls, and just about anything else they want to do that requires a spoon.

Wooden Spoons – They’re good for absolutely everything in the kitchen, from mixing recipes to cooking on my non-stick pans. I also have a set of wooden salad tongs. Just don’t put them in the dishwasher. but you can scrub them without harming them so washing is easy.

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My Disney Side Party

Thanks to Disney Parks and MomSelect for the awesome box full of Disney party supplies and sponsor products! We had a great time showing our #DisneySide!

There were several hostess gifts, A full-size box of laundry packets from All – which I’ve been wanting to try but didn’t want to spend the money and find out I don’t like it, so now I get to try it for free! Horray!

Also included was a Mickey Mouse pan and this awesome Duff Tie-Dye cake mix. Which you can purchase at Target. How did I not know about this already?!

My box was perfect! We celebrated my little girl’s 4th birthday this weekend and she wanted a Minnie Mouse party. Guess what! I got the Mickey and Friends box, she was super excited!

There was nail polish – the peel off kind, that I love for the girls – two Palace Pets, Minnie and Mickey party supplies and some fun Mickey Mouse party games like “pin the smile on Mickey”, Disney bingo, and a princess word search.

I already had her Birthday party scheduled at a local Bounce House place and I couldn’t bring food to that so I used the Minnie treat boxes to make the gift boxes for the kids that came to the party. I put in them the purple confetti that was packed in the box (it was used as packing material and purple is my 4yr old’s favorite color so this worked out really well). The Mickey Mouse Clubhouse pencils, crayons, stickers, and each child got a Mickey or Minnie luggage tag, and I assembled the Disney Diamonds and put candy in them. It made for a cute and easy treat box! I posted a video to my YouTube channel showing off my gift boxes!

The cake tower was so much fun! I didn’t have a way to integrate it into the party so we ended up using it for cupcakes on her actual Birthday and had a mini celebration on our own.

We have lots of family that lives in town, so, not to leave them out, we had another Birthday party the day after her party with friends (I know, 3 birthday parties, it doesn’t get much better than this).

I made the Mickey Mouse cake for this party. I had trouble getting the cake out of the pan – I ended up getting it out in pieces, piecing it together, and using lots of extra icing and it turned out great. Plus, everyone loves extra icing! The TieDie Cake mix is awesome! Everyone was so impressed with my cooking skills and it was so super easy! I’ll be making more TieDye cakes for parties. This is such a perfect party cake and really way easier to make than it seems it would be.

For my Sunday guests, I passed out the HP photo paper and we played the Disney games with the kids. Such fun! We had an awesome week of showing our Disney Side!

I received free products in order to host a Disney Side @Home Celebration. The opinions expressed here are my own.

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My Favorite Sites

A while back someone asked me to post a list of my favorite sites. Some of these include links that give me stuff if you sign up, other’s don’t offer that option, but either way, I hope you find something that you like! And sign up with my links just in case 🙂

Site with Points for Searching and Shopping:

1. Bing – You earn points for searching. It’s 1 point per 3 searches and a maximum of 30 points per day – or 40 points if you want to install and use the mobile app as well. I like to redeem my points for groupon gift cards and then get some free food with my groupon bucks. Actually, these days, I get free lunches for my husband with my groupon bucks, but either way, it saves us some money and he gets tasty lunches during the week.

2. Swagbucks – Points for searching and a few other things, the search points are random so you may get 20 points or no points, you never know. There’s also surveys, daily polls, and you can click through when you’re shopping online. So, there’s multiple ways to earn points here. I like to redeem my points for Amazon gift cards.

3. My Points – This is another site where you click through when you’re shopping and you get points you can redeem for gift cards. They have a great selection of gift cards on here. Also, Bzz Agent (discussed below) gives you My Points when you interact with brands, so you can earn two ways.

4. Coke Rewards – Collect bottle caps, enter the codes for points you can redeem for merchandise or free cokes. If you’re drinking it anyway you may as well get a few free ones!

5. Kelloggs – If you eat cereal, crackers, or plow through the eggos like my kids do, this is a great way to get some free cereal bowls or other merchandise. Just enter the codes from the inside of the boxes.

Product Review Sites:

1. Pinch Me – They offer a small box of free samples every other week. You have to be on there right when the samples become available to order yours or you won’t get any. These are all sample size and a bit of a hassle to get but if you want to try out interesting products, you can give it a try.

2. Smiley360 – Free products to try and review. They recently updated their website and it’s so much easier to use and they have so many more products available. I’m currently trying out a new Nescafe instant coffee, and I’m waiting on some scented markers to arrive for the kids to test. They seem to have a lot of home stuff like soap and toilet bowl cleaner and other fun things like markers and coffee.

3. Bzz Agent – Free products to try and review. I get lots of food products from here. I just tried a new Sara Lee Pound Cake (the blog review for this is coming soon), and several Kroger $5 off coupons to promo their digital coupons and their community rewards. Plus they do toys – which the kids love, and other products like deodorant, roomba, etc. Usually the products are totally free. (I got a huge discount on my roomba but I did still have to pay something – if you don’t want to pay you just say so and don’t accept the campaign). They offer you a product and you say that yes you’d like to receive it and review it. I’ve been using this site for years and love all the fun products I get to try!

Survey Sites:

1. YouGov – Mostly government related surveys. Usually about 1 survey a week, they have a few decent redemption options.

2. My View – I’ve been using this survey site for a long time. They have a great selection of rewards.

3. Toluna – Surveys mostly, there’s also a few other activities you can do on the site for points to redeem for gift cards.

4. Schlinger & Associates – A few surveys for points. Mostly, these are research studies and they’ll tell you up front what they’re offering you to participate. Sometimes it’s a check and other times it’s a gift card.

5. Pure Profile – Surveys, you redeem for PayPal in $25 increments.

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Arla Dofino Cheese Review

Thanks to Bzz Agent I received a coupon to try Arla Dofino cheese for free! My family loves cheese and we really enjoyed trying out Arla Dofino. We actually liked it so much, we tried out several different varieties.

One of the cheeses we tried was the Jalapeno Havarti. The Havarti is pretty soft so it’s easy to eat as a snack with crackers. I don’t like most Jalapeno cheeses this way because usually the pepper chunks are too big. They were the perfect size in the Arla Dofino cheese. I also tried it grated up on chips. I spread the chips on a plate, grate the cheese on top, microwave for 30 seconds, and I have hot chips with cheese that I’ll dip in salsa. So delicious! And the Jalapeno cheese gave it an extra pop that worked great with the salsa.

I also made these little cracker bites with the creamy Havarti and bacon bits. I spread the saltines on a tray, put little slices of cheese on top, added some bacon bits, and cooked in the oven till everything was hot and melty. So delicious! They were eaten up very quickly!

For a tasty cheese tray, the round of Edam cheese was perfect. It has a great flavor, and it’s a great cheese to have out at a product, it looks like a premium product and it tastes great. Definitely getting another round of this for my holiday party this year.

I’ve liked every variety of Arla Dofino cheese that I’ve tried and I I can’t wait to serve some to my guests this holiday season.