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Coppertone Clearly Sheer Sunscreen

With summer here my weekly blog post is turning into a bi-weekly blog post. We’ve been spending so much time at the pool that I just haven’t had time. Speaking of pools, thanks to bzzagent for another great Bzz Campaign! And this one was just in time for summer! I received a free bottle of Coppertone Clearly Sheer SPF 30 Lotion for Sunny Days and two mini bottles of  Coppertone Clearly Sheer SPF 50 Sunscreen Spray for beach or pool.

With it being summer me and the kids have fully tested both formulas. (the baby even tried a small taste-test and decided that sunscreen is not good for eating…)

My 5yr old and 3yr old love spraying on their sunscreen, so when we’re at the pool there’s no lack of sunscreen on their skin.

The top features that I love:

1. Non-oily formula – I don’t usually bother with makeup when I’m at the pool so I haven’t actually tried putting on my makeup over the sunscreen, but I’ve put plenty of sunscreen on my face and after application it’s almost like I put my usual face lotion on my face. My face isn’t sticky or greasy feeling, it just feels normal.

2. Light scent – I love that the Coppertone Clearly Sheer Sunscreen has very little sunscreen smell. There’s just something I don’t enjoy about sweaty little kids that smell like a whole bottle of sunscreen, so very little sunscreen smell is sure nice for the drive home from the pool.

3. Doesn’t irritate my skin – back to my face, some sunscreens cause my face to breakout (breakouts are pretty rare for me so I’m never happy when this happens) I’ve been using Coppertone clearly sheer all summer without any breakout problems. Plus, I don’t feel like I’m wearing it even after lathering on a pretty heavy coat!

I’m really liking this new Coppertone Clearly Sheer Sunscreen line and if you’re looking for a light-feeling non-oily sunscreen that actually works, this is a great sunscreen!

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Mom’s Night Out

Does your kitchen ever look like this? I know mine has on many, many occasions! I like to bake, my kids like to bake, and then I get to clean up the mess! This picture is from one of my favorite scenes in Mom’s Night Out.

Looking for something to do for your Mom for Mother’s Day? Take her to the theater to see Mom’s Night Out! I got to see a pre-release showing of this a while back and it’s awesome! It’s the best comedy I’ve seen in a really long time! Hilarious, and heartwarming at the same time.

Unfortunately, I have something every night this week for my oldest’s ballet performance this weekend (I’m not sure who thought that having the ballet performance the day before Mother’s Day was a good idea…) so I won’t get to see it on Opening Day – May 8th. But I’m working on plans to see it with friends next week.

Mom’s Night Out is family friendly, so if you can’t find a babysitter, bring the kids. It’s funny, and it’s a movie that everyone (even Dad’s ) with kids will enjoy.

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Good2Grow Juice

Thanks to BzzAgent I (“I” being “the kids” since the kids actually drank them all and didn’t share with me) got to try a whole 6 pack of Good2Grow juice for free. They also threw in 3 extra bottle caps, which the kids just loved. Plus, there were coupons for a free refill pack with any individual bottle purchase, so I let each of the kids choose their own bottle at the store, then we shared the rest of our coupons with friends.

Want a chance for your own free juices? Click Here to enter their birthday party giveaway!

Good2Grow has an apple juice and a fruit and vegy juice. My kids loved both of them! The kids are picky about their fruit and vegy juice – they won’t drink V8 because it’s a little gritty – so I’m really happy to see them drink the Good2Grow juices. The juices are 100% juice so I know the kids aren’t getting a ton of sugar.

Plus, the tops are spill proof so if they sneak the juice off to their room I don’t have to worry about it spilling.

I just can’t give these to my 10 month old, the lid pops right off every time he throws it from his highchair – to be fair, I haven’t found a cup yet that fares well when he throws it, so he’s currently only allowed water when he’s eating.

Also, since Kroger sells them, and Kroger is my preferred grocery store, they’re super convenient for me to pick up for a picnic, party, or just a snack!

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Tone Body Wash

Thanks to BzzAgent I got to try Tone Body Wash in Petal Soft with Pink Peony & Rose Oil. I love trying new bath products, especially products that smell as good as this Tone Body Wash!

Tone has Body Wash and Bath Bars, my preferred format is the liquid body wash so I was really happy that I got to try the body wash and not the bar soap (and my 9 month old is on this “eat Daddy’s bar soap” kick so it’s better if I don’t have any extra bar soap in the bathroom for him to eat).

Their products have cocoa butter, white clay, and alpha-hydroxy fruit acids that help keep your skin moisturized and nourished each and every day!

Honestly, I’m not really picky about what in my soap as long as it smells good, lathers well, and leaves my skin soft. It just sounds cool to say that I’m using soap with white clay in it! Sounds very premium, maybe that’s why I like it so much…

Tone Body Wash smells great, and leaves me smelling great after my shower! It lathers well so I feel like I’m getting as clean as I can. And it leave my skin feeling soft and moisturized after every shower. After all this cold weather my skin really needs more moisture!

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Mom’s Night Out – Review

Got to see a pre-release screening of Mom’s Night Out with some friends Thursday night and I loved it! The first pre-release I’ve ever seen so I didn’t know what to expect. I had three other friends who came as well so we had a nice group going. My husband was a little nervous about feeding the baby and getting him to bed on his own (the movie started at 7:00pm which is right when we start our bedtime routines) but things went pretty well for him. The baby ate 3 pieces of french toast and then didn’t drink very much of his sippy cup, which concerned my husband a little – but I’m sure the little guy was just stuffed from his dinner and wasn’t hungry for milk. Which definitely seemed to be the case because he didn’t wake up any more than usual last night.

Back to the movie…so we get to the theater and walk in and there’s a table set up on the way in to our showing, everyone gets a swag bag. Awesome! I was going to be really disappointed if they didn’t give us something. There was a magnetic notepad, pen, car sticker, resource DVD, two movie posters, nail file, some little cards, keychain, and my favorite “Dad’s Big Book of Tips for Moms’ Night Out”, hilarious tips for Dad’s watching the kids.

So I’m already excited. Then, what I hadn’t realized before, during the introduction, I discover that the movie is created by the same people that made Fireproof, which I haven’t actually watched but it gives me hope that the comedy will be a clean comedy. You know, I invited friends to this, all of our husbands are home with the kids, I’m really hoping for a good movie!

Mom’s Night Out is hilarious and heartwarming at the same time. They did a great job on the movie, me and my friends thoroughly enjoyed it!

The comedy was clean so you could take kids to the movie (though they probably won’t find it as funny as parents do). There were only 3 men in the entire theater last night, which I expected because the marketing for this movie has been primarily to moms. But, I’m sure that men will love it just as much as women do.

It’s a nice, happy, hilarious view of motherhood and parenting and left me, as a mom, re-engergized for the stage of motherhood that I’m in. (or maybe it was the giant piece of New York Style Cheesecake that I ate after the movie…)

I really think any mother would love this movie, regardless of how old her kids are. It comes out May 9th, just in time for Mother’s Day. So if you don’t have plans for your mom yet, try dinner and a movie, and you’ll be glad you did!

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My Disney Side Party

Thanks to Disney Side @Home Celebrations for my awesome box of party supplies for my #Disneyside party! With all these snow days we’ve just been off of our schedule for weeks, so I decided to keep it simple and do a playdate. Actually, I did a playdate and a pre-playdate the night before plus a few other random things throughout the week.

The first evening we had some friends over and the kids played the disney bingo and won prizes from our Disney prize bag – I used the stickers, balloons, bracelets, tatoos, and bumper stickers. A couple of the kids that were going to come ended up not being able to come as planned but we still had a great time! We had spaghetti for dinner and monster cupcakes in our Mickey Mouse cupcake wrappers.

The next morning we had our playdate. There were 6 kids total, we decorated T-shirts, played Disney bingo, colored our race posters, ate more cupcakes, and let the kids play.

I had traced mickey and minnie pictures onto the shirts before the party so all the kids (or moms) had to do was color them in. We all had a blast! I think the moms had more fun than the kids did coloring!

I don’t have a color printer or a photo printer so I gave away all the photo card paper at the party, and it’ll definitely get used. People were pretty excited to get to print their own pictures!

Only a few of the kids wanted posters so I had a few posters left over after the party that I sent to my sisters for Valentines day.

The next day me and the kids made our Mickey Mouse cookies and shared them with some friends we had over. The cookies turned out great and the kids had a great time decorating them! I finally figured out a good sugar cookie icing recipe (water, powdered sugar, and food coloring – when it dries you can stack the cookies without the icing sticking) so now I just need to nail down a good sugar cookie recipe. My recipe was ok but I’ve had better.

We’ve had so much fun showing our #DisneySide with our Disney @Home Celebration box!

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Kroger Skillet Meals

Thanks to Bzzagent I got to try Kroger skillet meals, Kroger frozen garlic bread, and Kroger salad kits for free.

I loved the garlic bread. Actually, everyone loved the garlic bread. I’ve bought several packages since trying it and it always gets eaten. Quick and easy to make. Goes great with pretty much any meal!

The salad kits are great too. You get a salad with dressing and toppings in just the time it takes you to pour everything in the salad bowl. No chopping and slicing.

Combine these with the skillet meals and you have a very fast dinner. (cooks up in under 10 minutes, which is nice because with 3 little kids I never have enough time to make supper). I tried the shrimp skillet meal and wasn’t impressed with it. It tasted great but there just wasn’t 4 servings in the bag. With the garlic bread and salad we almost had a complete meal, I think the skillet meal would have been enough if it was just me eating instead of me, husband, and kids.

I almost made it for guests but I decided to try it first, and I’m glad I did.

Now, the skillet meal tasted great and it was super easy to make, so I would have no problem serving it to guests (it had lots of nice vegetables in it too), just know that the serving size is small so you either need to get double what you think you need for your main course, serve it for lunch instead of dinner, or serve this as a side.

All in all, a tasty product, I’ll just have to buy two next time.

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Green Mountain Coffee

Thanks to Bzzagent for some free Green Mountain Coffee! First of all, I love the taste of Green Mountain Coffee. I discovered it last year and it’s currently my favorite coffee brand.

Not only is Green Mountain Coffee delicious, it’s also fair trade. You can find out more at their website.

Basically, with fair trade coffee, the company works directly with the farmers who produce the beans. They pay them a guaranteed minimum for their beans which enables the farmers to invest in their crops, producing good coffee crops. Also, the farmers are able to make money and then use their money to support their local community. What this means for me is that Green Mountain Coffee beans are purchased right where they are grown – this must be why the coffee tastes so good!

I love that fair trade allows farmers to earn their own living and empowers them to help their own communities!

So, while I’m enjoying my tasty coffee I can think of the farmers and their communities that I’m supporting!

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Maggi So Juicy

Another free product from Bzz Agent! I always love trying the food products since I love trying different foods! Maggi So Juice chicken bags and seasonings. Basically, they’re an oven safe bag (kind of like a turkey bag, just smaller) that you place your chicken breast in and bake. The bag comes with a season packet that you sprinkle over the chicken before sealing the bag and cooking.

So easy to do, just put the chicken and seasoning in the bag, shake, seal, place on a pan and bake. All the juice and such stays in the bag so there’s really no mess afterwards either. The bag keeps the moisture in so the chicken is nice and moist and there’s some sauce created at the bottom of the bag.

I’ve tried 3 of their flavors so far and have loved all of them!

  • Italian Countryside Herb Blend
  • Savory Garlic & Tomato with a Hint of Chili
  • Mediterranean Herb Medley with Rosemary

My husband even made dinner for me one night when I had some errands to run. His specialty in the kitchen is kraft Mac & Cheese so for him to make something with raw meat is a big deal! It turned out great and he said it was pretty easy.

These were very tasty, very easy, and great to have on hand for an easy meal!

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Goosbumps Sweepstakes

First, thanks to bzzagent.com I (and the kids of course) got to try Orange colored milk for free! My kids thought this was awesome! Seriously, who doesn’t just love orange milk! I mean, what kids doesn’t like orange milk? It was a little sweet for me, being as it’s vanilla flavored – I almost feel like I’m drinking a candy corn. But, if you have trouble getting the kids to drink milk, orange milk might just do the trick 🙂 And if your kids just love milk, they’ll think you’re an awesome parent for serving them orange milk!

Maybe TruMoo can make green milk for Christmas – or not, I don’t think I could drink green milk (but you know, if it tasted like McDonald’s shamrock milkshake I would drink the whole half gallon myself). Red milk might be fun, and yellow milk for easter – oh, wait, milk is already yellow…Colored milk is just so much fun!

What’s even better, if you buy a gallon or half gallon of TruMoo’s halloween themed milk they have a code on the cap. You can enter a sweepstakes to win a Goosebumps Haunted Hollywood Vacation. I don’t know about your kids, but mine would love it! And, when you enter the sweepstakes, you get a printable coupon for $2 off any Goosbumps DVD.