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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.

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Hose Nozzle

I’m reviewing these Hose Nozzles for a friend. She gave me two to try, but since I only have one hose, I ended up trying one and giving the other to my brother-in-law to use for his hose. (The nozzles come in a pack of two which is why she gave me two)

So far, I’m very pleased with this product. First of all it’s made in the USA, and I always like buying products that are made in the USA.

Next, it’s nice and sturdy, actually a tad heavy so I feel like I’m using something high quality when I water my garden or wash my car.

And, true to what it advertises on amazon, it doesn’t leak, which is so nice! (and I have really powerful water pressure at my house)

I also love the twist on and off because it makes it easy for my kids to use the spray. Before we had just had a grip handle sprayer and my littlest child isn’t strong enough yet to be able to squeeze the handle and get water out, so this works great for her. And I’m all about letting the kids water the garden and wash the car while I supervise!

This hose nozzle is so easy to use, has great reviews on Amazon, and is very sturdy. I would recommend it to anyone looking for a high quality hose nozzle.

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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!