Posts Tagged ‘review’

Super Food, Super Delicious!

Thursday, January 8th, 2015

My only food-related New Year’s resolution is “Eat less food from a drive-thru”. I’ve made drastic diet resolutions in the past and – not shocking – I’ve always failed. Always. If I’m not just throwing the whole thing out the window I’m busy trying to get around it somehow. (Well this ice cream is totally local and organic, which means it’s ok. It’s not like I’m eating horrible procesed candy from a bag…)

So “fewer drive-thrus” is a good goal. If I have to at least get out of the car and walk in to get my take-out at least it’s more likely to have a vegetable in it. I’m also menu planning again – maybe I’ll even get a What’s For Dinner post up! – and keeping the fruit bowl full. But when it’s lunch time and I’m standing in my kitchen and I realize I haven’t eaten anything that day and am suddenly STARVING, even a no-drive-thru rule doesn’t stop me from eating a pint of ice cream instead of real food. There has to be something easy and delicious right there.

eat smart wild greens and quinoa salad kit-8

(more…)

How Does Your AeroGarden Grow?

Thursday, November 6th, 2014

Thank you to Scotts and AeroGarden for sponsoring this post and giveaway!!

I got an email from my friends at MiracleGro asking if I might be interested in an AeroGarden for review. I ignored it.

Want to know what happened to my last houseplants? Dead.

Wondering how long my cute indoor herb planter lasted? Not even long enough to sprout.

Ask me how many tomatoes I got from my garden this year. NONE. (And yes, I did plant tomatoes.)

But they followed up. And it looked so cute. And after I explained “NO REALLY, IT HAS TO BE FOOLPROOF” they assured me it is. So far, they’re right.

miraclegro aerogarden review

(more…)

Aquaphor Works Wonders { Prize Pack Giveaway!}

Tuesday, February 12th, 2013

*Giveaway now closed*

I am blond-haired, blue-eyed, very freckled and of Swedish and English decent…but compared to the rest of my family I have a fantastic tan. E isn’t so much “pale” as “transparent” and the kids definitely take after him. With all that paleness comes the usual complaints – dry itchy skin, sensitivity to all sorts of soaps and additives and cleansers, and chapped cheeks from runny noses and cold air. On top of that, my husband has a mildish case of rosacea (I say mildish, since it doesn’t bother him much – “vain” is not a word in his vocabulary – but it is persistent.)

So when Aquaphor emailed me and was like “Hey, can we send you some Aquaphor to try?” I was like “You mean send me MORE Aquaphor? Since I already buy it in the giant tub since we ran out of the giant tub the Navy prescribed to E for his face? Yes, yes you can.”

They sent me the Aquaphor Baby Healing Ointment and the Aquaphor Baby Gentle Wash & Shampoo, both of which are favorites already in our house. The Healing Ointment is great on diaper rash, itchy spots and especially on the chapped skin on Evan’s face:

before Aquaphor

7:30 pm, right after bath. Poor baby. His nose runs and he wipes it with his right sleeve so the right side of his face is always the worst (We’re working on using tissues, I promise).

I used a teeny tiny bit of the Aquaphor Healing Ointment right before bed and…

after Aquaphor

8:00 am the next morning. Still a little dry but SO much better. Luckily a tube of Aquaphor lasts a long, long time so I just dabbed some more on throughout the day.

It even worked wonders on my thumb last night, after I burned myself lighting E’s birthday candles at 1 am (free tip: don’t play with fire when you’re really, really tired).

The Baby Gentle Wash & Shampoo is tear-free, fragrance-free and washes out really easily – all very important factors when trying to wash two squirmy kids who FREAK when you get water in their eyes or ears. Now that Caroline has hair long enough that I need to Deal With It regularly I appreciate that the Aquaphor Wash & Shampoo leaves it soft and shiny. It also took the marker right off both kids hands (and arms and knees and faces…) without drying or irritating their skin. We are Aquaphor devotees and I couldn’t imagine going through a whole winter without it.

To help YOU and your family enjoy your winter, Aquaphor wants to send one of my readers this amazing prize pack:

Aquaphor #WorksWonders Prize Pack

Bundle of Joy Package 

  •  $50 Visa Gift Card
  •  “Warm Buddy” to cuddle with
  •  Ice Age Continental Drift (2012) DVD to watch with your family
  •  A Pottery Barn kids picture frame to keep and share your memories!
  • Godiva hot cocoa mix, perfect after a cold day
  • Aquaphor Baby Healing Ointment  is a dermatologist and pediatrician trusted product that helps protect and relieve dry, cracked skin. It provides effective soothing relief for dry skin and its mild formula is safe for external use on your baby’s delicate, sensitive skin.
  •  Aquaphor Baby Gentle Wash & Shampoo is a mild, fragrance free cleanser that gently cleanses both skin and hair. Enriched with soothing chamomile and provitamin B5, the tear-free formula is specially designed and clinically proven to be gentle for baby’s sensitive skin.

To enter, just leave me a comment on this post sharing something you’re excited about this month!  I’ll pick a winner on February 19th and notify them by email, so be sure to enter one when you comment! The giveaway is only open to US Residents who are 18 years of age or older.

p.s. The Warm Buddy in the prize pack is fantastic – it has a bean bag in the middle you can microwave and then tuck inside. Both kids love cuddling it after we’ve been playing outside and I swear it leads to extra couch naps. Exhibit A:

aquaphor_-4

 

If you find that Aquaphor #WorksWonders, we’d love for you to take and share pictures of how your family is able to enjoy time together with us on Twitter and Facebook!

I was provided with the prize pack listed above as part of my review but no other compensation was received. All opinions are my own. 

And the winner is…Comment #1! (I love when Random.org choose #1)

1-Fullscreen capture 2192013 73141 AM

 

Congrats to straderspiel for winning the prize pack! Watch for an email!

Dove Intensive Repair Review And $1,000 Spafinder Gift Card Giveaway

Tuesday, September 4th, 2012


Back in high school I used to get super bored in classes like Physics and Algebra II. Is the anything more boring than Algebra II? I imagine there’s a room at most prisons where they lock prisoners in front of and endless loop of a video explaining the quadratic equation and exponentials and logarithms. Except that’s probably considered cruel and unusual punishment so we only make 9th graders do it. So back when I was facing that kind of torture, I used to stare at the ends of my hair, find my split ends, and slooooooowly peel them apart as far as they would go. It was horrifying and satisfying at the same time.

These days I can only dream of having that kind of time on my hands. There isn’t much time for sitting and staring into the distance as a mom. And even if I did, I’d be hard-pressed to find any split ends to peel thanks to the bottle of Dove Damage Therapy Intensive Repair conditioner I was sent to review. I was really skeptical when I saw “Up to 95% fewer split ends!” on the bottle, since I am not gentle with my hair. It goes up in those tangly hair bands by 10 am almost every day, gets sprayed with homemade sun-in on the regular, and I haven’t had a trim since…I don’t even remember. I’m currently trying to “grow it out”, which means I’ll let it get as long and unruly as I can stand and them chop off 6 inches, after which I’ll totally regret it and begin the process all over. But since I started using the Intensive Repair, the ends are much softer, much less damaged and almost split-end free.

dove intensive repair review

p.s. Want to see your husband look at you like a crazy person? Ask him to help you take macro shots of your hair since your arm’s not long enough to do it yourself.

The Intensive Repair conditioner goes on really thick and feels super indulgent. It also does what conditioners are supposed to do – gets out and prevents tangles. (Remember when the thing you put on after shampoo was called cream rinse? This conditioner feels like that, but without the oily residue to weigh hair down.) The Fiber Active technology actually penetrates each hair strand, helping rebind damaged proteins to prevent future split ends and damage. That’s just fancy hair-care product talk for “Dude, it works.” I’m 100% planning to make this a permanent product switch and buy this on my own from now on, I like it that much.

You can enter the BlogHer giveaway below by following their directions (and get the coupon for your own bottle of Intensive Therapy), but feel free to comment on this post telling me I’m not the only weirdo who enjoyed peeling their split ends. Because that feels maybe I’m only one step away from being the strange girl who ends up in the hospital with a ball of hair in her stomach from chewing on it.

Enter to win a $1,000 Spafinder gift certificate!

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY

COMMENTS TO THIS POST ARE NOT SWEEPSTAKES ENTRIES. PLEASE SEE BELOW FOR ENTRY METHODS FOR THIS SWEEPSTAKES.

You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods:

a) Follow this link, and provide your email address and your response to the Promotion prompt

b) Tweet (public message) about this promotion; including exactly the following unique term in your tweet message: “#SweepstakesEntry”; and then visit this link to provide your email address and the URL to that Tweet.

c) Blog about this promotion, including a disclosure that you are receiving a sweepstakes entry in exchange for writing the blog post, and then visit this link to provide your email address and the URL to that post.

This giveaway is open to US Residents age 18 or older. Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail. Winners will have 72 hours to claim the prize, or an alternative winner will be selected.

The Official Rules are available here.

This sweepstakes runs from 9/4/2012 – 9/30/2012

Be sure to visit Dove®Hair.com to get a coupon for $1.50 off Dove Hair Therapy products.

Diaper Disaster! – Boudreaux’s Butt Paste Review and Giveaway

Wednesday, August 1st, 2012

Reading Tip: For an authentic chatting-over-coffee experience while reading this post, be sure to imagine me giggling every time I say “Butt Paste”.
When BlogHer asked if I’d be interested in trying Boudreaux’s Butt Paste, they wanted to know if I had a cute and funny diaper disaster story to share. I almost laughed out loud at the question – of COURSE I have diaper disaster stories. I have two kids! There was the time I was trying to be super cool and wore my baby into a tattoo shop to make an appointment and he promptly poopsploded right through the sling. Or I could tell you what happens when you have two kids in diapers and you accidentally mix up the sizes in your middle-of-the-night diaper changing fog. It’s not pretty.

But then The Incident happened. I will refrain from using names so as to make this story less Googleable in the future, although after what she did that’s being EXTREMELY generous. Let’s just call her Shmaroline.

Shmaroline has recently moved to a big-girl bed, which makes her feel very grown up and important. She loves her big-girl bed, especially because it means when she wakes up in the morning she can get out of bed and play with her dolls and blankies and other toys on the floor. Unfortunately, the transition to the big-girl bed came at exactly the same time as her interest in using the potty. And along with the interest in using the potty came a desire to NOT wear a diaper.

If you’re a parent, you can probably already see where this is going. Feel free to skip ahead, unless your child has been terrible today and you need to be reminded “Hey at least I didn’t have to scrub poop out of the carpet today!” Because yes. That is exactly what happened. My adorable baby girl woke up, silently removed her jammies and diaper, and crapped right on the floor. Which is terrible! Horrible! Totally disgusting! Definitely a Diaper Disaster!

And then she decided to stomp in it. (I’m sorry. So so sorry.) I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth when I heard her making her normal, happy, morning baby noises so I sent Evan in to let her out of the room. He took one look at her, slammed the door and ran back to the bathroom yelling “Mommy! Big mess Mommy! Shmaroline pooped!” Luckily, they both think a morning bath is a special treat – and I had a bottle of carpet cleaner waiting on top of Shmaroline’s bookcase. Wait, that actually wasn’t very cute. But it was definitely a disaster!

Mmmmm butt paste

Luckily, one of the things that ISN’T a disaster right now is Caroline’s diaper rash (Shocking news: Shmaroline was actually Caroline all along!). Despite lots of long car trips and super hot summer days, her bottom is as soft as a, uh, baby’s bottom. I got my tube of Boudreax’s Butt Paste right after we returned from Virginia and it worked wonders on the redness from 7 hours in the car seat. Since then I’ve been putting just a tiny dab on every night after bath and we’ve had zero issues. I’ve found it to be easier to put on and wipe off than other diaper creams I’ve tried and it doesn’t have that super-distinctive diaper cream smell I associate with most zinc oxide products. It even worked on the dreaded “Look Mom, I just ate an ENTIRE pint of blueberries on top of those strawberries I had for breakfast – now can I have some grapes?” rash. Boudreax’s was created by a pharmacist in 1978 and is recommended by pediatricians.

Got a diaper rash story? Leave a comment below and you will be entered into a sweepstakes to win a $100 gift card!

Visit Boudreaux’s Butt Paste on Facebook to learn more about the ultimate “secret weapon” when it comes to preventing and treating diaper rash. Check out BlogHer.com to find other reviews and more ways you can enter to win!

Sweepstakes Rules:

No duplicate comments.

You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods:
a) Leave a comment in response to the sweepstakes prompt on this post
b) Tweet about this promotion and leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post
c) Blog about this promotion and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post
d) For those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry.

This sweepstakes is open to US Residents age 18 or older. Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail. You have 72 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected.

The Official Rules are available here.
This sweepstakes runs from 7/12 – 8/31/12.