Kroger Gift Card Winner

Sorry I'm late... I spent the weekend pigging out and shopping & didn't get to the computer much.  Congratulations to post #9, JC who said, "I'm a follower 3."  I sure hope you enjoy your gift card!  Many thanks to all who entered and MyBlogSpark & General Mills for offering this great giveaway on Thou Shall Not Whine!

Kid's Say the Darndest Things

Olivia was playing in the playroom and decked herself out in all the fancy princess gear she could find: sparkly shoes, a crown, a princess cloak, etc.  She walked over to show me and said in her own sometimes-difficult-to-understand dialect, "I'm a princess mommy."  Joey took one look at her and said, "what's a butt-chops?"  I couldn't help but laugh.

I'm pretty sure that he was just looking for yet another reason to throw the word 'butt' into normal conversation, but it was very funny nonetheless.  I just hope my kids don't start walking around calling every princess item they see 'butt-chops.'

Kroger Milk Promotion & Gift Card Giveaway

I love the holiday season for so many reasons.  One of the reasons is I love a good deal, and there seem to be so many of them out there this time of year.  From shopping malls to toy stores, to drug store deals to grocery stores... pretty much everywhere you shop you're bound to find something that you want at a really good price.

The Kroger Family of Stores is no exception to this phenomenon.  They are well known for having all kinds of great promotions year-round, and right now they have a good one featuring General Mills Products.  Here's the deets:

• From November 13th through November 26th, with the purchase of any four participating General Mills products, you will either receive free milk (up to $3; limit of 2) or $3 off your shopping order.
• Look for some of your favorite participating General Mills products like Cheerios, Pillsbury Ready to Bake Cookies, Nature Valley Bars and Fiber One Bars
• Promotion varies in different locations. Please be sure to check your local Kroger Co. Family of Stores for specific deals and offers which include Kroger, Ralphs, King Scoopers, City Market, Dillons, Smith’s, Fry’s, QFC, Baker’s, Owen’s, Jay C Food Stores, Hilander, Gerbes, Food4Less, Fred Meyer, Pay Less Supermarkets and Scott’s Food & Pharmacy

And as if that alone is exciting enough, Thou Shall Not Whine has teamed up with MyBlogSpark to offer my fabulous readers a chance to win a $25 Kroger Gift Card.  They sent me one already, and it sure is going to come in handy while I'm out shopping for my Thanksgiving supplies this weekend.  I seriously can't think of anything better to win during the holiday season than a gift card to help pay for groceries!

To enter in the giveaway, leave me a comment telling me your favorite General Mills Product.  Then do some or all of the following for additional entries:

• Become a follower of Thou Shall Not Whine (3 extra entries!) *Just click the little "follow" button on the right-hand sidebar, then leave me 3 additional comments stating, "follower #1, follower #2, etc."
• Follow my blog on Facebook (2 extra entries) *click on the networked blog button on the right-hand sidebar, then leave 2 additional comments stating that you did!*
• Grab my button and display it on your blog (2 extra entries!)
• Mention this giveaway on your blog with a link back to it. (2 extra entries!)
• Leave a comment on a non-giveaway post. (leave an additional comment here to count as your entry!)

This giveaway starts now and will conclude on Friday, November 25th, at 11:59pm EST. Winner will be selected via Random.org and contacted via email. Winner will have 48 hours to respond before another winner will be chosen.

*Disclosure:* The Kroger Gift Card and information have been provided by Kroger and General Mills through MyBlogSpark.  All opinions expressed are my own.

Winner Announcement! Seventh Generation Dish Liquid Prize Pack

The winner is comment #137, Lisa who said, "I'm following you on GFC user WWillows6."  Thanks for following, Lisa, I hope you'll be back!  And I really hope you enjoy this fantastic prize pack filled with fun stuff for your kitchen!  For those of you who didn't win... I've got several more giveaways coming soon so stay tuned to Thou Shall Not Whine for more great chances to win!

The Mighty Mastermind

My kids seem to fight a lot with each other these days.  They argue over what to watch on TV, who had what toy first, who is going to sit on the potty first, what kind of snack they want mommy to get them from the pantry, etc. etc. etc.  Sometimes it feels like it's a never ending battle in here.  They also play with each other a lot too though, so I guess that's good.  I think that as much as it kills him to share is stuff, Joey genuinely enjoys having little sisters to play with, boss around, and manipulate.  Yes, I said manipulate.  Joey has become quite a little mastermind in getting his sisters to play under his terms.

In the following pictures Joey is playing with his collection of cars and Olivia is desperate to play too.  Not really wanting to share his treasured vehicles, the conversation went something like this:

Me, from across the room: "Joey, Olivia wants to play too, give her a car to play with."
Joey: "OK.  Olivia do you want a purple car because purple is your favorite color?"
Olivia: "Yes."
Joey: "Sorry, I don't have a purple car.  Go find something else to play with."
Olivia, (whining): "I want car Joey."
Me: "Joey, let her play with a car please."
Joey: "OK, I will.... Olivia, do you want a sparkly car because you love sparkles?"
Olivia: "Yes."
Joey: "Sorry, I don't have any sparkly cars. I guess you can't play with these."

Olivia, being passive as usual just stood there because his explanations were actually making sense to her. If only Joey had a purple sparkly car she could play too.  But he doesn't, so she was left on the sidelines looking longlingly at his massive collection of cars that she couldn't use because they weren't purple or sparkly.

Finally I told Joey that he was to give Olivia any car.  It didn't matter what color or whether it was sparkly or not.  He obliged, and the two played peacefully together for all of 30 seconds until both lost interest and moved on to something else.

This entire encounter was so funny to me because neither of them really got upset or frustrated.  Being the older brother defintely puts Joey at an advantage in this house in so many ways.  He's the first to get to do things on his own, he gets the more exciting toys, and gets to hang out with mommy in the afternoon while the girls have to nap.  Being able to manipulate his way out of sharing his toys was new for me to witness, but I have to say I was impressed by his clever reasoning skills, and in the end I was proud that there was no fighting, crying, or whining, and Olivia got to play too.

Seventh Generation Natural Dish Liquid Review & Giveaway

For the record, I hate doing dishes.  Like seriously hate it.  There are several things about being in the kitchen that I enjoy.  Cooking, for example, I enjoy.  Baking, I enjoy that as well.  Eating? Clearly from the size of my *ss one can I gather that I enjoy that probably a little too much.  I'm a big fan of using fun new gadgets, white dinnerware, and getting new stuff to try out.  But the final step in the kitchen -the cleanup, dish scrubbing, soaking, dishwasher loading/unloading process, etc. I don't care for at all.

However, like many duties that go along with running a household doing dishes is an unavoidable chore that all of us must face at least once a day.  So I was happy when MyBlogSpark contacted me to try out some Seventh Generation Natural Dish Liquid to feature on my blog.  In addition to 4 bottles of dish soap in 4 great scents, they also sent me some great items to help that whole "doing the dishes" thing go a bit smoother. And if you are a good chicken and keep reading, maybe you'll be my lucky winner and get a prize pack filled with goodies for your dish-doing delight...

Seventh Generation dish liquid is available in 4 varieties: Free & Clear, Lavender Floral & Mint, Fresh Citrus & Ginger, and (my personal favorite) Lemongrass & Clementine Zest.  Aside from smelling great, working well on my dishes, and not drying out my hands, the scents all come from authentic ingredients grown in real fields!  No factory-made synthetic stuff here. 

Learn more and enter the “Nature Makes Perfect Scents” sweepstakes at seventhgeneration.com/scents  You and a guest can have the chance to take a trip to visit one of the sourcing sites of Seventh Generation natural dish liquid fragrance ingredients. Visit seventhgeneration.com/scents to learn more about each scent’s origin.

Finally, for the super-dooper exciting part.... the GIVEAWAY. (super-dooper is Joey's favorite phrase these days and it's really growing on me so you'll probably see it a lot... that's the glory of reading mom-blogs... they're filled with totally awesome 4-year old vocabulary highlights.)  Anyway, here's the deal:

One lucky winner chosen at random will receive a prize pack for their very own, courtesy of MyBlogSpark and Seventh Generation.  This will include:

• (4) bottles of Seventh Generation natural dish liquid varieties in Free & Clear, Lavender Floral & Mint, Fresh Citrus & Ginger, and Lemongrass & Clementine Zest scents.
• Premium 3 Qt. 12” x 9” Baking Dish from Le Creuset©
• (2) Twist© loofah sponges and (2) Twist© scour pads made from 100% post-recycled materials.
• Set of 3 organic cotton dish towels.

This is a pretty awesome prize pack in my opinion... aside from the 4 bottles of dish soap, the baking dish is of an amazing quality and I can't wait to use it. -I haven't done ANY cooking this week... I'm sick with Strep and an ear infection so my kids have been living off of junk food.  However, when I am cooking again I can't wait to use this dish. I have used the scour pads for scrubbing a couple of left-on-the-stove-all-night mac & cheese pans with stuck on processed cheese product, and they truly worked great. (with the help of Seventh Generation dish liquid, obviously)  And who doesn't need some new dish towels?  Awesome, right?  We sure did... many of ours are from before we got married in 2004, so new ones are very exciting.

Anyway, you probably know the drill with my giveaways, but I'll post the rules here anyway:

There is never anything special you have to do for the first entry.  Just leave me a comment and tell me why you'd like this prize pack.  You can go a few extra steps out of your way to earn up to 10 extra entries though, and you do that by doing some or all of the following:

• Become a follower of Thou Shall Not Whine (3 extra entries!) *Just click the little "follow" button on the right-hand sidebar, then leave me 3 additional comments stating, "follower #1, follower #2, etc."
• Follow my blog on Facebook (2 extra entries) *click on the networked blog button on the right-hand sidebar, then leave 2 additional comments stating that you did!*
• Grab my button and display it on your blog (2 extra entries!)
• Mention this giveaway on your blog with a link back to it. (2 extra entries!)
• Leave a comment on a non-giveaway post. (leave an additional comment here to count as your entry!)

This giveaway starts now and will conclude on Friday, November 18th, at 11:59pm EST. Winner will be selected via Random.org and contacted via email. Winner will have 48 hours to respond before another winner will be chosen.

*Disclosure:* The Seventh Generation Natural Dish Liquid prize pack, product and information have been provided by Seventh Generation through MyBlogSpark.  All opinions expressed are my own.

Absolute Sweetness

While browsing files on my laptop tonight I somehow came across this photo of me and my sweet girl.  I'm rarely in any photos with my kids (since I'm usually the one taking them), and I had actually forgotten all about this one of Olivia and I.  My dear friend Marija took it last Christmas during our too-short holiday visit.  She then emailed it to me, I saved it in some random folder on my laptop and it gave me a warm fuzzy feeling to find it tonight.  So I decided I'd post it here to share it with ya'll.

Libby's Giveaway Winner

Congratulations to post #80, amp who said, "We make a lot of apple crisps and muffins." Well, you can certainly make a lot of that now with your new muffin tin, mixing bowls, and spoonulas!  Enjoy!

Thank you to everyone who entered the giveaway.  I hope that some of you try the recipes from http://www.getbacktothetable.com/ featuring yummy and convenient Libby's fruits and vegetables.  Stay tuned for more great giveaways in the coming weeks. 

*If you represent, sell, or make a product that you'd like to see featured on Thou Shall Not Whine, please contact me ASAP at melly2880@hotmail.com.  I'm working on a Holiday Promotion and am currently seeking products and companies to include.

I Love Mac & Cheese

Seriously, I do.  Next to ice cream, good macaroni and cheese is probably my biggest weakness when it comes to eating unhealthily.  I have favorite brands of course, and typically buy the name-brand, but every now and then I'll try to pass of a generic-brand mac & cheese dinner to my kids to save a few bucks.  (more like save a few quarters... I know it's not expensive but I'm cheap, OK?)  More importantly, I know that feeding them sub-par, generic mac & cheese will make me less likely to eat it from the serving spoon directly out of the pan.

Well that theory went out the window at dinnertime last week.

After I passed out the plates to my hungry, hungry hippos, I took a taste. (straight from the cooking spoon nonetheless...)  Embarrassingly enough, I then lapped up that Great Value brand Spirals mac and cheese like a rescue cat would when given it's first fresh taste of warmed milk at the SPCA.

To make matters worse when Katelyn and Olivia both announced that they wanted more, I had to guiltily admit to the fact that there was no more.  "Mommy, you ate it all?" was Katelyn's response.  "Yes, Katelyn.  Your pig of a mother with no control over cheesy goodness finished off the box of mac and cheese that was supposed to be your nutritionally-sound, well-balanced evening meal.  Would you like some applesauce instead?"  So not cool, I know.

But I have to say, it was good while it lasted.  It's a rare occurrence in this house when all three kids enjoy eating the same thing.  And clearly they were enjoying themselves.  Look:

And no, I was not paid in any way, shape, or form by Walmart for this blog post.  I'm just sharing with the world that I have a child-like love for mac & cheese and I was pleasantly surprised with the fact that the $0.57 box of Great Value brand Spirals mac & cheese turned out to be sinfully delicious.