Rambling Mom

Over 7 years as a parent and it still amazes me how quickly kids make messes. You can spend hours getting one room spotless and shining, and in the meantime they are destroying every other room. The destruction increases exponentially with each added child. And it's hopeless to even try cleaning a room the children currently occupy. Most of my cleaning gets done when the older 2 are in school, the twins are napping, and the 3yr old is either napping or at preschool. I definitely can't do dishes when the babies are awake because they want to help. It would be great to have something like cleaning services cary nc to help me out. The only time we get it really nicely clean is when people are coming over lol. I've joked that I need to invite people over every day, then I'd have to clean more. I'm working on getting the older boys to learn how to do stuff to help. They like vacuuming. They aren't very good at it but I let them anyway while they like it lol. They also love to help me with dishes. Hopefully with them helping more I'll be able to stay on top of things better.

Today I read an article about a 12 year old boy who is a prodigy at playing piano. He's only been playing 1.5 years but is amazing. Those kind of stories always amaze me, kids who have awesome gifts and talents. I play piano a little bit, and I used to know how to play guitar and violin a little, but I never developed those talents. I would like to at least get better at piano, maybe when my kids are a little older and I have more time to practice. I've also been thinking of putting my kids in piano lessons. I don't expect to have a child prodigy, but it's a nice talent to work on I think.

The winner of the Essentials All Purpose Creme and Feet TreatMint Foot Lotion is...


#1 is Adrianne! Congratulations Adrianne, I will be contacting you about your prize!

Thank you to everyone who entered. I will be having another contest coming up hopefully in the next few weeks.

I know I haven't posted pictures from Thanksgiving, Christmas, or the babies' first birthday yet, but tonight it's not going to happen. Too tired to go through pictures to find them. Before I know it Valentine's Day will be over too and I'll need to post pictures of that as well. We don't normally do much for V-Day, but I've seen some cute ideas on pinterest that I may try out. You can find everything from valentines day gifts for gfs to meal ideas to cute decorations on there. I'm really loving that site, but need to stop letting it suck away at my time lol. It's really easy to go to it for just a minute and 2 hours later realize you have more important things to do. :)

I'm taking calculus this semester. I still don't know why it is required for my major, but it is. And it is much harder than I remember it being in high school. It's amazing how much of that you forget in 10 years. Most of the other students in the class seem to understand it a lot easier, and I'm sure it's because they've taken the prerequisite classes a lot more recently than I have. It makes me feel so old, like I should start looking for Housing for seniors already. I think if my brain wasn't so tired from getting up with babies I'd have an easier time understanding it, so hopefully they will start sleeping better soon. Caleb sleeps good some nights, Isaac not so much. I've been getting all A's since going back to school, and would love to keep it up, but I don't know if I'll be able to in this class. I'm hoping that I can pass it at all.

I love making my own shakes at home. Cheaper than buying one, plus I don't have to drive somewhere. And I can choose exactly what I want in it. I had some leftover vanilla ice cream from the twins' birthday party (I actually completely forgot to serve the ice cream at the party, so I had plenty leftover!) so I have been using it to make myself yummy shakes. My favorite lately is chocolate banana, though I did almost make it with Oreo's today. Mmmm.

Anyway, I read somewhere (a blog? pinterest? Facebook?) that a regular canning jar can fit on a regular blender. What?! Who would have thunk it? I decided to give it a try because then I wouldn't have to dirty up my whole blender for one little shake, plus the jar would double as my serving cup. Less dishes is always good!

First, choose what you want in your shake. Mine has vanilla ice cream (about a cup), Nesquik (2 big spoonfuls, mixed with a little milk so the powder wouldn't stick to the sides of the jar, learned from last time), and about half of a banana, sliced up.

Put all your ingredients in the jar. I would advise you not to put the ice cream in first, it can stick to the bottom of the jar and not want to go down and blend as smoothly, in my experience.
Then screw the mixer part of the blender on like a lid, and put it on the blender base like normal.
Mix on low until all blended and to desired consistency. That's it! Remove from blender, carefully take off mixer blades, grab a spoon and enjoy!

So, for the last few months I noticed that I had a significant drop in blog visitors. I went from about 20 a day to maybe 4 a week. Or so I thought. Evidently when I changed my template a few months ago I somehow deleted the tracking codes that kept track of my visitors and so they weren't showing up. Or so I hope was the problem lol. I reinstalled the tracking codes so hopefully I'll see a jump in my stats and not feel like such a loser. :)

Stanley Home Products has been providing quality cleaning, home, and personal care products for 70 years. I have had a chance to review some of their great cleaning products (more reviews posted soon for that!) but I hadn't heard about their personal care products until I got the chance to sample some of their Essentials line.

Essentials All Purpose Creme with beeswax is a wonderful blend of emollients and moisturizers that seals in moisture for soft, smooth skin. As someone with psoriasis, I am always excited to try new moisturizers because keeping my skin moisturized helps my psoriasis stay in check. The All Purpose Creme is like a body butter cream, not a lotion, and has a mild natural scent. I love putting it on right after a shower and feeling like it is keeping the moisture in. After just a few uses my skin felt so soft. I also like to use it on my 3-year old's eczema spots too keep the skin from cracking and make him less itchy.

Essentials Foot TreatMint Foot Lotion is amazing. Seriously, I love this stuff! It's like giving your feet a spa treatment at home. It smells so good, with it's mixture of peppermint, camphor, and menthol, and is silky smooth, going on like massage oil. I love to just sit and massage it into my feet and feel the tension melt away. I am home barefoot most of the day so my feet get rough and calloused and dry; this lotion helps to soften that rough skin and makes me feel pampered. I've even used it to massage Hubby's back when it was achey after he spent a few hours helping someone move, and it worked really well.

GIVEAWAY

Would you like a chance to win both the Essentials All Purpose Creme and Essentials Feet TreatMint Foot Lotion? Just leave a comment telling me what you like to do to pamper yourself. Make sure there is a way for me to contact you in your comment or profile.

This contest will end January 27, 2012 at 10pm Mountain Time. Winner will be chosen using random.org. Contest open to U.S. residents only.

*Disclosure: I received one of each of these products to review, and an extra of each to giveaway, in exchange for my review. Opinions on the products are my own.*

So I haven't posted any Christmas pictures yet. I should have gotten caught up over winter break but we spent the time just relaxing and enjoying having nothing to do. Dont think I posted Thanksgiving pics either? In fact, I don't think I've posted pics since Halloween! Yikes! So let's see where to start. Oh, Nathan's 3rd birthday! And evidentely I don't have a lot of pics from it. :P Here's a few of him opening presents.

We got him some new pants, which he really needed. No Firstgear Kathmandu Jacket since he already has a coat. I think his favorite present was the ABC game grandma gave him. That kid loves his ABCs! And here's a video of him blowing out his candle, which did nto want to go out. It was not a trick candle or anything, but it took a while to get out.And so my little boy is 3 now!

I have been loving the mild winter we've had so far. We've only gotten snow a couple times and it hasn't been as cold as normal. Bright sunny days have been great, though I wish I had some nice ray ban sunglasses while driving cuz my eyes are sensitive to light and the bright days make it hard to drive. I always forget to grab a pair of my Hubby's sunglasses. We did get some snow this week. Not too much, and since I had nowhere to go I didn't mind lol. We are supposed to get more snow this week, though. I need to plan to take the boys sledding while the snow is here. The school across the road has the perfect tiny hill for little kids. I haven't gone sledding myself since we moved from Idaho 4 years ago, I'm so lame lol. It was just so much easier when we had our own personal hill in the backyard.

So, a new semester begins tomorrow. I'm taking two computer classes and calculus. Sooo not excited about calculus. I haven't taken a math class in 8 years, and calculus was 10 years ago in high school. Hopefully I'll do okay. I'm glad I only have class 2 days a week this semester, and no Saturday morning class! One of the classes is online, and since I have 1.5hrs between my two classes on Monday and Wednesday I'm planning to work on that class during that time. And we have a vacation planned right after this semester gets over in May, which will be really nice. I'd love to be able to take more vacations with the family. I've thought that it would be nice to have an RV to take on trips, but then you have to pay for the gas and rv insurance and monthly payment, and the idea is a little less appealing lol, but maybe one day. We should at least plan some camping trips, we haven't gone camping in a long time. And it's just fun to get away from it all once in a while.

Boy this year went by fast didn't it?! Almost 2012 already, which means it's almost the twins' first birthday! And we are getting past the crazy holiday months into the slower cold months, so hopefully life will go a bit slower. Don't need to worry about gift ideas for weddings, Christmas, or birthdays (besides the babies, which will be easy) for a while, though next year I plan to get started on Christmas a lot earlier than I did this year! But for now I'm not even going to think about it, just going to enjoy a break from major holidays.

Thank you to those who entered the giveaway for the Crunchmaster White Cheddar Multi-Grain Crackers. Using random.org the winner is...

#1 Blair! Congrats Blair, I will be contacting you to get your information to send your prize.

Thank you all and stayed tuned for some upcoming giveaways!

4 days until Christmas!!! You can tell by the piles of wrapped presents in my room, the tree with the lights and garland pulled off the bottom branches and the tree skirt all askew, and the empty bank account. Yep, Christmas is definitely close! I'm excited for the kids mostly, it's just so much fun watching them enjoy Christmas morning. I'm also interested to see what Hubby got me. He's been working on something in the garage, pretty sure it's not amish furniture, and there are a few other boxes with my name on them that I have no idea what they are. I'm not completely ready though. Waiting on a package so I can finish up some family gift baskets and I need to make the boys' PJ pants. Other than that I think we are done. :)

I had the great opportunity to review some nutritious, healthy crackers by Crunchmaster, provided courtesy of Moms Meet.

The Crunchmaster Multi-Grain Crackers come in 3 delicious flavors: Sea Salt, White Cheddar, and Roasted Vegetable. Now, I must say I am not really a cracker person. Especially the healthy ones, haha. The never have liked the texture of wheat crackers, or the flavor. I was thinking these crackers would be similar. But the first thing I noticed is they lacked that wheat-y texture because, ta-da: no wheat! That's right, these crackers are wheat- and gluten-free. Great for people who want healthy, tasty crackers but can't eat gluten. Instead they are made from a blend of pure, California brown rice, stone-ground corn, oat fiber, and a four seed blend (they also made a Multi-Seed Cracker you may want to check out). Also, they didn't crumble wheatily (not a word? oh well!) which is nice. Instead these oven baked crackers are very crisp and solid, a bit harder than I expected; they don't leave tons of tiny crumbs with every bite.

Now for the taste. For starters, I did not even try the White Cheddar flavor. I just have never liked cheese flavored products, especially cheese crackers, yuck! So I left those to the kids, who had no problem with being my taste-testers. My two older boys ate some and thought they were too hard, but my 3-year old loved them. For the next few days I kept finding him smuggling a bag of crackers into the family room to snack on while watching cartoons. Hubby also tried them and said they were about the same as any other healthy cracker to him, good but nothing exciting. I headed first for the Roasted Vegetable. These crackers have some major taste, a lot more flavorful than I was thinking they would be. In my opinion it was actually a bit much, but I bet they would be amazing with a nice cream cheese spread or dip, which I sadly did not have on hand to try them with. Then I tried the Sea Salt. This was more to my taste; not as much flavor to deal with (guess I'm a wimp when it comes to strong flavor lol). They tasted kind of like healthy, crunchier tortilla chips. I love a nice salty snack, like popcorn or chips, so these are something I could actually see myself snacking on. They would also probably taste good with a spread or maybe cheese and meat on top.

I also shared some bags of crackers with ladies in my twin moms group, and they were so excited to try them out.

Crunchmaster Multi-Grain Crackers are a great source of fiber and whole grains, use natural ingredients, and are free from cholesterol and saturated fats. A nice healthy snack that you can enjoy as is or with a tasty spread or dip. You can learn more about them at the Crunchmaster website and Facebook page. You can buy them at many major retailers, including WalMart, Kroger, Meijer, and many more.

Would you like a chance to win a case (12 bags) of Crunchmaster White Cheddar Multi-Grain Crackers? Well, one lucky reader will!

To enter simply visit the Crunchmaster website and comment here to let me know what other product they have that you think sounds good.

This contest will end Tuesday December 20th at 10pm EST. Contest open only to U.S. residents. Make sure there is a way to contact you from your profile or leave your email in the comment.

*Disclaimer: I received this product for free from the sponsor of the Moms MeetSM program, May Media Group LLC, who received it directly from the manufacturer. As a Moms MeetSM blogger, I agreed to use this product and post my opinion on my blog. My
opinions do not necessarily reflect the opinions of May Media Group LLC or the manufacturer of the product.*