Arm & Hammer winner

And I can blame Blogger being down and the fact I fell asleep on the couch at 8:30pm last night for the fact that this is so late. Also, I'm turning down giveaway opportunities because clearly I can't meet deadlines right now.



Anyway, congrats to...

Anna Annacdotes! Hope your family enjoys the toothbrushes. I'll be in touch.

Arm & Hammer toothbrushes for your family (giveaway - Canada only)

I'm so behind on blog posts and reviews that April was Oral Health Month and I'm writing this in May. At least it's the beginning of May? I should be fired.


I was kindly sent a package Arm & Hammer electric toothbrushes for our family to try.

The kids were particularly excited to open their Spinbrush My Way! toothbrushes, and have been using them happily ever since. The cool thing about these toothbrushes is that they come with a ton of stickers for the kids to decorate them themselves. We received a pink one and a blue one, but luckily Oliver is a fan of pink, and Callum shared his 'boy' stickers - actually, they both used some from both packages.

I tried the Spinbrush Globrush. It's meant to stay lit up for 2 minutes of brushing time, which was really helpful while it latest. It also changes colours halfway through. Unfortunately, there seemed to be a problem with the battery in my brush, and it's not replaceable. I'm an infrequent user of electric toothbrushes, anyway, so no great loss. They sort of make my head feel funny. I'm back to my regular dentist freebie one now.

My husband tried the Spinbrush Pro Clean Sonic toothbrush and felt it cleaned his teeth thoroughly. He's a big fan of electric toothbrushes. It's a serious looking brush with replaceable AA batteries.

In celebration of the month after Oral Health Month (maybe next year I'll get this right), would you like to win your own pack of toothbrushes for your family?

Giveaway: Arm & Hammer dental pack containing:

•1 Arm & Hammer Spinbrush My Way! toothbrush for boys
•1 Arm & Hammer Spinbrush My Way! toothbrush for girls
•1 Arm & Hammer Spinbrush Pro Clean Sonic toothbrush for adults
•1 Arm & Hammer toothpaste


All you need to do to enter is leave me a comment. It can say whatever you want, but I'm curious: do you like electric toothbrushes? Do you think your kids would enjoy the stickers on the My Way! brushes? One comment/entry per person, please. Make sure it includes a valid email address.

This giveaway is open to residents of Canada only and will close at 10pm EST on Wednesday May 11 2011. I'll pick a winner using random.org at that time or soon after.

Good luck!

Rice Krispies baking gift basket winner

Tomorrow we are going to bake with our Rice Krispies gift basket - who is going to win their own?

Congrats to moplans! I will contact you for your mailing address details. Thanks to Kelloggs Canada for the great baskets.

Giveaway: $100 value Easter baking Rice Krispies gift basket (CLOSED)

Despite the fact that I don't believe in or participate in organized religion, I do celebrate 4 day weekends that involve chocolate consumption. Easter! You are awesome.

I had already planned to make some cupcakes with the kids this weekend, using some toasted coconut to make nests on top, with Mini Eggs (if I leave any after opening the bag) as the bird offspring for some seasonal decor.

But thanks to Rice Krispies and Kellogg's, I plan to do even more baking this weekend. Yesterday a lovely gift basket arrived at my door and we're very exited to dig in! It contains:

A copy of Rice Krispies Chocolate Bunnies Recipe and some of the ingredients and tools necessary to make the recipe including:
A full size box of Rice Krispies Original Cereal
Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
A bag of marshmallows
Williams Sonoma food colouring
Baking Pan
Spatula
Cookie Cutters
President's Choice gourmet jelly beans for decorations

My youngest is an especially big fan of Rice Krispies cereal, and both of them are excited to see how the chocolate bunnies turn out. What a very generous basket! How would you like to win one to cook with your kids next week? Okay, it may arrive a little late for Easter but I know my kids would be happy to have it come anytime.


Here's how to enter:

1. Leave me a comment. Any favourite things to bake with your kids/small relations?
2. Leave the comment before 9pm EST on Thursday April 21 2011.
3. Be Canadian.
4. Have a valid email address I can use to contact you (leave it in a field/in the comment).

One entry per person, please! I'll use random.org to pick a winner soon after contest close. I will try to get the PR company to send the gift basket as soon as possible. Good luck. Thanks to Kellogg's for the giveaway opporunity.

Winners...

Congrats to comment #2, Katie from motherbumper, for winning the $10 coupon towards Summer Fresh Foods.And congrats to comment #4, anonymous (who left their email address), who won a $25 gift card courtesy of Ddops!Thanks for playing, everyone.

Summer Fresh Salads: review and giveaway (Canada only) -CLOSED

I was lucky enough to come home one day last month and find a giant cooler box on my door step, full to the brim with Summer Fresh Salads dips and Meals to Go. I can't even quite remember how many different kinds of hummus there were inside - I just know it was a LOT. My husband in particular was very excited by the dinner and snack possibilities that the box presented. They were really very generous.I have bought their products during my grocery shopping before, but I can't say that I paid much attention to the brand or the nutrition label. I have now, though.

My favourite thing about the Summer Fresh Salads products is that every single ingredient on the labels were something that you fully expect to be in the dip or lunch meals. No preservatives. Nothing unpronounceable. Exactly what you'd expect to find in hummus or artichoke & asiago if you made it yourself. For me, as a busy working mother, that's the best kind of convenience food - I can trust this brand and know there is nothing weird or funny added to their food.

Also, they were yummy and we all liked them. My youngest decided he liked to dip blueberries in the artichoke & asiago dip. Whatever floats your boat, kid.

I brought a couple of the Meals to Go products to work and I'll honestly say they weren't my favourite. I was probably the wrong person to test these out as I'm not the greatest fan of cold grain salads for my lunch. As much as I liked the addition of trail mix to the boxes, this is actually a problem as up until recently I worked in a nut-free office. I did like the flatbread crackers and hummus, however!Summer Fresh Salads are a Canadian company. Their president, Susan Niczowski, was recently profiled in MOMpreneur magazine. You can find them on facebook or twitter. Their website is a comprehensive listing of their products and recipes and contests.

Would you like to try some Summer Fresh Salads products? The company has offered one of my readers a $10 coupon towards their products.

Here's how to enter:

1. Leave me a comment. What Summer Fresh Salads product would you like to use the $10 coupon to try?
   
2. Leave the comment before 9pm EST on Wednesday March 2 2011
3. Be Canadian
4. Have a valid email address I can use to contact you (leave it in a field/in the comment)

And...one entry per person, please! I'll use random.org to pick a winner soon after contest close. Good luck. Thanks to Summer Fresh Salads for the giveaway.

Disclosure: I was provided with samples of Summer Fresh Salads products to review for this post and was not compensated in any other way. My views are my own.

Ddrops review & $25 gift card giveaway (Canada only) - CLOSED

I was recently sent some Kids Ddrops to review -- Vitamin D in liquid form, aimed at kids. Ddrops are a Canadian-owned vitamin company, and I was already familiar with their product, although we hadn't tried it before.

There's a lot of evidence that tells us we should all be supplementing with Vitamin D, particularly in the winter time. I try to take some myself when I remember.

I'm not exactly diligent about giving the kids vitamins (they sit in a cupboard and they take one when someone remembers) but sometimes we give them a soft chewable multi-vitamin that contains sugar. They think of it as candy. I'm totally fine with this - treats are ok around here. But if you aren't, one major appeal of Kids Ddrops is that all they contain is Vitamin D and a vegetable oil as a transport method for the D. The good thing about the oil is that you can see it if you add it to water, to make sure you actually got the drop in.

I guess that was my only concern with this product - sometimes I wasn't sure if I had actually got the drop in or not - milk was challenging. Although I wasn't that worried as I figured they could handle a double dose in the winter time. We all need it, right?

The kids enjoyed their Ddrops and liked to try to guess whether or not they would be able to taste it - they never did, in the end.

If you'd like more information, the Ddrops website is very comprehensive, covering their products and general Vitamin D information. You can also find them on facebook and twitter.

They've also been very generous to my readers - would you like to try some Ddrops? Ddrops is offering one of you a $25 gift certificate from either Shoppers Drug Mart, Jean Coutu or well.ca.

Here's how to enter:

1. Leave me a comment. Ideas to discuss: do you give your kids Vitamin D? How do they like to take their vitamins, if you do? Have you tried Ddrops, for your kids or yourself?
   
2. Leave the comment before 9pm EST on Wednesday March 2 2011
3. Be Canadian
4. Have a valid email address I can use to contact you (leave it in a field/in the comment)

And...one entry per person, please! I'll use random.org to pick a winner soon after contest close. Good luck. Thanks to Ddrops for the giveaway.

Disclosure: I was provided with a sample of Kids Ddrops to review for this post and was not compensated in any other way. My views are my own.