Soap Winners

Here are the winners of the Goat's Milk Soap...

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Here are your random numbers:
13
259
100
Timestamp: 2009-03-01 00:01:29 UTC

Those comments came from:

13-T- (I Have One of Those Lives) said...
Sounds awesome! I'd love to win a bar!

259bjtstl said...
This soap looks yummy! (but I promise not to eat it if I win)

100Mike, Adrienne and Lincoln said...
I would love to try this! It sounds wonderful!

Congratulations! Please email me at Mom2My6Pack@aol.com by Monday night with your choice of soap and shipping address.

Thank you to everyone who left a comment! :)

Lather, Rinse, Repeat

PJ is a homeschooling mom of 8 who lives a simple life on several acres of land where they keep gardens and dairy goats. Each family member is involved in making goat's milk soap (Well, except the baby.) Everyone has a job to do from milking the herd of Alpine goats, to mixing ingredients, making the soap, cutting them into thick, chunky bars, and stacking them to cure. You can read about them HERE and HERE.

They sell thick (6 oz.!) bars of their soap in a ton of different fragrances like coconut (my favorite smell on earth!), black raspberry, clean cotton, Fiji Island (YUM!), lavender, oatmeal milk & honey, and many, many more! As PJ says, "when people come to visit us, I can't guarantee my house will be clean, but I know it will smell good!" I can imagine how yummy her house smells because my house smelled great just from one bar of soap!

They have a soap for everyone, including those who want an organic castile soap, unscented soaps, and even loofah soaps!

I'd never used any kind of goat's milk soap before and I was surprised at how much the bar lathered. I don't know why, but I didn't really think it would. It's also surprisingly moisturizing! My skin gets so dry in the winter, but I could tell a difference after using this soap for a week. It's really creamy. Check them out HERE!

PJ is giving away 1 bar of her homemade goat's milk soap (winner's choice) to 3 lucky winners (open to residents of U.S. and Canada). Leave me a comment here and I'll choose 3 winners on Friday, Feb. 27!

Also, between now and March 10, when you place an order, get a FREE bar of soap (your choice)! Just mention my blog in the special instructions section of the order form! How cool is that?

I Coulda Had a V-8 V-Fusion!

When I was at the Campbell's headquarters a couple weeks ago, they served us a delicious breakfast. Along with the yummy food, they had a variety of drinks out for us to try. I looked at the V-8 V-Fusion and thought, "Ewww! There's just something so wrong about drinking vegetables!" Another blogger overheard me and insisted it didn't taste like veggies, so I gave it a try. I LOVED it! I mean, really LOVED it! I tried the pomegranate blueberry flavor and it was so good! It doesn't taste even a little bit like vegetables! I was so surprised. I mean, I don't like tomato soup. I don't like tomato juice (not even with vodka). Yuck! But this stuff is GOOD!

Later in the day, we were able to taste test all the flavors of V-Fusion and they were really de-lish! The coolest part is that each 8 ounce glass has a full serving of fruits and a full serving of vegetables! So, if you have kids like mine, this is great news! Brooklyn ate a handful of conversation hearts for lunch yesterday (don't ask). Needless to say, although her diet is high in sugar, ketchup, and chocolate, it's somewhat lacking in actual food and nutrients. But, she loves juice! So I know if she drinks a glass of V-Fusion, she'll get 2 servings from the fruit and vegetable group and that makes me feel good! Plus V-Fusion doesn't have artificial colors, flavors, preservatives, or added sugar. Now that's something any mom can feel good about!



After taste testing the different V-Fusion flavors, we got to make smoothies using V-Fusion, frozen fruit and yogurt. If you have kids who don't like to eat in the morning, this is a great quickie on-the-go breakfast (or after-school snack). You can also add a scoop of protein powder to it and voila! you're set until lunch! I personally think the V-Fusion would taste good with rum. But not for breakfast. Most days.

Did you know that V8 juice is 76 years old! Well, the stuff you buy isn't that old. It's made fresh every day. But it's been around for 76 years. Now you know. And if you go HERE, you can get a coupon for $1.00 off V8 Fusion!

Oh and speaking of coupons (and other money saving ideas) go to Campbellskitchen.com to get easy meal ideas for under $10! Who couldn't use this resource?

HP Winner

Thank you to everyone who left a comment about the HP Photosmart Wireless Printer! Here's the random winner.....

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Here are your random numbers:492

Halye said... I would use this to print pictures, wirelessly,of course!!

Congratulations! Enjoy your printer!!! :)

And it's WIRELESS!!!

I got one of THE. MOST. AWESOME. products ever to review last week. It's an HP Photosmart C6300 All-in-One printer! This thing has so many cool features, but the best one is it's WIRELESS! That means I never have to get up off the couch! How cool is that?

Seriously, the printer I'd been using just stopped working with my laptop one day. I have no idea why and I couldn't figure out how to fix it. Every time I needed something printed, I had to send it over to the desktop and wait 2 1/2 weeks for my desktop to turn on so I could print it. And then, when I clicked "print", it usually printed off a dozen strange pages before it got to my document. I tried to print a boarding pass a couple months ago and had to print 15 pages about Komodo Dragons first. I have no idea

Needless to say, I was thrilled to try this HP printer out! I have never been disappointed in an HP product and this was no exception.

Savannah pulled the printer out of the box and set it up by herself in no time. All I had to do was pop the included CD in my laptop and voila! I was good to go! And, did I mention it's WIRELESS?!

This printer holds both regular paper and photo paper AT THE SAME TIME! You don't have to change it out to go between printing photos and printing say, boarding passes, or copious amounts of information on Komodo Dragons. Not only that, but when you print a picture, it automatically prints on the photo paper which is very cool for people like me who would never remember to select "photo paper" every time she wanted to print a pic!

You don't have any pictures on your laptop because they were taking up too much space so you have them on a memory card, you say? No problem! You can insert your memory card directly into the printer and print our your pics! And these pictures look just like pictures that are printed professionally. They don't look like you printed them at home. I was amazed! And, it's WIRELESS!

Can you tell I totally love this printer yet? OK, another feature that I like is that it uses 5 individual inks. If your kids print out 50 pages of green Komodo Dragons, for example, you only have to replace an affordable green ink container, and not an entire expensive color cartridge.

And, and, and, check this out! Go to HP.COM/CREATE to find hundreds of free project templates for posters and business cards, calendars and greeting cards, stationary, scrapbooks, party decorations, and many, many more. You can print out party invitations, table decorations, banners, goody boxes, thank you notes and more in a coordinating design for easy party planning, for example.

And it's WIRELESS!

Honestly, I really, really love this printer and I have a feeling I've just begun to discover all it's capable of. You will be seriously impressed with this HP Wireless Photosmart C6380 printer!

AND I HAVE ONE TO GIVE AWAY HERE! To enter, leave me a comment below and tell me how you would use this printer - or you may leave a link to your post on your own blog in the comments below. The contest will begin at 12:00 a.m. (PST) on Wednesday, February 4th, and will end Tuesday, February 10th at 11:59 p.m (PST). Make sure that the e-mail address you leave is correct.
Rules:
No duplicate comments.
This giveaway is open to U.S. residents.
Winners will be selected via random draw, and will notified by e-mail.
You have 48 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected.

Want more chances to win? Go to the BlogHer site HERE! There are 8 chances to win total! Check it out!

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Edited to say: The contest doesn't start until 12:00 AM (PST) on Wednesday, February 4th. Comments left before that time will not count. Please stop by tonight at 12:00 AM Pacific (that's 3 in the morning for you east coasters) or later. The contest runs until February 10th. Thanks!

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Campbell's Soup Trip - part #2

OK, I see that the video I uploaded still hasn't processed. I can't even count how many times I tried to load this thing. Ugh. OK, let's try this again.....



I liked his tips on "skimming the scum" and blanching the noodles beforehand. I'd never thought to do that with the noodles!

Did you guys know that Campbell's also owns Pepperidge Farm (YUM!), Prego pasta sauce, Pace picante sauce, and Swanson's broth? I had no idea. As Stacy Debroff from Mom Central said, "If you are what you eat, I'm a good part Campbell's!"

We were privileged to be the voice of moms everywhere and the people from Campbell's took a lot of time to listen to us. They know what dinner time is like and they're committed to finding solutions.



They showed us these pictures that women had drawn when asked the question, "What's dinnertime like at your house?" LOL! How often does it happen that you look at the clock, realize it's already 4:00 and you have no clue what you're going to do for dinner? :::raising hand::: I go in spurts. For a while I'll be really good and pull something out of the freezer the night before and know what I'm going to make. Then, I'll go for a while doing the whole "it's 5:00 and everyone's hungry and asking me what's for dinner and I have no clue! McDonald's?"

Campbell's has tried to help moms around the world with the dinnertime dilemma. Think of how many Campbell's cookbooks are out there with quick and simple recipes. There are TONS of them full of recipes where you take half a dozen ingredients, mix it up, cook it and voila - a nice dinner is served.

But they haven't stopped there because we not only want quick and easy solutions, but we want our dinners to be healthy as well. Now Campbell's offers more than 85 reduced and lower sodium soups. They also have 124 soups with no MSG if that's an ingredient that bothers you. All of their Healthy Request soups and kids soups meet the government's criteria for "healthy" foods. The kids soups contain 110 calories or less, 3g of fat or less, 0g trans fat, 480mg sodium, are a good source of vitamin A, and have no MSG and no artificial preservatives or flavors.



We were able to do a blind taste test of some of these kids soups (chicken and stars & princess shapes). We tasted the original soup and the lower sodium variety. I got one right and one wrong. It was really hard to tell the difference. I don't know how they kept the flavor so good without artificial ingredients or MSG, but they did, and kids will love the taste while you love the lower sodium content.

In addition to the lower sodium content, they've added whole grain pasta to many soups and they've reformulated several Pepperidge Farm items as well. You can now get whole grain goldfish without artificial colors and flavors too, for example. I was impressed with the variety of healthier options offered.

I'll leave you with a simple slow-cooker recipe that's super-quick and easy to prepare and tastes yummy!

BEEF TACO CASSEROLE

prep time: 10 minutes
cook time: 7 to 8 hours


2 pounds ground beef (or ground turkey)
1 can (10 3/4 ounces) Campbell's Condensed Creamy Tomato Ranchero Soup
1/2 cup water
1 can (14 1/2 ounces) diced tomatoes with green chilies
8 corn tortillas (6-inch) cut into 1/2-inch strips
1 c. shredded cheddar cheese ( 4 ounces)
3 green onions, chopped
sour cream

COOK beef in 2 batches in large skillet over medium-high heat, stirring to separate meat. Pour off fat.

MIX beef, soup, water, tomatoes, and tortillas in 3 1/2 - 5 quart slow cooker.

COVER and cook on LOW 7 - 8 hours*. Stir in cheese. Cover and cook for 5 minutes. Sprinkle with green onions and serve with sour cream.

* or on high for 4 to 5 hours

Serve with a crisp, green salad topped with Pace Picante sauce, and cornbread for a complete meal the whole family will love!

Stop back in later this week for information on V-Fusion!!!