Sunday, October 31, 2010

CostumeDiscounters.com Costume Review

I was extended the opportunity to review a costume from Costumediscounters.com, after much deliberation Jet Pilot and I decided that he would get a costume for Halloween.  I really wanted one but he kept giving me the puppy dog face.
So I caved.
He chose the Taco Costume and he was more than excited about it.  MORE THAN EXCITED.




When we received the costume I have to say it was nicer than I thought.  There was good detailing, I thought the taco costume may not look as nice in person as it was online.  But when it came I was definitely impressed. It also came with directions that said to to stuff it with paper to make the costume look fuller and more taco-ish?  I have worn costumes like this in the past and I never thought to do that...lol.  Smart I know.  So when Jet Pilot did his dry run and got dressed last night..all stuffed and all, he looked awesome. 
He looked like a giant man taco.  We also steamed his costume to get the wrinkles out, which I don't think we would have had to do if we had hung the costume from a regular hanger (like the enclosed directions said too...yeah we don't do so well following directions sometimes...lol).

Costumediscounters.com has a PLETHORA of funny adult costumes, child and pet costumes, too many to list but here are a few of my favorites:

This is just HILARIOUS to me...

I would have totally dressed up like this with Jet Pilot

Waaay to cute to be scary...Bonnie would look adorable in this!!
I have never ordered a costume online before but after going thru Costumediscounters.com so successfully and without any issues I would definitely order from then again.  I am thinking....Incredibles Costumes for the whole family...or clown costumes....something totally random and hilarious. 

THANKS COSTUME DISCOUNTERS.COM for the awesome costume...I just know its going to be a HIT!!!

I was received products from CostumeDiscounters.com for the purposes of review only.  I was under no obligation from any person or company to post a positive review.  All thoughts and opinions are 100% mine.

Friday, October 22, 2010

Navy Videos Plug and My Husband




I literally just had to share this because it is one of the HANDS DOWN ALL TIME MOST AWESOME VIDEOS that features the WORLD's GREATEST NAVY!! It makes me smile literally every time I watch it.

And besides..the guy in the black beanie in the hallway scene, he was my neighbor here is Mississippi...hilarious, wonderful guy and I am seriously so glad that I can say that I know someone in this awesome video!! Its like knowing a movie star...kind of.


And since I am going to plug Navy You Tube videos I am also going to highlight the amazing video that MY Jet Pilot made while going through flight training in Florida. He did an awesome job and you can see him in all his Pilot glory right at the beginning of the video with his helmet and jacket on singing "YO BLACK BETTY, BLAM A LAM"...he did awesome right?? C'mon be nice...my husband reads this blog daily so I am sure he might like a lil comment love.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Hershey's Moderation Nation Review and Giveaway

I recently had the opportunity to conduct an email interview Cheryl Forberg, registered dietitian for NBC’s the Biggest Loser, James Beard award-winning chef and a New York Times best-selling author of nearly a dozen books, about a new national program she is spearheading that will provide people with tools and resources to help them achieve a balanced lifestyle.  She has partnered up with Hershey's (I know a candy company trying to get healthy...step in the right direction I say!) to give expert tips and advice on how to live and be healthy.  The movement is called Hershey's Moderation Nation.

Well anyone that knows me that I am part fanatical about the things we eat in this house.  I am always looking for ways eat more veggies, less processed sugar and live better.  Here are the questions I asked Cheryl,

1.  What are some easy tips to get the whole family involved in healthy grocery shopping??  
- I suggest taking them along to the store and letting everybody choose a new product each week for the family to try. Interact with the produce department, they love to share samples of fresh fruits and vegetables that you may not have tried. Be sure to download the grocery list tips on www.themoderationnation.com
 
2.  Top 10 list of foods to always have on hand to help shape healthy kids.
- It's hard to narrow it down to 10, but be sure to take the grocery list tips to the store and you can easily find 10 foods that everyone in the family will like. Keep in mind that what is healthy food for kids is also healthy food for adults.
 
3.  If we have to oils in our cooking what's the best kind??
- It's important to have some good fats in our diet, whether they are from nuts and seeds, avocados or cooking oils. Most of the time, I use canola oil because it has the lowest level of saturated fat and it has a neutral flavor profile that blends well with most recipes.
 
4.  Is almond or soy milk any better nutritionally for you than cows milk (organic or otherwise?)
- Personally, I am a big fan of cow's milk and lean dairy products. If you choose to have almond or soy milk instead, be sure it's calcium fortified.
 
5.  What's your best piece of advice to any family that's transitioning to healthier eating like mine (we've cut out white flour, soda, no frozen foods, juices, but we still occasionally eat out)?
- Keep up the great work! You’re definitely on the right track in wanting a healthy and balanced lifestyle. For more ideas on menu planning and recipes, visit www.themoderationnation.com.


Thanks Cheryl for the great advice and I will say I went to the website and had a looksie around just to see whats what and it really is a great resource.  The grocery tips were something I took to heart because I am always trying to convince Jet Pilot to try random vegetables or fruits and he tends to fight me tooth and nail.  LOL.  But I am wearing him DOWN educating him on the perks of eating healthier.  Besides who doesn't want to live longer??

There is also an iPhone app (which for a tech dork like myself) is a plus, called Activity Snack that helps to encourage and track short breaks of activity throughout the day – as little as 5-10 minutes at a time – in pursuit of the 150 minutes of moderate weekly activity suggested by experts.  Things from walking the dog to playing tag with the kids count so there is definitely something for everyone!!

Couple this with tracking your calorie/food intake in a food journal and really its a great foundation to start with better eating, heck BETTER LIVING. 

And who doesn't love that??  Now onto the fun part!


 
WIN IT:
One lucky The Dill-io reader will win the Moderation Nation Prize Pack shown which includes a package of Hershey’s candy, a t-shirt, and a food journal.

MANDATORY ENTRY: Just leave a comment on this post-with your email addy!
 
EXTRA ENTRIES:
  • Follow The Dill-io thru GFC (+2 entries)
  • Follow The Dill-io on Networked Blogs (+3 entries)
  • Become an email subscriber of The Dill-io (+3 entries)
  • Become an RSS Subscriber to The Dill-io (+2 entries)
  • Follow The Dill-io on twitter (+2 entries) 
  • Become a fan of The Dill-io on Facebook (+2 entries) 
  • Add my button to your blog & leave a link  (+5 entries)
  • Blog about this giveaway and leave a link to it in your comments (+5 entries)
  • Tweet this giveaway (just hit the Retweet button at the top of this post!!) (+1 entry daily)
 Giveaway open to residents 18 years old+  residing in the US.  Contest ends on November 9th at 11:59 pm CST. The winner will be chosen using random.org and will be notified via email.  The lucky winner will have 24 hours to contact me. If you fail to contact me within the 24 hour period, a new winner will be chosen.

Disclosure: I received no monetary compensation for this review. I received products from MyBlogSpark and Hershey for review but was under no under obligation from any person or company to post a positive review. All information on MyBlogSpark and Hershey's was obtained from literature sent to me or published online on their website.  All thoughts and opinions are mine.
 

Winner Winner Winner

The Winner of the Tropical Traditions Coconut Oil Giveaway is comment #39 who said:

 And the winner of the WAT-AAH Giveaway is comment #69 who said:
Both winners have been contacted and have 24 hours to respond to my email otherwise new winners will be chosen!! Thanks everyone for entering and please stop by my new Scentsy giveaway, its low entry so far but who knows how long it will stay that way!!

Count me lucky too

Some girls get all the luck...skinny 2 weeks after their babies are born, supermodel tall, or hair that looks like they walked off a shampoo commercial set.
Today I am one of those girls..



Cuz that's my husband right there!! And really, does it get any better than being married to an awesome Jet Pilot??

Just sayin.
Husbands rock.

Scentsy Review and Giveaway

I am addicted to the smell good.
I don't like icky, stuffy smells.
And I have small kids.  Hence, candles are not always a good fit for a family with a wild boy like mine.

So when Christen the fabulous lady who created my new blog button, offered me the opportunity to review some great Scentsy products I was totally on board.  I slaved for hours over what to pick, what scents were right for me and add to that the fact that I loved everything made it just that much harder!  Finally I settled on this Roma warmer and the Rustic Lodge, French Lavender and Simply Irresistible Scentsy Bricks.  My items shipped super fast and once they arrived my Jet Pilot opened the package and set it up right away.

I didn't know much about Scentsy before Christen, so I started reading about it, here is some background:

"On July 1, 2004, Scentsy signed its first consultant and officially became a direct selling “Party Plan” company.
Now celebrating its sixth anniversary, Scentsy has received numerous awards for its growth and ethical business practices, including the Inc. 500 list for rapidly growing privately held companies, the 2010 Direct Selling News Global 100 list of top direct selling companies, and the Direct Selling Association's 2010 Success Award and 2009 Rising Star Award.
With more than 70,000 Independent Scentsy Consultants throughout North America, Puerto Rico, and Guam, Scentsy is poised to lead the industry for the next six years—and beyond."

Well now that I have used the Scentsy products I can hands down say I am a convert.  I love that they are a wickless alternative that's safer than traditional candles.
Because my Clyde has this uncanny ability to knock anything down that he can.

And now thanks to Christen, I can worry just a little less about Clyde trying to burn his hand off with a traditional candle. 

THANK YOU CHRISTEN for opening my eyes to the world of Scentsy!!

BUY IT:
Christen has offered ALL of "The Dill-io" readers a discount!!  Check out her site here
WIN IT:
Christen has ever so graciously offered one
The Dill-io reader a $25 Scentsy Gift Certificate!!!
Can u say awesome!!
MANDATORY ENTRY: Leave a comment on this post! (with your email addy!)

EXTRA ENTRIES:

  • Follow The Dill-io thru GFC (+2 entry)
  • Follow The Dill-io on Networked Blogs (+3 entries)
  • Become an email subscriber of The Dill-io (+3 entries)
  • Become an RSS Subscriber to The Dill-io (+2 entry)
  • Follow The Dill-io on twitter (+2 entry) 
  • Become a fan of The Dill-io on Facebook (+2 entry) 
  • Add my button to your blog & leave a link  (+5 entries)
  • Blog about this giveaway and leave a link to it in your comments (+5 entries)
  • Tweet this giveaway (just hit the Retweet button at the top of this post!!) (+1 entry daily)
 Contest ends on November 10th at 11:59 pm CST. The winner will be chosen using random.org and will be notified via email.  The lucky winner will have 24 hours to contact me. If you fail to contact me within the 24 hour period, a new winner will be chosen.

Disclosure: I received no monetary compensation for this review. I received Scentsy products for review and was under no obligation from any person(s) or company to post a positive review. All information on Scentsy was obtained from literature sent to me or published online on their website.  All thoughts and opinions are 100% mine.

Friday, October 15, 2010

Check out this LOW ENTRY GIVEAWAY

My bloggy bestie is hosting a buysoapnuts.com giveaway that ends in 2 days...and it only has 12 entries!! So for all those crunchy mama's who wanted to win Soap Nuts from the giveaway I posted a while back and did not, check out her giveaway HERE!!!

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Winner Winner Winner

And the 2 winners of the Gain and MyBlogSpark "Sniff, Sniff, Hurray!" Giveaway are:
Comment #224 who said: "Re-tweeted giveaway."
 and Comment #49 who said: "I am an email subscriber #1"
Winners have been contacted and have 24 hours to respond otherwise a new winner will be chosen!! Thanks everyone who entered this giveaway and please continue to do so!!

Wordless Wednesday

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Be forewarned...

Just be forewarned...this is random blog fodder again.  Lately there seems to be a lot of that going around.  Maybe because between homeschool, deal shops, Pilot stuff, being pseudo-sick with this baby (shock and awe because I am not the one to get morning sickness with any of my kids), I don't have time to form coherent extended pieces of dialogue to entertain.  For this I apologize, I should nurture this blog better. 
I swear I am doing the best I can. 
But I was thinking today as I was perusing the photos of a girl I know who recently got married-  beautiful pictures, beautiful landscapes, decorations, cake and wedding party--it was all breathtaking. 

And it got me thinking.

You see when I got married I was 19, and I married the most perfect man because I wanted to-not because of a baby, my parents or any other random thing.  I didn't want to wait, I didn't think I was missing out on anything by marrying someone at the age.  I just knew.  I was ready.  Within a few weeks of meeting Jet Pilot I just knew, I could not imagine living the rest of my days without him.
He was it for me.  And he always will be.
We got engaged the second week in March 2002 and we married 2 weeks later at the Escambia County Courthouse in Pensacola, Fl.  Our honeymoon dinner was Subway Foot long Sandwiches and our "honeymoon" was a night at Motel 6 and a super early check out because we needed to get back to Navy Technical School bright and shiny at 7am.   
Its not that we didn't want a big wedding, I am from Hispanic descent...weddings are like OUR thing.  And Jet Pilot's mom is like a wedding planner without the business card.  She is just awesome at stuff like that.  But I think when Erik and I got engaged we both knew on some level that we were not going to get the church wedding with all the family.  I was set to graduate from Tech School soon and Jet Pilot had graduated and was waiting on transfer orders.  We needed to be married to even have a shot at being stationed in the same place, and even then there was no guarantee that if we were married that we would be stationed together. 
So we did it.  I got permission from my supervisor's to get married and yes I actually had to route paperwork to some high ranking khaki wearing officer to request to get married. 
It was awesome. 
I am proud of that fact. 
Yes I am a weirdo.  I am good with it.
Yet as I sit here and look at these photos I think about how different our ceremonies were, ceremony is a word used very loosely in my case.  Haha.  And I don't think one is any better than the other, I honestly could not imagine myself in a big white dress taking pictures with my little brother and sister (which fyi were still in their pre-teen years when I got married!!).  I think some of our families may feel a lil jipped out of the whole wedding experience but we had receptions in both home states and the party is all most people care about. 
One day I do want to get married in a church, because I love God and I want to recognize our union in a heavenly celestial ever after manner but right now its just not in the cards for us.   When we do get married I don't want many people there...maybe just parents and kids.  When we got married 8 years ago in Florida it was just the 2 of us, and secretly I love that...it was an experience that just the 2 of us shared.  And it will be that way forever.  Just a private time between us.  We laughed and giggled all the way into the courthouse and we were all starry eyed and ecstatic on the way out-it was magical.
Magical
So congrats to everyone that gets married in the white dress, limo, snazzy centerpieces and fanfare.  I think those types of weddings are beautiful and fantastic.  And to the couples that roll like we do with fast food wedding dinners and Motel 6 honeymoons...girl...you rock too!! Don't let the dress fool you, because at the end of the day that huge over jeweled thing gets hung up, tables are taken down, decorations put away and all you have left is the memories.  And those are the best part.  Wherever and however they were made.

PERIOD.

Friday, October 8, 2010

MEGA Swagbucks Friday

Today is MEGA Swagbucks Friday--know what that means?? 



From the SWAGBUCKS site:
"Every Friday is Mega Swag Bucks Day (MSBD), which means better odds of winning our BIG Swag Bucks denominations! Simply search naturally, and with a little luck, you'll be winning large bills starting at 20 Swag Bucks and up.

While this is NOT a guarantee that you'll win high value Swag Bucks, we invite you to visit our twitter page (http://twitter.com/swagbucks) on every Mega SwagBucks Day to hear from Swaggernauts like you who are winning big.

If you're a winner, consider tweeting a picture of your congratulations screen and including @swagbucks in your tweet. If TSG sees your tweet, he'll retweet it!"


What is Swagbucks you ask??


From the Swagbucks site:  "Swagbucks.com is the web's premier rewards site. Swagbucks.com allows web users to earn virtual currency by doing the things they do every day - search the web, shopping at their favorite retailers, and by engaging in other activities such as phone recycling, submitting polls, and completing special offers. Swagbucks.com is the only place on the web to get what you want without ever having to spend a dime."


You redeem your FREE digital currency for actual FREE stuff. 
All kinds of stuff!! 
If you have not signed up yet, then what are you waiting for...I have earned over $120 in Amazon Gift Cards since signing up a year ago!! Its a great legit program!! Sign up here!!

(FYI, yes that is my referral link...duh... ;P)


This is in no way a sponsored post.  
These are my own opinions and I was under no obligation from anyone to
write a positive review

Winner Winner Winner

Glee Gum Winner was comment #88 who said:

UPrinting Die Cut Business Cards Winner was comment #69 who said:

Peter Rabbit Organics Winner was comment #26 who said:
Thanks awesome winners/readers and please keep entering those giveaways!!! I have some more great giveaways lined up!!

EcoStore USA Products Review

Recently I was asked by EcoStore USA to review several of their products, in hindsight if I would have known that I was pregnant I would have asked for baby products but hindsight...20/20. 

No Nasty Chemicals™ is the foundation of the entire product line and philosophy of ecoSTORE USA. "All of our products are made from plant- and mineral-based ingredients, free of toxic chemicals, that bring people closer to nature with non-toxic, environmentally safe solutions that also help to reduce our carbon footprint."
Sidenote: ·The Founder of EcoStore was a stay at home dad living in an eco-village.  Is that not the coolest thing ever?!?!
My kind of company!!!

I chose the Pure Oxygen Whitener for the washer and the Lemon Rinse Aid for the dishwasher. 

Some info on the Pure Oxygen Whitener, "The Pure Oxygen Whitener contains oil of citrus and Coconut and other plant-based ingredients. Ecomommas will love the way this product brightens and cleans baby’s clothes and does not contain any harsh chemicals that could irritate delicate skin." I used the Oxygen Whitener on our dirty whites laundry and specifically targeted our socks...because it seems like all the socks in our house looked like we walked from Mississippi to California in them.  Classy right?? 

Fast forward 2 hours to freshly laundered whites and as I was folding I was seriously impressed...our socks were white again.  I just threw a old measuring tsp of Oxygen Whitener into the container and thats how I measured it per load.  I am definitely looking forward to using this Pure Oxygen Whitener on Baby #3's soiled (read=poopy explosions!) and stained baby clothes in the future.  Weird right...wanting to do laundry...especially poopy laundry.
Its the little things that us SAHM's find joy in.

The Lemon Rinse Aid "..is that final touch to the cleaning of your dishware. Formulated with NO NASTY CHEMICALS, it will leave a subtle fragrance of Lemon Verbena."  I was actually majorly stoked about this because the dishwasher we have in housing cleans with our hard water and we always have major spots on all our glassware.  After loading the rinse aid in the dishwasher and running it the first thing I noticed was the smell- our dishes smelled fresh.  I couldn't really tag it as Lemon Verbena but it was fresh and clean smelling.  I also noticed a diminishing level of water spots...not eradicated but less spots.  So natural Lemon Rinse Aid was doing its thang...and it doing it well.
So I am happy with that.

Overall both EcoStore products went above and beyond my expectations and I am super thankful they extended me the opportunity to try their products!!


Disclosure: I received no monetary compensation for this review. I received products from EcoStore USA for review but was under no under obligation from any person or company to post a positive review. All information on EcoStore USA was obtained from literature sent to me or published online on their website.  All thoughts and opinions are 100% mine

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Fist Pump

We taught our 3 year old son to fist pump...like the guys on Jersey Shore. 
No our kids do not watch Jersey Shore, I do. 

Its the funniest thing ever.

No its actually FRIGGIN Hilarious.  And we caught it on video. 

Yes I am that good of a mom, my mother of the year certificate is in the mail.  But its funny.
And I think one day my son will look back on those videos and crack up.
Because I am cracking up now- A LOT!

Just thought I would share with you.