Pine Bros. Throat Drops Review

After 15 years, Pine Bros. Softish Throat Drops are back (they were a trusted brand since 1870), and they are DELICIOUS! I know this for sure because they sent me a BOX of their product to try and pass out. Included in the box was what the company calls a PUCK ... it's a hockey puck-shaped container to refill with your Pine Bros. throat drops ... and we have refilled a few times already! It's nice to have since (1) the drops aren't individually wrapped (waste of paper in our landfills) and (2) I don't have to carry an entire bag of these around with me in the diaper bag; instead, I can refill the puck when I'm running low and the puck is securely closed and won't get crushed or spilled!

The day these throat drops arrived, the kids dug right in ... it's allergy season in the Midwest, after all, you know, so throats are dealing with some drainage and other fun currently. We all really love the taste of the wild cherry drops, and the honey comes in second. My 3-year-old, Sam, took one of the pucks and hid it so only he can get into it and eat the drops. He is the youngest of 5 and must hide his soft and chewy throat drop stash.

More plusses: it's an American made product, baby. AND they are only 5 calories a drop, which fits in with my Weight Watchers program with no problem!

 I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

My True Nature Product Review

Raise your hand if you use your baby's lotion. Yeah, me too. I was so excited to receive the samples of My True Naure's Bubble Bath, Lotion and Shampoo/Body Wash. We really go through this type of product in my house and I always love trying new things. My True Nature's products are animal cruelty-free, which me and Paul McCartney can appreciate. Here's my take on this stuff:

I love the smell of the bubble bath. Sam and Eva love taking baths together and love lots of bubbles. I love that the bubbles stick around for a long time.

I also love the citrusy smell of the baby wash/shampoo combo. The fact that it is in a pump is an added bonus ... no spills and one-handed dispensing make hair washing quick and easy.

The "Beary" Soft Lotion is my favorite product, though. It comes in a pump bottle that I keep in the kitchen right on the counter. I use it on myself after I do dishes and use it on the kids if I see they have dry spots. There is no fragrance, so it's not obnoxious or overpowering. And a little bit goes a long way.

You know I'm a little crunchy, so I appreciate that the bottles are made from recycled plastic and the products are free of all sorts of unnecessary chemicals and additives.

Here's some information from their site:

The Tubby Time Clean and Soft Set combines the Tubby Time greats (Dewey's bubbles and Daisy's shampoo/body wash) with Clio's lotion.

Dewey's and Daisy's cleansers are pure, natural formulas that combine plant-based cleansers and botanicals to create mountains of bubbles that are perfect for sensitive skin, cradle cap, or eczema and will leave your little ones soft as silk and smelling clean.

Clio's lotion is a truly unique formula that combines organic sunflower oil infused with a multitude of calming and healing organic herbs with shae butter, aloe and bees wax. It calms sunburns, rashes, eczema and other skin irritations the natural and organic way. Reuse the bottles made of 100% recycled plastic for a truly sustainable bath time experience.

Most of our ingredients are locally sourced from organic farms in California and the Pacific Northwest. Those ingredients that are not produced locally come from Germany.

Our bottles are made from 100% FDA-APPROVED RECYCLED PET plastic. Our pumps, caps and bottles are all BPA free and manufactured in the USA.

Here's how to follow them on Facebook!

Here's how to follow them on Twitter!

Shipping is free on orders over $50 AND it turns out that if you order these great products and enter my name (Kerrie McLoughlin) as your sales representative, I make a little cut on the whole deal, which means I can keep paying for my weekly Weight Watchers meetings :-)

Sunburnt After Sun Gel Giveaway!

This post was originally published on 9/27/12, but then I found out that SunBurnt is sponsoring a giveaway on my little bloggy, so after you check out the review, please enter to win on the super cool, state-of-the-art, better-than-writing-names-on-a-piece-of-paper-and-picking-one-out-of-a-hat Rafflecopter!

I'm usually pretty on top of things sunscreen-wise. Nobody wants to say they were responsible for letting FIVE little kids get sunburned. Alas, sometimes it happens. Joel has these cute stick-out cheeks that always burn a little right under his eyes no matter how much sunscreen stick we use. And once in Wyoming we weren't used to the high altitude (closer to the sun) and were playing by the river for longer than we meant to sans sunscreen and the kids were uncomfortable the rest of the day ... they got a little burned.

To try to relieve their pain I rushed out and got some aloe vera gel. Big mistake. It made things worse. I know, because I was a little burned and the aloe vera gel STUNG, which I did not realize would happen!

So when this Sunburnt After Sun Gel came along, I was skeptical. Then I tried it.

First of all, it has no scent, so you know perfumey junk won't be getting on your already sensitive skin.

Also, it is not sticky!!!!!!

Finally, it is so gentle and does not sting!

How could something homeopathic work so well? I don't know, but it does.


a Rafflecopter giveaway



 I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

Halloween T-shirt Review and My 14th Anniversary!

Today is Aron and Kerrie's 14th wedding anniversary (and about 17 years of being together), so I had to post a couple of pictures of my cute husband!

I recently got this t-shirt in the mail to review from AM T-shirts, and we love it! We love funny around this house, and "333 Half Evil" is pretty cute. Above, Aron is giving one devil horn and a mean face. I think this is extra funny because Aron is an identical twin, so it's like he's half evil and his brother is half evil. Together they made quite the pair!

Technical stuff:
Aron says it fits very well and it didn't shrink like crazy when I washed and dried it. It's a comfy t-shirt! I might have to borrow it every now and then, like when I go to my Heathen Homeschoolers group Halloween party!

Too much information stuff:
I think he looks awesome in it. Like super hot. Smokin'!

If you're looking for a True Blood Tee because you're just a fan of that show or something (the books came first, people!), AM T-shirts can hook you up there, as well! Based on the entries in the last True Blood giveaway I was in, I have some fans of that show out there!

I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

The Newest McLoughlin Baby

Last Saturday we went to the Great Plains SPCA website to look for dogs and we found a super cute shih-tzu puppy named Snoopy Baby. By the time I got around to calling this morning about him, I was told he had an adoption pending and would be adopted tomorrow. We were bummed. Later I told Joel not to get too upset; that God would send us our doggie and we could always pray that the adoption would fall through.

Right after I said that the phone rang. Turns out the family who was going to adopt Snoopy Baby chose another dog, so they still had Snoopy at the shelter from his foster home. They weren't technically open today, but did we want to come in and look at him?

We got off the highway around 3 planning to check out our new dog and meet Aron to make sure he okayed it. We were met with this scene:

As I'm waiting to cross the train tracks to get past all the police action, which was right in front of where we needed to be, the train bar starts closing above me and a train is all of a sudden on its way toward us. I had no choice but to go forward since there was someone behind me. I asked the police if we could get through and park and walk to the shelter to get our dog and they said yes. By the way, it's never good when the paramedics put up a tent around a "situation" ... yes, a woman died today due to not wearing a seat belt.

So here we are trekking toward the shelter.

At first nobody knew what we were talking about and Mama Bear was thinking inside, "You'd better find that dang dog. We've been waiting for years to have a dog and we are all excited and have chosen carefully." Then somebody knew what we were talking about. They opened a wooden gate and here he was! By the way, it's so sad walking through the grounds of an animal shelter with all the dogs wanting to go home with you. Michael had to cover his ears because the sounds of all the barking was tough for him to take.

Here's Eva, already in love. YES, she is wearing undie pants!

After getting the okay from Daddy, we plunked down a hefty amount of cash for our 2-months-old-today puppy dog. Snoopy Baby is a half hound, half shih-tzu. I don't know on what planet those two dogs have sex, but apparently it happened.

Here ya go! I'm nervous for our first night with him. He's like having a baby all over again. Shots, food, treats, training, night waking and whining and making sure he doesn't get under the fence and into the road, collars and leashes and beds and toys and chewing things up and fleas and fur and don't-step-on-the-dog and ... I can't believe we finally have a doggie!

Updated 10/10/12. We are in love! What a sweet baby! He is well-loved in this house. He gets to sleep on random children, treats when he potties outside, went to PetCo today and to the park for the afternoon. We picked up his care bag from his foster mom and it had food, a blanket, toys, a chewie and newspaper in it, which were all perfect! I'm hoping to friend her on Facebook so I can make sure we are continuing to care for Snoopy Baby how she did ... paper training, etc. I'm so happy we got a dog from a shelter ... he is our little friend.

STILL Working on the Kitchen!

This is a picture from behind of my husband last Saturday. What the heck is he doing? (you ask) Well, he has just pulled the fridge out from the wall and is taking off the wallpaper since this was not something I could easily do while he was out of town.

We had a nice date of washing walls while the kids interrupted us every 36.2 seconds and I remembered why I had not done the washing and sanding myself over the summer (the kids get into all sorts of trouble when I'm doing so).

We used to go out for expensive dinners and to the movies and dancing at dance clubs (go, techno music!) on a Saturday night. Now we do this. And it's all good.

(This post was for Christine, who insists she wants updates on my kitchen stripping-3-layers-of-wallpaper-washing-sanding-spackling-sanding again-painting-getting new windows fun.

For more fun, also see:

Stripping Wallpaper While Holding a Baby

Toddler Eva Stripping Wallpaper

Happy 3rd Birthday, Sam and NICU Reunion 2012

Samuel was born 3 years ago TODAY! Here's his birth story, and it has some humor to it even though it was a very sad week that he spent in the neonatal intensive care unit. We missed the first two NICU reunions that the hospital holds, mostly because Aron was working both years and I couldn't fathom taking all 5 little kids to a super busy place outdoors plus, let's face it, I was still sad about the whole situation. Of course I am grateful every single day that he lived because some kids who have meconium aspiration don't. It stumps me every day why he got to live and other kids don't. Then I wipe the tears away and move on, giving all my kids extra hugs.

So this year we finally went to the NICU reunion! Instead of being held at a park, it was held at our local children's museum called Wonderscope. A pass there goes for like $7 per person plus we got a free hot dog/chips/cookie/drink meal so we could not pass it up! And Sam even got a Rock Star t-shirt! Here are some pictures!

Sam had on his cool guy sunglasses and his Mischief Maker shirt.

Here we are with our free meal. When you have 5 kids you take all the free food you can get!

Me and Samuel. He recently potty trained all by himself and insists on doing things all by himself. I joke that NICU kids are tough.

They had all sorts of cool blow-up bouncy things!

Joel helps Sam get into the bouncy train! They also did a bounce house and I chatted with another NICU mom. It was interesting to be around a bunch of people who went through something so emotional and life-changing. I sailed through childbirth four times, then the 5th hit me like a ton of bricks. You can have PTSD from NICU experiences. I've written 2 articles about NICU life during and after to try to make sense of it all and help others.

Anyway, the other mom had one son. He was in the NICU 7 weeks. Before he was born she had had a daughter who was born early and died in the NICU. What strength that she went on and had another. I don't know that I am so strong. I looked the death of a child in the face and I don't want to go back there.

Sorry to be such a downer. It's Sam's birthday! I am happy he is with us! Above, he loved the golf ball room at the museum! He loves life and eats it up!

Here he is at the end of the night. We wore his butt out and he crashed on the couch! We thank God every day for all of our children and that they are all alive and well. We are grateful for every day we get to spend with them. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SAMUEL!

Callie the Fashion Designer

These are paper dresses my 7-year-old daughter Callie cut up and taped together using scrapbook paper. She also made a ball gown and danced around the house with it attached to herself.

These are her top secret sketches!

What do your kids like to do in their free time? I like to give my kids plenty of time after homeschooling and chores and all our fun running around to BE BORED. That's how I discovered I like to write! Callie is great at this fashion design thing and dresses herself so cute all the time!

Wordless Wednesday with Linky: A Day at the Zoo

Eva's not ostracized; she wanted to sit there

Walking in "Australia" at the Kansas City Zoo

After a nice carousel ride

Tackle-It Tuesday: My Weight

I took this of myself in my swimsuit in July. Since then I put on about another 5 pounds drinking  one huge, luscious coffee chocolate milk every day.

Here's me with clothes on, lettin' it all hang out.

Okay, I understand that I'm not obese. Realistically I'm only about 42 pounds over what I weighed when I got married, what I weighed during most of my 20s.

The Carseat Company Conspiracy (A Pissy Post)

I'm a little pissy about something and so I will share it with you! Lucky!

We had a garage sale last weekend. I decided to part with a carseat that we used for (I think) our last 4 kids. We were never in so much as a teensy fender-bender. Of course nobody at the garage sale bought it, even though it has a base and is in AMAZING shape.

I tried to put it on the porch for the charity to take and THEY LEFT IT!

So I ask you, what can I do with it? Since everyone is so freaked out about used carseats that have possibly been in a wreck and are possibly cracked and could possibly not work when needed in the future, where does that leave all the carseats?

We are so damn concerned with BEING GREEN in this country lately, but I ask you how many carseats are sitting in landfills, to NEVER DECOMPOSE?'

Don't ride me about how we want our babies to be safe and all that. I get it, okay? But there has to be some way to like do a sonogram on a carseat to see if it has a hairline fracture or something, right? And if it passes as NEVER BEEN IN A WRECK, then let's use it again!!!!!

You'll use cloth diapers and feed your kid all organic but you are perpetuating landfill crap, new mommies!

YES, I used a USED carseat back in 2001 when I had my first kid. A friend had used it and a friend before her. This was back in the day before bases and we had to roll up a towel and put it under the back of the carseat to make sure it was tilted correctly. I also did not use special expensive baby detergent (yes, I know some kids really do have sensitive skin). Do these things make me a bad mom? Nah.

I think the carseat companies just want you to believe all this crap and just buy more carseats ... at $100+ a pop. Think about it.

So I'm gonna try to Freecycle the dang thing before I throw it in a Dumpster. I'll let you know how THAT goes.

*UPDATE: Thank God for Facebook or I would know nothing. One person said the local health dept. might take them for the needy. Another person said you can go online to see how to recycle the entire seat! Another said to post it like on Facebook to see if someone wants it and trusts me that it has not been in a wreck! There ya go!

Moon Sand Review

Maybe your kids or grandkids have been asking for Moon Sand for a long time, but you're scared.  "What if it's like that crappy Floam?" you wonder.  "And it's expensive!" you proclaim!

You wanna know what I think about Moon Sand?  I love it! I don't love vacuuming it off the floor, but it's more fun and less mess than Play-do and Floam and other junk that's out there these days. My husband says it's like if you took an eraser and erased for an hour ... the eraser "leavings" are like Moon Sand, only it somehow sticks together like nice, wet beach sand -- only better!

I give it two thumbs up and 5 Dove chocolate hearts! A great gift for a kid at Christmas or for a birthday!

Originally published 4/30/10

Adult Preschool at My House

I picked up a 2007 copy of Parenting Magazine that was being tossed out at my library and came across a great thing on the inside back cover. It's called "Preschool Ideas We'd Love to Steal." Here are my favorites:

Time-outs. YES! I need a time-out sometimes! From my kids, from my husband, from other people in general. Let's take more time-outs!

Free play. YES! I need to stop focusing so much on getting everything done and stop and turn on the music and just dance with the kids.

Snacks every two hours. Well, I kinda have this one covered already. If I don't snack, I turn into a bear.

Super-enthusiastic greeting at the end of the day. Well, I do get that from my husband, which surprises me after 17 years of being together. But I'll take it!

Buddy system. Every now and then I do this ... like when a friend is coming over and offers to bring a nice coffee or when I offer to buy something for a friend who is currently cash-strapped.

MANDATORY NAPTIME. Need I say more? I'm not sure who will be watching my kids while I take my daily mandatory nap, though. The Nap Fairy, perhaps?

Got any to add?

Crockpot Chili (EASY!)

I love this meal to make life easy ... and cheaper because I don't use canned beans! I love this meal for Tuesdays when the kids have religious education class and I work the nursery there. It runs from 4:30-5:45, so it's nice to get home and have dinner READY!

You will need:
2 pounds ground beef
1 cup pinto beans (or just used canned!)
1 can whole kernel corn
1 can diced tomatoes
Chili seasoning to taste
Sour cream, cheese, crackers, onions

Follow instructions on beans for the quick method where you boil them then let them sit for a while in the hot water. Meanwhile, brown ground beef until no longer pink, then drain. Add chili seasoning and some water and mix. Toss it in a slow cooker. Add corn and tomatoes. Drain water from pinto beans and rinse. (a friend told me the more rinsing you do, the less gas you get later!!!!) Add beans to slow cooker. Cook on low for 6 hours and enjoy!

Grab your can of air freshener for later.

Wordless Wednesday with LINKY: It's Not Easy Bein' a Kid

Samuel, age 2, trying to take out the trash

Samuel, helping put lunch on the tray

Samuel, after a long day, asleep in his carseat with his sister's shoes on

Tackle-It Tuesday: Garage Sale!

There comes a time in everyone's life when they say:

I HAVE TOO MUCH JUNK AND WANT TO SELL IT!!!!

I usually just donate our unwanted/unused things, but the kids were wanting to sell some of their stuff and we heard there was a Neighborhood Garage Sale coming up, so we started saving up our stuff to sell.

The kids ended up making more money than we did. Even listing it on Craigslist twice, we didn't get as much traffic as we usually do and I probably made about $1/hour at the end. Our HUGE NEIGHBORHOOD GARAGE SALE probably had about 10 house participating ... sheesh! C'mon, people, I know ya'll have junk to get rid of!

** Come back soon to see my pissy post about getting rid of carseats and the conspiracy involved!

Garage sales can be fun, but in the end they are never worth it for us. And we ended up with all this on the porch to be donated to a charity.

STILL, we got rid of a bunch of stuff from the house. So Tackle-It Tuesday is a SUCCESS!!!!

The question for you for today is: How do you feel about hosting a garage sale?

Happy Fall Sunday!

Whew. I've been busy this last week, so I'm taking a break! Check out my tons o' giveaways down the left side of the blog ... I have an addiction to giving things away ... who knew?

We had a garage sale, a day at the farmstead with friends, a NICU reunion at our local children's museum, an orthodontist appointment for Joel, Scouts and so much more!

I hope you are all doing well and are having a lovely fall day. Check in with me in the comments section ... I do read them all and get back when I can!

Come back Monday night for a Toys R Us gift card 6-hour flash giveaway from 6-12 EST. Then Wednesday night I'm having a Starbuck's gift card 6-hour flash giveaway, same Bat time, same Bat channel.

See you then!

Wordless Wednesday with LINKY: Big Sisters

Thank you, Baby Jesus, that Sam covered up his boy bits for this cute picture!

EXPIRED: Mia Mariu Cosmetics Giveaway! (and guest post by Kara Teel)

Hey there! Thanks for stopping by, and sorry this giveaway is over. There's still a review below, though, then I'd love it if you'd head to the RIGHT of the blog (picture me as the flight attendant I almost was giving you directions with my arms) to check out my most popular posts.

Be sure to sign up for an email subscription to The Kerrie Show here and follow me on my Facebook fan page for more updates! I'm also on Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Instagram!

And if you get hungry while reading my blog, please check out my books on Amazon, one of which includes The Tater Tot Casserole Cookbook, available as an ebook for $0.99, as an ebook for FREE if you have Kindle Unlimited, and also as a print book! Thank you for your support!

Welcome Kara Teel of Kara's Steals and Deals! She'll be guest posting about her experience with cosmetics, which is very similar to mine! Enjoy, and good luck winning the cosmetics!

The Joys of Home Ownership

New windows all over the house = $4,000

New back sliding glass door (included in the price of new windows, above)

Trees trimmed so they aren't over power lines = $300

Rest of tree trimmed that you will save up for later = $800

New roof = $4,000 do-it-yourself

Owning your own home = PRICELESS (?!)

SmartSeat Chair Protector Review

Dang, I'm such a stage mom and stage wife! I love including pictures of my family with items that are up for review by moi. Also, the kids usually are dying to open the packages that come, so I just grab la camera and click away while they pose! Someday they will probably ask me for a kickback, but for now they are FREE MODELS!

Moving on ...

Here is Sam holding our latest acquisition: SmartSeat Chair Protectors. Allow me to explain ...

Okay, so we used to go to my mom's house for the weekend or longer when Aron was out of town a lot. Or lately we go for the whole day. Sometimes we go to my dad's house for the whole day. They each have nice chairs. I believe Sam usually picks the WHITE FABRIC one to sit in at my dad's house and inevitably we are having something saucy like pizza. My mom has nice OLD FABRIC chairs.

We used to have to put a towel down on the chair or else do heavy scrubbing post-meal. But now, thanks to this baby ...

... I can just fold it up and Velcro it to any seat that we don't want to ruin. We don't use this at our house because we have wooden chairs and they are trashable, but when we go somewhere where people have nice things we whip it out. It's Scotch-guarded, too! We spilled a drink on the seat protector and it beaded up! When we were done, we undid the seat protector, took it home and washed it. (Not really; we forgot it at my mom's house, but that's what we SHOULD have done and is probably what YOU will do!).

This cool product comes in 4 colors and can be purchased here.

I did not get paid to write this review.