I was driving home one night from working out and the ad on the radio was about Fairlife milk.  A few days later driving through my neighborhood I saw the above billboard.  Milk with Flair? Then I heard from the company asking if I’d like to try Fairlife milk.  I had to find out what the buzz was about.

 

So we did a milk taste test.  Since the most consumed milk in our house is skim and Wes can’t share his opinions yet, Stella, Will and I did a skim milk taste test. All of us thought the Fairlife milk had better color and Will and I thought the Fairlife milk did in fact taste better than the Trader Joe’s brand.  In terms of nutritional information, the Fairlife brand has less calories and 13 grams of protein per serving compared to 8 grams in the Trader Joe’s Skim.  I have been committed for years to buying organic milk but I love Fairlife’s concept of believing in better and that has been carried out in their treatment of the cows, using sustainable farming practices and ensuring product quality. As moms, we are just trying to find the best products with the most bang in terms of nutrition for our families.  They’ve made milk better and that makes moms like me really happy and thankful!

So how can you try Fairlife milk?  Their products: Skim, 2% and Chocolate are available in Minnesota and Colordao.  In Minnesota you can find Fairlife at Cub Foods, Rainbow, Lund’s and Byerly’s, and Kowalski’s.  I found some right down the street at my local Kowalski’s in St. Paul:

I highly recommend pairing Fairlife with my Monster Cookies and I cannot say enough good things about their chocolate milk. My husband and I hid it from our kids.  Seriously, they didn’t get a drop.  I’ve actually been using it in my daily morning smoothie-I sub in the Fairlife chocolate milk for liquid, add about 4-6 cubes of ice, 1 TB of peanut butter, a banana and a handful of frozen kale.  I love starting my morning with a chocolate drink I can feel good about!

Since I love smoothies and this milk, I thought it would be fun to giveaway a week’s worth of milk from Fairlife AND a Magic Bullet Express Blender and Mixer System!  I love my Magic Bullet for making smoothies!  For us about 5 containers of milk would last a week but maybe in your house it would last even longer! Follow the Rafflecopter instructions for a chance to win 5 coupons to purchase Fairlife milk and your very own Magic Bullet! For a blog comment entry, tell me about your favorite smoothie or your favorite cookie to dunk in milk!
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclosure and Privacy Inormation.  I was provided Fairlife milk to try. Fairlife provided the milk coupons and Magic Bullet for this giveaway.

I recently was contacted by the American Recall Center, a site devoted to providing health and wellness news.  They asked me if I’d write about my health hero for their Who Keeps You Healthy campaign.

When I thought about my health hero I immediately thought of my personal trainer, Meghan Brown.  I met Meghan when our now 4-year-olds were only weeks old.  We were friends first and when she finished her training certification I immediately signed up for her personal training.  I remember the day we first did my health assessment in a nearby park.  I could barely do an inch worm exercise.  In fact I had to sit down after our 15 minute session because I thought I was going to throw up.  I stuck through it, session after session, she made me feel stronger, confident and believe that I could be healthy.

When I became pregnant with my second baby, we kept our training sessions.  In fact she was expecting too and she inspired me to keep working out and to use exercise to aid in the pain that I experienced as my body changed.  Only a few days before I had my baby she was there with me in my living room doing squats and holding the goddess pose.  I should mention that my continued exercise during pregnancy supported me in delivering an 11lb baby naturally-yes you read that right.  I often teach cooking classes and lead meal planning discussions and without fail I always meet people that HATE to cook.  I’ve never understood it.  As someone that loves cooking so much, you know what? I really don’t like exercising.  Hate is a strong word but exercising is really not my favorite.

My Health Hero, Meghan has helped me to embrace exercising and trust that it is essential to my health and while it is not my favorite thing to do, I can honestly tell you I have never regretted doing one of our workouts in fact, I feel empowered.  Not only does Meghan keep me motivated but I also have two amazing workout buddies, Jen and Jamie.  We call ourselves the workout ladies.  Meghan has brought us together to share in friendship and exercise.  We hold each other accountable each week and through each of our own struggles in life, work and family we come together for that one hour and just let it go.  We laugh, cheer each other on and work really damn hard.  You can see Meghan’s excitement when she tells us the next thing we are going to do and I always find it hilarious when she says the next exercise is “really fun.”  I’m so thankful to have my health hero motivating me and keeping me strong, especially when working out is about the last thing I want to do and I’m so happy to be a part of an awesome workout group that supports each other and always finds time for laughs and great music.  Music is a huge part of our workouts so I thought I come up with a workout playlist inspired by my ladies and our workouts!

Alicia Keys – Girl On Fire – Inferno Version
Beyoncé – Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)
Girl Talk – Hands In The Air
Florence + The Machine – You’ve Got The Dirtee Love – Live At The Brit Awards 2010
Mariah Carey – Fantasy – Feat. O.D.B.
Daft Punk – One More Time
Queen Latifah – U.N.I.T.Y.
Gwen Stefani – What You Waiting For?
Justin Timberlake – Suit & Tie featuring JAY Z
Salt-N-Pepa – Push It
Missy Elliott – Get Ur Freak On – Amended
N.E.R.D. – She Wants To Move
C+C Music Factory (Presenting Freedom Williams) – Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)
Michael Jackson – Billie Jean 2008 Kanye West Mix – Thriller 25th Anniversary Remix Featuring Kanye West

 

 

I love getting mail, no not email. I’m talking about real mail-especially packages.  I remember when I was in college and my mom would send me care packages. I went to college in Florida so getting her special notes and gifts from Minnesota meant the world to me, it was a small connection to home.  Fast forward years later and here I am, still loving getting packages in the mail-especially food packages! Recently I got an email from Jennifer Young aka the Cookie Lady from Cookie Temptations asking me if I’d like to try her homemade sugar cookies from Duluth, Minnesota. Of course I said yes and a few days later, the lovely package arrived.  My kids share my love of packages and as soon as they saw the box, a constant, “What’s in it, Mom?!?” was heard all night. Not one to give cookies before bed, I let them open it with me the next day.  And, this my friends is what was inside that box:

Beautiful right? But did they taste as good as they looked? Yes! Did you see that dark chocolate moose cookie in the first picture? I ate it myself. No, I did not share it with my kids or even my husband who innocently said, “Hey hun, where’s that moose cookie?”  Stella’s favorite was the ice cream cone cookie.  My mom and Will both loved the Little Bites Platter, in fact at one point I had to put them away because we kept popping them in our mouths like they were melty mints.  I thought the most beautiful arrangement included in the box was the Sunny Yellow Daisy cookie.  Nestled inside a coffee cup, this stunning spring cookie comes with three cookie pieces and even a pack of seeds ready for planting!  I also tried the Gluten-free cookies, which for me tasted just like the others so I’d say they are excellent! For those interested in Gluten-free options, you can choose standard or gluten-free when you order the cookies.

What I love: The cookies! Seriously, they were so yummy! But I also love that this is a Minnesota company and Jennifer’s story of starting her own business.  I also love that she has a program called Cookies for Hope where she raises money for local families that have experienced a life threatening disease or accident.

What I would recommend: I love getting specially decorated cookies for the Easter baskets each year and I love the designs on the Easter page (especially those chocolate bunnies). I think ordering these cookies would be an extremely thoughtful and delicious gift to have delivered whether it was for personal or professional reasons.  She also has the only chocolate QR code on the market, so your cookies can have a special QR code with your web page on it! Seriously, I think that is so awesome!

I have a surprise for you! I know you have waited for spring so long this year so I am giving you a chance to win a Spring Cookie Delivery from Cookie Temptations for you or to send to a friend in the United States!  Follow the Rafflecopter directions to enter. For blog comments, tell me your favorite care package or easter basket gift memory!
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Click here for my disclosure policy. I received cookies from Cookie Temptations.