Mmm.

So I got yet another wonderful chance to try a new (well new to me) Enjoy Life product.




This time I got to try these Not Nuts nut free trail mix.

They are stinking awesome! Seriously.




The Beach Bash was a big hit with my kids. It has dried pineapple in it so it is very sweet. My 4 almost 5 year old came home from school to find the bag on the counter and he picked it up and brought it over to me.....with this sad look in his eyes. He's outgrown most of his food allergies, but he's very well aware that with a nut allergy he can't have most trail mixes. He handed me the bag and said..."I can't have this can I?" I was so excited to tell him that other than giving his mommy a few bites he could have the whole bag. His face lit up! Apparently someone in his class gets to have trail mix all the time and Gabe has been very jealous. LOL! (I was thrilled to send that bag into school the very next day) The mix is super yummy and I really liked it. It's got all the sweet stuff. This mix contains raw sunflower kernels, pineapple, roasted hulled pumpkin seeds, cranberries and apricots. The mix is top 8 allergens free (as always with them) vegan, kosher and sulfite free! Super yummy!




Now I have to admit I only let my kids have 1 bite each of the Mountain Mambo. It was so good I kept the whole bag for myself. (sadly not kidding, I kept it at my desk for my snack this week LOL!) This mix contains raw sunflower kernels, roasted hulled pumpkin seeds, raisins, dried apples, chocolate chips (dairy-free) and cranberries. OHHHHHH SOOOOOOO GOOOOOOD! Seriously I did not want to share any of it. There's not a lot of chocolate, just the perfect small amount to give each bite a small flavor of it. MMMM. Yea I will be buying this again for me. And I can eat any darn trail mix I want! LOL! Also now is where I'll admit I'm slightly allergic to sunflower seeds. I can eat some with no problems, but a large amount will make me sick. Yea.....I risked it. LOL! This was just too good to miss! (and luckily no reactions! LOL!)

These are great products, easy to grab and go and healthy. I mean how can you go wrong with seeds and fruit?!?!?!? Enjoy Life really is one of the leading companies in the food allergy field and I love the time, attention to detail, and love that they put into their products. :)

GIANT THUMBS UP!!!!

Crazy Summer!

I'm so very sorry all! I have neglected you all horribly! This summer has just been so very very busy! Plus now that Gabe is only allergic to mold and tree nuts I've found that I have so much less that I have to alter or change!

BUT We got to try some AWESOME cookies from Enjoy Life recently!




Now I decided to open the first box of chocolate, chocolate chip while we had our friends over. They have no food allergies (LUCKY!) Yea in about 3 whole minutes the 6 boys devoured the entire box! LOL! I BARELY got to have 1!!!! Not one person knew they were allergy free. Everyone LOVED them! The crunchy texture is like perfectly almost over cooked homemade cookies. You know the kind, not burnt, but cooked as close as you can get. So yummy.



These were the next box to be devoured. My husband even sneaked some! And if you've read my blog you will know this is the HIGHEST of compliments! He's picky and HATES anything that is allergy free. He really liked these. He didn't realize until later that they were allergy free! These were SO good! We really loved them!



Now these the boys really loved. I thought they were pretty good. Not blow me away good, but good. Very like store bought Pillsbury mix. But then again the boys devoured these so maybe I'm just not the biggest sugar cookie fan. LOL!



Now the Vanilla graham cookies I'm ashamed to admit were so good I hid the box from my kids and ate the whole thing myself! LOL! These were SOOOOO perfect. The best texture for a graham cracker and super yummy in milk.

Now for those of you who live under a rock Enjoy life just released these cookies.




They are Top 8 free, potato, corn (there has been debate about this with livecornfree.com she says some of their stuff has MINUTE traces so proceed with caution if you are UBER sensitive), casein, sesame and sulfite free! Whew! They are great about how they list stuff on their products and really boil it all down to the most simple terms for everyone! It's great!!!! I really love this company. They are the perfect quick run into the store and grab it item. :)

Our house gives all the crunchy cookies 2 big thumbs up!!!

Oh Enjoy Life How I love thee!

A short while ago I was asked to try 2 new products from Enjoy Life.




And




The Chocolate granola was great. A little boring though so I added in raisins. After I did that though EVERYONE ate them up! We had friends visiting and between my 2 (little one didn't get any) and my friends two the whole bag got eaten up!!!! I hardly got any!!!! So definitely a win! And great because you can add more if you want, raisins, craisins etc. Great grab and go treat!!!!!

The chocolate chunks I saved for my super fabulous chocolate, raisin, oatmeal cookies! TO DIE FOR!!!!!!!!!! EVERYONE loved them! The chunks were also great by themselves :) DOUBLE THUMBS UP!!!! Sorry no pictures of the cookies they got eaten to fast!!!!

Enjoy Life really is a great company and I love their products. They are easy, fast and free of so much!!!!! You really can't go wrong here! Also their customer service is GREAT! :)

GIVEAWAY!!!!

So Enjoy Life and I are doing a giveaway! 2 boxes of their AMAZING cookies!!!

My boys and I were lucky enough to get to taste test their 3 new and improved soft cookies.



Double chocolate brownie (OMG YUMMY)



Snickerdoodle (which gets a hubby who hates allergy free thumbs up)


Lively Lemon

These are great. One day this past week my 3 boys (Oldest just turned 4) and I had a LOT of errands to run one day so we did a trade. For each office/store they were well behaved in, I REWARDED (if you make them earn it, then it's a reward not a bribe :P) them with 1 cookie. Somehow the double chocolate brownie cookies were good enough to get my older two to behave in 5 stores!!!! LOL! (youngest was good too, but too young to eat cookies)

So needless to say they are good! My favorite were the lemon ones! OHHH YUMMY! The boys fav was the double chocolate brownie (shocker! LOL) and My husband's fav was the snickerdoodle. Really you can't go wrong with these.

They are small (think about chips ahoy size), nice and fluffy on the inside (not too thick at ALL) The lemon ones have what are like tiny chewy lemon peels in them. Looks a little strange, but the flavor burst is amazing! I had to make my husband take the box away from me. LOL!

Now some great things about Enjoy Life!

Top 8 free for everything!!!! Also most are also potato, sesame, sulfites, and casein free! They use no artificial ingredients OR GMO ingredients! WOOT! Love that! When it comes to allergy testing they actually test more strictly than the FDA requires to keep us safe! How great is that? (You know testing is never cheap) They are not certified corn free, however Gabe NEVER reacted to them, so I'm gonna put them at a level 1. (some traces in xantham gum and probably the natural flavors) So if you are EXTREMELY sensitive then don't eat, but if you can tolerate the small traces you are fine.

Okay so now that I have you drooling! GO ENTER!!!!

Here's how.

You can get up to 4 entries!!!!
1. Go like my facebook page and then post on there that you did/or have already liked my page)
2. Go follow my blog!!! Then go to facebook (you have to like it to post) and post that you now/or already have followed my blog
3. Share this contest!!! Then go to facebook (you have to like it to post) and post that you now/or already have shared the link to the contest!
4. Go like Enjoy Life's facebook page!!!! (you can find them in my facebook's like box on the left hand side under friends) Then go to my facebook (you have to like it to post) and post that you now/or already have liked Enjoy Life's facebook page!

2 boxes of YUMMY cookies to the winner!!!! I'm gonna let this contest go until Sunday night at 8pm! (I'll then message the winner on facebook to get their address and phone number so that Enjoy Life can ship out their prize!)

V-day Ideas

Ahhh February is almost here! That means it's almost time for Valentines Day!!!

So what to do for Gabe's school party.....Hrm. I found some cute little heart molds for making suckers. (2 cup sugar 1/2 cup golden syrup 1/2 cup water) http://www.kitchenkrafts.com/product.asp?pn=MH1201&sid=CHAMP

OR I could make some lemon drops.....(not very lovey though)

Or I could do Meringue cookies in the shapes of hearts.....(I could make regular ones for his class and then duck egg ones for Gabe)I could use a TINY amount of beet juice to color them pink (we are talking like 2 drops LOL)

I want to make sure to do something candy wise, that way Gabe gets some sweets.

There's also homemade chocolate hearts. Get some enjoy life chips to melt down....Micheal's has chocolate molds too so I wouldn't have to wait for them to ship.......hrm...We may have a winner! LOL!

Brownies are YUMMY!

I made Namaste brownies and then drizzled Enjoy Life chocolate (2 pieces) all over it. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm! I am taking them to a dinner tonight. I don't plan on telling anyone that they are allergen free. See if anyone can tell.

Happy Easter.

I hope every one's day was better than mine. I woke up at 4am with HORRIBLE stomach pains. I then proceeded to get very sick. After that I was able to sleep again for a short while and then it was time to get up for the day. We let the boys play outside and hubby and I just sat in chairs exhausted. Then it was time for their nap, I got to finish cooking for Easter Dinner and cleaning the house and then get ready. By the time everyone got here at 3pm I was so tired. But I'm glad we didn't' cancel. The boys had a great time seeing all the family and dinner was good (what little I ate) and it was nice to just relax in our backyard with everyone.

Everyone left a little before 6. I got the boys into bed by 6! And they both went down without a fuss! Poor Link had a fever of 102.7 though :( and then I proceeded to lay down on the couch and pass out. I slept until after 9. Got up for some water and a biscuit and then went back to bed. The boys slept til 7:30 this morn.

I'm feeling slightly better today. (this is day 3 of belly problems) But my stomach is still making horrible noises and not doing so well. :( My doc says this is most likely just a continuation of the allergic reaction!!! It's crazy that something I ate could cause so many problems! Makes me feel even worse for Gabe. I never realized how much it can affect you for so long KWIM?

Anyways The Easter part was nice. The boys each got a basket each with a bag of surf sweet gummy worms, an Enjoy Life candy bar, and 2 Yummy Earth Lollipops each, a small car and bubbles. One of the few perks of allergies, Everyone was scared to buy them candy so this is literally ALL they got candy wise! (every holiday we try to limit how much they get and it never happens) They also got the Disney Princess and The Frog movie which they LOVE and a pool set up for the backyard. (kiddie pool with some cool floating things that won't get moldy because they are solid! WOOT!)

So all in all even though I felt awful, it was a great Easter for the boys. And I got some pretty pansies to plant! (Easter gift for us)

ok.

So I have found out that I can get enjoy life chips and a mold from a craft store to make my own chocolate bunnys for him. Or that I can get gummy worms and bears yummy earth at toys r us.

So I will cope. I'm just frustrated.

Gabe's Safe Food List

These foods are all wheat, egg, corn, strawberry, peanut and tree nut free. I've either done a TON of research on them OR (this is most likely) called the company and they have verified that the foods are corn and corn derivative free. :)

Keep in mind the list is not huge, but this is a starter list! It will keep growing so keep checking it. Also please bear in mind that companies can change ingredients at any time so it's always a good idea to double check!!!!! I don't guarantee that they are free, but that we eat them without a problem and that my son is very sensitive. (He reacts to the vinegar in ketchup for heaven's sake!)

Price Chopper Tomato Paste
Price Chopper Plain yogurt (from what I've come to understand most plain yogurts are ok! They only use the corn derivatives for binding the flavors MOST of the time)
Stonyfield Organic Plain Yogurt
Fresh fruit except Strawberries
Del Monte canned fruit except strawberries. (I called and spoke to them and they said they will always label if they put in corn derivatives in their syrups.)
Fresh Veggies except Corn
Del Monte canned veggies except corn.
Most canned Veggies are ok as long as it's just veggie, water and salt.
Chicken
Beef
100 % Juice with NOTHING added! McDonald's apple juice is safe!
Milk
Elyon Marshmallows (made for passover ONLY!)
Rice
Plain Unsweetened Applesauce (target is great for cheap applesauce! It's 1.92 at our local one for a large jar! Just make sure the only ingredients are apples and water for any applesauce)
Butter
Specialty Chocolates. (Chocolate Emporium makes gluten, dairy free candies. Some are corn free call and ask! They are VERY helpful!)
St. Claire's mints and tart candies
Namaste ANYTHING (again can't tell you how much I LOVE this company!)
Frierich Corned Beef (I called and they don't use any corn derivatives in their natural flavors Woot! Erin Go Bragh!)
Yummy Earth Organic Lolly Pops
Crystal Light Hard Candies (I haven't called them yet!!! So it is not for sure, but my son has been eating them without a problem. They were a GREAT candy sub at St. Patty's parades!!!!)
Enjoy Life Chocolate Chips