Sponsored Post: Getting Through the cold and Flu Season with PediaCare

This is part of a sponsored campaign with Latina Blogger Connect and the maker of PediaCare®.
However, all opinions expressed are my own.

It is officially cold and flu season. Ugh! It has gone through our house once already. Dealing with snotty kids who are cranky while you are feeling under the weather yourself is the worst. The best thing we can do as parents is try to keep kids germ-free to help avoid getting sick. There are a few things we can do to help prevent illness.

• Wash hands. A lot. Like all the time. 
• Cover coughs and sneezes. 
• Get lots of sleep and eat healthy foods. Do leave your immune system vulnerable. 
• Get a flu shot. Immunizations, including the flu vaccine help to reduce the risk of ear infections, pneumonia and sinusitis. 

Sometimes, no matter what we do our kids get sick. When they do you can find PediaCare® at your local Dollar General. You can find a PediaCare® for whatever symptoms your little one is dealing with. 

Click here to download our PediaCare® dosage chart, which helps you match your child’s symptoms with one of our products. When using the chart, it’s best to weigh your child first to determine proper dosing of PediaCare® products. If weight is not known, use age.

Click Here for a $1.00 off coupon! 

So the kids are not feeling well and everyone is home and cranky and bored! Here are a few ideas to help keep your sick babies entertained while they are on the mend!

• Bust out the board games. The easy ones! Think Chutes and Ladders or even Go Fish. Games that require a lot of thinking may leave sick kids frustrated.
• Relive your childhood favorites. Snuggling on the couch watching a movie is a great way to spend a sick day. Introduce your kids to some of your childhood favorites. In our house my kids were recently introduced to Pee Wee's Big Adventure and Mrs. Doubtfire.
• Get out the old photo albums. Kids love to look through old photos. Sit down and show them photos of your childhood or of them as a baby.

Wishing you and yours a happy, and healthy winter! 

NickMom reminds me of The Pre-Kid Era

I was recently getting my parenting humor fix over at NickMom.com and a silly comic got me thinking. See Joey and I are going to be celebrating 10 years together soon. Out of those 10 years we had a good 1.5 years without kids.That may not seem like a very long time, and let me preface this with a I LOVE MY KIDS MORE THAN ANYTHING, BUT there are certain times when I reminisce about how easy and different things were before we had our 2 little punks.

Here we are before we had the girls....

We are wide-eyed, probably because we are so well-rested. I don't think my smile could get any bigger. And look we both have NO grey hair! When I look at pictures and remember this time in our lives I think about how different things were then.

• We could jump in the car at 11 pm and go grab an ice cream cone. 
• We could leave the house with no notice.
• We never had to schedule anything around a nap time.
• I could leave the house with just my keys, drivers license and a debit card.
• Laundry could be done in just a couple of hours.
• Drinking. At Bars. At Night.
• The backseat of our car was clean.

But there is one thing that I really miss, and I really look forward to enjoying again after the kids are in college and out of the house. (Mom and Pops you can stop reading now)

Making noise during sex. 

Every since Phi was born over 8 years ago, our sex life went from loud and rambunctious to a freakin' mime act. I can only imagine how ridiculous it must look. It's like a naughty movie on mute. And I can never fully pay attention to what's going on. One eye is always checking the door. My kids are not super light sleepers, but the older ones tends to stay up late, I never know when she will actually fall asleep. The little one tends to get out of bed once at night, and she is little with ninja-like skills so I never hear her until she is standing next to my bed and says something. I fear the day when we are in the middle of the hibbity-bibbity and I look over to see this....

That ish can scar a kid for life.

So we have at minimum, 15 more years of "silent sexy time". But the day that Louie leaves for college it is on like donkey kong and we will be turning the volume up to an 11! 

Johnsons Baby Care Campaign

This is a paid sponsored post with Latina Bloggers Connect and Johnson's Baby. 

Mother's Day is this weekend. Since becoming a Mom I have an enormous appreciation for all the Moms in my life. Mother's Day means so much more now and I have some amazing friends and family who are spectacular Moms, and they each deserve a little shout-out on Mother's Day. Johnson's Baby Care just launched a new Facebook app that makes it super easy to send a thoughtful and encouraging note to all the amazing women in your life who you look up to. It gets even better, for every card sent, shared and liked, Johnson's Baby will donate $1.00 (up to $150,000) to Save the Children and its programs like Early Steps to School Success. 

What a great idea! I knew that I wanted to send some Care Cards and the first person that came to mind was my cousin Monique. If you are a regular reader here than you might remember Monique from when she gave birth to her first child, a premature baby boy named Matthew. The kicker? She had no idea she was pregnant! Can you imagine? She did not get the 9 months to prepare to become a Mom. One morning she woke up and a few hours later she was a Mom. Matthew is now 5 months old and my cousin Monique is already such an amazing Momma. 

Niques, I just want you to know how in awe I am of you. I have never seen you so happy. Anyone who sees you can tell how absolutely in love you are with your son. From the moment Baby Mathme was born you became the perfect Momma for him. Being a Mom has been the hardest job I ever had. It takes patience and there are just so many questions. You are a natural at this stuff and you make it look easy. Matthew is so lucky to have you. 

Click Here to see my little e-card to my cousin Monique. You can also make and send you own e-card. Take a few minutes to send a Mommy in your life a quick message and help donate to Save the Children at the same time. This is a no-brainer. A Total win-win.