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ENDED The Travels of Wiglington and Wenks – Win a 1 Month Premium Membership *5 Winners

Posted by admin | Posted on 10-06-2010

Category : All, Family, Giveaways, Reviews

Tags: Children, giveaway, kids, multi-player game, Online game, Review, Video Game, virtual world

Having two boys and homeschooling both of them, I am always looking for fun, educational games for them to play. We like to take breaks from the normal “school” day where I just let them play what they want, but I prefer it to be a game of substance where they might actually learn something while playing.

The Travels of Wiglington and Wenks is just that game. Launched in December of 2009 Wiglington and Wenks is one of the fastest growing virtual worlds for kids with over 70,000 registered users from more than 150 countries. The greatest feature of this game is the ability for the player to travel and explore various locations throughout the world all the while learning as they play. They will learn all about historical places, figures and countries as well as important environmental issues, inventions and so much more.

I signed up my youngest son and he was super excited to get started. I loved that I could disable the chat feature as he hasn’t quite got the knack for chatting just yet. The site is also heavily moderated, so safety is no issue, another plus for me.

He had fun creating his very own avatar and discovering all of the various games and places he could travel too. He loves figuring out quests, so this is perfect for him, plus it allows him to play a multi-player game just like his big brother does. Once he learned all he needed to in order to travel, he was ready to explore! I imagine he will be playing this game daily with the excitement of each new adventure.

To get a preview of the game, take a look at this:

If you would like to share this wonderful game with your children The Travels of Wiglington and Wenks is free to play for everyone. Their are special features, areas and extras that can be accessed by purchasing a Membership. You can check out the various packages here or……………………….

WIN A ONE MONTH PREMIUM MEMBERSHIP TO THE TRAVELS OF WIGLINGTON AND WENKS
5 winners will each receive a one month premium membership

TO ENTER: (This is mandatory) Visit The Travels of Wiglington and Wenks site and tell me why you think your child would enjoy this game.

DUE TO LOW ENTRIES, THIS GIVEAWAY HAS BEEN EXTENDED UNTIL JUNE 8TH, PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD.

EXTRA ENTRIES – For each extra entry, please leave a separate comment with information you performed the task.

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· Giveaway will end on ???? LEAVING IT OPEN UNTIL I HAVE ENOUGH ENTIRES
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· The winners will be notified by email and will have 48 hours to choose and claim their prize or another winner will be chosen.

Disclosure: I was contacted by the creators of The Travels of Wiglington and Wenks to facilitate a review and giveaway. I was given a premium membership, all views are strictly my own.

Hampton Chain Of Friends Sweepstakes

Posted by admin | Posted on 02-06-2010

Category : All, Family, Sponsored

Tags: contest, Hampton, sweepstakes

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Hampton Hotels. All opinions are 100% mine.

Now that the end of the school year is near, where will you be going to this summer? My family takes a lot of day trips mainly because my husband’s work hours are all over the place and also, I’ll be honest, there just never seems to be enough funds to stay overnight somewhere. This economy has struck us hard but we are trying to at least go on one overnight trip.

We would all love to go to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. The boys have never really been to the Ocean and I would love to relive some of my childhood memories. My family used to rent a summer home and we would go every summer. I miss it so much!

I would definitely like to stay at a Hampton hotel and luckily, there is one right in Rehoboth Beach.

Right now, you can enter the Hampton Chain of Friends Sweepstakes and be eligible to win one of the 100 weekend stays or their awesome grand prize: The ENTIRE hotel for a weekend, that’s 100 rooms for 2 nights! The winner will also receive $5000 to help pay the tax for the weekend! *The sweepstakes is open to everyone!

I can only imagine the fun I would have with 100 of my friends and family. Wait, I don’t even think I know 100 people to invite, lol! I think it would be great to just invite everyone I know and tell them to bring their families too. We would just have a huge party!

Who would invite if you won? What would you celebrate? Let me know if you enter and if you win!

Loving The Stuffing Out Of a Best Friend

Posted by admin | Posted on 26-05-2010

Category : All, Family, Personal

Tags: Children, Personal, Teddy Bears

I had told you guys in the post for the Zylie giveaway about my affinity for Teddy Bears and wanted to explain why. When I was born I was given a Teddy Bear by an Aunt, in fact, every newborn in the family was given a Teddy Bear as a welcome to the world gift.

My sister, who is two years older received a Teddy that was golden in color with jointed arms, legs and head, as did all of the babies before me. When I was born the wrong Teddy arrived. He was dark brown, didn’t have jointed arms, legs or head. My Aunt wanted to send it back immediately, but my Mother, being the smart woman she was said no. You see, she figured that if we had two different bears, the likelihood that we would fight over them as we got older would be nil. If we had two that looked the same, well then you know what would have happened.

So from the time I was born until now, almost 40 years later, “Bear” (I never gave him a name although he was always a “he”) never left my side, he was my best friend, he was with me every day, night, on trips and even when I moved out on my own at 20. As you can imagine, Bear took one heck of a beating and was operated on quite a few times by my Mother. He has the scars to prove it.

At 19 I met my husband to be and by 1994 we were living together. While unpacking his things one night, he brought out his “Bear” which was also just called “Bear.” He started to tell me that he had Bear since he was born and to that I found my “Bear” and told him that mine had been with me just as long. Our Bears looked so much alike, the missing fur, the open wounds with stuffing falling out, the countless sewing scars, it was really strange but with the both of us being born in the same year, 1970, it sort of fit that they were so similar.

In my mushy heart, I like to think that our “Bears” were brought together by us or maybe it was the other way around.

WARNING! The following pictures are not for the faint hearted, there are open wounds and various innards coming out, beware!

Loosing Teeth and My “Baby”

Posted by admin | Posted on 17-05-2010

Category : All, Family

Tags: baby, Children, teeth

Nikolas has been losing his teeth left and right. He has lost one each week for the last three weeks and his top front tooth is hanging on by a thread. This makes me sad My “baby” is growing up and being of a certain age, I won’t be having any more “babies” although it seems like a ton of my (younger) friends are all having babies and it tugs at my maternal heart strings. Do you know what I mean?

I think it’s crazy that women who are of a certain age are considered too old to be having babies and I’m not talking about celebrities, many of them are having children way into their 40′s but they don’t count in my head. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t “want” to have another baby, I am sane you know, lol – it’s the fact that people think my age is a hindrance and the cold hard realization that I “won’t” be having any more that bothers me.

I am guessing that a lot of women go through this, just as they did with the biological clock ticking. It makes me sad How do you all deal with this?

Here’s a picture of Nik with three of his teeth gone to see the tooth fairy

Don’t Fret The Sweat!

Posted by admin | Posted on 17-05-2010

Category : All, Coupons, Family

Tags: Children, Degree, DOVE, Review, Suave, Tween

Do you have a tween? I do, he will be 12 in just 2 short months and on one hand I am thinking “how in the world do I have a tween?” Where did that time go? On the other hand there is the whole puberty thing that will happen and I as a Mom of boys am not ready. Are you?

As a Mom of boys I know that they will not feel comfortable talking about certain topics with good old Mom but hygiene issues are universal, at least I think so. That is why I think it’s great that Unilever, the maker of Degree, Dove and Suave deodorants, has created the site Don’t Fret The Sweat that helps parents talk to their tweens about how the right deodorant can keep them free from odor, embarrassment and discomfort.

I haven’t had to have the talk as of yet but I am sure it’s only a matter of time before I will have too (or hubby will have too, lol). Don’t Fret The Sweat is a great resource offering product recommendations via their product matchmaker which is pretty cool, they also offer valuable coupons so you can purchase the perfect match for your child.

My husband and I both like Degree, so I was happy to see that the recommendation for my son was Degree Silver Ion. I think if our son sees that we use that brand that he might want to emulate at least his father by using it. Degree is the only brand we will use since it has always been the best against odor and wetness.

If you have questions or want to learn more you can check out the Experts section, it has some great information about how to approach the subject with your child, which believe me, I know can be tricky.

Disclosure: I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour campaign by Mom Central on behalf of Unilever and received the items necessary to facilitate my review. In addition, Mom Central sent me a gift card to thank me for taking the time to participate.

Mother’s Day Blues

Posted by admin | Posted on 08-05-2010

Category : All, Family

Tags: Mother's Day

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day and my husband’s birthday and it is going to be a struggle in both respects. My husband has to work, all day, so no celebrating for him, we did however go out yesterday and had our own little celebration of sorts with a family day trip. It was nice just spending the day together as a family, no deadlines, no schedule, no having to depend on anyone else’s either – it was fabulous.

The other struggle is my personal struggle. My Mom passed in 2006 after along and drawn out illness ending in a decision my sister and I had to make, that no children should ever have to make regardless of their ages. Also with the death of our dog Tessie two days ago, it makes it even harder. Tessie was my Mom’s dog, they both lived with us, so when Mom passed, we continued to take care of Tessie of course.

This is where my sadness and feelings of loss just come full circle. Since my Mom’s passing I have had an extremely hard time dealing. She was and always will be my best friend, we had a relationship like no other and no one will ever replace the bond that we had – it went so much further than just Mother and Daughter. Losing Tessie the other day was like losing that last connection to my Mother and brought all of the raw feelings right back to the surface. I feel lost all over again.

I know that my memories will always be there, but honestly, it isn’t a comfort. Those of you who have lost their Mother’s know what I am talking about, it’s a deep down pain that never subsides, ever.

I know that tomorrow will be hard so I will look forward to my children giving me homemade cards and trinkets they have made and hide the sadness I am feeling …. for them. After all I am “their” Mother and I want them to always have fond memories of me to last a lifetime.

Social Networking for Tweens Exists – Say Hello to Yoursphere.com

Posted by admin | Posted on 05-05-2010

Category : All, Ambassador Programs, Family

Tags: Children, Internet safety, kids, Review, Yoursphere Test Drive Mom

Never heard of Yoursphere? Neither had I until I was given the opportunity to check out the site and be a Yoursphere.com Test Drive Mom.

Yoursphere.com was created by Mary Kay Hoal, a mother of five children, who saw the need for safe social networking for kids, something I’m sure we all have dealt with at one point or another.

Yoursphere is free to join! The site is mainly targeted toward tweens but children 18 and younger can join.

What I absolutely love so far is that I had to sign-up first so I could add my children. This is a great safety measure since I could check out the site first before deciding to sign up my child. Once everything was confirmed via email, my son was good to go.

So far he has joined a few “spheres”, which are little groups that they can either create or join and are grouped by age appropriate interests. My son went directly to the Games section, which is his passion. He also liked the contests but hasn’t entered any as of yet.

Once we delve in more, I will report back what we have found and how we both like Yoursphere. Oh, one more thing – Parents, once your child signs in and goes about his business, you will be able to see his activities, just to be sure everything is safe and secure, an awesome, awesome feature!

If you decide to sign-up (FREE) for Yoursphere, please use this referral code so they know I sent you: YSMC-0021

“I wrote this review while participating in the Yoursphere Test Drive program by Mom Central on behalf of Yoursphere. I received a free lifetime Gold membership on Yoursphere.com, Yoursphere t-shirts, and a $50 American Express gift card to facilitate my review.”

Cottonelle: Roll Poll – Do You Roll Under or Over?

Posted by admin | Posted on 05-04-2010

Category : All, Family, Sponsored

Tags: Cottonelle

Living in a house full of boys, well you can imagine the bathroom “issues” that I face on a day-to-day basis. If you also have boys, then you know. One of the “issues” has to do with the toilet paper, well when the toilet paper is ever put back on the roller thingy that is.

For the most part, we are a “roll-over” family, well I am, I prefer the tissue to go over ALWAYS but sometimes I find it under, oh the horror! I think my entire life the toilet paper was over as opposed to under, I remember my Mom always doing this and always protesting when one of us put it on the “wrong” way.

Isn’t it funny how people have such a strong opinion about toilet paper?

Well Cottonelle recognizes this great debate and even made a website about this very issue: Cottonelle Roll Poll. Cottonelle is designed to “roll” which ever way you deem is the correct way, which is clearly “over” in my house and according to their poll 72% of people polled agreed as well.

Which way do you roll? Over? Under? Check out the site to learn more about Cottonelle.

Disclosure: “I wrote this review while participating in a blog campaign by Mom Central on behalf of Cottonelle and received a sample to facilitate my candid review. Mom Central sent me a gift card to thank me for taking the time to participate.”

“Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel” Available March 30th, 2010

Posted by admin | Posted on 23-03-2010

Category : All, Family, Movies, Sponsored

Tags: Alvin and the Chipmunks, Children, DVD, kids, Movies

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Alvin and the Chipmunks. All opinions are 100% mine.

I have a 17 month old niece that is in love with the Chipmunks and now with the Chipettes and on March 30th, 2010 I will be buying ”Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel” for sure. It is available on DVD, Blu-ray and Digital Download and it is a special Double DVD Pack that includes “The Squeak Along” Bonus Disc. The bonus disc includes more music and all new singalongs, which is perfect since my niece loves the “Single Ladies” track and dances just like the Chipettes!

My two boys also love the Chipmunks, my oldest has a special memory of him watching the old cartoons with his Grandmother. Now with the new movies, we can have these memories together. It’s the perfect movie for family movie nights, so why not buy it now and add it to your collection too?

If you haven’t seen the “Munk Yourself” site yet, you need to get your kids to try it out. They will have a blast making themselves into Chipmunks. My son had so much fun and I never thought we would get off the site. I have to say that I played with it too, it’s so cute!

Go here for even more More Munk Mayhem including games, activities and more!

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I signed up my youngest son and he was super excited to get started. I loved that I could disable the chat feature as he hasn’t quite got the knack for chatting just yet. The site is also heavily moderated, so safety is no issue, another plus for me.

To get a preview of the game, take a look at this:

WIN A ONE MONTH PREMIUM MEMBERSHIP TO THE TRAVELS OF WIGLINGTON AND WENKS 5 winners will each receive a one month premium membership

TO ENTER: (This is mandatory) Visit The Travels of Wiglington and Wenks site and tell me why you think your child would enjoy this game.

DUE TO LOW ENTRIES, THIS GIVEAWAY HAS BEEN EXTENDED UNTIL JUNE 8TH, PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD.

EXTRA ENTRIES – For each extra entry, please leave a separate comment with information you performed the task.

Disclosure: I was contacted by the creators of The Travels of Wiglington and Wenks to facilitate a review and giveaway. I was given a premium membership, all views are strictly my own.

I had told you guys in the post for the Zylie giveaway about my affinity for Teddy Bears and wanted to explain why. When I was born I was given a Teddy Bear by an Aunt, in fact, every newborn in the family was given a Teddy Bear as a welcome to the world gift.

In my mushy heart, I like to think that our “Bears” were brought together by us or maybe it was the other way around.

WARNING! The following pictures are not for the faint hearted, there are open wounds and various innards coming out, beware!

I am guessing that a lot of women go through this, just as they did with the biological clock ticking. It makes me sad How do you all deal with this?

Here’s a picture of Nik with three of his teeth gone to see the tooth fairy

Do you have a tween? I do, he will be 12 in just 2 short months and on one hand I am thinking “how in the world do I have a tween?” Where did that time go? On the other hand there is the whole puberty thing that will happen and I as a Mom of boys am not ready. Are you?

If you have questions or want to learn more you can check out the Experts section, it has some great information about how to approach the subject with your child, which believe me, I know can be tricky.

Disclosure: I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour campaign by Mom Central on behalf of Unilever and received the items necessary to facilitate my review. In addition, Mom Central sent me a gift card to thank me for taking the time to participate.

I know that my memories will always be there, but honestly, it isn’t a comfort. Those of you who have lost their Mother’s know what I am talking about, it’s a deep down pain that never subsides, ever.

I know that tomorrow will be hard so I will look forward to my children giving me homemade cards and trinkets they have made and hide the sadness I am feeling …. for them. After all I am “their” Mother and I want them to always have fond memories of me to last a lifetime.

Never heard of Yoursphere? Neither had I until I was given the opportunity to check out the site and be a Yoursphere.com Test Drive Mom.

Yoursphere.com was created by Mary Kay Hoal, a mother of five children, who saw the need for safe social networking for kids, something I’m sure we all have dealt with at one point or another.

Yoursphere is free to join! The site is mainly targeted toward tweens but children 18 and younger can join.

What I absolutely love so far is that I had to sign-up first so I could add my children. This is a great safety measure since I could check out the site first before deciding to sign up my child. Once everything was confirmed via email, my son was good to go.

So far he has joined a few “spheres”, which are little groups that they can either create or join and are grouped by age appropriate interests. My son went directly to the Games section, which is his passion. He also liked the contests but hasn’t entered any as of yet.

Once we delve in more, I will report back what we have found and how we both like Yoursphere. Oh, one more thing – Parents, once your child signs in and goes about his business, you will be able to see his activities, just to be sure everything is safe and secure, an awesome, awesome feature!

If you decide to sign-up (FREE) for Yoursphere, please use this referral code so they know I sent you: YSMC-0021

“I wrote this review while participating in the Yoursphere Test Drive program by Mom Central on behalf of Yoursphere. I received a free lifetime Gold membership on Yoursphere.com, Yoursphere t-shirts, and a $50 American Express gift card to facilitate my review.”

Taking pictures has sure come a long way. These days we have so many different ways to capture and preserve our precious memories. I have my share of pictures on the computer and even once or twice I have lost them due to a virus wiping out my hard drive. So sad but true.

There is also no need to upload all of your photo’s since you are connected within Facebook, the application will allow you to pull the photo’s you already have published. You can even have your friends and family add photo’s as well but have complete control over the privacy.

Check out ”Moments to Share” on Facebook and start adding those memories!

“Disclosure: I was entered for a chance to win a gift card in exchange for this post. No monetary exchange took place.”

Living in a house full of boys, well you can imagine the bathroom “issues” that I face on a day-to-day basis. If you also have boys, then you know. One of the “issues” has to do with the toilet paper, well when the toilet paper is ever put back on the roller thingy that is.

Isn’t it funny how people have such a strong opinion about toilet paper?

Well Cottonelle recognizes this great debate and even made a website about this very issue: Cottonelle Roll Poll. Cottonelle is designed to “roll” which ever way you deem is the correct way, which is clearly “over” in my house and according to their poll 72% of people polled agreed as well.

Which way do you roll? Over? Under? Check out the site to learn more about Cottonelle.

Disclosure: “I wrote this review while participating in a blog campaign by Mom Central on behalf of Cottonelle and received a sample to facilitate my candid review. Mom Central sent me a gift card to thank me for taking the time to participate.”

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WIN A ONE MONTH PREMIUM MEMBERSHIP TO THE TRAVELS OF WIGLINGTON AND WENKS
5 winners will each receive a one month premium membership