I have to send the love over to FireMom at StopDropandBlog.com for this contest. It kept my kids busy when I needed them to be busy and we also are entered to win something and those who know me know that I love to win!  Check out this coloring contest for a Christmas DVD. This DVD would be great for the kiddos to watch while I wrap gifts….or take a bath!

While your cooking the turkey (or watching mom cook the turkey) the kids can be coloring up a storm and get in t the mood for the upcoming Holiday Season.

*This picture was colored by the famous Mita who made her first snowman just last year and cannot ever recall watching Frosty the Snow Man (did we really miss it last year?  Was I that busy?)

I was very excited to find out that I had been chosen to host a Shutterfly House party last Saturday.  For those of you that are not familiar with Shutterfly, they are a online site that you can store, edit, buy prints and make projects out of your digital pictures.  There are a lot of online sites that can do this, but I have always been partial to Shutterfly as there site was easy to use when I had slooooooow Internet speeds and other sites didn’t work.  Plus, Shutterfly loves to give out free stuff and seems to always have a sale or free shipping going on.  These things make me HAPPY!

At my party I had 14 sets of photo book coupons and coupons for 12 free Christmas cards to give out.  I felt like Santa Claus on Christmas Eve!  Photo books are some of my favorite things to make as I failed with the scrap-booking thing and love pictures of my children.

Add some wine, great tasting cookies and we had a nice time.  My wire-less Internet proved to not be able to handle ten different users at once unfortunately, but everyone got to see how to make a photo book extremely quick and easy for those of us creatively deficient or lacking time.  For the scrappers out there, Shutterfly has some great ways to create your masterpieces with many options, fonts, lay outs and themes.

Thank you Shutterfly for helping my friends and family have a great time.   I cannot wait to see every-ones finished books and cards.  If you want to have your own House Party, you can click here and see what opportunities await you.

Books I've made through Shutterfly.

FireMom and Outnumbered mom enjoying themselves.

(Disclosure:  Shutterfly gave me and 14 of my guests coupon codes for 8×8 hard cover photo books and 12 holiday cards, as well as a Shutterfly bag and pen. I also received a 7×8 soft cover book, and balloons to have at my party.  All of this was in exchange of sharing my Shutterfly products with friends and family. I was not asked to blog about it…but I had such a good time I wanted to!)

Photo Credits:  Mandy W. 2009

My friend FireMom has been a busy bee with giveaways lately.  I was going to keep all of this knowledge to myself, but the angel on my shoulder told me not to.  Actually I get another entry for blogging about them   Everyone likes to win, it really doesn’t matter what we win, we just have a great feeling when we do.  Two weeks ago I won a case of V8 Fusion from MomCentral.com.  This may not be a fabulous trip to Italy, but think of all of the Girl Scouts I’ll be able to hydrate!

Here are a few giveaways at StopDropandReview :

A Harry Connick Jr. CD

A VeggieTales Christmas DVD

A Fire Safety Giveaway worth $135

A $100 Gift Card (That’s right One Hundred Dollars!)

A Joshua Bell CD

I hope you all take the time to enter the above contests and hopefully you will win one. If any of the above is given to you for Christmas from me, please don’t be offended as I view it as earth friendly to re-gift!

Photo Credit

The Wicked Witch Was Awesome!

Last Wednesday night hubby and I took the kids to see the 70th Anniversary Screening of The Wizard of Oz (in high definition) no less!  Meg saw this movie when she was about five years old, but the other three have never seen it.  As Meg is playing a Munchkin in a local The Wizard of Oz production, we have been talking a lot about the characters and plot around the house and  Mita, Enu and Elle have had no idea of what we were talking about!

The movie was wonderful, of course, as it is a classic.   I’m not much of a techy, but the  quality did seem better than the old TV version I used to watch as a kid.

The first time Meg saw the movie I watched her carefully when the movie turned from black and white to color.  Meg’s look of amazement was something I will always remember and I wanted to watch the other girls looks as well.  I was wondering how I was going to watch three faces at the same time.  Meg solved this for me when she blew the surprise when I overheard her telling Mita  how the film goes from black and white to color.  Enu was sitting far from me besides Hubby and I couldn’t watch her face. So I watched Elle and I was not disappointed!

As Dorothy opens the door into Munchkin land and the screen fills with color, Elle’s jaw drops and she says,”WHAT!”.  too cute and a magical memory I will always have, along with Mita crying up a storm when Dorothy is held captive in the Witch’s castle.  Enu was so happy with the bag of candy gorp I gave each of them, she would have been willing to watch movies all night.  With Meg mouthing the words and dancing in her seat, we were all very happy.

On the way home I told the girls about the times when Uncle Josh and I were little and we would watch Oz and then go out into the woods during the commercials to be scared!  Those flying monkeys are creepy looking, even now!  We were softies I guess, because they weren’t scared (after Harry Potter and Narnia it’s hard to scare kids with monkeys!)

Good memories that we will remember forever, or at least I will!  Elle wore a blue-checked shirt on Thursday and really wants Meg to play Dorothy, or as she calls her “that nice girl.”

I’m to lazy to edit Meg’s eyes and she thinks they look cool anyway!

I want to shout out a BIG thank you to firemom for coming over and letting me and my kiddos try out her Guitar Hero DS games! While I have to turn the volume down on some of the songs, the kids loved playing!  My birthday wish (I’m 34 next week!) is for a Def Leppard Guitar Hero, then I would know all of the songs and be so very cool!

We went to  King’s Island this past weekend.  We got great ticket prices thanks to Genesis having an employee day(s).  We hit the park at five o’clock Friday evening to get in some rides.  This was the best time for the kiddie rides and some big rides too!  We could just walk on or wait a few minutes for Scooby Doo’s ride, Little Bills Giggle Coaster, Blue’s Skidoo and all the favorites.  Meg and Hubby only had to wait 20 minutes for Diamond Back.  Diamond Back is the newest and fastest coaster at King’s Island.  It goes over 80 mph!  Meg adored it, hubby lived through it and Mita is mad because she isn’t tall enough to ride it yet!

Saturday morning Genesis employee’s got in at 8:30 to ride the Diamond Back early with little wait-time.  I am a roller coaster buff.  A few years ago I realized that  I could no longer ride the old wooden roller coasters because they throw you around to much, but the newer ones I still adored.  I’m sad to report that I can no longer call myself a roller coaster buff.  I closed my eyes the entire time and the picture they took of me and Meg says it all.  Because of the cost of said photo ($10!)  I did not buy it and will have to tell you about it.  I had my eyes so tightly shut I looked like a cartoon and Meg has her hands high up in the air with a huge grin and open mouth.  I’m glad some of the “young” me lives on in Meg.

Meg and Mita hit some unbelievable rides while Elle and Enu rode Little Bills Giggle Coaster FIVE times!  By the end of the day Enu had abandoned Elle and I and she also went on as many coaster as she could.  Good times:)  We even caught an Ice Skating show.  They skaters were fun to watch and had some good jumps.  The best part of the show according to Mita was the balloons dropping at the end! 

As I type now, Hubby has the three older girls back at King’s Island  enjoying the park at night. Elle declared it was very unfair (through her yawning) that big kids got to do more.  So, being a fun mom, I let her jump on the beds and jump from one bed to the other until she finally got tired.  Please don’t comment on how many concussions kids get annually from jumping on hotel beds, I cannot take any more guilt!

Sunday we bombarded Daddy with gifts and many, many handmade cards then visited friends for the afternoon.  A great weekend for all of us.  I’ve posted a few pictures so you all can see how we enjoyed Father’s Day Weekend.  I hope everyone had a great time with their family this past Daddy’s Day!

Hubby and I took the kids to see Monsters vs.  Aliens since it was a rainy afternoon.  This was the first 3-D experience for all of the girls.   The first thing  I noticed was the increased ticket price we had to pay.  I guess the glasses do cost money.  They are nerdy-looking black glassess that are an improvement over the old cardboard red and green glasses.

I must admit that the movie was forgettable, even the kids said it wasn’t the best, but the 3-D was amazing.  When hubby first suggested the movie, I thought “Oh no, I’ll get car sick”.  But I had no motion sickness at all. 

The beginning scene is a meteorite  flying through space.  It was coming right at us and Enu kept yelling, “Owe, that hurts!”.  She finally settled down, but  I still don’t think she liked it really well.

While this movie wasn’t the best, we did see a preview for UP  that should be coming out soon. It looks like a fun one and the girls laughed a lot at the trailer.

Of course Meg and I are anxiously awaiting for July when the new Harry Potter movie comes out.  It may not be in 3D but, we are sooooooooooooo excited!

Have you seen any good movies lately?

Photo Credit