Late tonight  I will be on my way to New York City with friends for a busy and fun filled weekend. We are going to BlogHer 2010!

BlogHer 2010 is a conference for bloggers put on by BlogHer. This is my first time attending and as you may tell, I am a bit excited over it!  The BlogHer website is a great one to read blog post by others all around the country, the world really. There are contests (I won $100 a couple months ago) and many thought-provoking posts as well as light-hearted ones to make you laugh. 

The conference offers several different sessions on how to set up and write your blog as well as improveing your content and getting a following.  I am looking forward to these sessions, but I do have to admit that the parties and gatherings is what I am excited about.  On Saturday I get to have breakfast at the Scholastic offices and there is an HP party that should be a lot of fun.  As a participant of Better For BlogHer I will get to meet with the Healthy Choice people and speak with a nutritionist.

Did I mention that we got chosen to drive a new Chevy Traverse to New York?  Yes!  We get a free rental with On-Star use and a navigator (I am a little nervous about driving in downtown NYC) to help us find our way.  We will be tweeting about our trip along the way.

A few days with friends in the big city.  A perfect summer break for mom right before the crazy get ready for school time begins.  Yes, you read me right.  School is starting in a few weeks.  That means buying of the school supplies and making sure my kids have tennis shoes that still fit is about to rock my world.  I’ll take another month of summer please!

Eclipse came out last Wednesday in the early morning hours.  I was not there I must say.  My advanced age kept me from tackling the early morning hours.  Okay.  So I am not that old, but life does get in the way sometime and it did this past week. Hubby and I were babysitting  our friends’ four children for ten days (four plus four does equal eight remember!) and needless to say I didn’t need a Twilight Hangover the next day!  I also didn’t have goodie bags this time around either, but I hope to do better for Breaking Dawn.

The movie was a lot of fun.  I  will be the first to admit that the Twilight movies can be a bit cheesy, but so are the books and yet so many of us like cheesy! I have to admit that I did cringe at Jasper’s sudden Texas accent. It was a bit overdone, but at least they lightened up on his look a bit and he doesn’t look as freaky as he did in the first two movies.

It  had a lot more action than the first two films and I appreciated the bloodless action.  It was great fun to see Edward rip off the head of Victoria.  I never knew  I was this gore-seeking!

As far as going along with the book, the film did pretty good with that. Of course they cannot ever match the book page by page, but there was one part I wish they had gone word for word with.  After Bella kissed Jacob and she is looking at Edward he says,”You love him.” She then says,”I love you more.”  and that was about it.  I so wanted this:

“…when I left  you, Bella, I left you bleeding.  Jacob was the one to stitch you back up again.  That was bound to leave its mark – on both of you.  I’m not sure those kinds of stitches dissolve on their own. I can’t blame either of you for something  I made necessary. I may gain forgiveness, but that doesn’t let me escape the consequences.”  Stephanie Meyer ~ Eclipse

Maybe some producer will read this and add it to the DVD?  Yeah I  am sure that will happen!

My mommy rant of the day (hour?) goes to Burger King.  On our way to an animal park with the kids we stopped at Burger King for lunch.  The kids meals were giving away TWILIGHT TOYS!  You heard me toys of Edward, Bella and Jacob.  My stomach turned and I was ashamed of being a Twilight fan at that time.  The Twilight series is a young adult series plan and simple. Marketing toys to kids under ten is ridiculous and is one more way were are letting our children grow up to early and be exposed to adult things.

Oh, and I totally agree with FireMom:  The sparkling has got to go.  It just looks so tacky, silly, stupid and more!  FireMom is on the fence at this point with the whole Team Jacob team Edward thing.  MomOutnumbered is a solid Team Jacob. I am team everyone wins-because-I-read-the-books-and-they-have-a-happy-ending!

Like and for-sure!  I’m such a teenager after writing this!

Photos by Mandy W.  2010

A few months ago

I was at the movies with some friends (it feels like years ago!) and we saw the preview for Babies.  I instantly fell in love and wanted to  have a baby right then and there. Hubby didn’t see this preview and did not feel the same. Actually, I think he could have watched the preview and still would have had the same sort of negative thinking!

This movie is about the first year of four infants from different parts of the world:  San Francisco, Mongolia, Namibia, and Tokyo.  The film promises to be beautiful and I hope that Breastfeeding is a big part of this film (fingers crossed).  This film may be a great opportunity for us all to learn from other and come to respect our different ways of parenting.

I have included a few links to share with you with previews and shots from this movie.  Enjoy!

My preditcition is that the birth rate will be rather high come next March.  By then I will be working again in the field of Lactation and be as busy as ever!  Busy with babies..how great is that.  Unfortunately I cannot seem to find a theater in this part of Ohio that is showing Babies this weekend so our birthrate may bounce once it comes out on DVD or On-Demand.  Oh the life of a country bumpkin!  Here are a list of theaters.

(Disclosure: I was provided with these links through the BABIES Ambassador Program. Sharing these can lead to me winning prizes like diapers and baby stuff. As I don’t need these items anymore (boo hoo) in the event of my winning they will be split between our local pregnancy center and my niece Ali!)

A lot of times recycling can be a bit boring.  Lets face it, sorting trash isn’t the funnest thing on Earth (feel free to disagree and tell me why you love to sort trash!)  Recycling can also be time consuming or tricky if you are making something out of an old something else and you are not particularly creative or crafty (aka me!  I cannot even use a glue gun well).  A few weeks ago, however, Hubby came up with a great Reuse idea that really worked well.

Our school age daughters, Meg, Mita and Enu, love to play tether-ball at school and were asking Hubby to get a one set up at the house last week.  His green light-bulb moment happened rather quickly as he remembered that we still have the four poles from our old trampoline!  These poles are from the net enclosure around the trampoline to keep the kids from falling off.  These poles have hooks on them to hold up the net.

Hubby quickly set up two separate tether-ball poles and purchased the balls and ropes at a local sports store.  Having two for us was a must  with the four kids. I didn’t want to hear the whole taking turns battle that would have for sure erupted.  For about $40 and an hour or so of time we were set up for action and the kids have been playing during every free moment is seems!

To Hubby, his idea may have been more about saving money than being green, but as it often is, we win both ways!  I have seen tether-ball sets from $25-$65 online and that is just for one and the trampoline poles seem much sturdier than the poles for sale are.

We gave the other two poles to my brother and sister in law, and the recycling just continues.  So go look for a old trampoline on Craig’s list or a yard sale and make some tether-ball poles!  It is a great way to keep your kids active and busy and OUTSIDE.  Oh yeah, my kids like to bend the rules a bit…here are the rules to tether-ball if you need them!

I would love to hear other ideas about reusing kids toys in creative ways!

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!