You may have noticed that I took a little break.  I did a lot of posting leading up until Christmas, and we went to Wisconsin to visit my family too.  My parents only have dial up and that’s no way to blog.  LOL  I’ve got a lot of great things I’ll be working on giving away this year and those giveaways will start today (I am also hoping to get some promotional products to giveaway too!  Just wanted to let you all know that I am back, and I’ll be pulling the winners of the contests that ended while I was gone too.  Keep reading and have a great 2009.

The Step ‘n Shine Wireless Night Lighting System is a great product to have in your house.  How many times have you went to the bathroom in the middle of the night and stubbed your toe?  How many times have you blinded yourself by turning on the bathroom light?  Well, you won’t have that problem anymore.  The Step ‘n Shine Wireless Night Lighting System comes with a light zone activator mat and 1 wireless illuminator light.  Once you step on the mat, it lights up all the illuminator lights (you can buy extra ones).  To turn it off, you just step on the mat again.

Even though there are several adult uses, this is great if you have kids too.  Madison can get out of bed and have a lighted path to the bathroom.  She doesn’t fully have to wake herself up anymore.  Another great use is that we know when she is up (as long as she steps on the map).  We can keep the illuminator light by us and see when she got up.  We are actually planning on packing this up and bringing it to Green Bay with us when we go to visit my parents.  My parents house isn’t as familiar to Madison as ours, so this will help tremendously for her late night bathroom trips.  This also works great to check up on Will (my 18 month old) at night without having to turn the light on.

The great thing about the Step ‘n Shine Wireless Night Lighting System is that there are no wires, no cords, and no clapping!  You don’t get an easier system to use than this either.  If you have anyone up at night in your house, you should definitely look at getting one of these.

When looking for a new host for your website or your blog, make sure you do your research.  Not all hosting companies are created equal.  My needs (since I have 5 blogs) may be completely different than yours.  I personally have only used two hosts (bluehost and hostgator), so I can only give you my experience with those.  I have helped people with their blogs on other hosts and can give a limited opinion on those.  However, you can’t always go by one person.  That is where sites like Web Hosting Geeks come into play.  You are able to see how real people voted on the various hosts.  I personally can’t stand Bluehost (they told me to take my old blog posts and put them on a static page which basically defeats the purpose of a blog).  However, they do get some good reviews.  Again, it depends on what you need.  If you leave a review, it does actually get posted to the site!  I left one a while back, and I see it on the Bluehost reviews.  If you leave feedback, it does get used!  I would definitely check them out if you are looking for hosting.  They are a great place to start your research.

Unless you have read the book, it is really hard to pick out books for other people. At least, I have that problem a lot. I love being able to read about a book before I buy it, and I now have found a site that allows me to do that.  ReadKiddoRead does just that.  It is a great site to find out about books you were wondering about.  It is also great for books that you’ve never heard off.  After seeing the cover of the book to the left and reading its review, I now want to pick that up for my kids.  You can easily sort through the books by age.  ReadKiddoRead has a great selection for all the age groups they represent.  If you find books that you like, they also have a list of other books you should check out.  The site even lists where you can find the books too!

Using this site is a great way to research books.  My kids love to read, and I know I’ll be reading the reviews before I buy them anymore books.  We have tried to install a love of reading into them.  They actually have a larger book collection that I do, so we must be doing something right.

Ok, I guess that is a little dramatic.  However, I do have some winners for you for contests that ended over the weekend.  The contests ended Saturday night.  I was at a Christmas party Saturday night, and ended up cleaning and making cookies and wrapping presents all day yesterday (and have another day of it tonday).  That being said, I have three great items to be giving away today.  No shoulder pain pumps (though our winner Kat could probably use one)– instead I am looking at Ficklets, a book, and a gift certificate. So without further ado, here are your winners:

Ficklets:

The winner is an extra entry from Kat!

Sixty Five Roses book:

Congrats Jo!

Build a Bear Gift Certificate:

Congrats Andreah!

If you are looking for a great stocking stuffer or a gift for someone who has everything, Road Mice is another gift you have to get.  Everyone has a boring mouse for their computer.  Road Mice takes that boring mouse, dresses it up like a car (and they have a ton of models to choose from), and you have a great talking piece for your house now.  The mouse works just like a regular mouse.  The hood has the left and right buttons to click, and it also has a scroll key.  There is no extra software that has to be installed either.  Best of all, this is a wireless mouse.  They are copatible with Macs and PCs and even laptops.  The new line of these Road Mice include a Chevy Camaro concept car and a Dodge Charger SRT8.  Every person who has seen our new mouse wants to know where we got it from.

If you know anyone who loves cars or hates to be boring, they will love this mouse.  I know my husband couldn’t wait to try it out when we got it!

Have you ever wanted to learn to play guitar? If so, Fretlight is your answer.  You plug their guitars into your computer (PC or Mac) and off you go.  They teach you everything from scales into playing songs.  It is like Guitar Hero, but only with a real guitar instead!

Like I said above, the Fretlight guitars plug right into your computer.  After you install the software, you are able to go through the lessons and the neck of the guitar lights up.  You basically have a guitar teacher right there with you!  I have went through quite a few lessons and like everything else, the more you practice, the better you will get.  I loved that you are able to go back to the lessons at any point and repeat them.  You also can do a lesson as many times as you want if you are having problems with it.  They really take it down to a level of a person who has no music training.  However, even with a small amount of training, I didn’t find it too easy or too hard.

This definitely make a great gift for yourself or anyone else wanting to learn to play guitar.  This makes a great unique gift for the person who has everything too!