Have you heard of Bake Me A Wish! before? Bake Me A Wish! provides freshly baked occasional cakes for all seasons and celebrations. They deliver the cakes overnight in an elegant box with a personalized gift card. Now, you cannot leave their site without being hungry. I know that I wouldn’t mind a few of those cakes being sent to my house! They all look so good.  Granted, I may need to walk on a treadmill after that, but it’s all in the name of research, right?

The reason I am including them in my gift guide this year is because of what else they do.  When you order a cake from them, they send an identical cake to a soldier in Iraq for their birthday.  5% of all their orders is used to assist their efforts in sending gourmet occasion cakes to soldiers overseas.  Now, if you know someone over in Iraq who wouldn’t mind a gourmet birthday cake, make sure you forward their name to them.  I found myself tearing up just reading all the thank yous from soldiers receiving their cakes.

If you need a birthday cake, make sure you check out Bake Me A Wish! and see if you can help send a soldier a cake!

Do you know anyone who is a sports fan?  If so, you need to get them one of these Bergino’s baseballs.  I own two of these, and they are awesome.  Not only do you get a cool looking baseball, you get a piece of turf that goes underneath.  They definitely are a talking piece for everyone who sees them.  I know that every person who has seen them in my house has asked where we got it from.  Now, they have ton of choices.  You can get a baseball with your hometown (if its a big city like Chicago, New York, Boston, etc.).  They also have peace ones like the one above.  Some other unique ones are It’s A Boy, Constitution of the US, and Happy Holidays just to name a few.  They have way more styles to pick from.  You can even get mini bat pens and a baseball glove business card holder.

If you need a great gift for the guy in your life that has everything, this is definitely it.

How many times do your find yourself having a really bad day and would love something that would turn that around? How many times do you find yourself getting down on yourself?  A lot of how we feel has to do with our mindset and the Fl!p Your Thinking cards try to turn that around for you.  The cards are small and easily fit on your key chain.  They have affirming saying on them that help you to reverse your negative thinking.  For example, the very first card says “I am not ALONE” and on the back, it says “I am CONNECTED”.  After going through several of these cards, I personally feel more of an inner peace.  I love that is so easy to thrown in your purse, in your pocket, or even on your keychain.  I also love how a few cards can make you feel better about yourself, your day, and the world in general.  Each of these sets of flashcards also have 3 cards that you can but your own thoughts and statements on.  At $14.95, these make an excellent stocking stuff for just about anyone in your life.

What kind of cards do you send out for Christmas? Do you do a photo holiday card like you see on the left? In my family, that is exactly what I do. A lot of the people we send Christmas cards to only see my kids a couple of times a year.  It is a great way to show them how much my kids have grown.  I’ve done it both ways too — either just the kids or us as a family.  I also love receiving cards like this, so I can see how their kids have grown over the last year.

If you are looking for a huge selection of Photo Holiday Cards, you need to go check out Tiny Prints!  They truly have cards for every occasion that you could want.  They have both regular cards and photo cards too.  However, Tiny Prints and I are working together to offer you an awesome contest.  You can win your holiday card package with matching postage (Winner to receive 50 of the selected card, 72 address labels and 60 stamps with the matching card design.).  What do you have to do to win this?

1.  You need to visit their Tiny Prints Holiday Photo Cards selection and tell me which holiday card has “slushy to chic” in the description.  Once you have found it, put a fun and creative greeting on it.

2.  After you have found the card, click “ask a friend” and enter my email lisareviewsATgmail.com.  Also, click “save in favorites”

3.  Then I just need you to put in the comments of this post your greeting!

I will be selecting the winner from those who pick the correct card and come up with the most creative greeting!  Now, you can only win once, but you can enter as many times as you like.  If you have won a Tiny Prints contest in the last 90 days, you aren’t eligible.  The contest is to run from October 20, 2008 through Friday, November 7, 2008.  Contestants also relinquish greeting text ownership and allow Tiny Prints to use their entries for promotional use.  Stamps will be fulfilled separately from Tiny Prints order.  Best of all, this contest is offered to everyone no matter where you live!  I know that sometimes if you live outside of the US you miss out on a lot of these great contests.  Tiny Prints understand that and has opened it up to everyone!

Good Luck!

Image via Wikipedia

This was my favorite newspaper.  I think we have been subscribing to it since we have moved here.  However, about a week ago, they changed their format.  Now, I have went through several format changes with them already.  However, this one, I cannot stand.  I cannot stand it to the point that I will be leaving them and getting a subscription to another area newspaper.  (The advantage of living in Chicago is that we have quite a few to pick from).

This  makes me sad.  However, the changes that have been made this time around I just cannot stand.  The majority of their articles completely blend with the ads for things like fat burners and real estate.  As a blogger, we got a lot of slack for not disclosing what is paid and what isn’t.  However, it doesn’t look the print media has to have the same standard.  The majority of the articles have huge pictures and less content.  I know it is not just my eyes playing tricks on me either.  It actually takes me quite a bit less time to read the paper everyday.  A lot of the articles also look like blog posts with the amount of stuff on the page.  If I wanted to look at something that looked like a blog, I would read my news online.  I personally love having a print paper in my hand.  I like the style and how informative a paper is.  If I want a synopsis, I go to the internet.  If I want to read full articles, I look for my local paper.

As soon as I find my credit card, I will be canceling my Chicago Tribune subscription and signing up for the Chicago Sun Times.  Hopefully, their paper will be less tabloidy and more news.

Madison and I recently tried the Briarpatch’s I Spy Memory Game.  This game will help your child develop their memory, matching, critical thinking, reading and oral language skills.  It also teaches them to take turns, follow rules, and sharing.  The object of this game is to match pairs of cards.The great thing about this game is that you can really tailor it to the age of the child you are playing with.  The directions had several different versions depending on the age of the child you were playing with.  Right now, Madison (who is 4) struggled a tad with this.  The cards that you are trying pair are not identical.  The object itself is identical.  However, the two cards may have a different background or with different lighting.  That being said, I do like the detail on the cards.  They are great pictures.  The basic memory game is played with the blue cards.  You are able to play a riddle game with the red cards and the blue cards (this would be for an older child).  The red cards all have riddles on it like “A dish on a duck, a bow on a bell, a bird in a cage, a pearl in the shell”  Then on the bottom of the card that you should find the 4 cards that match this riddle.  Some of these riddles Madison was able to do.  This is just one version of how to play with both sets of cards.  There are a couple of other versions that can be played also.  Madison and I ended up making up our own rules and games with this which was just as fun!  We counted clocks and toys and matched colors.

I would highly recommend the I Spy Memory Game!  We had a lot of fun with it, and I can see it being a game that your children will enjoy playing as they grow older.

One of best cameras I have owned is the Sony Cybershot. It is awesome that you don’t have to carry around a ton of luggage to take this camera with you.  You can easily slide this slick phone into either your purse or your pocket.  The 4GB of internal memory can store up to 40,000 VGA-quality photos or 1,000 8-megapixel pictures.  You seriously don’t need a memory card to make this camera work.  You also don’t need to read the manual that comes with to make it work.  The part that impressed me the most is that the pictures are awesome.
This camera takes the best pictures of any of the digital ones that I owned before this. On my other blog, I chronicled my entire basement remodel using this camera. I use this camera when we are out and about with the kids.  The menu is done by touchscreen, so you don’t have forty thousands buttons to figure out.  If you are in the market for a new point and shoot camera, I highly recommend a Sony Cybershot!