I took Madison to Burger King yesterday, and we went through the drive thru.  Burger King has a new product or two that they added to their menu.  You now can order apple fries or macaroni and cheese with your kids meal.  I thought this was great since I really don’t like getting Madison french fries.  Needless to say, I was a little surprised when I saw my receipt and found out that they charged me extra for the apple fries.  Of course, the huge sign in front of the drive thru did not state that. You know, I am not asking for it to be on sale or anything. However, I would have liked to see something on that sign letting me know that the apple fries were going to be 49 cents more. The other thing that irritated me was that, for free, McDonalds gives you way more apples.  Needless to say, we won’t be frequenting Burger King any time soon.

As you all know, I love reviewing kids books and kids toys on here.  With having a 4 year old and a 1 year old, I have great product testers, and I really get to see how products hold up.  That being said, at my house, we have been playing with the Nana Star books and plushies, and we have a winner at my house.

Before I go to far into the books, I need to give you a little background on how Nana Star came about (and I got a little teary-eyed myself when I found this all out).  The authors of this series of books are Elizabeth Sills and Elena Patrice.  The illustrator is Linda Saker.  The original creator of Nana Star is Elizabeth Owens (Elizabeth and Elena’s grandmother and Linda’s mother).  She had a grandson named Vance  that she made up Moonman and Nana Star for.  When he moved away, she often sent him hand made cards with her characters, so he always knew she was with him.  Unfortunately, Vance now “dances with the stars“, but she has allowed us into her fantasy world, so our children can have that sense of belonging too.

The first thing I have to do is warn you. You need to read the Nana Star book first. Trust me, it all makes more sense if you do (**blush** won’t tell you how I figured that out). This is a truly entertaining book. Not only can I read it to my kids, there is a CD that comes with it.  When you listen to the CD, make sure you get comfortable.  They have really awesome background music behind the narrator.  There is also an additional song on there.  Madison was singing along after the first time listening to the songs.

The other really cool thing that they do with these books is that they have a Nana Star’s Little Twinkles Club.  On purpose, they have a spellling mistake in the book.  You are able to write them and tell them what the mistake was, and you can then join the Twinkles Club!  This is such a cute idea to engage their little readers.

The second book we read and listened to was Nana Star and the Moonman. Now, in the first book, we learned that a little star fell out of the sky was looking for her Nana. Now, the second book is the start of the journey the little girl (Nana Star) takes to help the little star get home. I truly can see this being an awesome series of books. As an adult, I’m wondering what happens next.  The other nice thing is that the CDs that come with the books are held by a pocket that is attached to the book.  You don’t have to worry about losing the CDs.

Now, I highly recommend these books.  Madison was engaged with them.  The thing I noticed and loved about the books themselves (besides the CD pocket) was that the paper is a thicker paper.  It does not rip easily which is a huge problem normally in my house.  You also get a bookmark with each book.  Amazingly, we don’t actually own any bookmarks, so it is a welcome addition in our house.  I also like that I am not the only one who thinks these products are great.  They have gotten numerous awards including Mr. Dad Seal of Approval and Great Dad Recommends Awards, Nominated by Mom’s Choice Award® for Most Inspirational Story, and iParenting Media Award for Excellent Products of 2007.

Not only did we try out the books, we even had some fun with the plushies that they offer.  Now, I’ll be honest, I didn’t quite know what to expect.  I really am not good with measurements and figuring out how big things really are.  However, this Moonman was quite a bit larger than I expected!

Now, if you push on Moonman’s belly, his head lights up and it plays a lullaby (which you can kinda tell with my picture of Will and Moonman).  Will likes walking around with him (and let me add that is kissing him not biting him in the second picture!).

Now, this Nana Star plushy is a huge hit with both kids.  Its cute, easy to carry, and even has bloomers on under the skirt (yes, I checked).  Madison immediately made the connection between the doll and the books.  She talks about Nana Star quite often now.  You can also tell that this is not a small doll either.

If you need a great children’s gift, this is the way to go.  The books are for 3-7 years olds and they have such a postivie message.  In some of the books to come, they will learn about good manners and courtesy, friendship and fun, and giving and sharing just to name a few.  Now, if you’d like to win a copy of these books and plushies for yourself, they are running an awesome contest.  All you need to do is comment on their Got Lemons post and tell a story about how you turned lemons into lemonade.  The best story they get by July 7th will win you a copy of the books and they will also donate a copy of the books to your favorite school, childcare center, library, children’s hospital, or doctor’s office.  How awesome is that?

We had a very interesting episode at my house this morning.  Will had a little diaper accident that ended up all over my living room floor (and let’s say it wasn’t pee!).  Not only did it smell, it was stuck to the floor (I know, I know TMI, but I could have taken pictures!)

What does a mother do when incidents like this (and yes all mothers have at least one of these with each of their kids)?  Well, first you clean up the kid involved.  I also lucked out that it was Will’s nap time, so I was able to put him down and not have him getting in the way of cleanup.

Once Will was down for a nap, that’s when the real cleaning starts.  I have always loved pinesol.  It does say on the back not to use on wood.  However, I have always used it on my hardwood floors, because it is one of the best cleaners out there on the market and have yet to have a problem.  I have yet to find anything that matches its cleaning ability either.  However, I have always had one major complaint:  the smell.  I personally could not stand the lemony smell (Courtney just corrected me — it’s not lemony — it’s pine ).  However, PineSol has come to rescue.  They now have flavors (or is it called scents?)!  The one I used on our little accident this morning was the “Sparkling Wave”.  I love it!  Not only did the PineSol clean up the mess, it left my living room smelling awesome.  There was no overwhelming lemon — just a calming sea smell (which after the morning I’ve had, I definitely need).

I would definitely go try this out if you haven’t yet, and tell me what you think.

Yes, I know, it is hard to believe that I actually watched I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. What may surprise you (heck, it surprised me) the movie wasn’t half bad. Now, I wouldn’t give it 5 stars or probably watch it again. However, it was entertaining enough to watch the whole thing.

Larry (Kevin James) is a widower with two kids. The only way for him to change his insurance policy changed is to get married. Larry is a firefighter, and is partnered with his best friend Chuck (Adam Sandler). To help Larry out, Chuck and Larry get a domestic partnership and get married in Canada. Should be the end of the story right? Wrong. They then have to prove that their relationship is the real deal. The jokes sometimes are really, really bad and a little to stereotypical. However, there is a great scene where the two men fight and call up each others shortcomings that need to be addressed. All in all, it is a movie you should see.

I recently purchased the Web2Submitter to help me submit posts to social media sites. Not only do I submit posts for my work, I do many for my own sites and posts. I was finding that I was spending hours on this tedious task and absolutely hating it. Someone recommended that I check out the Web2Submitter, so I did.

One of the things that I liked best about this was that they don’t promise the world to you (you know that they aren’t full of it then!). This isn’t black hat at all. You aren’t going to be spamming sites. For me, this kind of stuff was my main concern. I looked at a lot of submitters that were a lot more money. However, they were involved in the type of SEO I am not interested it. I personally bill my time out at a minimum of $15 an hour or more. At $47, the Web2Submitter pays for itself after a couple of uses. I seriously cut my submission time down by more than half.

Now, I personally needed something easy. I don’t want to have to read a manual to figure out how to use something. Now, Web2Submitter does all the hard work for you. Here’s what the interface looks like:

It literally requires you to fill in the blanks and that is it. It does not get any easier than this. You are able to set it up so that all of your passwords are saved. You use the software to log into each site. You also fill in the blanks for the title, URL, tags, description, etc. When you go to submit to each site, it will automatically fill those in for you. Now, my only complaint with this software is that it doesn’t submit to enough sites. There are a couple I would love to see added on like Mixx and Thoof. However, I also love that I can use the URL bar up on top and go to the additional sites that I want to submit to. Instead of searching for the URL, description, title, etc. again, it is all listed to my left.

Now, I have contacted their support for some issues I was having (it ended up being an issue on my end not theirs). I figured they wouldn’t get back to me ever, and I had a response in less than 24 hours! Also, this is software for life — there is no monthly fees that you have to worry about or anything like that. There is also a 60 day money back guarantee. If this doesn’t live up to your standards, you can get your money back!

Honestly, I have saved countless hours using this. If you do any sort of submitting to social media sites, you need to get this and save yourself time and headaches.