For the last couple of weeks, we have been trying out a projector from Projector123.  Let’s just say that it has been such a big hit in our house that Bill now wants to buy one.

Can you guess the movie on the left?  It’s Cars.  That picture is on one of my walls in the basement.  We didn’t have any white walls to use, so that picture is on a blue wall.  It made it slightly darker (we shined it on the white door to see the difference).  I’ll be honest — I was impressed.  The picture was so clear and crisp.  It also was huge!  I wouldn’t have needed my contacts to see it!

Now, I didn’t take a picture of this but we set this up with our PlayStation 2.  Madison tried both Star Wars Legos and Indiana Jones Legos on here.  It was awesome. The characters were taller than Will.  He just ran up and down the wall touching the characters.  It was quite humorous to watch (and I should have video taped it but I didn’t think of it at the time!)

After the kids were in bed, Bill and I tested it out with a non-kid friendly movie.  Madison and Will’s movie were made to be crisp and clear.  How would a real movie hold up?

You should be able to guess this movie pretty easily.  I took this picture from the side to show you how movie theater like it was.  We just hooked up two speakers, and it was like being in the theater (we were just missing the popcorn).

Even though we used this for a lot of fun movie nights at my house, there are so many more uses for it.  I have seen these used at weddings, graduation parties, and memorial services that I have been too.  Its a great way to show a montage of pictures easily.  At the rate of $99 for a weekend, you can’t go wrong.  They FedEx it to you and they even give you a return label to FedEx it back!

Another show that we like to watch at our house is Little Bill. This is another show we watch on Noggin. Little Bill is 5, so Madison completely relates to him. The show is based on Bill Cosby’s book series, and he works with a panel of educational experts too! As an adult watching the show, you really get a feel for how a child sees the world. My daughter gets to learn that she really can make a difference. There definitely is an emphasis on family. You get to see Little Bill work his way through things such as what to do when you are snowed in to learning how to do a somersault. If you are lucky, you may even see him try some renaissance clothing on! You will often hear Little Bill saying “Hello Friend!”. This was inspired by the Hello Friend/Ennis William Cosby Foundation. This foundation was established in memory of Ennis William Cosby, the son of the Bill Cosby.

Your son or daughter won’t learn the ABCs watching this show. However, they will learn about self esteem, dealing with conflicts, and developing social skills. It also won’t bore you to tears.

I am not ready to let Madison (my 4 year old) use a real fishing pole yet. Right now, I envision many hospital trips if she had one. However, we have several magnetic fishing pole sets, and they are awesome. Basically, she goes fishing in my living room almost on a daily basis. She spends several hours catching her fish and then throwing them out back on the floor. Will (my one year old) likes to get involved in the game too. He either plays with the fish or tries to pretend to be the fish and grab the end of the string. The ball pit we have is a boat so it ties in quite nicely. The only thing we are missing is one of those gps tracking devices for fish. I really need to get a picture of her sitting in that boat with her pole. It is super cute.

I highly recommend a magnetic pole until you are comfortable that your children won’t cause serious damage with a real one. I don’t think Madison is ready this summer either for a real one. However, she is completely happy with the magnetic fishing poles and we’ll keep her using those until she is ready.

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.

This is another new show on the Discovery Channel. I am not sure, but I think somebody did some market research and thought we need more shows about/in Alaska. Unfortunately, I have to disagree. I love Discovery Channel — I hate this show.  Honestly, I feel like I am watching Survivor.  If I wanted to watch that, I would tune into regular TV.  When I do find something interesting in the show, the people on it start whining again and ruin the moment.  I just find that The Alaskan Experiment annoys me more than anything.  I don’t find it interesting enough to keep my attention.  (If you haven’t seen the show, it is about a couple of teams that get dropped off in different parts of Alaska and they have to brave it on their own out there for 30 days).

Have you seen this show?  What do you think?

Do you like the creepy crawlies? I don’t, so really don’t know why I watch the Verminators on the Discovery Channel. However, even though I cringe the entire time I am watching this, I am addicted. Basically, the people from Isotech go around and take care of pests for people. You would cringe too if you could see some of the houses they go into. The worst had to be the one that had roaches running in the crib. Some of these are so bad that I don’t think an IQAir purifier would save them. Another interesting episode involves them moving a stove, and you can see about an inch and half of cockroaches. I am getting the creepy crawlier just thinking about it. Even though it grosses me out, I love this show, and you should go check it out!

I swear it gets harder and harder to find quality programs and cds for our kids that won’t drive us (parents) up the wall. That Baby CD and That Baby DVD is the answer. It is extremely hard to keep both kids entertained while watching something. However, That Baby DVD did its job. Will just stared at the tv in wonderment, and Madison danced while the songs played (Will did a little dancing of his own too). The first thing that Bill and I noticed was that we recognized a lot of the songs on here. These are covers of songs by Fleetwood Mac, Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, Natalie Merchant, The Beatles, The Pretenders, just to name a few. The second thing we noticed was that songs were sung for the kids and toned down. However, they weren’t completely kidified, so that you feel like pulling your hair out and covering your ears. I can’t tell you how many of those kinds of CDs (I know we all have them) that we listened to once and never again. That Baby CD is what Will listens to at night. We use to have a classical CD playing in his room all night. It is the same CD we used for Madison, so we happily replaced it with That Baby CD. He sleeps with it just fine, and I sometimes catch myself singing with it when I change his diaper (shhhh, don’t tell anyone). Both the DVD and CD have gotten a lot of play in my house. This ranks high on my list of things all mothers should have.

Now, if this is something that you want to get your family, I have a coupon code that you can use to save 20% on your entire order when you order from the The Baby DVD website. It is “MotherTalk”. Also, any orders from now till May 18th that use the coupon code will be entered in a drawing to win a new iPod nano. Now, who couldn’t use one of those? Something for you, something for the kids . . .you can’t go wrong.