As I have mentioned before, my family and I take a lot of trips up to Green Bay, Wisconsin. Now, I live in Chicago, so that is about a four hour drive without hitting any traffic.  This can be a really long drive when you have a four year old and a one year old that you are trying to keep entertained.  There are just so many movies you can watch.  Plus, I like my kids to use their imaginiation, and these Tell Me A Story CDs do just that. Each CD has about 8 stories on it of varying lengths.  The Tell Me A Story CD is about seventy minutes long, and The Tell me A Story 2 CD is about sixty minutes.  I love that each story is told by a different narrator and has its own music.  Let me add, the music on the CDs is awesome.  Needless to say, I was surprised to see that Laura Hall is the composer (If you don’t remember who Laura Hall is, she was on Whose line is it anyway!).  These stories draw both you  and your in.  I often found myself sitting on the edge of my seat wanting to find out what was next.  We took these on our last to trip to Green Bay, and they passed the keep the kids busy test.  Madison (my four year old) actually wanted to listen to them more than once!

If you don’t want your kids sitting in from the of the television set all day and want them to use their imaginiation, you need to get these Tell Me A Story CDs.  They will keep your child both busy and happy!

With everything being on the internet nowadays, it really seems like you need a password for almost everything you do. Now, for security reason, you should not use the same password twice, make it with both numbers and letters, and you should change your passwords at least every six months.  I don’t know about you, but I belong to several places that I need passwords for, and it is seriously hard to figure out how to keep it all straight.  This is where the Internet Password Organizer comes to the rescue. Why should you use the Internet Password Organizer?  First, no one can hack into it on you.  Nothing is worse than having your computer compromised and the hackers being able to get into everything.  This provides you with a single centralized location in which to store all your online account login information, and the tabbed sheets makes it super easy to find what you are looking for.  Also, I have had my hard drive fail.  If that is the only place you have your passwords saved, you are in big trouble.  This notebook is also very discrete.  Without opening it, most people won’t even know what’s in it.  It also is better than sticky notes all over your computer monitor (now, I know lots of people who do this).  There is even sections that allow you to put in your ISP information, your email settings, your wireless network and router information, and any software licenses you have.

Now, I know a lot of you are wanting one of these, so I will be giving one of these to two lucky winners! Here’s what you need to do:

1. Leave a comment on this post. Go check out the Internet Password Organizer and tell me what feature you would like the best and/or why you want this.
2. Twitter about this contest. Please leave me your username so I can verify.
3. Stumble this post. If you don’t know what Stumble Upon is, please read Lori’s post at Blogging Cents. She explains it extremely well.
4. Add this post to other social media sites like Digg, Kirtsy, Blogging Zoom, Reddit, Propeller, Etc. (1 entry for each social network).

For 5 additional entries,

1. Blog about this on your blog. Please give me the URL, so I can verify.
2. Add this to any forums you belong too. Please give me the URL, so I can verify.
3. Subscribe to this blog using either my email or RSS feed
4. Add my badge to your sidebar:

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This giveaway will end on December 7 at 8:00 pm CST is available to US residents only. Good luck!

Anyone who has any sort of computer needs to get one a SimpleTech Mini Drive.  It is small, but it has a big punch.  You can store up to 250 GB of data on this baby.  Now, I have a lot of pictures and music (and trust me, it is more than I even thought!), and it is not taking up even half of the memory on this!  There are several things I love about my SimpleTech Mini Drive.  The first thing would have to be the size.  It truly is small enough to fit in a pocket (not necessarily your jean pocket per say but a bit larger pocket).  It is also made for my house, because it is durable.  It has a velvety smooth texture to help you grip it, and it was made for travel.  If you drop it, it is not end of the world (though I may have to ground you to your room for the rest of your life).  It comes in different colors, so if they bubblegum color that I have is not your cup of tea you have several to choose from like Espresso, Marshmallow, Kiwi, and Cayenne.  You also get a high speed USB 2.0 “Y” cable that provides power without extra cables (love, love, love that!).  It even gives you backup software and you are able to use their Fabrik Ultimate Backup™ online service (2 GB free).

Want to know how easy this is to use?  Just plug one of the Y cord to the mini drive and the other to your computer.  That’s it!  Bill and I will be spending this afternoon taking the rest of the music off our desktop and saving it to the minidrive.  I then will be able to put all our MP3s on my laptop.  We haven’t done it till now, because over our home network, it takes forever!  I am super excited to be able to finally play music on my laptop!

Like I said, if you know anyone who has a computer, they need a SimpleTech Mini Drive.  You never know when your hard drive will decide to crash and take all of your data with it.

If you have anyone in on your Christmas shopping list that you don’t know what to get them, a Cloud 9 Living gift certificate is the perfect gift.  This is like no gift certificate that you have ever have given or received.  Instead of getting something, your person gets to chose an experience, and there are over 1,700 experiences to choose from using their gift certificate.  You can choose everything from dinner cruises to cooking classes to racing Nextel Cup Style Stockcars to hot air balloon rides.  There is truly something for everyone.  You can buy certificates as low as $40 all the way up to $100,000.  80% of the experiences are under $500 and 50% of experiences are under $200.  Cloud 9 Living has partnered with companies like Land Rover, BMW, and ESPN Golf School to ensure that you have an excellent experience.  Some more experiences you can pick from include the CSI Experience (now, my birthday is in March if anyone would like to get me that), drive a stockcar, walking food tours, helicopter tours, bull riding lessons, segway tours, chef for a day, trapeze lessons, etc.  Some of the VIP experiences include star in your own film, formula one racing, golf with a PGA Pro, and flying a Russion MIG.

If you want to give a gift that noone will forget, Cloud 9 Living is the way to go.  Instead of “stuff”, you are able to give an experience of a lifetime.

We often travel to Wisconsin to visit my family. It is a 4 hour drive, so are always looking for ways to keep the kids busy and entertained.  Bill hates to stop, so it is a long four hours.  A great item to check out for car rides, bedtime, and really any time is the Giddio Audio Adventures.  We listened to the Billy Brown Goes Hiking CD on our drive home, and it was a life saver for us.  Will was super crabby, and the only thing that made him quit screaming was this CD.  It definitely holds your children’s attention.  It is geared towards kids aged 3 – 7 (though it worked on my 1 year old too!)  This is actually pretty cool.  Instead of a narrator reading a story, there is a full cast.  Everyone has their own voice.  I love that it makes my kids use their imagination.  I’m not the only one who likes this either — it has won several awards (Dr. Toy’s Best Products 2007, several iParenting media awards, and Creative Child magazine’s Seal of Excellence).  We ended up having to listen to it more than once, because they like it so much (run time is between 30 – 45 minutes depending on which CD you are listening to).

I love that you can even try this out.  If you go to their site, you can download Billy Brown And The Mystery Package for free!  You can also print off the CD covers and have your kids color them!  I highly recommend checking this out as a great alternative to TV!