We recently were introduced to a new cartoon that is on CBS called Busytown Mysteries. It’s based on the characters from the works of Richard Scarry (who has sold over 150 million copies of his books over the last 40 years!).  The program is about 20 minutes long and shows 2 eleven minute stories.  The stories revolve around Huckle Cat and Lowly Worm as they solve mysteries all over town (like who knocked all the cherries out of the farmer’s tree).  These stories engage our kids and makes them question who, what, when, where, and why.  I love it when they are learning and not even realizing it!  Will (my 2 year old) wasn’t all that interested in this cartoon.  However, my 5 year old did enjoy watching it, and she enjoyed the interactive games and activities that Busytown offers online!  Online, they can interact with the characters and explore the different neighborhoods.  They can even set up an email address (we aren’t ready for that in our house quite yet!).

You can check out the tv schedule for Busytown Mysteries and see where it is playing in your area, so your kids can check it out!  Check it out and tell me what you think!

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/2

This giveaway is now over. The winner is Jo! Congrats!

I love good cleaning supplies. I always have which is why I talk about a lot of good ones here that I like to use. One of my favorites lately has to be the Pledge Multi Surface Cleaner. I love having one cleaner that I can go around the house and clean everything with! With 2 little ones underfoot, I need all the help I can get. I also hate to use 12 different cleaners just to clean. Pledge Multi Surface Cleaner can be used on wood, glass, mirrors, granite, electronics, wood laminate, stainless steel, plastics, marble, and chrome. I think this covers pretty much every surface in your house.  It comes in two scents (lavender fresh and rainshower) which both smell great.  You can get it at pretty much any store too.

I used this to get ready for Will’s birthday tomorrow.  It made my house smell nice and made cleaning super easy.  I was able to dust, clean the windows, and the tv screen with one cleaner!  It made cleaning up for this party much easier.  I want cleaning in your house to be as easy as it is in mine.

Want a bottle of Pledge Multi Surface Cleaner to making cleaning easier for you too?  Here’s what you need to do:

Leave a comment on this post.  Tell me where you want to use this in your house.  How will this make cleaning easier for you?

Each of these gives you one additional entry:

1. Twitter about this contest. Please leave me your username so I can verify. Or use something like this:

RT @blm03 is giving away Pledge Multi Surface Cleaner http://lisareviews.com/2009/06/05/pledge-multi-surface-cleaner-review-and-giveaway

2. Stumble this post and add this post to other social media sites like Digg, Kirtsy, Blogging Zoom, Reddit, Propeller, Etc. (1 entry for each social network).

Each of these gives you 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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If this isn’t working, please let me know. For some reason, Wordpress seems to be eating the code up when I post. Each of these will give you 10 additional entries:

1. Join my Spark E Crew at Social Spark. Click here to find out how to sign up. If you are on my crew, please leave your social spark ID, so I can verify it.

2. Sign up for my free newsletter!

This contest is for US and Canada residents and will end at June 19th at noon CST! Good Luck!!

This giveaway is over. Congrats to Kimberly and Janet F. I will be contacting your shortly!

I am quite use to living with hard water.  When I lived in Wisconsin and when we lived in Aurora, we had hard water.  Hard water is tough on a lot of things.  However, one of the places you can really see it is in your bathroom.  You will often find you have what looks like soap scum that you just can’t remove.  That is where CLR Bathroom and Kitchen Cleaner comes into play.  When we lived in Aurora, we used this cleaner every time we cleaned the tub.  It was the only thing that take the “scum” we had off.  I can only highly recommend it.  Now that we live in a suburb of Chicago, we don’t have that problem quite as much.  However, over the last couple of months, I have noticed that something is definitely going with our water.  When you get water out of the tap, it is very cloudy (not sure what is causing that).  I have also noticed that we are starting to get that “soap scum” again.  I decided to pull out our go to fix:  CLR Bathroom and Kitchen Cleaner.  Guess what?  It got rid of the mess in the tub yet again.  I love this product, and I can only give it high reviews.  Best of all, CLR has earned the EPA’s Designed for the Environment designation, so you know that it contains no phosphates, ammonia or bleach.

That being said,  I am giving away two Cleaning Bucket prize packs!  The Bucket will include CLR’s entire line of products and various tools to help you clean your house.  Here’s what you need to do:

1. Leave a comment on this post. Check out their products here and tell me which ones you need in your house.
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:

<a href="http://lisareviews.com"><img src="http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk258/blm03_photos/125ad-1.png" border="0" alt="Lisa Reviews" /></a>

This giveaway will end on December 17 at 8:00 pm CST is available to US and Canada residents. Good luck!

Since I have a toddler, I thought the Toddler Tools book line would be perfect for my house.

Listening Time is a great book for teaching your kids about how to be good listeners.  Both my eighteen month old and four year old like to read it.  It is a board book, so it can’t be destroyed either.  I love that it also helps to work on body parts too.  The illustrations in this book are great, and really get across what we want our children to do.  There is also humor intertwined into the story.  It is short enough that it definitely keeps even the shortest attention spans entertained.

Bye Bye Time is another board book that is good for those really hard times when we have to say bye to our kids.  It teaches our children how to comfort themselves when they are sad that we are leaving.  There is also advice at the end of the book parents and caregivers to make this transition easier like prepping your child and to be ready for tears.  The illustrations in this book are great too.  Madison can tell me the story without being able to read it (which is a huge plus).

Naptime is another great book in this series. Like the other books, this is board book. It also has the tips in the back of the book to help parents and caregivers with naptime.  I personally learned that Will should be getting one nap daily lasting 1 – 2 hours, and he should be getting 10 – 12 hours of sleep a night.  This book is all about a naptime routine and getting your little one down for some much needed rest.  Now, if this would only work on a 4 year old.    She likes the book; it just has not motivated her to take a nap (she quit naps at 18 months).

The last book in this series is Clean Up Time. That is something we all need at our houses.  This book rhymes, so it makes it all the more fun to clean up.  This too is a board book and also has the tips at the end to help parents and caregivers.  I personally agree with the “break it down” tip.  Will doesn’t often get overwhelmed at cleaning up; he just thinks it is a game.  However, Madison gets extremely overwhelmed if someone does not help her.  By breaking down what you are going to do (pick up the blocks first), it takes away from how huge of project it is going to be.

This Toddler Tools series is a great bunch of books.  They are books that are hard to destroy and have great lessons in them.  I highly recommend them in anyone who has a toddler in their house.

If you are looking for a very affordable gift for kids ages 3 – 7, then you must get the Poingo.  With the Poingo, you are able to touch pictures and/or the text, the their favorite characters are brought to life with either music, sounds, and words.  The best part is that the Poingo starter kit is $34.99 and is available at Target, Toys R Us, Walmart, Costco, Sam’s Club, and BJ’s Wholesale Clubs.  It comes with the pen shaped Poingo and two large hardcover interactive storybooks.  This is definitely affordable, and the starter kit is awesome.  You don’t have to automatically buy another $100 worth of books right off the bat.  You have a working system right from the start.  The book choices are excellent.  The books that came with ours are Cars and Finding Nemo, so it was definitely right up my kids alley.  These movies are favorites in our house, so my kids had a definite interest in the books.   They also have Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, and Winnie The Pooh.  The pen itself is simple to use.  All you have to do is click it on the part of the book with the words, and it will read that whole section.  You can also click on the images and for sound effects.  There are words that are highlighted also, and you get a definition of the word.  You can also click on images and find out what they are or get a cool sound effect.  Madison is actually able to take this and read the book by herself.  She loves having that kind of independence.  My kids love to read, so this is really a naturally progression for them.

This is one of the best affordable educational toys on the market for kids.  I recommend checking it out — you can even try a demo here.