This giveaway is now over. The winners are Courtney, Lisa, and Vickie. Congrats!

Are your kids driving you nuts yet?  It’s July 1st, and Madison has been out of school for 2 months already though I realize that regular school has only been out a month.  One of the biggest struggles in the summer time is that our kids get bored.  That is where the Summer Bridge Activities comes in!  These books have a ton of activities that are both fun and educational.  We’ve been able to work on reading, writing, math, and language already, and Madison is only starting kindergarden in the fall.  We’ve especially noticed with her that if we don’t continue working on her skills that she forgets them.  This wonderful activity book keeps her attention and keeps her skills.  We’ve worked on making our letters, coloring pictures, counting — just to name a few things.  Also, make sure you check out the bonus section!  I love that when you complete the book that there is a certificate for your child.  The activities are very age appropriate.  Now, we worked on the P-K book.  However, you can get these for all grades.  It is a great way for your kids to have fun and learn!

I have arranged for 3 of my lucky readers to get one of these activity books.  Here’s what you need to do:

Leave a comment on this post. Check out the Summer Bridge Activities and tell me which book you’d like.

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 3 Summer Bridge Activity Books. http://lisareviews.com/2009/07/01/summer-bridge-activities-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:

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

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 will end at July 15rd at noon CST! It is for US and Canadian residents! Good Luck!!

This contest is now closed. The winner is Ann Marie Walker. Congrats!

When I saw the PlanetJill products, I knew I had to include them in my gift guide for Valentine’s Day. You are able to include a picture of whoever you want into their high quality products. What screams love and Valentine’s Day more than this? I am also seeing some great Mother’s Day and Father’s Day gifts with their products also. Now, the cuff links you see above are adorable. However, I want to talk about the necklace. It is high quality and the picture you can include in there is of a good size. You aren’t having to put in miniature pictures that no one can see.  My twenty month old loves these products, because he’s at the age that he loves looking at babies.  He loved that the products show him pictures of kids (be it him or not).  He kept going “see” and “ohhhhhhhhhhhhh”.  Needless to say, their products are a hit with the kids in my house too!

I personally like how highly customized these are.  You never have to worry about having the same thing as any one else ever.  They are a great conversation piece, because everyone will want to know where you got it from!  They have so many great pieces, you will have a hard time choosing what you want (I know I did!).

Since I have so many great readers, I wanted to give an early Valentine’s Day present to one of you.  See that necklace in the picture?  I have one of those to give away to a lucky winner!  Here’s what you need to do:

Leave a comment on this post. Check out PlanetJill and tell me which product you like best.

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 a custom PlanetJill necklace! http://urlbrief.com/ea6406

2. 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.

3. 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:

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

For 10 additional entries:

I’ve added a new way to subscribe to this blog. Click on the Mobile Updates in my sidebar and subscribe to my blog that way. Let me know if you’ve done so, and you’ll have ten more entries for this contest!

This contest is for everyone (yeah!), and will end at 8:00 pm CST on February 3rd.  Good luck and check out Bloggy Giveaways for more great contests to enter.

As many of you know, Madison has been wearing glasses for almost two years now. She will be five in January, and I have to admit that getting her to wear her glasses has been a struggle. At least now she realizes that she can’t see without her glasses. However, sometimes she still tries to sneak around and not wear them. One of the things you can do is get Ficklets for your children’s glasses. Ficklets are eyewear charm huggers. Basically, they make your kids (and yours too if you like) want to wear their glasses.  It took me about five minutes (actually, I think it was less than that) to get these on Madison’s glasses, and she was extremely proud to show her Ficklets off.

Now, I got Madison the flower ones. However, they have all sorts of designs to pick from. They have everything from flowers to sports to shapes.  They even have a miscellaneous section that has lips and smiley faces!  These are definately cute and a great talking piece.  Kids will love these.  If you know anyone that wears glasses, then you definitely should get them a set of Ficklets.

Smart Boy’s Toy Club & Smart Girl’s Party Game are the only games for preschoolers (age 3-6) on Nintendo DS.  These are “first-time games for first-time gamers.”  Included on these games are 18 skill based games that help develop the memory, and they encourage creativity through activities like interactive coloring books.  They also teach basic skills and work on hand eye coordination.

SingStar is making an encore performance with SingStar Vol. 2 which has 30 new chart-topping tracks from top artists including The Bravery, Spoon, Paramore, Radiohead and many more.  You are able to access hundreds of downloadable songs via the PS3 online Singstore.  You also are able to share your SingStar experience with friends and the online My SingStar community!  You can even get  SingStar ABBA for either the PlayStation 2 or the PlayStation 3.  SingStar ABBA features over 20 chart-topping singles from ABBA’s hit album, ‘Gold’ including ‘Mamma Mia,’ ‘Gimme Gimme Gimme,’ ‘Waterloo’ and ‘Dancing Queen’.

Do you kids write and draw lots of stories? Would you love to make them into keepsake? If so, Tikatok.com is a website you will want to try out. With Tikatok, you are able to take your kids stories and drawings and make them into either hard cover or soft cover books! They even have title pages and dedication pages! You can keep them yourself or give them away as gifts! Registration on the site is free, and you don’t get charged until you order your book. You can even buy gift certificates for the author or artist in your life.

It is pretty easy to set up your book too.  Kids can definitely do it themselves.  As for the illustrations, you can either scan them and upload them yourself, or mail them in for them to to do.  If they don’t know what to make their book about, there are suggestions they can use.  You just put in what you like, and it will give you several different ways you can talk about that topic.  Your kids truly do have control of every aspect of their book.

If you’d like a unique original gift for someone, this is definitely it! Kids like nothing more than to express their creative side, and this allows them to do so and show everyone.