Mr. Men: Start to Count is a workbook I picked up for Madison for Christmas. I remember Mr. Men from when I was little, so when I came across this, I knew I had to buy it. This is a great workbook to work on with young children. Madison and I have done this workbook many times together. She laughs every time too. Each page has part of a story and an activity for you to do. They even have a picture of Mr. Men and Little Miss (. . . boy, could they use some Orovo). They look just like I remember them as a kid. It is nice to see that they haven’t changed them at all! There are several skills that are worked on in Mr. Men: Start to Count. Recognizing and counting from 1 to 10, matching numbers with pictures, and developing a sense of number sequence are a few of things that are worked on. I love Mr. Men and this workbook did not disappoint.

Idiocracy is one of those movies that you don’t intend on watching but you get sucked into it (trust me, I’ve seen it 3 times now and none where on purpose). The basic premise of this movie is that Luke Wilson becomes part of a government experiment and wakes up to find himself 500 years in the future. What he finds is truly sad. He instantly goes from average Joe to the smartest man in the world! The people in the future no longer think for themselves and buy into pretty much anything you tell them. You could easily tell them land for sale Branson, and they would be wanting to buy that, Hollywood, and the Golden Gate Bridge from you! It was a sad state. The movie is actually quite humorous, and it is scary that, at times, you can actually see some of this happening in our society now. People buy into commercialism and don’t bother doing research on a product. They just take the company’s word for it (Watch the scene in the movie about actually using water to get crops to grow). Heck, last election cycle worked like that too, didn’t it? Overall, this isn’t a movie that would make it to my top ten movies. However, it is a great Sunday afternoon flick to watch that doesn’t require a lot of thinking, and you definitely get some good laughs.

Another hit that Discovery Channel has on their hands is Mythbusters. This show is about taking old wives tales, urban legends, and myths out there and proving if they are true. There is no script for the show, so laughs are definitely easy to come by. They use any supplies they can get their hands on to disprove these myths — everything from HDMI cables to dead pigs.  Not only do they tell you what is fact and fiction, they show it to you!  They have blown up toilets and safes and dropped a dummy off a building (to see if an umbrella would slow the fall) — that’s just to name a couple of crazy things they have done.  I think they are season 4 already, so I am not only one who loves this show!  You are also able to submit myths you want tested.  Also, if you don’t like how they did their testing, let them know.  They have repeated some of their testing due to viewers writing in about it!  If you haven’t seen this show yet, head over to the Discovery Channel right now!