Up until recently, I had never heard of the Only Hearts Club.  The Only Hearts Club are real dolls for real girls. There are eight culturally diverse dolls.  They dress like real kids, are poseable, and are nine inches tall.  Their names are: Taylor Angelique, Karina Grace, Olivia Hope, Briana Joy, Lily Rose, Anna Sophia, Kayla Rae and Hannah Faith.  These girls form a club together called the Only Hearts Club and their motto is to “listen to your heart and do the right thing.”  For our house, these fit perfectly into Madison’s dollhouse.  There is another kind of doll out there that I cannot stand (I won’t name it), but these are a welcome alternative!  I love the positive message they are sending out to little girls.  They also have soft bodies which is great in my house (not that the kids are going to whack one another with them, but you never know).

They also have a line a books for your daughters to enjoy. We have the hardcover It’s Hard To Say Good-bye book.  The book about one of the girls losing her dog. One of the other girls goes to find another puppy for her and falls in love with the puppy herself.  I won’t tell you about the rest of the story, but it is about how the Only Hearts Club came about.  It is a cute short story and just the right length to hold young girls attention spans.  It also taught some morals without being obvious about it.

They even have Only Hearts Pets.  They are 2 1/2 inches tall and really cute.  They are really soft and each pet has its own name.  It also comes with a backpack clip.  The paws of each animal also have Velcro on them, so you are able to have them hold small objects like a pen or you can create a bracelet with secerql of them.  There are all sorts of pets also:  dogs, cats, monkeys, cows, pigs, frogs, and elephants.

All of these Only Hearts Club products are perfect for the little girls you have in your life.  They can be found at Target or online at The Only Hearts Club.  The Only Hearts Books retail at $3.99 each. The Only Hearts Club dolls retail at $15.99 each, and the Only Hearts Pets retail at $3.49 each.  These prices make this a very affordable present this holiday season.

I personally believe books always make great gifts. We have installed into our children how important reading is, and you can tell. Both my one year old and my four year old can often be seen flipping through books without Bill or me even around.  This is why I l love companies like GiftLit who make it easier to give books as gifts to both children and adults alike.

GiftLit has an advisory board of librarians, educators, authors, and industry experts that select the books that are sent out, so you know these are great books. They have books for every age too!  They have books for toddlers on up.  They way this works is you pick with selection of books you want.  If you are looking at the kids books, you can choose which age group you want.  For adults, you can pick anything from fiction to mysteries to history.  You can also choose how long you want your gift subscription to last.  You can buy them in 3, 6, or 12 month increment.  The best part of this is that this is the gift that keeps on giving.  Instead of the one present you get Christmas morning, you can potentially have a gift every month of the year.

We have this come to our house, and we love it.  The books are great quality books that I would have never thought to check out.  Also, what kid doesn’t like to get mail for them?  Actually, what adult doesn’t like getting a present in the mail each month?  This is truly the gift that keeps on giving, and I am deciding which book lover in my family is getting this.  If you’d like to get this for yourself or as a present, just make sure you use the code LISA1130, so you can get 10% off your order!

Rarely do I come across a book that inspires me just as much as my kids. However, Whats Your Red Ball is that book. This book is like no other book you’ve ever seen.  It is about how to overcome adversity and find your true passion.  As an adult, we all need to do this too, so this book, while geared at kids, can certainly get you thinking as an adult.  The author of this book, Kevin Carroll, went from an abandoned child with a love of sports to working for the Air Force, Philadelphia 76ers, and Nike.  His story, which is how the book starts, makes you want to be all you can be.  The book itself gives you the material to make your own “box of magic”.  This box is all about your gifts, your talents, your aspirations, your interests, and your hopes.  The rest of the book tells you how to figure out how to decorate and fill your box.  There are questions you need to answer and excercises you need to do, but by the end, you will have figured out whats your red ball.

Your age does not matter for this book.  At 31, I find inspiration in it.  This book is perfect for anyone who has lost their path in life and for those who are just finding it now.

Every since Madison saw the Alice in Wonderland play in her Kiddie Kamp over the summer, she has fallen in love with the story.  Until recently, we only had the movie.  However, now we have the book, and it is one of her most favorite books now.  She loves how they emphasize words by making them bigger than the rest and have them go in different directions.  She laughs and asks what those works say.  It makes the book more fun.  Every other page has an illustration which allows your little one to make their own side stories.  The story is just retold and still has the favorite lines like “I’m late, I’m late for a very important date and the queen of hearts yelling “off with her head”.  Alice in Wonderland is a classic that everyone should have in their home.

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.