When Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs came out in the theaters, Madison’s aunt had taken her to the movies to see it.  She loved it!  This is one of the few movies she’s actually been able to tell us everything that happened.  I was disappointed that this movie wasn’t out for Christmas, but ecstatic when I found out this would be released January 5th!  (This is 2 days before her birthday).  Haven’t heard of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs yet?  You can see the movie trailer here.

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is about a boy wants to live his dream to be an inventor.  When this boy’s (now a man), latest contraption accidentally destroys the town square and rockets up into the clouds, he thinks his inventing career is over.  Then something amazing happens to Flint Lockwood (Bill Hader) as delicious cheeseburgers start raining from the sky. His machine actually works! However, everybody starts getting more and more greedy, it causes the food machine to go crazy.  Spaghetti tornadoes and giant meatballs threaten the world!  Now, if you want to know how it ends, you’ll have to watch the movie. 

We were able to watch a copy of this DVD, and I have to admit that I think I like Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs just as much as Madison.  It has a catchy story and nobody breaks out in song.  It has some great lessons in it — the best of which has to be “be true to yourself”.  I gladly sat through watching it a second time in a row, because my kids wanted too.  (On a funny side note, Will loved naming off all the food he saw that he knows the words for.  For a kid in speech therapy, it was kinda cool to watch).

My kids are huge pirate fans, so I knew we had to check out the new Playmobil: The Secret of Pirate Island.  This movie is based of off the best selling Playmobil Pirates playsets.  The DVD is actually pretty cool, because you can watch it more than one way.  First, you can watch this like a normal DVD.  However, there is a second way to watch this that is pretty cool.  You can also watch this using the interactive feature (which my five year old loves).  At certain points in the story, Jack and Amelia (two characters in this) will stop and ask you what they should do.  At this point, your kids get to chose what path to take.  There is 28 different possible story combination, so this movie will never get old.  The plot of the story is that Jack and Amelia are trying to find the treasure before the skeletons get there.  Think they can do it?

Veggie Tales: Saint Nicholas: A Story of Joyful Giving is a great movie to start watching with your kids.  My kids are Veggie Tale fans, so this movie fits perfectly in our collection.  When you are feeling that Christmas is becoming way to commercialized, then give this movie a view.  Veggie Tales: Saint Nicholas: A Story of Joyful Giving takes Santa out of the picture (though you do get a couple of glimpses into that story thanks to Larry) and instead tells the story of Saint Nicholas.  I even learned a few things about Saint Nicholas that I didn’t know (SPOILER ALERT:  His parents died.)  This movie really reminds you of what Christmas is suppose to be about.  The DVD includes ways for kids and families to help a long-established charity called Samaritan’s Purse and a catchy video by Matthew West and Amy Grant, “Give This Christmas Away.”  I love that my kids are learning about charity and giving and not even realizing it (though we just did a food drive at school for the homeless, so we talked about that after watching this).  This is a great holiday movie that will be pulled for years in my house.

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I love when toys from when I was kid come back for my kids. My sister and I loved My Little Pony. Madison has a couple of them too. Will loves to brush their hair. Now, My Little Pony has a new DVD that has come out called Twinkle Wish Adventure. It is about the ponies waiting for the Winter Wishes festival. The Wishing Star there grants each pony one wish.  However, it goes missing and the ponies have to find it!  The movie is about the journey they take and what they learn along the way.  My kids loved the movie.  They loved the extras too!

This DVD is jam packed with extras too.  There are two extra stories on here (Elefun & Friends and Waiting For The Winter Wishes Festival).  There is also 6 sing along songs (My Little Pony theme, The Thing-A-Ma-Do Song, Dreams Do Come True, Somewhere Super New, That’s What Makes A Friend, an A Wonderful Winter Song) and 4 downloadable activities (coloring sheet, note to Santa, How to Make a Snowman, and even pony cut out ornaments).

This DVD is full of great things and would make a great Christmas present to any My Little Pony fan.  They will spend hours with this DVD and all its related activities!

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This giveaway is now over. The winner is Bridget Michelle Combs. Congrats!

With Madison learning to read, I knew that the iKnow Animals, Letters & Sounds Beginning Reading System was something she was going to love, and I was right.  This 3 disk DVD is both interactive and just beautiful.  I loved how the narrator talked in rhymes as we went along.  They also reinforced the letters that the each animal they were talking about started with.  This is something Madison is currently work on in school, so this was great reinforcement for her.  Madison’s favorite animal on the DVDs right now is the naked mole rat (can you guess why?).  I love that they get the kids learning without realizing it.  The DVDs are really an adventure for them, but they learn animal conservation along the way too.  Granted, this was more for Madison to work with, Will (my 2 year old) has also been enjoying these DVDs too.  As we have learned with his speech therapy, never turn down an opportunity to help him with his talking.  Since he loves animals, we’ve been able to reinforce some of the easier animals that he knows like fox and such.  I just loved that they both sat down and enjoyed watching these.

With that being said, I know I have a lot of readers that this would be great for, so I have arranged for a set of DVDs to be given to one lucky reader!  Here’s what I need you to do:

Here’s what you need to do:

To enter, check out the iKnow Animals, Letters & Sounds Beginning Reading System website and tell me either another product of theirs that you like or something you learned!

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:

Win an iKnow Animals, Letters & Sounds Beginning Reading System from @blm03 Enter here: http://lisareviews.com/2009/10/21/iknow-animals-letters-sounds/

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:

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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.

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This contest will end November 4th at noon CST! Both US and Canadian residents are eligible! Good Luck!!

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