Did you know that Baby Einstien has been around for 10 years?  I can’t believe it either.  Granted, my oldest child is only going to be five, so I’ve only been able to enjoy them for half the time they have been around.  That being said I love baby Einstein and all of their products.  We own a ton of Baby Einstein DVDs and books.  I can totally see how they are the #1 selling infant DVD line.  The best part of their DVDs is that they are timeless.  Madison will still watch the DVDs with her little brother Will (who is now 18 months old).  Their DVDs are some of the best ones out there in my opinion.  Not only do they entertain your children, they also learn from them. You can easily interact with your children and talk about what’s on the screen.  It is almost amazing how memorized little kids get while watching these DVDs.  I also love that their music collection.  We have used their Lullaby Classics CD with both of my children.  Baby Enstein’s book collection is also great.  Their books are very interactive.  They include your children as part of the story and require your children to interact with the book.  For example, in Touch and Feel Farm animals, they are able to feel a sheep’s wool, a cow’s nose, and a horses mane.  Will is very much into textures right now, so this is one of his favorite books. Madison still reads their See and Spy shapes book!  Each page asks you to look for a count certain items, and no matter how many times we do it, she still loves it!

Having been a huge fan of Baby Einstein for 5 years, I can only tell you that I highly recommend all of their products.  We have yet to have a product of theirs that we didn’t like.  Their products make great presents for you kids, a baby shower, or just for the fun of it.

Do your kids play on the Internet? Do you worry about them deleting your files or renaming them? Do you worry that they will end up on some porn site or worse? If you answered yes, you need to get KidDesktop.  KidDesktop was designed for children between the ages of 3 and 7. It gives them a safe learning experience, and you don’t have to worry about them deleting or renaming any of your files.
KidDesktop has a customized start screen and activity bar. You are able to customize it with activities, games, and websites that your children enjoy (for us, we did Noggin and Playhouse Disney. Madison knows those sites like the back of her hand). They even have the option to download and view pictures. (I can see some adults using this feature too, since it is about 100 times easier than my photo program). They even have a feature that allows you to search YouTube. For us, that is the greatest feature. We like to look for things on YouTube, but I never know when we start a video what exactly we are opening. Another great feature is that you can set time limits too! If I would let her, I think Madison could play on the computer for eight hours straight! I also like that the help menu is spoken too. Madison can’t read yet, so this helps her figure it out for herself without having to get me.

If you have kids in your house between the ages of 3 and 7 and let them on the computer, you definitely need to get a copy of this in your house! The internet will never be 100% safe, but this definitely helps make it safer for your kids.

Let me start by saying up until now, I was not a huge fan of Barbie. As a kid, I didn’t really play with her, and Madison is too little for them. I actually had no idea that Barbie even had DVDs out (and sold more than 58 million units!) till I came across Barbie & The Diamond Castle.  I was all ready to not like it.  However, I was surprised to find that I did like it (and the really sad thing is that I have one of the songs stuck in my head, and we watched it over two hours ago!).  The story was fast moving enough that it kept Madison’s attention.  Will absolutely loved the dogs in this movie.  Ever time they came on the screen, he screamed and giggled.  The animation was great — they almost looked real.  At no point did the movie get too scary either (sometimes when bad things happen in movies it scares the kids).  I like the moral of the story too.  It was about friendship being the greatest gift of all.  The DVD didn’t really push the moral either, but with the great story, really got it across.  The music in this movie is good too (see note above about having it stuck in my head).  Madison was singing the songs from it immediately after watching it.  After watching this movie, we will definitely be getting more Barbie movies.

If you have little ones in your house, check out Baby Rodenburg. This DVD teaches you child sign language, A-B-C’s, numbers, colors, and animals.  The DVD was a huge hit here.  Madison (my 4 year old) is learning sign language in preschool, so she loved the reinforcement.  My son who is 15 months loved it due to the music and seeing other babies.  I am not sure if he really “understood” any of the sign language.  Mom like it, because I got to actually learn some sign language (like how to sign eat) that is actually quite useful at my house.

My only complaint about the DVD is that it seems a bit disorganized at times.  I wish they correlated the signing to whichever letter they were on.  Meaning, when they did the sign for eat, I think they should have been talking about the letter E.  That being said, they really reinforced each sign and what it means using several different ways.  As each thing was signed, Madison often repeated the sign several times and repeated the word that went with the sign.  Will danced with the music and pointed to the screen and said “seeeeeee” every time an animal, baby, or toddler was on.

This DVD was created by a set of parents who couldn’t find any DVDs out there that fit their needs for their child.  Instead of complaining, they made their own DVD to use with their own child and to share with the rest of us!

Yes, you heard it right.  I am completely jealous of all of you, since I only got one of these to borrow!  The Sony Digital Photo Frame is worth about $249.99, so this is a giveaway you want enter!

Let me tell you a little bit about this frame.  It is a 9-inch digital photo frame with 800×480 resolution and 15:9 aspect ratio LCD screen.  It has 512MB of internal memory with optional image resizing to maximize the internal memory.  It also includes HDMI output for viewing photos in high definition on an HDTV.  You are able to auto correct images with features such as red-eye correction.  It also offers nine slide show styles and clock and calendar modes.  Now, I know that all sounds difficult to figure out what to do.  However, I was able to do this all without reading the manual!  This digital picture frame is even BlueTooth ready!  You can also run the pictures off several different kinds of memory cards:  Memory Stick media and Memory Stick PRO Duo media, SD, MMC, CF, Microdrive, and xD Picture cards. I seriously could not believe how crisp these pictures are.  I am seriously sad that I have to venture over to Fed Ex on Monday and send mine back.

Now, I know you don’t want to read about how much fun we had playing testing this out for you, my readers, so . . . . what do you have to do to get one of these in your house?

1.  Leave a comment on this post.  Check out Sony’s site and tell me what feature you think you would like best on this frame.  One comment please and let me know everything you did on that comment.  If you don’t list a feature, you are not eligible to win.
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. Vote for this post on other social media sites. One extra entry for each social media site you vote for this on.  (I’ll be adding some links to make this especially easy for you to vote — Digg, Propeller, Mixx, Kirtsy, Entreview, Reddit, Blogging Zoom)
4.  Twitter about this contest.  Please leave me your Twitter name in your comment.

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

This contest will run from now till August 24th at 8 PM CST.  It is for US residents only.  Good luck!