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!!

As many of you know, we remodeled our basement this last summer, so we had some extra room in the house. We now have a huge play area for the kids. However, even though the basement itself is warm, the floor is freezing cold. We have been looking for sandals and/or slippers for Will that he wouldn’t easily be able to take off. We found the perfect match with the Polliwalks shoes. These shoes are not only cute, but extremely functional too. For the winter time, we got him the puppy dog shoes. They are super warm for him. I love that the bottoms are nonstick. We have hardwood floors upstairs which also get very cold in the winter. I can never put him in socks, because he either doesn’t leave the socks on or he slips and falls wherever he tries to go. With these shoes, he can’t easily get them off (though I can easily get them on), and he isn’t falling all over. He also is a huge puppy fan right now, so he loves them just because they are puppies.

Now, for the summer (or when we can’t find his puppy shoes), we got him the Fish Shoes. I love them. These shoes include the back straps that ensure that they stay on your little ones feet. It also makes it super easy to adjust for a custom fit for your kids’ feet. They are super easy to get on and my son has yet to try and take them off.  The fish lips change color when exposed to UV rays of the sun too!  How cool is that?  Right now, these are only in select Dillards stores and online at Zappos.com.  They will be available at all of their retailers in Jan/Feb.

Overall, I am impressed with the Polliwalks shoes that we got. They are made out of high quality material, and try as he might, my son has not figured out how to wreck them yet. They are cute and can definitely take a beating. These are shoes that will easily be passed down from kid to kid and still look great!  Now, since these are so great, I want to offer pair to one of my lucky readers!

1. Leave a comment on this post.  Check out the Polliwalks site and tell me which pair of Polliwalks shoes you would want.
2. Twitter about this contest. Please leave me your username so I can verify.
3. 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.
4. Add this post to other social media sites like Digg, Kirtsy, Blogging Zoom, Reddit, Propeller, Etc. (1 entry for each social network).

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
4. Add my badge to your sidebar:

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This giveaway will end on December 14 at 8:00 pm CST is available to US residents only. Good luck!

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.

Over the past week or so, I have been reading an awesome book called The Secret of Wellington’s Map.  Granted, this isn’t my normal reading genre (usually if I can get a few minutes away I pick up Stephen King or Dean R Koontz book), but you know what?  I enjoyed this book just as much as I do books by those authors (though I think this book would be considered in either the sci-fi or mystery genre).  I would say that The Secret of Wellington’s Map is probably geared towards the ten and up crowd.  However, as an adult, I truly enjoyed the book too.  I found the author’s style a joy to read, and she really caught the essence of teenage girls in this book.  I also enjoyed finding a book that girls are the heroines.  The other thing I liked is that even though the main characters are teenage girls, they weren’t boy crazy.  Granted, there were a few boy mentions, but their lives didn’t revolve around boys.  The author had the girls talking, acting, and dressing like teenage girls, so I found them very believable.  There is also a bit of real life history intertwined into the story.

The story centers around two girls, Jaime and Nicole, that had expected a carefree summer.  However, after they come across a magic map, they go on an adventure of a lifetime.  I hate to go into more of a synopsis of the book, because I don’t want to spoil any part of it for you.  I will tell you that the map is somewhat of a time space portal, and they do go through it and end up in 1885.  However, if you want to find out why and if they make it back, you have to go read the book!

Summer heat in Chicago has been so hot lately (yes, I am complaining about those 90 degree days with 90% humidity).  With our newly remodeled basement and the Wii we just bought, we are definitely have some fun down there.  Since we have no games for our newly acquired Wii, we headed over to the nearest game store.  I luck out that we live less than five minutes from mall.  I also luck out that we have two Gamestops in our mall (one on each end).  We checked them both out.  One did seem to have more kid games; the other more adult games.  We are not sure if this was on purpose or just happened to be that way when we were there.  I liked that we got to check out the Wii there before buying it.  Madison immediately picked up a controller and started playing a Sonic game, so we knew she would adapt quickly.  The other thing I really liked about Gamestop was that you can buy used games.  You don’t have to spend an arm and a leg on games then.  We don’t care how old the games are as long as they are fun.  I was afraid that they wouldn’t work, but we were assured that they were guaranteed to play.  We were also told that we could bring in some of our old games and get credit to buy some new ones (and we have a stack of games nobody ever plays!).  I found that the workers behind the counter at both stores were extrememly helpful, and they didn’t mind too much that my four year was picking out ten games she wanted us to buy (we settled on Wall-E).  I would highly recommend Gamestop as your one stop game shop (they also have gaming systems and accessories, so you can get those there too!).