I am always on the lookout for other cooking blogs and they are much easier to find than say a bus for sale. I am always on the lookout for a great recipe for my family to try. Select Visions does not disappoint. I found recipes for Spinach Mushroom burgers and a link to Pepsi Chicken that I know we are going to try! If you want a place to check out for recipes for your family, Select Vision is your stop.
Madison and I have been reading both the Let’s Get Ready For Kindergarten and Let’s Get Ready For First Grade. These books are great. Even with Madison only being four, we are able to do activities out of both of these books. The first thing I love is that we can write with our felt tip pens on these books and then erase when we are done with the activities. The activities are also very age appropriate. We are able to do some of the activities, because they worked on them in preschool. However, there are a lot of things we will be working towards. In the kindergaren book, there is a list of skills that we should be working on with Madison like knowing our address and phone number, taking turns, and recognizing your left and right. Now, Madison knows a bunch of things on that list. However, there is a good chunk of things she doesn’t (like knowing her left and right). There are a lot of skills in these books that we will be working on all summer, so she’s set for preschool again in the fall. I’m glad we have a fun way to work on them.
For the last couple of weeks, we have been trying out a projector from Projector123. Let’s just say that it has been such a big hit in our house that Bill now wants to buy one.
Can you guess the movie on the left? It’s Cars. That picture is on one of my walls in the basement. We didn’t have any white walls to use, so that picture is on a blue wall. It made it slightly darker (we shined it on the white door to see the difference). I’ll be honest — I was impressed. The picture was so clear and crisp. It also was huge! I wouldn’t have needed my contacts to see it!
Now, I didn’t take a picture of this but we set this up with our PlayStation 2. Madison tried both Star Wars Legos and Indiana Jones Legos on here. It was awesome. The characters were taller than Will. He just ran up and down the wall touching the characters. It was quite humorous to watch (and I should have video taped it but I didn’t think of it at the time!)
After the kids were in bed, Bill and I tested it out with a non-kid friendly movie. Madison and Will’s movie were made to be crisp and clear. How would a real movie hold up?
You should be able to guess this movie pretty easily. I took this picture from the side to show you how movie theater like it was. We just hooked up two speakers, and it was like being in the theater (we were just missing the popcorn).
Even though we used this for a lot of fun movie nights at my house, there are so many more uses for it. I have seen these used at weddings, graduation parties, and memorial services that I have been too. Its a great way to show a montage of pictures easily. At the rate of $99 for a weekend, you can’t go wrong. They FedEx it to you and they even give you a return label to FedEx it back!
We allow my four year old daughter on the internet. Yes, we are right there and monitor what she is doing. She is only playing games on Noggin or Disney Playhouse. However, I do worry about when she gets a bit older Did you know that:
These are just a few of the scary statistics out there. I like to think that I am always going to know what my kids are doing online. However, I know that isn’t always going to possible. That is where GuardChild comes in. It does exactly what you think it does. Its all about protection, education, and community. You are able to protect your family by blocking pornography, stopping online predators, and monitoring instant messages, blogs, chat rooms (AOL, MSN, and Yahoo) email, and even what your child is doing on MySpace. You also are able to join the members community which will give you hundreds of articles, parent resources, educational sites, and family-friendly entertainment sites. Lastly, there is community. Guard Child has a blog that allows you to share concerns and successes, learn from online safety experts, and contribute articles, advice, and questions.
The saying that it takes a village to raise a child is still true. Things have changed so much since I was little. I can only imagine what it will be like in a few years when Madison will be trying to hide what she is doing online from me. However, I do believe in being proactive and software like this is exactly what you need.
The Discovery Channel is awesome. I have another show on there you have to watch. It’s called When We Left Earth, and it is all about the space program. You get to watch the real footage from when man first went into space, and when he went to the moon. I know the next show is going to show the Challenger mission. The reason I find this so interesting is that I wasn’t even born in the time frame of the first two shows. It is one thing to read the history in a book; it is another to actually see it unfold in front of you. You can feel the tention in the room while you are waiting to see if they actually make it into space. They even interview the people involved now to tell you what they thought back then. The technology they had back then (there was no such thing as dell memory chips) is just mindblowing. It is hard that they made it into space with what they had. I accidentally caught this one night, and I am glad I did.
Now that we are heading into summer, I have been on the lookout for sunscreen for me and kids (more so me though — I have some spf50 for them already). It is really hard to find a facial product that isn’t greasy and slimy. I find that the more greasy that a sunscreen feels, the more it makes my face break out. Trust me, I do not need any more help in my breakouts — I do fine enough on my own on that one. When I saw that Screen Inc. had some dermatologist approved facial sunscreen, I knew that I had to try it.
The first kind I looked at is chicscreen. Now, this is spf 16+, and you should be reapplying every two hours to keep the protection strong. The nice thing is that you can apply this under your makeup. I had to giggle a bit when I read the warnings on this. The two things I found humorous was the warning that I was a smart gal so I shouldn’t eat it and that no boys are allowed to use it since this product is was designated for the feminine crowd. This was not tested on animals.
Secondly, there was the manscreen. I loved this stuff. This also is spf 16+ and should be reapplied every 2 hours. Directions for use: shower, shave, screen. No man can screw that up. Bill liked that it didn’t smell fruity. For some reason, he doesn’t want to smell like a dozen of roses when he walks out the door. The warnings on here also made me smile: apply only to you dapper face, for manly men only — no youngsters, and use your noodle — don’t swallow this stuff.
Next, there is the teenscreen. Same as above — spf 16+ and make syre you keep applying it for protection. To quote the directions, just like deodorant, use Teen Screen daily. The warning I liked the best is “as much as you love avocado and green tea, don’t swallow this product”.
Lastly, there is the tweenyscreen. This one has a tropical fruit scent (you know, the one Bill didn’t want to smell like when using sunscreen which makes me want to use it all the more!). It is spf 16+ and needs to be reapplies after 2 hours like the rest.
This sunscreen is already in complience with the upcoming standards on testing and packaging from the FDA. They also have received the Seal Of Recommendation from the Skin Cancer Foundation. Personally, I liked the sunscreen so much that I am extremely excited to see that they are going to be coming up with a spf30 lipscreen and a spf 35 extreme sunscreen. I am also able to extend a special discount to all of you. If you enter BLOGGER10 with your order, you will save 10%! This is a sunscreen you should try out this summer and you’ll never go back!
I recently came across a blog that I have to pass on. It’s called the Mom2Mom Lounge. The first thing that grabbed my eye was the clean design. It is so organized that you can easily find what you are looking for. The design is also pleasing to the eye (I can’t stand the ones that make me want to take forks and stick them into my eyes). This blog shows that less is better. Navigating the blog is super easy too. I love the Discover New Sites section. You never know what other great finds you will find using that.
The style of writing on Mom2Mom Lounge is awesome. You feel as if you are having a conversation with the blog author rather than being talked to. She does employ some advertising (don’t we all?), but she blends it in so it does not distract from the content. She uses the Comment Luv plugin, so if you do comment you will get some linky love juice (and who doesn’t want a backlink?)
All in all, Mom2Mom Lounge is a blog you should go check out. She is going everything right — good design, engaging her readers, etc. These are things you want to see with all blogs and don’t. Head over there and tell me what you think!
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