Monthly Archives: December 2013

Get Bundled With Restaurant.com’s Holiday Gift Guide And Giveaway

2013 Holiday Gift Guide, Gifts, , , ,

Christmas is just a couple of weeks away.  Can you believe it? We are putting our Christmas tree up today then I will be hard at work figuring out who we need to get gifts for and what to get them. I am so glad I learned about Restaurant.com’s Gift Guide because they share some fabulous gift ideas that everyone on my list will appreciate.  Everyone loves food.  Not just the taste, but the experiences and the memories that come with it.  Why not give your friends and family the gift of those experiences and memories?

Restaurant.com, the nation’s largest dining deals site, loves surprising diners with fun ways to save.  This holiday season, they’ve handpicked delicious dining experiences and gift ideas for every budget and compiled them into an exclusive Restaurant.com Holiday Gift Guide.  Simply pair any Restaurant.com Gift Card with one of these gift bundle ideas below for the ultimate dining experience and holiday treat.

Here are some great gift ideas from Restaurant.com

Restaurant.com Gift Guide

1. The Movie Buff:
 For the movie-quoting, obsessed friend, surprise them with two tickets to a movie on their must-see “Oscar” list and a $25 Restaurant.com Gift Card.

2. The Workaholic:
To help someone on your list find much needed tranquility, pair a $50 Restaurant.com Gift Card with soothing bath salts, lavender mist, and a face mask to create an affordable, at-home spa treatment.

3. The Wine Fanatic:
Bring Napa Valley to every wine lover on your list! Pair their favorite wine with decadent cheeses, crackers, and of course chocolate. Then, cleanse their palate with some late night dessert and a $25 Restaurant.com Gift Card.

4. The Romantic:
Add some romance into your holiday with a $50 Restaurant.com Gift Card, bouquet of roses, some irresistible chocolate covered strawberries, and a candlelit dinner for two.

5. The Theatre Lover:
Add some dramatic flair to the holidays with two tickets to their must-see show and end the evening with our $100 Restaurant.com Gift Card – perfect for dinner and dessert.

Be sure to check out Specials by Restaurant.com for more shopping ideas!

Restaurant.com helps you discover the perfect dining experience and boasts nearly 50,000 dining deals available every day to use anytime hunger strikes, even on the weekends! And, the deals are easy to use – present your certificate to the server on your mobile phone, or bring a printed copy, and voilà – the savings will appear on your final bill.

Restaurant.com is having a giveaway on their Facebook page!  Five (5) lucky Facebook fans will have a chance to win one of the gifts featured in their gift guide every Wednesday until December 18, 2013. Head on over for your chance to win! Good luck!

Connect with Restaurant.com

Create Your Top Of The Mantel Holiday Card On Cardstore.com.. And See Mine!

2013 Holiday Gift Guide, Gifts, Holiday, , ,

cardstore holiday cards

I told my husband that I wanted to get a photo of the kids in front of our Christmas tree, which is gorgeous.. once it is actually up, for a Christmas card.  I’ve been sick for a couple of weeks and things just haven’t gone as planned so I didn’t get my dream photo.  I probably wouldn’t have anyway.  If I recall correctly, when I tried to get the ‘perfect’ photo of the kids last holiday season, I ended up almost crying I was so frustrated.

I was so happy with the first holiday card I made on Cardstore.com that I didn’t think I could possibly create a card I liked better.  Well, I did.  It took a little digging through photos on dropbox, facebok, and my computer, which cardstore.com makes easy, but I found several photos of the kids that sum up their year fabulously.

So here it is..

Our Cardstore.com Personalized Holiday Cards

The entire time I was designing this card, I had the song “My Favorite Things” playing over and over in my head.   I finally decided to include in this post since it was such a party of the design experience.

You should go here (a YouTube page in a new window) and start the orchestral music for “My Favorite Things” before reading my lyrics.  Hearing the music puts you in the right place. 🙂

Rainbows And Smiles On Warm Summer Days
Sebastian Playing Lacrosse And Madelyn Balancing On Beams
Soccer Balls Zooming Around In The Spring
These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things

Trips To The Beach With My Husband And Kids
Watching Madelyn Read Books At A Fast Pace
Looking Forward To What The Future May Bring
These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things

Decorating For Christmas With Music In The Background
Knowing Sebastian Will Be An Eagle Scout One Day
Getting Warm Hugs After School Everyday
These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things

When The Guinea Pigs Squeal
Because They’re Hungry
Or When I Trip On Lacrosse Balls
I Simply Remember My Favorite Things
And Then I Don’t Feel So Bad

Feel free to share your version of “My Favorite Things” in the comments below.  So often we focus on the bad and annoying things in life.  I think it’s important to focus on the good and writing your own version of this song is a great way to do that!

Keep in mind that you need to order your customized holiday cards by December 16th in order for them to arrive at their destination by Christmas Eve. 

Like I mentioned in previous post about Cardstore.com, the process of creating a customized holiday card is quick and easy.   You can add photos from lots of photo sharing sites including Facebook, Instagram, Dropbox, Picasa, Flickr, and more.  There are dozens of holiday card designs to choose from which most being a postcard but several are folding cards.

Here is a Cardstore.com giveaway you can enter!

Mom Central and Cardstore are currently running a giveaway on the Mom Central Facebook page, with chances to win ten (10) $50 Amex Gift Cards and one (1) grand prize of a $300 Amex Gift Card! Here is the link: http://bit.ly/1gaAy4M

Create your own personalized holiday cards at http://po.st/PersonalizeYourCard today!

Make Your Own LEGO Minifigure Family Holiday Card and Share it Instantly, Free!

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This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of LEGO for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

We are a LEGO family.  We're not really LEGOs.. we just really like LEGOs and when I saw the new LEGO Minifigure Family holiday card that's available for anyone to make online, free, I jumped on it!   Who doesn't want to make themselves into a LEGO Minifigure?

The process to create a card is simple.  Select whether you want to create an adult, child, baby, dog, or cat, then name and customize that person.  You can customize the skin tone, facial expression, hat, hair, shirt, and pants.  Given that my son loves building stuff and being outdoors, I gave him an outdoorsy shirt.   I made my husband look like a cowboy just for the heck of it.  There is a cowboy hat but I didn't want to take it too far so I didn't give him a hat.  I suppose in another life I might like track suits so I had some fun with my minifigure and zipped on a flashy purple tracksuit with pink and white stripes.   Sassy, huh?

customized LEGO minifigure family holiday card

There are 12 cute scenes in which your family can be enjoying their holiday.   I almost chose the wild west theme to go with my husband's LEGO cowboy look but opted for something a little more subtle and realistic.  After all, this adorable card might be the closest I will get to a photo of all four of us near a Christmas tree.  🙂

Do you know what would be fun?  Have your kids create their own LEGO Minifigure Family holiday card, all on their own.  Who knows what your child will have you dressed in or where you will be.  On the beach maybe?  Or perhaps in outer space!  Yep, those are two of the 12 scene options. 

Once you’ve customized the Minifigure for each of your family members, you can download the image to your computer and share the holiday card with your friends and family via Facebook, Twitter, email, Pinterest, or direct link.

You will have a blast creating your own customized LEGO Minifigure Family holiday card!

Visit Sponsor's Site

Madelyn Loves Reading Thanks to iPad App Bookboard

Age 3-5, Age 5-7, Age 7-10, iPad, ,

Bookboard iPad reading appI cancelled cable about a year ago because I was so frustrated with the kids always expecting to be able to watch tv, then they’d turn into zombies when they were allowed to watch something, then they turned into evil little monsters when I told them to do something while they were watching tv.   Since I cancelled cable, I’ve had to come up with ways, creative ways, to occupy my 7-year-old.  My 14-year-old occupies himself by doing stuff outside, but my daughter has a difficult time finding things to do even though she has a gazzilion toys.  I was told about an iPad app called Bookboard recently that encourages children to read.  I’ve tried dozens of reading apps with my daughter but she never stuck with any of them.  I purposely didn’t right this post until she had been using the app for a month to be sure that it really was different and she still enjoyed it after that long.

Bookboard iPad app

For children who are inundated with fast-paced video games and television shows, reading has become a chore rather than a delight. The myriad benefits of reading–increased vocabulary, more developed analytical and critical reasoning, improved memory and focus–are useless if a child never picks up a book. Fortunately, not all electronic devices are detrimental to the habit of reading: one iOS app, Bookboard, has reimagined the concept to enchant and encourage young readers to explore the infinite world of reading.

Bookboard iPad app reading

Bookboard is especially appealing to children who have not yet fostered a love for reading. The gaming features (collecting new ebooks and unlocking items) provide an incentive for kids who are struggling with reading to continue to practice. And, of course, children who are already avid readers will enjoy using their skills to earn new titles to explore.

Bookboard is designed for readers up to age 12, and includes over 400 ebooks that are unlocked gradually the more a child reads.   My daughter responds well to incentives and the Bookboard app offers just that.

Madelyn reading Bookboard iPad app

You can download a 30-day free trial of Bookboard to explore its features and test out its unique motivational approach to reading. If you like the app, the pricing options for a full subscription are pleasingly affordable. A monthly subscription runs just $8.99 per month. A six-month subscription costs only $29.94, which works out to less than $5 a month. Considering many hardcover books run $30 or over, accessing Bookboard’s extensive library for the same price is a great deal.

bookboard

Gift subscriptions to Bookboard can also be purchased for friends or family whose children will appreciate the gift of unlimited reading. A full year’s subscription only costs $54.99.

Bookboard subscribers enjoy other features of the app, including offline reading capabilities. Bookboard allows you to download up to twenty books at a time for your child to read at their leisure, no matter how far they are from a WiFi hotspot. Subscribers also have access to audio books which allow children to tap words or blocks of text to hear them read aloud.

If you are looking for a new way to encourage your child to read, give Bookboard a try. Its goal-based approach might just transform your reluctant reader into a bona fide bookworm.

Connect with Bookboard

3 Stocking Stuffer Ideas for Outdoorsy Teenage Boys

2013 Holiday Gift Guide, Gifts,

lunchbox disclosure

You know the old saying.. nothing smells quite like the great outdoors.  I agree 100% with that!   Sometimes the great outdoors doesn’t smell so good though.   It will knock you to your feet.  When my son spends hours outside high up in trees or building a campfire or making something, that outdoor aroma is undeniable the second he walks in the door.   His routine when he walks in the back door from being outside for hours includes taking off his shoes then going straight for a shower.   He’s not allowed to sit on any furniture, take his stinky clothes off anywhere but in his room or the laundry area, or even grab something to eat.  It’s straight to the shower.

When it comes to body and hair wash for my teenage son, it may have taken me until he was 12 years old or so, to realize that he could no longer get by with just baby wash.  He and my daughter couldn’t share anymore.  🙁  Baby wash just doesn’t provide the lather and scent that he needs as a teenage boy.  AXE’s Phoenix shower gel gets him clean and more importantly, to me, he *smells* clean after showering.   My son insists on keeping his hair long and his hair gets oily.  Long and oily is not an attractive combination so I bought him AXE Intense Deep Clean Shampoo for oily hair, and despite the fact that he’s not thrilled about having to use two different products (oh no!) in the shower, using a shampoo for oily hair makes a huge difference and he likes the scent of AXE’s products so that’s a plus.

AXE shampoo

On days when he has something important to do like a band concert or a ceremony at Boy Scouts, he uses AXE Clean Cut Look Pomade in his hair.  Although this post is sponsored by AXE and Sam’s Club, the AXE items I’ve mentioned here are items that my son has used for months.  Call it a great match!

Here are three great stocking stuffer ideas for the teen boy in your life

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Don’t know what to get your guys this holiday season? AXE® Products at Sam’s Club make the ultimate stocking stuffer! They come in three packs so you can split them up between each man in your life –saving you time and money while keeping them happy and smelling good!

Which boy or man in your life will be getting AXE® in their stocking this holiday season?