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Bloggin Mamas Cruise

Posted by html404 on August 8, 2010
in Blog Stuff, Contests, Fun Stuff

This event is sponsored by Healthy and Happy Mom and The Moms on Vacation Travel Club.

Attention Mama bloggers, this is especially for you!

What is it?

Healthy and Happy Mom and The Moms on Vacation Travel Club want to see what it is like to be you. They want to know about your blog, why you started it, how you make it happen everyday, and what makes your blog the best. They want you to submit videos of a day in your life. They hope to feature your submissions daily on our Youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/blogginmamas

More Resources:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=115743541809817

http://www.youtube.com/blogginmamas

http://blogginmamascruise.com/wordpress/?p=561

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Anniversary Celebration & A Movie Review

Posted by html404 on August 1, 2010
in Blog Stuff

“Choose your love and love your choice.” - Amish Proverb Suzanne Woods Fisher’s Mother

I read this on Friday and thought how appropriate to read this on our anniversary. Isn’t that what we do? We choose the love of our life and it is a choice to continue loving that person. This quote went right along with one of the two movies we watched Friday night after we went out to dinner and a round of mini golf, which by the way was a lot of fun! The 16th hole was so bad for me that I had 12 shots and set Robert under a pine tree to retrieve my golf ball! I had been winning up until that hole. Let’s blame mosquitoes and a pregnant woman’s need for the “ladies room” on my poor ending….hmmmm….

The movie that went along with the quote was, The Wager, starring Randy Travis and Candace Cameron Bure. Randy Travis plays an oscar nominated actor in the movie whose life quickly takes on a downward spiral due to circumstances and situations quite beyond his control. And the above quote would be a perfect quote for Randy and his wife in the movie.

This movie was about trials life throws our way. It is about the valleys we hit and our response to them and to God. It is also about the victory we have in Christ when He brings us through to the darkness and into the light at the end of those trials. No matter what we are going through, the Lord is there for us. He has a greater purpose for our lives than our finite minds can fathom.

We rated the movie 4 out of 5 stars. We really enjoyed it. I cried but my hormones are raging and any movie these days will cause the tears to flow!

My husband thought it was a good movie. He liked the fact that there was no nudity, no offensive language and it had a good positive message, and that the characters and their problems were realistic.

In a day when commitment/vows to one’s spouse is not always taken seriously and the divorce rate is 50%, it seems reasonable to do a little bit of reflection when anniversary time rolls around. Anyone married knows that marriage has its mountain tops and valleys, but what gets couples through those valleys? I think for Christians, the Lord Jesus Christ is the One who helps couples stick together. Secondly, both people in a marriage have to be completely committed to each other through good times and bad. Thirdly, couples have to have communication lines wide open so the little stuff doesn’t pile up and grow into big stuff that has had time to fester and grow.

In some ways it is amazing that we have been married as long as we have been, yet in other ways it seems like such a short time ago we were getting married in a small country church. We are thankful for the years we’ve had together and pray for many more to come.

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Ben Pao Restaurant Review – Chicago

Posted by html404 on July 23, 2010
in Blog Stuff, Food and Treats

Disclosure: This dinner event was sponsored by MyBlogSpark and I was provided with the dinner, gift card, product and information through MyBlogSpark. My thoughts and opinions are my own. The decision to even write this post was completely voluntary.

Amazingly, last night I found myself in the city of Chicago for the second time in two weeks for a blogging event. I am a member of several blogging networks, but both events this month was a first for each of these two networks – TheMotherhood.com and MyBlogSpark.com. Last night my husband was my companion and we enjoyed a rare night out without the children, as we dropped them off at grandma’s house on our way into the city. Here is the dinner event that we went to:

MyBlogSpark Dinner

Thursday, July 22, 2010
7:00 p.m.

Ben Pao
52 West Illinois St.
Chicago, IL 60654

My husband is not a huge fan of Chinese food, however, he was game to be treated to a free dinner! Once again even though we gave ourselves an extra 20 minutes, it was not enough for Chicago traffic. Look what we met up with as soon as we were on the expressway:

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Clear lane, until we got to the toll booth:

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And all the way into Chicago this is what we saw:

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I love the Chicago skyline and wished I had a camera with the capability of taking a wide lense shot to capture the whole skyline that we saw from the 294. My camera just doesn’t do it justice:

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Downtown Chicago:

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It was amazing to see how busy the streets were even on a summer evening. Yes, I do believe that was my first trip into the city on a summer evening in the whole 16 years I have lived here. We have usually gone during the day or when picking up a friend at the train station during winter evenings.

We left a few minutes before six o’clock and did not hit downtown until about 7:30pm! I ended up calling the restaurant to inform them that we were caught in traffic, not realizing that MyBlogSpark had reserved the whole restaurant for this special event. Once we arrived at our destination parking was atrocious and my husband was very hungry, so he spent about 15 minutes looking for spot before opting to take advantage of the $10 valet parking that was being offered in front of Ben Pao. Otherwise parking areas were $14! What are parking fees like in other cities?

The Ben Pao:

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I didn’t get a picture of the whole outside of the building, unfortunately.

We really enjoyed the service at Ben Pao and the food. The only thing we did not try were the Crab Rangoon since neither of us eat seafood.

The following photos are of our four course meal. Don’t get too hungry looking at the pictures!

First Course: Hot and Sour Soup served very hot! Very tasty, but we aren’t sure what was in it besides the green onions! It was like a beef broth with chucks of some sort of meat. Check out the soup spoon in the second photo, neither of us had seen a spoon like that before:

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Second Course: Appetizers that consisted of Chicken Lettuce Wraps, Golden Crisp Vegetable Spring Rolls, Crab Rangoon and Chicken Potstickers.

Chicken Lettuce Wraps, which the chicken, noodles (?) and sauce were put in the lettuce and folded or like a taco or burrito to eat:

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The rest of the appetizers:

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The sauces – mustard, chicken, ginger and I cannot remember the fourth…knew I should have written it down!

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Third Course: Sweet & Sour Chicken and Beef & Broccoli served with rice. Robert was so hungry that he thought that there wasn’t quite enough rice – and he doesn’t even like that much rice under normal circumstances. This dinner wasn’t normal since his belly was hungry at 5:00pm! Poor guy. He was well fed and satisfied at the end of the meal though!

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Fourth Course – Dessert: Lemon-Ginger Cheesecake and Chocolate Spring Roll

Lemon-Ginger Cake Cheesecake was very yummy!

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Chocolate Spring Roll were also very yummy! Robert thought the chocolate tasted funny/different, but I thought it tasted like melted heated chocolate and when it was dipped in the peanut sauce…hmmmm…..delicious! I figured maybe Robert’s Passion Fruit Lime soda was affecting his taste buds because he is a chocolate connoisseur usually.

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Non-Alcoholic Drinks: Homemade Ginger Ale (pictured first) and Passion Fruit with Lime that was served with carbonated water so it was like a soda. Both were very good.

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MyBlogSpark had something special lined up at the end of the meal with our fortune cookies.

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Inside our fortune read:

Wanchai Ferry: Surprise! The entree you sampled this evening was a frozen dinner from Wanchai Ferry!

Our server/waitress had to tell us because we had not opened our fortune cookies, as we were going to take them home to show the children! We were very surprised by the switch, but since this review has become so long, you’ll have to come back to read a separate review of the Wanchai Ferry entrees!

on the back it said:

We’d like to thank Ben Pao for helping us pull off the switch.

Everything was served piping hot. The service was excellent and of course my company was divine! I think we’d go back, it’s just the distance that becomes a factor for us since we are not in downtown Chicago very often. However, we were given a couple of coupons to use by the end of the year, so who knows perhaps we’ll make it down just for a night out again. We’d highly recommend Ben Pao.

Thanks to both MyBlogSpark, Ben Pao and Wanchai Ferry for the opportunity and privilege you afforded us last night!

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Lighting in the restaurant was dark, sorry!

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Update on Do Good Day

Posted by html404 on July 16, 2010
in Blog Stuff, Giving Back/Charity, Travel

Do Good Day was an event sponsored by 77 Kids/American Eagle and TheMotherhood.com that we were privileged to participate in on July 14th, 2010.

Sorry for the delay in getting our update for Do Good Day posted. The last couple of days have been crazy to say the least.

On Wednesday, July 14th, we headed out of our driveway at about 8:40am to head to the city of Chicago to one of the four Ronald McDonald Houses (RMH) located in the city. I thought I was giving myself enough time to account for traffic and construction, which is happening everywhere it seems. However, I actually did not enter the RMH until 11:00am – a half hour after the scheduled time. It took me a half hour to find parking! Thankfully, a delivery truck freed up a parking spot a couple house down from the RMH. I also took the wrong way in so I had to call my GPS husband to get me to where I needed to be from Lakeshore Dr. The children oohhed and ahhhed over the sailboats and Lake Michigan – Note to self: It’s been a long time since we took the children into the city! We need to visit more often! Thankfully, my detour wasn’t what made me late because I arrived at the house at 10:25am. It was the parking. I didn’t allow extra time for parking! Note to self: If I ever drive in the city again, allow time for parking!

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At the RMH, we baked thimble cookies and a cake for the families staying at the house. The children had fun baking, playing in the playroom, looking at books, as well as putting together about ten goodie bags for the families we met in the RMH. We couldn’t disturb the families in their rooms, but those we saw wandering in the halls we could give them the treat bags. We also wrote up encouraging notes to leave around the house, but guess what? We forgot to leave them!

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After we clean up from our baking fun, RMH staff member, Abena, shared with us a bit of the history and purpose of the RMH and then she took us on a tour of the house. It was very interesting and our children enjoyed it.

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Upon leaving the RMH shortly after 1:00pm, Abena took a photo of three of the five mom bloggers and their families in front of the RMH. Then we all headed our separate ways. We arrived back in our hometown to pass out our $77 at our local grocery store at about 2:30pm.

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You wouldn’t believe how hard it is to give away a dollar but it was! We spent about an hour at the grocery store before giving up and heading elsewhere. By the end of that hour, my husband was with us to relieve me of being on my feet. Since people were not being very receptive of receiving a dollar my husband suggested going to Walgreens, which only has one door so the innocent folks of our town had no chance of avoiding us with nine people surrounding the doorway!;-) They were much less skeptical as the children shared about their trip to the Ronald McDonald House and more willing to take the money when they found out that it wasn’t the children’s money we were giving away.

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In spite of the rejections, once the children gave away the dollars in their hands they came back for more. It was a very good experience for all of us. After all the good they did for Do Good Day and being real troopers in the heat (90 degrees!) we treated the children and ourselves to a frosty from Wendy’s!

Thank you 77 Kids and TheMotherhood.com for the opportunity to partner with you for Do Good Day!

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Excited About Do Good Day!

Posted by html404 on July 14, 2010
in Blog Stuff, Giving Back/Charity

This event is sponsored by 77Kids.com/American Eagle and TheMotherhood.com

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The children and I are excited to be heading out for the morning to bake and make special thank you’s at the families and staff at Ronald McDonald House in Chicago. Upon our return to our town, with the permission of our locally owned grocery store, we will pass out 77 dollar bills!

Let us know if you will be doing something right where you are to celebrate Do Good Day with us! Those who leave a comment will be entered into a drawing here at Faith and Family Reviews for something special for being a participant giving back on Do Good Day!

Hope to give you updates later today or early tomorrow, complete with photos!

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Monday Motivation at Faith and Family Reviews

Posted by html404 on July 12, 2010
in Blog Stuff, Pregnancy and Birth

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Ok, last week’s list looked like this:

~ To make it through the week! Seriously, I have been feeling awful, baby has been pressing up on my diaphram and it is very uncomfortable to move these days.
~ Work on client projects. Starting with a new client this week and have a training session tomorrow afternoon.
~ Work in our garden as weather permits. I am sure we have summer squash in need of picking since I forgot to remind Robert and the boys to pick when they went out to the field!
~ Come up with name for baby! Ongoing until we agree on a name.
~ Work on getting my iron up more. This will be ongoing until even after the baby is born.

This week’s list looks pretty much the same:

~ Last week’s pregnancy issue has exacerbated into heartburn so I am working on that this week.
~ Monday and Tuesday I have a lot of client work to do in preparation for days out on Wednesday and Thursday. That’s why I worked on writing some product reviews over the weekend so I wouldn’t have to worry about them this week.
~ 77Kids.com/TheMotherhood.com Event in Chicago on Wednesday.
~ Garden – we now have green and yellow beans to pick, in addition to onions, lettuce, squash, peas, kale and Swiss chard.
~ Name “Angel” in my womb.
~ Iron

Ok, so I have one more item on my list this week, but hey 77Kids.com /TheMotherhood.com won’t be on my list next week!

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77 Top Mom Bloggers in 11 Cities To Host the First-Ever “Do Good Day”

Posted by html404 on July 12, 2010
in Blog Stuff, Giving Back/Charity

77 Top Mom Bloggers in 11 Cities
To Host the First-Ever “Do Good Day”
Happening on July 14th, 2010

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[Pittsburgh and Larchmont, NY] – July 12, 2010 – In eleven cities on July 14, 2010, a total of seventy-seven of the country’s top mom bloggers and their kids will carry out random acts of goodness and kindness on the first-ever “Do Good Day”.

Through a partnership with TheMotherhood and 77kids by american eagle®, Do Good Day will take place in: Boston; Cherry Hill, NJ; Chicago; Danbury; Los Angeles; New York City; Minneapolis/St. Paul; Syracuse; and Washington, DC.

“Mom bloggers and their children have created original, fun, moving ways to do good in their local communities and we are awed by the potential of so many trusted, powerful online voices doing good together, all on the same day,” said Cooper Munroe, co-founder of TheMotherhood.com

Concurrently, on Wednesday, July 14, 2010, teams of mom bloggers in each city will do good in ‘pay it forward’ kinds of activities, including:

• In Chicago, the Do Good Day team will visit Ronald McDonald Houses to prepare meals for the families and provide activities.

• In New Jersey, the mom bloggers will set up a “thank you station”, giving people an opportunity to take a few moments to fill out a post card and thank a soldier and/or veteran. They will incorporate fun activities for kids, like face painting, tattoos, etc.

• The L.A. team is heading to Seaside Lagoon, a family beach in Redondo Beach, CA, to pay it forward by making get well cards for the children at Children’s Hospital of Orange County. For every get well card made, kids will receive a 77Kids list of good deeds that can be completed for $1 along with a crisp one dollar bill to pay the good deed forward. Cold Stone Creamery and Ruby’s Diner have partnered with the 7 member L.A. blogger team to reward children participating with ice cream and kid’s meals.

• Team Philadelphia will be “Brightening Someone’s Day” at a retirement community to hand out flowers and other goodies to the residents and deliver special crafts that represent what a parent/grandparent means to the mom bloggers and their kids.

• In Pittsburgh, the Do Good Day team will assemble backpacks filled with school supplies and a “mini mission” (a thank you card and stamp, with instructions to write and send thank you note to someone deserving; paper, crayons and a pre-addressed envelope, with instructions to draw a picture and send it to a resident of an assisted care home, etc.).

Do Good Day is timed to the grand opening of 77kids stores in five cities: Pittsburgh; Cherry Hill, NJ; Danbury, CT; Syracuse; and the Mall of America.

About TheMotherhood.com

TheMotherhood is both an award-winning online community for mothers (www.themotherhood.com) and an agency that conceives and executes highly effective, targeted brand campaigns for moms. The Motherhood has strategic alliances with close to 10,000 active and connected mom bloggers across the country and sparks positive, on-going, two-way conversations between moms and brands and mom-to-mom. The web community, TheMotherhood.com, was a finalist for a Webby Award in 2009 and 2010.

About 77kids by american eagle

77kids by american eagle® offers on-trend, high-quality clothing and accessories in sizes up to 14. American Eagle Outfitters was founded in 1977, which is the inspiration for the 77kids® name. The brand draws from the strong heritage of American Eagle Outfitters, with a point-of-view that’s thoughtful, playful and real. Like American Eagle® clothing, 77kids focuses on great fit, value and style. 77kids by american eagle® is opening its five stores this summer.

Unique store design elements include games projected onto the floor to entertain kids while parents shop and interactive touch screens where customers can:

• See their reflection in a special mirror and interact with a make-believe world of animated characters.
• Select key 77kids outfits which will appear virtually on the user like a digital paper doll.
• Play DJ and eventually select music to be played in the store.
• Pose for photos, which can be customized with personal messages and graffiti, then printed at the checkout area to take home or post in the store.

For more information:
Do Good Day Circle on TheMotherhood.com (visit TheMotherhood for a list of the bloggers)
77kids on Facebook

Contact: TheMotherhood, co-founders
Cooper Munroe Emily McKhann
412-779-9829 917-750-9786

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Do Good Day with 77Kids.com and The Motherhood.com

Posted by html404 on July 6, 2010
in Blog Stuff, Giving Back/Charity

My children and I will be participating in the 77Kids.com and TheMotherhood.com Do Good Day on July 14th in Chicago. There are a total of 11 Chicago area bloggers and their children taking part in this great project!

We will be “Doing Good” for the Ronald McDonald house of Chicago (which Ronald McDonald House TBD). We will be preparing a meal for the families and providing them with some activity and donations of needed items.

Special thanks goes to 77Kids.com and TheMotherhood.com for giving us this opportunity to serve others and to teach our children how to “do good”.

We’d like to encourage you, our readers, to think about “doing good” in your community that day. Whether that be holding the door open for an elderly person or a mom with her hands full of packages, pushing a stroller and chasing a toddler. Whatever you choose to do, please be sure to come back and tell us what you have done. There just may be an extra blessing for doing so!

77kids Website: http://www.ae.com/77kids/index.jsp
77kids on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/77kids
77kids on Twitter: http://twitter.com/77kids
Hashtag: #77kids

77kids at Elizabeth Glaser Pedaids Celebrity Picnic: http://www.fitceleb.com/node/7927

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NEW! Monday Motivation!

Posted by html404 on July 5, 2010
in Blog Stuff, Pregnancy and Birth

Just wanted to introduce another new theme – Monday Motivation! This was inspired by Every Day Eve’s Monday Affirmation post. I don’t need affirmation as much as I need motivation, especially at this point in my pregnancy! I just want to share the things that I’d like to get done and will let you know next Monday how I did. As time goes on, perhaps I will elaborate to share whether or not sharing helped get more accomplished or what exactly has motivated me throughout the week.

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Sooo….this is my Monday Motivation for this week, I limited it to five things for simplicity sake. Please feel free to share your own so we can inspire and motivate one another:

I wanted to give you a bit of an update in regards to the last one on the list. My iron levels stayed the same – right around the 10 mark, possibly a tad higher to even 10.5. I have felt somewhat better, but still have bouts of nausea and tiredness. The thing is I really think that the Bebe O Prenatal Vitamins and Floradix (liquid form of iron) have been helping. So I am going to continue with both of them and hopefully things will remain the same or possibly improve in these last few days/weeks. I have never had heavy bleeding during birth and hoping not to start with this one with my iron lower than my norm.

Floradix may be purchased at Wholefoods or the Vitamin Shoppe and don’t forget about our Bebe-O Prenatal Vitamin giveaway for the opportunity to try an all natural prenatal vitamin.