Archive for Fun Stuff

Week #18 Saturday Top Five Laughs

Saturdays Top Laughs dentistmelsbbutton-11

Slowly getting back on track with our Saturday Top Five Laughs and joining Mel over at The Mommyhood Chronicles for week #18 (for us) in the Saturday Top Five Laughs of the week.

6. This will probably sound really bad but here it goes….B and I were out grocery shopping and stopped to get gas. At the gas station there was a group of male bicyclists. Now I wasn’t being naughty or anything but happened to look at the behind of one of them as he stood up to cycle. I noticed something on his butt and couldn’t figure out what it was so I looked at the other bikers’ behinds as they all rode off. Then it dawned on me, “They have a padding on their butts!” I exclaimed to B. B said, “Shhh Mum the window is open!” I turned to her, her face is beet red and she was covering her face with her book. I said, “Why are you red?” You didn’t say anything, I did! Apparently, I had embarrassed her! I didn’t know you could buy shorts with padding! Yeah, I’m from the dark ages, can’t you tell?!

5. Jr. said, “Super Jr.!” (Proceeds to put underwear on his head! What is it with boys and underwear on their heads? Although, our girls did the same thing!?) Our six year old said the same thing about himself, minus the underwear on the head. I think he had a blanket around his shoulders.

4. Escapees. Annabeth is an escape artist and we had to finally put up cow panels around the rest of the goats pasture. Poor Hazel is just too pregnant to do much escaping! Thanks to the goats stellar example the sheep are becoming quite adept at escaping as well.

3. Selene one of our kittens was at the newspaper warehouse this morning when we came out to load up the car! We figure she must have been somewhere under the car or on something under the hood. Smart kitty to stay put for a 6 mile drive! B liked having her company on the route.

2. Last weekend I took six of the children to see Captain America (a certain birthday girl decided she wanted to see this movie over going to the mall ;) ). We were a few minutes late, nothing new there for our family, so we were in a hurry to find our theater and take our seats. We went in and sat down with the movie already in progress. I felt completely lost and the movie quality was awful. I ended up checking emails and Facebook on my phone wishing I had sent my husband! Soon my oldest was nudging me to look at the credits. It was over. 40 minutes into the show! Come to find out we had entered the 3D show! Argh. Thankfully it all worked out and we caught the later show. Not without my husband having to come pick up B so she could go home to milk and bring her back. She made it just as the movie started the opening scene. But talk about feeling like an idiot! lol!

1. This wasn’t as funny for us (it will be to you!) as it was annoying. Jr. somehow got the voice on our Kindle on for the visually impaired. It took us 2-3 weeks to finally get it off. I must not have used the right words in my search to turn it off because my husband found it by searching for “can’t get my Kindle to stop talking” on our Amazon account. Hubby said other people searched “Kindle won’t shut up” lol!

What funnies happened to you this week?


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Matilda Jane Review and Giveaway

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<Matilda Jane Review

MJ 2

If you are looking for different styles for you and your girls and don’t want to head to the store.  Matilda Jane Clothing is for you!  They sell their clothing line through hosted “Trunk Shows”.

Each year they release 2 collections in the Spring and Fall.  There are currently over 500 “Trunk Keepers” throughout the US & Canada.  Once you found a host, you can either attend a showing or have your own in home show!  You can also become a “Jane” to host your own shows!

Check out what they sent to us!  My daughter received  an adorable dress from their called “Roller Coaster Tiered Dress

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Made of 69% cotton, 28% nylon, & 3% spandex, you need to wash this dress in cold water and lay it on a flat surface to dry.

This dress is perfect for an active child in the summertime and very fun.  My daughter loves the colorful tiers. There are butterflies, bikes, flowers, shoes and bird on this adorable dress.  It is topped off with little yellow ruffled sleeves.

Click here and fill out the form to find your nearest  “Jane” for Matilda Jane Clothing!


Matilda Jane Giveaway

Would you like to give Matilda Jane a try? Enter to win a $50 Gift Card to Matilda Jane below! Ends 5/2!

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VTech Alternative Easter Basket Ideas and Giveaway

“The VTech product, gift card, information, and additional gift pack have been provided by VTech.”

Easter is only days away, are you ready? VTech has some alternative Easter basket ideas and a giveaway to help you celebrate this spring holiday!

Did you know that VTech consults with a panel of experts on the development of its learning products? VTech supports you as your child continues to grow and reach new developmental milestones by offering a variety of age-appropriate toys. Here are the VTech products we reviewed:

InnoTab®Doc McStuffins Software Cartridge (Ages 4-7 years; MSRP: $24.99)

- Learn reading, vocabulary, observation, logic, memory, math, visual skills, creativity, healthy living and more! The Doc is in!

– Read a story about Lambie and Doc in an e-book, color in Doc’s Big Book of Boo-Boos and play games with Doc and her friends.

Our Review: This was great for all three of our younger children. Considering the fact they all love animals and we just got our own lamb, it was very cute and timely! Our children love their InnoTab 3S so I don’t think we could go wrong in any cartridge at this point!

VTech Innotab 3S Sofia the First

InnoTab Sofia the First Software Cartridge (Ages 3-6 years; MSRP: $24.99)

- Seven learning games and two creative activities teach counting, colors, patterns, problem solving and more! Join Sofia on this wild and thrilling day!

– Learn how Sofia becomes a princess in Story Mode with the interactive e-book. Take pictures with favorite characters and scenes (camera activity compatible with any InnoTab® system with a camera).

Our Review: Our eight year old daughter loves princesses so Princess Sofia was perfect for her. Even though it is geared towards younger children she enjoyed playing the activities. Our younger boys benefited from the educational activities as well as had fun in the process.

Go! Go! Smart Wheels® Vehicles (Ages 1-5 years; MSRP: $7.99)

- These electronic play vehicles are perfectly sized for little hands and entertain children with a light-up button that activates music and sounds.

– Little ones will also learn about different letters and vehicle names through pretend play.

Our Review: Our three year old loved his VTech bulldozer. Everything about it. If he couldn’t find it, he was asking where it was and the hunt was on! We’ll see how long it lasts. Parents may not like the sounds it makes though!

FFR Vtech Easter Basket Collage_

Switch & Go Dinos®Turbo Assortment (Ages 3-8 years; MSRP: $9.99)

- Kids can rev up the action with flywheels that let the dinos race and roar across the floor. Each dino also emits realistic vehicle and dinosaur sounds and phrases that teach fun facts about each dino.

– The range features six new dinos, including Dart the Triceratops, Zipp the T-Rex, Spur the Stegosaurus, Fray the Ankylosaurus, Cruz the Spinosaurus and Spinner the Stygimoloch.

Our Review: Our six year old really liked this product. I am not sure if he took it apart at all yet but he has been playing with it and taking really good care of it, as is characteristic of him and his belongings. We haven’t had it long enough to see how long it will last long term but so far so good.

You can stay up to date with VTech at the links below:

· VTech website

· VTech Twitter

· VTech Facebook

VTech Easter Basket and Giveaway

Wanna win? Enter to win your own VTech products in the giveaway below! Ends 4/30. Happy Easter!

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Week #17 Saturday Top Five Laughs

Saturdays Top Laughs dentistmelsbbutton-11

Getting back on track with our Saturday Top Five Laughs and joining Mel over at The Mommyhood Chronicles for week #17 (for us) in the Saturday Top Five Laughs of the week. I’ve gone back to trying to keep track of little things that happen each day so I don’t forget so many of them. I lost a couple of pieces of paper over the last two months when I neglected to put them down right here on the blog!

5. Padfoot was gun shy of water in his inflatable pool. Go figure. Yet Pumpkin, one of our cats, was discovered in Padfoot’s pool one afternoon!

4. A couple Mondays ago, in the evening, our 30 year old horse showed off 2 year old antics!

The girls say he’s obsessed with Miss Moo. The girls took the cow in first and Blaze was whinning up a storm. So while one of the girls was in the hay loft getting hay, the other girl starts yelling get back here because…..guess what Blaze did? He took off running in a canter around the house, down our road, then turned west down at our crossroads, turned aroundd waited at the gate on that road, which is locked. The girls think he was showing off for the cow. He’s going on 30 but think he’s 2!

The cars drove on the opposite side of the road. One guy stopped to see if the girls needed help, laughing all the while.

Apparently he got past O when she was closing the gate to his pasture.

Thankfully he’s ok and we can all laugh about it now but sheesh! Certainly didn’t expect him to ever do that!

FFR The Ford Expedition

3. We bought a used Ford Expedition nearly a month ago and the children nicknamed it “Hulk” because it’s big and green. Our eight year old daughter calls it “Hunk”! ;)

2. The photo below speaks for itself. ;)

FFR Goofy three year old.jpg

1. For some reason my husband either threatened or took dessert away from our three year old last night…..what does Jr. do? He blackmails us with/about pull-ups . He stalked off and said he wasn’t using his potty he was going to put on a pull-up and he did! Hubby forgot to put the pull-ups out of reach this morning or last night! But our son is a little stinker! What he didn’t realize is his daddy still wouldn’t give him dessert.


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Week #16 Saturday Top Five Laughs

Saturdays Top Laughs dentistmelsbbutton-11

I knew once I missed on Saturday Top Five Laughs, it would be hard to get back to getting them done, but we are getting back on the bandwagon and joining Mel over at The Mommyhood Chronicles for week #16 (for us) in the Saturday Top Five Laughs of the week. Granted most of them are about the animals!

5. Our goats got out of their stall this morning. They have been working on this for three weeks and finally succeeded! They wreaked havoc in the barn and made more of a mess than our cow or horse has ever done! That was a few weeks ago and they’ve had a lots more escapades! Thankfully due to their trust in B and O the goats are fairly easy to catch….most of the time.

4. We went to see a heifer (young female cow who has not calved) yesterday and while we were visiting with her and her owners she sniffed around a pile of manure then proceeded to do her business on top of that! I looked at her owner and said, “You trained her well.”

3. Jr. took a red marker and put these red lines on his feet and said he was Iron Man. (He’s very into super heros.)

2. Jr. one evening this week had a pen and paper. First he said, “Mommy, me love you sooo much.” Then he said, “Dear Mommy, Dear Daddy, Me love you soo much!” Heart throbs!

1. We were all outside today since it was warmer (in the 40’s) and sunny. So we all gathered around one of the hay racks our hay guy left in the field. We were just sitting there shooting the breeze, petting the cats and dog. I was giving the dog some lovins and B was next to me with one of the kittens. Padfoot wasn’t doing anything but enjoying my petting him and Freckles wigged out and scratched Padfoot on the nose! Padfoot yelped, then offended barked but backed away and came to my other side for love. Previous to this, Badger, our black and white kitten, had royally hissed at Padfoot for simply looking at him! Guess Padfoot probably deserved it for all the times he has tormented them, but still he was being a good dog today.


What has made you laugh this week?


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Lola’s Math Train 2 App Review

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math Train
Choo Choo Coming through with a new app just for you!

Lola the panda bear greats you at the train. All Aboard!

There are 3 difficulty levels – Easy, 2 (Medium), and 3 (Hard).  With 15 different math games!

Math train 2
The Easy & Level 2 I found to be very similar, the numbers math problems are a little harder.  This level has adding, arrange numbers smallest to biggest, how many more apples are in this box than the other.
Level 3 takes you to subtraction and harder problems like which number is missing, and the start of multiplication.Math Train 3
Once you finish a few problems you can pick out an outfit for one of your riders on Lola’s Math Train. Lola’s train will then give you a score at the end.

 

Math train 4

I love the progress tracker!  It’s on the welcome page in the lower left corner. Once there you can enter your email address and it will email you the progress of your child.
This app is available for Apple products as well as Android!

Lola’s Math Train is recommended for ages 3 to 6.

I did find that the easy level was a little hard for my daughter. She is 5, I expected it to be 5 + 1 type of games, but it was more like 10 + 20 which I found to be a bit advanced for her. Otherwise, this will be a great app in future.

 


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Week #15 Saturday Top Five Laughs

Saturdays Top Laughs dentistmelsbbutton-11

We are joining Mel over at The Mommyhood Chronicles for week #15 (for us) in the Saturday Top Five Laughs of the week.

5. Crushed Bones and Poison Bloody Death compliments of Amelia Bedilia when I told her to label it “Baking Soda”. She’s been hanging out with B, can you tell?

Crushed Bones

FFR Poison Bloody Death

FFR Baking Powder
She’s not our best speller…takes after her dad and yes, he’d say the same thing! ;)

4. “Picture it, Mommy, picture it!” Jr. said about his “school work”. My phone crashed this week and I think I may have lost the photos of school work, as I could not find them on my phone or computer. :(

3. Goats are very curious. They got a hold of our son’s glove and then were fighting over it. They tried to nibble on our oldest’s iPod. They thought the stiff brush B was trying to brush them with was something to eat. They were trying to catch sunbeams on each other’s backs. When the dog got loose and ran down to the barn and jumped on the goats stall, all they did was paw the ground and shake their heads at him.

2. We went to the mall for a girls day out yesterday and because of traffic etc. I had the girls watching for cars and people as I backed out of the Panera Bread parking lot. Amelia Bedilia goes, “Ah mommy, the snow bank!” I told her I didn’t care about the snow bank or the curb because I didn’t have to pay for those if I backed into them. I cared about people and cars! Yeah, can’t tell money is on my mind…sigh.

1. The other day I napped in the afternoon and woke up around 4:15pm when my husband came into the room. I jumped up and said, “I’m late for the newspaper!” My husband said, “It’s 4:15 in the afternoon.” I was so dazed and disoriented it took me a few minutes for that to sink in. I just stood there trying to focus…it was weird. Robert and the children laughed and teased me about that one for the rest of the day!


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A JOLLY TIME Pop Corn Recipe for Valentine’s Day

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There is nothing like snuggling up with your loved ones around a classic bowl of good ole popcorn! Jolly time might even inspire you to write a love poem around those light , fluffy kernels of buttery goodness!

 

This Valentine’s Day why not treat your family to some Jolly Time Pop Corn! Try out the recipe below for a special Valentine treat for the kids or any loved one! We sure did! We made the Choco Cherry Hearts for the family… and don’t worry if you do not have a heart shaped cookie cutter … we made ours into balls instead and put them on the sticks and they turned out great as popcorn pops! So any way you “pop” it this is a great Valentine’s treat! Throw them in the children’s lunch or surprise a loved one with a bouquet!

 


Choco Cherry Hearts Bouquet Recipe

Choco-Cherry-Heart-Bouquets

Makes about 8

Ingredients:

12 cups popped JOLLY TIME® Smart Balance Butter Light Microwave Pop Corn (about 1 bag)

1-1/2 cups dried tart cherries

1 (1-pound) bag mini marshmallows

1 cup white chocolate chips or chopped vanilla candy coating

¼ cup butter

Red food color

Long lollipop sticks or thick bamboo skewers

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips or dark chocolate morsels

 

Here’s How:

Mix popcorn and cherries in a large bowl.

Place marshmallows, white chocolate, and butter in a large saucepan. Cook over low heat until melted and smooth. Stir in a few drops of red food color to tint the mixture pink.

Pour marshmallow mixture over popcorn; toss gently until well coated.

With wet or buttered hands, press mixture into a 3-1/2 to 4-inch heart-shaped cookie cutter (place cutter on a foil-lined baking sheet; press in popcorn, then lift cutter off).

Insert a lollipop stick in the base of each heart.

Allow popcorn hearts to cool completely. Meanwhile, melt the dark chocolate. Drizzle over hearts.

Allow to harden.

Wrap hearts in cellophane and tie with ribbon; stand them up in a vase or jar as a centerpiece or gift.

You can find more flavors, recipes, and inspiration from America’s first family of popcorn ~ celebrating its 100th birthday this year! Please visit Jollytime.com for more information on this product, coupons and free offers!

Link to Jolly Time Pop Corn promotions (coupons and free offers with UPC submission)

 

 


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Celebrating Valentine’s Day as a Family

Ah! Love is in the air – Valentine’s Day is coming!

Valentine's Day February 14

I remember the days of being Sweethearts –  going out to dinner, flowers, & candy.  My…My… can things change once kids enter the picture.  Valentine’s Day has changed in our house, we now celebrate as a family.   Here’s a few inexpensive ways to make Valentine’s Day a family event!

1.)     Make heart pancakes for breakfast – Make your favorite pancake mix, add a few drops of red food coloring.  Stir up the batter good and cook them.  When they are done cooking, take a heart shaped cookie cutter and cut out your heart pancakes.

2.)    Heart shaped sandwiches for lunch – This is a good craft as well as lunch.  Build your favorite sandwich and then use the heart shaped cookie cutter to cut out a really cute sandwich.

3.)    You need flowers for Valentine’s Day – Material needed:  a few sheets of colored tissue paper and a pipe cleaner for each flower.  Take the tissue paper and lay them on top of one another and then twist a pipe cleaner in the middle.  Fluff out the tissue paper to make tissue flowers.

4.)    You can’t have Valentine’s Day without chocolate –  My favorite is chocolate covered strawberries.  Buy strawberries at your local store and a bag or a few bars of your favorite chocolate.  Using a microwave safe bowl, melt the chocolate in 30 second intervals at first.  Stir the chocolate.  Once the chocolate starts to melt only microwave about 10 seconds or less, be careful not to burn the chocolate.  Use oven mitts to take the chocolate out of the microwave, it will be very hot.  Then dip your washed & dried strawberries into the chocolate, I sometimes use a spoon to coat the berry.  Place the chocolate strawberry on wax paper to dry.

Enjoy celebrating Valentine’s Day as a family!

 


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Dabby Dill & The Hiccup Pickle iPad App Plus $50 iTunes Giveaway

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This is a featured review.


Dabby Dill & The Hiccup Pickle iPad App Review

by Brande
 

 

Dabby Dill & The Hiccup Pickle App
Dabby Dill woke up in a Pickle, she had the hiccups! Follow Dabby on her journey to find the remedy for these hiccups. This book app is recommended for kids 4 to 8 years old. This iPad app requires a 6.1 operating system or later.

There are 4 modes in the book app.

Story Mode – You have a narrator reading to you and you touch the arrow for the next page.

Read Along – You narrator will read to you again. However this time each word is underlined as the narrator reads, helping your child as they read & follow along.

Self-Read – Your child will read by themselves. Allowing your child the freedom to read at their own pace.

Dabby Dill & The Hiccup Pickle_1

Play Game – Great memory game! Follow the hiccup pattern with Dabby and her 3 friends. It’s very similar to the game Simon.

Dabby Dill & The Hiccup Pickle App_2

I found this book app very educational. My favorite is the read along. With the words underlined it really helps my daughter learn her words and vocabulary. I love each mode, this book app can grow with your child.

Click here to find Dabby Dill & The Pickle Hiccup in the iTunes store!


Dabby Dill & The Hiccup Pickle App Giveaway Plus $50 Giveaway

by Theresa

Five of you have the opportunity to win an iTunes’s code to download Dabby Dill & The Hiccup Pickle iPad app for free, plus each of you will also receive a $10 iTunes e-gift card with the app code! Enter to win below!

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