Mom Central Holiday Gift Guide

I know with Christmas fast approaching, I am in a scramble to get everyone’s gifts. And usually my problem is what to get everyone and I am almost inevitably searching for the perfect gift idea. And with having twin two year olds to look after in the mix, it can make finding gifts even more stressful. That’s why it is so nice to have a place where you have gift ideas all in one place for everyone!

Mom Central has done all the brain racking work of finding the perfect gift in their 2008 Gift Guide. They have reviewed hundreds of products for everyone on your list right down to your favorite furry friends in your life. You are sure to find something that will put a smile on that special someone’s face this holiday season. Mom Central will also give away thousands of dollars worth of prizes in multiple daily drawings!

To be eligible to win the daily prizes, participants must register on Mom Central, log-in, and leave a comment on the post. In addition, if participants tweet or email friends about the giveaway, they can earn another entry! In order to earn the entry, they simply go back to the Mom Central Review blog and leave a second comment letting them know.  Plus, Mom Central is such a cool place to be a part of!

Head on over to Mom Central and save your sanity by making your holiday gift buying a breeze!

Simon & Schuster Books “Jon Scieszka’s Trucktown: Melvin Might?”

My boys just love to sit with my husband and I and read. We usually read throughout the day, and have a stack of books by the bed and they get to pick a couple before bed. One of their most favorite series of books published by Simon and Schuster, has to be “Jack Truck” as they call it. If you don’t know who “Jack Truck” is, he is one of the characters from author Jon Scieszka’s Trucktown series of books. Both of my boys are in love with these books! They know all the characters by name and simply adore all the bright and colorful illustrations.

One of the newest releases “Melvin Might?” Is about Cement Mixer Melvin, Trucktown’s fretful worry wort. Both of my boys always point this out whenever we read the book that Melvin is afraid or worried. It is so cute to hear them make that correlation. Whenever we are out and about, if they see a cement mixer, they call it “Melvin” or if they see a loader they call it “Payloader Pete!” They always amaze me at how quickly they pick up on these things and they are only two!  These books are a whole lot of fun, especially if your little one is into cars and trucks like my two are.

Melvin Might?

(Jon Scieszka’s Trucktown)

By Jon Scieszka
Illustrated by David Shannon and David Gordon and Loren Long

This Edition: Hardcover
Publication Date: October 28, 2008
Price: $16.99

Description
Cement Mixer Melvin worries a lot. He worries he might get dirty. He worries he might get stuck. He even worries he might get worried. But one fateful day Rescue Rita is in need of a little rescuing, and Trucktown’s biggest worrywart is the only one who can save the day. There’s just one problem: He worries he can’t. Jon Scieszka’s latest racing and rollicking installment to the Trucktown franchise is a hilarious (and maybe even a little heartwarming) look at all the things a cement mixer can do…no matter how much he worries!

This is suck a cute series of books and is sure to put a smile on your little one’s face especially if they are into big trucks.   This book would make a perfect gift along with all the other “Trucktown” series of books!

Avon Beauty For You and Your Home

I have always been a huge fan of Avon products.  I can remember them from when I was child, so they have been around for a long time which tells you something about their products.   I love to get their catalogs and especially during the holidays, because they offer such a wide variety of things that can be given as gifts or just to pamper yourself.   The prices are reasonable too, which is a big plus, when you are on a tight budget.   They have things for the home, cosmetics, stuff for the kids and for the men in your life.

Around this time of the year, I am a huge fan of all the sights and smells that surround the holiday season, and I have always been a fan of lighting candles throughout my home.   I have just recently been introduced to the reed diffusers, and have always seen them in the stores but have never tried them personally.  I was very excited to try Avon’s Botanical Reed Diffuser (19.99).  Natural bamboo reeds absorb scented oil and diffuse fragrance throughout your home and the scent isn’t too overpowering.   I love the Summer Blossom scent.  It actually brings warmth into the home when it’s cold outside.   Avon’s reed diffuser, is perfect for a housewarming gift, a gift to yourself, or for holiday giving.

Not only can you beautify your home, but  you can have all your personal beauty essentials all in a compact location with Jillian Dempsey for AVON Essential Beauty Palette ($7.99). This fabulous palette includes 2 lip colors, 2 eyeshadows, 1 blush and a 2 sided applicator and mirror. This is perfect for your purse and for those quick touch ups when you are on the run. They are available in both cool and warm palettes. They are also great for gift giving and stocking stuffers!

DoubleBugs would like to offer it’s readers, the chance to win Avon’s Botanical Reed Diffuser and an Essential Beauty Palette! Also for all your shopping needs by entering the code JINGLE30 you will be entitled to free standard shipping with a $30 order when you shop with an eRepresentative. This offer expires on January 1, 2009.

Here’s all ya gotta do:

Visit the Avon site and let me know what your favorite product or products are and leave me a commant here.

Please leave me an email or way to contact you if you win.

If the chosen winner does not respond in two days, a new winner will be chosen.

Contest starts December 2,2008 and ends December 16, 2008.

Good Luck!

The Scrapbook Fairy

I guess I haven’t mentioned before that I am a picture taking fool.   I love to take photos of the boys but then I always never seem to have much time to do anything creative with them.   I have a whole lot of scrapbooking materials that are just calling my name upstairs but with twin two year olds running around it makes it difficult to slip away.

This day and age everything is digital and the convenience of knowing you have pictures on a disk somewhere is convenient, but it would be nice to have something more tangible.  I was busy thinking about gifts that I could give to the boys’ grandparents, that they would enjoy.   I am way out of the loop on scrapbooking technique, but thought that they would make perfect gifts!  Scrapbooks are such a neat way to display photos and sort of tell a story as you go.

I ran across the Scrapbook Fairy and had a couple of pages done  of some of my favorite pictures of the boys.  Scrapbooks are perfect for any group: moms, grandparents, veterans, graduates. I create fully customized photo albums (scrapbooks) to commemorate weddings, graduations, new babies, travel/vacation, military service, etc.  And, the Scrapbook Fairy offers a variety of album sizes for you to choose from.   Scrapbook Fairy  scrapbooks are completely acid and lignin free so that photos will be safely preserved for many years. Clients submit all of their photos to the Scrapbook Fairy and she can either help them choose the best photos or use exactly what they send her. She consults closely with each client to determine the color palette, size, style, and number of pages. Albums range in price from $100 to $300USD. .

This is a perfect gift for any occasion but even better for the upcoming holiday season.   It is an investment and something that will last a long time.  It is perfect for reminiscing around the Christmas tree or brightening up someones day and it is something that they can keep and look at.   I know both of our families live far away, so pictures of the kids is something they will cherish.

The Scrapbook Fairy does a wonderful job and the each page tells a story and has its own whimsical unique design.   If you are looking for a gift with a personal touch, then check out The Scrapbook Fairy!

Wishing you all a Safe and Happy Thanksgiving Holiday

I just wanted to take the opportunity to wish all of you a very safe and Happy Thanksgiving with all of your families.  I am thankful for my wonderful family and two healthy children.  I am thankful for my friends, and a roof over my head, and food in our stomachs.  I hope that you all enjoy your day and families!

Cheekeyes and Oompa Toys

When you have young children, you undoubtedly have a whole myriad of toys laying about.   I have one room in the house designated for their stuff.  I found in the boys’ two short years, that there are toys that just aren’t going to last and ones that I know will be around for a long time.   Of my most favorite things, are their wooden toys.  I’ll admit I am a sucker for them.   There is something about the quality of wooden toys, when you first open the box and get a glimpse of them.  I find myself wanting to put them up on my mantle or hording them like my prized possesion.  They aren’t the toys that you just give away.

With wooden toys there is something magical about them for children.  They are usually fairly simplistic in design, but my kids seem to play with them the most.  Not only that, they encourage them to use their imagination, whether it is making a tower or a tunnel, or making walls or making their wooden lion roar.  For me, that is worth it’s weight in gold, because this day and age, it seems like we encourage that less with television, and toys that are battery operated.  Wooden toys are such a refreshing change from that.

When I was offered the opportunity to review Cheekeyes, I immediately snatched up the offer.  I love to see what is out there with regards to wooden toys.  These totally too cute wooden toys are not only durable but are made from eco-friendly rubberwood.  Handmade and partially painted, each of the Cheekeyes is unique; there are no two the same. From the hands of Dutch designer Rogier van Zijp emerged Arctic, African, Forest and Farm animal sets plus Dinosaurs, these animals sport a distinctive red cheek and painted eye (reflected in their name, Cheekeyes) that will endear them to children and caregivers alike. They are very smooth (as all wooden toys should be) and they have paint only on the sides.  When I told my Dutch husband about where these toys came from, he seemed rather proud. The 2009 Oppenheim Toy Portfolio has given Cheekeyes its prestigious Platinum Award for one of this year’s best preschool toys.

We received the African Animals set, which included whimsical interpretations of a lion, hippopotamus, rhinoceros, elephant and giraffe.  Cheekeyes also has various wooden scenery additions such as rocks and trees to make your little ones animal menagerie complete.  I found myself making the giraffe eat the imaginary leaves off the trees, and the rhino took a nap on the rock.  The boys got such a kick out of mommy playing with them and what a great way to spend family time.  These will be around for a very long time to come and the boys simply adore them already.

Forest Animal Set ($29.99)
The Forest Animal set comes complete with a bison,
wild boar, wolf, goat, and grizzly bear. Cave and tree
sets sold separately, $16.99 each.

African Animal Set ($29.99)
The African Animal set makes a charming collection
of inhabitants for your desert terrain, which includes a
lion, hippopotamus, rhinoceros, elephant and giraffe.
Tree set and rock sold separately, $16.99 each.

Arctic Animal Set ($29.99)
The Arctic Animal Set includes all of your
favorite polar critters, including an orca, seal,
whale, penguin and polar bear. Icebergs sold
separately, $16.99 each.

Farm Animal Set ($29.99)
The farm animal set includes all your favorite
barnyard critters, including a sheep, pig, goat,
cow and horse. Fence set and tree sets sold
separately, $16.99 each.

Cheekeyes are available online at Oompa toys and would make a perfect gift for this holiday season for your special little someone.  What a perfect way to make their holiday light up.

THIS CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED THANK YOU TO ALL WHO ENTERED!!

Would you like to win a set of Cheekeyeys animals for your own special someone this holiday season.  DoubleBugs and Oompa toys are giving away one set of your choice to one lucky winner!

Here’s all ya gotta do!

Just visit Oompa Toys and tell me what set of Cheekeyes you would like and something else you like about the Oompa site.

Leave me an email so I have a way to contact you if you win

Winner has two days to respond or another is chosen.

Contest Starts November 24, 2008 and Ends December 8, 2008

Good Luck!!!

Ready Set Shop (Winner!)

CONGRATS TO JACK T.   WINNER OF THE READY SET SHOP GIVEAWAY!

Thank you to all who entered, come back often for more great offers!!!

So Funny and True

I ran across this on another board and thought it was so true.  A little humor for the day!

Thinking about having children?

True preparation for parenthood at any age….

Lesson 1
Go to the supermarket.
Arrange to have your salary paid directly to their head office.
Go home.
Pick up the paper.
Read it for the last time.

Lesson 2
Before you finally go ahead and have children, find a couple who already
are parents.
Berate them about their…
1. Methods of discipline.
2. Lack of patience.
3. Appallingly low tolerance levels.
4. Allowing their children to run wild.
Suggest ways in which they might improve their child’s sleeping habits,
toilet training, table manners and overall behavior. Enjoy it. It will
be the last time in your life that you will have all the answers.

Lesson 3
To discover how the nights will feel…
1. Walk around the living room from 5PM to 10PM carrying a wet bag
weighing approximately 8-12 pounds, with a radio turned to static (or
some other obnoxious sound) playing loudly.
2. At 10PM, put the bag down, set the alarm for midnight, and go to
sleep.
3. Get up at 12 and walk around the living room again, with the bag,
until 1AM.
4. Set the alarm for 3 AM.
5. As you can’t get back to sleep, get up at 2AM and make a drink.
6. Go to bed at 2:45AM.
7. Get up at 3AM when the alarm goes off.
8. Sing songs in the dark until 4AM.
9. Get up. Make breakfast. Keep this up for 5 years. Look cheerful.

Lesson 4
Can you stand the mess children make? To find out…
1. Smear peanut butter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains.
2. Hide a piece of raw chicken behind the stereo and leave it there all
summer.
3. Stick your fingers in the flower bed.
4. Then rub them on the clean walls.
5. Cover the stains with crayons. How does that look?

Lesson 5
Dressing small children is not as easy as it seems.
1. buy a live octopus and a small bag made of loose mesh 2. Attempt to
put the octopus into the bag so that none of the arms hang out.
Time allowed for this – all morning.

Lesson 6
1.Take an egg carton. Using a pair of scissors and a pot of paint, turn
it into an alligator.
2. Now take the tube from a roll of toilet paper. Using only scotch tape
and a piece of foil, turn it into an attractive Christmas candle.
3. Last, take a milk carton, a ping-pong ball, and an empty packet of
Cocoa Puffs. Make an exact replica of the Eiffel Tower.

Lesson 7
Forget the BMW and buy a station wagon. And don’t think you can leave
it out in the driveway spotless and shining. Family cars don’t look
like that.
1. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment.
Leave it there.
2. Get a dime. Stick it in the tape or CD player.
3. Take a family size package of chocolate cookies. Mash them into the
back seat.
4. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car. There. Perfect.

Lesson 8
Get ready to go out.
1. Wait outside the bathroom for a half an hour.
2. Go out the front door.
3. Come in again
4. Go out
5. come back in
6. go back out again.
7. Walk down the front walk.
8. Walk back up it.
9. Walk back down it again.
10. Walk very slowly down the road for five minutes, stopping,
inspecting minutely, and asking at least 6 questions about each
cigarette butt, piece of used chewing gum, dirty tissue, and dead insect
along the way.
11. Retrace your steps.
12. Scream that you have had as much as you can stand, until the
neighbors come out and stare at you.
13. Give up and go back into the house.
You are now just about ready to try taking a small child for a walk.

Lesson 9
Go to the local supermarket. Take with you the nearest thing you can
find to a preschool child (a full grown goat is excellent) If you
intend to have more than one child, take more than one goat.
1. buy your week’s groceries without letting the goats out of your
sight.
2. Pay for everything the goat eats or destroys.
Until you can accomplish this, do not even contemplate having children.

Lesson 10
1. Make a small hole in the side of a melon and hollow it out.
2. Suspend it from the ceiling and swing it from side to side.
3. Now get a bowl of soggy Cheerios and attempt to spoon them into the
swaying melon by pretending to be an airplane.
4. Continue until half the Cheerios are gone.
5. Tip half of the remainder into your lap. The other half just throw
up into the air.
You are now ready to feed a 9-month old baby.

Lesson 11
Learn the names of every character from Sesame Street, Dora the
Explorer, Barney, and Disney. Watch nothing else on TV for five years.

Lesson 12
Make a recording of Fran Drescher saying “mommy” repeatedly. (important:
no more than a four second delay between each “mommy”) An occasional
crescendo to the volume of a supersonic jet is required.
Play this recording in your car everywhere you go for the next five
years.

Lesson 13
Put on your finest work attire. Pick a day in which you have an
important meeting.
1. Take a cup of cream, put in 1 cup of lemon juice, and stir.
2. Dump half of the mixture on your shirt, and saturate a towel with the
other half.
3. Attempt to wipe off your shirt with the towel.
4. Do NOT change. You have no time.
5. Go directly to work.

Lesson 14
Go for a drive! But first…
1. Find one large tomcat and six pitbulls.
2. Borrow a child safety seat and put it in the back seat of your car.
3. Put the pitbulls in the front seat of your car.
4. While holding something fragile, strap the cat into the child seat.
5. Run some errands, removing and replacing the cat at each stop.
You are now ready to run errands with a toddler.

Gearing up for holiday baking

So, I have been contemplating whether or not this will be a baking year for me.   Ever since I had the boys, I tend to run out of energy to get anything etra curricular done.  I am a huge fan of baking however, so I decided to pick up some magazines and look at some cookie recipes.  If I do bake I will plan on making about 4 or 5 differnt kinds of cookies.  I have some favorites and one of them is raspberry chocolate chip cookies!  I also like to make a few of the more difficult cookies, but we will see how that goes with two toddlers in the house!  If you have a favorite recipe to share, leave a comment.  I love to see what it out there and what other people consider thier favorite cookies to be.  Holiday baking here I come (maybe).

Green Girl Los Angeles

I am a huge fan of the fashionable yet posh ways in which we can help save the environment.   We do a lot of shopping at Whole Foods and such, and we always have reusable bags with us, or we recycle the paper bags that we have.   Let’s face it, the reusable bags you typically get aren’t very fun or trendy looking.  At least if you are going to save the Earth, you should have some fun doing it!

The average family uses about 1,000 plastic bags a year!  Most of them end up in landfills where they sit for an astonishing 1,000 years before they decompose and do even more damage to the soil.  That’s a pretty shocking statistic and one big mess I don’t want to help pass on to future generations.

I was recently given the opportunity to review Green Girl reusable eco-totes especially designed for women.  They are perfect for shopping, a day at the beach, or trips to the gym. And one of the coolest features is that they are reversible!  Each side has a fun bold pattern to fit your stylish mood for the day.   These hip bags are made of machine washable cotton, and have plenty of room for all your stuff. The straps are super comfy which is a plus for busy moms on the go, and especially when you are lugging kiddos around.  And after your shopping spree, or day at the beach, you simply roll up the bag and secure it with Green Girl’s signature silver ring so you can store it in your purse or glove compartment.

Green Girl eco totes ($45) are now available nationwide, and at Lily Pad Baby and coming soon Green Girl World. Eco-totes are perfect for holiday giving too…try stuffing one with fun stuff for the holidays!   Get yours now and start saving the Earth!

Green Girl will also offer, jute totes that say it all with eco-inspired messages, kids’ totes, a bath, body and home line, jewelry and more!

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