Eager Mind Letter Magnets - Review & Giveaway

"Mommy? What does M T L say?"

The question is the same she has uttered a million times already, the combination of letters always different. Once in a while she inadvertently spells a real word (or its homonym) and her delight is palpable.

C knows her letters, all the capitals and most of the lower case ones. She knows that they come together to create words. She just doesn't quite yet know how to string them together to get to those words, but she can't wait to learn.

Here to help her in her endeavors are the adorable letter magnets created by Eager Mind. These cool little rectangular magnets feature a letter and a picture with a word that starts with the letter. What sets them out from the magnetic letter pack is that each contains images that represent both the short and the long vowel sounds - A is for anchor and A is for alien. To make the sets even more entertaining, no images are repeated, so kids learn that there are lots of different ways each letter can be used.

The instant we tore into the lowercase and the uppercase packages both girls had a blast sticking the letters on our refrigerator and stainless steel oven. They assembled plenty of nonsense words and tolerated my attempts at getting them to read simple two or three letter words. Weeks later we're still playing with the letters regularly.

Eager Mind Magnetic Letter Pros:

- The quality of these letters is quite impressive. The ones that have found their way into Little L's mouth have survived nicely. They're thick enough for little fingers to grasp.
- Each set comes with the regular 26 letters plus an extra four consonants and the 5 long vowel sounds. Combine the lower case set with the upper case set and you have plenty of letters to create many fun words.
- The pictures are cute and funny, but easily identifiable.
- Very affordable! Each set retails for $8.95. At that price if your child feels limited by the number of letters you could easily expand each set.

Eager Mind Magnetic Letter Cons:

- For most kids there's a gap between knowing letters and being able to combine them into words. This set doesn't really address that gap meaning that once the child has mastered letter recognition he might lose interest in the letters until he becomes interested in stringing words together.

Eager Mind Magnetic Letter Giveaway:

I have not one, not two, but THREE sets of letters to giveaway to you my faithful readers!

To enter:
1) Leave a comment telling me which child in your life would most enjoy these letters.
2) Visit the Eager Mind website's cool letter writing practice worksheet page and let me know if you download any.
3) Subscribe to this blog's feed. Leave a comment telling me you subscribed.
4) Subscribe to my other blog's feed. Leave a comment telling me you subscribed.
5) Tweet, email, blog about this giveaway.

That's a grand total of 7 ways you can enter! Please remember to leave me a way to contact you. And please, please, please, leave a separate comment for each of your entries. I can't credit you for each of them if you don't.

Giveaway ends Friday, July 3, 2009 at 10pm PST.

I received an set of Eager Mind magnetic letters for review, but I was in other no way compensated for this giveaway. All opinions included in this post are mine and mine alone.

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ActiveIon Pro Winner

A couple days late... Sorry!

The winner for the ActiveIon Pro is...












Snarfdog! Also known on Twitter as @Torturedmommy!
Congratulations! Can't wait to hear how much you love your ActiveIon Pro!

Thank you to everyone who entered! Stay tuned for more fun giveaways coming soon.

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Introducing House of Gems!

Have you ever wanted to start your own handmade jewelry store on Etsy or Silkfair, but didn't know where to start? Maybe you already enjoy scrapbooking and knitting and thought beading might be worth a try, but weren't sure about the investment.

Now you can win a bracelet making kit plus $75 in product - a $100 value - by entering the "Bejeweled Giveaway" contest. Ten readers across the Momfluence network blogs will be chosen to win!

But there's more! Those ten winners will be able to submit a picture of their completed bracelet to the House of Gems, and one will be chosen to receive a $250 gift certificate, enough product to really jump start your business.

To enter: choose one or more ways to enter.

Option 1 - Subscribe to one or more of the House of Gems feeds found at http://www.houseofgems.com/feeds.aspx - each feed subscription counts as a new entry! Once you've subscribed fill out this entry form: http://cli.gs/ND4NMe

Option 2 - Blog about the "Bejeweled Giveaway" contest on your own site then fill out this entry from: http://cli.gs/ND4NMe

Join us on Twitter Saturday, June 27th at 9:00 p.m. eastern for a #houseofgems SiteWarming party where the 10 winners will be announced!

About the House of Gems:

House of Gems, Inc. (www.houseofgems.com) was established to provide quality beads, pearls, findings, pendants, chains and other jewelry making accessories at wholesale prices, directly to the consumer.The people behind Houseofgems.com have been in this business since 1992 and have an extensive network of designers, manufacturers and other direct suppliers to draw upon.

Since they have their own factories,craft shops and import directly, they have the best prices on quality products. Now, with the power of e-commerce they have eliminated the 'middle men', bringing their quality products at low wholesale jewelry prices, directly to your doorstep.

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Lily on the Fly Review

It's 6pm, the kids are hungry. Your significant other has just called to say s/he was running late. You're fried and out of inspiration. So what are you going to cook? Chicken nuggets? Fish sticks? Hot dogs? It's not like you have the ingredients on hand for anything else, right?

Well, you would if you had Lily on the Fly to help you.

Lily on the Fly is a neat little kit that takes all the hassle and guesswork out of menu planning, grocery list making, and creating healthy fun meals that actually change from week to week.

Created by a mom who understood the challenge all too well, and awarded the 2008 iParenting Best Product award, Lily on the Fly is a simple system that will easily get you in the habit of planning healthful weekly menus.

The kit consists of a plastic recipe card holder that sticks to your fridge and a large number of handy recipe cards that feature tasty but simple recipes on one side and a list of ingredients (sorted by grocery store section!) on the other.

At the start of the week flip through the cards and select the ones that you want to make during the week. Slip them into the holder in the order you plan to use them, then grab your holder and head to the store. At the end of the day, take out the cards you've used and put them back in the deck. When the holder is empty start the whole thing again.

Want more recipes to play with? Lily on the Fly offers add on packs to spice up your rotation! Have family favorites you want to include? Lily on the Fly offers blank cards so you can adapt your own recipes to the system.

Lily on the Fly Pros:

- The recipes are tasty and simple to assemble, making this a low stress way to organize your families meals.
- The recipes are diverse and cover everything from breakfast to desert and include snacks. Even better they cover a large range of cooking methods from slow cooking to grilling.
- Three recipe packs and the make your own card pack mean that you can try new recipes every week while holding on to tried and true family favorites.

Lily on the Fly Cons:

- The original plastic holder was a bit bulky to fit into a purse, but Lily on the Fly has just come out with a little pocket version that would be ideal for people who are always on the go and want to keep their recipes on hand for those last minute trips to the store.
- The only thing the cards themselves are missing is a spot to write quick, post meal notes about what you might change or how much your family liked the meal.

If you're looking to start menu planning and getting your family's meals organized this is the tool for you! And if you ever make the Sour Cream Blue Berry Muffins don't forget to invite me over. OK?

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ActiveIon Pro Review and Giveaway

What do Bill Nye the Science Guy and cleaning have in common? Well nothing really, except for the fact that he's the spokesperson for simply the coolest cleaning tool you will EVER own. Even maybe the last cleaning tool you will ever own, the ActiveIon Pro.

Imagine a cleaning product as pure and chemical free as water. Doesn't exist you say? You're right. ActiveIon isn't as pure and chemical free as water, it is water. Yup, water. Nice healthy plain ol' tap water. I'm not kidding. (See? It's so pure that that's a picture of Bill Nye squirting it into his mouth!)

You fill up your slightly E.T. looking ActiveIon Pro with tap water, squeeze the trigger, and through some electrical magic that water becomes ionized. Or rather the electricity infuses the water with positive and negative ions, that attract dirt like teeny tiny little magnets.

That could very well be a completely wrong analysis of what the little magical tool does. I don't know, I was terrible at physics in school. Bill Nye and the ActiveIon people are probably shaking their heads a lamenting the fact that they asked me to blog about this. But whatever, I don't care, and I'm not giving back my ActiveIon Pro, even if I failed the science explanation, so there.

Here is what I do know. I have used my ActiveIon Pro every day for the last week or so and I still love it as much as the day I took it out of the box. I love not using cleaning products and getting a better result than I did when I used them. I love that I'm not exposing my asthmatic girls to more chemicals. I love how clean everything is looking. And I love that I still think this is fun. Oh, and every time I use my tap to fill up the ActiveIon Pro I love the fact that I'm not spending mega bucks on cleaning solutions!

In the last week I have cleaned windows - ActiveIon ROCKS the window cleaning, I have cleaned the stove top - swoon on the easy wiping up of food spatters, I have cleaned the bathtub, I have cleaned the kitchen counters, the kitchen cabinets, the nasty corners on the kitchen linoleum, the TV screen, the computer screen, the bathroom mirror, and yes, the window frames outside the house. The only thing that the ActiveIon didn't rock was the grease build-up over my stove. It's not a huge fan of grease. Then again, neither was the Clorox Greenworks Cleaner.

Armed with my ActiveIon Pro and my brand new 36 pack of microfiber cloths (microfiber cloths! ActiveIon Pro's BFF!) I am making dirt and dust my... uh, I am mastering the cleaning of my home. Ahem. Even better, even M thinks that the thing is fun so the house is getting really clean. (Also, yes, our house is really dirty. There is much dirt to be mastered.)

It's a pricey investment, I won't lie to you, but it seriously will replace most of the cleaning products in your home. Plus, rumor has it that you can also use it to remove your make-up at night. Which I would have tested, except that I tend to forget that step and end up removing it in the shower the next morning. But that's entirely besides the point.

So, if you're very green conscious, or just looking to reduce your family's exposure to cleaning chemicals, if you really like to clean or need a fun gimmick to get yourself cleaning, and yes, if you have a couple hundred dollars lying around, hurry over to the ActiveIon website and purchase one of these babies for yourself! Or, you know, scroll down to see if you can win one.

ActiveIon Pro Giveaway!

To enter:
1) Leave a comment telling me how much you love or hate cleaning.
2) Leave a comment telling me how many times I wrote ActiveIon up there, cuz dude, it was a lot!
3) Visit the ActiveIon website and come rave about how cool and revolutionary this is and how you would use it.
4) Subscribe to this blog's feed. Leave a comment telling me you subscribed.
5) Subscribe to my other blog's feed. Leave a comment telling me you subscribed.
6) Tweet, email, blog about this giveaway.

That's a grand total of 8 ways you can enter! Please remember to leave me a way to contact you. And please, please, please, leave a separate comment for each of your entries. I can't credit you for each of them if you don't.

Giveaway ends Friday, June 19, 2009 at 10pm PST.

I received an ActiveIon Pro for review, but I was in other no way compensated for this giveaway. All opinions included in this post are mine and mine alone.

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Sandisk MicroSD Memory Card Winner

And the SanDisk MicroSD Memory Card winner is...

Jay! Who is super generous and would give all that storage to his sister! Congratulations Jay, hope you and your sister enjoy having all that space!

Didn't win? Grab your own SanDisk MicroSD memory card here just in time for those Dads and Grads gifts or for to capture your summer fun!

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Kohl's Cares for Kids Ducky Winner!

And the winner for the Kohl's Cares for Kids Ducky Giveaway is...

MJ! Whose family gives to Donors Chose and who join their local library's reading club for the weekly meeting and great prizes!
Congratulations MJ! Hope you guys enjoy the book and the plush toy!

If you didn't win, don't worry. Hurry over to Kohl's! The Duck books and coordinating plushies are being sold for $5 a piece until the end of June!

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Dogs Move Too! Book Review

Moves don't just affect the grown-ups who make the big life changing decisions, they affect their children and the family dog, and it's not always easy for them to understand what's happening and how it will affect them.

Anthony and Julie Majewski have written a delightful little paperback book called Dogs Move Too! that explains in simple terms that moves don't have to be scary things. Only thing, it's not from the point of view of a child, it's from the point of view of a lovable adorable dog.

Max is a sweet childlike protagonist who will take you from the scary moment when his "daddy" loses his job to the happy ending when they arrive in the new town that holds "daddy's" new job. Max keeps track of the important things like where his toys are stashed to who he'll get to play with in the neighborhood while reminding his "parents" that he's sad to say goodbye to his neighborhood and his friends.

Dogs Move Too! Pros:
- Great book for going over the scary details of an impending move and for showing a child that there's really nothing to fear.
- Great way for prompting discussions about your family's move.
- Dogs Move Too! is raking in the book awards this year! (Runner-up award at the 2009 New York Book Festival and the San Francisco Book Festival in the children's category. Finalist in the Next Generation Indie Books Award in three categories - Animal/Pets, Best Cover Design Fiction, Best Overall Book Design Fiction)
- Accessible text and story for early readers.
- For every book purchased Anthony and Julie donate a portion of the proceeds to Leader Dogs for the Blind.

Dogs Move Too! Cons:
- Even though this looks like it would be a book for the younger set, it actually contains quite a bit of text making it a bit long for the 4 and under set. That said, if you read it ahead of time it would be quite easy to adapt the book for a younger audience.

If your family is considering a move in the near future invest in Dogs Move Too! a cute little book that might just be the thing to help make the transition smoother!

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