Friday, December 31, 2010

Rethinking Resolutions.

Every year there are several resolutions that go through my mind: Lose weight, quit smoking, eat healthier, excersize more, schedule my days. But none of that is really me. I don't need to lose weight. *I am 5' and a buck fifteen* I don't really smoke. I would call is social smoking, girls night out and someone lights a ciggerette, I have a couple drags. I could start to eat healthier, but damnit! I love my HoHo's! It's too cold right now to excersize, so can't that be my spring resolution? And with twinfants, it is impossible to schedule my days.

So maybe this is why I have always had trouble keeping my resolutions, they have not been worth keeping. Last year it was to cook more often. What kind of serious crap is that?! I am a Mama. I cook breakfast lunch and dinner. How in the  H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks can I cook more than that?! Make my own bread and noodles?! The year before that I was a chain smoker, that was my resolution and I went neurotic for a couple months trying to quit becvause it was my resolution DAMNIT! And now I realize that there should not be any real pressure. Why is there one day out of the whole year that we have to pick something and promise ourselves that we will do this one thing, forever. Why not have a July resolution. Or a birthday resolution *For me that would be a New Years resolution anyways, my birthday is on the 2nd*. 

So out of all the resolutions I could have this year, there will not be one. It is tempting though. How about living a no pressure lifestyle? No pressure to be the perfect mom, no pressure to cook the perfect dinner, no pressure to excersized daily and no pressure to eat right. How about just being myself this year, and not trying to live up to anyones bogus expectations? Especially my own?

And with that, re-think your resolutions. Are they truelly something that is you? Or are they going to be something that in the long run will hurt you because you could not up-hold your promise to yourself.


Thursday, December 30, 2010

Holidays have been crazy!

This winter season has been hard on us all here at our household. So much has happened in the past few weeks that I do not know how to sum it up in to one short post, so this may be a long one. Earlier this month my twins came down with the flu, and that rocked our world in one direction and the other. Thankfully they are fine. It was passed around the house and back again. The rest of us are fine now too. Christmas was pretty stressful for us all too. Tis the season to spend, spend, spend and with little money to go around Christmas was sparse for us here. So we turned it into a positive and made the focus on family instead of gifts. that was incredibly time consuming and we may as well have bought presents for the children because we ended up spending entirely too much money on food that no one really ate much of *love the leftovers though!*

Thank goodness it is over. I miss my blog, dear bloggy blog.

The twins are now smiling and laughingm almost sitting up by themselves and have started some interesting games. K's favorite game is pretty obnoxious. When I change his diaper he likes to pull his legs up to stop me and smile, then he puts his legs down as soon as I stop trying and this continues for a while. Aaron is a peek-a-boo lover. He doesnt quite get it, but looks around in amazement as soon as the world apeers again.

God I love these kids. I am pretty sure in high school I was voted least likely to have children and most likely to get a boob job. Well I failed both of those. I have three kids of my own and am working on raising my sisters as well. I think I am doing fairly well. I am crazy. I think that comes pretty easily with children. But damnit I love it. I can't wait until things settle down and we can get back into a normal routine.

Well ok, so I guess all the chaos fits pretty well into a single blog post. This is minimal though... The past few weeks where not only filled with the flu, and the holidays, but family fued's, checks that could not be cashed, bad weather, forgotten bills, and to top it all off I lost my phone and pissed my Grandma off by not calling her to thank her for the Christmas gifts she sent.

Alright, well the babies are nodding off to sleep and I might as well catch some too. I promise there is more fun things to come soon. I have a 25$ gift card to give away, and a few good smelling and clean reviews.



Monday, December 20, 2010

SWAGG

There are very few things that I hate about christmas. One of them is gift cards. They are impersonal, and usually for the wrong thing. Example: I got a gift card to an ice-cream shop a few years ago, and I hate ice cream. This gift card spent four years circulating my group of friends as a re-gift until I got it back! Now someone has come up with a wonderful fix for that! Swagg is an iPhone app that allows you to buy, send or swap Swagg. Getting rid of your un-wanted cards, and trading them for one that is really more your style.

The other function is basically a version of a pre-paid phone. You can put say... 20 dollars into your Swagg account, then transfer 10 of it to one retailer, and 10 of it to another. I like that.  You are pre-paying through Swagg to get a gift card from another store? I am not sure the complete functionality of that, but if you want to only use your credit card on one sight, they make up "credit card" numbers to use on one of their affiliate sights.

Signing up online was fairly easy. Figuring out the iPhone app was a little more difficult. But once it was loaded, it was super easy to deal with, and a pretty fun way to shop. I do have a problem that none of my local-ish chains are listed on their site. It would be nice to have a function to put your own gift cards in and label them yourself.

I guess over-all I am not a fan of online shopping to begin with. I like seeing and feeling whta I am going to buy. So it makes it a little difficult to get into something that is just, well, not for me. But I know a lot of people who are into that, and have a lot of gift cards that are just sitting on the shelf wasting away to nothing that it would be perfect for.


SWAGG is a free mobile app (download here) that lets you shop smarter using your mobile phone. Buy, send or swap SWAGG GIFTS and organize your old school plastic gift cards.
For every download of the app between now and Dec. 31, 2010, SWAGG will donate $1 to Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C) , up to $125,000.
Clever Girls Collective and SWAGG are sending a pair of movie fans to the Sundance Film Festival! Download the SWAGG app and then visit the Ultimate SWAGG Getaway Sweepstakes site to enter to win a trip for two to the Sundance Film Festival. Entry deadline is January 3, 2011, 11:59pm, PST.

Learn more about the coolest new app that revolutionizes the whole shopping, gifting, and gift card-organizing experience and Download the SWAGG app to your iPhone or Droid. I was selected for this sponsorship by Clever Girls Collective, which endorses Blog With Integrity.

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

I Dig - Rock Treasures Kit Review



Little D was terribly excited to receive a package in the mail just for him. Ebeanstalk had sent one of their 5 year old toys just for him! He was delighted to find a I Dig Rock Treasures Kit. And could only imagine the possibilities buried in this "treasure brick" *he re-named it*.
It took us a while to get set up for it, covering the kitchen table in our art-table cloth and getting our play clothes on.
Then we dug in.
And dug.
And dug.
It took him a while to get a technique the worked well for him *A kitchen spoon and water*. The tools provided worked well for me to help him out. His five year old fingers and the tools would not cooperate. My favorite thing about the I Dig Rock Treasures Kit  is that you can incorporate it easily in a home-schooling lesson, or it can just be a fun activity for  the budding geologist in your life.
Overall it was short lived fun, and the girls have plans for the treasures they found, it involves a long day with a dremmel and some string.

Ebeanstalk has a great selection of baby toys and kid toys for Christmas or any occasion. Check them out and tell me what you think!







Saturday, December 4, 2010

Toy Story 3 Action Links Stunt Set

Today was playdate day, and we decided to have most of the kids in my son's class over for a Toy Story 3 Action Links Stunt Sets party.

Wow was my house wild and crazy for quite a while. They tore into those boxes and tried setting everything up on their own, only to get a little confused by it all. That's when the Dad's had to step in and work their building magic.

As soon as the stunt sets where made up, a couple of really cool chain reactions went off. But that fizzled out quickly and the kids lost interest. They spent most of the time playing with the action figures re-creating scenes from the movie.

We tried to intervene with crafts from the handbook that was sent, but couldn't quite catch the attention. I think it was too exciting to have a pile of new toys.


I want to say a HUGE thank you to all the woman over at MomSelect for the opportunity to host this party!

Jess

Friday, December 3, 2010

Yoohoo & Friends and Milly Review and Giveaway!


5" SMALL LEMMEE PUNK ROCKER picture
5" Small Lemmee Punk Rocker
Something my kids got from my crazy genes, is my love of plush toys. But who does not love them?  My bonus baby K's bed is overflowing with them, and little D has several "hammocks" full. But their are special places for special toys, and that is in the hands of the ones that love them. Little D was overflowing with excitement when I got a box of goodies from Aurora World Inc.. He immediately laid eye's on Lemmee Punk Rocker and fell in love. He demanded show and tell with his aunties and has drug him everywhere since incessantly pressing the button to make the "whistleing" noise. His new best friend has also stood up to Kiki our cat. He has gotten a hold of it several times, and it has yet to be torn apart. Although I do not recommend these as cat toys. They are also not recommended for children three and under as there are several small parts that could come off and cause a choking hazard.


5" SMALL YOOHOO LOVE picture
5" YooHoo Love

The features of these toys are interesting. They are very soft and snugly, yet double as a sort of action figure. The Yoohoo Love & the Lemmee Punk Rocker that I was sent both have noise function's to them. Yoohoo Love has a smoochy-smooch sound that it makes and Lemmee Punk Rocker makes a cat call whistle noise. Neither are very loud *Mama's best friend = quite toys!* and the noise does not last for very long. There are also very few toys that can fit into the gender neutral zone that Yoohoo & Friends do.









The lovely people over at Aurora World Inc. also sent me two versions of Milly.



8" WANNA BE FRILLY MILLY BALLERINA picture8" Wanna Be Frilly Milly Ballerina



Milly is my favorite from them. I am a little dissapointed that the one with the strawberry carrier is supposed to smell, but really does not. I suppose that could be a good thing because if she was too potent, I would have a problem with that as well.

Aurora World Inc. offers a wide array of childrens plush toys, anything from everyday and baby, to holiday or custom made. You can find them at there easy to navigate website http://shop.auroragift.com/.

Here is what the people at Aurora World Inc. have to say:

"Aurora is the leading supplier of affordable, high quality gift products. Since its establishment in 1981, the company has ascended to become a respected leader in the character & contents industry.

Aurora is your “One Stop Solution”.  Value prices, high quality and large variety, as well as international manufacturing, R&D and distribution resources are hallmarks of Aurora’s success. Aurora offers products for a range of children and adults who represent nearly every walk of life.

The company sells its products via a wide variety of retailers including major zoos, department stores, high-end toy stores, top gift chains, as well as hospital gift shops, fine florists, candy stores and gift/stationary stores worldwide. Take a step into Aurora’s world and see what everyone is smiling about."

I like it. It is simple, sweet and honest. They make products to sell products, to make people happy.

The toy's made my son happy, and I am sure they will make your kid happy as well! Aurora World Inc. generously offered to give one of the plush toys in there "Yoohoo & Friends" line away to one of my readers.

Here is how to enter:

MANDATORY ENTRY:
Visit http://shop.auroragift.com/  and tell me which you YooHoo & Friends or Milly you would prefer. *You must also be a GFC follower to enter*

EXTRA ENTRIES:

Visit the  YooHoo & Friends Facebook FanPage and "Like" them

Follow YooHoo & Friends on Twitter

Visit the  Aurora World Facebook FanPage and "Like" them

Follow me on Twitter @vileramblings

Visit my fan page and "like" me

Comment on any other post of mine - Must be meaningful -

This contest will end December 16th 2010 *My Hub's Birthday* at 11:59 PM. The winner will be posted here and contacted by email. They will have 48 hours to respond before I am physically forced into picking another winner by the winner police. Good luck! 


I received no monetary compensation for this review. All opinions expressed are my own. 



Cradle Rock Winner


The winner of the Cradle Rock CD is comment #5


                                                  asl on November 28, 2010 11:02 PM said...




                                    i liked them on facebook. username audrey shay.


Congrats asl! I will be sending you an email shortly with more details.

True Random Number Generator 5 


Eden Fantasys

Eden Fantasys



There are a lot of trashy "adult" type online stores and communities. Most of what I have come across in my escapades has made me feel sleazy, dirty for shopping there or like a piece of meat on the market. Eden Fantasys has a completely different feel. Unlike most online adult shop's Eden Fantasys is what only can be described as a "sex positive environment".

When I shop online for an adult toy, it can be fairly complicated. Half of me would like to get it done as quickly as possible so no one gets caught "doing the deed". The other half wants to browse, get a feel for the toys and learn what other people have to say about them. One of my pet peeves is that there are never enough reviews for sex toys! You can look and look until you find the one that looks right for your body type, or your various fantasys. But when you get home and take your glorious sex toy out of the package to play with, maybe it does not come with batteries or is not the texture you imagined. And lets face it, when a company describes the sex toy is it actually described by someone who has used it? Felt it? Taken it for a good test drive? Usually that is not the case.  Eden Fantasys has a community section that will take care of all of your questions for you.

To the left of the home page you will find a section labeled Community. Under that there are several links, reviews, forums & polls, community corner along with many more. My favorite being EdenTube. Now I know that your mind is going naughty places, mine did too when I first clicked. But these are real people. Doing real reviews. Honestly. Nothing dirty. Well... OK... Some of them get a little more dirty than text book. But that's to be expected. It's reality, and not many of us are writing text books when reviewing product.

Another section of Eden Fantasys that I like is The Naked Reader Book Club. When it comes to porn I am a bigger fan of what is better known as "literotica". I think most females are. It leaves more to the imagination than... Man enters room and fucks woman until he busts a nut... Not very clever. I can't think of a way to put it better than they, so here is what they have to say:

"Join venerated erotica publisher Cleis Press, EdenFantasys and SexIs in an ongoing online book club for inquiring minds who love to read about all things sexual—from the politics of pornography to the erotically evocative boundaries of desire."

I am going to have to read up and join the next discussion.

While shopping at Eden Fantasys you can find a wide selection of, well everything. They have a section for women, men, couples and gender play. They also have a variety of sexy lingerie everything from XS for petite girls like me up to 4X.

To close up this post, I have to say I am pretty impressed with the website. It has a little bit of everything for everyone. Some thing on the site made me blush and giggle. I had to poke fun at my hubby asking what kind of penis enlargement kit he would like for Christmas and which pocket pussy he would like for our anniversary. But when it comes down to it, these are real products used by real people and Eden Fantasys has done a fantastic job incorporating everyones needs and fantasys into one place that will make everyone feel comfortable shopping, browsing or just joining the community.

Jess