Here is something fun to do for the kids! Have they ever wondered what a dog crossed with a bear would look like? Well, on Switch Zoo, from a calligator to a dogophant, you can create crazy new animals online!
I had so much fun “creating” a new animal. The website is very easy to navigate.Try it, I am sure your kids will be hooked – especially perfect for when you want them to stay out of trouble and/or you want to catch a few moments to yourself.
They also have memory and sound games and puzzles! Not only is it interesting to play, its also a great learning tool! There’s some reading involved, so I think this would be best for kids ages 3 and up.
Here’s the animal I “created”. It has a raccoon’s head, zebra’s legs, iguana tail and the body of a pig. Looks so weird, huh?
…and the SiliKids winner, chosen randomly by random.org is comment #2 – Judy Lechleitner! Congratulations Judy! Look out for an email with instructions on how to claim your prize.
Check out the Easy Lunch Box and Shutterfly giveaways below!!!
American Girl announced today that they are retiring the Felicity and Elizabeth lines. The complete product collection will be moved into the archives, however the books will still be available.
What do you think about this “retirement”? What will you miss the most from the Felicity line?
So excited about this week’s giveaway. I am so impressed with all of the Easy Lunch Box sites – from their website to Facebook, to Twitter. You know how we love supporting Mom owned businesses.
Here’s my sister Michelle, our resident reviewer…
Michelle is a super-Mom of 3 children: Maggie (7..nearly), Jack (5) and Tommy (2). She juggles parenting and her job as a home-care nurse while hubby works full-time in corporate America and serves as the Chief of the local volunteer fire company. Michelle will be giving you her honest opinion on products and services that we feel you all of you might be interested in. We will be hosting many giveaways for these products as well.
*Please note that Michelle may have received free product on compensation in exchange for these reviews and giveaways. Not a bad deal – she gets to be the guinea pig for all of you and you have the chance to get free stuff! To Mom power!
This review is also a giveaway – scroll down to the bottom of the post
for details…
Easy Lunch Boxes is a simple kid’s lunch box system created by Mom Kelly Lester. But simple does not describe the level of attention and care given to creating an affordable, environmentally safe product. It consists of a cooler bag, available in black, dark red, olive, purple, and aqua and a container with three compartments to organize your lunch. Easy to pack, easy to use, and easy to clean. One or two containers fit in the lunch bag – just like a Bento lunch box. With one container there is plenty of room for extra snacks, fruit, ice packs, or even a water bottle on top. The containers are durable with lids that are easy to use (see Maggie and Jack helping pack their lunch for summer camp).
The price for the cooler bag is $7.95 and the containers are sold in sets of four for $13.95. The prices are reasonable considering the money you would otherwise spend on disposable plastic bags. For our environmentally conscious readers, it contains no BPA, PVC, phthalates, lead, or vinyl. The packaging is simple but clean which I’m sure keeps the costs down. Shipping is via USPS Priority mail or a flat rate of $8.95 for UPS ground, whichever is cheaper. Any orders of $50.00 include free UPS ground shipping. Returns are simple, and for damaged products EasyLunchboxes pays the return shipping!
What I love about these lunchboxes is that they are no frills and good for the environment. It was even named a “Top 5 Eco-Friendly Mommy Must Have” by Parents Ask. But I also love the website! Easy Lunchboxes also has a great website packed with extra information. There are links to healthy lunch ideas, and ideas on how to personalize your lunchboxes for fun or for allergy alerts. It’s easy to navigate from page to page, and information on shipping costs and returns was easy to find. The website had a lot of attention to detail, which leads me to believe that mom and CEO Kelly Lester really cares about the product and wants you to care too. I love the versatility of this product. With containers being sold in four packs, I am able to have one in the dishwasher and one in use. I even packed two lunches in one cooler for Maggie and Jack at summer camp (see video).
The bottom line is that it was easy to review EasyLunchboxes! I love what EasyLunchboxes is trying to do for the environment, my children’s health, and my budget. Maggie is so excited to use the lunchbox for her new back to school lunch box.
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Easy Lunch Boxes wants one of our readers to win a FREE Lunch Box Cooler Bag and set of 4 containers!! In order to enter please visit the Easy Lunch Box website and post your favorite lunch idea in the comments below.
Comment must be posted by September 7th at midnight. On September 8th we will choose a winner randomly and announce here and on the Emily Rose Facebook Page. US residents only.
My sister Michelle is looking out for all of you again – this time with a giveaway from one her favorite websites – trust me I feel so guilty about my own photo taking when I see the stack of her gifts of Shutterfly Photo Books on my parent’s coffee table. At least she is nice enough to add the photos of Emily in for me
Michelle is a super-Mom of 3 children: Maggie (7..nearly), Jack (5) and Tommy (2). She juggles parenting and her job as a home-care nurse while hubby works full-time in corporate America and serves as the Chief of the local volunteer fire company. Michelle will be giving you her honest opinion on products and services that we feel you all of you might be interested in. We will be hosting many giveaways for these products as well.
*Please note that Michelle may have received free product on compensation in exchange for these reviews and giveaways. Not a bad deal – she gets to be the guinea pig for all of you and you have the chance to get free stuff! To Mom power!
For the giveaway scroll to the bottom of this post…
I have to admit, I am just a little obsessed with pictures of my children. Over the years, I have enthusiastically visited many different stores to have my children photographed and buy prints. Unfortunately, my enthusiasm didn’t last long when I saw the price tag! I have spent hundreds of dollars for a small selection of poses, and prints that inevitably ended up in a box in my basement. I needed to stop wasting money and find a way to share my memories instead. That’s when I decided to give Shutterfly a try.
My new photographer provides me with a disc of our photo session and then Shutterfly helps do the rest. I have created, Baby Announcements, Holiday Cards, family albums, brag books, Christmas albums ( Pop Pop’s favorite present), father’s day presents, Thank You Cards, and fabulous prints that I framed and hung in my living room. The process is simple, just upload photos and create, with easy to follow step by step directions.
There are lots of ways to save money with Shutterfly. Pre-paying for prints is a great way to save. You get a little more for your money that way. I also keep my eye out for special deals. Just this week I ordered an 8×11 photo book and received 50 free 4×6 prints!
My most recent order of the 8×11 photo book unfortunately arrived with a few defects. On several pages were some smudge marks on the pictures. I called customer service, and was told that a new book would be sent right away. Mistakes happen, but how customer service handles a mistake means a lot to me.
I love making memories with my children and I love sharing those memories with family and friends. Shutterfly helps me get creative and leaves the sharing to me!
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Shutterfly would like to give 3 lucky readers a Shutterfly promotional code, each code is valid for 12 FREE 5×7 flat stationery cards! To enter please follow the instructions below:
Post a comment below with your favorite Shutterfly experience or product – come on we know you’ve all used Shutterfly
18 Inch Doll School Outfit Designed To Fit The American Girl Doll
It’s almost that time of the year again – ahh, can you feel it? Yes, its time to go back to school! This outfit is perfect for your little doll’s first day back in school! Simple, but oh so cute, its perfect for that fresh new start!
This outfit includes a cute embroidered floral t-shirt with brown trim, corduroy skirt, beige panties, cute little slip-on sandals and a matching corduroy backpack. What great value!
Head on over to EmilyRose to purchase your very own Starting School outfit.
Congratulations to Joielle Martin and Michelle who have each won a business from Emily Rose @Home! (you will hear from us via email tomorrow on how to claim your prize)
As you know the goal of Emily Rose @Home is to get as many Moms in business as possible. In the last note that I sent out I told you how I had spoken to many of you on the phone. For most of you “financial limitations” was the most often quoted reason for not joining the program, even though so many of you wanted to – so to help out I was going to give away 2 free businesses to 2 lucky Moms.
Well that plan has changed. My husband and I were speaking about the upcoming Holiday Sales Season (which is our busiest and most lucrative time of year). I was telling him how sad I was that so many of you couldn’t join the Emily Rose @Home program because the Holiday Season is always so successful and it would be so encouraging and fun for all of you to start off with a bang. I told him about the improved training and materials that I am planning on September 15th. I told him I knew there were so many of you out there that could be so successful in your own business if just given the opportunity.
You know what he told me? Just do it – make it a Merry Christmas! If you are so confident that these Moms like you will do so well – then take a risk and invest in them. So that is what I am doing. I am taking a leap of faith and giving away 25 FREE Economy Starter Pack PLUS 1 FREE month of website fees to any woman who would like to join us on this adventure. I only wish we could give away more.
So – if you would like a FREE business all of your own please email info@emilyrosehomeparty.com with your name and the reason that you would like to join us. First come, first served.
Please, please, please only send the email if you are committed to trying and excited about making some money for the Holidays and starting your own business. If you send the email just to get free stuff you are taking the opportunity away from someone who really wants it. It would be unfair and just plain mean (plus this is an investment from my family, we aren’t some giant, faceless corporation).
Congratulations to Jenni and Ursula Avery who are the winners of the cool Eucerin Goodie Bags. I know they are going to love the stuff. Can’t wait to hear what they think about the face cream.
I had a great time at that Blogher conference and met some fantastic ladies. If you haven’t ventured out in to the blogosphere I’m letting you know you could meet some real true friends. I’m warning you though -it can get addictive
I got a very funny email from another of the sponsor’s Quickie’s Cleaning Products – only they didn’t know it was funny. Apparently I won the Quickie’s Cleanest Blogger Award with the highest score on a quiz about cleaning. What they don’t know? I’m not the cleaner in my house so I made my husband take the quiz… go Mark! Anyway – they are sending a bunch of goodies to my sister Michelle (our reviewer) to take a look at and she will also have some goodies to give away.
Emily Rose News!
What we have been building over the last year with both this blog and our Emily Rose Facebook Page is a real community of woman with daughters, grand-daughters, nieces, etc… We have expanded beyond sharing only our wonderful Emily Rose products because we get free stuff we think you would like and we asked you if you would like it and you said “yes”
BUT – many of you are interested primarily in our unique and affordable 18 inch doll clothes (hopefully you all are). So, since you are all different, and all want different things, we want to make sure you get exactly what you want. Later this week we will be sending out an email to our Emily Rose Club members (tens of thousands of you) to let you know what we offer community members and give you the opportunity to decide exactly what you would like receive – and to tell us what you don’t want. We are customizing every single interaction with every single one of you to make sure we are serving you in the best way we can.
One of my favorite things about Emily Rose is that even though we have grown tremendously we still have a very personal touch. I always want it to be that way. As always we love feedback so don’t hesitate to comment below, call us or send an email to customer care.
