I got this super-cool packet in the mail of Glue Dots to try out, I love being a part of the Twitter Mom’s Network (click this link for info: http://www.twittermoms.com/forum/topics/2000-in-prizes-up-for-grabs?) and boy I’ve been having fun using them to create everything for my son’s Thomas the Tank Engine-themed 3rd birthday party. I created his invitation myself (of course) in Photoshop and utilizing some of my own digital scrapbook materials, and some from Kathryn Baliant’s Pappa’s Trains digital scrapbook kit.

I used the Glue Dots in two ways – the front piece I printed on heavy card stock and cut out and used permanent Glue Dots to adhere it to the front of the card. Then I used the mini Permanent Glue Dots and stuck on the blue polka dot ribbon on top of the image of the ribbon on the print out. (I love combining digital and physical scrapbook materials!) On the inside of the card, I created what looked like a ticket and also printed that on heavy card stock. I stuck the ticket down with removable Glue Dots, so the guest can pull off and get their ticket punched as they enter the party. One last permanent mini Glue Dot to hold on the red polka dotted bow, and it was done.

How cool is that?

I’ll be using more GlueDots to decorate my house and yard, and put together thank you cards, along with checking on the Glue Dots facebook page for more ideas.

FYI: I wrote this blog post while participating in the TwitterMoms and Glue Dots blogging contest to be eligible to receive a $30 gift card. For more information on how you can participate, click here.

The subtitle for this should be “Magazines fight harder to gain subscribers” because that’s exactly what it seems RealSimple is doing. I’ve been a longtime fan of this magazine and website – www.realsimple.com. I have to admit, although I’m a techno-freak, I still love magazines. And I really love well designed magazines like RealSimple. (No, I swear they’re not paying me for this.) It’s a nice size, slightly squared as opposed to 8 1/2 x 11 and looks like a coffee table book. I have held on to my issues over the years instead of ripping out the articles that I’m interested in because they are not just packed with great info but are beautiful too. That being said, I rarely subscribe to anything, and usually get magazine subscriptions as gifts from my mom who knows how much I love them. When I moved, I got an offer to “try” RealSimple for two issues and of course I said yes and sent in my little postcard.

Was I shocked when in the mail today I got a thank you letter from them, along with a really cool magnet for my fridge that lists how long several different types of veggies can last in the crisper bin. Gotta love it! It reminds me of what Amazon did very early on for their first purchasers. If you bought a book from Amazon.com in their first year (which of course, I did) they sent out a thank you at Christmas time with a mouse pad. And not just some stupid mouse pad with AMAZON emblazoned on it, but a really cool quote, “Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside a dog, it’s too dark to read.” Mark Twain. It’s been years, but I’ll never forget that thank you, and have really been fairly faithful to amazon ever since. It helps that they usually have decent prices and are responsive in their shipping.
Kudos to you, RealSimple marketing folk. This might be the first magazine that I subscribe to!

Everyone is talking about mommy blogs (ahem, like mine) and how it is all the rage to be a mommy blogger as of late. But we’ve forgotten about a significant portion of people who could also be working to raise little humans: Daddys. And, as I’ve just discovered from July’s Parents issue, it may be worth a few daddy blogs.
Here’s what Parents magazine rated as the top five, and it’s a good place to start:
daddy-dialectic.blogspot.com
dadsanddaughters.blogspot.com
dadcentric.com
dadwagon.com
dadtalk.typepad.com

My friend came up with this awesome tool to help potty train her son – we’re trying it now with my 2 1/2 year old. Thought it was worthy of a post here!

I know I’m coming late to the game to Google Calendar – everyone’s been using it for a LONG time. I never needed it because I just used the calendar on my iPhone. Then, my husband joined me in my iPhone-ness and we got one for him. Our first mission? To solve one of our biggest problems – knowing where everyone in the family is supposed to be and getting them there. I work days, my husband works odd hours as a personal trainer, and we have a 3 year old son and a 5 year old daughter. My daughter is starting Kindergarten in August. Very soon, the 3 year old will have his preschool schedule (Mickey mouse day, Green day, Fresh Fruit Day, etc!), the Kindergartner will have her schedule (pick up early today, ballet class today, school trip today, OY!) and I have my crazy work schedule (I work at Disney.com and shuffle between offices, have meetings at odd hours, etc.). I know this is a problem many families have. It’s going to be a good trick to organize the schedule of each of us, and our kids, and be able to share this information right? Wrong.

If you don’t have a Google email account, go sign up for one now. (Where the heck have you BEEN?) Then, from the Google home page, top nav, click on MORE and go down to calendar. It’s in this amazing service, among many that Google offers for FREE, that you can begin to organize your family’s schedule. Set up a calendar for yourself. This is where you’ll put your schedule, your appointments, your lunch dates and doctor’s appointments. Now set up another calendar, this one is for your family. This calendar is where all the info for the kids go. If your kids have incredibly complex lives, you can set up a calendar for each kid but for me, for now, I just need one. The family calendar is where all the info on preschool special days go, where kindergarten field trip info goes, where family events go, and I also put in things like movie night, etc. The next step is to get your significant other to also head to Google, setup their account, and build their calendar. Once you are both in the Google system, and have calendars, you can share them with each other. My husband has a calender with his schedule, so now I know when he is training a client and when he’s on his way home. He also has a calendar to keep track of his own physical training schedule.

Now you don’t need to both have iPhones for this to work – Google Calendar connects up to many different types of phones and devices. I can tell you that if you have an iPhone it’s easier. You download the free Google app from the app store, and the first time you access the calendar from it, it asks if you want to put an icon on your device so you can go directly to the calendar as if it were an app (it runs in the browser). So now you are one finger press away from knowing where everyone is and everyone is going. You can add events from your computer web browser or from your iPhone.

Not only does this make life easier, and makes fewer arguments (ie: How could you forget to come to preschool graduation? I reminded you three times!) it’s super techie cool, and I as the SiliconValleyGirl, just love that.

They had a different business name, but I used the services of Spud.com several years ago.  My daughter had just been born, and I was barely learning to get out of the house much less hit the grocery store.  The thought of organic food being delivered (for free, if you spend more than $32) to my door was too good to pass up.

At Spud.com, you can pick your weekly doses of veggies from local growers along with a complete selection of natural foods, including milk, bread, pasta and ready-made meals.   And you don’t even have to be home for delivery, everything comes with ice packs and inside insulated bags.

One catch – they’re only in selected areas.  You need to be located in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland, Oregon or Seattle to use this service.  So if you’re way to the east, you’re out of luck.  As a resident of California, all I ever received before was beautiful fresh yummy veggies and fruit.  It was very cool making baby food out of such delicious organic produce.

One of my fave  blogs, SmashingMagazine, featured an excellent post from Louis Lazarus yesterday – a review of best practices for design for kid’s web sites.  It’s not just that I work on sites for kids (and love that so many Disney’s sites are all over this review – yay!) but also that I have two kids under age 5 and I’m concerned about what they are looking at on the web.

The best information in this post?  His list of conventional and non-conventional best practices (Add voices to navigation rollovers, Create depth in the design, and Use Flash animation abundantly to name a few) but it’s well worth the read-through and well screen-shotted  article.

I regularly watch video content on my computer – whether it be hilarious clips on YouTube or catching up at Hulu.com, I’m always cruising for content.  I rarely get to watch what I want to watch on my television as I live with a 2-year-old (Sesame Street and Yo Gabba Gabba), a 4-year-old (anything Noggin or Disney Channel) and a 38-year-old (Sports, Sports, Sports).  It’s just easier to tune the tv to what they want to watch, and then pull out my laptop and headphones.

So today, I headed over to NBC.com to look for episodes of Parks and Recreation (one of my fave new shows, if you have not seen this yet give it a chance – it’s quirky and very funny) and noticed a section of their video content that I’d never paid attention to before: NBC Video Rewind. In there, I found a virtual paradise of video from the 1980’s: Battlestar Galactica, Charles in Charge, Buck Rogers, Knight Rider, Miami Vice, Quantum Leap, The Bionic Woman, and Simon vs. Simon.  Be still my heart, I cannot wait to tune my tv to Yo Gabba Gabba and let Charles be in charge of me. 

Check out the classic TV site that goes along with this content: http://www.nbc.com/classic-tv/

Thank you, NBC – for bringing back some good old content instead of just pumping out a few more stupid reality shows!

Get the best of both worlds – healthy AND green – with one of my favorite toys, a SodaStream machine. 

 

Not only am I ingesting fewer chemicals (something we should all at least be attempting to do) but I’m saving the environment too by buying less plastic, glass, and aluminum.  Recycling is great, but if we all use less, then there will be less need to create and drag this crap all around the country and the end result is less pollution.  Who can argue with that?

I received this awesome set as a gift from my in-laws for christmas, and I have to say it’s one of the best gifts we’ve ever received.  It doesn’t even need power to run, just the C02 cartridges so imagine yourself at your next pool party impressing the hell out of your friends mixing fresh soda flavors for them.  The company sells all kinds of flavorings to put into your drinks, it’s great plain too – but my favorite pairing is to make the fizzy water and then add in Torani syrups. Yummo!