Good Winter Reads

I keep a basket of books in our living room near the fireplace -- a sort of seasonal reading selection. Now is the time of year to read about snowmen, sledding and hot chocolate. Soon we will be moving on to daffodils, bird nests, and rain puddles.

Not quite yet though.

We are expecting a snow storm tonight (they say almost a foot, but who knows). So before bed we read The Snow Day by Komako Sakai. My aunt gave this book to my kids for Christmas and it has become a fast favorite.

Through its gentle illustrations and minimal text, The Snow Day somehow captures the deep quiet that comes with a big snow. It is a most excellent winter read.

I created an Amazon list over on the right-hand sidebar with some of our favorite seasonal books. I've seen this feature on other blogs and have found it helpful as I planned trips to the library or bought birthday presents for little ones. If you are looking to update your book basket, have a look.*

Just waiting now to see if we have a real snow day tomorrow.


* If you click on a book and purchase it through Amazon, I get (an extremely, extremely) small percentage of the sales price. Pennies. This list isn't intended to be a money-maker -- just a suggested reading list based on our favorites.

Giveaway: A $150 Gift Card to SkinCareRx!

I am so excited about this giveaway -- one (extremely lucky) reader is going to win a $150 gift card to SkinCareRx (the parent company of SkinBotanica, a sponsor of this blog)! $150! This will buy you quite a bit of free skincare, my friends!

So how would you spend this $150 gift card if YOU won?

You could pick up something from the popular SkinCeuticals Skin Care -- maybe this Daily Moisturizer or the new A.G.E. Eye Complex. That's what I would do. This stuff is tempting.

Of course, you could also stock up on variety of other personal care products (including a nice selection of natural and organic choices). If you are feeling particularly generous, you might even pick up a little something for the man in your life who might be reluctant to purchase a moisturizer, but would enjoy it nonetheless.

So how do you win, you ask? Here are the details:

Leave a comment on this post to enter (be sure that your Blogger profile includes an email address where I can contact you if you win).

If you really, really want to win this gift card, there are a few other ways to increase your odds. Pay attention here because this gets a tad confusing.

You get one additional entry for becoming a fan on SkinCareRx.com on FaceBook. And another entry for following SkinCareRx1 on Twitter. Twitter users who retweet any of my tweets about this giveaway get an additional two entries.

If you want to be super, duper serious about this giveaway, you can even write a post about it on your own blog -- that will get you a whopping SEVEN entries (post must have a minimum of 100 words and link to both this post and SkinCeuticals Skin Care).

When you leave a comment, be sure to let me know how many additional entries you are entitled to (we are on the honor system here -- plus, it is bad karma to try to cheat your way to beautiful blemish-and-wrinkle-free skin anyway).

If you don't have your own blog and you wouldn't use Twitter if your life depended on it, you should definitely still enter -- just leave a comment on this post. Who knows? You might just win!

All entries must be received by midnight CST on Sunday, February 14, 2010. I will randomly select a winner and contact that lucky, lucky individual by email on February 15, 2010. If I don't hear back from the winner within 48 hours, I will select another winner.

Okay, now go enter!

You think I am interesting? Gosh, thanks so much.

Today I am featured on the "Interrogating the Interesting" blog over at Funsherpa.com.

Here is what I had to say. I obviously hope that you find it at least minimally . . . interesting.

Got Stray Socks?

You have a laundry basket full of stray socks in your house too, don't you?

You hold on to these loners because you just know that the match is going to turn up one of these days.

I hate to tell you this -- but those strays are likely not going to turn up. Ever.

You should pluck out the cute socks from your pile of singlets and make something cute with them. That's what I did for my craft column in Chicago Parent this month.

Seven Days in Sanibel

We needed a change -- of temperature, pace and scenery.
It was good to get away.
And now it feels good to be home again.

Cheeks

A Review: V.Smile Cyber Pocket by Vtech

We are not video game people. Well, not yet at least.

We don't have an XBox. Or a Wii. I'm not even sure that I am spelling those things correctly. We just haven't really gone down the video game route yet.

But the infiltration has begun -- slowly but surely. My daughter received a Leapster L-Max as a present last year. And she loves it. I limit the amount of time that I let her play with it because the sound makes me batty, but she really enjoys it and is able to use it totally independently.

This same curious daughter returned home from a play date last week and informed me that she wanted a Wii for her birthday because her friend's older brother has one. And so it begins -- the coveting of other people's fancy toys.

I am not saying that video games or hand-held electronic toys have no value. I certainly think that limited, independent play with educational electronics is a nice alternative to say . . . . plopping the kids down on the couch to watch Sponge Bob Square Pants. And anyone who has ever traveled long distances by car or plane with a busy preschooler can also tell you that a little portable entertainment doesn't hurt.

I am trying to navigate my way through the world of kids and electronics as my children start to become interested in these sorts of things. I have some reservations -- but I am open to exploring the options out there.

So imagine my delight when Vtech Toys offered me the opportunity to review something called a V.Smile Cyber Pocket. I figured this might be something that my kids would like so I agreed to take a look.*

Although we didn't own any Vtech toys before this, I was familiar with their products. In fact, I think that Vtech does a great job of marketing their brand and their social media outreach to moms is first-rate.

When we opened our new Cyber Pocket (which retails for $49) both my three and five-year-old were eager to try it out with the Zayzoo: An Earth Adventure game that was included. This product is designed for kids ages 4-7 and my three year-old was pretty baffled by the whole thing so after he and I worked on it together for about ten minutes, he lost interest and abandoned it on favor of a set of wood blocks. Seriously.

My five year-old was more successful in her attempts to use the Cyber Pocket, although the stylus wasn't somewhat difficult to use and she was confused about what some of the buttons were for (and so was I frankly). The device includes activities for a wide variety of skill sets -- from spelling to math and music. After playing with the Cyber Pocket for awhile, she went to her room to retrieve her Leapster L-Max that she received as a gift for Christmas last year. She pointed out that the buttons and pen on the Leapster game were easier to use. Over the next few days, she continued to play with the Cyber Pocket and she started to get more familiar with the both the device and the game.

And then the Cyber Pocket totally stopped working. I changed the batteries, but still, nothing. When I told the Vtech folks about this problem, they couldn't have been nicer and overnighted me a new Cyber Pocket -- which has been working just fine for week now.

So what's my bottom line on the V.Smile Cyber Pocket? I continue to think that these types of hand-held electronics are a good thing for kids to use in a very limited way (I keep them up high so that my kids have to ask for my permission first). Our initial experience with the V.Smile Cyber Pocket has been a little bit disappointing but I think that it is something that my kids will enjoy more as they get older and more proficient at using the device on their own.

And although our experience with the V.Smile Cyber Pocket has been just so-so, I am definitely willing to consider their educational electronic products in the future as my kids become more interested in these sorts of things -- which seems inevitable because of older brothers and their fancy Wii systems.


* Vtech provided this item to me for review at no cost. And when the first one stopped working, they sent me another one. I was not paid for this review. This is just our experience with the V.Smile Cyber Pocket.