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If you are married and have kids then you know that date nights are an exciting time!  When Rich and I have a date night planned I always look forward to it all week long.  We are fortunate that my parents live close by and will watch Hailey for us so we can go out.  Our dates nights usually consist of going out to eat and a movie or some shopping.  There just doesn’t usually seem to be much else to do -and I’m just excited to get to spend some time with Rich so it doesn’t really matter to me what we do.

Anyhoo- last night I saw the trailer for Date Night Movie with Steve Carell and Tina Fey.  It looked pretty funny to me. They are a typical suburban couple our for their weekly date night. They end up having a date like they never could have imagined with all sorts of crazy things taking place.  I love Steve Carell so I think we will probably end up going to seet his movie, hopefully on our next date!  I certainly hope our date doesn’t end up with us being involved in a shoot out or a car chase.  I’ll stick with just dinner and a movie!!

Check out the trailer and then go see Date Night Movie this weekend when it opens!!

I try to make time to work on teaching Hailey her letters.  This fall my plan was to start teaching some of the letter sounds as well.  But it seems like there just isn’t enough hours in the day to do everything I want to do. We recently got to check out Alphabotz, which is a great way to help kids learn their letters and sounds and should really help me as I try to teach her.

Colorful robot characters on oversized flash cards are taking learning to read to a new level by helping emerging readers to comprehend nearly four dozen sounds created from the 26-letter English alphabet. The robots are called the Alphabotz, and when youngsters dive into the Superphonic Decoder Cards, they grasp the idea that letters equal sounds, sounds build words, and words tell amazing stories.

That’s the equation for making learning and reading fun, and the inventors behind the Alphabotz felt so compelled to bring their unique, and as it has turned out award-winning, concept to reality that they found a way to do it, despite the challenging economy for starting a new business. Designed for children ages 3+, these 46– 10″ x 4.5″ Alphabotz character cards are colorful, sturdy, and packaged in a sliding drawer box for easy storage.

The Alphabotz are the brainchild of Pat Vining, a mom of two and longtime elementary- and university-level educator. She perceived that a technically sound, multi-strategy approach to reading that was also fun and engaging for children was missing from the marketplace. So like many smart mom inventors, she decided to team up with former colleagues who had complementary skills to hers and a belief in her concept and started a business, Ideopolis LLC. Ideopolis is made up of Kelly Barton, partner for many years with Pat in a strategic design and communications firm, Kelly’s husband, Randy Barton, a chemical engineer with a lifelong entrepreneurial itch; and Nicole Sigsby, their marketing guru.

Let’s face it – phonics can be confusing and daunting to beginning readers. But not with the Alphabotz, whose visual clues, fun characters and stats show youngsters how to use decoding keys when coming across new word patterns. Each Superphonic Decoder Card contains a robot character who wears a letter or letter team on its chest and an icon on its head that serve as constant visual references to the sound the character represents. Each card also contains stats about the character that tell a story about its life and personality in order to make the sounds memorable and aid in development of letter recognition and phonemic awareness skills.

How would you like to win a set of Alphabotz for your child?  They are appropriate for children ages 3 and up.

Here’s what you need to do for a chance to win:

• Visit the Alphabotz site and look around.  Come back here and leave me a comment telling me something you learned while visiting their site.

Want some extra chances to win? Leave an ADDITIONAL COMMENT FOR EACH thing you do- your comment will be your entry.

• Blog about this giveaway linking back to this post. Then leave me a comment with the direct URL.
• Subscribe to my RSS feed and then leave me a comment letting me know you’re a subscriber.
• Tweet or Stumble this post and leave me a comment letting me know what you did.

This giveaway is open to US mailing addresses and will end on December14th at 11:59 pm EST. The winner will be chosen on December 15th 2009 via random.org and notified by email. Please read all of my giveaway rules here.

Are you looking for a fun activity that you can use for a birthday party, a Christmas party, a Saturday spent at home or a day over Christmas vacation?  Well, I have the perfect idea for you- Shrinky Dinks from Joobli Studios.  These packages for Shrinky Dinks are perfect for any family who likes to spend time together doing some arts and crafts.  It can be super fun for both boys and girls- there are great choices for both!

Joobli’s Fun Packs come in a handy package that includes a foldout poster, 32+ original images for tracing, 6 sheets of shrinkable plastic, foolproof make-and-bake instructions and 8 ball chains to make bag tags. Shrinky Dinks is an amazing tool for budding artists with just four easy steps: trace, color, cut and bake.

When it’s birthday time or planning a sleepover, grab the Joobli Party Pack, priced at $18.95. Featuring the same four themed kits, each party package includes themed invitations and envelopes, a themed poster to decorate the party room (and get youngsters’ creative juices flowing), 32 original images for tracing, 8 ball chains for guests to make party favors and Shrinky Dinks sheets for 8 friends. Trace, color, cut and bake resulting in a memorable party complete with artistic favors to bring home.

Joobli Studio is a boutique toy development company with a passion for art and design. We develop entertaining products that inspire kids and families to incorporate imagination and creative play into their daily experiences.

I think that the Shrinky Dinks are the perfect addition to any child’s Christmas list- for children ages 6 and up.  If you are looking for something that helps your child’s imagination and creativity then you’re going to want to get some Shrinky Dinks!

How would you like a chance to win a set of Shrinky Dinks?  One lucky winner will get to pick either the Fun pack (ARV $17.95) or Party pack (ARV $18.95) in the following themes: Wild West, Tiki Island, Enchanted Kingdom, Circus Jubilee or Christmas.

Here’s what you need to do for a chance to win:

• Leave me a comment telling me which pack you would want if you win.

Want some extra chances to win? Leave an ADDITIONAL COMMENT FOR EACH thing you do- your comment will be your entry.

• Blog about this giveaway linking back to this post. Then leave me a comment with the direct URL.
• Subscribe to my RSS feed and then leave me a comment letting me know you’re a subscriber.
• Tweet or Stumble this post and leave me a comment letting me know what you did.
• Become a fan of Joobli on Facebook.

This giveaway is open to US mailing addresses and will end on November 28th at 11:59 pm EST. The winner will be chosen on November 29th 2009 via random.org and notified by email. Please read all of my giveaway rules here.

Hailey has tons of toys- way too many, as I’m sure your kids do too.  But recently Hailey got a new toy that I am really glad I said yes to.  This is one toy that doesn’t take up very much space, is lots of fun and will last for a very long time. What is this great toy?  Citiblocs.

Check out some of the fun we have had with the Citiblocs:

A truck that I helped Hailey build.

Hailey really wanted to make a train, so here she is working on the railroad tracks.

Our finished train.

Later that week my parents came over for a visit and Hailey wanted my dad to help her build the train again.

She was very proud of the end result.

The blocks are made out of pine and are very lightweight.  Since they are all the exact same size they are easy to build with.  The package of Citiblocs comes with a little booklet with pictures of different things you can build- great for giving us some ideas of things to make.

Every precision-cut pine piece is exactly the same shape and size and it’s surprisingly
lightweight. The wooden blocks, crafted in Vietnam from New Zealand trees, don’t require glue, snaps, or connectors. Big and little kids simply supply gravity, balance, imagination and a flat surface! Imaginative kids can open the box and make a castle, then create a whole kingdom. Knock it down for a swirly skyscraper or a big wooden creature. Ideal for children ages 3 and up, grownups like to play with them too! While busy building, balancing and designing, tykes can learn the basics of architecture, mathematics and science.