Do you guys remember when I posted about the Mobi GloMate? Cute nightlight and awesome toy. A little recap: it glows in different colors, it’s portable and rechargeable, lasts for ~10 hours, and it slowly dims over 15 minutes for nap/bedtime. Ryan LOVES this thing. It became the #1 toy in our house about a year ago (when Ryan was around 1.5 years old) as we used it for many, many (MANY) games of hide-and-seek. It became Ryan’s buddy even when it wasn’t charged and didn’t light up, haha.

Now? We have a new favorite. The AnimaLamp, also by Mobi. Don’t get me wrong, the GloMate is still awesome and it’s still around. But why do I like the AnimaLamp even more?

It’s the perfect light. We had been on the search for a suitable nightlight–one that wasn’t bright enough to keep Ryan awake and distracted, but also wasn’t so dim that it was pointless. Ryan loves to read books in bed before falling asleep… his lamp keeps him awake, but we can’t read in darkness! We resorted to using our cell phones for a little bit of light, but then he just wanted to play with our phones! haha.

The AnimaLamp has LED lights with adjustable brightness and a rechargeable battery so you can take this thing wherever you want. It stands on its own on a dresser or can sit in bed with you for nighttime stories.

Since the top of the AnimaLamp (the animal’s face) actually moves up and down, we hang ours on the edge of the toddler bed rail! In fact, if the giraffe isn’t hanging there when Ryan gets into bed, he searches everywhere saying, “Giraffe! Giraffe! Hang it!” Hanging it there leaves the face half open, which is the perfect amount of light for reading stories and falling asleep. Need more light? Just open the AnimaLamp up all the way… or close it all the way for less light.

With baby #2 on the way in a couple weeks here, I realize this will be the perfect light for middle of the night diaper changes and feedings, too.

We were worried about it lasting all night in Ryan’s room if it wasn’t plugged in, but no trouble there. Mobi says it lasts 8–12 hours per charge, but it has always lasted much longer than that for us. Regardless, 8–12 hours is plenty for overnight!

You can get your AnimaLamp for $24.95 on Mobi’s site (the monkey is coming soon!).

GIVEAWAY: one lucky reader will win their choice of AnimaLamp from Mobi! Please use the form below to enter. None of the entry options are mandatory–do as many or as few as you would like.


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Centrum multivitamins has a whole new line of supplements called ProNutrients. They’re designed to work with your current multivitamin to further support your health and there are select supplements you can choose from depending on what area you’d like to improve upon. The 3 new products are: Omega-3, Probiotic, and Fruit & Veggie:

• ProNutrients™ Omega-3 goes beyond heart health to also support your brain and eyes.* It comes in an ultra-concentrated MiniGel, which is smaller than most other brands, so it’s easy to swallow.
• ProNutrients™ Probiotic goes beyond digestive balance to also support healthy immune function.* It’s designed in a powder form with probiotics that arrive active and ready to work. The flavorless powder easily dissolves into any cool food or beverage like smoothies, yogurt or cereal.
• ProNutrients™ Fruit & Veggie MiniTabs harness the power equal to a serving of a blend of fruits and vegetables and is 100 percent naturally sourced from grapes, blueberries, raspberries, plums, carrots and tomatoes.

I’m a fan of the Centrum brand–they have a whole line of Specialist products too and I have their Prenatal pills.

Centrum is also part of a new website called Nutrition Possible that offers tons of information on health and nutrition. It even has a free self-assessment tool so you can see what you may be lacking and what you need more of! I took it and it suggested I eat more seafood and meats (definitely know I need that) and that I get more physical activity (and it gave me a list of great ones to try).

Want to try the new ProNutrients line? Click here to visit their facebook page and get a $5 off coupon!

GIVEAWAY: one lucky ready will win their choice of Centrum ProNutrients product–Omega-3, Probiotic, or Fruit & Veggie. HOW TO ENTER: Please use the Rafflecopter form below to enter. (You can view official giveaway rules here.)

I am participating in a Centrum ProNutrients campaign hosted by One2One Network. I received nutritional product and compensation. While all opinions stated are my own, I make no claims about Centrum ProNutrients as a product or it’s effectiveness.

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Still recovering from all that holiday shopping? I know I am–and let’s throw in there the new baby shopping and new house shopping and… :/ Regardless the reason, I know everyone could use an extra $100 cash!

Winner of this fast FLASH giveaway will get a $100 Amex Gift Card!

Fine print: ENDS at midnight (12:01am 1/13/11)! Please use the form below to enter. Winner will be notified within 24–48 hours after the end of the giveaway. Check back tomorrow to see who won!

Thanks to Deals4Dummies for organizing and hosting this giveaway!

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This post is sponsored by Serve from American Express. Sign up for Serve and receive $10 credit towards your first use. Comment below within the next 7 days for your chance to win an extra $100 credit to your account! (see details below)

Steve and I don’t get out enough. Most of our friends don’t have kids (yet!) and sometimes I totally miss the freedom that I see them enjoying. The funny thing is, though, when Steve and I do get a chance at freedom (thanks to our lovely babysitters Ryan calls gam gam and papa), we cherish the quiet and alone time… hence the reason we don’t get out enough, haha.

The other weekend we met up with 2 friends for lunch, sans kid!!!, and it was wonderful. We really need to make plans like that more often. Adult conversation will keep ya sane lol. And it’s always nice to catch up with friends. I’ve known this chick since we were both in Kindergarten! And look at the two matching men in the photos with their eyes open wide–nerds. And bffs.

Sorry for the terribly blurry iPhone pictures, but there we are! That’s me and my hubby on the left and our 2 great friends on the right. We met for lunch, everyone had some bloody mary’s (except this preggo, don’t worry), appetizers (YUM for fried mashed potato and bacon rolls or whatever they were called, haha), and entrees.

Lunch was on me–how fun to take out great friends and be able to treat them to it! My friends paid for their meals and then to pay them back I used this new website called Serve. It’s a way for friends/family/anyone to send and receive money via email or mobile device. I never have any cash and who still carries around a checkbook?! So when I owe friends money, it can become a hassle to get the cash and track them down to pay them back. Serve makes it soooo easy.

And no worries, it’s a totally safe and secure system through American Express. It takes a minute to sign up and you don’t have to link to any bank accounts or anything (unless you want to!). I did have some trouble getting my account verified through my email address, but it appears that issue has been fixed and is working fine now.

If you sign up for Serve now, you’ll get a free $10 in your account just to try it! And you can refer friends and get up to $50 credited to your account. This is how it works: after you sign up, Serve sends you a personal debit card in the mail that’s linked to your Serve account. You use that card anywhere, just like you would any credit/debit card. I LOVE the idea of setting up accounts for your older children–for their allowance and to keep them on a budget!

You can also find Serve on facebook and twitter.

**GIVEAWAY OVER! The winner is: Valerie T! CONGRATS, Valerie!**

GIVEAWAY: one of my super awesome lucky readers will win a $100 cerdit to their Serve account! ENDS DEC. 31ST. Read wording from the sponsor below on how to enter:

Remember to sign up for Serve and receive $10 credit towards your first use. Comment below [telling me you signed up!] for your chance to win an extra $100 credit to your account! Official sweepstakes rules and regulations may be found by clicking here. I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective, which endorses Blog With Integrity, as I do.

It’s the holidays! And if you’re anything like me, that means you’re wishing you had just a little (or a lot!) more cash to play with and buy gifts. Well, here’s just what you’ve been wishing for! I’ve teamed up with some great bloggers to offer not one, but TWO cash giveaways! You can enter one, you can enter both, or you can enter none (but that’s just silly!). Winners will be announced on the 23rd and will get paypal sent directly to them (or an Amazon gift card, winner’s choice). So enter below and then head on over to Little BGCG to enter the second giveaway!

Steve and I just had a discussion tonight about gifts this holiday season… we’ve spent way too much money lately, but it has all been on our new house and on our incredibly spoiled little boy! We have almost no gifts yet for Christmas and LOTS of people to buy for! We tried to brainstorm what to get each person, but some of them are so hard!

Gift cards are nice for people that are tough to buy for or for people out of town… but a gift card to where?! What’s their favorite store? What do they need? Where do they want to eat? AH MORE DECISIONS.

Thanks to Array Gift, you can buy one gift card and the recipient can select where they want to use it–from over 500 retailers! Seriously, every store you could want is on there.

And? These cards have no fees and no expiration dates.

You can instantly buy and send your gift card online–it will be emailed to the recipient or you can choose to print it. Once it is given as a gift, the recipient gets on Array Gift to redeem it! The image above shows what they’ll see. You can see I have a balance of $100 to redeem. If you know what store you want to use it on, you can type it in–otherwise you can browse alphabetically or search by category (food, clothes, etc.). There’s also a form you can print to redeem by mail, if you prefer.

I used mine on Walmart. Part of me wanted to use it on something FUN (like chocolate?!), but I decided to be responsible… Walmart is basically the only store in this new small town we just moved to and they have almost everything. The $100 will be used well! AND instead of getting one $100 card to Walmart, I decided to get FOUR $25 cards to Walmart, in case we decided to use some of them as gifts! Handy!

Want to try it out?!

GIVEAWAY: enter to win a $100 gift card to Array Gift, which can be used on over 500 retailers, you pick! Please use the form below to enter. Open to US and Canada.

I love paper because I love to-do lists. I’m pretty terrible at getting anything done unless I write it down and make a plan. But these days, I’m always on the computer and who knows where the crap I put that piece of paper. Ryan probably ate it. Or flushed it down the toilet.

Especially with being pregnant, there are a LOT of to-dos to keep track of… taking my prenatals every day (I’m terrible at that), trying to drink more water, doing my prenatal yoga, practicing hypnobabies, preparing for the new baby, decorating a nursery.… and then my normal every day type stuff: reading books to Ryan, making dinner, running errands, trying to save money and stay on a budget.

AHH! I’m overwhelmed and in want of a piece of paper just from typing out that list.

I’ve found a way to not only keep track of everything, but to also get motivated to keep these things done. You know how you won’t actually do something or complete something unless it really matters to you, right? If you want to lose weight, but you hate your current workout routine, you’ll never do it, which means you’ll never lose the weight. You have to find something you love. Something you enjoy. Something that will make you WANT to get things done.

Mindbloom is a brand new site (launched today) that does just that. Two dads created this to combine the power of behavioral science with the current social gaming phenomenon. You use this website to help you achieve your offline goals. Basically, you choose the categories of your life that are most important to you (remember, to work you have to WANT to make these changes):

Then you get a little baby tree that needs sunshine and water to grow. You give it these things by creating “actions” and then completing them. You can create your own action or pick from a list of ones already made by other members. Once you create an action, a calendar pops up allowing you to pick which day(s) you want to complete that action on.

For example–I put “I will take my prenatals” and “I will drink more water” on every single day. I put things like “have a date night” and “do something special just for Steve” on random days throughout the month and “menu plan” once a week.

Mindbloom also gives you inspiration. You can earn more quotes and images as you complete things, add friends and move up levels. The inspirational images and quotes are related to the categories you picked out as being most important to you.

I’m really excited to use this site daily as an addition to my pregnancy/birth prep–to keep me on task (this pregnancy has been flying by!)–but also to keep me on track with saving money, staying healthy and improving relationships. Here’s an example of a tree that has grown a bit (each leaf on the tree represents one of your important categories):

Here, this video might help you understand a little bit more:

I should mention that the “game” is FREE, but you can add a GrowPro package, which is $34 until Nov. 1st and will then be $89 (it’s a one time fee). It provides access to premium content, rewards and more. It’d make a great gift for someone you know that is working on improving themselves or going through a life change.

Want to win a GrowPro package? I’ll randomly pick 5 winners on NOV. 13 (extended!!!). To enter, just leave a comment on this blog post about what you want to improve or what areas of your life you want to work on. I mean… how could Mindbloom help you?

Ryan has a handful of favorite books.… you know, the ones your kid brings you and makes you read over and over and over again. The ones where you get to the last page and they quickly grab it and return it to the first page. Again and again.

When Ryan first started doing this, I was excited… yayyyy he loves books!!! After awhile, I was like.… really? again? Don’t get me wrong, I still love that he loves books and I love reading to him, but… I can only quack like a duck so many times in a 15-minute time span.

So… I’ve been on the hunt for new books. I figure if we have a larger collection, we’ll have more variety to read. I’m probably wrong, eh? I’m sure he’ll still have his select favorites, but we’ll see. We keep all his books on the bottom 2 shelves of our bookshelf and after reading one, we tell him to go put it back and grab another one. He loves to help out, so he usually does!

When we flew to Colorado, I filled his little backpack with his favorite books and that was a huge help too. Right now he LOVES animals so he has two books… one is a “what do you say?” and each page is a different animal and what sound they make. The other one is very similar, but it’s farm animals and it’s also one of those “touch” books so the animals are furry or smooth or soft. And? Ryan is an absolute PRO at all animal sounds. Sure, he can’t really speak yet, but ask him what a snake or a donkey says. He’ll tell you.

His 2 other favorite books have moving parts. One has sliding doors and has lots of pictures of different things including cars (“CA!!”), which Ryan gets really excited about. The other one has a kitty cat chasing a mouse and he’s looking in the cupboards and under the couch and just can’t find that dang mouse! Ryan is surprised every.time. Haha, adorable.

Really, when Ryan isn’t outside chasing the cat (see below!), he loves to be inside reading a book on mama’s or dada’s lap

Soooo, our problem now is that a LOT of our books are for under age 1. We need some awesome new toddler story books. What are your kids reading? What are their favorites???I need some new titles!

Tell me what your kids are reading this summer for a chance to win a Summer Reading Prize Pack from the Children’s Book-of-the-Month Club!

—  Grand Prize: Pottery Barn Kids’ reading chair and a Marc Jacobs Nylon Tote (for mom!)

— 5 First Prizes: Personalized Pottery Barn Kids’ Beach Tote

EXTRA ENTRY:

- Children’s Book-of-the-Month is now featuring the My Summer Reading Series! Kids receive 2 great books at their door each month all summer.  $6.99 a book PLUS a free $25 Restaurant.com gift card!  Check out the different book series, find a book you love and tell us the book title in the conversation for an extra entry in the contest!

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Children’s Book-of-the-Month Club. The opinions and text are all mine.  Contest runs June 28 — July 22, 2011. A random winner will be announced July 27, 2011.  Official Rules

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Children’s Book-of-the-Month Club. All opinions, text and pictures are mine!

We’ve been renting for just over a year. Well, at our current location. I guess you’d say we’ve been renting for YEARS. And we’re ready to settle down and find a house! Before it was an issue of not really knowing where we’d end up or what jobs we’d have. Now that Steve has found a job he loves, we’re ready to settle in this area.

We know what we’d LOVE and we’ve been searching, but it’s so hard! How long did you spend house hunting? We have our list of “ideals” and a list of things we’d accept or settle with because price is obviously a big factor. Ideally: 4 bedrooms, 2-story, porch, 2.5 car garage, nice backyard for Ryan. We’ve looked at a good number of houses–searching online and going to open houses–and there have been amazing ones in some aspects, but are lacking in other areas. I’m picky

Steve is the finance guy–he sits down and figures out what we can comfortable afford and then tries to explain it to me. You think about mortgage and those evil taxes, but you forget about extras: closing costs, insurance, a home protection plan, upkeep and maintenance, new furniture! Ahhhhh! But thinking about having our OWN place and decorating it all cute sounds exciting If you own, how long did it take you to find one?!

Also–in anticipation of a new home–I’m hosting a HUGE “Around The House” Event on my other blog with Mama B! Great sponsors and products and giveaways! It will start on June 15th so head over and get your early extra entries now: Around The House giveaways

This post contains a sponsored link.

Yayyyyy, SPRING!!! I love the month of April. Yea, it’s my birthday month! But it’s also the start of spring and I love the rain… it’s supposed to rain here all weekend and I LOVE it! April showers bring May flowers! I’m such a kid. May-Day Baskets!!! Who else is going to make some?! Wow, this intro was really all over the place… are you as excited for Spring? Bring on the warm weather!

So what’s your Spring Celebration Announcement?

Is there a graduation in the family? An engagement or a wedding? Do you need birth announcements?!

I have an announcement. Ready for this?? .….….….….….….….….….….….….….…

No, I’m not pregnant.

I’m not graduating (been there, done that).

I’m already married.….….….….….….…

WE’RE MOVING! Steve just found out he got a job in Dixon, IL. It’s about an hour away from here and if Steve commuted every day, he’d never get to see Ryan. So we’re going to move a bit closer… easy trip to Dixon, easy trip to Rockford.

I’ve never used “Moving Announcement Cards” before, but it sounds like fun–ya know, something a grown up would do. Come on, I did just turn 26–old lady over here!

I’ve lived in Rockford my whole live (except when I went away to Iowa for school) so it’s a little scary (and exciting) to be moving somewhere new. I’d love to create a photo book of our home and of Rockford to take with us as something to remember where we both came from!

I’m so excited for what’s ahead and for the warm Spring weather, that I want all of you to celebrate with me! So I’m giving away one of the 8x8 photo books from Shutterfly to one awesome reader!

TO ENTER: leave a comment below telling me what you want to celebrate! This could be what you’re looking forward to this Spring, an announcement you have, or what you’d make for your photo book!

EXTRA ENTRIES? my mom has started a Grandma blog Go follow her on GFC, subscribe by email, OR comment on one of her posts–do one of these for one entry or all three for three extra entries! Comments on her posts can be unlimited Just make sure you leave a separate comment here, on my blog, for EACH entry!

**Winner will be chosen on April 30th**
Are you a blogger, too? Click here to register for a chance at 50 free announcements!
**CLOSED: congrats Mama B!**

This post is part of a series sponsored by Shutterfly. I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective, which endorses Blog With Integrity, as I do.