Our kids love to play outside, and we love to shoo them out there pretty much all summer. Our gates are padlocked and we live in a safe neighbourhood, but if I’m inside I still leave the patio door open and run out as soon as I hear 30 seconds of quiet. They have given me good reason to be paranoid!

Right now they have a preschooler sized mini-playground and a mini-ish Dora trampoline that they’ve almost outgrown. We spent about $300-400 on each of those, and I’m not real keen on spending $1000 each on a new playground and trampoline. We’ve also been looking at a swing set as an option. Hmmmmm. So much to thing about!

Do you have play equipment in your back yard? What’s your opinion?

Kodak Gallery recently gave me a $35 code to try out their digital scrapbooking system and potentially share it with you. If you’ve been reading here for any length of time, you know this will be an honest review and no amount of free crap would make me lie to you. (With giveaway – read on!)

Let me preface this review by saying that I’ve been scrapbooking for years before I even had children and am a completely addicted Heritage Makers addict. So much so that I became a consultant just to get the deals for myself because I do so much of it. After paper crafting for years, I tried the Creative Memories storybook software, Kodak Gallery, Snapfish and many more. There may not be one I haven’t used, and I decided on Heritage Makers about three seconds after trying it and seeing their products. This will become important later on.

The Kodak website is fairly easy to use. Log in or register, choose a template, upload your pictures, drag and drop them in to pre-made templates. You can edit the pages to the very smallest degree possible – that is, you can choose another of their pre-made templates to switch into that spot. For anyone with the teeniest amount of creativity it’s incredibly limiting. I found it very frustrating not to be able to change colours, add embellishments, move text around or really do anything other than drag and drop. However, for someone who doesn’t like to craft and wants to do a book without ever having to really think about it, I would imagine Kodak Gallery would be great. The book was $35, and I had to pay for my own shipping – normally something that would make the review a no-go (ridiculous, much?) but I wanted to see the difference between these and the Heritage Makers books that I love so much. Truly, there’s no comparison. The Kodak book has a decent binding but not great, and the “linen” cover feels pretty low quality. It’s not customizable at all, and just has a little window in to the first picture, the size of which is not editable so part of my kids are cut off from the cover view. I’m not impressed and wouldn’t pay to order from Kodak Gallery again. Perhaps if I’d never seen a Heritage Makers book I may have had a different opinion, but the quality of both the online software and the product are so much less with Kodak that I just can’t recommend them. But I can hook you up with Heritage Makers if you like – just let me know in comments.

That said, I still have a $35 gift code to give away so comment here or email me if you’d like to try it and I’ll get the kids to do a draw from all comments and emails when I get around to it and one of you can try it out too.

“Well, nice day to build a rocket!” -Primo

Apparently it’s time for me to retire.

I’ve been invited to join the kids on their trip to exoplanet Gliese 581g, which would take ~85000 years on the fastest spaceship in existence. Their rocket will be faster, so they assure me we’ll get there before I die.

They spent three hours today building their rocket and it’s not ready yet. Gotta love teamwork!

Heh. As I was posting my review of the Kashi bars below, I realized I never did post about the delicious cereal they sent me last month! Kashi Honey Sunshine are bite-size, puffs of yum. As with all Kashi products, they include Kashi’s heritage Seven Whole Grains and add a sweet honey flavour is delicious dry or with milk. Or rice milk, according to my dairy-free huz. They’re sweet and higher in sugar than what I’d allow every day, but they’re really tasty and the whole grains make them a great treat option.

We just received boxes of the new Soft-Baked Granola Bars from Kashi. I don’t accept a lot of the food offered to me because I don’t feed my family shit. However, I love Kashi as a company and actually purchase a lot of their stuff regularly so I was happy to try these out. They’re available in two flavours – ripe strawberry and blackberry. They’re made with all-natural ingredients and feature a lightly sweetened 7 whole grain outer layer, soft-baked around a real fruit filling. They must be good because when I stuck one in Primo’s lunch kit he told me he found a chocolate bar in there for a snack!

Both flavours taste great and have decent nutritional information for a processed snack:

• 10 g whole grain and 2 g fibre per bar
• Low sodium
• Free of artificial ingredients
• Free of Trans fats

I’ll still make my own granola bars because nothing beats that, but in a pinch these will do just fine.

There are really no new ideas, so I don’t feel too guilty about stealing them. I try to remember to give credit where credit is due, though.

Today is my friend’s birthday (Happy birthday, Leah!) and when I phoned her to sing to her this morning (you’re welcome!) she asked me where her “Bag O’ Shit” is? You see, back in my university days we lived both together and down the hall from each other. We had nothing to speak of, being students, so we gave each other paper bags full of random crap. Candy, paper clips, a facecloth…whatever we could scrounge up. It always made us roar with laughter, and we loved it.

So when I read this today it made me smile and think of Leah. And then I thought, “Hey, I can steal that!”

So that’s what I’m doing. Sending some random friends a little bit of cheer that they can save for a crappy day.

I love it!

I always make Valentines for my kids’ friends, but Pear Tree Greetings has stepped it up to a whole new level with their personalized kids’ Valentine cards.

As you can see over there, your child’s photo can be incorporated into many of the cards, and still more are designed for your child to colour. They run between $6.50 and $7.50 for eight cards so they’re certainly more costly than the grocery store variety, but they’re also infinitely more special.

One of you could win 24 cards of your own! Just comment on this post or email me at muchmorethanamom@gmail.com with “Pear Tree Valentine” in the subject line by noon mst on Saturday, January 8th, 2010.

DONE LIKE DINNER. Congratulations to email entrant Jenny O!

I love love love Pear Tree Greetings! I’ve had several products from them over the past year or two, and everything I’ve ever had has been of the highest quality. Adorably cute, looks costly but isn’t…right up my alley!

I’m going to give one of y’all (well, they are…through me!) 16 of their awesome New Year’s resolution cards.

Check out these awesome cards and comment here or email me at muchmorethanamom at gmail dot com with PEAR TREE DEC 2010 in the subject line and tell me what you’d put on yours to enter BEFORE DECEMBER 25 at noon!

Rotsa ruck!

I found this post rather inspiring. I don’t know who Robin Sharma is, but this post of his listing 60 tips for a stunningly great life really resonated with me. We could all be better, but I could REALLY be better and intend to focus on some of these things starting now.

1. Exercise daily.

2. Get serious about gratitude.

3. See your work as a craft.

4. Expect the best and prepare for the worst.

5. Keep a journal.

6. Read “The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin”.

7. Plan a schedule for your week.

8. Know the 5 highest priorities of your life.

9. Say no to distractions.

10. Drink a lot of water.

11. Improve your work every single day.

12. Get a mentor.

13. Hire a coach.

14. Get up at 5 am each day.

15. Eat less food.

16. Find more heroes.

17. Be a hero to someone.

18. Smile at strangers.

19. Be the most ethical person you know.

20. Don’t settle for anything less than excellence.

21. Savor life’s simplest pleasures.

22. Save 10% of your income each month.

23. Spend time at art galleries.

24. Walk in the woods.

25. Write thank you letters to those who’ve helped you.

26. Forgive those who’ve wronged you.

27. Remember that leadership is about influence and impact, not title and accolades.

28. Create unforgettable moments with those you love.

29. Have 5 great friends.

30. Become stunningly polite.

31. Unplug your TV.

32. Sell your TV.

33. Read daily.

34. Avoid the news.

35. Be content with what you have.

36. Pursue your dreams.

37. Be authentic.

38. Be passionate.

39. Say sorry when you know you should.

40. Never miss a moment to celebrate another.

41. Have a vision for your life.

42. Know your strengths.

43. Focus your mind on the good versus the lack.

44. Be patient.

45. Don’t give up.

46. Clean up your messes.

47. Use impeccable words.

48. Travel more.

49. Read “As You Think”.

50. Honor your parents.

51. Tip taxi drivers well.

52. Be a great teammate.

53. Give no energy to critics.

54. Spent time in the mountains.

55. Know your top 5 values.

56. Shift from being busy to achieving results.

57. Innovate and iterate.

58. Speak less. Listen more.

59. Be the best person you know.

I’ve got a lot of work to do.

60. Make your life matter.

I have the flu. Or something. I went to school at the butt crack of dawn to make sub plans and came home to cuddle with my babes. Aside from the gut-wrenching cramps that disable me for one minute out of every five, there are some positives. The dishwasher got unloaded & reloaded, though it did take me five hours, and the Christmas cards are finally stamped.

And I played with my kids on a school day – that’s the best one.

My fave-o Pear Tree folds are offering a $30 coupon code to ONE of y’all to be used on ANYTHING in our store!

Of course, ‘tis the season for sending Christmas Cards!

Pear Tree is not just giving to you this holiday season. They’ve also partnered with the American Cancer Society and have designed six exclusive Christmas cards. By purchasing one of those cards, 100% of the proceeds go to the American Cancer Society. ONE HUNDRED PERCENT. And that, my dahlings, is that. Wowza!

Email me at muchmorethanamom at gmail dot com to enter to win the $30 buckaroos! Put PEAR TREE NOV 2010 in the subject line, s’il vout plait. Closes at noon mst Nov 30, 2010.

Ha! So, the techie in the family tells me I can’t delete this blog because my other one is technically a sub-domain. So, until I feel like being completely blogless (which is really tempting sometimes!) I guess I’ll post here when I feel like it. It gives me a place to do giveaways anyway, and review things that don’t really fit with T.O.P..

Speaking of giveaways, I emailed the winners of the KODAK gift certificates earlier this week. A few more are on the way…ProActive makeup goodies is one that comes to mind.

Since this blog is run through gmail, my way of making it stress free is to check that email account no more than once/month. Good idea? I think so. Ya godda do whatcha godda do…or something like that.

Just one more damn thing
to distract from what matters.
Goodbye, little blog.

So, it’s been, um…a MONTH since I’ve posted here. Oops. Life got in the way, which is good and bad. It’s not good to be as busy as I am, but hey…I’m alive!

I’m coming back with a nice giveaway for y’all – email me at muchmorethanamom at gmail dot com before Monday, November 7 at noon with KODAK in the subject and you might win one of two $50 gift cards to Kodak Gallery. Just a little thanks for sticking around! Before I became a Heritage Makers addict (and consultant) I used Kodak for one book for each of my children and loved the quality. It’s not Heritage Makers but it’s definitely just as easy and the well known name sure helps. I can vouch for the customer service because I always choose free shipping (to my local Future Shop) and when it was lost in the mail they couriered me another one overnight right to my door no questions asked.

Good luck!