I was given the opportunity to review a series of CDs created by a husband and wife team - Charley and Susan Greenberg. The series is called My Baby Loves . . . The CDs in the series include: My Baby Loves . . . Madonna, My Baby Loves . . . the 80s, My Baby Loves . . . Michael Jackson and My Baby Loves. . . Christmas. I received (in exchange for my honest review) a copy of each one of these discs. Soon to come are My Baby Loves . . . HipHop, and . . . Motown!

"We chose Michael Jackson, Madonna and The 80's for our first three editions because we want to connect with the parents of today and the music they grew up with - the songs that they would most want to share with their children." Susan explains, "We're bringing the biggest hits from the biggest artists to families, so not only the babies will love them, but the parents as well."

I quite honestly did not enjoy these discs. I found the music to be very "tin-y" and very high-pitched. The odd song was way way louder than the others on the discs as well. I can imagine this waking a calm and sleeping baby. This is not one of the goals of the musicians at all.

Aside from those things, I think the fact that I didn't know the music was a big part of why I didn't enjoy them as much as I thought I would, because the Christmas one and the 80's one I enjoyed more than the other two. I knew the songs.

As a mother of many small children (one under the age of 2), I didn't play these discs very often. My older children (8 and 7) would cringe when I would put one in. Sorry. For someone who knows and enjoyed the music of Michael Jackson, Madonna and the 80s these discs might be a hit, but not in this house.

These discs can be purchased / downloaded at such places as www.amazon.com, iTunes, www.bestbuy.com and www.barnesandnoble.com

When our son died in 2004, my husband wanted something that was his, that was also Harvey's.  He wanted that connection.  The hospital gave us a two piece heart (clay I think).  We put the larger piece in the grave and bought a chain for J to put the other piece on to wear.  We talked a lot about getting me something that had the same sentimental value.  I never decided what I wanted.  I wanted a charm bracelet with his name or initials or even a mother's ring that included his birth stone.  We never ended up purchasing anything.  (I think I would still love to purchase a charm bracelet of some sort that I can keep adding children to as we have them.)

When I found and was able to review something from Our Handmade Gifts, I choice their custom photo pendant.  The picture I chose was one of J and Harvey just after we'd removed Harvey from the life support.  There is such love and tenderness in J's face.  I don't have many pictures of the two of them.  We don't have many pictures of Harvey at all.  Had it not been for my aunt and uncle, we would have even fewer.

I received my pendant on a nice black leather cord.  The clasp is well attached.  My 3 year old boy did get his little paws on it and tore it apart.  I was not impressed.  However, my dh has put it back together and it's as good as when it arrived.  I love things that are easy to put back together or have parts that are easy to replace!

The pendant size is approximately 1.25 by 1.25 inches.  I find this a little big for my taste in jewelry and wish I'd gone with the key ring option instead (the directions for this option are on the site).  The picture is clear and seems to be well protected by whatever process they used.

I am very pleased with my photo pendant and I will cherish it and wear it for years to come.  Thank you Our Handmade Gifts for a wonderful product.

I just recently started wearing dangling earrings.  My mom had made a few out of old chains and gave me a few.  When the package arrived from Our Handmade Gifts, there was a couple of bonus items included and one of those was a set of earrings also from Our Handmade Gifts.  I can't find the link to them on the website, but they are three blue beads of different sizes separated by tiny tiny beads.  I love them!  They hooks don't hurt my ears, so they are a good quality and they are just my color!  I was so excited to have a new pair to wear with so many different items.

Our Handmade Gifts does not only carry earrings and custom pendants.  They also have necklaces, bracelets and rings.  There are themes for teams, or holidays, and those who are patriotic (US).  Very fun and affordable gifts for you or for someone else.

*****

Along with this pendant, Our Handmade Gifts sent a couple of coupon codes for my readers and friends!

Our Handmade Gifts is offering 25% off any order.  You may us this coupon as often as you like, and share it with friends.  Use coupon code: REVIEW.  Expires 6/31/10 so as to cover Mother's Day and Father's Day.

Cool Butterflies (I reviewed some photos in this post) is offering 25% off any order.  You may use this coupon as often as you like, and share it with friends!  Use coupon code: REVIEW.  Expires 6/31/10 so as to cover Mother's Day and Father's Day.

Watch for more reviews to come from this great "family" of companies.  Thanks to Deborah Carney and crew for some great affordable products!!!!

Disclaimer: These products were given to me in exchange for my honest opinions.

I was given a reviewer's code to take a peek at Wiggle Time. At this site your preschooler can play games, watch videos and learn along with the Wiggles and fellow characters. The child gets to "drive" a car and go into homes. There are games and Wiggles TV to play and watch.

There is a free sampler of the site, that gives you a taste of the subscribed site. The cost is fairly reasonable and you have the option to support UNICEF too. For one month, the price is 6.95, or if you want to get a bundle (6 months or a year) the cost goes down.

Although we like the Wiggles and their music and videos in this house we did not really enjoy the website. I found the site took a long time to load and was not easy for me to navigate. The games were not engaging enough to hold my children's attention. There are so many free sites out there, that paying for one like this was certainly not in my budget.

Disclaimer: I was given the reviewer's code in exchange for my honest review of the website.

As a household with three girls, butterflies are well used in our bedroom decor. I was excited to have the opportunity to review the Cool Butterfly Prints. I choose a print that looks very similar if not the same as what Ladonna had posted in her review. A white butterfly resting on a grouping of pink flowers.

The picture itself I really liked. It was a beautiful butterfly and I loved the pop of color that came from the pink flowers. The butterfly took up most of the print which was nice. You were able to see more of the smaller details from the flower. The pictures were printed on what appears to be high quality paper. Thick paper, not flimsy and seems as though it will help in preventing bends or wrinkles in the paper. I have tried to not handle the picture outside the paper. The picture was sent in a large stiff envelope which helped prevent any bending or damage during shipping.

My only complaint is that the picture does not to be as clear as I was expecting. I love pictures that have a blur background and this does exhibit some of those features. However, the butterfly and flower which is the mainfocus of the picture does not seem as crisp as I would expect it to be.

I plan on framing this picture and either placing it in my girls bedroom or for my niece's room. The size of the pictures makes for a great centerpiece on a smaller wall. If your looking for a butterfly print to fill that special place on your wall, head over to Cool Butterfly Prints. They have 2000+ prints, so your sure to find one you'll like.

This post is re-posted in part from my personal blog.

I have been working with Deborah Carney at Cool Butterflies. She has been so wonderful to work with, very patient. :)

The Cool Butterflies Butterfly Shop has over 2000 prints of butterflies. She wanted me to choose what I wanted to review. (Insert shocked smilie face here!!) I said, would you consider picking for me? I have a little girl that LOVES butterflies and pink. She said, sure, I'll pick.

She sent the package via USPS. It arrived in EXCELLENT shape, although it took a little longer than we'd expected, I assume due to coming over the board. I was so excited to finally receive these prints. They were better than I expected! They are so very beautiful and clear.

Deborah included three prints of a butterfly on a pink flower, a similar print with a message on it and a note card print of flames.

The flame card says,
"People have ideas all the time,
ambition is just the stubbornness to follow through."
- Daniel Fogg

The quality of the colors are rich and bright. I can't wait to get these framed (in black frames) for my CJ's wall. I know that she is going to love them. The "distracted by butterflies" is so like her! If she sees a butterfly she is off running, trying to catch it.

The paper is excellent quality. I've handled the prints very little; only pulled them out of their envelope and protective plastic a couple of times to view them. (Partly to keep them from CJ who's birthday is coming up, and partly because I don't want them damaged.) They have held up well to any handling that has been done.

The flame card was a great pick for us as well because my dh is a fire fighter. It's just fun; I plan on framing it as well, for my dh's desk.

I definitely recommend Cool Butterfly Prints to my friends and family. You can purchase these prints and many, many others from coolbutterflies.com.

My husband and I come from fair-haired, fair-skinned families, and with that comes fine straight-haired kids. We have always found it difficult to find hair products that will stay put in our gaggle of girls' hairdos.

No Slippy Hair Clippy sent me hair "pretties" for each one of my four girls. We got 4 big flower head bands, some snappies and clippies. I saved the "pretties" to give as gifts as we have three girl birthdays in the same week at the end of October. The new, every day wear in our house is:

You can find out more about the company here. They are having a sale on the website right now as well as some regular specials (ex. mystery packs) and a holiday deal. Regularly priced between 6 and 10 dollars with some of the headbands up to 24 dollars, I believe that No Slippy Hair Clippy is a great value for my money. Oh and the products aren't just for little girls; they have some that are great for teens and moms too!

These headbands live up to their No Slippy name and claim, for the most part. CJ's hair is a bit finer than K's and the headband does have to be repositioned more often but the clippies stay put no matter who's head they are on. R has a hard time pulling the clips out; they are so soft that she doesn't even seem to notice them in her hair. I plan to purchase more of this product in the future and CJ has already circled her requests in the flyer we received in our package.

I received the product for review; the opinions are mine and my kids.

Jonny Diaz has a wonderful message to share with the world today. His album, More Beautiful You, has relaxing tones and is a great background for our hubbub of activity. I find that this music is a great fit for our family. We have music playing all the time. The consistent level of noise keeps our babies asleep when the house settles down. I am getting tired of listening to the songs on the radio over and over and over again. I want to have a more positive message for my children, in the music that we listen to. Jonny Diaz' album fits this criteria as we go through our daily routines. I love the guitar and Jonny Diaz is very talented.

More Beautiful You is such a great song talking about just being happy in our own skin, that we are beautiful just the way we are. With a house full of girls this is an important message for my girls to hear and to be told. Today's society pushes the perfect image - the model image - and that's wrong. I want to encourage my girls' individuality and peculiar tastes in clothes and colors; I don't want to see them conform to the styles around them just because.

I love Waiting Room, too.  My husband and I are experiencing no's from God when we expected a yes.  We are finite in our view of the world while God has a better and bigger plan.  We need to remember to wait on Him and His Plan.

You can purchase More Beautiful You at iTunes, Amazon, and other such stores.  Click here for more options.

Watch for a giveaway coming soon here on Simply Sensational Divas Review!

I received a copy of the album for review.  The opinions are all mine!

Piggy Paint is extending to us and our readers  a special coupon code THANKYOU15L for 15% off EVERYTHING on their site, including Sale Items that would run through Valentine’s Day 2010 so that all Big & Little Girls can have beautiful and fun Piggies!

Here's what they had to say:

Every month we offer specials on our www.piggypaint.com Shop page, so check it out.
You can also follow us on  twitter.com/piggypaint & Facebook for secret sales and special offers! We still offer FREE domestic shipping on all orders over $25!  We ship worldwide!   www.piggypaint.com

We are excited to announce that we have received the Excellence Award from Safbaby.com and now proudly have received their seal of approval as an approved Vendor of Mom approved-child tested products!!

We use 100% reused peanuts from our local community to ship our products! Reduce, reuse, recycle!  Let’s pamper Mother Earth!

You can find the Divas' reviews of Piggy Paint products here. Make sure you check out this great product!

We like Disney movies around here; with a house full of girls (and one boy) the Disney Princesses are our favorites. We don't normally listen to the genre Los Lobos fits into so I'm not really familiar with their regular tunes, but the "goes Disney" album is well like in our home. The tunes made popular by Disney's movies are not very "kiddie" - more grown up - so that the adults in the house enjoy the music too.

Track Listing
1. Heigh-Ho - Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
2. I Wan'na Be Like You - The Jungle Book
3. Not in Nottingham - Robin Hood
4. The Tiki, Tiki, Tiki Room - The Enchanted Tiki Room
5. Grim Grinning Ghosts - The Haunted Mansion
6. I Will Go Sailing No More - Toy Story
7. The Ugly Bug Ball - Summer Magic
8. Cruella De Vil - 101 Dalmations
9. Bella Notte - Lady and the Tramp
10. Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah - Song of the South
11. The Bare Necessities - The Jungle Book
12. Oo-De-Lally - Robin Hood
13. When You Wish Upon a Star/It's A Small World

This album was officially released on October 27, 2009 and can be purchased here at Amazon.

I was given an electronic copy for review but the opinions are all mine.

I received a very unassuming package the other day. Just a simple yellow envelope marked: "Interactive Book-Webscene, as eclectic as a child's imagination". This reader that I was to review was as unassuming as the package, but I was intrigued. Simple, green, www.ka-reader.com titled: "Coming Home - KA Reader 8." Written by Trish Kline and Mary Donev.

I was un-impressed AT FIRST. (Keep reading.) This is a new storytelling process, kinda confusing to understand until you actually get one in your hands and do the steps involved. Using a quote from the producer / writer, I will explain:

"IBW titles use a new storytelling process that combines an actual print book with the interactivity of online animations. Here's how it works: you read a chapter. At the end of the chapter, you find a weblink. When you go online to the weblink, you find an animation or other multimedia called a webscene that's part of the story. After you view the webscene, you go back to the book to read another chapter, find another weblink and so on. There are six or more webscenes included in every IBW book.

The most effective way to read IBW books with a child is to have a computer nearby. This helps improve a child's focus and reduces distractions."

So, I read through and entered the weblinks into the laptop. I watched the little webscene - drawings of the scene / chapter you just read in the book "acted out" with some of the items labeled for reinforcement from the book. I thought, "ok, these are kinda neat. I think they'd get old fast." While I was viewing the scenes, my pre-reader was sitting with me looking on. She wanted the scenes played over and over again while I was reading the next chapter to myself.

Well, then I thought, I'd have one of my reading children read the book with me / on her own and do the webscenes.

She LOVED IT! Asked for more. (I wish I qualified for the giveaway.)

I have to try with my other reading child yet.

*****

There was another book in the plain yellow envelope. (Plain yellow is great, by the way! Often the surprises inside are really cool!!!!) This one blue and called: Celebration of Letters: G and H. This one comes from the Busy Preschoolers series by the same authors. This series contains poems and activities made up about or around the letters of the alphabet. On the opposite page to the poem or activity are simple directions to help parents teach skills that preschoolers will need before they get to kindergarten.

Now, this doesn't follow with my unschooling mindset, but I do agree that these skills are eventually important. So whether you teach these skills to your preschoolers in an organized and classroom type situation or whether you let your child learn them in the natural world, these books have great hints for parents and teachers.

The webscenes in this series are very simple tasks, perfect for the very young. There is a second group of activities called: ABC-TRACE-123. They are pretty neat. However, I did not find they worked well for my almost 3 year old boy, but it could just be him. He's so into Elmo and Sesame Street that he doesn't think anything else is very cool.

*****

Both books have ESL Support. Every page is accompanied by a Spanish translation. This is not a translation of the English (in the KA-Readers, specifically) but is a word-for-word comparison. They do this to aid non-English speaking parents in teaching English to their children. There are links in the books to help direct those lessons and activities.

You can visit www.IBW-Books.com for more information and to purchase books. For those interested in making some extra money, there is a booksellers' option as well at: www.IBW-Booksellers.com. If you choose to represent the product, you will receive a 20% commission (check the conditions at the site).

*****

The GIVEAWAY:

One winner will have a choice of one of two IBW prizes. Open to US and Canada. Giveaway ends December 15, 2009.

Please visit www.IBW-Books.com. Come back here and tell us what your choice of these two prizes would be.

The Busy Preschooler's Guide to Learning - fun activities build around the 26 letters of the alphabet, with step-by-step help to guide parents in how to use everyday situations to teach 105 skills their kids need before the walk in the kindergarten door. (Retail value $60.)

Three (3) KA Readers - beginning readers that use a new kind of storytelling where kids see an animation unfold at the close of every chapter! Dr. Seuss-like rhyming hooks kids on the fun of words. Online activities help parents assess a child's reading and comprehension. (Retail value $60.)

Ghost Hunter Productions (publisher of IBW books) will ship directly to the winner.