Not Everyone's Mama

Congratulations to Heather!  (Not me of course!) and thank you to everyone who entered!

I’m sure you all know by now that I adore Etsy artists and have I found another fabulous one for you!

Steam Designs

Lately I’ve really been liking the look of steampunk jewelry (along with everyone else!) and his stuff is just beautiful!

Take a peak at what he sent me.

Is that not absolutely gorgeous?  It’s even more beautiful in person!  This is a solid piece of jewelry.  When I opened up the pretty black bag that it came in and slid it into my hand I was really surprised.  It’s not heavy, like painful to wear heavy, because it’s very comfortable to wear, but it has a little weight to it.  You can feel the quality sitting in your hand.  I hope that makes sense to you because it’s the best way I can describe it.  It is also absolutely stunning!  I put on a black shirt tonight, dark blue jeans, silver flip flops, put the necklace on, a pair of hoops and off to soccer practice I went.  I talked to 5 people while I had the little ones on the playground while Kat was practicing.  All 5 of them ooooo’d and ahh’d over my necklace and asked me where I got it.  2 of them reached out to touch it.  That’s in the first hour of wearing it.  I’m telling you, I was the best dressed mom at soccer and it was all the necklace.

It’s definitely a conversation piece, an eye catcher, something people notice right away.

I love it!!

We are having family pictures on Saturday with my whole extended family (19 of us) and I’m already planning my outfit around this necklace.  That means my own family’s outfits will be planned around the outfits so we all look good together.  Tell me you don’t do that?

I also have to share that Jordan attempted to steal this necklace from me tonight. When I came back from practice, I took off the necklace and my earrings, got into my PJs, and sat at my desk.  I go to do the review and my necklace is missing.  I know I put it here, where did it go?  Jordan is wearing it.  (My 11 year old son.)  He thinks it’s sweet.  I had to take it off of him myself because he wouldn’t take it off until I promised he could wear it to school tomorrow.  Um, no.  It’s mine.  Mine mine mine.  No children shall be wearing it.  Thank you.

Let me show you a few more of Daniel’s gorgeous pieces you’ll find in his store!

Steampunk Bird Brooch with Swarovski Crystals

Steampunk Filligree Necklace With Swarovski Crystals

Steampunk Winged Adjustable Ring With Swarovski Crystals

And Father’s Day is coming up!  Wouldn’t your husband look fab in these?  Or your father?  I think they are just beautiful!  If Pato ever wore anything that required cuff links, I would grab these for him.

Bronze Steampunk Cufflinks

He’s even got clip on earrings for those who don’t have their ears pierced, but love to wear earrings!

He’s got something for everyone!

Guess what he’s got for you?

The ring that matches my necklace!

So beautiful!  One lucky reader is going to be sporting that and it will come in a package to your from Australia!  That means this giveaway is WORLDWIDE!  I know!  International ladies!  Join me on this one!

MAIN ENTRY:

Go over to Steam Designs on Etsy and let me know what your absolute favorite product is!

MAKE SURE YOU DO THE MAIN ENTRY BEFORE ANY OF THE EXTRA ENTRIES! THANKS!

EXTRA ENTRIES:

• - Go over to Steam Designs website and tell me what your favorite product is there.
• - Favorite Steam Designs on Etsy
• - Favorite your favorite product and let me know which one you did.
• - Sign up to follow Steam Designs on Deviant Art (top right side)
• - Subscribe to my blog via email or reader
• - Subscribe to the RSS feed of Steam Designs on Etsy!  That will keep you up to date on all of his products!
• - Like Steam Designs on Facebook
• - Follow @BySteamDesigns on Twitter – that’s his brand new account! Welcome him to Twitter!
• - Follow me on Twitter (either @HeatherM74 or @GiveawayChick – you’ll get all the giveaways from other bloggers that I enter on @GiveawayChick, either one is fine.)
• - Tweet this giveaway (1X/day)

Win a gorgeous steampunk watch ring by @BySteamDesigns from #HeatherM74 http://bit.ly/c1HWwy ends 5/28 please RT #Giveaway! WORLDWIDE

• - Follow me via Google Friend connect
• - add my button to your blog (the 24/7 mom one on the right side)
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• - blog about this giveaway with a link back to this post.
• - Digg, StumbleUpon, or any other social networking bookmark this giveaway.  (Not my site, the post.) There are links after each post.
• - NEW! Add this giveaway to ANY giveaway site (prizey, online sweeps, a Mr linky) where you are allowed to 3 entries! (Enter each separately! IE: Entry 1, Entry 2, Entry 3)
• - NEW! Enter any of my other giveaways! (1 extra entry total for this giveaway)

Please leave a separate comment for each entry.

EXTENDED DUE TO MY DOWNTIME! Giveaway ends on 5/28/10 at 11:59 PM CST. ETA  – WORLDWIDE! – Winners will be chosen by random number generator. Winners will be emailed and must respond within 48 hours or an alternate winner will be chosen.

Thank you so much to Steam Designs for sending me a gorgeous necklace for this review and for having a giveaway with The 24/7 Mom!

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Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!: Wubbzy Goes Green

Video Description

From KIDS FIRST!: The earth is something to celebrate as Wubbzy and his pals go green for Earth Day. They learn how sometimes great ideas for you (like building a great, new playground) can negatively impact others (the the animals that lived in the trees that had to be cut down for the new playground. Wubbzy and his friends also learn about the importance of water and how sometimes simple solutions cause more damage than good, like the bottles used for fancy drinks that cause more pollution. Kids learn about re-using and recycling through the fun, animated tales. They also get some insight into what an animal might feel like being taken out of its environment like when Wubbzy catches a flutterby. Song segments between the episodes re-emphasize the lessons with beautiful live imagery with the Wubbzy friends superimposed on top of them. The songs are catchy and will have kids singing along. While you get a strong save-the-earth message, the DVD doesn’t come off as too preachy. Laugh along with the friends as they work with interesting predicaments such as the hop-a-roos that invade the house and the monkeys wreaking havoc when the zoo friends come to visit while the zoo is getting fixed. This DVD creates an interest in the environment and promotes pro-activity and appreciation of self and others. KIDS FIRST! Child Juror Comments: I loved it. It showed what happens if you throw your trash into the outdoors. I think my friends would like it because it talks about recycling, and the more people who know about recycling the more there will be people that will recycle. My favorite part is when Wubbzy eats too many apples, and then he turned into one. It shows animals that aren’t real, and shows what would happen to them if we kept cutting down trees and stuff. The flutterfly story is sad. The pictures were good. In the wiggling song, you can see what to do. I like that. My favorite part was when Wubbzy figured out that he loved playground and he figured out that he could make playgrounds out of trees so the animals could be saved. So he did. The kids were singing and dancing along with the songs.

Product Description

Wow! Wow! Everyone in Wuzzleburg is getting involved in saving the planet! In these earth-friendly episodes, Wubbzy, Widget, Walden and Daizy must find a new place for the Wuzzle Bears to live, think up creative ways to reuse juice bottles and learn to grow their own doodleberries. Your pre-schooler will discover important lessons about ecology, harmony, and personal responsibility while enjoying plenty of singing and dancing!
For every DVD sold, Anchor Bay Entertainment will donate $1 to plant trees in playgrounds & school yards across the country through Alliance for Community Trees. (*Up to $20,000).

I’ve mentioned before that we don’t have cable, so Alyce hasn’t been exposed often to Wubbzy.  We do stream it on Netflix now that we have that option with the Wii.  But now that we have Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!: Wubbzy Goes Green she has been wanting to pop it in every time I turn around.  If I didn’t stop her, she would watch it 6 times in a row.  She loves this show that much.

Happy mommy, it’s got a good message!  Just in time for Earth Day!  That’s one thing I try to do when I pick out DVDs for my kids, I try to find those with messages that I like.  Not something that is just mindless drivel that they sit and zone on.  We’ve been talking a lot about more things we could do for the environment.  I’m not the greenest person on the planet.  But, we do try to do our share.  We use compact fluorescent light bulbs.  Turn off the water while brushing teeth.  I only run the dishwasher once a day.  We never do laundry unless we have a full load.  Short showers.  In fact, I shower the 2 littlest ones at the same time, for that reason.  It takes me about 5 minutes to shower both or 5 minutes to shower one.  It’s rare we drink bottled water, the rare emergency when one of the kids forgets their water bottle on the way to soccer.

This DVD has brought up conversations even with my oldest.  Alyce brought up trees in the car the other day and was telling us all about Wubbzy and trees.  That brought the rest of us around to talking about how the area we were driving through was timber when I was growing up.  It was full of trees.  And think of how many animals that used to live there.  Then they cut it all down for apartment complexes, stores, restaurants, and how all those trees are now gone and those animals that were lost their homes, or worse.  We then talked about how where we live used to be fields of corn.  Think of all the deer and pheasants that used to call that area home.

I love shows like this that give me an opening to talk to my kids about important things like this.  Things that my 3 year old, my 6 year old, even my 11 year old might not care about if one of there favorite characters hadn’t talked about it.  Then I can move in with why it’s important.

You can probably tell, I highly recommend this DVD.  I think it was a great learning tool for Alyce and a great start to a dialogue as a family of what else we can do.

Here’s a more from Wubbzy -

Wow! Wow! “Wubbzy! Goes Green” Newsletter

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Young viewers and fans will give Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! a green thumbs-up when the cute and quirky bendy-tailed character from the hit Emmy Award®-winning Nick Jr.® preschool TV series goes from yellow to…green in “Wubbzy Goes Green,” an exciting, brand-new DVD featuring a bounty of adorable and Earth-friendly episodes!

To help celebrate the new release – and Mother Earth! – Anchor Bay has partnered with the Alliance for Community Trees (ACT). For every “Wubbzy Goes Green” DVD sold, Anchor Bay will donate $1 to ACT to help support the planting of trees in playgrounds and schoolyards across the country! The special tree-planting initiative “sprouts” on April 1 and continues through May 31, 2010.

And to further ”plant the seeds” of green-themed consciousness among the budding environmentalists in your family, following are some tips and cool “tree trivia” inspired by “Wubbzy Goes Green” and ACT:

• Take along washable cups or travel mugs instead of disposables.
• Turn off the faucet while brushing your teeth.
• Volunteer with community organizations that plant trees like the Alliance for Community Trees!

Trees make for thriving children!

Did you know…

• …asthma rates among 4- and 5-year-old children fell by 25% for every extra 343 trees per square kilometer?*
• …students perform better in tests when surrounded by trees and grass?**
• …neighborhoods with more trees experience less crime?**

More facts about trees!

• Cleaner air: Trees help trap and remove tiny particles of soot and dust, which otherwise damage human lungs, and tree root networks filter contaminants in soils producing clean water. Four million trees would save $20 million in annual air pollution cleanup!***
• Energy saver: The cooling effects of trees can save millions of energy dollars! Three to four shade trees located strategically around a house can cut summer cooling costs by 30-50%!***
• Healthier children: Performing activities in green settings can reduce children’s Attention Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder symptoms.**
• For more information, please visit: http://actrees.org.

* Columbia University ** Human-Environment Research Laboratory at the University of Illinois ***ACT

Thank you so much to Anchor Bay Entertainment for providing our family with a copy of Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!: Wubbzy Goes Green to review!

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I think I’ve decided I’m going to call and talk to the manager of the furniture store who delivered our beds yesterday.  One of his delivery men was a complete and total jerk.

We paid $25/bed to be delivered and put together.  That was $50.

He called yesterday morning and said he’d be here in an hour.  Pato and I got the king size bed out of our bedroom.  Plenty of room in our room to put our bed.

Might I add here, you know you need a new mattress when you’re carrying the old king size mattress out to the dumpster and it folds completely in half, doubled over itself.  Not too firm anymore. 

I suppose we should have recycled that, but I have no idea where and it was trashed, I wouldn’t donate it to freecycle.  Ok, so I didn’t do my Earth Day part yesterday, it’s a good thing today is Earth Day. No for real though, kind of ashamed now.  The garbage man helped Pato put it in the truck and they smashed it to the size of a pancake.

We still had to get Kat’s futon out of her room.  We figured they could put the bed together in our room while we were doing that.

The guy walks in, asks where the bunk beds are going.  We showed him.  He started going off.

- Look BUD, I called you an hour, you should have this this done.  I don’t have time for this crap. 

I said, we have the king size bed out of our room.  You can put the new one in there while we are taking out the futon.

The kids rooms are small here.  The whole reason we are getting bunk beds.  He started complaining about that. 

- You do know if one of the kids stands up on top of that bed, they are going to wake their heads on the ceiling fan.

(I wish I could type tone out, because he was nasty about it.)

I wanted to say if one of my kids is standing on their bunk bed, they’ll have more than smacking their head ceiling fan to worry about.  Thank you.  They know better.  They are used to Jordan having a bed up in the air.

Then he started complaining about the size of Kat’s room and he wouldn’t have room to put them together in her room – ya di da di da.

The other delivery guy is just sitting there, looking a tad uncomfortable at this point.

They bring in my new bed and start to put it together.

Pato and I had the futon out of Kat’s room in 2 minutes.  About 30 minutes before they were done with my bed.  Though it’s now sitting in my kitchen.  I guess we’re going to make room for it in the living room.

They put the bunk beds together in the parking lot and brought the bottom in, then the guy hollers at me. 

- You didn’t order mattresses for these beds!!!?

Yes, in fact I asked the guy 4 times if that bed came completely with mattresses.  He went out to call the store.  Came back in with the top and said, he can bring them over in his car.  I delivered this part. I’m not coming back.

- And they shorted me 2 bolts for the top side rail of the bed.  It’s laying on top of the bed.  Go in the store.  I’ll leave a baggie with 2 bolts in it.  You can do it yourself. 

I apologized to the second man about not having a lot of room for them to work.  He had offered smiles to us every time they came through.  He told me it didn’t bother him any.  Our apartment was on the 1st floor, not the 3rd.  That makes him happy.

They left.

I went into my room and looked at my new bed, which was awesome.  But noticed that the shelf I had taken off the wall that had all of the kids things they have made me in school and that I had set off to the side had been knocked over and all of their clay pots and birds and everything were scattered all over the floor.  My PSP had been on our dresser.  That was on the floor.  He just left everything where he knocked it over.  I would have moved the shelf over more or completely out of the room if he would have told me it was in his way.

Then Pato told me that when they were taking in the girls’ bed that they hit my 6 ft tall skinny glass curio cabinet filled with my glass and crystal dolphins with the bed.   The nice guy stopped to check to make sure it was all ok.  The other guy said, don’t worry about!  Don’t worry about!  Let’s get this done.

HUH?  Your lucky you didn’t break my curio cabinet.  Or one of my dolphins that my family members have bought me. or one of the things my kids have made me.

I was ticked.

I called the store, not to complain because I was afraid he’d be the one to bring the mattresses back, but to say, bring the bolts with you when you bring the mattresses.  We shouldn’t have to come back and get them and put it together ourselves when we are paying YOU to do it.  They told me they would.  I said, when are you coming with them.  Sometime this afternoon, we don’t know when.

So, I didn’t get to go grocery shopping because I had to sit around and wait for them to bring the rest of the bed.

Not happy.  With them.

But I am mighty happy with my bed.

First day in about 3 years I haven’t woken up with horrible back pain.  That was awesome.  I kind of feel like the princess and the pea it’s up so high.  If I stand on the bed, I can touch the ceiling.

Pato got on me.  Don’t use the side rail to climb in.  Use your make up box for now and we’ll get a stool so you can get in easier.  He was cracking up.  Shut up.  I’m not THAT short.  I’m 5’4”.  Isn’t that like average or something?

The girls were in heaven.  At about 5, I heard them pop the La-La-Lisa cd (that I have up for giveaway BTW) into the DVD player.  When the music was over, there was complete silence.  I went in and looked and they were both asleep in their own beds.  Kat slept through the night. 

Last night I decided that Christiano has to start sleeping in his own bed because ours is so tall. I’m worried he’ll fall out.  We turned it into a toddler bed a couple of weeks ago and have been trying to keep him in it, but it hasn’t worked out so well.  I also decided that I’m ready to wean him.  So, I tried to put him to bed without nursing him.

I sat on the floor beside his bed, trying to rub his back.  He was throwing himself all over the bed, screaming, carrying on.  I’ve never seen him throw a tantrum like that.  It lasted for about 30 minutes until he finally threw himself into my arms and fell asleep.  I wrapped a blanket around him so that he wouldn’t feel me put him down.  He slept there until about 3 AM until he got up and I gave in and nursed him and put him in bed with me.  How weak am I?  I just hate to make the kids cry.  Breaks my weak mommy heart.

I’m going to try to cut out the day feedings today and just get him down to the night feeding and then cut that one out too.  He’s not ready, but I am.  He’s too rambunctious while he’s nursing.  Flipping this way and that, standing on his tippy toes with his head on the bed, doing somersaults, pinching and laughing about it, and my favorite – trying to help himself.  Sorry, you might think these are your boobs, but they aren’t.  They are still attached to my body last time I checked.

If I quite nursing, I could take Lipofuze.  I don’t even know what it is, but I could take it.  Get rid of this booty.  Not really the booty I hate.  It’s the boobs and the tummy. 

On that note, I need to vacuum the living room, empty the dishwasher, sweep, lots of fun stuff.  Then I need to figure out what I’m making for supper because Kat has practice tonight.  Crock pot meal I’m sure.

Have a great day!

P.S. Speaking of soccer – I added some soccer stuff to my cafe press store.  Soccer moms!  Check it out.  There are quite a few I want to order for myself.

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