Ice Storm

I know many of you have experienced the recent ice storms personally. For me it was a very scary time. I live in Georgia so our weather has been fine but my grandparents live in Paducah, Kentucky. Early Tuesday my mom spoke with my Grandpa to wish him a happy birthday and learned that they were without power and were planning to go out to dinner that evening since Nana wouldn't be able to cook. They do not have any back up heating source either but seemed optimistic about everything turning around soon. That was the last time we heard from them and we have been worried sick. Mom and I talked yesterday and had decided that if we did not hear from them then today we would contact the Paducah authorities and have them checked on. Praise God, Grandpa called mom this morning. They have been staying at their churches shelter and because of the phone lines being down have not been able to call. They are both fine but unfortunately a tree fell in their yard and has gone through their roof and penetrated the ceiling. The extent of the damage is unknown at this time but I am just thankful that they are both safe. Please keep them in your prayers. They have had a rough few months. Last November Nana was involved in a car accident and hurt her back and then shortly after that my Grandpa fell and hurt his knee. He is able to get around but is in a good bit of pain and is suppose to have surgery on Friday. I'm not sure if this has been postponed due to the storms or not.
I am also praying for all the families involved in this storm and all those who have family they have yet to hear from. As much as I pray for us to get some snow for the boys to play in I realize the danger the ice can bring. Some of the pictures I have seen are amazing. The ice is so thick. It is amazing something so pretty can be so damaging.

Bless each of you and I pray your families are safe and accounted for.

Country Bob's Winner!

I am soooo sorry that I was delayed in announcing these winners. I've had a stomach bug and haven't been in cyberworld much. Anyway, here are the winners.....

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

3 2

Timestamp: 2009-01-29 01:55:56 UTC

Amy said... 3

Hawaiian pork chops sounds really good.

AmandaSue said... 2

The Chicken with Orange Pecan Rice sounds really yummy! Thanks for entering me!
unforgetable_dreamer_always AT hotmail DOT com

As always you have three days to contact me with your shipping address or a new winner will be chosen.

Great Baby Giveaways

Amanda at Mommy Mandy has some great giveaways going on right now. Here are my favorites:

Stroller

Pack-n-play

Carrier

Sherrie from Boogers, Screams, Headaches and Dreams emailed me to let me know that she wasn't able to leave me a comment today. I have contacted the forum at blogger to see if I can fix this issue. Of course, there's no telling if I'll receive an answer since they don't have any way to actually contact the people behind blogger and I was not the first one to post the question today. So we'll see.
Sherrie also asked about how to do the scroll bar for the buttons so I'm going to post the directions here.

Do here is the link to visit for the directions:
http://bloggerstop.net


Now I will tell you a few issues I had were that there were some spaces that showed up between some of my buttons. To get rid of these make sure you remove the
that appears in some of the codes of the buttons. You also want to make sure that when you have a code the

Progress

Youngest and I are finally making progress with his reading. I posted on twitter not long ago about how aggravating teaching a child to read can be. All the books for kids have pictures. I’m not opposed to pictures but when they are learning they need to focus on the words no the pictures and they don’t. Youngest would come to a word he didn’t know and look at the picture to guess what the word was instead of learning to read and recognize that word. We also had problems with his eyes continually scanning the pictures instead of focusing on the words and therefore losing his place and also spending a lot of time guessing. So I decided to take matters into my own hands. I have started typing his reading assignments out and then after he reads the equivalent of a two page spread he can look at those two pictures. He loves it! I was worried he would fight me on it but he really likes it. He feels like he is getting an immediate reward for a job well done and the pictures are like a surprise. It is also helping his imagination because as he reads he pictures things in his head and then can compare it to what the picture really shows. He is also reading more. Before we barely made it through 4 pages and now I have to make him stop. It is great. I wish someone would publish kids books with the writing on blank pages and then you turn the page to see the picture. That would make learning so much easier.

Anyway for those of you who don’t quite understand or for those who just like seeing pictures (like me) here are some of our reading time:

Also later this same day Hubby finally made some progress on my bathroom faucet. How many men does it take to change a bathroom faucet? Around here…3 but we homeschool so everything is a learning experience and this night it was Home Ec. before bed.

They love helping Daddy and he was very patient with them. In the bottom picture Youngest and Oldest are trying to trade places but Oldest was a little anxious and didn’t let Youngest get out first.

Storytelling

One of the many obstacles Oldest has is his imagination. He is not an imaginative child. He was raised in front of the tv for the first several years of his life and I believe that has a lot to do with his imagination. So one of his struggles is creative writing. In our curriculum he is suppose to be able to do some simple stories. He is given a subject and a few words he should use and then he is left on his own to come up with a story. He writes factual sentences but not a story. Until last week. I have been trying to go easy and slowly coach him and finally I decided to just play hard and make him do it. So I kept making him redo his "story" until it was actually a story. On the fourth day, which happened to be Saturday and tv day, I told him first thing that morning that his job was to write that story and that he couldn't do anything else until it was done. His directions were to write a story about a ladybug using the words: round, black spots, eat aphids, fly, taste bad, six legs, help farmers, red shell, crawl, and small. No more than 30 minutes later this is what he turned in:(this is the final version after I helped him correct spelling and whatnot)

If I Were A Ladybug

If I were a ladybug I would fly to the farm to help farmers. I would be helping by eating aphids. I am small but people can still see me. People think aphids taste bad but I think they taste good. I don't fly around that much because kids try to catch me. Some ladybugs have big spots but I have small spots I have six legs and I crawl a lot.

He didn't use round, black, or red shell but I overlooked that due to the great job he did on the story. Yesterday he had another story assignment about Summer using these words: vacation, parks, camping, swimming, beach, hiking, picnics, fishing. It only took him two tries to get this:

Family Things

In the summer we go on vacation together and have fun. Sometimes we go to parks and have picnics with our friends. Daddy likes to hunt while we are camping. We like to go swimming at Myrtle Beach. We went hiking and fishing up the big hill with Dixie. We like summer a lot because we do a lot of fun things outside.

This time he used all the words. He did start out writing his normal sentences like "Summer is hot." "We go hiking up the big hill." " I like picnics." But I only had to tell him one time that those were fine sentences but sentences don't make a story. So he went back and tried again and turned in the above story. I am really proud of the progress he has made. We use the stories for several of our schooling. First it is creative writing, sentence structure, punctuation, and handwriting. First we focus on creative writing, then sentence structure and punctuation and that is all for the first day. On the second day after I've fixed all the errors and check the spelling I give it back to him to copy for a handwriting grade. I do count off for spelling error and what not on the 2nd day because there shouldn't be any as he is coping the paper and that is another problem he has, following directions. He gets in a hurry and gets lazy. So far his handwriting grade has been all A's. He has always had really good handwriting so this part is pretty easy for him as long as he pays attention to what he is writing and doesn't misspell or forget his punctuations which he is getting a lot better at. I have seen a lot of improvement in him this year and am so proud of him!

Obama--Amended

Ok, it is no secret around here that we did not vote for Obama. Non-the-less he is our new President and so I will pray for him to have wisdom in running our country.
Anyway, our negatism toward him has rubbed off on the children. Especially Youngest. He goes around saying "I hate Obama". We NEVER said we hated him just that we did not like his standards as much as McCains. So I've been trying to explain to Youngest that it is ok not to like someone but you shouldn't say you HATE anyone. We've also been trying to explain to both boys that just because one person (in this case their parents) aren't fond of someone they should make their judgements on facts not our opinion. The reason we don't like Obama's standards are a bit over their head and so in this matter they should just stay nutreal and pray for him to have wisdom. Well, Youngest comes out with "I still hate him". So I asked why. "Because he's gonna throw a bomb on us. " What!? " You know O-bomb-a!"

After laughing my hiney off I explained that that isn't what his name meant. So now Youngest doesn't hate him anymore. The funny thing is, he's been looking forward to watching the inauguration all day. I don't understand how he could be so excited about watching someone he supposedly hated so I asked that question too and he said "Because we get to make HISTORY!"
Now that's a smart kid.

Ok later today I was talking to a friend about how I hope that Obama seeks God's will in all his decisions and I expressed my concerns on his educational stands. Well, Youngest, being the smarty he is heard that and took it mean he would have to go to school. I didn't even know that he heard me but then at bedtime tonight he prayed that Obama would ask God what to do and that he wouldn't make him go to "big"school. Then oldest prayed that they wouldn't have to go to big school either. Afterward Youngest asked if Obama could make him go to college. I told him no, that he had to finish regular school before he could go to college no matter what. Then he asked if he would have to go to "big" school and I told him no that I didn't think that would happen.

I really will have to be careful what I say in their hearing from now on.

Moving

Today I am working on moving all my old blog posts to this blog. I started blogging in April of 2007 at the homeschool blogger site. I really liked their site but it didn't give me the option to make changes like blogger does so I moved last year but I didn't move all my old posts because it has to be done one by one and I have to change the date and time of post to keep it accurate. In other words it is a tedious task. But since I use my blog as my journal of sorts I wanted to move everything just to ensure I don't lose it. So bare with me as I move posts and if a post pops up that looks out of place or sounds a bit old, I'm sorry, it just means I forgot to back date the post. I will fix it eventually. And if you want to get to know me a bit better you're welcome to go back to the beginning. I did start at the beginnning and am working my way up so if you decide you have like 2 years to sit and read my blog from the beginning feel free.

Makeover

My friend Gina had her blog designed last year by Doodlebug Designs and I loved it. I really would like to have my blog redone and can think of no one better to do it. Right now Doodlebug Designs is having a giveaway of one free blog design and I really want to win it. I already have few ideas and I can't wait to work with a professional to get the perfect design for my blog. I really hope I win. If you've never checked out Doodlebug's site you should, but don't enter the contest because I don't need the competition.

Vaseline Winners!

And the winners are:

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

7 3 6 4 1

Timestamp: 2009-01-18 02:30:56 UTC

Jennifer said... 7

I have been looking for a lotion that would help my family's dry skin problem to no avail. Maybe this is the lotion we need.

AmandaSue said... 3

I'd love to try this, I use the Vaseline Healthy Hands lotion and I love that but I have yet to find a product that I love and that works all over! This sounds really good, and would be useful on these super cold WI days that we've been having lately! Thanks for entering me!
unforgetable_dreamer_always AT hotmail .com

Amy said... 6

I could use some of this.

Alli said... 4

Oh, I would love this! It's very cold and dry in Chicago right now! Thanks!

Aimee said... 1

Oh, could I ever use this!!! Especially with all these -20 degree days we're having up here in MN!!! My poor hands are screaming "WIN THIS FOR ME!!!" LOL!!

libby_design at yahoo dot com

As always you each have 3 days to contact me with your shipping information or new winners will be chosen. Thanks.

BRRR!

Baby it's cold outside! I know, I know, I live in the south so all my northern readers are laughing at me but for me its cold outside. It isn't normal for us to have below freezing weather but for the last couple of days that's what we've had. I do sympathize with those of you who have below 0 weather but still its cold here. The worst part about it, at least to me, is that we have all this cold with no snow. If we had snow I wouldn't complain so much. But no, we don't get any of the white stuff just the cold. So yesterday, I had to go buy 2 of these.

Yep, two. We have central heat/air but it just wasn't being able to keep up. Our house is old and the front isn't well insulated so I now have my two new heaters going in the living room to keep us warm and we have another space heater in our bedroom for the nights. Space heaters make me nervous. I don't sleep well when I know they are in use. Of course, the living room ones are turned off and unplugged when I go to bed or leave the house but the bedroom one is on all night. I don't mind cold..... if I get white stuff but really, if I can't have the snow then I just want spring to arrive.

The boys have enjoyed being able to have hot chocolate with tiny marshmallows and today I made the ultimate winter time comfort food.


MMM... doesn't that look good. It smelt good. My mouth was watering way before dinner time. I make it myself (no can chili for me) and it is best if it simmers so I try to make it at least two hours before dinner time. Makes for some very hungry folk around here.

Anyway, that's how we cope with the cold. How do you do it. What do you do to survive the long cold winters. I especially want to hear from my north bound friends who really have to deal with the winter. Tell me your tricks for keeping your sanity with the kids while being mostly house bound for months on end. What's your favorite comfort food, I need some new ideas.

Now off to snuggle under the blanket and watch a good movie.

Valentines Swap

Kailani over at An Island Life is doing a Valentine's Day Swap. I passed on her Christmas swap but wanted to be sure to get in on this one. Who wants to miss out on chocolate goodies?

So, if your interested in joining in head over here and sign up. You only have until January 31st so don't slow poke around about it.

To make it easier for our swap partners to get to know us she even made up this survey for us to fill out. So here goes nothin':

• What is your idea of a romantic Valentine’s Day? A nice quiet child-free evening with Hubby
• In reality, what is your Valentine’s Day really like? This is the one holiday Hubby and I always celebrate by having a sitter and going out to dinner at a nice place even if we can't really afford it.
  
• If you could have a lifetime supply of your favorite sweet indulgence, what would it be? Creamy chocolate with a creamy chocolate middle. I love Doves but any nut free chocolate is fine with me. Not dark chocolate though.
  
• Is there any sweet treat you absolutely do not like? I don't like anything with nuts or coconut.
  
• If you fell into a pool of chocolate, how would you get out? Get out? Why would I want out. Just throw me a raft and leave me be.
  

Science, Homeschool Style

A couple of weekends ago Hubby and the boys headed out to my parents property to help them with some projects, but they left here early enough to do some rabbit hunting first. I was skeptical about Youngest going hunting because he has such a heart for animals but I had nothing to fear. He took to it just fine. Hubby said they both did good about being quite and waiting for the rabbit to appear and then he shot it but it hopped off and they all went looking for it. Youngest is the one who finally spotted it and then they headed out of the woods to clean it. When they got home that evening we had a very interesting conversation.

Youngest: (as he walked in the door) Here Momma we brought you something. (he hands me a bag of rabbit parts. Remember this is when my stomach was very upset too)

Momma: (after shoving it back at him) That's nice sweetie go put it in the freezer please.

Oldest: (coming in the door) We killed a rabbit momma and got to see it's insides!

Momma: Umm hmm. I bet that was exciting.

Daddy: Tell Momma what you saw.

Oldest: His tests.

Momma: His what?

Oldest: Tests. The thing that everything goes through before he uses the bathroom.

Momma: Oh, you mean intestines.

Oldest: Yep.

Youngest: We saw its balls too.

Daddy: (trying not to laugh) Son, that sounds rude. We didn't see his balls. We saw something that looked like small balls but what were they called.

Youngest: I don't remember.

Momma: What did they do.

Youngest: Helped clean something.

Daddy: They were kidneys.

Momma: OH!

Youngest: We saw its heart too it was this big. (using fingers to show size) And Daddy said my heart is this big (using fist)

Oldest: Yeah but mines bigger it's this big.

Momma: Was it nasty to see the insides?

Oldest: A little but I liked it.

Youngest: It was lots of blood but it was a little bit cool. Daddy when can we eat it?

Daddy: Soon. Momma already cooked dinner and she doesn't want to see the rabbit right now. (They ate it this past weekend at my MIL's and I was spared. I don't mind eating it but I just haven't had the stomach for it lately. The boys said it tasted like chicken.)

Youngest: When can you kill more and can I help take the insides out? (So much for my fears of him not being a good hunter.)

And that is how homeschoolers do a science lessons. I'm so glad I'm not the science teacher!


Sorry, there were no pictures taken for this post. Just use your imaginations. :)

Zenses Winner!

AND THE WINNER IS.......

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

2 

Timestamp: 2009-01-13 20:10:42 UTC

Stacy said... 2

My son got some wind-up cars that he loved.

CONGRATS! As always you have three days to contact me with your shipping information or a new winner will be chosen.

Excited!

Please keep in mind I'm easy to excite. My friend Amy loves to learn new things and play around with things on the computer. She drives me crazy because we can both be working on something or even just searching for something and she ALWAYS finds it first. So when I figure something out before her I get EXCITED. Tonight she decides she wants to add the scrolling box for links on her sidebar. I tell her good luck because I haven't been able to find it. Well, like 2 seconds later she does it but it cuts off the squares some. So she fixes that but she wants it aligned in the center instead of to the left and she couldn't fix it. I DID IT! I was so excited! Now I know one of my links is still cut off but that is because of its size and I can't change it the blogger from which it originates has to change it. It is 145 instead of 125. I'll tweek it some more later but I was excited to fix something first. Now I have to admit not 15 minutes before this I was searching for something on google and I typed" vice president's becOme president" and she typed "vice president's that becAme presidents" and she found it in like a second flat while I was still searching. Don't ask why we were looking that up just a debate between good friends. Anyway for those of you who also want to add the scrolling thing to your site go here for the link and then I had to change the width to 125. I also changed my length but the width is the important part.
Have a good night, I'm off to watch Ghost Whisperer and eat cereal.

Moving Along

Tuesday Oldest finished up his 1st grade work. I am so excited about that. We did a 2nd grade math eval. test on Tuesday and he missed 28 and was only allowed to miss 30. What surprised me is that he missed addition and subtraction problems when I expected him to miss fractions and money. I am going to do a week or two of review and then move into the 2nd grade stuff. He is suppose to be in 3rd and I know that some of his delay is my fault because I haven't been consistent and I don't keep a good schedule and this child needs schedule. Saying that, Hubby and I have also been concerned for awhile that Oldest may have some neurological problems or a learning disability. To that end we are trying to find somewhere to have him tested. I was recommended to a place that does not accept any form of insurance and testing is over $2000.00. I am now searching out further assistance. I don't push the fact that my boys are adopted but I am looking into that area for help in this situation also. To make matters worse Hubby's job just laid off over 200 employees. He was not laid off but it could be coming so I really need to find funding for the testing.
Youngest is getting really close to moving into his 1st grade math also. He is already in first grade language/reading but not math. He gets math easy but I didn't want to skip anything. He is excited about moving up to a new book. I don't think the grade matters to him he is just ready for a new book. We are going to Horizon's and the student papers are split into 2 books so he will get to change books quicker with that than he did with Abeka so maybe that will excite him too. He still struggles with reading but I have found a small help. I have started typing the passages from the book on plain white paper and letting him read it from that and then look at the pictures of the book. He reads two passages and then gets to see the two pages they match. I give him plenty of time to explore the entire picture and then we read two more passages. His reading has already improved. Those pictures are just such a distraction.
Next week is my MIL's birthday so Hubby and the boys are going to spend the weekend with her. They leave tomorrow and will come home Sunday afternoon. I'm not going so I can have some me time. I have been really moody this week and it has been rough on me and the children. They are still on the Christmas high so I'm ready for a break and with the attittude I've had I'm sure they are ready for one too. Hubby and I have been trying to have another baby and I am sure that I am either about to get a visit from Aunt Flo (due Thursday) or I'm pregnant. My attittude has been that bad. I've held it back from the kids and have prayed ALOT this week but you know when Momma's out of sorts it affects everyone.
Having the house to myself will allow me to finally finish up my paperwork from 2008 and start my files for 2009 and hopefully get my pictures organized and start scrapbooking. I'm excited!
I'll also FINALLY be able to get my house cleaned and have it stay that way for more than 5 minutes.
Well I better get off here. I have to go play Disney Scene It 2 and watch the Gators beat Oklahoma. (well maybe) I'm a GA fan so I don't really care but Youngest likes the Gators and Hubby said this is an important game so we have to watch and that Gators are the ones to go for. I do what I'm told. (occassionally)

Can I Go Back To Bed?

Today is Monday and it is NOT a good day. This morning started out with the boys going crazy! I was awoken with stomping and just general rough housing and it was early! They didn't get dressed before eating breakfast which they do every day and they didn't put their folded clothes away which is also a normal routine. If I fold clothes at night I leave the folded clothes on their side of the table and they put them away after breakfast. So I made them lay back down at 9 for a nap. Yep, I'm mean. They got up at 11 and then at noon ate lunch and tried to sneak 2 bags of chips. They are allowed extra fruit but never extra chips and Oldests answer for all this is just because they WANT to. So now they are laying down again. Not for a nap but for a quick time out. In a few minutes they will get up do their chores and school and then spend the rest of the day in their room. We've already taken the tv away except for weekends (unless they are awful all week) so I really don't know what else to do. We aren't against spanking but I can't really tell that it has helped at all. They've had several of their brand new Christmas toys taken away also because they haven't taken care of them or some of them have already been broken. At 6 and 8 I know they can do better than they are I am just at a loss at how to train them to do better.

I'm nervous about school because Oldest is known for fighting me in this and I don't want a fight today. I have a headache from getting woke up the way I did and I just want peace.

Hope your Monday is going better than mine!

How much do you remember from 2008?

You Remember 70% of 2008

You were paying attention during 2008. And you remember what happened really well. You'll be able to talk about 2008 for years to come... Even when most people have forgotten what went down.

How Much Do You Remember 2008?

Today's Wrap Up

Ok I have been very busy today getting caught up on all my reviews and posting my giveaways. I have some great products for you guys to win so be sure to check out all my posts for the day. Just to make it easier I am posting this round-up.

Curse of the Bone Pirates book review

Pledge Winner

Vaseline Clinical Therapy review and giveaway

Country Bob's All Purpose Sauce review and giveaway

My Fruit Roll-Ups giveaway

My Fruit Roll-Ups

Remember loving to play with your fruit roll-ups as a kid. I do. We didn't get them often but I always looked forward to eating them when we did. Then remember when they first started putting pictures on them and we all had our favorite ones to pick. Well now fruit roll-ups have gone a step further. Now you can create your own design on the fruit roll-ups. It is so cool! Here are some samples from their site.


I really enjoyed creating a special treat for my boys and I'm sure you will too. As a matter of fact Fruit Roll-ups thinks you will too and they gave me 1 box to giveaway. To win just leave me a comment telling me who you would create these for or what occasion you would create them for. That's it. Make sure you leave me an email address as the prize is a free code I will email the winner so they can place their order. Contest will end Jan. 30 at 9pm est.

Country Bob's All Purpose Sauce

I was recently contacted by a representative of Country Bob's All Purpose Sauce to review their product. I eagerly accepted and am not sorry that I did. It was awesome! We tried it on some pork chops following one of the recipes that came with our sauce. The recipe was actually for pork tenderloin on the grill but it worked great for butterfly pork chops in the oven. Hubby can't wait to try it on some steak. The best part about the sauce, at least to me, is that Country Bob's is a Christain business.

From the site:
It was 1968 when Country Bob Edson perfected his steak sauce recipe and he called it an All Purpose Sauce because it was more than just a steak sauce. Country Bob’s All Purpose Sauce has remained the flagship item since 1982 when Country Bob, Inc. was established. Along the way we have been dedicated to offering our customers the best tasting and highest quality steak sauce or All Purpose Sauce, Barbeque Sauce, and Seasoning Salt available anywhere in the world. To accomplish this we have placed our trust in God and we believe that goal has been achieved.

We also have a tremendous Fundraising Program that is perfect for a school fundraiser or church fundraiser.

Now that I have your mouth watering thinking about some great pork chops or a nice juicy steak let me tell you how you can win 2 bottles of Country Bob's All Purpose Sauce for your family. The company has generously allowed me to give away two 2 bottle sets to 2 of my lucky readers. To win go check out the recipes on their site and come back and tell me what you would like to try it on. The contest will end on Jan. 23 at 9 pm est.

Vaseline Clinical Therapy

Ok, we all know about dry skin. It is awful. It is itchy and it is uncomfortable. Well in the winter time I have it bad and so I'm always up for trying a new lotion. Vaseline's intensive rescue clinical therapy lotion did wonders for the itchy dry skin on my back. It is non-greasy, hypoallergenic and comes in an unfragranced or lightly fragranced lotion. I have prescribed it to my husband for his not so soft hands. I can't wait to see how it works for him. Of course, he's a manly man and getting him to use it is another story. I did find it to be a little greasy on my hands but on my back I loved it!

Right now you can go to Vaseline's Prescribe the Nation site and enter to win an 8 day Alaska adventure for 4. Plus 5 people will win 2 $100 SpaFinders Gift Certificates Weekly. The first 45,000 to enter will receive TWO FREE SAMPLES of Vaseline Clinical Therapy lotion to share with someone they love. Users can also prescribe to a friend via email “postcard”. No holiday is complete without an e-card these days.

If you or someone you know suffers from dry itchy skin this I highly recommend you try this. And to help you out Vaseline has given me 5 bottles to giveaway. All you have to do is leave me a comment and you are entered. That's it. I'm making this one super easy. 5 winners will be chosen on January 17. Contest ends January 17 at 9pm est.

Thanks to Family Review Network for this opportunity.

Pledge Winner!

I am sorry for the delay of announcing this winner. I have been so busy with the holiday and with sickness it slipped my mind. Without further delay the winner is:

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

4 

Timestamp: 2009-01-03 21:28:55 UTC

Aimee said... 4

I somehow always manage to put off cleaning my office. It's just so easy to shut the door and "forget" about it. I spend all day, every day in there, but I just have such a difficult time being motivated to CLEAN it! Ugh. My poor office could definitely use some Pledge!! :)

libby_design at yahoo dot com

As usual you have 3 days to contact me with your shipping information or a new winner will be chosen.

Curse of the Bone Pirates book

An evil force is destroying the natural wonders of Nui Island, and it’s up to three new friends to solve the mystery. When Big B is dragged from his comfortable life and close friends in Chicago by his grandfather’s mysterious affliction, he’s sure he’s going to have the worst summer ever. But soon after arriving in the tropical paradise of Nui Island, he is caught in a web of danger and intrigue. The Maemae reef is dying, his grandfather’s brilliant mind has been infected and creepy Island legends are coming to life. Big B and his new friends, Sam and Nalu, rely on wit, courage and strength to unravel Nui’s ancient mysteries. What they uncover will help them save the Island, restore his grandfather’s soul, and break the curse of the Bone Pirates. With a captivating plot, fascinating characters and an important ecological message, Curse of the Bone Pirates: Nui Island Eco-Logical Adventures will haunt and delight young readers.


This was a very interesting book for me to read. It teaches about eco-friendly living and is also an adventure. Although I enjoyed reading it I will not read it to my children because it deals with a lot of mythology as part of the adventure. Being Christians and having children that are very impressionable I am not comfortable reading such material to them. The book is well written and would keep any child, especially boys, enthralled. If your not opposed to mythology then I would highly recommend this book.

I would definitely recommend supporting the Nui company, which is behind the book, because they support some very good charities.

From their site:

Nui donates 50% of its profits to partner charities that parallel Nui’s mission of empowering kids to improve physical, social, and environmental health.

Even before our first bottles appeared on shelves, Nui made monthly donations to the first three charities that it supported: Kids With A Cause, Shaping America’s Youth, and our primary charity beneficiary, Healthy Child Healthy World. As a young startup company, our contributions exceed 50% of our profits.

Additional charities that Nui has supported include Big Brothers Big Sisters and Feed the Children.

From each copy of Curse of the Bone Pirates, the first book in the Nui Island Eco-Logical Adventures series, we donate $1 to support Healthy Child Healthy World and Surfers for Cetaceans.

Healthy Child Healthy World is dedicated to protecting the health and well being of children from harmful environmental exposures. We educate parents, support protective policies, and engage communities to make responsible decisions, simple everyday choices, and well-informed lifestyle improvements to create healthy environments where children and families can flourish.

As a national leader for nearly two decades, Healthy Child Healthy World has become the nation's leading organization of its kind. We help millions of parents, educators, health professionals, and the general public take action to create healthy environments and embrace green, non-toxic steps.

Surfers For Cetaceans is a call to surfers and people everywhere in the world to take action on behalf of the whales and dolphins of the world, and the marine environments that support them and us. This is the 11th hour for our ocean kin who are still struggling with bloody whaling, dolphin hunts, capture, pollution, acoustic invasion, habitat destruction and food depletion. The whales and dolphins desperately need our help.

Join our Visual Petition, a powerful statement to the world declaring that surfers and people, as a global culture, will no longer stand by and let our ocean kin be murdered. Whales and Dolphins are revered by surfers and ocean lovers all over the world, though a minority of humans are intent on wiping out these masters of the ocean. Up to 26,000 dolphins are killed every year in Japan, along with thousands of whales killed by Norway, Japan and Iceland despite an international ban on commercial whaling.

Thanks to Family Review Network for this opportunity.