This past weekend I won a “This Is Me” kids keepsake journal during the OC Blogger Ball at the Hilton in Anaheim.

I have to admit I was horrible at updating my boys baby books, all my photos are on hard drives or CD’s somewhere stored and I do keep some of their artwork but not nearly as much as I should. So when I received this great kids journal I was very excited! This little book is all about your child, by your child! It chronicles all the major holidays and is a fun way for your kid to draw and write about their year as it happens. And how fun will it be to go back and see how much their writing and drawing skills change? Timing was perfect because my son just had his birthday a couple weeks ago and I think this will be one gift that will be a tradition for many years to come!

To order your own visit www.thisismejournal.com
or follow on twitter at: twitter.com/ThisIsMeJournal
or twitter.com/thisiscarrie

Thank you to Carrie from This Is Me Journal! Very awesome mommy & kid product!

Today I had one the easiest and most relaxing grocery shopping experiences ever! At my local Von’s here in Yorba Linda they now offer parents a way to shop and entertain their tiny tots at the same time. My only questions: why didn’t someone think of this sooner? This amazing new idea is a bright and easy to steer shopping cart, complete with a TV for little ones to watch while you shop. That’s right, you heard correct. A shopping cart with a TV inside the area our little ones sit.

Now I know some moms (and dads) are worried about germs but for me it was a blessing. I didn’t hear any of the usual “can I have that? I want that! Moooom please!!!” and my little guy wasn’t subjected to his usual from me of: “don’t ask again. I said no! Do we need to leave right now! I SAID NOOOOOO!@!!!!!”

The carts I have seen give you an option of three shows: Barney, Bob the Builder and Thomas the Train. You also can control it from your own screen up on top so you don’t have to try to reach inside and keep setting it.

So to Von’s grocery stores I give you 2 mommy thumbs up and and a HUGE Thank you!!

I’ve been seeing a lot of articles recently about Facebook and all the bad things about it. These same authors complain about “notes” and “updates” and how much they really dislike reading about others every day life and how much it is a time waster. Of course there is the anti-super poke groups and the other complainers about how “old folk” having taken over. So I thought I would take the time to add my 2 cents.

I’m the first to admit that I am one of those “old folks” who is addicted to my Facebook. I love everything about it from one too many applications to the minute by minute updates from my friends. I find that I can’t go a day with out checking on my crops on the Farm Town application or looking for the much needed rare item in Scavenger Hunt. More importantly I feel like I’ve gotten to know some of my long lost friends more then I would by just spending a few minutes here and there on the phone. By taking a look into the “secretly life” of others I get a really good understand of who they are. And to be honest I really do take the time to read almost all of my 115 friends updates and any notes they take the time to write on their pages. Through these little moments I find myself comparing myself to everyone and enjoying seeing how much some of us have in common.

Life is so busy and serious as an adult it’s nice to have somewhere I can get away and be silly. Almost like a 15 minute mini vacation a few times a day just to keep sane. So to those that hate the silliness of Facebook, that is fine but for me, I’ll just keep poking my friends and look forward to that next piece of flair they send me. So Happy Poking!

Mom’s are great and being one the most important and special job in the world. But one thing that we do that I never understood is comparing our children and their milestones, you know “Johnny took his first steps!” to hear “my Molly is running in a 3 mile race and she’s only 10 months old”. Well you know what I mean. We always try to make it seem like our children are better then yours and when they aren’t we worry ourselves to death that there is something wrong that our 2 year olds can’t play piano while riding a bike.

So for all us paranoid and annoying moms who try to make ourselves feel better and truly believe our children are prodigies here is proof your child isn’t as smart as you think (I’m not going to say these are all real but if they are………ouch”

And I watch it a lot. I love AI and survivor and you can’t make me go or do anything during their time slots. That said I keep hearing people crying over Melinda being voted off of AI last night. I completely agree with the vote and couldn’t stand her another week myself. Her voice, body style and performances bugged me and put me to sleep. Really can you see yourself buying her albums? I know I am getting old but I’m not that old.

Anyways good bye to Shrek, I mean Melinda and good luck to the final two. My vote goes to Blake by the way

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So one of the fun things about being a mom in the world today is the amazing knowledge available with just the click of a mouse. Now take this wonderful idea and add in sharing memories and flashbacks from being a kid with your kids and what do you get? A day spent watching old t.v. shows and cartoons with your kids realizing that it was/is almost a miracle your brain can function with all the crazy things we watched and your kids going……”I don’t get it!?” At least my three year old enjoys it.

So just for giggles I thought I would shake up some of those old brain cells and Flashback to a couple of my favorite programs as a child growing up in the 70’s & 80’s.

I loved this show but have to wonder, what kind of drugs were they taking?

My favorite of all time!! The Bugaloos!!

I could have and wanted to post hours of my favorite videos but these are enough for now. But what is really amazing is thinking back to being a kid. It’s cool reliving the childhood year but also thinking about my parents, and my friends parents compared to today’s parents and how I realize how paranoid today’s parents have become.

I remember being 7 or 8 years old and staying home alone from school if I were sick and my parents would call and check on me. I also remember going out to play with my friends and just having to be home by a certain time, not really knowing exactly where I was going or what I was going to do but just doing it. Of course my parents knew all my friends but as a child of the 70’s and 80’s I was free. Free to explore, free to be a kid and free to learn about my world.

Now it seems like my children will never know this freedom until they are old enough to move out. I don’t want to be paranoid but all the other parents around me are and if I don’t give in to the “keeping them safe” mentality then that makes me an uncaring and bad parents. After my little Flashback today I really did a lot of htinking about myself and my kids and lastly my childhood.

First I loved my childhood and all the learning I did by just being out in the world and I want my kids to create their own memories.

Second, there has to be a happy medium of being a safe parents but not a paranoid crazy women society has made todays parents become. Kids need to be kids and this means getting hurt and doing bad things at times. In order to function on their own you have to take chances.

Finally, all the adults when us 30 somethings were kids are crazy. Either that or they were on some serious drugs and if we turned out ok. With such crazy people raising us then maybe we should trust ourselves a little more and how our kids will turn out. This means that maybe we did ok with what we taught them and so we should let them go have fun with out breathing down their necks. And who knows they may be ok, I mean we made it home safe didn’t we?

Ok I am crawling down off my soap box now. Just reliving my past made me realize if I don’t ease up I may just screw up my children’s future and not allow them to create memories of their own.

I’m off to watch some Electric Company with my boys now, man I loved that show!

Here is a fun little Flickr Toy to make your own Moscaic quickly and easily. I’ll post a tutorial later to show how to do this yourself in Photoshop another day, in the mean time have fun!

Here are some examples of what you can do with it.