MR. POTATO HEAD TOY STORY 3 WOODY’S TATER ROUND UP Character
(Ages 2 years & up/Approx. Retail Price: $9.99/Available: Now)

This cute cowboy spud is ready to wrangle up some fun!  Dressed like WOODY from the Toy Story movies, this MR. POTATO HEAD character features a cowboy hat, vest, boots and belt for a rootin’ tootin’ good time!

Get ready for some “wild west” fun with this wild and wacky tater tot cowpoke! Your MR. POTATO HEAD figure has everything he needs to look like the Woody character from the Toy Story 3 movie – and it’s up to you to take the accessories and give him a crazy new look. His “cowboy hat” where his “ear” should be? A set of “teeth” instead of a “nose”? The kookier the look, the better hero! Potato body comes with one pair of eyes, one nose, one set of teeth, two arms, two ears, one cowboy hat, one vest, one belt and one pair of cowboy boots accessories.

Want a chance to win one of your very own?

Leave a comment telling me your child’s favourite TS3 character! For an additional entry, tweet the following sentence and leave the link to that twitter status as a comment:

I just entered @VampireSmitten’s TS3 Woody Potato Head #giveaway from @playskool! Enter here: http://bit.ly/ctVJLK

Open to US Residents only. Duplicate comments will be deleted. Giveaway ends September 22th 2010. Winner will be chosen using randomm.org Winner will be notified via email the following day. If winner does not reply within three days, a new winner will be chosen.

*I was given a woody potato head from playskool to play with*

***WINNER IS PSYCHMAMMA***
****THANKS FOR ENTERING, EVERYONE****

What We Have is a memoir written by Amy Boesky. It is powerful, moving, and its the kind of book that you read through tears. Cancer is something that, unfortunately, runs in my family. It pained to read about the description Amy, the author, gave of her mother because it reminded me of my grandmother. Her frail body of just bones and skin. Her very very thin hair when it used to be so shiny and full. Every little thing, it brought back memories and I.. I couldn’t hold back my tears. I laughed through my tears.

Every time she talked about her Mom, I would think about my Grandmother. A grandmother that once, was full of life, laughter and that sparkle in her eye. It was very hard to keep on reading as Elaine, her mother’s health, deteriorated. It was heartbreaking to read, just as it will be for those who have had a loved one pass away from this dreadful disease that has taken so many people.

Not only does she talk about Cancer, but she talks about previvors. You will read more about it from the excerpt that is posted below. She talks about life, how life is when you have a newborn baby, how her sister lost her baby, Emily.  About generations of people in her mother’s family who has died from Ovarian Cancer.

I read this book within a two day span and honestly, I didn’t think I would finish it as soon as I read the word Cancer. The word, although its been three years already, still breaks me. If you do read this book, have tissues at hand. ALWAYS

You can purchase the book here and no, I do not get any money by you purchasing through this link. And I was not paid to link you to that website either. Just recommending this book.

An excerpt from the website:

This story is about what it’s been like for one family—mine—to live with risk.

It isn’t really a cancer story, or a survivor story, though it has cancer and surviving in it. Instead, it’s a previvor’s story. A previvor is someone who doesn’t have cancer, but has a known (elevated) risk for it, discovered through family history or through diagnosis with a genetic mutation. That’s good news. If you’re a previvor, you don’t have anything—at least, not yet.

The bad news is, that means you don’t have anything to fix or get better from. You can diagnose being a previvor, but you can’t treat it. There are things you can do, protocols to follow. But the previvor part doesn’t go away. It just becomes part of who you are.

Previvors are a new group—the word hasn’t been around for long—but we’re growing in number every day. By the time this book is finished, there’ll be thousands more of us. It’s peculiar and compelling, this glimpse ahead—in some ways a curse, in others, a gift.

I used to think all my favorite words began with   pre. Preface. Prepare. Prevaricate. Pregnancy  (that one doesn’t belong etymologically, but still.)  Pre  for “prior to; earlier than.” Ahead of. I’ve always loved being early: the first to board the plane; the first to get a new piece of technology. The first to plan.   Preview. Premonition. Prevent.
Would I have chosen this kind of preview on purpose?

I go back and forth. I talk about it with my sisters. Some days, the answer, emphatically, is no. Who wants to know his or her genetic destiny and have to live with the consequences? Who wants to sit down and tell her daughters about this?   Girls, guess what? We have this gene—

Other days, I’m more upbeat. I tell myself having to live with consequences isn’t the point. It’s getting to live. Maybe even choosing to live. For that, seeing ahead is worth it.

Two different points of view, and I have both.

There’s a shaped poem I’ve always liked by George Herbert which modern editors call “Easter Wings.” Most editors lay it out vertically, so the two stanzas (shaped like triangles) stand, inverted, on a single page. Set like that, it looks like an hourglass. But if you turn the poem sideways, it looks like wings.

That’s how it is for me, thinking about the future. Two different shapes. One holding time, the other escaping it. One suggesting fragility, confinement; the other, something transcendent. Turn it one way, you see an hourglass. Turn it the other way, and you see wings.

Also, be sure to take advantage of the Bonus Box Tops Offers to help the school of your choice this year! All you have to do is register at RewardYourSchool.com and you’ll get 5 BBT just for signing up. You will also receive custom offers for Bonus Box Tops for purchasing participating products. Don’t forget that if you buy any 4 Box Tops products you get 10 Bonus Box Tops. And if you buy any 8 Box Tops products you get 25 Bonus Box Tops. (The offers you select will then load onto your Kroger’s Card to be redeemed when you make your purchase. Just remember to scan your Kroger’s Card and the Bonus Box Tops will automatically go straight the participating school of your choice.

$25 Kroger Gift Card Giveaway

To enter the giveaway,

Leave a comment telling me with a tip on how you save on groceries.

For an additional entry you can tweet the following sentence and leave your tweet link here in a separate comment:

“I just entered to win a $25 Kroger GC by @VampireSmitten and #myblogspark http://bit.ly/bTW1BA”

*Winner will be picked using a random number generator on Random.org*

**Giveaway ends 09/27 and winner will be notified by email**

I was not paid to write this review. The gift card I was given and giveaway for my readers have all been provided by The Kroger Family of Stores, General Mills and Kimberly Clark through MyBlogSpark.

WINNER: #11 (I’ll be emailing you today, Saturday) Thank you all for entering! And subscribe for future giveaways!

Take one of my best friends and me. She’s the same age as me. We’re two months and three days apart and we’re complete opposites but we’ve been best friends since seventh grade. That is a really long time. Sure, we have our fights, just like the girls from ames had theirs, but we’ve always been there for each other.

The Girls From Ames is a story about 11 girls and their journey through womanhood and motherhood and their forty year amazing friendship. Their story, like many teenagers’ lives is crazy-filled with boys, crazy nights, and the things that have gone through their lives like one of the girls dying a mysterious death, a girl’s daughter dying from Cancer, and two of the girls from Ames getting Cancer and telling their story.

I cried several times during this book. Although it took me several weeks to finish, I enjoyed this book and would recommend to anyone who is still friends with their childhood friends or just any woman as any woman will relate to this story even if you don’t have ten best friends. This book shows you that while these girls live all over the United States, they still take the time to maintain that special friensship and still do get togethers when they can.

If you want more information on the book like an excerpt or more book reviews, or to buy it visit http://www.girlsfromames.com/

My two year old has been going crazy with disney movies. Her favorites are tinkerbell and now this one. When UPS dropped it off yesterday morning, she went ballistic when she saw the dvd case. And she kept on pointing at the box and saying “awwww. Cuuuute.” She wouldn’t stop. She giggled all throughout the movie and when the witch transfigured into the old lady, she said “ewwww… Guuuuh-wossss” she didn’t like that part at all. And now for my review since it was addressed to me after all!

I LOVED this movie. Everything is like bright and dull. So much cuter than when I used to watch it as a kid. The graphics are like 10X better than the original. They didn’t change a thing but what I love is that there are bonus features! There aren’t any bonus features in the VHS version and that makes it so much better. This is definitely a movie that you should have if you’re like a huge disney fan or like princesses.

Oh and now that I have a blu-ray movie I’m totally going to get a blu-ray player. In the meantime, I can take it to my brothers house because he has a PS3. And did you know that they are more scratch proof? That’s perfect, because my daughter puts in her fave dvd movies in the dvd player all by herself so that’s a big plus! And
Blu-ray players plays both blu-ray movies and dvd players! Isn’t that great?

If you still haven’t seen the trailer for this adorable movie, go here: movie trailer. and to look at all the bonus stuff and the pretty cover click here: movie site. So have fun, get the movie and watch it as a family!

It’s me again! I figured that I didn’t want like 362345 pages on my personal blog with just reviews so I made my own reviews blog. This is where I will be posting reviews, giveaways, contests, and things of that sort.. leaving my blog EMPTY. I guess I should start writing again, about my life and how I chase around a toddler eight days a week. Oh there’s not eight days in a week? There is according to the Beatles. So ha!

You will see that I mostly write book reviews, books that the publishers and other companies for bloggers send me, which I totally love because theres no pressure. But if you want to send me something that isnt a book, I’m all for it as long as you know it doesnt stand against my morals and stuff like that. Otherwise, yeah I’ll review it but only if I can say what I want and not sugarcoat things.

So… if you still want me to review something for you or whoever you can hit me up on my email which will be on your left at the top. Click on Email and you will see a picture of my email (that’s so I wont get any weird emails trying to sell me viagra and male enhancements) so you can copy it, jot it down, or do whatever you do to email me. Got it? Moving on.

I will not review things such as a lollipop. Only if it spins and is robotically made to where it goes in my mouth (or my toddlers) by itself or something like that. Get the drift? I want to review something that I can actually use like everyday or something. Not just something that is going in the junk bin by the door.