Microsoft Student Review

I was given the opportunity to review Microsoft Student with Encarta Premium 2008. Are there any products I review that I don't like? Yes, but it is NOT this one.

I played around with the features a bit, then I brought a couple of children into the mix. We had some competitions going to see who could get the tests (disguised as games) correct with the least amount of tries. The games, which are all educational, are limitless. I really have no idea how many there are.

We played a game about matching animal sounds with their animal. Easy, right? Do you really know what a Panda sounds like? How about a whale? Or a mountain goat? It gets more difficult as you play. There are all sorts of gross and icky bugs to learn about. We enjoyed all the different games teaching about states, such as jigsaw puzzles, match states with flags or capitals.

So there are lots of fun things. But what about the real stuff, like trigonometry? OK, I have absolutely no idea what trigonometry is, other than some sort of math, so I put my brilliant 18 year old son on the task of testing the software. He was none to keen on giving it a try if I liked it.

Pretty soon I heard some things coming from his reluctant body. "Hmm!" "Whoa." "No way!" "Sweet! It just told me two ways to solve this problem!" "Ha! I finally found a problem it couldn't solve!"

After an hour he walked away and gave me his verdict. Decent. That means it is beyond fun and helpful and is full-fledged awesome, for those of you who do not speak teen.

There are math tools, science help, search areas, help with several foreign languages, graph learning, and even several very wonderful tools for learning to write essays and many others works. I plan to use it to learn to write better blog posts. But I can't promise anything.

My final verdict is that this is amazing and worth far more than the $49.95 retail value. This would be great for your struggling student or your dedicated student. Or for your average blogger!

You can purchase Microsoft Student, which comes with a 75 minute tutor.com trial, for download instantly or the order the discs.

Video Game ratings

We are a family of geeks, I admit it. We all love playing games on the computer and Playstation 2 and Nintendo Game Cube. It is a great way for us to all have fun together, and the investment in a game is the same as bringing our family to the movies, one time. The game gives us many more hours of fun together. So, you know we buy a lot of games, or rent them.

We need to be careful, though, because games can be so graphic, not just with violence and crime, but also with gore and sexually explicit situations. Have you SEEN the way game creators draw women??? That is another rant.

We use the rating labels on the games to choose what would be appropriate for our kids before we buy them. The Entertainment Software Rating Board, ESRB, is a non-profit company that assigns computer and video game content ratings, enforces industry-adopted advertising guidelines and helps ensure responsible online privacy practices for the interactive entertainment software industry.
They have 6 ratings for games based on the content in the games.

You can go to the ESRB site and search by game title to find out the rating and look to see what that means. You could even search by rating to find games that you would want to buy that fit the rating you think is appropriate for your child.

Parents whose children have a system with internet access need to do some extra research because some games can be adjusted with downloadable "mods" with internet access and also have access to chat with who knows what kind of people. ESRB has instructions for parents on what to look for and how to set controls so kids can't access inappropriate games online.

Target, Best Buy, Game Stop and Walmart, among others, are all retailers who partner with ESRB to have games in their stores with the ratings on them. We stick to those retailers.

Do your research before you buy those games this holiday season, because you may be surprised that E for everyone doesn't mean Everyone, it means 6years and up. There is only one game for GameCube and Playstation 2 that is for my 4yo's age group, with the Early Childhood rating.

Got a baby in your life?

I have several in my life. My own little Samuel, my niece Mackenzie, my nephew Austin, and my niece on the way in March. I am always looking for cool baby clothes.
Austin and niece on the way's dad loves rock music. He is a nut about it. I thought this adorable AB/CD (for those about to read, we salute you) shirt is so cute for them, I know Daryl would love to see his kids in it! I am ordering it for a little first birthday coming up.
This Cherry Blossom on brown is so beautiful. Who wouldn't want to put their little girl in this trendy shirt? It comes in a large range of sizes, from 3-6 months to 6T.

This is what I need for my teething monsters! I have called every one of my kids "Drool Monster" at some point in their lives. Isn't this the cutest?
But this sweet pink shirt is what I want to get for my sister in law's baby that is due in March. "I'm gonna need therapy." Daryl is a tad nuts, and I don't know how Daphne deals with it, but I think the kids are going to need therapy, lol. (well, so are my kids, who am I kidding?)
Trendy Tadpole is such a neat store. The clothes were not outrageously expensive like some online "trendy" stores that charge $38 for a shirt a baby will wear 3 times. I didn't see anything over $20.95. For the holidays you can get free shipping on orders of 3 shirts or more with the code "free" when checking out. But, the shipping is very reasonable if you don't order 3, it is only $5 flat rate no matter what you order.

Some of the other adorable and fun shirt designs are things like: these booties are made for walking, All hands on the Poop deck (complete with pirate flag, so cute!), and B.Y.O.B bring your own bottle. Don't you just want one?

Quelf

Whew. I can't tell you how tired I am after playing Quelf! As we were playing the game my friends kept saying "Oh, she's gonna blog about THAT!" And they are right!

First of all, this game is silly. It started out pretty awkward and uncomfortable. Some singing here and there, having to sit with your hands on your head until your next turn, etc.

But soon we got in the swing of things and were jumping and screaming and snorting and rapping and pointing-izzle! We could not stop laughing! And that was very bad, for me, which made everyone else really laugh, which made me laugh more and that was bad, for me. You see, I had to snort like a pig every time I laughed or I had to pay a penalty. Now, paying a penalty of going back two spaces isn't so bad, but I had snort through the whole game until a new roolz card replaced it. Which did not happen. You can't imagine my husband's joy to hear me snort. And then there came a Global Roolz card that when it is not your turn you have to end every sentence with izzle. Every sentence-izzle. Or pay the penalty.

Ok, so that was all fun and games. But then the kids found out that we had to jump up out of our seats and yell "Pizza Party!" every time the phone rang or the doorbell rang. Oh, yes, the teens started calling on their cell phones. Of course that got me laughing, which meant I had to snort like a pig, and then everyone would laugh harder, and I had to keep snorting because I couldn't stop laughing!

One of the guys that was here was our mayor for quite some time. Very quiet, knowledgeable, NORMAL guy. He had to make up and perform a rap for us about himself! His kids were shocked that he did it, lol.

I was the waitress. I had to serve everyone whatever they wanted until I was able to replace my card. Waiting on them was much better than the snorting. But I got to pass the waiter card to an opponent when I replaced it! So Jody had to be the waiter! Even though it was my house!

I could go on and on, because there was no end to the laughs. Later I will be posting some of the creative writing that had to be done. But I am so tired and I need to get some sleep. Much needed sleep. Because tomorrow it all starts up again. My dd wants to have her friends over to play it, too.

Please pray for Kaytlin, she has a health issue that warranted a trip to the ER, but we decided to hold off a day and see what happens because she was not in pain. It could be pretty minor all the way to cancer, so we do have to go in if things are not resolved today.

Have a great holiday today-izzle!

Our date night

Donnie recently helped a friend from church make a 60th Anniversary Power Point presentation for her parents, and they worked hard for a week on it. Her husband wrote us a thank you card and gave us a gift certificate to the Rockwood Grill!

It was just too wonderful!

Donnie ordered the Walleye, which was so incredibly delicious that he didn't want to ruin it with tartar sauce or malt vinegar! If we could prepare our fish like that, we would not be practicing catch and release.

I ordered the Coconut shrimp. It was 7 pieces, and I wasn't sure it would be enough. They were so big that we had to take pictures to show just how big they are! Plus, they were even better than the Outback's!

These pics are from the camera phone. Donnie couldn't resist sneaking one of me eating, I thought he was saving the other pic he took. I am brave enough to post it, though!

It took Donnie 2 1/2 bites to eat ONE shrimp, they are that big. I only got 4 down.

I highly recommend this restaurant. The food was fabulous, the atmosphere was fun, and family friendly if you wanted to bring your kids. The waitress was fantastic, too, just the right amount of checking on us without making us feel hovered over. There were electric trains running through the place on shelves near the ceiling. It was entertaining watching them come and go from room to room.

Review of Swanky Baby Gear

I ordered this adorable bib last week! Isn't Sam just the cutest? Yes, he IS the cutest baby ever, but this review is not about Sam and his cuteness or joyfulness.
Its about the bib.
Melissa at Swanky Baby Gear made this vintage look handicraft bib. If I was only half as talented! The knitting is really good. The yarn is soft and lovely to touch. Sam likes to play with it and chew on it.
With Sam's drooling and chewing the bib absorbed it all, but the back was not wet, keeping his clothes dry.
Sam ate some sweet potatoes and when he was finished I just lifted the bib up and wiped his face clean! Sam did not fight it like he does stiff, scratchy bibs or wet wash clothes.
I really love this bib! The price is fantastic at $5 for a hand knit product with low shipping costs, even though the shipping was not slow. I will be buying these for baby gifts.
The picture of the bib on Sam is more cute than on her web page of the bibs laying side-by-side. It loses something when its not on a baby. Not that it kept me from buying it, but on a baby shows how truly beautiful it really is.
Now go show Melissa some love! Any mom would love this for their new baby.

The Super dipe! A review of diapers.

Don't forget, I'm having a contest! Share your birthstory with me! Here's a link to the Birth Story Contest!

I received the Superman diaper that I was crazy obsessed trying to find! This is a MudpieBabies diaper! It is wonderful! Soft, super absorbant and cute as can be! Tiffani does wonderful work on her diapers. This diaper will work overnight, as it comes with a good amount of soakers you can snap in and out for different needs, more for night time, less for day time. I absolutely love the softness of the inside, and the outside is really nice compared to vinyl or pul fabrics I've had on other diapers. I just love it! My 17yo wishes he could get one for himself, but thats a whole other post, lol.

I tried some Bear Bottom Britches that I got used. They have pass through pockets, which I was really wanting to try out. The diapers have really cute fabric. When I saw them I thought they MUST be for newborns or premies, they are SO small and narrow, but I even got one on my 30lb 3yo without a liner in it. They are very deceiving in their fit, which is amazing. However, I would not buy them again. They do not have leg gussetts that keep the poo in, and some of the inner fabric seems to repel rather than absorb the pee, but not all of them. I have 5 with 4 different linings. I love how they fit, and I love the cute looks, but I haven't gotten any of them to work right, even with different soakers. Then I went to her website, and I was just flabergasted at what she posts as pictures of herself on her business website. Unprofessional. I'm not against breastfeeding, because I exclusively nurse my children, and I'm all natural, don't circumsize, nurse in public (covered), etc. A bare br*east doesn't offend me, especially while nursing, but to post a picture of yourself nursing a 2-3yo showing your whole br*east on your business website does not tell me you are a serious business woman. Totally turned me away.

BumGenius! diapers are by far my favorites, though! I love that they fit so many sizes. (I use the one size diaper) I love their cottonbabies inserts, I use them in almost all of my diapers. I love the mudpies and Fuzzi Fannies for fun and function, but they are more expensive diapers. BumGenius are slightly expensive per diaper, but you get so much use out of them! They are my number one diaper, my "workhorse" diapers. Anything else I buy I use for good or fun. Like this summer when Sam will normally just be in a diaper and t-shirt, it will be fun to have really cute diapers on him!

Happy Heineys, which can be bought at my friend's store, Snooty Booty Diapers, are really nice diapers. I love the fabric and the comfort of the inner fabric. The soaker is nice, too. Its a very roomy pocket, and can be stuffed for night time or daytime. Cute patterns. I like them a lot, but they are not my favorites. I do recommend them, though.

*Update

In light of the huge amount of traffic being driven here through the forums at Hyena Cart, I want to say a great big "Thank You" for making my stat counter go crazy!

Really, I want to thank you guys for your support, and the relative few complaints about my feeling that that picture was unprofessional. Feel free to keep emailing. I personally do not have a problem with Angie, the owner of Bear Bottom Britches. I even stated that I liked things about her diapers. Which I do! I use the 5 I do have, however, if Sam poos in them, its all over the place, which is gross, I have NO poo leaks ever with BumGenius! I am a current breast feeding mom, on my 7 child that I have breast fed all of them. I co-sleep, I do not circumsize, I do NOT immunize, and I even vote Republican! I also put my kids in public school and would love to homebirth unassisted, just as Angie does.

This post clearly states that this is a REVIEW of diapers. I reviewed her company and product, stated my views. I did go check out her site again and loved to see that she is proudly standing by her views, and giving fair warning of the picture now. I still feel it is unprofessional on her diaper site, and probably would be more appropriate on a blog, but that is her choice in this free country. If you put it on your business site, that makes it public knowledge what you stand for and up for public scrutiny. I think Angie is probably strong enough to deal with someone not wanting to see it.