When even my three year old has her own MP3 player, it gets harder and harder for me to gather everyone together in the same room for more than a few minutes at a time. We eat dinner together at the kitchen table every night, but getting everyone to unplug themselves from their personal electronics and do, you know, family stuff is getting harder all the time!

And I have to admit, I’m just as bad. My husband is always griping at me to close my laptop and actually pay attention to the TV show we’re watching. Because otherwise I spend the whole time going “wait a minute, what? What did he say?” lol

Having us all watch a DVD together seems like the obvious choice, but it’s hard to find a movie that is entertaining for everyone. The last movie we watched together was WALL-E, which turned out to be a great choice. It’s just getting everyone to give a movie a chance if it doesn’t contain aliens or explosions or car chases that can be tough!

There’s a movie coming out on DVD January 13th that looks promising, it’s called All Roads Lead Home The Movie. I hadn’t heard of it until I read about it on SocialSpark. It’s a movie about a 12 year old girl, Belle, who loses her mother in an automobile accident. Her father Cody is struggling with the loss of his wife and trying to help his daughter work through her anger over the accident, so he sends Belle to live with her Grandpa Hock on his horse farm. Hock agrees, but has a hard time dealing with Belle because she reminds him of the daughter he lost. What helps Belle rediscover her ability to love is an adorable new puppy that she saves.

All Roads Lead Home stars Peter Coyote as Hock, Jason London (”Wildfire”) as Cody, Vivien Cardone (”Everwood”) as Belle, Patton Oswalt (”Reno 911″) and Peter Boyle (”Everybody Loves Raymond”) in his last film before his death. The movie won the Best Drama award at the International Family Film Festival and looks like it would make a great choice for a Family movie night! You can pre-order All Roads Lead Home on Amazon and it will get shipped when it’s released on January 13th. Here’s a clip:

What do you think? What makes a good Family Movie for your family?

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Is one of your New Year’s Resolutions to eat more healthfully, to eat less meals out, to save money on groceries? Thanks to Family Review Network, I had the opportunity to review an eBook that will guide you through doing all of that and more! Jamie Ussher wrote the eBook “A Month of Meals-Save Money This Month While Making Dinner Simpler!”, and it is jam-packed with recipes, shopping lists, menus, even printable charts for you to use to keep track of your daily servings of healthy foods.

In A Month of Meals, you receive…

Meals – a month of easy to fix and healthy meals your whole family will enjoy. Using the premise that we need more vegetables and whole grains, you end up saving money and there are great health benefits!

Recipes – quick and easy recipes put into a weekly schedule. There are even 6 meals that you can make ahead of time to freeze for your extra busy days when you don’t want to think about cooking at all!

Ingredients & Shopping Lists – these will make going to the grocery store a breeze (maybe even a fun trip)!

Jamie’s recipes are meant to serve four people, and include meals to freeze to eat later in the month or on days when you are crunched for time. She includes recipes for homemade convenience foods like baking mix and taco seasoning, and emphasizes the importance of drinking water, eating fruits and veggies, and limiting sweets. I think Jamie thought of everything with this eBook!

You can download this eBook at A Month of Meals and start saving money and time in the kitchen right now, for the super-low price of $19.95! She even offers an 8 week, 100% satisfaction guarantee!  I don’t think you’ll be asking for your money back though, I can pretty much guarantee that you will make back your $19.95 purchase price by purchasing less food that goes to waste within the first month you follow Jamie’s tips!

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I’m trying out a new theme today, just something that freshens up the sidebars and the navigation a bit from the previous theme, nothing real radical as you can see. Still working on making the title and tagline “invisible” to readers yet visible to search engines.  Not sure about the purple accents, either. There’s a file that comes with the theme that seems to offer a choice of blue instead, but I haven’t figured out how to switch it yet.

We’re braving the Mall today to buy some Christmas gifts for Chris’ sister and her family, wish us luck!

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Just because Christmas is over doesn’t mean you don’t need to buy birthday presents or presents for other reasons, right? So I’m going to keep working my way through my list of products that I wasn’t able to review before Christmas, and I hope you’ll keep these items in mind for purchasing!

For the High-Fashion Traveler:

Trinabags has bags in all styles, shapes and sizes so you can pick up the perfect gift for girl who likes to travel in style! I like this “wool-like” blue plaid one called “Rae“, and right now it’s on sale for only $35.00 plus $5.95 shipping.

For the Treehugger

The Modella Fitted Junior Weekender ($8.92) is perfect for guys or gals. Made from recycled plastic bottles, this bag keeps the environment safe while keeping your products in line! You can find it at Walmart stores.

For the Little Ones

Tiny Tillia Plush Set ($12.99) is the perfect gift for children! A loveable animal accompanies a fresh-scented bubble bath or body wash, for good, clean fun any parent will love! Tiny Tillia products are available on their website and at Target.

For the Tweens/Teens

Kids are crazy about lip balms and Alba Botanica’s Hawaiian Lip Balm Trio ($9.99) offers three yummy flavors to keep lips hydrated and healthy! You can find these on the Alba website and at Target and CVS.

There are even more great items available on all of the above websites. Happy Shopping!

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Greg Walsh of Walsh PR contacted me in November about reviewing some of his clients’ products for my holiday gift guides. One of the choices was a line of plush animals called “Deglingos“. I took one look at the website and knew I just had to see one of these funny, odd looking toys for myself and replied back to Greg that I would love to review something from the line.  Soon a package arrived, and when I saw what was inside, I fell madly in love.

Say hello to Pikos the Hedgehog, in Baby, Rattle, and Original size (left to right in the photo). Are they not the cutest things?!? Pikos is one of the Deglingos animals, an artist-designed French plush toy line, made with 50 different types of fabric and thread. They are soft and yet have so many different textures, they keep babies, toddlers, even big kids fascinated.

The name comes from the French word “deglingue”, which roughly translates to “crazy” or “wacky”. Each animal in the Deglingos line is just a little wackier looking than the animal it’s based on, and if you look at the Deglingos website, each has it’s own wacky personality, too. They come in five different sizes, including the ones I got-I especially like the “Baby” ones, which have a lower body that isn’t stuffed like a regular stuffed animal, it’s more like a thick blanket. And the “Rattle” ones are just that, curved to fit right in a young one’s hand, with a soft rattle sound when shaken.

To find a retailer that sells Deglingos, go to AllNewMaterials.com, click Buy at the top of the page, and you can find a store or online retailer where you can purchase your own Deglingos.  I bet you fall in love with yours too!

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