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North Conway, NH Thomas Was a Blast

We had a blast Saturday on our Day Out With Thomas 2009!! This was a fun filled day of playing, riding Thomas, getting kids pictures taken and oh yeah Flip coverage for sure! I will have to get the video clips put together soon to place on my YouTube, Newbaby.com and MomTV.com accounts, but been busy cleaning house on Sunday to get ready for @MommaDJane’s stay on Friday, she will be staying three nights, this is my first ever house guest that is not family.

The day with Thomas was located in North Conway, NH at the North Conway Scenic Railway, fantastic place!! Small little village full of little shops, a nice common area to run (yes we let the kids get their wiggles out after arrival and before leaving). We drove 3 hours to spend a day with Thomas and I will say it was so worth every screaming kid moment ;-)

To start, we arrrived 1/2 hour before our train was to depart. We met Sir Topham Hatt, who was very LARGE and scared AJ a little bit, but he shook hands with him along with his big sis.  Baby K sat in his stroller most of the time with the exception of when he was trying to escape from the stroller, so Daddy carried him. Both Ki and AJ had their picture taken in front of Thomas and next to Sir Topham Hatt. The pictures will cost us money to buy, so we have a ticket where we can order online at a later date.

Next we went on the train to depart on a 25 minute ride, the perfect length for a busy AJ and Baby K. Both boys will be having a birthday in August turning 1 and 3, and have a very short attention span, way different than my daughter is or ever was. I did get a clip of Ki pouting because she had to share the train window with her brother (poor girl). AJ sat in the seat next to the window with on hand up on the sill and his head nearly out the window, yes we had to remind him a few times to keep his limbs and head inside that window. As the train chugged along we saw the fantastic view of the White Mountains and even spotted a family swimming in a creek under a bridge. The family waved to us and we waved back. The train was rather hot as all we had were the windows opened, no A/C, the breeze was not enough to keep us cool.

After the train went forward a bit, we started backwards, and me being the not so quick thinker, did not switch my seat and so backwards I went and dizzy I got. I could feel my face turning red, my stomach turning and my eyes watering, I was ready to get off of that train. Not to mention this was my first train ride so I didn’t realize it’s almost like a boat … back n forth motion … oh the sickness!

We had fun on the train ride, minus my stomach starting to turn and after we got off the train we proceeded to find more fun things to do. One great thing I must point out about geting on the train – they had stroller parking, FREE of charge. I love free, and I couldn’t believe the event was so kid friendly that they even thought of having stroller parking. When we got off the train our stroller was right there on the other side waiting for us, so wonderful!

After our train ride, the event was nearing an end, so we rushed to get the kids maps stamped. Oh yeah, the kids were able to get a cute map of the area and had to visit four stations, Sir Topham Hatt, storytime area, gift shop and imagination station, each place they received one stamp on their map. After the children were able to get four stamps they traded their map in for a free gift, cool thing is – they let the kids keep their map! So many cute scrapbooking items we have from this trip I tell ya!

Due to the train ride being near closing time the kids were only able to take a cute run around the hay maze and get their face painted. AJ played with wooden train sets while sissy had a pretty butterfly painted on her face. This was our last stop – Imagination Island, a huge tent full of fun games for the kids to enjoy! Although, since the event was nearing an end the kids were not able to get into the bouncy house, and so the pouting began AGAIN. Man I think my daughter should get an award for “most pouting” while having fun.

That is it for now, I am sure I will write more about this fun filled event, because it was the most exciting day of my life. I spent the whole day smiling non-stop and the last time I did that?! Was my wedding day May 2007.

Are you looking to see Thomas in your area? Visit PBS Sprout online, click on parents, then events and you will see a listing of when Thomas is heading to your area!

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You Have THREE Kids????!!!!

One thing that really bugs me is the response I get when I tell someone I have three kids, now normally people see me with the two boys – both are in diapers and they will be 3 and 1 in August – yes they are exactly 2 years and 6 days apart. I also have a daughter from a previous relationship who will be 7. Yet, no one gets why in the world we would have three children. I would quite honestly have MORE if I could, and if it was reasonable for our family, but just the three are rather costly and take up a lot of time. The children do not take up time in a negative way, but I could not imagine trying to share my attention with another one, I can already see the competition for “mommy time”. My oldest, who was raised by me being overal single for the first three years of her life, found it hard to cope with a new brother and then two years later we had another BOY. She was so devastated, she wanted a baby girl sister, but I keep telling her that it’s great to be the ONLY GIRL because now she gets Mommy and girl time ALONE without the boys! If she had a sister she may have to share that time ;-)

Well today I have a video to share with you about all the things I get frustrated with, which includes the sentence, “YOU HAVE THREE KIDS??!!” .. I hope you enjoy watching it and leave a comment with your feedback, or share your story too!

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Bliss Living $25 Gift Certificate Winner

Published on July 10, 2009 by in giveaways

Today I get to announce the winner for the Bliss Living Gift Certificate and I am super excited. First thank you to Bliss Living for offering this to my readers and thank you to Chic Execs for without you I would have not been connecting with Bliss Living’s wonderful products and website!

Using random.org random integor generator number 39 was pulled and so without further adieu the winner of a $25 gift certificate to Bliss Living is….

Julie who said …. “I am a email subsriber”

I know there are a lot of Julies and so if you have an email in your inbox saying you WON then you are the lucky winner!!

Thank you for being a loyal reader everyone and check out my other giveaways .. this giveaway blast wraps up with our final giveaway ended July 17th .. so get on board while you can!! Also, donate any money to help pay for shipping, the time involved, etc etc .. batteries for my camera that I use for images and videos, etc etc … you get entries into the giveaways  just for donating … here is the donation post URL: http://tinyurl.com/lxgrwq

Happy Friday!

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Brotherly Love

First I am thinking I need to get more videos of my oldest online, so many think I only have two children because my oldest is not with me as often as my boys are. During the school year she is in school and during summer she spends a lot of time with her father. I often feel like she is not home enough, and so I should create more videos of her so that when I need some Ki time I can see her live on video! In the meantime I have a new video of dear sweet AJ and his baby brother. Both AJ and Baby K were being so sweet and cute hanging out on the couch with Dad that I had to capture this with my camera.

I must say I am amazed to see them getting along so well, being happy. This is what family is all about, creating wonderful memories and being able to record them with my Flip is just fantastic! I am happy to share this video with you and hope you enjoyed watching it!

Remember to stay happy, and catch those memories!! The children grow up way to fast ;-)


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Review: Creative Clips by Colleen LLC

As the day gets closer, July 17th that is, when I will meet @MommaDJane for the very first time I find myself not ready to have a house guest for three nights. I rarely have company, okay I never have company, and now here I am going to have a guest for three whole nights. I hope we can all get along, I do have a super small home. I am sure it will be fine though!

Today I am featuring an item that will be included in the final giveaway prize package, which is being given by random to one of those who entered our previous contests!

clips

About Creative Clips by Colleen, LLC

The owner, Colleen, is a mother of two who resides in Arizona. Colleen created Creative Clips after having a hard time finding fun clips for her daughters thin hair (something I can relate to). Her idea was to create a clip that was fun, stlyish and add a little “bling” for all ages. Each clip has a small piece of velcro to help keep the clip from falling out. Creative Clips by Colleen, LLC was started by one mom’s vision and is now large enough where they can ship bulk orders to customers!

Many to Choose From

  • Four categories to include bugs, bows, flowers, and hearts.
  • Medallion creative clips to add a bit of “bling” to any little girls hair.
  • They even offer a clip rack for sale to hold all your clips.
  • In search for a stylish headband? They make those too!

If you are looking to learn more about Creative Clips by Colleen, LLC you may visit their events page to see when they will be close to you.

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WordPress Upgrade Equals Mess With Plugins

I tell ya, I love WordPress, ever since I switched from Blogger to self hosted WordPress I have been like  a kid in a candy store with all the plugins, ability to make a business website with WordPress and just so many other fantastic features. Well this was until I upgraded to WordPress 2.8. As a person who is married to a computer pro, I should know better than to upgrade until something has been out long enough for all those other programs to catch up. For instance, not all programs are compatible with Vista, why? Well because Microsoft rushed, got it out and now wants to push it down our throats yet we can’t be guaranteed that our programs will be compatible with it? I mean really?!

Okay, Okay, you have me, WordPress talk and Microsoft Operating Systems, not really comparable, but the point is if something is NEW do not try it until it has been out a long time or if you have a way to test it on something that is not as important. For me, I should have copied all my files from my current domain name and transferred to another domain to “test” out WP 2.8 prior to upgrading – why did I not do this?

I was in a hurry, I was sick of seeing that “you need to upgrade” notice across my screen. I am an organizational addict, which means if something is pulling an update notification every time I login, or my email has more than a couple unread messages – I am going to organize. I guess you can call me OCD in some ways but it’s who I am, I enjoy being organized and up to date.

Now that I have my upgrade completed I have spent more time than I had to spare deactivating plugins and reactivating them to figure out WHY my whole WordPress dashboard wasn’t working. I could no longer upload images, preview my blog posts, nothing. It was like writing blind and basic.  No more additions to make my blog posts look “cute” or “professional”, just plain ol’ text and maybe an image if I wanted to literally write in the HTML code to get the image just right – which I am capable of doing, but really had no interest in doing.

Finally I figured out there were a few plugins conflicting with WordPress 2.8 – now do not ask me which ones as I removed 3-4 and then left them removed .. I may take the time this weekend after we see Thomas to test which ones were creating the conflict, but for now I will just leave them be and mind my P’s and Q’s before I say something else and it all goes down! LOL

Overall I am very happy with my self hosted WordPress account, lots of features and so many cool SEO plugins.

So did you upgrade? Do you have any venting about WP you would like to add?

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