NMM16: Now Now Every Children

Feb 8th, 2010 Posted in New Music Monday | one comment »

For more information on this band, visit their MySpace Page.

Come join Music Monday and share your songs with us. One simple rule, leave ONLY the actual post link here. You can grab this code at LadyJava’s Lounge Please note these links are STRICTLY for Music Monday participants only. All others will be deleted without prejudice.

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Funny Foto Friday XlX

Feb 5th, 2010 Posted in Comedy, Funny Foto Friday | 14 comments »
Popeye the Sailor Zen Pic

I took this pic of Zen and noticed a celebrity likeness!

Sippy Strap Giveaway Concludes

Feb 5th, 2010 Posted in Winners | no comment »

The Sippy Strap giveaway concluded last night with 124 entries! Congratulations to Mama Mirage: who won with comment #72
Random picked a Winner!

A big thank you to everyone who entered! The winner has been emailed and has 72 hours to respond.

Friday Follow 4

Feb 5th, 2010 Posted in Friday Follow | 24 comments »

Friday Follow ImageOnce again, it is time for Friday Follow! This is a celebration founded and hosted by One 2 Try, Hearts Make Families and Midday Escapades. To participate, all you have to do is link up your blog to the blog hop, follow the first three blogs (although Hearts Make Families cannot participate this week due to technical issues), and then follow as many other blogs as you like leaving comments that let them know you found them through Friday Follow! I will visit and follow back anybody who tells me they are from Friday Follow, even if they leave comments on Saturday (or Thursday or any other day). This is a great way to discover new blogs to follow and to gain more followers for your own blog. Happy Friday Follow!


MckLinky Blog Hop

Review / Giveaway of Randomline Games

Feb 3rd, 2010 Posted in Giveaways, Reviews | 43 comments »

Squiggles Alphabet GameOur 4-year old son River has been learning how to print his letters by hand. He has enjoyed typing words from his books for nearly a year but it has been harder to get him excited about the more difficult task of holding a pencil properly and creating letters on paper. Thankfully, Squiggle On-The-Go is now making this task fun.

Alphabet Squiggle On-The-Go is the offshoot of the popular game Squiggles. In the game, a wheel is spun by the child. After the wheel stops on a particular letter, the child uses the provided pencil and gamepad to draw the letter.

The game states that it is for children 5 and up, but River has taken to the gameRiver Playing With Squiggles just fine. He is not able to draw all of the letters, but with encouragement, he is willing to try. The best educational tools are the ones that make learning fun, and that seems to be the point of many of the Randomline games.

We have only had this game for about a week and already I have seen improvement in River’s letter writing. The Squiggle’s Alphabet game offers an alternative set of rules for when he grows older. The new rules involve turning letters into animals or people.

I like how Squiggles Alphabet uses a fun game to inspire River to practice River's Hand Is Making Squiggleswriting his letters. The game also bolsters his creativity and teaches him that learning can (and should) be fun!

The assortment of On-The-Go games from Randomline include much more than Alphabet Squiggles. There is an On-The-Move game to learn about vehicles, an outdoors game to learn about woodsy creatures and insects, a T-Rexcellent looking Dinosaurs game, and many more! Of course one of the best features of the On-The-Go line of games is their portability. They are great for taking on trips to play in the car. The games are also perfect for restaurants, doctors waiting rooms, or anywhere else where your child needs his time occupied with something constructive.

One of my lucky readers will win an On-The-Go game of his/her choice!

MANDATORY ENTRY: Go to the Randomline Games and tell me which On-The-Go game you will choose if you win.

EXTRA ENTRIES: To qualify for extra entries, you must also complete the MANDATORY entry. Please put each entry in a separate comment. For instance, leave two comments if you have the Cakeblast button.

**Have the Cakeblast button on your blog/website (2 Extra Entries).

**Be a Facebook Fan of Randomline Games (2 Extra Entries).

**Be a Cakeblast Facebook Fan (1 Extra Entry).

**Follow my blog with Google Connect / Blogger (1 Extra Entry).

**Mention & link-to this giveaway in a blog post or Facebook  (1 Extra Entry Each).

**Follow Randomline on Twitter (1 Extra Entry).

**Follow Cakeblast on Twitter (1 Extra Entry).

**Tweet about this contest. Feel free to copy/paste #Giveaway : @Randomline On-The-Go Educational Game of WINNERS CHOICE! Makes learning FUN http://bit.ly/dbctiS (1 Extra Entry – Can be done once per day).

** Subscribe to my blog by email or RSS feed (1 Extra Entry).

Contest Ends Feb 17th at 11:59pm CST. Must be 18+ to enter. Open to US  residents only. Winner will be chosen by random.org & announced soon after the contest ends. Winner will be notified by email with “Congrats: You’ve Won The Randomline Giveaway” in the subject line. Winner will then have 72 hours to respond or a new winner will be chosen.

Disclosure: Randomline provided me with a sample game for review purposes. They are also allowing me to host this giveaway to help promote their products.  Randomline will be responsible for prize distribution after I provide the shipping information of the winning entrants. No monetary compensation was received for this post, and the sample product in no way affect my opinion of Randomline or the company’s products, services, or website. This article offers an honest opinion and has not been reviewed or edited by anyone other than Larry H. of Cakeblast.

Wordless Wednesday – Snowman

Feb 3rd, 2010 Posted in Wordless Wednesday | 3 comments »

First Snowman He Ever Helped Build

First Snowman 2

First Snowman By The River

Free Denny’s Burger & Fries!

Feb 1st, 2010 Posted in Freebies | no comment »

Dennys LogoToday ( February 1st) through February 14th, the first 500,000 people who sign up for the new Denny’s Rewards program online will receive a free burger and french fries. The coupon for a free burger and fries will  be good March 1st through March 7th, 2010, so mark your calendars.

When I was signing up for the Rewards program, it was nonspecific about the special offer I would get in my email for joining before 01/14. I learned about this deal and what it entailed through Mavin of Savin! Denny’s has really good burgers so I am excited about the prospect about eating for free.

Dennys is also offering everyone free Grand Slams from 6am – 2pm on February 9th! They are going to be advertising this special during the super bowl, so lines will be long and the restaurants will be grand slam-packed!

Thank you Mavin of Savin for giving me the heads up on both of these great deals.

NMM15: Mt. Saint Helens Vietnam Band

Feb 1st, 2010 Posted in New Music Monday | no comment »

They may not have the catchiest name in the music biz, but their music is infectious. They don’t play songs that get stuck on repeat in my head. Instead, this Seattle 5-piece band play a fresh style of indie rock that begs repeated listening in my car or on my ipod.

Mt. Saint Helens Vietnam Band on MySpace

Dead Oceans Record Label

Come join Music Monday and share your songs with us. One simple rule, leave ONLY the actual post link here. You can grab this code at LJL Please note these links are STRICTLY for Music Monday participants only. All others will be deleted without prejudice.

Powered by MckLinky

Click here to enter your link and view the entire list of entered links…


PS: Because of spamming purposes, the linky will be closed on Thursday of each week at midnight, Malaysian Time. Thank you!

Triaminic Giveaway Concludes…

Jan 31st, 2010 Posted in Winners | one comment »

The Triaminic Giveaway had 147 entries in less than 5 days! I’d like to extend a big thank you to all everyone entered! Here are the winners..

Triaminic Random Drawing Winners

Darcie K: #3 I follow your blog with Google Connect / Blogger #1

Becky M: #11 email subscriber

R Schulz: #56 kids have 6-10 colds a year
Whether you participated in the giveaway or not, you can still feel like a winner by downloading a coupon to save $1.50 off the purchase of any Triaminic product! They are a most trusted brand of Cold and Cough medicine and the coupon is available right from the Triaminic website!
All of the winners are being notified by email right now!

Why End Giveaways At Midnight?

Jan 30th, 2010 Posted in Blogging, Technology | 4 comments »

How many of you look at expiring sweepstakes on websites such as All Things Bloggy and Online-Sweepstakes? Have you ever found an awesome giveaway that you wanted to enter, only to find out that it ended earlier in the day? In the months that I have hosted giveaways I have discovered that my two biggest days are the first couple days and the last day of the giveaway.

The first day of my giveaway, my newsletter goes out and attracts a few visitors. Then, as I continue  my promotion in the opening days of my giveaway, it is listed in all the “New Sweeps Added” sections of the giveaway sites. The last day, I usually see a nice upsurge in visitors due to being listed in the “Expiring Sweepstakes” area of many websites.  PR Bloggers who end their giveaways early in the day are losing visitors and potential subscribers.

Many giveaway entrants will become subscribers, followers, and friends. It is also common practice to gain contest entries in exchange for  backlinks/button placement. These are all invaluable tools to help promote the growth of our blogs. I am surprised by the number of people who end contests as early as noon!

A few weeks ago my computer failed. In the weeks that it took to get back up and running, I didn’t enter hardly any sweepstakes. Once I had my computer reformatted and texter reinstalled, I wanted to catch up on giveaways that I had missed. I checked up on many Expiring Sweepstakes to gain some last minute entries on giveaways I had previously missed. I am usually only able to “sweep” in the evening after the kids go to bed, so about half of the sweeps “expiring” that day had already ended!

When bloggers are promoting their giveaways, they are always asked to provide an ending date. The date (and not the time) is usually used to categorize the giveaway, so participants can find it when they seek out giveaways ending on that particular date. Failing to end a giveaway at 11:59 pm causes listings in the popular Expiring Sweepstakes sections of websites to be valueless.

Of course, the reason I say 11:59 pm and not midnight is because once midnight strikes, it becomes a whole different day. I currently end my giveaways at 11:59 pm CST, even though I would be better off ending them using PST which is an hour behind my time zone. I know that I have missed certain giveaways due to EST being ahead of our time zone.

For a blogger just starting out, it can be a huge mistake to end giveaways too early in the day. I have discovered many great blogs from looking at expiring sweepstakes lists. There are many other blogs that I have found from these lists and then left disappointed after realizing that a contest is over. This is probably why almost every PR/giveaway blog I subscribe to ends their contests at 11:59 pm. There may be many more reasons, but I don’t think any more reasons are necessary.