With all of my favorite characters from childhood getting “updated looks”, I’m starting to get a complex!  Maybe I should be getting a makeover, too!!!

It looks as though Rainbow Brite is the latest to receive her makeover and taker her place in the hearts of the next generation.

The “new” look for Rainbow Brite and her friends, Moonglow and Tickled Pink, means a whole new set of videos, music, games, and dolls.  My daughters and I recently had a chance to check out some of those new videos and games and they are in love!

Honestly, I’m still a little partial to the old look of Rainbow Brite but I think that is because it has a bit of nostalgia for me.  It brings me back to my childhood.  But my daughters love the new look and the new adventures! And I’m looking forward to in love with these lovable characters all over again with my daughters!

My daughters really enjoyed the Rainbow Brite Adventures Pack cd.  The interactive CD includes a short video, games and puzzles, the Rainbow Brite theme song, and introduces you to Rainbow Brite and her friends.  Your daughter will love this CD and beg to play the games all the time!  The CD is both PC and Mac compatible.

You can learn more about the new Rainbow Brite at RainbowBrite.com and even get a glimpse at the new Rainbow Brite and friends dolls!  We received the Moonglow doll and my daughter will not let it out of her site!  The dolls are so adorable with their outfits, boots and armbands.  My daughter loves that Moonglow even has little crescent moons in her eyes!  I’m sure those dolls and their horse friends will be on wishlists very soon!

GIVEAWAY

I have 8 CD-Rom discs of The Rainbow Brite Adventure Pack AND one Rainbow Brite and Friends Doll to giveaway!

To Enter:

Mandatory Entry - Simply leave a comment below telling me if you watched Rainbow Brite growing-up!  Eight winners will receive the Rainbow Brite Adventures Pack cd and one winner will receive the Rainbow Brite and Friends doll.

1 entry - Subscribe to Stacey says… via RSS.

1 entry - Follow me (@Stacey_Says) on Twitter and tweet about this contest (you can do this every day and receive one entry each day!).

5 entries - Blog about this contest and leave me a link to your post.

5 entries - Not a blogger? Send an email to 5 of your friends with a link to this contest. Make sure you CC me (staceysays (at) me (dot) com) on that email and then leave a comment here saying that you did so.

The Details:

The NINE (9) winners will be randomly selected from the comments posted by Friday, February 26. All entries will be verified and must include an email address where I can contact you if you should win. This contest is open to US shipping addresses. You can read more about Giveaway Policies here.

*Disclaimer: I did receive a complimentary copy of the Rainbow Brite Adventures Pack cd and a Rainbow Brite and Friends doll to review through Mom Select.  However, receiving the complimentary product in no way affects my opinions stated here.

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It’s one of the best moments as a parent — hearing your child’s first word!  Especially if it is some version of “mom”!  We spend so much of their first year or so trying to get them to say words, words that we can understand, words that make us proud.  Then we spend the next 10 years trying to get them to be quiet.  And, then, the following decade is spent trying to get them to talk to us again, or so I’m told.  Ah, the rewards, the joys, the frustrations, the headaches!

I am knee deep in the second of those three phases.  The “please, just stop talking for five minutes” phase.  The “can you PLEASE speak in a quieter voice” phase.  The “if you continue to say ‘mom’ I’m going to throw my head through a brickwall” phase.  Oh yes, that phase.

My girls were early talkers.  We didn’t overly push them to talk, they just picked up words quickly.  This means that it has not been quiet in my house for 3.5 years.  And, ironically enough, they are loud talkers!  Thankfully we’ve never had any of those “my kid just said ‘oh shit’ in front of the in-laws or pastor” moments but we do have plenty of “seriously, who did she learn that word from?” and “why did we teach her that”  moments!

So, here are a few of the phrases I wish I could eliminate from my girls’ vocabularies!

Me: “Zoe, please don’t chew on my phone.”

Zoe: “Why mom? Why mom? Why mom? Why mom?”

Me: “Because I asked you not to. We don’t chew on phones.”

Zoe: “But why mom? Why mom? Why mom?”

The funny thing is that I don’t mind my kids asking me questions.  I love their curiosity and hunger to know more about things about them.  However, I cannot stand the constant and pointless questions!  On to number 2…

Me: “Zoe, what do you have in your mouth?”

Zoe: “Huh?”

Me: “What do you have in your mouth?”

Zoe: “Huh?”

Me: “Abbi, can you see what your sister has in her mouth?”

Abbi: “Huh?”

The worst part about this one is that I totally answer them when they say “huh?” so I’m just feeding the behavior.  I don’t mean to answer them time and time again, it’s just habit. And it frustrates my husband to no end!

This next one is completely my doing.  Taking 100% of the blame on this one!

Me: “Zoe, where is your blanket?”

Zoe: “No idea.”

I would often (ok, apparently more than often) say to Abbi, when she would ask me where her toys were, “Abbi, I have no idea where your toys are.  They are not my responsibility.”  I never realized how annoying it was until that is the response you get from your 22 month old with every question you ask her!  Go FIND YOUR BLANKET!

And the last, for now…

Zoe: “Sure potty mom! Sure potty!”

That is the way Zoe tells us she has to go potty.  I have no idea why she says it this way or where it came from or why she just can’t say “Go Potty!” or even just “Potty!”  But she adds that freaking “sure” on to it every time and, after hearing it a hundred times each day, well…you just don’t want to hear it again!  There’s probably more behind that frustration but that is for another Mommy Confession!

What words do your kids say that drive you crazy? And are you going to admit that they got those words from you?

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Last fall I told you about the release of the Iron Man Armored Adventures Volume 1 dvd and now I’m back with Volume 2!!!

The Iron Man Armored Adventures dvds follow teen prodigy Tony Stark and his alter ego (and superhero) Iron Man.  Tony Stark/Iron Man isn’t like most super heros.  He’s not from another planet or been bitten by some radioactive spider.  His super powers come from his really cool technological inventions!

This time around Iron Man battles new threats, like Living Laser and Madame Masque, and old threat Obadiah Stane.  Every step of the way Tony and his friends encounter adventure and excitement.

My favorite part, Tony…um, Iron Man…is still in school!  I love watching him balance being a superhero with still being a teenager — which means school work and friends!

Iron Man Armored Adventures Volume 2 features six exciting adventures — “Meltdown”, “Ancient History 101″, “Ready, A.I.M., Fire”, “Masquerade”, and “Seeing Red” — along with some fun special features.

If your kids liked Iron Man Armored Adventures Volume 1, they’ll love Volume 2.

The Giveaway:

I have 3 copies of Iron Man Armored Adventures Volume One to giveaway here!

How To Enter:

1 entry - Leave a comment on this post telling me what super power you wish you could have.

1 entry - Subscribe to Stacey says… via RSS.

1 entry - Follow me (@Stacey_Says) on Twitter and tweet about this contest (you can do this every day and receive one entry each day!).

• • I entered to win Iron Man Armored Adventures (vol. 2) on dvd and you can too! http://tinyurl.com/ydlesq2 @Stacey_Says

5 entries - Blog about this contest and leave me a link to your post.

5 entries - Not a blogger? Send an email to 5 of your friends with a link to this contest. Make sure you CC me (staceysays (at) me (dot) com) on that email and then leave a comment here saying that you did so.

The Details:

The THREE (3) winners will be randomly selected from the comments posted by Friday, February 19. All entries will be verified and must include an email address where I can contact you if you should win. This contest is open to US shipping addresses. You can read more about Giveaway Policies here.

*Disclaimer: I did receive a complimentary copy of this DVD to review.  However, receiving the complimentary product in no way affects my opinions stated here.

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With the Winter Olympics starting in just over a week, I started wondering to myself “when did the parents of Olympic athletes realize they were raising an Olympian?”  Did they start training them at an early age and hoped for the best?  Or did they notice some special little spark in them from birth?

Either way, I’m pretty sure my girls are not going to be Olympic hopefuls.  They may have gotten their good looks from their dad but they, sadly, got their lack of coordination from me!  Seriously, if there is a brick wall within a 20 foot radius, they’ll find a way to walk into it!

While my girls may not be competing in the Olympics in the years to come, at lease they can look like Olympians now!

In celebration of the 2010 Olympic Games, Pampers will be outfitting Team USA athletes and their families with adorable Team USA Pampers Cruisers with Dry Max!

2006 Olympic gold medal speed skater, Chad Hendrick
and 2007 World Skeleton, Noelle Pikus-Pace

Now, while these special Team USA Pampers are not for sale, you can request a free sample three-pack of the Pampers Cruisers with Dry Max on Pampers.com.  Free diapers — what parent in their right mind would turn that down? But it gets even better!  If your sample happens to include a randomly inserted Team USA diaper, you and your baby will win a year’s supply of Pampers diapers!!!

What’s so special about the new Pampers Cruisers? Well, Pampers has completely redesigned the Cruisers, making them 20% thinner so your little cruiser can move more freely!  And the new Dry Max features helps lock wetness away up to 12 hours, making this their driest diaper ever.

One more thing…

Not only can your little one look and feel like a champion in their new Pampers Cruisers but they can also get a chance to be in the closing ceremonies of the Olympics, thanks to Pampers.  Here’s how…starting February 15 moms and dads can go to Pampers.com and upload a video of their baby crawling left to right.  Pampers will arrange randomly selected videos into a Pampers commercial that will air during the closing ceremonies!

Ok, now head over to Pampers.com to request your free three-pack sample of Pampers Cruisers with Dry Max and I’ll keep my fingers crossed that you win that year’s supply of Pampers!  And don’t forget to check back here in the upcoming weeks because I will be having a special Pampers giveaway!

*Disclaimer: While my family and I do use and love Pampers diapers, I am bringing you this information on behalf of Pampers.  I did not receive any compensation for writing this post.

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I’m a list person.  I make lists for everything.  From packing to errands I need to run to cleaning my house — you name it, I have a list for it!

The problem with my lists is that I don’t always get everything done on them.  So, I end up with multiple lists lying around my house, my car, even on my computer.  And the things that remain on my list are those nagging little tasks that I just don’t get around to doing…or just don’t want to do.

It’s fitting that last week’s challenge for The Happiness Project was to tackle a nagging task.  Hmm, where to begin?

Now, please don’t laugh when I tell you the tasks that have been haunting me.  Really, getting some of this stuff done just takes time and time is something I don’t have in abundance.  As a matter of fact, I’m pretty stingy with what little “free” time I do have!  But here are the things that I tackled last week:

• Arranged boarding for Jasper (which also meant multiple calls to the vet and scheduling a trip to the vet for this week) for when we are in Houston in a few weeks
• Cleaned the humidifier  -  We have well water that leaves a lovely rusty deposit on everything.  So, in order for the humidifier to work properly it needs to be taken apart and scrubbed every once in a while.  That while was last week.
• Got my van in to the mechanic  - This was a long time coming and, thus, we had a long list of repairs that needed to be done.  However, two trips to the mechanic and a nice big check later, she’s running like new again!
• Cleaned out my old desk and the kitchen junk drawer to complete my organizing task from the week before.

Huh, I swear there is more that I did in the realm of nagging tasks but I’m drawing a blank.  Of course there are more tasks that I really need to get on top of  – cleaning out closets, reorganizing the basement, cleaning up the yard where a certain puppy has been doing his ‘duty’ all winter long (yeah, you probably didn’t need to know that one), and making a trip to the recycling bins.

It feels good to cross these tasks off my to-do lists.  I think that is why I make the lists: for the satisfaction of crossing things off.  Seeing that I’m making progress.  And, more likely, I’ll forget about them if I don’t write them down!

So, those are my nagging tasks.  What about you?  What tasks have been nagging you lately?

Since we are now into a new month we not only have a new challenge this week but also a new focus.  February’s focus, fittingly, is love.  And this week’s challenge is to give proofs of love.  I’m excited to see what happens this week!

* In case you missed it, I am participating in The 2010 Happiness Challenge created by Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project.  If you would like to know more about The Happiness Challenge or would like to join in on the challenge, visit The Happiness Project online.

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