Family — Page 8

Epic Creativity from Tim Burton & Disney: #Frankenweenie

From creative genius Tim Burton (“Alice in Wonderland,” The Nightmare Before Christmas”) comes “Frankenweenie,” a heartwarming tale about a boy and his dog. After unexpectedly losing his beloved dog Sparky, young Victor harnesses the power of science to bring his best friend back to life—with just a few minor adjustments. He tries to hide his home-sewn creation, but when Sparky gets out, Victor’s fellow students, teachers and the entire town all learn that getting a new “leash on life” can be monstrous.

Tim Burton is the Master of Epic Creativity

Ok, now I know that Tim Burton movies are a little different, and they’re not everyone’s cup of tea. But for us – they are some of our most-loved family movies. From my childhood favorite that’s been upgraded to 3D – The Nightmare Before Christmas, to me and Abby’s favorite story to watch together on a rainy day – Coraline – Tim Burton makes the most unique, interesting, and totally imaginative films you’ll watch as a family. Love them. So – it’s no surprise that I’m pretty darn excited to hear about the new one coming out this fall – Frankenweenie!

About Frankenweenie from Tim Burton

A stop-motion animated film, “Frankenweenie” was filmed in black and white and then rendered in 3D. The talented voice cast includes: Catherine O’Hara, Martin Short, Martin Landau, Charlie Tahan, Atticus Shaffer, Robert Capron, Conchata Ferrell and Winona Ryder. Presented by Disney, “Frankenweenie” is directed by Tim Burton, and releases in U.S. theaters on October 5, 2012.

Fun Frankenweenie Facts:

“Frankenweenie” is the first animated film that Tim Burton has directed for Disney.
When Tim Burton originally conceived the idea for “Frankenweenie,” he envisioned it as a full-length, stop-motion animated film. Due to budget constraints, he instead directed it as a live-action short, released in 1984.
Over 200 puppets and sets were created for the film; there were 17 Victors and 12 Sparkys. Since each animator worked independently on different scenes, multiples were needed. They also needed backup in case a puppet required repair.
Incredibly talented artists were able to take Tim Burton’s original drawings and sculpt them into three-dimensional sculptures, which were then cast in a combination of silicone and latex. Their costumes are all sewn with miniature stitches to keep in scale. Wigs are made for them from real human hair and then applied strand by strand so that the puppets have a more realistic hairline. Inside each puppet there is a metal armature, which acts like a skeleton and gives the animator the ability to move the puppets and act out the scenes with incredible subtlety and finesse.
The sets for the film were built on tabletops. The vast majority of the miniature props for the sets were made by hand and hand-painted and detailed.

Mark your calendar: Frankenweenie releases in U.S. theaters on October 5, 2012!

Follow Frankenweenie on Facebook, and check out Disney Pictures on Twitter for updates on other fun new family flicks! The best movies come from Disney – watch for the new animated film featuring a princess as the main hero {so cool!} – Disney*Pixar’s Brave releases soon too!

Who else is looking forward to this fun new fall release?

Posted by Meagan Paullin on May 31, 2012 Filed Under: Fun Stuff | No Comments

Family Summer Discount Guide ’12

Summer Discount Guide ’12 – Managing spending when you have young children can be a major struggle. When summer arrives and the kids are bored, finding something affordable for them to do is essential to a parent’s sanity. The great thing is that businesses are prepared. They prime the pump with sales for summer. Some of these are offers that must be purchased ahead of time, for which a low interest rate credit card comes in handy. Others are ideas for things to do at home. Here are the three best summer savings offers or ideas we can find:

Season passes and discount tickets

Entertainment venues know how to bring out the crowds. The secret behind their passes plan is that, by lowering the cost at the door, the customer is likely to spend more money inside the park. The important thing to remember is managing spending is very important when you’re going to the park more than once with season passes. Frozen oranges and frozen bottled water can be thawing for later use where they’re hidden in your handbag. They’re healthier and cheaper than fast food. It’s also a good idea, well before your park visit, to stock up on plushies at thrift stores for when the kids start begging. Stow the toys with your frozen oranges and bring them out at strategic times.

Bring the neighborhood

Okay, maybe not the whole neighborhood. Maybe you can bring just your nieces and nephews, or the neighbor’s kids. Summer oriented venues, such as water parks, often have spectacular multi-person deals. When you bring in enough people, you can often barter with the venue for extra goodies, like discounts on lunch or bonus tickets. Keep in mind, especially if you live in a place with more than one such venue, you can pit them against each other in a competition for your money. Once you seal the deal, tamp it down with your low interest rate credit card. Get them to fax or email you the deal in writing too.

Outdoor movies

Many of us older people remember our summer nights at the drive-in. A similar experience can be created for young ones with outside blow-up movie screens. The screens are now affordable. Some can even be rented. You already have a ton of movies to play. More are available from friends. Pop some popcorn and breakout the cold store-brand soda on ice. Summer still means fun.

Summer doesn’t have to put your bank account in the red. In addition to the aforementioned, there are plenty of ways to have fun on a budget. It simply takes a bit of creativity on your part.

What are your best summertime savings tips?

{Disclaimer: Article contribution made by Alex Summers, photo credit for image.}

Posted by Meagan Paullin on May 31, 2012 Filed Under: Fun Stuff | No Comments

Get a Taste of The Scottish Highlands – if You’re #Brave Enough!

Since ancient times, stories of epic battles and mystical legends have been passed through the generations across the rugged and mysterious Highlands of Scotland. From Disney and Pixar, a new tale joins the lore when the courageous Merida (voice of Kelly Macdonald) confronts tradition and challenges destiny to change her fate…

I’ve already told you guys how VERY much I am excited about this new animated movie featuring a princess as the hero kicking bad guy butt… I think that is so super cool. There are not enough kids movies that show confident girls doing brave things… The film takes aim at theaters on June 22, 2012, and will be presented in Disney Digital 3D in select theaters. But until then, I’ve got some little sneak peeks for you!

Get ready for epic adventures

And I mean really, are there any other kind of adventures? If you and your kiddos are as excited about the upcoming release of Brave, and are having a hard time waiting – Check out the super adorable Disney / Pixar Brave Movie Merida Princess Doll that we got last week on Amazon, or the other playsets and books featuring the movie characters. And – check out this great recipe inspired by the movie…

Scotch Egg Recipe from Brave

This seriously sounds sooooo good. We have a little bit of Scottish blood running through our family tree, and I find it really interesting to learn little pieces about our ancestors. There is an amazingly old family cookbook with a few hand-written recipes in it… Maybe I can find something to go along with this one too! I’m planning to make it next weekend – and I’ll come share pics with you after we do, and let you know how it tastes…. Mmmm.

Description: 1 NEW Official Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures Logo

See Brave in Theaters this June 22, 2012 – and Follow Brave on Facebook, and connect with @DisneyPixar on Twitter too!

Posted by Meagan Paullin on May 30, 2012 Filed Under: Fun Stuff | No Comments

Confident Kids $100 Prize Package – #Mompact

Smart Mom-Invented Solutions Solve Everyday Challenges: Mompact.com is hosting an amazing giveaway of products made by Moms, for Moms that help promote independence and make growing up just a little bit easier! The products are AqueDuck, Baby Dipper Bowl, 3R Cards Chore Chart, Antsy Pants, Thumbuddy – and one very lucky winner will get a big bundle of prizes worth over $100!! Pretty cool, right?

Encourage Independence In Your Children

These are some of my very favorite products – and I love that this giveaway package is all centered around helping kids learn new skills, gain confidence, and become more independent. And really, isn’t that the goal? We love that our kids need us now, but we want to raise them to be strong individuals who are ready to tackle all the challenges in life and reach for success. Providing them with products that make it easier for them to do daily tasks without your help gives them a big boost of self confidence when they accomplish things on their own. And that’s one of the best things to see.

Take a Peak at the awesome products one winner will take home:

The Aqueduck

This is a super clever little gadget that attaches easily to any type of bathroom or kitchen faucet, and streams the water in a different way to help little hands reach it so that they can wash up on their own. You can learn more about the Aqueduck Faucet Extender from some of the other moms who have used it too:

Baby Dipper Feeding Set

This little set features a totally innovative bowl that angles to make it much easier for little ones to eat on their own. When they are a baby, the triangular slanted shape makes it perfect for one-handed feeding times, and as kiddos grow, it’s an amazing starter dish. It’s BPA free {very important to me} with a skid-proof bottom, and smartly designed utensils. Love it. Learn more about the Baby Dipper Feeding Set from these two mommas who are both big fans:

Koala Fuzz breaks it down into the top 3 reasons why she loves this toddler feeding system.
Hott Mama in The City shows off an adorable photo of her baby learning to eat with this system too!

Antsy Pants: The best cloth diapers

We are just now starting on the potty training journey, so I haven’t tried these out yet – But I have been hearing some great feedback from the other moms in the group who are using them. And, can I just say – these are stinkin’ adorable! Seriously – almost too cute to cover up with pants, which would make them a really great option around here in the summer time. But I’ll let the moms who have used Antsy Pants Pull-Up Cloth Diapers in their homes give you some tips:

Thumbuddy to Love

This is a very sweet little product helps kids learn to stop thumb sucking in a way that’s fun, gentle, and positive. You can get the Ballerina version shown above, or a Fireman story and plush character, and they are seriously adorable. Read stories from a couple other moms who used this – Stop Thumb Sucking with Thumbuddy To Love – gift set to help their kiddos learn better habits…

Sunshine Praises shares lessons in Growing up and doing it yourself.
Rose helps encourage her kids not to suck their thumb with positive reinforcement.

Enter to WIN big!

One lucky mom will win ALL of these great prizes – plus the 3R Chore Charts Kit too! Use the easy peasy Rafflecopter form to enter – you can do as few, or as many, entries as you like. But the more entries you complete the more chances you have to win – so why not take an extra minute or two to do them all, right? And make sure to come back daily to get the bonus entry!

Have fun & Good luck!

[Read more…]

Posted by Meagan Paullin on May 30, 2012 Filed Under: Giveaways, Busy Mom Solution | 1 Comment

How To Find Out if Your Floors are Clean Enough…

“I’m not going to vacuum until Sears makes one you can ride on.” – Roseanne Barr

I used to have a clean home. Laundry was always done and put away in closets where the shirts were organized by color and sleeve length. Dishes were washed and stored in perfect order. But – then I had a baby. And, my extended family came to live with us too. And, I started a blog. And I’ve explained before how Baby + Blog = Messy Home. But, while having a baby brought loads of extra work, and a lot less sleep – it also brought a new awareness to the need to keep my floors clean. Once your little one is crawling, it’s incredibly important that you give them a home with floors that are clean enough to be safe for exploring. So you become like a hawk, ready to spot stray Legos and pennies from a room away. You vacuum daily, to ensure that your floors are free of dirt and muck. But – did you know that even if you vacuum daily, your floors just don’t always get clean enough?

“My idea of housework is to sweep the room with a glance.” – Erma Bombeck

When you want to get your floors seriously clean – like deep-down, safe enough for baby to put their mouth on kind of clean, you need to do more than just vaccuum. You need something like this – my new favorite invention. “If you love it so much why don’t you marry it!!??” Well, I just might. Because I am in serious love with this new gadget – the BISSELL Lift-Off Deep Cleaner. I love a hard worker :) And, my FAVORITE part of this gadget is that it’s two cleaners in one. Use it the traditional way to clean whole rooms really easily {it’s a lot lighter-weight than some others cleaners I’ve rented before, making it MUCH easier to push} – then, with a quick step on the lever at the bottom, the smaller portion pops out to be a portable cleaner for upholstery, cars, stairs, or little spot messes. And with kids and dogs in my house, we have a lot of spills and messes. This cleaner is a life saver!

How to find out how clean your floors really are

So, how do you know how clean your floors really are? One simple way to find out is to take the White Sock Challenge – super simple, and seriously shocking results. Grab some clean white socks for your family. Get the bottoms just a tiny bit damp, then crank up some tunes, and dance those feet around your home’s floors. Then take a look – do you see how much dirt is on those things??!! Yuck, right? Do you really want your kids crawling around on that – or even just sitting down on it to play? No way. So, let me show you how the Bissell Lift-off Deep Cleaner works to break up the dirt and grab it right out of your carpets. And – you can check out how easy peasy it is to transform the cleaner from a stand-up machine to a smaller spot

“Vacuums don’t clean houses. People clean houses.” – Everybody Loves Raymond

Pretty impressive, right? I’m really picky about cleaning products too – I don’t have a lot of time to spend keeping up with the house, and it’s crazy around here with so many people and pets. So anything that I give closet space too needs to be able to work double-duty. The BISSELL Lift-Off Deep Cleaner is not one of those gadgets you’ll buy, then store away because it’s too much trouble to use it. Nope, this thing is so easy to use, you’ll find yourself pulling it out every week. And – after doing the White Sock Test before cleaning with the Deep Cleaner, and then afterwards – I can tell you from experience that there is a dramatic difference!!

“Please don’t feed the dust bunnies.” – Author Unknown

If you want to take the White Sock Test too – take a fun photo to show off your results, and enter it on the White Sock Test giveaway page on Facebook, for a chance to win a $15,000 Home Makeover!! Here’s how it works: Get a clean white sock and wet the soles of it just a little. Then find the most “lived upon” area of your carpet and do “The Twist” for 30 seconds. Give it some attitude! What does your sock look like now? Show us for a chance to win a Home Makeover! – Can you imagine how many cool things you do with $15,000? {I entered – I sooo need to finish up our Master Bedroom & Playroom Makeover!} So – grab your socks, and share YOUR White Sock Test results today for a chance to win big too! I bet you’ll be just as shocked by the results as I was – and realize why this Deep Cleaner is your new best friend.

{Disclaimer: I received a complimentary Deep Cleaner from Bissell, so that I could try out this White Sock Challenge test and share my results with you guys. But, free swag never sways my posts – all opinions and overuse of the word awesome are 100% honest and my own. Love this thing! Photo credit for first photo.}

Posted by Meagan Paullin on May 27, 2012 Filed Under: Busy Mom Solution | 9 Comments

How to Save 80% on Family Travel & Resort Packages

Amazing deal on Mexico Resort Package – My family was didn’t have a lot of extra money when I was growing up, so big vacations were out of the question. While I totally enjoyed our week-long camping trip and family reunion every summer, I never realized how much I was missing until I started traveling as an adult. Seeing new places and faces totally opens up your eyes, and helps you put your life in perspective – There is SUCH a big world out there! So, while our family budget it pretty tight too, I do make a big priority to find affordable ways to travel. And this amazing trip that I found today is just too good to pass up – and I am super excited to share it with you too….

$279 for 4 nights to Los Cabos Golf Resort and so much more! ($1570.00 value)

How amazing is this, right? For a little more than the cost of a Kindle Fire, your family can spend 4 nights at the Los Cabos Gold Resort, get a $100 credit good towards food and drinks during your stay, and 50% ALL rounds of gold while you’re there. I thought, “No way, there must be a catch….” But I read the fine print for you, and there is no catch. Here are a few details:

You’re only allowed to purchase up to 7 vouchers, but they can ALL be used consecutively. You may also purchase up to 7 vouchers as gifts.
May redeem beginning 5/29/12, and must be used by the end of this year – and since this is such an extreme discount, the package deal cannot be combined with any other resort offers or coupons.
14% room tax is not included and will be collected upon booking, but this is pretty common at big resorts like this one.
Offer is for a 1 bedroom villa which sleeps 4 people. If you have a bigger family, upgrades are available as follows: 2 bedroom (sleeps 6) for 4 nights, $100 plus tax total. 3 bedrooms (sleeps 10) for 4 nights $279 plus tax total. That is a seriously amazing deal on upgrades.

See? No catch. And, this deal is offered through a company that I have shopped with many times – Sharing Spree. What makes this awesome deal even BETTER? Every purchase of this Mexican Resort Package Deal means another donation to Friends of the Children, in King County, Washington. “Friends of the Children is a pioneer mentoring program based on the principle that the most vulnerable children can become healthy, productive adults with a consistent, caring adult in their lives.”

What are you waiting for? The sunshine and the beaches are calling you….

Ready to get this awesome deal for your family? Visit Sharing Spree today, and take a minute to enter your info if you haven’t visited before. {You will NOT get any spammy stuff from them. And you can even choose how often for them to update you on new daily deals. Your info is safe with them, for sure.} Then check out Today’s Deals in Seattle to find this Los Cabos Golf resort deal – but hurry! These types of deals only have a limited amount of inventory, since they’re so low priced. They DO often sell out.

Find this Mexican Resort Package deal and more on Sharing Spree today!

See you on the Beach!!

Posted by Meagan Paullin on May 26, 2012 Filed Under: Travel, Deals and Coupon Codes | No Comments

Memorial Day Weekend Disney-Pixar Summer Movie Event!

DISNEY-PIXAR FAMILY FAVORITES RETURNING TO THE BIG SCREEN MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND ONLY AT AMC THEATRES – AMC Theatres Presents Pixar Summer Movie Weekend, this Memorial Day weekend, May 25-28, featuring the beloved films “Toy Story 3,” “Ratatouille,” “Up” and “WALL•E.” How fun is that, right?

The summer movie season is heating up!

Four popular Disney•Pixar movies are returning exclusively to AMC Theatres for the Memorial Day holiday weekend. From May 25 through May 28, “Toy Story 3,” “Ratatouille,” “Up” and “WALL•E” will be featured at AMC locations around the country. Each film will be accompanied by a classic Pixar short film and an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the upcoming movie, “Brave.” {I’m SO excited to see the Brave – the first Pixar movie with a little girl hero!}

Memorial Day Weekend Family Movies

There are some great films coming out Memorial Day weekend but nothing specifically for families and young children,” said Sun Dee Larson, vice president of Film Marketing at AMC. “We’re excited to provide our guests with an opportunity to take the whole family out to the theatre to enjoy some of the most treasured movies of all time, plus give our guests the chance to see a behind-the-scenes look at ‘Brave.’”

Priced at $6 per movie (pricing may vary), each movie will play once every day on a rotating schedule. Participating locations, showtime information and advance tickets are available now at amctheatres.com/pixar.