I found paradise in Hawaii. I have been here for 2 days and I love it. The weather is awesome. The view is even better. And the best thing? I get great beach hair. I love the way my hair dries when I am outside on the beach. I get a great natural highlight treatment.

I’m not going to be blogging much, but I will upload some pictures every few days.

View from my room looking down.

Have you ever been to Hawaii? This is my first time. What should not miss?

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

This summer has been miserably hot! But instead of letting it get us down, let’s make it a Summer of Smiles. 1–800-FLOWERS.com wants to help us spread smiles this summer. How you might ask? By sending flowers to friends.

Summer of Smiles

What is the first thing you do when you get flowers completely unexpected and for no particular reason? I bet you smile!:D

And when you open the box and find the flowers are from a friend, I’ll bet you smile again!

Every time you walk past those flowers and catch a whiff of the sweet aroma? I bet you smile!

You take a picture of the flowers so you can remember the joy. What do you do every time you see that picture? I bet you smile!

Flowers bring a smile to our faces not once, but again and again. 1–800-FLOWERS.com gave me the opportunity to send a Summer of Smiles bouquet to a friend. I sent my good friend, Cheryl this Handbag of Blooms bouquet to bring a smile to her face.

Now, whenever Cheryl looks at the handbag, she will remember the Summer of Smiles and smile!

Summer of Smile Sweepstakes

1–800-FLOWERS wants to hear from you in their Summer of Smile sweepstakes. Tell them who needs a smile and they could win a smile and a Happy Day bouquet.

$50 1–800-FLOWERS.com Givewaway

1–800-FLOWERS.com is offering one (1) $50 giftcard to one of my readers to spread the “Summer of Smiles” joy.

To enter, tell me in the comments below what kind of flower is your favorite and why. For example, I love pansies because my grandmother used to spend hours taking care of her pansies in her garden. Whenever I see pansies, I think of my grandmother and it makes me happy.

The giveaway ends on Sunday, August 29, 2010 at 11pm ET. I will randomly pick one name. You will have 24 hours to respond or I will choose another winner.

disclosure: In exchange for this post, I was given a $50 credit to send flowers to a person of my choice. I received no money compensation. All opinions are my own.

My kids all love the Skechers shoes AND the comic book that comes with each new pair of shoes. I guess my kids were not the only ones that loved the comic because Skechers is bringing those comics to Nicktoons this October. But you can see a SNEAK PEEK of Zevo-3 this Sunday (August 22) at 5pm ET on Nicktoons.

The animated series is not all about Skechers or shoes. It is about 3 ordinary teens, Jason, Ellie & Matt, who have an accidental encounter with a mysterious green compound which gives them superpowers. And as we all know, with those superpowers comes a certain amount of responsibility to keep away evil. The evil villain, Dr. Stankfoot is played by Mark Hamill (yes, THE Mark Hamill from Star Wars).

When the 3 teens are not being superheroes and saving the city, they are just like any other teen dealing with peer pressure, homework, feeling awkward and feeling insecure.

Girls Can Be Superheroes Too

Being the Mom of both boys and girls, I like that this new series has male and female superheroes. My kids love to play superhero games together, but they often fight about the superheroes because they think girls can’t be superheroes. Who says girls can’t save the city too (and not just as the sidekick)!!

Zevo-3 is the first branded television show for Skechers Entertainment. A Zevo-3 website is available now and has videos, online games and you can create your own Zevo-3 comic book. If you purchased Skechers shoes for your kids this summer, you may have received one of the 1 million DVDs that Skechers Entertainment put into the shoe boxes.

Preview Zevo-3, Sunday, August 22, 5pm ET

Be sure to tune into your Nicktoon station this Sunday (8/22) at 5pm ET to watch the Zevo-3 sneak peek. Come back here and tell me what you thought. I will share my full review after I view the first episode. The series will premiere in October, 2010.

disclosure: I have a working relationship with Skechers. I was not given any compensation for this particular post. All opinions are my own.

Shutterfly allows you to easily create a digital scrapbook by using your digital pictures and their templates. Most of the time when I scrapbook, I create my entire pages from scratch. However, sometimes I want to create a gift album or I don’t have time to spend hours creating pages. That’s when I turn to Shutterfly.

Shutterfly Digital Scrapbook

The first time I used Shutterfly, I used their templates and dropped in the pictures from a trip my husband and I took to Miami (alone). It took me about 2 hours from beginning to end. That included decided which pictures to use, fixing them up in iPhoto, uploading and putting them into the Shutterfly templates.

Here is a short video I created to show you the Shutterfly book I created.

Shutterfly is not only for making scrapbooks, you can make so much more. A few examples are:

Holiday Cards
Thank You Cards
Birthday Party Invitations

Birthday Party Tip

A really fun idea for kid’s birthday parties is to take a picture of the guest with the birthday child and the present they brought. Create a thank you card with the picture and the guest has a great memento from the party and you remember the present each guest brought.

disclosure: I received free product in exchange for this post. I paid for the Shutterfly book that I discussed in this review. All opinions are my own.

Shutterfly Giveaway

I also received 3 Shutterfly codes to share with my readers. To enter, leave me a comment below about your experience with Shutterfly and Tweet about this post using my Twitter name, @ScrappinMichele. If you have not used Shutterfly, let me know what your first project with Shutterfly will be. I will pick 3 random winners.

The giveaway will end on September 2, 2010 at 11:00 pm ET. You will have 24 hours to respond or another winner will be chosen.

We LOVE Good Humor in this house. The biggest problem we have is that if I buy them, they do not last longer than maybe 4 hours at the most. So, when I saw an opportunity to get a box of Good Humor bars (for free), eat them and then write about them, I jumped on it!

The Toasted Almond are my husband’s favorite, so the kids know that if we have them in the house, they MUST ask Dad before they eat one. He let everyone have a taste since this was for a good cause (my review). BUT, they had to wait until dinner was over.

Finally, when dinner was done, they tore open the box and dug in. All I heard was “mmmm.”

You can keep up with all the flavors and happenings with Good Humor on their Facebook Page.

Good Humor also has a Sweet-takes going on right now in honor of their 90th anniversary. Here are the details:

• Ends September 6, 2010
• They are giving away 10,000 prizes with some winning instantly
• Grand prize drawing of $10,000

I received products free from Good Humor and I am a reviewer for the Mom Bloggers Club. All opinions are my own.

If you’ve been reading my blog, you know I am participating in the 30 day Sonicare Challenge. Over the weekend our family (me, Jason & 2 younger kids) completed our challenge. So, how did I like the Sonicare toothbrush? I went out yesterday and bought 2 more toothbrushes (with my money) for my 2 older kids. I am a firm believer now that the toothbrush does make a difference.

Here is the Whrrl story from our purchase.

When I started the challenge, I really did not believe that the toothbrush could make a difference. In the past, I always bought the toothbrush that was on sale and had a color I liked (yes, seriously, I sometimes picked out my toothbrush cuz they had orange!). My kids got whatever character toothbrush they wanted. When I saw the challenge, I really thought this was going to be my opportunity to show everyone that the toothbrush really doesn’t matter. I was going to prove everyone wrong. But I need to swallow my pride here because the challenge ended up showing me that the toothbrush makes ALL the difference.

I noticed it immediately. My teeth really did feel like I had just gone to the dentist. I noticed my kids teeth looked better. They aren’t the best at brushing and sometimes I would notice their teeth looked a bit yellow from rushing through the brushing. Not anymore because they know how long to brush now. The Sonicare kid’s toothbrushes beep every 30 seconds so they get their whole mouth really clean.  At the end of the day, there was not as much grime on our teeth. they still felt smooth and clean.

Yesterday, I decided to invest in 2 more Sonicare toothbrushes for my older kids (ages 14 & 11). Before this challenge, I would never have spent $80 on toothbrushes because I thought it would have been a waste of money. I am thoroughly convinced now that it is definitely worth the money.

One other side note I needed to make. In a previous post, I mentioned that I thought it would be good if the adult toothbrushes would also beep every 30 seconds so you had a better idea of time while brushing (and knew when to change sides). I was researching the different products offered by Philips and saw that some of the adult toothbrushes have that feature.

Here are the links to the tooth­brushes that our fam­ily used dur­ing the challenge:

Kid’s HX6311/02 toothbrush

Adult Essence toothbrush

There are 7 other fam­i­lies par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Soni­care Chal­lenge (#soni­carechal­lenge). You can find their sto­ries at the Soni­care Chal­lenge Website

Dis­clo­sure: I received money for my par­tic­i­pa­tion in the 30 day chal­lenge and to pur­chase the toothbrushes. (from Soni­care and Collective Bias) All opinions are my own!

A few weeks before BlogHer 2010, 20 bloggers were chosen to take a 12 week challenge to be “Better for BlogHer.” Each blogger replaced one meal a day with a frozen Healthy Choice meal. I was one of those bloggers.

On Friday during BlogHer, Healthy Choice hosted a lunch at the Hilton for us. The lunch consisted of a caesar salad or cold sandwiches, fruit and a cookie. It was a welcomed opportunity to take a short quiet break from the fast-paced conference.

Healthy Choice introduced their new line of steamed frozen meals which are currently rolling out in stores. The plastic wrap on top of the meal does not have to be “cut” at all in order to steam the meals like you usually do. No more of the “peel away the plastic from this and poke a hole in this and do the hokey pokey..” just to cook your meal. The instructions are simple. The ingredients are all items that you can pronounce. On the package there are pictures of the meats and veggies that are in the product. No more guessing what that orange thing might be.

Each blogger had the opportunity to meet with the Healthy Choice nutrition expert, Tara Gidus. Prior to BlogHer, we filled out a questionnaire to give Tara a better idea of our health status and concerns. Tara discussed those concerns and answered any questions the bloggers had concerning the product or healthy lifestyles. I did not have a chance to meet with Tara at BlogHer, but I have my consult scheduled for next week.

We left the lunch with a full stomach, knowledge about the Healthy Choice line of products and the company’s philosophy about living a healthy lifestyle and a lavender, microwaveable neck heat wrap. The neck wrap is AWESOME. I get to use one of these when I get a pedicure, but now I can use it at home. YEAH!

The hashtag for the Better for BlogHer Healthy Choice campaign is #BetterforBlogHer.

disclosure: I received money and coupons to purchase the meals each day for free in exchange for my posts and my participation in the 90 day challenge.

UPDATE:  I was unable to take my kids to see this concert because one of my kids was sick. We were all really disappointed.

I’m taking my kids to see the School of Rock concert this Thursday in Vienna, VA. The School of Rock is celebrating the 25th Anniversary of Live Aid with a 49 city tour across the US. They are the best students enrolled in the 58 School of Rock US locations. The Northern Virginia show will feature students from the Ashburn, Silver Spring and Vienna School of Rock locations.

The show will include songs from US, The Who, Queen, Led Zeppelin, Tom Petty, Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger, Tina Turner and more. $10 from each ticket will benefit the Music for Relief, a non-profit organization established by rock band Linkin Park with the funds going to the help the recovery efforts in Haiti.

I’m really excited about sharing this concert with my kids. We have taken them to see Miley Cyrus, Jonas Brothers, Dora, Blues Clues, The Wiggles and a few more. But this is going to be real rock and roll and played by their peers. I think it is important to expose kids to all sorts of music and entertainment from ballet to rock and roll.

If you’d like to join us, here is the information about the Vienna, VA show:

Jammin Java, 227 Maple Ave E, Vienna, VA 22180

August 12, 2010

Opening set at 6pm

School of Rock at 7:15 pm

$15 tickets

I will give you a full review after the concert on Thursday.

disclosure: As a School of Rock Mom-Bassador, I will be receiving 5 tickets for my family to attend the concert in Vienna, VA plus 1 free class at School of Rock. All opinions are my own.

As I’m heading to BlogHer this week, I will be featuring a 3 part article from BitMoms and BitDefender. As a BitMom, I will be featuring monthly articles written by BitDefender experts. Previous posts featured USB drives and emailing documents.

August signifies the winding down of summer and the fresh school year.  This year as you shop for back to school items, check your family computer to ensure that your antivirus software is current and can safeguard your machine from potential viruses that can come from opening infected files at home and school.

These days, students have a myriad of ways they can create and save documents to be accessed in multiple locations but each has its benefits and risks.  Here’s a quick run down of the top 3 ways students save files along with the pros and cons of each.

3. Google Docs

Google Docs is a way you can create documents, presentations, and spreadsheets online using your Gmail account.

Pro: The use of Google Docs is free, easy to navigate and use, and allows users to access their documents from any computer with an internet connection which makes it an efficient choice for students on the go.  Google Docs enables users to share their work and collaborate on an assignment which is useful for group assignments.  The autosave feature helps making sure that changes are frequently saved and working in Google Docs eliminates the problem of incompatible file formats.  Since Google Docs is its own system, creating, editing, and saving documents while they are part of Google Docs is a safe way to avoid potential viruses and malware.

Con: Google Docs requires an internet connection in order to access documents.  Some schools don’t allow the use of Google Docs.  If you convert your Google Doc into another file format to email it to someone, there is the potential that a virus will sneak in the emailed document.

Regardless of your child’s preferred way to save and access documents both at home and school, knowing the risks that come with each method helps prevent potential problems that could jeopardize your student’s ability to get work turned in on time and harm your family computer.  If you feel like your computer has been compromised, you can always run BitDefender’s free online scanner directly from your browser to immediately clean your system memory.

This article was provided as exclusive content by BitDefender because of my role as a BitMom Blog Network Member.  No compensation was received for sharing this post however; BitMoms is providing me with a blog conference stipend and other materials to help me facilitate sharing topics of internet safety and security with my readers and through the BitMom Community.

About BitDefender®- BitDefender is the creator of one of the industry’s fastest and most effective lines of internationally certified security software. Every day, BitDefender protects tens of millions of home and corporate users across the globe — giving them the peace of mind of knowing that their digital experiences will be secure. More information about BitDefender and its products are available on the company’s website.

As I’m heading to BlogHer this week, I will be featuring a 3 part article from BitMoms and BitDefender. As a BitMom, I will be featuring monthly articles written by BitDefender experts. Part 1 featured USB drives.

August signifies the winding down of summer and the fresh school year.  This year as you shop for back to school items, check your family computer to ensure that your antivirus software is current and can safeguard your machine from potential viruses that can come from opening infected files at home and school.

These days, students have a myriad of ways they can create and save documents to be accessed in multiple locations but each has its benefits and risks.  Here’s a quick run down of the top 3 ways students save files along with the pros and cons of each.

2. Emailing assignments

These days it seems like most kids, even in the upper elementary grades, have an email address.  Email accounts are free thanks to Yahoo, Gmail, and many other internet service providers.

Pro: A student can work on an assignment at home and attach it to an email to themselves which can be opened at school if your school allows student use of email for class work.  This serves as a free and easy way to ensure that documents are accessible for working on them at home, school, or wherever your child has an internet connection.

Cons: Your home computer may run a different version of software than your child’s school.  Having different versions of software, such as Microsoft Office, can make it impossible to open documents at school if you have a newer version installed at home.  To alleviate this problem, teach your child how to do a “save as” to save their document in a compatible file format that can be read at school.   Incompatible file formats that make documents unreadable at school can be frustrating for children if they want to add last minute touches to their homework at school but can’t open their assignment.  Also, there is a high risk of viruses attaching themselves to Microsoft Word documents thanks to macros that are written into the language of the program.  To avoid this turn on Macro Virus Protection and make sure your antivirus software is current and always scanning in the background.

Tomorrow in part 3, we will look at Google Docs as a way to share documents.

This article was provided as exclusive content by BitDefender because of my role as a BitMom Blog Network Member.  No compensation was received for sharing this post however; BitMoms is providing me with a blog conference stipend and other materials to help me facilitate sharing topics of internet safety and security with my readers and through the BitMom Community.

About BitDefender®- BitDefender is the creator of one of the industry’s fastest and most effective lines of internationally certified security software. Every day, BitDefender protects tens of millions of home and corporate users across the globe — giving them the peace of mind of knowing that their digital experiences will be secure. More information about BitDefender and its products are available on the company’s website.

Image via Wikipedia

As I’m heading to BlogHer this week, I will be featuring a 3 part article from BitMoms and BitDefender. As a BitMom, I will be featuring monthly articles written by BitDefender experts.

August signifies the winding down of summer and the fresh school year.  This year as you shop for back to school items, check your family computer to ensure that your antivirus software is current and can safeguard your machine from potential viruses that can come from opening infected files at home and school.

These days, students have a myriad of ways they can create and save documents to be accessed in multiple locations but each has its benefits and risks.  Here’s a quick run down of the top 3 ways students save files along with the pros and cons of each.

1. USB flash drives

USB flash drives are removable and rewriteable portable storage devices that plug into a USB port.  The come in a variety of different styles, range in their storage capacity, and are widely available.

Pros: The small size of USB drives makes them easy to attach to a backpack, keychain, or slip into a pocket.  They also durable due to the lack of moving parts and tend to be quite reliable for accessing documents over an extended period of time.  They are available in a wide range of sizes.

Cons: While the size and portability of USB drives is appealing, they are also easily misplaced.  Not only does it cost money to replace them but data is often lost unless a regular backup is done to store documents on the home computer.  USB drives have a fairly long life but can also die without warning rendering all data on the drive inaccessible.  USB drives can also be infected with viruses living on the host computers they are plugged into and be a way to unknowingly install viruses on your home computer.

Tomorrow in part 2, we will look at emailing as a way to share documents.

BitMoms logo

This article was provided as exclusive content by BitDefender because of my role as a BitMom Blog Network Member.  No compensation was received for sharing this post however; BitMoms is providing me with a blog conference stipend and other materials to help me facilitate sharing topics of internet safety and security with my readers and through the BitMom Community.

About BitDefender®- BitDefender is the creator of one of the industry’s fastest and most effective lines of internationally certified security software. Every day, BitDefender protects tens of millions of home and corporate users across the globe — giving them the peace of mind of knowing that their digital experiences will be secure. More information about BitDefender and its products are available on the company’s website.

I was planning on taking this bag with me to BlogHer because it has soft handles, but when I inspected it closely, I realized the handles were breaking off the bag (I’m in contact with them and will see if they will replace it).

That left me with no bag for BlogHer except this one.…

That is a kid’s school bag that have been using for the last few months as my purse. My kids are beyond diapers, but we’ve graduated to portable game players, cell phones and cords. I inevitably, end up carrying everything for everyone. But it really is time for an adult bag.

Ju-Ju-Be Bags To The Rescue

Ju-Ju-Be contacted me after I tweeted about my bag dilemma and offered me this bag for BlogHer:

It is a MightyBe in black Earth Leather. It is not real leather, but instead Earth leather and is machine washable (how great is that). I plan to use it all weekend. Thank you Ju-Ju-Be for coming to my rescue.

Check out the Ju-Ju-Be online store. They have a lot of really useful and gorgeous bags for all occasions. They have wallets and accessories to go with your new bag. I will do a full review when I return from BlogHer.

disclosure: Ju-Ju-Be is giving me the bag to use at the conference. I was not paid for this post. All opinions are my own.

I found this awesome website which gives you the opportunity to ask any question on any subject and get the scoop on how others feel about it. It’s called, SkinnyScoop. What an awesome name!!

It wasn’t just the concept that attracted me, but the colors and design of the site. It just invited me in and asked me to sit down with a Mojito and stay a while. While I was there I spent a lot of time getting the scoop on what everyone thinks about all sorts of things.

I decided to ask a question and see if I’m the only one or are others as secretive as me.

Go ahead, answer my question. Then check out the site, sign up, friend me (Michele McGraw) and ask your own question.

The SkinnyScoop will also have a booth at BlogHer this week, so stop by if you are there.

If you ask a question, comment below with a link to your question and I’ll be sure to answer.

On Thursday, I leave at 0700 hours for BlogHer. I’m not just going, but I’m going in style. I’m taking the S’mores Road Trip to BlogHer (#Smores #RoadTrip2BlogHer). In plain english that means I am riding an Amtrak train with a group of gorgeous and super super nice women from the DC area all the way up to New York City for 3 days of learning, laughing and NO kids.

Hershey’s S’mores

Hershey’s sent me a S’mores gift pack so we could enjoy a little treat before I leave the kids and head to New York City. Here is a video of our S’mores treat.

Hershey’s S’mores Recipe

To make our S’mores, we used the following products (which were provided by Hershey’s):

+

+

=

Hershey’s S’mores Snactivity Suite @ BlogHer

And if you are heading to BlogHer, stop by the S’mores Snacktivity Suite at the Hilton Room #4233.

Betcha want a S’more now don’t ya?!

disclosure: As part of the S’mores Road Trip to BlogHer I received a round trip ticket on Amtrak to the convention and Hershey branded items. Any views expressed in this post are my own

The pink princess Zhu Zhu pet in our house has been taken over by the Kung Zhu ninjas. When my son learned that there would soon be ninja zhu zhu pets, he became much more interested in the zhu zhu pets. Before that, they were those pink hamster things that his sister played with all the time.

I could spend the next 200 — 300 words tell you all about how wonderful these are, but this review isn’t really about me. You don’t care what I think about the Kung Zhu pets. You want to hear it from my son. Here is my 7 year old’s review of the Kung Zhu pets.

The best part of the Kung Zhu pets for me is that now both my son and my 6 year old daughter have toy they can play with together that satisfies the princess in my daughter and the ninja in my son.

Kung Zhu Giveaway

Not only did I receive the Kung Zhu pets for my kids, but I received a big set of Kung Zhu pets to give away to one of my readers.

• U.S entries only.
• Contest will end at 10:00 pm ET on Sunday, August 15, 2010.
• Winner will be notified and have 24 hours to respond or I will pick a new winner.

One Reader will receive all of  the following:

Kung Zhu Pets Giant Battle Arena, Missile Attack Tower & Dragon Hammer

Kung Zhu Pets (2) Battle Armor Packs & (2) Battle Hamsters

To Enter:

Follow @zhuniverse & @ScrappinMichele, then tweet out “I just entered to win Kung Zhu pets @zhuniverse toy gift pack from @ScrappinMichele, You can enter too. http://bit.ly/duO0IJ” Comment below letting know you have completed this.

Extra Entries: One comment for each task.

Follow my blog (RSS feed or Google Friend Connect in right sidebar)

Check out the Zhu Zhu Pets website and tell me which of the new 2010 pets you like the best.

Disclosure: I received the Kung Zhu pets (free) from MomSelect in exchange for this review. All opinions are my own (or my kids!)

My family is halfway through our Sonicare 30 day Challenge. We are definitely noticing a difference in how clean our teeth feel. My kids told me the other day they want to keep these toothbrushes FOREVER!! I told them that’s fantastic, but we have to be sure to replace the brush heads every 3 months.

Because it is so important to replace your brush heads, Sonicare is offering one of my readers 2 replacement brush heads for your Sonicare toothbrush. Below are several of the Sonicare brush heads.

To Enter:

Leave me a comment and telling me why you would like to win. Tweet about the contest using the hashtag #SonicareChallenge.

Details:

• Open to U.S. only
• You may enter this contest on any of the participating blogs, but you may only win once.
• Contest will end at 10:00 pm on August 10, 2010.
• Winner will have 24 hours to respond once you are notified or a new winner will be chosen.

Disclosure: I received money for my participation in the 30 day challenge and to pur­chase the tooth brushes. (from Sonicare and Collective Bias)

Image via Wikipedia

Twitter added a new follower suggestion feature that shows up when you follow a person on their Twitter profile page.  Twitter will suggest 3 other people that it “thinks” you may like.

This will show up right after you click the “Follow” button on someone’s Twitter profile page:

So far the suggestions have been hit or miss. A few times Twitter suggested someone that I did in fact follow, but most of the time I can not figure out how the people are similar and why I would want to follow them.

Let’s Talk!

Have you seen this feature on Twitter? If you are not following me, you can test it by going to my Twitter profile page, @ScrappinMichele, and click on the “Follow” button.

Did Twitter give you 3 suggested followers? Let me know who they suggested you follow when you followed me. Maybe I’d like to follow 3 people who are similar to me. LOL!

Are you finding new people to follow with this feature?

Related articles by Zemanta

• Twitter Rolls Out New Follower Tool (twitterrati.com)
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• Find People to Follow on Twitter (chris.pirillo.com)

I bet you think we brush our teeth while we drive! No, silly! But we did create a quick video while in the car today. I have been trying to get my husband’s opinion of our new Sonicare toothbrushes on video, but we haven’t found a moment to do it. I took advantage of a long red light today.

Sonicare Challenge Family Drive

As you can see, we are happy with our Sonicare toothbrushes. There are also two other children in the car who were not happy about being left out of this Sonicare Challenge, so I had to promise to buy them a Sonicare toothbrush too. I used to think the toothbrushes were too much money, but after using my Sonicare toothbrush for 2 weeks, I am convinced the toothbrushes are worth spending the money.

I do have a few complaints about the Sonicare toothbrushes that I will share. The kids toothbrushes make a sound at 30 second intervals so that you know to switch the area you are brushing. I would like it if the adult brushes made a quick beep at 1 minute. It’s a small thing, but it would give me a better idea of time.

My second complaint is that the 2 pack comes with 2 toothbrushes that are EXACTLY the same. Since mixing up toothbrushes is just gross (even with my hubby), I would like one of them to be a different color or have stickers in the box you can add or something to tell them apart. I’m going to put a bit of nail polish on mine so we can tell the difference.

I did have a third complaint, but tonight I discovered something new about my Sonicare toothbrush. I did not like that whenever I would take the toothbrush out to spit, water sprayed everywhere. Today, I discovered that you can turn the toothbrush off for a few seconds in order to spit and then turn it back on and you do not mess up your 2 minutes run time.

Next week, I’ll be heading to BlogHer with my Sonicare toothbrush. If you see me, stop me and look at my teeth. They are so clean!

Disclosure: I received money for my participation in the 30 day challenge and to pur­chase the tooth brushes. (from Sonicare and Collective Bias)

I am such a freak about getting myself organized before huge events. I have lists and charts and calendars and I love to have it all available on my iPhone (along with hard copies). I created this BlogHer 2010 Agenda for myself and I thought others might enjoy it too.

The calendar is public, so feel free to subscribe to it so it’ll show up in your calendars.  If you want to just add individual events to your calendar, then click on the event name and then “copy to my calendar.” You can use the links below the calendar to subscribe to the entire calendar. Google has a great section on subscribing to public calendars if you are having troubles.

Note: Ignore the error message about permissions if you see it. I’ve hidden my personal calendar.

Calendar Feeds

BlogHer Agenda (iCal Feed)

BlogHer Agenda (HTML page)

BlogHerAgenda (XML Feed)

I am working on adding some more of the “unofficial” parties to the calendar also. If you have anything you would like me to add, please send me an e-mail (michele@scrapsofmygeeklife.com) or put it in the comments below.

See you next week at BlogHer!

I am always looking for meals that I can easily whip up on a moment’s notice AND my kids will like. So when MyBlogSpark offered to send me a Good Earth Mediterranean Chicken meal gift pack, I thought this might be a meal that is easy to make and my kids will eat. Sure enough it was.

I received the following Good Earth gift pack:

• Good Earth Mediterranean Chicken dry dinner kit
• 2 sets of bamboo flatware
• 2 bamboo dishes
• a bamboo utility board
• 100% recyclable grocery tote

The bamboo dishes and flatware are fun. They make me feel like I’m eating food at a spa. Very Mediterranean to be exact. LOL!

Easy to Prepare

I whipped up the Mediterranean Chicken on a typical evening where I was carting kids here and there to soccer, dance and trying to cook dinner at the same time. It was not hard to make at all. I needed to add chicken and hot water. Here are the contents of the box.

I started by cooking the whole wheat pasta.

While that was cooking, I browned the chicken (cut into slices before I started the noodles) and added in the rest of the ingredients and let that cook.

Tastes Good Too

It took me approximately 30 minutes to make this delicious meal.

I really likd the flavors of the meal. There were enough spices to give it a lot of good flavor, but not too spicy for my children’s taste. That was going to be the true test. Will the kids like it? My son’s response, “this is a good dinner, Mom.” SCORE! My only complaint? There wasn’t enough in the box to feed my kids because they wanted more.

I liked that it was easy to make, tasted good, my kids liked it and it has 100% whole grain, no trans fat, no artificial flavors, no artificial preservatives and no MSG.

The Good Earth dinners started to show up on the store shelves in June and you can find four varieties:

• Mediterranean Chicken with angel hair past
• Spicy Citrus Glazed Shrimp with angel hair pasta
• Herb Crusted Chicken with mushroom risotto
• Tuscan Chicken with penne pasta.

I know I plan to try out the other 3 meals and will definitely buy the Mediterranean Chicken again.

Giveaway Good Earth Mediterranean Chicken Gift Pack

Good Earth and MyBlogSpark are offering the same gift pack I received to one of my readers. The giveaway is open until Friday, July 30, 2010 at 10:00 pm ET.

If you would like to win the same gift pack I received (see contents and picture above), please leave a comment and tell me which of the 4 flavors sounds the yummiest to you.

Extra Entry:

Tweet out about this contest using the “ReTweet” button at the top of the post.

Disclosure: Good Earth provided me with the free product, information and gift pack through MyBlogSpark.

I completed one full week of replacing one meal each day with a Healthy Choice meal on the Better for BlogHer challenge.

Confession

I have to confess that on Sunday it was my husband’s birthday and we were out and about and I didn’t have a Healthy Choice meal for lunch that day because we weren’t home at all. I opted for Subway instead because I didn’t want to really blow it (although the ice cream cake after dinner probably blew it for me).

Back on Track

But it was right back on track today. I am starting the 6 week challenge on the EA SPORTS Active More Workouts Wii fitness game and along with my 1/2 marathon training, I’m getting active, eating right and I will be Better for BlogHer.

Seeing Changes

The biggest change I’ve noticed is my energy level. I’m not getting as tired in the mid-afternoon as I was when I was not eating a healthy lunch. I’m also not hungry in between my meals and snacks. I’m eating 3 meals with 2 snacks and that is enough for me.

My absolute favorite Healthy Choice meal so far is the Chicken Parmigiana. I could eat it for every meal.

Are you getting Better for BlogHer with me?

Our very own local DC cupcake shop, Georgetown Cupcakes are featured in TLC’s six part series, DC Cupcakes. This whole story is just awesome (and so are the cupcakes).

Both ladies, who are sisters, left high powered jobs and risked their financial health to start this small cupcake shop in Georgetown (Washington DC). Neither of them expected it to take off as it did and now they have a show on TLC. How cool is that? I love stories like this. It makes me feel like I CAN do anything. It just takes a LOT of really hard work and more hard work and a little more hard work (and a sister!)

Meeting DC Cupcakes

I had the pleasure of meeting the owner/sisters, Sophie LaMontagne and Katherine Kallinis at the DC Metro Moms event in June.

I brought home a cupcake that I had decorated for my kids and all 4 kids immediately fell in love with Georgetown Cupcakes. I promised them I would take them down to the cupcakery (love that word, not mine, it was from TLC’s press release) sometime.

Visiting DC Cupcakes

That sometime was this morning. We had heard that there were 1 hour waits for cupcakes, so I was hoping that if we got there early, we wouldn’t have to wait. There was a line, but it moved quickly. The bakery is small, so the line is probably always there. We waited 10 minutes to get our cupcakes.

We did have one disappointment. I had picked Friday to go because they make Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip cupcakes on Friday and I had heard a rumor (from one of the owner sisters at the DC Metro event) that the Chocolate Peanut Butter chip were really good and since I’m addicted to anything chocolate and peanut butter, I had to go. They were all out when we got there. We could have waited an hour for a fresh batch, but we had to get back home. I guess I will HAVE to go again.

If you are in DC or Bethesda, check out the Georgetown Cupcake shop. (address is 3301 M Street NW, Washington, DC 20007 (link is map). In Bethesda too (4834 Bethesda Avenue, Bethesda, MD 20814).

Watching DC Cupcakes

My 7 year old son wanted to know where the actors were that play the sisters and the boss chef. The kids and I watched DC Cupcakes again last night so it would all be fresh in our memories. Have you seen the show on TLC yet? If not, check it out. I’m a bit of a TLC junkie. It’s really neat to watch the show now and know exactly how the shop looks. Here is a video promo for the show:

You can watch DC Cupcakes on TLC on Friday, at 10 PM (ET/PT) tonight (July 23 & July 30). The first 2 episodes aired on July 16. Check your TV guide for reruns of the first 2 episodes. They are definitely worth watching!

Buying DC Cupcakes

The store is really efficient at getting everyone in and out in a hurry. Everyone was really pleasant and even though we were all in their faces with cameras and video cameras, they were very pleasant. My kids wanted to watch everything and they were more than happy to let them and even explain what was going on. It was such a pleasant atmosphere. A few pictures from our adventure (click on the pictures to see a larger one.) All pictures were taken by my 14 year old son.

Eating DC Cupcakes

Here is what I saw when I got home and opened the box to eat a cupcake. The kids could not wait to get home, so they had each had 1 cupcake while we were in the car. I heard: AWESOME Cupcakes, Yummy!, MMMMM!, Can we get more?, Can we have more than 2? They were definitely a hit.

DC Cupcakes

Remembering DC Cupcakes

Of course I have video! You know me..I have video of everything…

**Giveaway One Dozen DC Cupcakes**

Yes, you too can try the Georgetown Cupcakes. They will ship your cupcakes directly to your house (U.S. Only). One lucky random winner will one (1) dozen cupcakes from the Georgetown Cupcakes. The contest will end at 10:00 pm ET on Friday, July 30, 2010. I will pick one (1) random winner and the winner will have 24 hours to respond or I will pick another winner. The cupcakes will ship out the next Tuesday.

To Enter: In the comments below, tell me what cupcake flavor is your favorite from the Georgetown Cupcakes menu.

Additional entries: Each of the 5 additional entries must be in a separate comment.

1. Follow @GTownCupcake on Twitter
2. Follow @TLC on Twitter
3. Follow @ScrappinMichele on Twitter and tweet out this post.
4. Follow Scraps of My Geek Life RSS Feed
5. Go to the DC Cupcake on TLC and watch some of the preview clips. Let me know which is your favorite clip.
   

Disclosure: I was not compensated in any way for this post. I purchased the cupcakes myself. All opinions are my own. I really enjoyed meeting Sophie and Katherine at the DC Metro Moms event and I wanted to support them in the best way I know how…buying and blogging.

Professional photos courtesy of TLC.

In our house, S’mores are such a treat. We can’t burn in our community, so we do it the “tech way” my kids say. We roast our S’mores in the microwave JUST BECAUSE. No special occasion needed.

They are such an ooey gooey mess, but so much fun to eat. We always have Hershey’s chocolate, HoneyMaid graham crackers and marshmallows in the house because you never know when the craving for S’mores will arise.

You can check out the SmoresSmiles Kraft page for the chance to win a few S’more prizes along with directions to make S’mores.

Disclosure: I am entering a contest for a S’mores prize pack as a member of the Mom Bloggers Club.

Let’s Talk!

How does your family enjoy S’mores?

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I am participating in the Elmer’s Bag It Forward campaign with Collective Bias. I love this one because we all need school supplies and it is a great way to do something really nice for someone.

Here is my Bag It Forward Whrrl shopping trip at Wal-Mart.

Bag It Forward With Us

You can join in the Bag It Forward fun by purchasing extra school supplies and then #BagItForward to another family.

disclosure: I was compensated by Collective Bias for the Elmer’s Bag It Forward campaign. All opinions are my own.

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