All posts by Anne Younger

Anne is a 30-something full-time SAHM mom of 5 ranging from 3 to 17 and grandma of 1 who resides in Ashwaubenon (Green Bay) Wisconsin. She started blogging in 2008 as a way to regain her sanity. She enjoys coffee, chocolate, cheeseburgers and vodka along with spending time with her husband and kids.

TigTagz ID Wristbands for Kids


Do you have a child who tends to wander off from time to time?
I happen to have a 4 year old, Alexander, who has been known to be hell on wheels at times.
The boy….he is quick!
You can be in the store, and in the blink of an eye he is off.
Now, things like this tend to happen more often when he is with others than when he is with me.
Not only does he like to check out the stores, we attend a lot of events for kids in our area.
These events can have thousands of children running around at one time.
In order to keep our little man safe, we like to do whatever we can to ensure that should he get separated from us, we are easy to locate.
No joke.
His name and my phone number are on a sticker in his shoe, in his jacket, in his backpack and yes, even in some of his clothes.
I like to make sure he will be returned to me.
Another great tool in case your child gets lost are TigTagz ID bracelets.
These bracelets are a wonderful (inexpensive) investment to help protect your little one. They come in a variety of designs for both boys and girls and can be personalized to include your information on them in addition to adding a medical alert in red or you can order them blank and write your own information in when you need too.
Another great thing about these bracelets is that when they are put on the proper way, they can only be removed with scissors. TigTagz bracelets are also tear-proof, sweat-proof, smear-proof, and water-resistant. I am happy that when we visit the local beach/pool this summer our little Alexander will be able to wear it in the water and we know that it will stay the same!

Kids LOVE wearing TigTagz bracelets and you can have peace of mind knowing that your child has such important information right on their precious little bodies!

You can learn more about TigTagz ID wristbands by visiting their website, or by finding them on Facebook.

Disclaimer: I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

Educational Struggles

Over the years as a mother I have learned that educating my children is not something that is done just at school.  We do our best to continue to educate our children at home by challenging them everyday in their regular academics and other areas as well.  Our Libby has faced a few struggles in school over the years and is still on a bumpy path but it is not something she can control.  She struggles like I did in various areas but with math being her biggest struggle.  We have worked along with the teachers and school over the years (since the first grade to be exact) and have chosen to try an adaptive learning platform as she continues to move on through school.

When we first started combating the problem I took the time to Google and educate myself on various sites such as the U.S. Department of Education site which offered a wealth of knowledge on different programs, web sites etc. that we could use to help further educate her at home and help her along her path.

In addition to the online learning, we also purchased different computer games, educational board games including math bingo, plus we made multiple games at home and tried to turn most of our every day tasks with her at home into a mathematical equation.

Out of all of the tools we used to help her along the way she has always had better success when using those that we online based and I think that is because computers are such a huge part of her every day life at school.

She still struggles with her every day academics and math is still a challenge, but we are doing our best every day to help her get to where she needs to be in hopes that she will eventually reach the point in which she no longer needs that extra help or push.

Baby Bean’s First Celebrity Meeting

As I mentioned in a previous post, this past weekend, the Alex (AKA @TheSciFiDaddy), baby Ellie and I made our way to Chicago for the 2012 International Home & Housewares Show.

We had a blast!

I had received an email earlier in the week inviting us to stop by the SodaStream booth to check out their new line in addition to see their special celebrity guest, Jillian Michaels.

We had already planned on stopping by the booth because I was dying to try a SodaStream (yes, up until Saturday, we were SodaStream virgins!).

So, we made our way to the booth, learned how to make a soda using the SodaStream and some other cool stuff before taking a seat to wait for Jillian.

A few minutes later Jillian came out to face the crowd around the booth, pose for pictures and shoot some promos.  We couldn’t see much of her (other than her backside which

the Alex didn’t mind) and then we were asked to move to another seat because we were in every shot.  Of course, this was not a problem, so we moved.  We continued to wait for

a bit as she did more promos until the Alex said he wanted to get moving and check out more stuff.  We made our way around to the front of the booth in an attempt to take a picture or two
I no more than snapped this picture, not even knowing what I had actually taken a picture of when I look at Jillian, yes, THE JILLIAN MICHAELS, and here her say I want to see the baby! of Jillian and just as I snapped this picture, everything changed!

Yes!!!
Jillian Michaels was requesting to meet see our little Baby Ellie all snug and wrapped in her Moby strapped to me.
I of course obliged and made my way over to show off our precious little girl.
I mean seriously…..Jillian Michaels!

I walked over to her, I showed off little Miss Ellie.

Thank goodness the Alex was there with me and was paying attention otherwise we wouldn’t have these awesome pictures in which you can see Jillian swoon over the cuteness that is Baby Ellie and one of her and I talking about Ellie.

She couldn’t believe that Ellie was closing in on 3 months, she thought for sure she was just 2 days old.  She went on to tell me about her niece who had just had a baby who was already 10lbs which is what our 3 month old Ellie is.

 

Now, remember that part when I mentioned that Jillian was shooting photos and promos right before this happened?

Well, she did this in the middle of shooting a promo and they had to start over.

I thought that was pretty awesome.  She didn’t care if she had to do it again, she just really wanted to see our baby and meet Ellie.

As for the Alex and I, we are still in shock that this happened and think it is pretty damn sweet!

Thank you @JillianMichaels for being awesome and for being the first celebrity our little Ellie got to meet!!

2012 International Home & Housewares Show


As many of you know, this past weekend the Alex AKA  and I made our way down to Chicago along with Ellie to attend the 2012 International Home and Housewares Show. This was our first year attending and I can guarantee that we will definitely be going back but hope we will be able to attend all 4 days—even though I don’t think 4 days will be enough time to cover the entire show.

2.6 million square feet of space is a lot to cover!

We met some great new people, learned about some great new products and cannot wait to share everything with you!

There was just so much stuff to see.

It was also a weekend of firsts for Baby Ellie.  It was her first road trip, first time out of the state, first blog event, first trade show and first celebrity meeting.

Yes, Baby Ellie met her first celebrity.

But that is a whole other post that I promise to share with you before the end of the week!

Right now I need to get to bed because I am still recovering from attending the IAlexA show!

THE THREE MUSKETEERS – on 3D Blu-ray, Blu-ray & DVD 3/13/12

Things have been crazy around our house lately, crazy as in super busy! I have barely had a moment to myself let alone the time to watch a movie so I enlisted the help of 13 year old Zack to conduct a review for The Three Musketeers, a movie he had been dying to see!
Here are his thoughts on the film!

Overall I found this movie to be funny and entertaining all at the same time.  It was an exciting film filled with some awesome special effects like flying pirate ships attached to giant balloons.  This movie had a great star filled cast including Loan Perman from Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Orlando Bloom from Pirates of the Caribbean and I can’t forget the beautiful Milla Jovovich (shhhh…..don’t tell my mom I said that!)

Both my sister, the 11 year old Libby and my little brother, 4 year old Alexander popped in a few times while I was watching it and started to get sucked in as well ( I of course made them leave because, HELLO……it’s rated PG-13!!!!)

This movie also had some cool special features like deleted and extended scenes that were cool to watch, stories from the cast and crew and more!

 

To sum things up, I enjoyed the movie and I hope you do to!

Here is a clip for you to check it out while I head off to bed before my mom makes me do more work!

Disclaimer:  We received a promotional copy of this film for review purposes, all thoughts and opinions are our own.