Super Saturday Giveaway Linky (February 25, 2012)

It's the last Saturday in February! Even with an "extra" day this month, February is flying by. Nevertheless, I hope you've had the opportunity to enter -- and win -- some great giveaways! If not, here's one more chance: check out the terrific giveaways below. And if you're hosting some on your blog, please share them with all of us! As always, you can find my ongoing giveaways listed in the right sidebar. Good luck!

Nominate a Special Person in the Field of Education for a Bammy Award!

I’m a proud member of the Academy of Education Arts and Sciences, and our goal is “to promote ‘cross-discipline recognition’ of excellence across every sector of the education field.” With that in mind, we’re holding our first annual Bammy Awards! These awards will be given “to identify, recognize and celebrate excellence in education throughout the entire field -- from teachers, principals and superintendents to school nurses, support staff, advocates, researchers, early childhood specialists, education journalists, facilities maintenance staff, special needs professionals, school board members, parents and more.”

With the Bammy Awards, we recognize that teachers are just part of a larger team that educates our children. And now you have the opportunity to nominate those special people for a Bammy Award! The winners will be invited to attend a red-carpet awards event in the fall in Washington, D.C. Head over to www.bammyawards.org now to nominate someone who is making a real difference in the field of education. Nominations will be open until April 30, 2012.

P.S. I hope while you’re there that you’ll vote for a very special person I nominated: Mark Hundley! You can VOTE HERE.

New from the Bari Koral Family Rock Band: Anna and the Cupcakes!

I am sure my daughter, Sadie, gets tired of me singing to her on our drives to town to keep her awake. She is always excited to try out new music and was very pleased when I popped in the CD, “Anna and the Cupcakes,” from the Bari Koral Family Rock Band.

These 10 songs will be as enjoyable for you as they are for your child! This is one CD you won’t mind playing over and over in the house or car as it becomes your child’s favorite. The soothing sounds of the piano and guitar have a relaxing yet fun feel to them that let you sing along or just listen and enjoy. You get a mixture of jazz, blues and even pop to keep you and your little one interested from start to finish. It’s a great CD to add to your family’s music collection.

“Anna and the Cupcakes” was released on February 14, so get your copy today and start being a fan of Bari Koral! Visit the Bari Koral Family Rock Band on their website and Facebook, too.

Find Interior Designers and Decorating Inspiration at Houzz!

Thanks to the struggling economy, many people are choosing to redecorate or remodel their existing homes rather than buy something new. If you’re looking for the services of an interior designer, or even just want to look through some great photos for design ideas, you’ll want to visit Houzz. 

Houzz has a database of 16,942 interior designers! You can search by keyword, metropolitan area, or via various services or suppliers. Or just browse through the gorgeous photos to get ideas or help you decide which designer you’d like to consult. In fact, Houzz is the web’s largest database of design and decorating ideas. There’s even a membership feature where you can start collecting your favorite photos in your own Ideabook, and swap tips and questions with other members.

If you love home design, Houzz is a dream come true for you! And if you’ve been thinking about remodeling or redecorating your house, apartment, cabin or just a single room, this is a great place to start. Find an interior designer you love in your area or look for inspiration at Houzz!

Book Review: Bringing Up Bébé, by Pamela Druckerman

Last year, Amy Chua educated American parents about Chinese parenting. This year, we’re introduced to French parenting by Pamela Druckerman, an American living in Paris with her British husband and three children. While French parenting is not as extreme as Chinese parenting, at least as described by the two authors, there’s still a lot to learn from -- and be outraged by -- when it comes to French parenting, at least for American parents. Here are some of the parenting insights from Paris in Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting.

• When women give birth, they stay in the hospital for six days, which is standard French practice.
• French parents expect their babies to sleep through the night around two or three months of age.
• French parents practice “The Pause” when their babies start to cry. Rather than picking them up immediately, they observe them for several minutes to see what they might need.
• From the age of about four months, most French babies eat at regular times -- 8 a.m., 12 p.m., 4 p.m., and 8 p.m. French parents wouldn’t even consider carrying around snacks to feed their children between meals.
• The French believe that good parents aren’t at the constant service of their children, and that there’s no need to feel guilty about this.
• French parents feel it’s extremely important to teach their children to wait for things they want and to learn to handle frustration.
• French children begin eating solid food with fruits and vegetables, not bland cereal. From a very early age, their mothers begin leading them in baking projects several times a month.
• French parents believe in establishing a cadre, or frame, which means that kids have very firm limits that are strictly enforced, but they have a lot of freedom within those limits.
• French parents aren’t anxious to give their kids head starts. They don’t push them to do things ahead of schedule.
• Middle-class French parents compete for limited spots for their children in a local crèche (daycare center) even before they’re born. Many parents place their children in crèches even if they don’t need childcare, and consider it beneficial for their children.
• Most French mothers do not breast-feed beyond the maternity hospital. Long-term nursing is extremely rare.
• Children as young as four are allowed to go on week-long vacations with their teachers and other adults (without their parents).
• French parents are slower to intervene in playground disputes or sibling arguments. They expect kids to work these situations out for themselves.
• French parents believe in limited praise. Mostly, they praise only for saying interesting things and for speaking well.

Photo credit: Benjamin Barda

If you’re an American parent, you probably have mixed feelings about many of the teachings you read above. I feel we could learn something from the French about teaching our children to sleep and eat better, as well as to practice patience and waiting. However, I don’t agree with not breast-feeding (when it’s possible) or sending a 4-year-old to sleepaway camp with adults we barely know. Druckerman seems to feel the same way when it comes to parenting her own children. She’s adopted certain French techniques and rejected or modified others. In the end, I think we all realize that no country has all the answers when it comes to parenting well. We can all learn from one another.

You can find Pamela Druckerman online on her website, her Facebook page, and her Twitter account. CLICK HERE to follow the other blogs on this exciting virtual book tour!

Wordless Wednesday: Sunrise at Kennedy Space Center (with Linky)

Book Review and Giveaway: The Guardian Duke, by Jamie Carie

Can you fall in love with someone before you’ve even met? Can you sense that someone is “the one” before you’ve spent time with them? Author Jamie Carie would most likely answer these questions affirmatively as her character, Gabriel, the Duke of St. Easton, decides he has found the woman of his dreams in the new book, The Guardian Duke. Gabriel gets to know Lady Alexandria Featherstone through her letters and the people who know her, but his efforts to find his new ward, who has taken off to track down her missing parents, don’t result in a fateful meeting -- at least not in The Guardian Duke! You’ll have to wait for the next book in this series, The Forgiven Duke, before Gabriel and Alex meet face-to-face (or, at least, I assume they do!).

But in the meantime, you can enjoy their separate journeys as Gabriel copes with a sudden and mysterious deafness, along with the news that he is now responsible for a wayward young woman. As he attempts to track her down, all while hampered by his loss of hearing, Alex uncovers clues to her parents’ whereabouts and acquires devoted friends (and a few enemies) along the way. Their separate journeys take them from England to Ireland, where they find plenty of adventure, getting ever closer to solving the mystery of Alex’s missing parents and, ultimately, meeting face-to-face.

The Guardian Duke, by Jamie Carie, is the first of three books in The Forgotten Castle series by the award-winning writer, Jamie Carie. Watch the trailer below for more about this book!



[Email subscribers, please click on the title of this post to view the video online.]

GIVEAWAY

One lucky winner will receive a paperback copy of the book, The Guardian Duke, by Jamie Carie! To enter, just fill out the Rafflecopter form below. This giveaway is open to U.S. residents only and ends at 11:59 PM EST on Wednesday, March 7, 2012.

New Eczema Relief Products from Neosporin, Plus $5 Off at Walmart!

We’ve never experienced eczema in our house, but the young daughter of a friend suffered terribly from eczema. I know how much my friend hated to see her little girl cope with the horrible itching and irritation caused by her chronic eczema. Fortunately, for those who suffer from eczema like my friend’s daughter, Neosporin has come out with a new line of products designed to bring relief to eczema sufferers. In fact, Neosporin Eczema Essentials promise “visibly healthier skin in 3 days”! Here’s the new product line:

#1 Daily Body Wash
• Proven gentle and non-irritating, even on eczema-prone skin
• Fragrance-free, soap-free
• Gentle enough for everyday use

#2 Daily Moisturizing Cream
• Deeply moisturizes
• Relieves itch on contact and irritation due to eczema
• Helps strengthen and restore the skin’s natural barrier function
• Fragrance- and steroid-free

#3 Anti-Itch Cream
• Clinically shown to improve dryness, flaking and appearance of redness
• Maximum strength of itch relief
• For occasional use
(Consult a doctor before using the Anti-Itch Cream on children under age 2.)

If you or someone you love has eczema, get the full eczema care line from the experts in skin care health for over 50 years! You can find Neosporin’s new products for eczema on Walmart.com or in-store in the first aid aisle. Click on the banners on this post or go to http://see.walmart.com/neosporin to save $5.00 on Neosporin Eczema Essentials at Walmart.com!

Get Organized in 2012 with Glow Baby (Plus a $25 Gift Card #Giveaway)! US/CAN

Since having my daughter, I have become a scatterbrain. I used to be so organized with things. I remembered dates, appointments, phone numbers -- all without having to write them down. Now if I don’t write down the simplest thing, I forget! It kind of scares me … Sadie will be starting school in September, and how will I be able to keep track of everything and not be one of those parents who forgets everything?

Fortunately, Glow Baby has some great solutions to keep my everyday life organized and manageable. I got to review one of their spectacular calendars: The Organized Family School-Year Calendar. I was very impressed with the size. It opens up to be 14" x 21.5". Hang it on the wall, and it can’t be missed! It has ample space to write. It includes a 12-month calendar, as well as 52 removable weekly planner pages. It can track up to 6 family members so everybody can keep track of who goes where and when. It’s great for recording activities, social events, appointments and so much more. It even includes a list of holidays pre-marked and a month behind and ahead view. It’s the only calendar your family will need. If I had to describe it in one word ... PERFECT!

Check out this calendar and all the other products Glow Baby has to offer at www.glowbaby.ca. You will find the perfect “get organized” helper for your family and unique gifts for the ones you love. Visit their Facebook page and follow them on Twitter, too!

GIVEAWAY

One lucky winner in the United States or Canada will win a $25 gift certificate to www.glowbaby.ca! To enter, simply fill out the Rafflecopter form below. This contest will end at 11:59 PM EST on Wednesday, March 7, 2012.

Project You Magazine: A New Issue!

A new issue of Project You magazine has just been released. Click on the graphic below to read and enjoy!

Open publication - Free publishing - More beth feldman

My Little Pony: A New DVD and a Giveaway!

My Little Pony fans will be thrilled to know that a new DVD, My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic: The Friendship Express, will be released on February 28! In The Friendship Express, the benevolent Princess Celestia, ruler of Equestria, selects unicorn Twilight Sparkle for a very important assignment -- to learn about the most important magic of all: friendship. With her new friends -- Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie -- Twilight sets out on amazing adventures, and they all learn what it means to be true friends.

In addition to 5 “pony-riffic” episodes, Friendship Is Magic: The Friendship Express will also offer bonus features such as Meet the Ponies, sing-a-longs and coloring sheets. In addition, you’ll get to see “Yipper Caper,” the very first episode of the new Pound Puppies series!

The My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic series is currently airing on The HUB. And to celebrate the release of My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic: The Friendship Express, Shout! Factory has provided the opportunity to offer this terrific DVD to one lucky winner! To enter, simply fill out the Rafflecopter form below. Open to U.S. residents only. This giveaway will close at 11:59 PM EST on Tuesday, March 6, 2012.

Why You Should Foster a Healthy Curiosity in Your Child

Guest post by Jonathan Mugan
Author of The Curiosity Cycle: Preparing Your Child for the Ongoing Technological Explosion

Curiosity makes life interesting. Instead of sitting in school learning meaningless facts, a child with a healthy curiosity actively gathers information to answer questions in the same way a baseball card collector seeks to complete a set. And with the increasing pace of technological innovation, curiosity is no longer a luxury -- it is required for success. The Curiosity Cycle provides practical methods for helping your child become a lifelong learner.

Curiosity is more than a desire to collect facts. It is a drive to create a holistic understanding of the environment. We’ve all known people who had sharp minds but whose precise calculations somehow ended up being beside the point. Such errors stem from a piecewise, shallow understanding of the world. A deeper understanding is especially critical for successfully interacting with other people and recognizing our own limitations and biases. This book will help you teach your child to connect everything he or she knows into a deep web of knowledge that can be used to avoid dangers and foresee changes in the world.

Your child will grow up into a society that will seem incomprehensible to those of us who remember life before the World Wide Web. Computers are getting smarter every year, and our increasingly dependent partnership with them presents dangers and opportunities. Those who are only capable of performing work that can be done by a computer will lose their jobs because the machines will be cheaper than hiring a human. But the children who grow up with a drive to understand and change the world will have tools at their disposal that we can only dream of. These tools will allow them to not only have the satisfaction of a productive career; their work will be a natural expression of their creative drive.

Learn more about The Curiosity Cycle and author Jonathan Mugan at http://jonathanmugan.com/CuriosityCycle/.

Makobi Scribe Mother’s Day Giveaway Event: Join Us!

Mother’s Day will be here before you know it! It is a perfect time to find what gifts you would like to give to your mother. Makobi Scribe is proud to present Mother’s Day Gift Ideas Carnival Event from May 10 12:01 PM EST to May 18 at 12:01 PM EST and is accepting signups now. If you have a blog and wish to participate, you just need a prize with a minimum value of $25. It’s free to participate if you write up a post like this one inviting your fellow bloggers to join! There are already more than 200 bloggers signed up. This should be a HUGE event and generate lots of traffic for your blog!

CLICK HERE TO GET STARTED!

Awaken Book Tour: Enter to Win a $100 Amazon Kindle and Swag Pack! #giveaway #awaken

Awaken (The Patronus)

Lucy Donovan was supposed to have a weekend of fun in the sun, celebrating her upcoming graduation from college. In a split second, everything changed. A drunk driver ended Lucy’s mortal life.

Lucy opens her eyes to a world she never imagined possible and a new destiny: as a Patronus, a guardian of spirits. Adjusting to her new role and abilities while negotiating this confusing realm will test her limits and push her further than she ever dreamed she would go. From wayward spirits who don’t want her help to soul-stealing vampires, and even a stuck-up British royal, Lucy must brave them all to save one spirit she can’t bear to lose.

Further complicating her confusing life is an inexplicable yet growing connection she feels to a member of her team, Max, whose mysterious behavior leaves her both confused and intrigued.

Waking up dead was just the beginning of her problems. Lucy’s death is about to become the greatest adventure of her life.

Buy it - Kindle, Paperback, Nook, and Smashwords



Author Sarah M. Ross is working with Promotional Book Tours to bring you an incredible prize pack. She is offering up...



For 25 entries in the contest, sign up for her newsletter to learn about new books coming out and contests. Go HERE to sign up for the newsletter.

Fill out the form to enter to win!

Book Review: Of Faith and Fidelity, by Evan Ostryzniuk

Guest review by T.R.

Taking place during the Papal Wars, this book refers to a period of history that most people are not only unfamiliar with, but completely unaware of even existing. Now, this isn’t to say that Of Faith and Fidelity: Geoffrey Hotspur and the War for St. Peter’s Throneis unrelatable, far from it.

With interesting, multidimensional characters, the author makes you feel invested in the story from the very beginning. While there might be a few parts of the book where you may find yourself a bit lost, they are infrequent and generally do not hinder your understanding of the story.

On the whole, Of Faith and Fidelity: Geoffrey Hotspur and the War for St. Peter’s Throne is an interesting read and a great way to spend a few rainy afternoons. And with the well-researched historical setting, you might even end up learning a bit about Catholic and European history.

Exclusive Interview with Ryan O’Riordan, Author of “Overcast,” Plus a Giveaway!

Read on for a terrific interview with Ryan O’Riordan, author of the new young adult book, Overcast, which is the first in a sprawling six-book series set in modern-day England. After the interview, be sure to enter to win a paperback copy of this terrific book!

What is Overcast about?
The book is about Rebecca Connor, who hasn’t been dealing with the disappearance of her older brother, Ben, very well. She has imagined an alternative world where they’re secretly detectives who solve crimes, all so she doesn’t have to deal with her grief from losing him. One unexplainable night, this world overwrites reality. Rebecca knows that it can’t be real, but now people are expecting her to know how to rescue her brother. She has no idea what to do, so she teams up with Freddie, a boy she knows has something to do with the “overwrites” that are happening.

How did you get the idea for this book?
Kind of a combination of things all came together. I had always wanted to write a series about young detectives, who get around the country and the world without their parents ever finding out. I also like the idea that they would be a group of people who knew of each other but wouldn’t necessarily be friends. I had also become intrigued by how indifferent everyone is to new technology like iPhones, eReaders, hard drives -- things that we remake constantly and make our own, but are fallible and instantly capable of loss as though the data that made them ours was never there. I loved the idea of adapting this to reality, where all you need to change the world was to press different information onto it.

Is this your first book? If not, what else have you written?
This is my first full-length book. I have always been writing, as far back as I remember. I know that’s a cliché, and what most writers say, but I never haven’t thought of myself as a writer. I still don’t think of myself as an author, though. I think you have to sell a lot of books before you’re willing to call yourself that!

When did you start writing? Do you have any advice for beginning writers?
I don’t think I ever didn’t write, but it was last March when I started writing for Overcast. I thought it was a risky idea, not what the publishers would traditionally go for. But I thought there would be a big market for it, and that people would get a real kick and semblance out of the story. I would say to anyone who wants to start writing that the hardest part is just to begin. You can come up with as many different plots, characters and ideas as your heart will allow, but until you actually start typing, you don’t know how it’ll fit together.

Why did you decide to write a book in this genre?
I think there’re so many brilliant ideas in young adult novels that get overlooked. It’s a brilliant medium, attracting a broad following, and you often find there are more good ideas for teenagers than there are in adult fiction, which tends to become bogged down in its own pretentious sense of purpose. You know that in young adult, the action’s going to begin, the story is not going to be some metaphoric dream, and you’ll hopefully go on a wild ride with some interesting people. Young adult tends to be something you can talk about and get excited about. My experience with adult fiction is that it’s often more of a psychological journey.

Do you plan a sequel or future books?
I started another series about vampires around the same time. That’s called “The Seasons” and is a quadrilogy, for which I’m currently writing the second book. Overcast is part of a six-book series called “The 01:23 Bardo.” I have a good plan mapped out for the other books. Book 2 is already finished and online, which delves even further into the story. I’m hoping to get Book 3 out early in the summer.

Do you have a website? How can we order this book?
I have a tumblr blog at Ryanoriordan.com. Overcast can be ordered for almost any eBook format -- Kindle, iBooks, Nook, Kobo, SmashWords -- and a paperback version, which is beautiful but pricey.

GIVEAWAY

Ryan O’Riordan has generously offered to give a paperback copy of Overcast to one very lucky US or Canadian reader! To enter, just fill out the Rafflecopter form below. Giveaway ends at 11:59 PM EST on Sunday, March 4, 2012.