Our Very First Giveaway

Win Hannah Montana Books and/or Books by Katie Lane

Now that we have over 100 followers, we want to celebrate so we are having our very first giveaway. In keeping with the theme of our blog, mothers and daughters, we will be giving away two books for daughters, two Hannah Montana books, and two books for mothers by Katie Lane. Of course, you do not have to be a mother or a daughter to win any of the books.

In the interest of full disclosure, please note that the Hannah Montana books are gently used. They were read once by Melia.

For more details about the books see below:

Shoes

Me-Shoes, wow! Like many girls, I like shoes. I am already starting to fit in some of my Mom's shoes. I still can't fit in all of them. When I do fit in all of them, I'll have an endless supply of shoes. I sometimes get shoes from my cousin. I have a lot of heels and sneakers. My Aunt has been telling my Grandma about something you can put on your feet so you don't get blisters when you wear shoes without socks. I can't wait to get it because I have a lot of shoes that fit and/or look better without socks. However, right now, they give me blisters when I wear them without socks. I am a big shoe fan.

Mom- I love shoes. I always tell my girls that you can never have too many shoes or earrings. I must have over a 100 pairs of shoes in a wide variety of colors. High heels, flats, sandals, sneakers, boots and more. I wouldn't say I have every kind of shoes there is. I don't like flip flops, for instance, because I don't like to have anything between my toes, and I am sure there are other kinds of shoes I don't like either. My dear husband indulges my love for shoes because I don't buy a lot of clothes for myself. I keep the clothes that I do get for a very long time, and I get a lot of hand-me-downs from my Mom and sister. I guess from my sister it might actually be considered a hand-me-up because she is actually younger than me. I also don't spend a lot of money on my shoes either. I rarely ever buy shoes that cost more than $20.00, and I have bought many pairs that were $10.00 or even less. Also, I don't buy shoes that I never wear. Even with all those shoes I own, I don't really have shoes just taking up space in my closet. I keep careful track of all my shoes and which ones I have worn and wear almost all of them frequently. I do have a few pairs of heels from when I was working before I had kids that I don't wear that often but I can't bear to part with. Ironically, I think I actually look better in higher heels because I have short legs and heels make them look longer. However, flats and sneakers are more comfortable so I usually wear them. In any case, the bottom line is I love shoes.

And that's our view. Tune in again for another topic.

Full House

Me - Full House, wow! It is my favorite show in the whole entire world out of every show in the whole entire world. I watch at least two episodes almost every single day. So far I own seasons 1-4, and I definitely will be getting the rest of the seasons eventually. I was first introduced to the show when I was in kindergarten by my Mom. She introduced me to it because she used to watch it and thought that I would like it too. She got me the first season as a gift. Season 2, she once gave me because I behaved well for a whole week. Season 3, I got for a holiday gift. Season 4, I got from my aunt for a birthday present. I am now trying to save up for season 5. I will keep doing that until I have saved up for and purchased all the rest of the seasons. My favorite character is Stephanie. I love Full House so much that I have a Full House necklace and t shirt I made. At my friend's birthday party, they gave us string and beads. I found the letters to the words "Full House" and made a necklace with little beads to separate each letter. Then, they gave out blank white t shirts. I started out by drawing all the regular characters from every season including Nicky, Alex, Vicky, and Comet. As soon as everyone else had finished their t shirt, they looked at mine said "Wow!" grabbed markers and started helping me. The shirt says "Full House" everywhere including on the sleeves and collar. Sometime, I'll have to do the back with the extra characters that I forgot including Kimmy, Teddy, Steve and more. I love Full House more than anything in the world. I figured out a few years ago, I am the biggest Full House fan in the world.

Mom - When Full House was first on, I think I was in college. Later, I was working as a paralegal and all the paralegals in our office always used to talk about what Michelle did on Full House that week. I can't believe that the last original show aired over 15 years ago and all those little girls are grown up and half of them have kids of their own. The Olsen twins amaze me. Not because I think they are so talented or anything, but because they are so lucky. It was just so arbitrary the way they ended up on that show. They brought a bunch of sets of twins in and the Olsen twins stayed happy the longest and that is why they got the part. Their billion dollar (or however much it is) empire was started arbitrarily too. Their producer thought that they acted cute together so he produced a TV movie for them to star in together. I believe it was called "To Grandmother's House We Go". The ratings were through the roof. Thus, an empire which later including books, movies, dolls, and clothing among other things was born. I actually thought the Olsen twins were ugly as babies that first season. From season two on they were adorable. However as adults they have always seemed kind of strange to me and not really pretty. I did enjoy seeing Mary Kate in the movie, Beastly, though.

And that's our view. Tune in again for another topic.

Collections

Me- I have had many collections. When I was little, I collected rocks from outside. I got rid of that collection a long time ago because now I think it's gross. Then, I collected pebbles for a while. I would get them from the museum and my Dad would find them. They were all pretty colors. Then, I gave them away. I badly want them back. I collect stickers. I take them off their wrappers and stick them in a journal. I am going to start collecting key chains because my Dad has gotten me some, but other than that I don't have any yet. My cousin collects key chains from other states. I haven't been to that many states, and I just want to collect key chains in general. My most prized collection is my eraser collection. I have a ton of them. I keep them in a little bag. Whenever, I see one I take it. My favorite one is a little gingerbread man. I use to wear it under my hat when I went through a phase where I wore my hat every day. I love collections and hope to start more of them.

Mom- Over the years, I have had numerous collections. Some of them I have kept. Others I have collected for a while and then got rid of. Some of my collections have gotten quite large. Others have barely had enough objects in them to be considered a collection. For instance, I once started a music box collection which at its height contained only about two or three music boxes. There was one really cool music box in it though which was a horse and cart which played the song "The Isle of Capri" and actually moved across the floor. However, probably my oldest collection if not my biggest is my collection of dolls from other countries. My grandmother started it for me when I was just a kid. She traveled a lot and everywhere she went she got me a doll. Later, other people, such as, my parents, my other grandparents, and friends added dolls to the collection. When I was older and traveled myself, I began to add dolls to the collection too. Although in recent years, I haven't added any new dolls, altogether I have about 100 dolls in my collection. My dolls have moved with me from my parents house, to my own apartment to my first home with my husband, to the home we now share with our daughters and where we have been living for the past almost 9 years. While I love my doll collection, they make me a little sad too. They make me really miss my grandmother. I can't believe she has been gone for over 20 years now. They also make me really miss traveling something I really haven't had the time and money to do since I got married and had kids. Maybe some day I'll be able to travel again at least I hope so.

And that's our view. Tune in again for another topic.

Bumps, Bruises and More

Me - When I was little, I had the chicken pox. I think that was my first time I was sick. Since than I have been sick a lot although luckily I have never had a major illness. Ever since then, I have been a have been a complete disaster. I am always bumping into walls, falling down, tripping over things, or something else. I am always twisting my ankle. Once I had a stiff neck that hurt so much I had to be taken out of gym for a week and could not play at recess. When I was a baby I was always very healthy. I didn't even get a lot of bumps and bruises. I wasn't even sick until I was 4. It is kind of strange because I was born in winter. I thought people born in winter get sick more when they are babies than people born in summer. When I was a baby I didn't get sick at all. A girl in my neighborhood was born in summer and got sick a lot. My sister who was also born in summer got sick more than me when she was a baby too. However, that was partly because she was always catching illnesses from me. Now, that I am older, I don't get sick as often but I am a mess and still very accident prone.


Mom - I have been lucky in my life and have always been relative healthy and injury free. I always have lots of bumps, and bruises and scratches, most of which I never remember where I got them from, but that's just minor. I once had a black eye. I got it because my sister accidentally bumped her head into my eye when we were playing in our basement. Another time, my brother and I were playing pet owner. I was at one end of a long string he was at the other. My Mom sent me in her room to get something. My brother pulled on the string, and I smacked into the bed. That was probably about the worst injury I have ever had because my tooth is still messed up from that and that was years ago. When we were little my sister was always getting hurt. She had a broken collar bone. Another time she had to get stitches in her head. My brother didn't get hurt as much as my sister, but he did once get a broken foot when he was kicked while playing soccer. When she was little, my older daughter was the healthiest person I know, she did not even ever get sick, but that has changed since she started school. When my stepson moved in with me when he was little, I was always catching illnesses that he brought home from school until I built up an immunity. Later when my girls started school, I didn't have that problem. My younger daughter had a cold, which she caught from her sister, when she was only two or three weeks old. When she was older, she had to get stitches in her head when she crashed into the book case running away from having her diaper change. However, the unhealthiest person in the family is my husband. When illness goes through the house, he always gets it the worst. He has had more surgeries just since I have known him than I have had in my whole life. The only time I ever had surgery was when my second daughter was born, and I had a c-section. I also had a cyst removed at the same time. Overall, though I have always been very lucky and healthy.

And, that's our view. Tune in again for another topic.

The Mall

Me- My family and I always used to go to the mall. We would go to places like Borders and FYE. We would always eat at the food court and afterwards go and get cookies at Mrs. Fields. Now it seems all that's left is a video store and a bunch of clothing stores. There is still a food court but even that has changed. There is no McDonalds. We don't really go to the mall anymore unless we need something specific like a pillow from Sears. I like to go to the mall though because I like the clothing there. I love Justice, Aeropostale, Children's Place, Crazy Eights and more. My grandmother takes me there sometimes. I can't wait to go there with her to get new fall clothes for school.

Mom - When I was a kid when we went clothing shopping, we always went to the mall. Later when I was a teenager, I was never one of those teenagers who always hung out at the mall, but I went there sometimes, and it was fun to hang out there. There were a lot of fun stores to browse. Even when I was married and had kids we liked to spend an occasional evening at the mall. Maybe it's just me, but the mall has gotten so boring lately. We haven't really shopped there for clothes in years. We usually go to stores like Target and Walmart where you can usually get better bargains and there is more of a selection of things than just clothes. At least around here, those type of stores are usually located in smaller strip malls. Still, we liked to go to the mall to have dinner at Friendly's or the food court and then browse. However all of the kinds of stores,we used to like to browse seem to be disappearing. There are no more book stores in our mall since Borders closed. There are no more music stores. There is still a video store, but who knows how long that will be there. There is really no place left that we like to go that we can just have fun looking around for a while and not really feel the need to buy anything, but just have fun browsing. I kind of miss it.

And that's our view. Tune in again for another topic.

School

Me - School! Wow! I love school. My school is behind my house,and I walk there. It takes less than 1/2 a minute. Sometimes, my Dad takes me to the playground at my school when school is not in session. My favorite subjects in school are science, social studies, math, reading, writing, gym, art, music and library. So basically I like all my subjects. I love everything about school even homework. Of course, I am not in high school yet so maybe that will change. At the present time though. I can't wait for high school because I will get binders full of homework. When I was little and my brother still did his homework, when he was doing his homework I would take out a piece of paper and say I was doing my homework too. My favorite year ever so far was third grade because I loved my teacher so much. When my friend and I were leaving school the last day that year we were crying buckets. We had started crying a half hour to an hour before school even ended and we continued even after school ended, and we saw our parents.

Mom -I was never really crazy about school, but I didn't mind it. When I was young, I was good at all my subjects. When I was older, I was better at English and social studies than math and science. I loved English because I always loved to read and write which is what eventually lead me to start this blog with my daughter. I was always kind of quiet in school and never really in the popular crowd, but that was okay with me. My favorite year of school ever was first grade back when school was still really fun even though you were learning too. I'm glad to say that so far both my daughters seem to like school. Of course, my older one goes back and forth one day she loves it, the next day she hates it. When she was little, she loved school more than anyone I have ever known. In the morning and I would go into her room to wake her up, she would not want to get up. I would says "Okay, fine. If you don't want to go to school, I'm going back to sleep." No sooner would I get back to my room and lie under the covers, when my daughter would be in my room with her school clothes eager to get ready for school. I could never do that with my younger daughter or with my stepson, who lived with us until he was 15, they would have just gone back to sleep. My stepson hated school. He stopped doing his homework when he was in middle school. He didn't care if could get an A instead of a B or a C instead of a D or even if it was the difference between passing and failing. He just refused to do his homework. However, he still got passed from grade to grade. I don't think that was such a good thing. He learned from that that he doesn't have to do anything he doesn't want to do. Now, he is almost 17. He dropped out of high school, got his GED and since than he has drifted around from one course of study to another never finishing any of them. I'm glad that so far my girls still like school Whether they like school or not, they always do their school work and homework. I make sure of that. They are motivated anyway because they have learned from their brother not to take his example and to do what is expected of them.

And that's our view. Tune in again for another topic.

What We Used to Watch

Me - When I was little, I watched Jojo's Circus. It was my favorite show. One day, my Dad put it on because there was nothing else on for me, and I ended up liking it. I used to have plastic Jojo toys and stuffed Jojo toys. The little plastic Jojo got stuck under the fridge, and we didn't find it for two years. I also watched Clifford. I called him Coochie and his owner Emily Ebisleth. I had small stuffed animals and big stuffed animals of all the Clifford dogs.I also watched Calliou and now my sister does. I had a big Caillou doll and tiny dolls of his sister, Rosie and their cat, Gilbert. I watched Barney. My brother liked it when he was 5, he passed on the liking to me and I passed it on to my sister. I watched it in the days when Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato were still on it. I had several stuffed Barneys and most of them sang. I also had a stuffed BJ and a stuffed Baby Bop. They both also sang. For Halloween when I was 2, I was Baby Bop, and I called her Bop Bop. I used to like Sesame Street, and I still like it. We used to go to Sesame Live every year. It seems like the shows they do are still the same just the names have changed. My favorite Sesame Live show is about the fabulous five. The five were Elmo, Rosetta, Telly, Zoe, and Rocco. The fabulous five were super heroes. Rocco was actually Zoe's pet rock, but she insisted on including him in the group. They all took turns saving people, but Rocco just went with Zoe. He didn't get his own turn. I also watched Jack's Big Music, and it was also one of my favorites. I also had stuffed animals of many of the Sesame Street characters. The summer before preschool started, the two reasons I couldn't wait for summer to be over was because Jack's Big Music was coming on, and my sister was going to be born.

Mom - When I was a kid, there wasn't nearly as much children's TV as there is now. I used to watch Sesame Street. That was in the days before there was Elmo when Jim Henson was still alive, and Kermit was still on Sesame Street. I love that Sesame Street is still around after all these years, and both my daughters have watched it too. It makes me sad that we are coming to the end of our Sesame Street days as my youngest will be entering kindergarten this fall. When I got a little older, I watched The Electric Company, the original Electric Company not that new version they have now which I don't like at all. We got the DVD The Best of the Electric Company. It is perfect for my younger daughter who is learning to read, but my older daughter enjoys watching it with us too. I forgot how catchy the songs were, and now that we have gotten it I can't get them out of my head. When I was a little older I loved The Partridge Family. The plots weren't all that exciting, but I just loved that they were a family and a working singing group at the same time. I even loved the music, bubblegum pop though it may have been. David Cassidy was my first crush when I was like five years old. I confess I actually still like The Patridge Family. We have the DVDs from every season (there were only 4) and all the CD's (all the records have been re-released on CD.) That is another show my kids have grown to love as well. We even took them to a David Cassidy concert once. They were fairly young at the time, but they had a great time and were dancing in the aisles. When I was a little older I moved on to The Hardy Boys and loved David Cassidy's half brother, Sean Cassidy and his (Sean's) TV brother, Parker Stevenson. The show was on Sunday nights, and I literally used to countdown the minutes until it was on. Years later, I saw Sean and David Cassidy appearing as brothers in the Broadway show "Blood Brothers". It was very nostalgic for me.

And that's our view. Tune in again for another topic.