How flexible are you?

For Father’s day, Peanut (*cough* mom *cough*) bought Jon a Sabona Tungsten Carbide Magnetic Bracelet.



There is this whole thing about these bracelets promoting health and other positive effects on your body.  One of which, apparently, has to do with flexibility. 

Apparently, these are supposed to help you with your golf swing…yeah, cuz we totally need more golf around here.

So Jon and I decided that we just had to test the theory for ourselves.   We’re not saying it works, but check this out.

1- The Reach



(Are you looking a this hands or his toes?)

2 – The Twist



(Check out the candle as the marker).

When Jon told me about this, I said that it’s total…umm…fooey (yeah, let’s say that’s the word I used).  Then he demonstrated and I laughed.  I told him he was faking it.

Then I tried The Reach, but felt and saw no difference.  I told Jon he was cheating.  Then I tried The Twist.  And it actually worked – I could twist further and felt like it was easier.

I’m still skeptic.

What do you guys think?

Mom jewelry

I know this is bragging but we have some of the best family, friends and co-workers in the world.  We've been getting non-stop presents for Addison since before she was even born!

From cutesy fluffy blankets to the best outfits I've ever seen, everything we've received has blown our minds and made us feel incredibly grateful.

But there are 2 gifts I just have to share with you because I think you should go out and buy these this instant.

When we came home, our friends Kari and Mike came over for a drink and to meet baby Addison.  They brought us a gift from one of our co-workers, Sophie.  I've received a lot of precious gifts for baby Addi, but this one was for me (good thing because I was planning on wearing it anyways)!  It's a necklace with the baby's initial and her birthstone.  How thoughtful is that?

I was wearing this necklace every single day since I got it until about 2 weeks ago.  That's around the time that Addison decided that she liked to grab things around my neck and pull them.  Hard.  I was worried that the chain would break so I thought I'd put this away until she gets out of that habit.  I love this necklace and wouldn't want to lose it.

Then my friend Kari got me this.

Seriously, could she be any more thoughtful?  It's a necklace with a teething ring!  Thankfully we don't have to use it yet, but I plan on wearing it every day while the baby is teething.  It's super cute and fun and totally something I would wear anyways.  But now I wouldn't have to worry about breaking it or hurting the baby!

So if you are looking for some creative and unique gifts for that special someone who is a mommy or about to become one, these are my recommendations.

Presto Griddle and pancakes

This is a story about a girl, a griddle and pancakes.

Every Saturday and Sunday morning I wake up, roll over (this is a way bigger deal than it seems with a big belly), scratch my husband's back and ask him where my pancakes are.

Jon usually pretends to be asleep.  So I poke him.  Over and over again.  Then ask him where my pancakes are.  Eventually, he realizes that there is no getting away from me and ends up getting up to make me pancakes.  I've perfected the art of being annoying.

Before this Christmas making pancakes was a huge deal.  We would have to heat up 2 or 3 skillets and I'd have to wait about 30 minutes to have pancakes.  But not anymore.

This Christmas my wonderful mother-in-law got us this Presto Tilt 'n Drain Big Griddle.

Now making breakfast is easy, quick, and fun!

Just plug and turn on the griddle, make some pancake batter and pour it on.

You can make a bagillion pancakes at once!  With chocolate chips of course.

There's even still room for sausage,

and eggs.

Jon and I can have all the breakfast we want in one shot!

It's incredible.  And the best part is that I don't have to wait very long for my pancakes anymore.

This was not sponsored in any way.  I just really like pancakes.  And maple syrup.  And my new griddle.

Your Holiday Gift Guide - A Portable Hard Drive

It doesn't matter if you're a mom, a dad, a college student, a scrapbooker, or a photographer.  You should definitely invest in an external hard drive for storage.

Here's the one I have and love.

This is the Toshiba external drive and they come in many sizes:

 












I bought mine a long time ago so these were a bit more expensive and a lot smaller, but today you can get 1TB (I honestly doubt that you will ever fill 1/10th of that) for close to nothing.

I use mine to back up everything I own, to store my music, my pictures, and even movies.   Just for reference, I have a 320GB drive and I haven't reached 1/4 of it (1000GB = 1 TB).

Now now...I know that technically I'm a geek who spends her time working with computers all day and then comes home to a computer and gadgets, but I'm serious when I say that everyone should have one of these.

And as an IT person I have to give you a little lecture:
Have you ever lost things that matter a lot to you like your pictures?  Or that address list you spent years putting together?  Have you ever ruined your computer hard drive by pouring water on it or dropping it?  Or had your PC stolen?  Well, imagine how much nicer life would be if everything was safely sitting on an external little drive that fits into your back pocket?  And if you're me, you have another external drive to backup your external drive.  Yup.

And no, no one is paying me or compensating me for this review.  I am literally that much of a geek.

Moving on.  Now that I have one, here's what nifty little gadget is on my Wishlist this year:


This guy will let you plug all your external drives and share them over the web with a secure site.  You can read some more about them or shoot me an e-mail if you're curious.  This will make sharing all my pictures of our little Peanut with the family about 1000 easier!  Plus my lazy butt doesn't have to get up and get my external hard drive ever again to back up my PC.









For more ideas, check out my full guide for everyone on YOUR list

Your Holiday Gift Guide - Wii

As a kid I absolutely loved video games.  To name a few, my favorite games were Mortal Combat for Sega, Sonic for Sega, Super Mario for Super Nintendo and N64, and Vice City for Playstation 2.

Oh how I miss those games.

Then, a couple of years ago, Jon and I decided to get the Wii game system.

I'm not going to lie to you, I was a bit skeptical at first.  I felt like we were too old for this game stuff.  And there is no way that we'd really have time to play.  But then we played a few times at friends' houses and the next thing I know, I'm giving in.

And you know what?  I'm so freakin' glad we did it!  Let me give you some pros.

• This is going to change your parties.  Jon and I just love firing up the Wii and some friendly competition among buddies along with some good snacks and drinks.  In this case, you'll also want Wii Party.
• You can download games from the old game systems.  For like $5!  We have Super Mario 3 and Sonic the Hedgehog.  I'm obsessed.
• If you have Netflix (and we do!), you can watch all the streaming TV shows and movies offered by Netflix on your Wii!  You heard that right.  It's amazing.  We're currently in the middle of Lie to Me Season 2.  O B S E S S ED!
• When your parents or parents-in-law come over and you run out of things to talk about or do, you can just challenge them in the Wii Boxing game.  Then once you beat your dad (sorry, Dad) and you're both sweating like pigs, he will decide that he wants it too.  Which is awesome because you now have easy gifts to get for him for Christmas since there is an endless number of games!
• Your husband who is obsessed with golf can play on Wii.  And you can save a buck or two.  But you might have to watch it.  I don't know what's worse, actually.

Some cons that we've learned about:

• It doesn't play Blu Ray.  But we have a Blu Ray player so...I'm over it.
• The little sensor guy on top of my TV keeps falling behind the TV because this pregnancy's made me the world's clumsiest person and I'm too big to reach behind the TV to retrieve it.  So I basically just sit there and whine until Jon gets it back.  Then he shakes his head at me while I turn around and knock it off again.  We'd tape it to the TV but we bring it into different rooms and to peoples' houses.  It's too good to keep to yourself.

 Here are some awesome games and accessories you might want:

























































As with all others, this is not a paid review.  Just my personal opinion about gifts we're already received and love.

For more ideas (I add to this list all the time so don't forget to check back!), check out some other Holiday Shopping Ideas:

Your Holiday Gift Guide - the Cricut

We're getting close to Christmas time!  And you know what that means - PRESENTS!

I'll prelude this by saying that if you're not a scrapbooker, you might want to skip the rest of this and just go straight to the Holiday Shopping List.

But if you are or if someone on your shopping list is, read on.

Today we'll be talking about the Cricut.

This here marvelous piece of machinery is a personal electronic cutter.

Basically, you can buy different cartridges and plug them in to the machine to cut out whatever you desire - shapes, letters, animals, snowflakes.  You name it, it does it.

It's addictive.  Imagine never having to go buy any more letters, little squiggles, envelopes, cards, or even Christmas tags.  Plus you get to choose whatever paper you want!

Some cons is that it takes a while to cut out shapes or letters and even longer if you want to be creative and layer things.  It has all the capabilities like shadow cuts and other creative options, but it takes a while to glue itty bitty little shapes and letters on top of one another.  You also have to buy various cartridges and other supplies to make things work well.  The blades seems to last forever, but the mats lose their stickiness pretty quick if you're a heavy user.  There's all sorts of stats on how long each will last in the descriptions so feel free to snoop around.

If you have the Cricut or know someone who does, there are always cartridges and other accessories you can get.  It's so much fun to try out the new shapes!

Here's a list of some awesome accessories:



























And some of my favorite cartridges:
















































































I could probably go on forever on the cartridges.  For a full listing and a video about the Cricut, check out their website:
http://www.cricut.com/


For other gift ideas, check out my Holiday Shopping List.

Your Holiday Gift Guide - Hamilton Beach Slow Cooker

This week on the Holiday Gift Guide I'll be reviewing my beloved slow cooker.

This here folks is the Hamilton Beach Set 'n' Forget Programmable Slow Cooker.

If you follow my blog, I've mentioned it while making the Hearty Chicken Enchiladas and delicious moist and tender Chicken Wings.

Needless to say, I am a BIG fan of this amazing piece of machinery.

Let me tell you a little about our friend here.  We all know the beauty of a slow cooker - you get to put it on, walk away, and let it do the work for you.  But here's my problem - I don't work 6-8 hour work days.  That means that I can never really do that.  Instead I have a couple of options - don't cook in the slow cooker during the week days; turn it on in the morning and come home at lunch to turn it off, leaving my food cold; come home at lunch and turn it on so that dinner is ready around 8pm.  Technically, those are all decent options that I've dealt with for a couple of years.  But dude - who wants a cold dinner? Or a late dinner?  Or no dinner?  Have we met?

So instead I asked for this little beauty for Christmas last year.

Here's what this guy can do:

• Cook on a manual setting - just like any other slow cooker
• Cook based on programmed time
• Cook based on temperature measured by an attached probe thermometer (this one's my favorite option)
• Keep your food warm once it's finished cooking
• Lock the cover with clip-on thingy-magiggers and carry this guy anyplace without spilling a drop
• Take the whole thing apart and stick all the needed pieces in the dishwasher

All this means that I can get my act together in the morning, put my food in, choose my favorite option with the probe, set it to a temperature indicated in the recipe or in the handy attached guide, and go to work!  (Quick piece of advice - don't forget to turn it on.  I have done that.  Cold food is not cool).  Then come home hours later to a hot meal that stopped cooking exactly when the food reached a certain temperature, then switched to "keep warm" setting!  I'm sure the other options are wicked cool too, but I love the temperature probe.

I've brought my Hamilton Beach Slow Cooker to a couple of work potlucks since it's super easy to transport things in this slow cooker, powered it on, and let things cook to a perfect temperature without drying the content out.  As a result, about 2 coworkers went out and bought one themselves.

As for the cons - I honestly cannot think of a single one.  I guess it's a little big, but I actually wanted a bigger slow cooker since mine only fit an itty bitty amount.

So there you have it folks.

For more ideas for your holiday gifts, don't forget to check out the Living Like the Kings Holiday Shopping Ideas.  (I just added a slew of new items to it!)

Here's a bonus this time around - if you have items you love, reviewed, etc and want to link up, I've created a Linky Tool.  Enter a direct link to the review and include the product name in the name.

Your holiday gift guide - a Barnes & Nobles Nook

This week's awesome holiday gift is the Barnes & Nobles Nook.

I got mine for my birthday this year.  I'm sure this is going to come as a shocker to everyone, but I did spend quiet a bit of time doing my research and looking up reviews.  So here is why I chose the Nook.

First off, it's a Digital Reader which means that it's a small computer-looking thingy where you can download books, magazines, etc and read them.  The best part is that it's wicked light and small - letting you take it anywhere.  I'm the kind of gal that packs about 3-4 books with me when we go on vacations on top of about 10 magazines for the flight.  A digital reader can hold all that in a tiny lightweight little screen.  If you like to read, you should definitely invest in one.

Now here is the reason that I chose the Nook over any other digital reader:

• Barnes & Nobles digital books are super cheap.  I've yet to pay more than $10 for any one of them.  Obviously, the books that are in higher demand are probably more expensive, but you can definitely find some amazing deals.  B&N also has free books every week that you can download.
• My local library supports the B&N Nook.  This means that I can go online any time and download free books from my library to my Nook.  If you take advantage of your local library (and you should!) check to see which e-readers it will support.  Most of them will support the Sony e-reader as well as the Nook.
• B&N has e-lend.  This means that if you have friends who also have the Nook and the digital book you purchased is available for e-lending, you can share them with your friends at no cost!
• B&N Nook has Wi-fi, games, internet browser, and so much more.  You can play some music with the built-in MP3 player while reading, play Sudoku, look up words that you don't understand, hi-light (especially if you are using it to read textbooks).  All in one little itty bitty cutie e-reader. 

These are some draw backs to the e-readers in general, as well as the Nook:

• You have to get used to "turning the pages".  There is a weird delay.  Apparently it's there on purpose but I don't buy it.  In any case, after reading for about 2 minutes, you don't notice it.
• There is no back light.  This is definitely on purpose because I guess it's bad for your eyes.  But sometimes I wish it would just light up.
• There is a limit on the number of books you can hold at a time.  I haven't reached it yet.  But I know there is one.

So those are some of the things that led me to the Nook.  And I haven't looked back.  I just love it.

If you like to use your iPhone or other data phones to read books, there is a Nook app for your phone!  ps- I just figured this out today.

So if you're looking for a gift for someone who loves to read, travel, or has it all (except for an e-reader), this could be the gift for you!

I'd also recommend some of these accessories:

Wicked awesome cover for the Nook that's totally classy looking.













Totally cute cover for those who are looking for a little more flare.














For the night owls.  Like me.  I don't have one yet.
 *Hint hint*











For the traveler.













Don't forget to check out this and other gift ideas on my Holiday Gift Guide.

Your holiday gift guide - a DSLR camera

Have I ever told you how much I love the Holidays?  Seeing the decorations in the stores makes me giddy.  I know that it's still early and Thanksgiving is still around the corner and many of you are probably walking around the stores, sighing deeply and wondering why there are already Christmas decorations and Christmas items around the stores.  But me?  Nah uh.  I'm excited!

So to celebrate the stores putting up Christmas decorations, I am going to start an annual holiday gift guide.  I'll just review the items I own and love and if you're struggling to find the perfect gift for your loved ones, check it out.  I'll add all the items to this here handy shopping guide:

And I'm going to add a Linky Tool at the bottom so if you want to pitch in and give your ideas - Link up!

Today I'll start with my love, my heart, my DSLR camera.

I did a lot of research before finally settling on my Canon Rebel Xsi.  The reason I chose this camera above others is its ease of use, the price, and its capabilities.

I really wanted something that would allow me to get started since I've never had a DSLR before, but I also didn't want to buy a "start up" camera that I would have to replace not too long after. 





I actually settled on a Canon Rebel XS which is currently significantly cheaper but when I was finally ready to purchase the camera, the Canon Rebel XSi fell in price so much that it was only about $50 difference!  I couldn't say "no" to that.  (ps- I recommend putting your "wish list" items in your shopping cart on amazon.com because you get notified anytime it decreases in price - that's how I caught my deal).

So let me tell you what I love about my camera.

First and foremost, I LOVE the picture quality.

Picture with digital camera

Picture with Canon Rebel XSi

See?  It's impressive! And that's on an automatic setting.  That's right.

Which brings me to my second favorite thing about this camera - it takes incredible pictures even on an automatic setting.  One of the things that really scared me about getting a DSLR is that I would never know how to use it.  But this camera has made things super simple.  I think the best part about this auto setting is that it also lets you know what settings are on during each shot - i.e. ISO, etc.  I use that to practice later on on my own and try to mimic the settings and then veer off a bit.

Then, once you get the hang of it, it's super easy to start trying out some of the other settings.  I'm still looking for a book or two on DSLR's and photography (*hint hint*) but in the meantime, I've been using the wonderful Google to get hints and advice and learn about this amazing new hobby.

Some things that I think aren't all that great about this camera is that it is big, as are most DSLR's.  I was ready for that though.  But I do wish I waited a bit longer because just a couple of months after I bought my camera a new one came out with HD video capabilities.  I'm not sure that I would pay the price to get that, nor am I sure I want them all in one, but I would like to have had an option.  Overall though, I really have 0 complaints.  Nada.  I love it.  It's my baby.

But be careful because this hobby is super addictive.  These are some items that I bought almost instantly:




This bag holds the camera and a whole bunch of lenses.  I'm not a big fan of the fanny-pack-looking thing and I wanted something easier.  Plus if fits a bunch of other stuff in case you want to pack up a sweater for cool weather or throw in a charger or two.  I love it.











Then of course I bought a whole bunch of SD cards.  And then I bought this 32 GB one for our trip to Dominican Republic because I panicked and decided that there was no way that I would fit all the pictures I would take on the 16GB, 8GB and 4GB cards I already packed.  I may have an issue.  I blame Jon for supporting it.







Now what I really want is this lens:




But there is no way in my life that I will afford it for my little hobby.









So instead I think I'll be asking for these for Christmas:



For all my super awesome far away shots.  Everyone has to have a telephoto lens, right?  Anyways, I read a whole bunch of things about what lenses to get and this is what I settled on for a price I can afford.











And this one for close-ups.  I can't wait to get all in my baby's face with this one.














And this flash because I don't want to blind her with mine.  And it makes everything look more natural.  I'm excited.  Aren't you?








So there you have it folks.  If you are a photography lover or married a photography lover or want to be a photography lover or...well...you get the point.  Here are some ideas for you.  With my commentary.  Enjoy.

I'll try to keep these down to once a week so you don't feel overwhelmed.