Busy Mom Reviews

Remember the Wells Fargo Someday Stories?

The winner (has sound) is Evelyn Krieger of Sharon, Massachussetts!

She won $100,000 to make her Someday dream of expanding Yaldah magazine come true. Yaldah magazine’s mission is to empower girls to follow their passion and dreams, to inspire creativity and leadership, and to celebrate Jewish values.

On Decvember 10, 2008, Evelyn and Leah were honored at the Wells Fargo History Museum in San Francisco at an awards ceremony.

Wells Fargo is also donating $250,000 to Habitat for Humanity. Habitat for Humanity received 25,542 votes from all of you. This will help Habitat for Humanity continue its mission of helping families turn their someday dream of owning a home into reality by building houses in partnership with people who need them.

Junior Achievement will receive a donation of $150,000 and Boys and Girls Clubs of America will receive a $50,000 donation from Wells Fargo.

Thank you to all who entered and voted.

Safety at Home is a new site from Underwriter's Laboratories (UL).

You might recognize the UL name or logo from several items in your house. UL is the world’s leading independent test lab. Since 1894, UL has been writing safety standards, testing and certifying products and checking manufacturers’ facilities to make sure their products continue to meet UL requirements.

They're even sponsoring a Holiday Sweepstakes where they're giving away a UL certified digital camera each day, and the Grand Prize will be $10,000 of Best Buy products certified by UL

Find out some holiday safety tips and you can also find out how safe your home is by taking their online safety quiz.

I received a Sony Mylo 2 personal communicator for review. Mylo stands for "my life online", by the way.

Once you understand that it works on wifi (no bills or pricey data plans!) and it's not a cell phone (though it does work with Skype) you have a cute little Internet device.

As a bonus, Sony Mylo owners receive free Wi-Fi access at over 10,000 Wayport Hotspot locations nationwide; including over 9,000 participating Wi-Fi enabled McDonald's® Restaurants, 70 IHOP restaurants, 600 hotels, and more.

With it's backlit, full QWERTY keyboard and a beautiful 800x 480 pixel high resolution touch screen, it's a fun way to stay connected to the Internet when you're on the go.

It was easy to operate right out of the box. The first thing you need to know is the little plastic tab thingy in the packaging is the stylus, and it goes on the wrist strap. Take it from me. It's very sharp looking, it looks kind of like a PSP, and it weighs about 7 oz., so it's easy to pack in a bag or purse.

It's got lots of features such as a 1.3 megapixel camera, ability to upload and download photos, photo editing software, 1g of internal memory, a mini USB port, expandable memory via a Memory Stick Duo/PRO Duo™ and it supports instant messaging.

If you want to store your music or video, the mylo comes with headphones and it supports Windows Media DRM 10 and plays MP3, AAC, ATRAC or WMA files. Video support includes MPEG4 and MPEG4/AVC.

My oldest child is a volleyball player and I spend a lot of time at the gym. The Mylo has been handy to have around since the gym has wifi. The battery life has been good and I'm looking forward to traveling with it after the first of the year.

The Sony Mylo comes in balck and white and currently retails for around $199.

OK, how cute are these?

Everyone knows the best part of an ice cream cone is the cone itself, and what could be better that a chocolate filled cone?

Firelilly Gourmet Chocolate Truffle Cones are individually wrapped chocolate truffle filled sugar cones. They come in several flavors: decadent dark; minty mousse; chocolate milk, peanut butter and dark raspberry.

We were lucky enough to receive some of them to try out and boy are they delicious! I love sugar cones, and they are filled with creamy high quality Belgian chocolate truffle filling

Firelilly Gourmet Chocolate Truffle Cones can be a dessert by themselves or would make a cute garnish to a dessert plate. You can order them in a variety of packages from gallon size apothecary jars to 2 cone canisters.

And the best part is that if you order after reading about Firelilly Gourmet Chocolate Truffle COnes on a blog, you get 10% off, just click the banner here for your discount.

Order some for your holiday dinner today or tuck them in a stocking for a surprise on Christmas morning!

The Children's Place is a great spot to find kids' clothing.

We especially like their fabulous pajamas and have been buying them since the kids were babies.

Now, you can have a chance to try them out, or pick up a last minute Christmas gift. Order by 11am EST on 12/22/08 to ensure delivery by 12/24 (according to their website).

I'm giving away a $30 gift card!

1. Leave a comment to be entered. Twitter about it if you love me, since this will be a quick contest.

2. Since it's so close to Christmas (ack), enter by Friday, December 19, 2008 10pm CST, 2009.

3. One winner will be drawn randomly on the same day by 11pm CST.

Good luck, and tell all your friends!

The Smart Shopper is an electronic grocery list maker.

It's a lot of fun, all you do is press and speak want to put on the list, and it puts it on your list. When you are ready to go to the store, you just print it and it's already organized your list by department.

There's an extensive list (over 2,500) of items already in the Smart Shopper, or you can add your own custom items. You can even say when you have a coupon for something, and it will print as a reminder on your list.

You can also record your errand list in the Smart Shopper.

It can be mounted on the wall, or it has built in magnet and sticks very securely to the refrigerator.

We have really enjoyed it, the kids have had a ball and it would be a great idea to bookmark where to get more paper until the novelty wears off a bit since everyone will be talking to your fridge and printing from the Smart Shopper.

Be sure to follow Smart Shopper on Twitter, too!

It's on sale for $79.99 right now, but guess what? I'm giving one away to a lucky reader.

1 Leave a comment to be entered. Twitter about it if you love me, since this will be a quick contest.

3. One winner will be drawn randomly on the same day by 11pm CST, and I will do my very best to get it to you by Christmas.

Lands' End has lots of things to make your winter a little warmer.

I'm giving away your choice of ONE of the following:

Kid's Angel Fleece Pajamas (for boys and girls), a $29.50 value, now on sale!

We got to try out these warm and fuzzy pajamas and the kids love them, especially since we live in an old (see also: cold) house.

Men's Low Shearling Moc Slippers are really comfy and have a flexible, durable sole that can stand up to a trip to the mailbox or out to the car.

A $45 value, they're now on sale!

Women's Terry Travel Slippers are soft, slip resistant and they come with their own bag to protect them and they are super comfy! A $25 value, now on sale!

To win your choice of ONE of the above:

1 Leave a comment to be entered. Twitter about it if you love me, since this will be a quick contest.

2. Since it's so close to Christmas (ack), enter by Friday, December 19, 2008 10pm CST, 2009.

3. One winner will be drawn randomly on the same day by 11pm CST, and Lands' End will do their best to get it to you as soon as possible, can't gurantee Christmas, but New Year gifts are fun, too!! (It's my fault I didn't start the contest in time!).

Here are the winners for my 3 giveaways drawn by the handy dandy random number generator:

Lands' End - Comment #13, Janine from Twincident!

Smart Shopper - Comment #27 Chantelle from Photomommy

Children's Place gift card: Comment #43 Liz from Lizzy's Dear Life

If any of the above be you, contact me ASAP and I'm sending you an e-mail, too.

Thanks, everyone, for playing and helping spread the word, and watch this space because I got other stuff coming really, really soon.

OK, how fun is this?

The Active Life Outdoor Challenge by Namco will really get you up and moving.

It's a game for the Nintendo Wii with over a dozen games that use the Wii remote and the special Active Life mat. You can play by yourself or with other people and rack up the Active Points playing games such as mine cart, log jumping, river raft, trampoline and more.

The special dance dance revolution- like mat included in the game is the controller. It's designed for two people to play at one time, though it can get a little crowded and it takes a little practice to stay in the right spot, but once you get the hang of it, you're good to go.

You can start with the Free Play mode to get familiar with the games and move on to the Outdoor Adventure mode to get more games. There's also an exercise mode or workout mode where you can really work up a sweat.

The whole family loves it, there's games the 6 year old can play, too since the activities have 3 different difficulty settings.

Get off the couch and get one, you'll like it!

For the longest time, I had a vague notion that I should look into getting a "smart phone". I saw all these people with their various devices browsing the internet, reading their e-mails effortlessly and just generally doing cool stuff.

By way of review, a "smart phone" is a mobile phone that has features beyond simply making and receiving phone calls. They often have keyboards and can do many of the functions of a PC.

I'd think about it and think about it some more, and decide, "Nah, I can do without it." While I do work full-time, I don't have a job where it's vital to keep in contact when I'm out of the office and I wondered if these phones were simply more than I needed.

But, I've learned that these phones aren't only for work.

I was given a Samsung Blackjack II to try out (pink!) I discovered (and re-discovered) so many handy things you can do with these phones that I now can't imagine not having one.

First, since I have a teenager, I've used and used and used the full QWERTY keyboard for texting. Though I can certainly text with a regular phone, I have to admit, the full keyboard sure is nice to have.

A smart phone can sometimes eliminate the need to carry multiple devices around. They have cameras (though not meant to replace your digital camera, the Blackjack II's camera is actually pretty good for quick, spur of the moment outdoor shots) and many smart phones also have enough memory (you can get memory cards, too) to hold songs, videos and lots of photos, too.

Windows Mobile is one operating system for these phones and there's lots of handy stuff to use. If you have a PC, the phone can be easily synchronized (seriously, even I can do it) with your home computer and you can take all kinds of stuff with you on the go.

You can send and view all your e-mail just like you do on your PC at home. You can even use Outlook Mobile and have all your contacts and mail from your home computer.

With a smart phone, you can access the Internet anywhere. You can even import all your favorites from Internet Explorer.

I wondered if internet access was a luxury I didn't need, but there's been several instances where I've used it, that I really think it's worth it.

I've been able to quickly find directions to places I "thought" I knew how to get to, I've been able to quickly check the bank balance while Christmas shopping, I've looked up movie times, locations and run times while out and about with the teenager and have quickly gotten the weather radar during outdoor activities when the skies looked ominous.

I've also enjoyed being able to do things on my down time. I find myself waiting a lot of sports practices and doctors offices. I'm able to catch up on the news, my e-mail and some online work I have to do.

I admit, I also do fun things with the internet access such as keeping up with Twitter, blog reading and instant messaging (Windows Mobile supports most IM services you already use).

If you do need to take work with you or you get an e-mail with an attachment, there's Office Mobile where you can open and edit Microsoft Office Word and Excel documents, and view PowerPoint documents.

Another cool thing I discovered was Windows Live Search mobile. I admit to being unclear about all the Windows Live terminology, but this is really neat.

Windows Live Search Mobile is a search tool especially for mobile phones where you can do things like browse and search for business categories, get turn by turn directions to a location, get traffic information, gas prices, weather forecasts, movie times, restaurant reviews and more.

There's voice recognition, you can just speak the location you're trying to reach and you can even search for things near your current location (depending on phone) such as "grocery store" or "mechanic". Having had a car break down on the way to vacation this past summer, I know that would come in handy.

The one thing you must understand, though is that you need a data plan for a smart phone from your cell phone provider since the cool stuff is very data intensive and can cost a lot of money if you don't have a monthly data plan. See your service provider for details.

I'm learning there's so much you can do with a Windows Mobile smart phone, it's not just a work thing. I feel like I've only scratched the surface. But, I'm making better use of my time and have access to all sorts of useful information when I'm out and about and now I can't imagine being without it.

Pop Star Guitar by XS games is an entry into the video game guitar craze.

In this game for the Wii (it comes in a PlayStation 2 version, too), instead of a little plastic guitar, you use a sheath to go over the Wii controller that has the guitar buttons (for your fretting hand) and you attach the nunchuk to the controller for your strumming hand.

The object of the main game (there are some mini-games, too) is to complete a concert at a venue and you have to please the fans. If you do, you get money and unlock new venues. If you don't, then you get booed and the game is over. There are single player and multi-player modes.

This game has a wide variety (over 50 songs) of current music such as from the Jonas Brothers, Fall Out Boy, Miley Cyrus and Rihanna (though I'm not sure all of the songs are by the original artists).

Other fun things are that you can customize your band by changing their looks, instruments, clothing, and even their names.

Check it out!

PopStar Guitar for Wii retails for $59.99.

I have had such fun with the Nintendo DS Personal Trainer: Cooking. I love all my DS games, and the "grown-up" ones are a great addition to my collection.

It's a combination of an interactive cookbook and live cooking demonstration that shows you how to make over 245 recipes from countries all over the world. You can search for recipes by ingredients, calorie count, cooking time, difficulty and more.

Once you choose a recipe, the DS Chef takes you through every step . It'll even help you make a shopping list by tapping the ingredients with your stylus. If you don't know a certain technique, there's video to show you what to do within each recipe.

Nintendo DS Personal Trainer: Cooking can be controlled by the stylus or you can use voice commands to navigate your way through it. Just say "next" or "repeat" and it'll take you right through the recipe.

When you finish a recipe, you can put a stamp on the game calendar, to mark that you've made the dish and when you made it. Later, you can search by whether or not you've made a dish before and you can customize a recipe to your own liking.

I've enjoyed just looking around all the recipes for inspiration. I actually used mine in the grocery store when I was looking for yet something else I could do with ground beef.

Personal Trainer: Cooking retails for around $19.99 and is the first in a planned series of Personal Trainer titles from Nintendo.

On December 16-20th, 2008 the Snowball Express, an annual event that brings together children and surviving spouses of military personnel who have been killed while on active military duty since 9/11, hosted 2000 children and surviving spouses in Southern California, from all across America, for an all-expense paid holiday gathering.

American Airlines was the official transportation provider for the families, helping to create a support network for the families of our fallen soldiers.

You can get updated on this way cool even on the Snowball Express blog and find our more on the official Snowball Express site.

The D-Link DSM-210 Internet Photo Frame is a fabulous digital picture frame that allows you to manage and display your digital photos via the Internet (requires an Internet connection) and I received one to check out.

It was easy to operate and took just a few minutes to sit down and learn about it. Word of wisdom: you need the remote because the interface is mostly controlled by it, so don't put it aside in the wrappings, it's important.

You can connect it to the Internet through a wired 10/100Mbps Ethernet cable or a wireless 802.11g connection. It has 1g of internal memory, so it can also be used as a standard digital picture frame and it accepts flash memory cards including: MultiMediaCard, Memory Stick and SD Memory Cards.

It has a bright, 10 inch display and the unit can be wall mounted or displayed on a table or shelf like a traditional picture frame.

One of my favorite things about the frame is that it has a motion detector to sense when the room is empty, or when someone comes in so it's not displaying a slode show to an empty room. My dad has burned out more than one digital frame when it's been on for a long time, so this feature is important.

I only have 2 items for a wish list for the frame: it would be handy to be able to control the brightness and I wish that when you turned on the power, it would return to the last mode you had it on before it was turned off instead of having to go through the menu again.

One way to manage your digital picture frame is through the Frame Channel. It allows you to set up your frame to incorporate images from photo sharing sites such as Flickr, Picasa, Facebook and more.

You can also e-mail your photos directly to Frame Channel and you can give your friends the address of your frame, and they can add pictures, too. Don't worry, you can approve them, first.

The Frame Channel also has different modules that can display dynamic content such as news, weather and sports on your frame.

The D-Link DSM-210 Internet Photo Frame retails for around $240.00 and it would make a great addition to your digital picture collection or a gift for parents or grandparents out of town. You can manage photos remotely and they can enjoy near real time pictures of the kids, a vacation and more (Internet connection required for them to receive the pictures over the Internet).

Dunkin' Donuts (link has sound), the home of some great donuts and rockin' coffee, has some great gift ideas.

Get ready for New Year's Day or gift your New Year's Eve host with this Dunkin' Donuts Enthusiast gift set containing a pound of Original Blend Coffee and a thermal travel mug.

Coffee is not only a drink with your holiday meal, it can be a key ingredient in some fabulous celebration meals.

Dunkin’ Brands’ Executive Chef Stan Frankenthaler and his culinary team have developed a complete holiday-inspired, coffee-themed menu to bring unique, new flavors to any holiday meal. These holiday dishes all use Dunkin’ Donuts coffee or espresso as a base and are a perfect complement to any holiday party or seasonal gathering.

Espresso with Warmed Eggnog

For an 8-oz serving (1 mug)

¾ cup Golden Eggnog

¼ cup minus 1 tablespoon Dunkin’ Donuts espresso (approximately 1 shot)

2 tablespoon spiced rum (optional)

Cinnamon (optional)

Heat eggnog in a microwave-safe container for about 1 minute. Add the shot of espresso and the warmed eggnog to your mug. If desired, add spiced rum. Stir and dust with cinnamon.

Scallops with Bacon, Baby Spinach with Warm Coffee and Balsamic Glaze

16 oz sea scallops

1 package bacon, sliced

3 tablespoon shallots, thin sliced

½ cup balsamic vinegar

3 tablespoon olive oil

¼ cup brown sugar

½ cup Dunkin’ Donuts original blend coffee, brewed

2 cups baby spinach

Cut bacon strips in half, wrap scallop in bacon half and hold in place with toothpicks. Set aside.

Heat large skillet (medium heat). When hot add 1 tablespoon oil. Sear scallop and bacon in small batches till cooked thru, (about 5 min. per batch) – set cooked scallops aside on plate.

Remove pan from heat; discard all but 2 Tbsp of rendered oil. Add thin sliced shallots and stir. Add brown sugar and stir to dissolve. Add balsamic vinegar and coffee and stir. In a stainless steel mixing bowl toss warm vinaigrette with baby spinach and 2 tablespoon oil.

Arrange spinach on salad plates and top with 4-5 scallops (remove toothpicks before serving), serve immediately.

Serves 4 people.

Sirloin Steak with Coffee Rub

4 each 10-12 oz sirloin steaks

Coffee Rub:

1/4 cup ground Dunkin’ Donuts original blend coffee, ground

1 tablespoon cumin seed - cracked

1 tablespoon chopped garlic

1 tablespoon coarse cracked black pepper

2 teaspoon chili powder

2 teaspoon dried oregano

2 teaspoon kosher salt

Combine ingredients for coffee rub in a mixing bowl. Rub steak on all sides. Marinade steaks 2-24 hours in refrigerator until ready to cook. Lightly oil before grilling. Heat grill to medium high flame. Cook steaks 4-5 minutes per side or to internal temp of 120 degrees for medium.

Pork Loin with Coffee and Soy Glaze

1 4-5 pound pork loin

½ cup Dunkin’ Donuts original blend coffee, ground

¾ cup soy sauce

½ cup Dijon mustard

1 cup hot pepper jelly

Put the pork loin in a shallow roasting pan. Mix the remaining ingredients in mixing bowl. Rub marinade over pork loin. Turn pork.

Refrigerate and turn loin in marinade after 2 hours.

Preheat oven to 400. Place loin on baking pan (discard remaining marinade) and roast for 15 minutes on 400 degrees.

Lower oven heat to 350 degrees and continue roasting for 20 minutes. Internal temperature should be at 145 degrees. Let loin rest 15 minutes before slicing.

Cafe au lait Ganache Tart

16 oz dark chocolate (Guittard Chocolate recommended)

¾ cup Dunkin’ Donuts French Vanilla coffee, brewed

¼ cup heavy cream

1 pint fresh strawberries

4 each baked puff pastry shells, cooled and centers removed

1 pint whipped cream

Melt chocolate in stainless steel bowl over a hot water bath. Whisk brewed coffee into pre-melted hot chocolate.

When chocolate and coffee mixture is smoothe with no lumps (if lumps occur, heat chocolate mixture in microwave for 10 seconds to bring temperature up again in appropriate vessel) add cold unwhipped heavy cream to chocolate mixture and whisk smooth. Reserve on the side.

Wash and dry strawberries, remove stem and dice into 1/4 inch cubes. Place 3 strawberries in each pastry shell. Evenly distribute the chocolate mixture between the four shells, taking precaution not to over-fill. Top with whipped cream before serving.

*Ganache can be made in advance, and rewarmed the day of service.

I have 4 Dunkin' Donuts Enthusiast gift sets containing a pound of Original Blend Coffee and a thermal travel mug to give away!
To win your choice of ONE of the above:

1. Leave a comment to be entered. Twitter about it or blog about the contest if you love me. Heck, do it even if you don't love me.

2. Enter by Tuesday, December 30, 2008 10pm CST.

3. One winner will be drawn randomly on the same day by 11pm CST.

The Dunkin' Donuts Coffee Set giveaway winners as determined by the handy dandy random number generator are:

Comment 7 - Mary Jenkins

Comment 9 - jlabean of So Shall It Be

Comment 23 - Sue Crocker of EEHowTo

Comment 36 - Stacey Moore of All Because Two People Fell in Love

If any of these are you, be sure to email be your address and phone number so Dunkin' Donuts can get your coffee out to you!

Thanks so much for playing and I've got more stuff coming up very soon!