Free coffee!

Thanks to Free2BeFrugal, here is a link for free Dunkin' Donuts coffee!


Cool eh?

Free lightbulbs for you Aussies!

A blog that I read sometimes (http://itsmorethanenough.blogspot.com/) posted a link to an Australian company giving away free energy saver lightbulbs! I ahve already signed you up Mum and Tiff...everyone else should give it a go!

Click on this link http://www.greenenergywatch.com.au/freelightbulbs.php and complete your info to receive your free bulbs! Yay!

My submission was selected!

A couple of months ago I submitted a page for the Quaker Life Cereal "Life's Best Days" online "Book of Life", then promptly forgot about it. Today I received a coupon for a free box of Life cereal and an email saying that my page was accepted! Unfortunately there is no way of linking you directly to my page, but here is the link to the table of contents:
http://lifecereal.com/?file=bookoflife/index.swf

Click on Chapter 7 and it is the fifth page in the chapter - my quote is on the left and Sean is on the right drinking his babyccino at the Melbourne (Australia) airport last August :) How exciting!

Help Children in need "Get Ready To Read"

I have been meaning to write about his for a week or so, but "Noggin" (Nickelodeon's prechool channel) has a fantastic promotion to help provide needy kids with free books! You can click on their link daily and for each click, their sponsors will provide free books to children!

Please click here daily and help children in need:
http://www.noggin.com/read/

What is NOGGIN's Get Ready to Read Campaign?

Did you know that only 1 out of every 300 children from low-income families owns a book of their own? Or that there's a proven correlation between the number of books in a child's house and their ability to read and achieve academically? It's amazing that something as simple as a book can make such a big difference. Being the brand that "is like preschool on TV," NOGGIN believes it is important to support and build early literacy skill on our air and online.
What is NOGGIN Doing to Make a Difference?
NOGGIN has committed to generating 1,000,000 NEW books for kids in need. In partnership with First Book, we will use our TV network, our website and outreach to place NEW books into the hands of kids who need them most.

Darling Liam

And now that I have a picture to include, Congratulations to Carl and Liz on the safe and healthy arrival of Liam Ian! My darling new nephew ......

Born June 3rd at 2:45pm (Perth, Western Australia time!) - 7lbs 7oz

Welcome to the world baby boy! Aunty Mel and cousin Sean can not wait to meet you!

A great start to the Summer!

Finally the warm weather is here (with a bang!) and we have had a fun start to the Summer! On Saturday 7th (Happy Birthday Tiffy!), I took Sean to Kettering's annual "Touch A Truck" event. We started going last year and Sean has a great time! The kids get to climb up in trucks and cars from businesses (and city departments like police, fire etc) all over the city, they get to beep the horns, pretend to drive, sound the sirens....so much fun to watch! This year it was a little rainy but it really didn't make it less fun - just less crowded! Needless to say, Sean had a wonderful time...

When we left the trucks, we went to our local bookstore for a "Corduroy" storytime and craft event. I thought Corduroy was actually going to be there so Sean was a little disappointed but we had fun anyway. He loves the Corduroy stories so enjoyed listening to them. We signed up to be in their Summer Reading Club too so he will earn a few little goodies throughout the Summer.

We had a light lunch then went across the street to Friendly's restaurant for their free ice cream afternoon! No catch, just free ice cream! Sean's was enormous and it dripped EVERYWHERE!!! We ended up swapping cones as mine was significantly smaller, but a good deal of his was thrown in the trash, even I couldn't eat it all! He is quite the ice cream fan so enjoyed his hot afternoon treat.

While we were there, another Mum told us to go back to the mall where the bookstore was as there was a health fair going on inside and they were giving away free bike helmets to kids! We went back to check it out and even though the sign said for kids 4 to 16, they gave Sean one anyway as he is already riding a bike :) He was so proud of his new helmet that he asked to wear it out of the mall!

It was a good day! All for free! Can't beat that!

Tuesday we went to Regal theatres to see the first of many free movies for the Summer! Every Tuesday and Wednesday they are showing two movies completely for free! I guess this is not the first year for it but it wasn't anything I had heard of before! We saw the movie "Doogal" which was actually cuter than I thought it would be. It was a fun little animated movie with the voices of John Stewart, Jimmy Fallon, Chevy Chase, Whoopi Goldberg, and strangely, Kylie Minogue. Sean liked it and considering it was free, what's to complain about??? There are some great ones coming up, including "Night At The Museum" which is one of Sean's favourites, so we will be regulars at these free screenings! Yeah baby!! It's shaping up to be a great Summer!!

My famous boy!

Last Sunday, I opened the paper to find Sean on Page 3!! You can imagine my gasp! He had been at a festival with his Dad the previous day and the one and only photo they printed of the festival was of the two of them! They finally put it online....





31 May 08 Photo by Ron Alvey. Sean, 3yrs old, and his dad, Steve, look at each other's blue tongue as they were sharing a blue Hawaiian Ice treat. They were at the Alpine Heritage Festival, taking place at Carillon Historical Park, in Dayton. The festival included kids games, a climbing wall, food vendors and live music.

My little bookworm

I have always read to Sean, ever since he was a teeny tiny baby. His favourite books vary, sometimes they change daily! But for the past couple of weeks his absolute fave book has been "Why Do I Have To Eat Off The Floor?" by Chris Hornsey. It's such a cute little book all about Murphy, a dog who doesn't understand why he can't be people! Making it even better is the fact that it was written by a good friend of my Aunty Monica and has been personalized especially for Sean. It was also published in 2005, the year Sean was born. Sean loves to finish each sentence for me and the pictures fascinate him. They are both simple and detailed at the same time.



The book is available through Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Why-Have-Eat-Off-Floor/dp/0802796176/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1212503949&sr=8-1



Here is a photo of Sean reading his treasured book: