Blogging Out Hunger Campaign

Check-Out Hunger is celebrating the 20th anniversary of their highly successful fundraising campaign for the Community Food Bank of NJ. Last year, The Community Food Bank of NJ donated 35 million pounds of food to people in need in 18 of New Jersey's 21 counties. With the recession, food banks shelves are becoming bare as less people are donating and more of our community is in need.  Take time to give a little.




Here’s how you can help:


· Right in your own neighborhood:  Look for the display of Check-Out Hunger donation slips at the checkout aisles in participating local food stores.  Participating stores include:  ShopRite, Wawa, Wegmans, Super Fresh, Pathmark, Kings, Foodtown, A & P, and Food Basics. 

· Right from your own home. Give a monetary donation through the Check-Out Hunger in New Jersey website.

Because no one should ever go to bed hungry.

...and the winner of the Dunkin' Donuts Gift Card is

Sandra!!!

Congratulations to Sandra who won the Dunkin' Donuts Spooktacular Giveaway.  Enjoy your coffee!!

Dunkin' Donuts Spooktacular Halloween Giveaway

Yes, the world DOES indeed run on Dunkin'.  How I love their coffee!  If you love it too, here is a great giveaway offer.  Dunkin' Donuts is giving one lucky "Planet" reader a Halloween pack worth about $40.00. 

Included is a great gift card to D2 for $31.00.  You could drink some SERIOUS coffee there... and remember they also have tea, lattes, smoothies, donuts and yummy flatbread breakfast sandwiches! Or... use for the upcoming holidays. 

They will also include 2 cute Dunkin' Donuts Trick or Treat bags and one pound of their delicious coffee for brewing at home. 

To throw your coffee cup into the ring, just leave me a comment with your email address.  (email ONLY used to contact the winner- will not be sold off or used to spam you). 

If you are (or become) a "follower" of  my main blog, Welcome To My Planet, you'll get another chance thrown in!

Contest closes at midnight EST on Sunday, October 24th. I'll notify the winner on Monday October 25th.  Good Luck!

M'Chic Jeans: No More Muffin Top!

Most things that are too good to be true are simply that... too good to be true. Or, at least that is what I thought when I heard there was a sexy, comfortable pair of jeans out there promising to slim the dreaded "muffin top" area. Well, someone who knows the plight of most American women stood up and said "Muffin tops are for eating, not wearing!" and created M'Chic jeans carrying that very catch phrase.

M'Chic (pronounced mmmm sheek, similar to saying "magic" with a french accent) is a company run by women who understand women's bodies. If you have had kids, you know what I'm talking about...no matter what size or shape you are, pregnancies take toll on your body. Unless you are blessed with phenomenal genetics and/or work out like a fiend (in which case we all hate you right now) you likely experience some degree of "muffin top." You know, the bit (or in my case, lots) of smoosh and goosh that hangs over the belt. This is especially difficult to cover in today's style of snug, fitted tops and low rise jeans. The result, unsightly bulges from all angles or low rise jeans smooshing everything up and out and showing your undies every time you bend over.

Now, there are certainly products out there that can be worn under your clothes to smooth and slenderize, but let's face it... is it really comfortable to be all layered up especially under a pair of clinging jeans?  M'Chic had the brilliant idea to create a revolutionary jean by combining a belly band and cute jean together in one! So no more feeling like you're wearing underwear and some type of girdle or biking shorts contraption layered under your clothes. All you need to slim and firm is all in one!

How does it work?  M'Chic jeans have an attached, breathable,non slip belly panel to fit all torso lengths. It can also be "rolled" or adjusted to different heights guaranteeing your utmost comfort and results. The belly band will just look like a cami if your shirt comes up, unlike other embarrassing things peeking over your low rise jeans.

Featured on Good Morning America, Good Day Sacramento, NBC San Antonio,and KNTV Las Vegas, and reviewed in the LA Times, Philadelphia Inquirer and on Iconoculture.com, M'Chic jeans are proving to be every woman's dream come true! They flatten the belly, reshape the "rear," and the stretch denim sculpts your entire lower body.

Jeans come in your choice of washes in either skinny or straight leg for $49.00. Capri jeans are $39.00 and M'Chic Fashions even began a line of Tankini Swimsuits - keep in mind for next summer, as these suits are designed with the same slimming material.

Order online or find a boutique selling M'Chic jeans in several states across the nation. Click HERE to see if a boutique is near you, try them on and see just how comfortable and slimming they are!

Note:  I was not paid for this endorsement, but I was given a pair of jeans to wear

in exchange for an honest review of the product.

Diamond Jewelry and DiamondEarrings.com

Every girl should receive a little red velvet, heart-shapped box in the mail.  Especially if it has a pair of diamond earrings cradled inside. 

Okay, faux diamond earrings but can anyone aside from a jewelry REALLY tell the difference?  DiamondEarrings.org understand that we all want to look fabulous on a budget.  Sure, it would be great if everyone could afford a pair of diamond studs but honestly, we all can't. But we love the look. And quite honestly, I can't deal with the stress of expensive jewerly with the way I loose things.  Faux diamond earrings are perfect for busy moms like me that want to have bit of bling on their ears without the high cost or worry. 

I began wearing my complimentary pair of diamond studs this week and have received many compliments!  They have a slight heart shape which make them very feminine and sweet.  My little girls are all ga-ga over them...and they can wear them too since the price is right! 

DiamondEarrings.org are running a limited promotion... go onto their website to receive a FREE pair of diamond earring studs (remember, they aren't REAL diamonds, just made to look like them).  All you do is pay $3.77 postage/shipping and they promise no strings attached.

Book Nook: The Award Winning "Heading Home With Your Newborn"

Pediatricians, moms and authors, Laura A. Jana, MD, FAAP and Jennifer Shu, MD, FAAP offer a wealth of "parent-tested, pediatrician-approved" advice in Heading Home With Your Newborn: From Birth to Reality, Second Edition (American Academy of Pediatrics, September 2010). Available on the American Academy of Pediatrics official Web site for parents, HealthyChildren.org. Also available in bookstores nationwide.


The following is an excerpt to help you navigate those first crucial weeks of parenthood and caring for a newborn:


To Bathe or Not to Bathe:
Contrary to popular belief, babies do not need to be bathed every day--especially as newborns. As we enter parenthood, we should all consider ourselves fortunate that we are given a few months in which to become comfortable with our baby-bathing duties before our children effectively figure out how to make themselves truly messy.


It's really not until babies start crawling around in dirt, sandboxes, or even just on the kitchen floor (depending on how dirty yours is), and begin to explore baby foods--routinely ending up with more smeared on their faces than in their mouths--that they warrant frequent full-body washes. Until then, however, you have the practical option of focusing your attention on a relatively limited number of parts.


Your primary area of focus predictably will be the diaper area--and, of course, the surrounding areas, the size of which will depend on whether your baby has taken to having blowouts. Other areas to pay particular attention to: around the mouth and anywhere there are skin folds.


While some of you may be looking at your newborn and thinking to yourself that there are few, if any, skin folds to be found--rest assured that they will soon appear. The present-from-birth and all-too-often-neglected arm-pit and groin folds are likely to be joined in mere weeks by double chins and thigh folds. If you make a habit of regularly spot-checking these hot spots and cleaning them as needed using a wet washcloth, you really won't have to bathe your baby every single day. In fact, bathing a couple of times a week is often enough.


*Book excerpt from Heading Home with Your Newborn (Second Edition/Copyright 2010/American Academy of Pediatrics).


The Heading Home with Your Newborn excerpts are sponsored by the Role Mommy Writer's Network.

Evenflo Momentum 65 DLX Covertible Car Seat: Safe & Easy

When I gave birth to child number 2, little Miss Pink, I thought since I was a seasoned parent already, that I had the whole gig down pat. Suddenly, I realized that not only did I not REMEMBER anything about newborns and their care which I experienced almost 10 years prior to my second child, but a lot had CHANGED. There was no, at least not that I was aware of, latch system back in 1995 and we didn't have that snap and go car seat. They were still encouraging co-sleeping and even the nursing was different. I just remember we had this old, random forward facing car seat... I'm not sure we ever had her facing backwards ever. Was that not a "thing" back then or am I just not remembering it right? And there were no "Bundle Me" fleecy zip-up winter things that you put over the car seat... no, I had her in the big, giant snowsuit that you had to take on and off with the car seat. So annoying. Man, I really roughed it back then.

Either car seats have come a long way, or we just didn't have much money back then to afford the nicer ones. So, we have Pink and my husband (brilliant as he is) just comes to the hospital on the day of discharge with the car seat still in the box in the trunk. He chooses to install it while I'm sitting in the lobby of the hospital holding a 2 day old baby in my arms who I just nursed and will likely need to nurse again in 12 minutes, and here he is trying to install this blessed car seat base and hook up the stupid straps, etc... it literally took 30 minutes until he asked another couple getting ready to leave with THEIR newborn from the hospital to help him. The other new dad obviously had his act together because his seat was already installed and they just popped their infant right in! How embarrassing. The guy was very nice, but we were totally a buzz kill on his "leaving the hospital with a new baby" moment.

Too bad we didn't have the new Evenflo Momentum 65 DLX Convertible Car Seat! This just released model from Evenflo (we have 2 Evenflo car seats now!) has features that make safety, installation, and use as easy as possible for parents.

Evenflo and Juice Box Jungle sponsored me to write this post.

Free Family Tree at My Heritage

For those who are interested in tracing their family history, compiling a family tree, finding and filling in gaps of their ancestry while holding the hand of someone who knows what they are doing, MyHeritage.com is the site for you!

The goal of MyHeritage.com is to provide both novice and expert genealogy buffs with the best tools for researching their ancestry. Created by genealogists, MyHertitage.com offers an easy to use website with a variety of free software, sharing capabilities and databases.

You can build a family tree with free software called Family Tree Builder. It promises no spyware or ads when you download and you can bring your family tree to life with photos and documents. You can also publish and share your research on your own personalized Family Website. The Basic plan is free and it is always secure and private.

There is also a really cool feature to find ancestors via online databases using the My Heritage genealogy search engines and face recognition features to help you organize your family photos. Other fun features include:

* Message Boards to chat with other genealogy buffs
* A Celebrity Morph
* Helpful Genealogy blog
* Clever Look A Like Meter to see who your child most resembles! Fun!

Hey, members can even score a $5.00 discount on flowers and gifts at FTD. I'm always a girl looking for a deal. Discounts, free software, awesome tools, hours of good clean fun, and a more productive use of leisure time than some other stuff I do. If you don't archive your family history for your kids, who will?

Click HERE to return Home

*Compensation was received for this review*

Simply Bags

Simply Bags offers great, fun, unique bags with monogramming for amazing prices. Visit their website and you will see the colorful, classic, and fun designs you just can't find at the malls and retail stores. Personalizing the bag with embroidery makes it extra special and creates a very thoughtful gift that is no more expensive that what you'd pay with a last minute gift card (which we ALL do, let's face it).

Click HERE to Return HOME.

Some compensation has been received for writing this post.

Top And Bottom 3 Worries As A Mom

Kodak and Juice Box Jungle (see my sidebar widget) sponsored me to write a post about what my top and bottom 3 worries are as a Mom. And I thought, worries? What worries? Are we supposed to worry about something?

If you add a few zeros to the 3, it would be a much easier list to generate. I obsess about everything from nuclear holocaust, to child abduction, to my kids becoming staunch Republicans to overpaying for printer Ink... but hey, the latter is a mute point with Kodak's printer ink! Gotta love a good deal on printer ink! We go through it like water 'round here.

So, here goes my top and bottom 3 worries as a Mom. Start thinking about YOURS... I'd love to hear!

Top 3 Worries
1. I will outlive CB.
2. I won't outlive CB.
3. Pain/Suffering of any of my children or family.

Having something happen to any one of my children, husband or family is always my biggest worry. The thing with CB is that I'm not sure if I want to outlive her or not. This is a really weird position to be in... to hope your child passes away before you do... what mother would or could wish this?!?!? The mother of a child who has so many needs that if you were gone, bad things may happen to them. Anything from neglect, institutionalization or worse. Without you to advocate, you rely on others, and you're not sure the "others" would make the same decisions as you would. They wouldn't love her and sacrifice as much. That's the FEAR at least.

The whole thing is just yucky to think about. Nothing else in my life even comes close to these worries.

Bottom 3 Worries:
1. My children's fashion/appearance. Yeah, I just don't care about how "pretty" or well dressed they are. They're beautiful to me, and as long as they are confident, strong, and content in their own skin, they will be okay.

2. Wealth/Materialism.
Yes, I like nice things, don't get me wrong, but I won't waste precious psychic energy worrying about if I am keeping up with the proverbial Jones.

3. That my kids will turn into a self-absorbed teen starlets and end up on a bad reality show for B list celebrities.
Given the lack of talent in both my husband and myself, I don't see any budding Hannah Montanas or Lindsay Lohans. Oh well, there goes fame and fortune, teen pregnancy and stints in rehab. Of course, they could get a reality show based on no talent at all... like having sextuplets or beau coup plastic surgery... Hmmmmm.... maybe I SHOULDN'T strike "child star wash-up turned reality show loser" off the worry list quite yet.

Ok, give it up.... what'da YOU worry and not worry about?