NEW YEAR, NEW BLOG!

Five years have passed since last I posted here!  Sometimes it seems an eternity, sometimes only yesterday.  Though I have not missed the contest giveaways and product pushing I have truly missed the writing, sharing, and collaborating.  The moment has come to turn over a new leaf and begin again but in a fresh new vein, one I am extremely passionate about.

Family is more than the trends it follows, and the products it purchases. Family is making moments, and recording those moments.  It is also the sum of its past! Past generations have brought us to the place we inhabit today and --good or bad--it is those past generations that I honour on my new genealogy/ family history blog: Northern Mama Family History~Family Life: Genealogy with love
Genealogy, ways to incorporate your family's past into your daily life today, refurbishing the old and antique to add character to your home, and historical tidbits are just some of the topics I will tangle with!

I would love for all of you to join me there! Read my About Me page for more details!

Greetings from Camp ~ Be Prepared with Label Daddy

"Hello Mudder, hello fodder, greetings from camp I-Don’t-Wanna…”
Mosquito bites and gooey marshmallows, hikes and ticks, leaky tents and creepy campfire tales.
Camp season is just around the corner and despite all the fun and personal development, memories and irreplaceable moments there are always the inevitable worries and irritations. Ironically children are far more adaptable than parents and the lion’s share of worries are those of parental units such as us! Label Daddy can’t relieve all the worries of camp parents. They can’t protect the well-being of your children but Label Daddy can protect their personal belongings!

My son, Gabriel is an avid little boy scout. His favourite Cubs' activity? Camp!! Winter camp with its chilly temperatures, snowshoeing and skiing or Spring and Summer camps’ filled with hiking and campfires my son is thrilled by his personal journey to experienced outdoors man! Sleeping bag, rubber boots, toiletries, dishes, and clothing, camping success is all about the gear! But when a group of boys hit the trails the last thing they think about is whose undies are whose. Label Daddy’s camp labels are the ideal solution to preventing the loss of the scattered items of untidy young campers.
Colourful and eye catching, these laminated sunscreen proof, wash proof and waterproof labels stay stuck and announce to my son without a doubt “these are my undies”! Okay I know typically having your name in your underwear is not cool but when you can choose from 40 different very cool icons including your favourite Disney characters, 17 colours, and even a variety of fonts your one up on campers with their John Hancock scribbled on tags with permanent marker. The Label Daddy Camp Pack includes six different sized labels, a total of 152, enough for all your child‘s camp gear with perhaps a few to spare:
4 luggage bag labels
60 extra small labels
40 small labels
16 medium labels
10 shoe labels
22 mini-shoe labels
In minutes with a quick peel and stick I had all Gabriel’s camp gear labeled and ready to go! His choice of icon? The dinosaur from Disney’s Toy Story as his career goal currently is to become a paleontologist. Because Cub camp is just for a weekend here and a weekend there the plethora of camp labels meant I had far more than I needed and I can use the extra labels for Gabriel’s other belongings including his school items in the fall.
I’d say this is a sign of good value!

$50 may seem like a lot to some but often you spend your hard earned money for your children’s belongings why not use some of that money to protect those valuables. If you do the math each label costs you 33 cents….not bad right?

Prepare your little campers before they head out into the wilderness. Pack their Kleenex and teddy, that extra blankie and secret stash of goodies but remember to seal their pack with hugs and kisses and label everything with Label Daddy!

ID Me Labels Mother's Day Coupon Code!

ID Me Labels would like to offer Northern Mama readers a 20% off coupon code as a Mother's Day treat! The code Mom25 is valid until May 10th, 2010.

More Winners!

Winner of the Green Blaster $15 Gift Certificate:

Congratulations Misfit Mommy aka Missy. These Green Blaster cleaning products are great!

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WordGirl DVD Winners:

Congrats Tannie's Chatter and Pixie13! You've won a copy of the DVD Word Girl.

Fish Soda Sample Winners

Congratulations to the following 5 winners! Coupon Mom, Amanda, Randa @ Bewitchin' Kitchen, KatKlaw777, And Kara! I had one repeat number so I selected one more number which was Kara. I will be emailing you all soon.

NIKKI

MIO Motiva Petite Watch Review

Since May is National Fitness Month, I thought this would be a great opportunity to review an absolutely amazing fitness 'tool'. Although this watch has basic features such as the date, time, a back light and an alarm, it offers so much more than that! It is a personalized fitness monitor! You programme in your name, age, gender,weight, height, activity level, resting heart heart and weekly goals, (which is really easy to do even for a technically challenged individual like myself). However, if you are the type of person that finds it hard to learn to use a new gizmo The Mio Watch web site does offer a step-by-step instructional video at: http://www.youtube.com/MIOwatch.

So, with all of this information the watch will automatically set a personalized daily target calorie goal that you can keep or adjust as you wish ( as long as it does not go below what the World Health Organized Standard recommends for your daily calorie intake: which is 1200 calories for women and 1500 calories for men). One of the best features of this watch, in my opinion, is that the watch will automatically default back to these levels if you try to set it lower, thereby prohibiting or preventing one from using this watch to become unhealthy or anorexic.

Next, the watch helps you keep track of your calories in and calories out.

Calories In:You can programme in the calories you consume throughout the day. (If you do not know how many calories there are in what you are eating, the MIO watch comes with a guide to healthy living that includes a food and drink table at the back of the book to help you with this).

Calories out:. There are 5 different exercise timer modes to choose from in order for you to track you burned calories (to count up from zero, to count down from zero, to count down from zero and then count up, to use the walk/run dual interval timer, and to count down to zero and repeat. You can also choose to track only your exercise calories or all of your calories throughout the day.

The watch will automatically subtract calories in from calories out for you.

Or, you can set the watch with a standard 3500 net calories (which is apparently equivalent to one pound of weight) and track your calories out using the exercise timer and after approximately one week you will see that you burned 3500 calories and therefore have lost one pound. The Mio watch site actually has a 3,500 Calorie Club where you can talk with trainers and other members as well as track fitness goals and get nutritional information. http://www.miowatch.com/3500-calorie-club-learn-how-burn-3500-calories

By now you are probably wondering how the watch can possibly do this! Well it uses your heart rate and all of the information you programmed in it to determine how many calories you are burning. And that best part is that there is no chest strap! This is the first watch of this kind! All you have to do is strap the watch to your wrist, and gently press on the side buttons with your thumb and index fingers to get your heart rate. You need to check your heart rate every time you exercise level increases or decreases, or every three minutes or so to get accurate results for calories burned.

I personally enjoy tracking the calories in and out throughout the day, especially during exercise. I do however find it difficult to take my heart rate while I am running and have to wait until I break to take my heart rate. Like all new technology it truly is amazing but does have it's quarks (nothing is perfect).

The watch comes with a removable face that can be inserted into different wrist straps. You can get them in a variety of colors so that it goes with whatever you are wearing, whether you are at the gym or at the office. Mio watches also come in several other unisex types and styles!

One final thought that I want to share with you is that this particular watch ( The Mio Motiva Petite Pink) supports breast cancer research as 10% of the proceeds are donated to the Susan G Komen Foundation for the Cure.


So If you are trying to loose weight, gain weight or maintain it, this watch is a great fitness tool to have! Check out the Mio Website today to purchase this great fitness monitoring watch.

Review By NIKKI

Well, after spending four hours in our home this week the couple I mentioned earlier this week have finally decided to make an offer on the house! Yes, if you look back you will find my post in which I vent about their two hour first showing and their need for a second showing. The second showing proved to be just as long and I literally had to sit in my van with a 90 pound dog and three children in my driveway in the pouring rain for half of it Thursday night!

Saturday finally brought us an absolutely shocking low-ball offer!! I was ready to literally lose my lunch when we were presented with the number. Our realtor actually already had the paperwork ready and waiting for our counter knowing it would be a given. To make a long story short we countered, they countered and we accepted. 14 days on the market and we are a few days away from a final sale. We have to wait out the week for the inspections and their financing approval so fingers crossed by Friday it will be a done deal!

On the down side the house we were truly prepared to buy in our new location sold this past Friday!! Can you believe it? Two days ago! I keep telling myself it just wasn't meant to be and that everything happens for good reason but I can't help but be disheartened!

I am still excited to start looking for a new home...hopefully soon!