Giveaway Closed. Congratulations Holli from Baby-Faith!

*****SUPER-DUPER-QUICK-GIVEAWAY TELL YOUR FRIENDS!!!!!*****

I’m giving away a one year membership to GuardChild, a Community blog and website that has tons of great links and information on how to let your children use the internet and stay safe, too. With paid membership in the GuardChild Community, you are entitled to:

* Hundreds of websites (with access to thousands more embedded in our sites and new sites added monthly) for family-friendly websites, online safety resources, parent resources, educational websites, and much more (GuardChild has done this research for you, so you don’t have to spend hours online searching for relevant information)
* Articles about online child safety and family Internet use
* GuardChild Community Blog: interact with other parents who share your concerns, learn from online safety experts, and contribute your own articles, advice, and questions
* Discounts on the best web-filtering software and child-monitoring software available.
* Access to a searchable State-by-State Sex Offender Registry
* An Instant Messaging/Chat/Text Messaging/Emoticon Glossary
* Email alerts of new Feature Blog postings and product updates

There’s so much scary stuff on the internet, but our kids want to use it. The solution is to show them sites that have been personally checked and verified to be kid-friendly, meaning no sidebar ads of girls in bikinis, no links to gambling sites, nothing but fun! If you have kids at home using the Internet, enter this giveaway to get a year’s access to the GuardChild Community.

All you have to do is leave a comment on this post with your first name and a valid email address. Please enter by Monday, July 9th at 9:00 AM EST. The winner will have an account created for them that lets them access Guardchild, then they can change the password. Since this is such a quick giveaway, I’ll also give an extra entry to anyone who links to this post on their blog, or emails their friends about it. Someone with children at home who will be using the site regularly is preferred, please. Good luck and thanks for entering!

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From the beloved best-selling series of books comes an extraordinary fantasy adventure revealing the unseen world that exists all around us. From the moment the Grace family moves into a secluded old house peculiar things start to happen. Unable to explain the accidents and strange disappearances, the Grace children Jared, Simon and Mallory start to investigate and find the unbelievable truth of the Spiderwick Estate and the amazing creatures that inhabit it.

Starring Sarah Bolger (”Tara Road”) and Freddie Highmore (”August Rush”), Andrew McCarthy (”Lipstick Jungle”), Izabella Miko (”Coyote Ugly”), Mary-Louise Parker (”Weeds”), Joan Plowright (”Bringing Down The House”) and David Strathairn (”The Bourne Ultimatum”), as well as voice work by Nick Nolte, Seth Rogan, and Martin Short, The Spiderwick Chronicles movie uses pieces of books 1, 2, and 5 to weave together the plot. The 2-Disc Special Edition has Special Features on both Discs, including “It’s a Spiderwick World”, “Making Spiderwick”, Deleted Scenes and more.

A word of caution-very young children might find this movie frightening. Mulgarath has a big mouth full of sharp pointy teeth, and there are several scenes where the children see the creatures and scream loudly. It’s rated PG for “Scary creature action and violence, peril and some thematic elements”. So please use judgement when showing this movie to youngsters. Older kids will enjoy it even if they haven’t read the books! But hey, it’s summer, and the books are probably at the library and are definitely at the bookstore, so why not have your kids read them!

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EDITED TO ADD: PLEASE READ THIS POST-http://table4five.net/2008/07/01/an-open-letter-of-apology-to-sweetney/ I have apologized for writing this post without knowing all the information, and without thinking first, and breaking my own rule because I didn’t say very nice things myself, did I?

PEOPLE. Am I going to have to write yet ANOTHER post about how mommybloggers need to SUPPORT and encourage each other, instead of tearing each other down? Yes, apparently so. I just found out that a blogger who I haven’t met personally but who has never been anything but kind and caring both on her own blog and to everyone I know she has ever interacted with was publicly attacked on Twitter. She was accused of “stealing” someone else’s blog alias, of just “copying” other bloggers. And although I missed it when it happened on Twitter, the person who made this ridiculous accusations on Twitter is supposedly an “A LIST” blogger. Which, what the heck ever, you know?

I am just spitting mad about this, because the blogger who had this happen to her is one of the truly nicest people I have ever encountered on the blogosphere. I’m talking about someone who absolutely LOVES her readers and does everything she can to make her blog a place that is friendly and welcoming to everyone.

She gives out cute awards to her readers, is generous with linking to others,and has created a popular series on her blog called “Fight the Frump” in which she shows hilarious photos of fashion disasters, often with her own head Photoshopped on to the bodies of people who really should have checked the mirror before going out. She also started an online magazine with a bunch of other terrific bloggers that gives great tips for maintaining your house, great things to do with your kids, and more. This is a blogger who CARES, my friends.

This is a blogger who follows MY “Golden Rule of Blogging” (but is NOT COPYING ME)-she only uses her blogging powers for good, NEVER for evil. I don’t know who this “A LIST” blogger is who posted this vicious bunch of lies on Twitter about her, but when I do find out, I am going to make sure to cut every tie I might have to that person online somewhere, as soon as possible. I am not interested in making the blogosphere a WORSE place to be, and either is my beautiful, kind, caring, loving blog friend, MRS FUSSYPANTS.

She wrote a post about it, tried to make light of the situation, but I know she is hurting. Wouldn’t you be? She even said in a tweet that this was a blogger she “adored”. She even made a badge for “Fussy Haters” to post so they can just come right out and admit who they are. I say let’s show Mrs. Fussypants how much we DON’T hate her in any definition of the word. If you are a fan of Mrs. Fussypants, feel free to grab the badge at the end of this (right-click, save as) and post it yourself.

I don’t expect that every blogger will love every other blogger, that’s statistically impossible. But my gods, if you don’t care for someone’s blog, then DON’T READ THE DARN THING. If you just can’t resist bashing another blogger to your friends, that’s what CHAT is for. Heck, on MSN Messenger or Gmail Chat or Yahoo or whatever, you can bash people all you want to your own friends. But don’t use Twitter to cut someone down, because that is just MEAN. Whomever this “A LIST” blogger is, I can’t believe it didn’t occur to them that Mrs. Fussypants would SEE that tweet. But you know why she is a BETTER PERSON than this supposed “A LISTER”? Because she didn’t even give out the person’s name in her blog post. She didn’t turn around and publicly attack someone else.

Mrs. Fussypants, I think you are the bee’s knees, darlin. I am in awe of your ability to attract readers because of your sense of humor, your kindness, your willingness to help anyone who asks, and the love you spread through your blogs. I remade your badge to let you know what I think:

EDITED TO ADD: PLEASE READ THIS POST-http://table4five.net/2008/07/01/an-open-letter-of-apology-to-sweetney/ I have apologized for writing this post without knowing all the information, and without thinking first, and breaking my own rule because I didn’t say very nice things myself, did I?

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Mailboxixchange is a distributor of high quality mailboxes both for homes and for commercial use. They have over 2500 mailbox and “curbside decor” products. We have a wall-mounted mailbox, in fact, every house in this neighborhood has theirs on the wall of the house next to the front door. Our mail carrier parks his truck at one end of the street and walks up and down, coming up to each house and dropping the mail off. I wonder what happened to the days when the mail carrier drove up to the end of each driveway?

Anyway, our mail box is plain black metal, it never occurred to me to look for something more decorative until I saw the selection on Mailboxixchange. They have a line from Bacova Gardens with different animals and flowers, I think this one is really pretty:

Mailboxixchange has such a wide variety of mail boxes, both wall mounted and freestanding, for houses and commercial properties, you are sure to find one you like if you are looking for a new one.

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Corrin at oh, hey. is having an excellent giveaway, one winner will get subscriptions to FIVE magazines-US Weekly, Interview, Marie Claire, Vanity Fair, and Lucky. I LOVE US Weekly, it’s my guilty pleasure purchase at the checkout counter at Target, and I always buy Vanity Fair when I’m flying someplace. It’s the perfect airplane magazine because it takes so long to read. To enter, stop by oh, hey. by July 11th.

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