Giveaway Reminder and a Quick Video

I forgot to put a link to my giveaway in the sidebar and it dropped off the front page – oops. So if you missed it, to celebrate the release of “Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules”, I’m running a Diary of a Wimpy Kid giveaway with a  prize pack courtesy of 20th Century Fox.  Enter by April 4th at 11:59 p.m. EST, the winner will be contacted on April 4th for their mailing info. The prize pack is worth $79.00 and includes the Cheese Touch board game, Zoo Wee Mama Card Game, Wimpy Kid Action Figure Set, a 200-piece puzzle, and Diary of a Wimpy Kid UNO!

I just didn’t want anyone who wants a chance to win this great prize pack to miss out! I also have a short video to show you. We woke up to cold temps and overcast skies this morning, and then all of a sudden, this happened:

My poor kids are on Spring Break and THIS is the weather they get? And even worse, I checked the extended forecast for Lansing and it’s supposed to be cloudy, cold, rainy, and it might even snow again this week. So much for trips to city parks and playing outside :(

Pull Up A Chair, It’s The Ultimate Blog Party 2011!

It’s that time of the year again, time for the annual 5 Minutes for Mom Ultimate Blog Party! Woo hoo! Since 2007, the fantastic Susan and Janice of 5MfM have been hosting the biggest blog party of the year, and everyone is invited!

If this is your first time here, let me introduce myself. I’m Elizabeth Edwards, owner and author of this here blog. I’m married to Chris, who I started dating in 1985 and we’ve been together ever since – high school sweethearts, awww :)   We live in Lansing, Michigan and have three kids – Ryan who is 14, Nathan who is 12, and Kaitlyn who is 5. We also have a dog named Elvis who we inherited, and an ancient cat we all just call “kitty”. You can see her butt in the first photo LOL

Me Chris and Kaitlyn

 

The Kids2

I’ve been blogging since 2005 and I love meeting new bloggers and reading new blogs. The whole point of the Ultimate Blog Party is to meet new people, so please take a minute to leave a comment! If you also wrote an Ultimate Blog Party post, leave the URL in the linky below. Thanks so much for stopping by!

Best Online April Fool’s Pranks 2011

I never thought April Fool’s Day was all that fun until websites started coming up with pranks just for the day. Here are the ones I’ve found so far today!

1. Comic Sans for Everyone – “Google Chrome announced a new extension designed to “improve user experience”. Rigorous testing revealed that one font consistently outperformed all others when it comes to user satisfaction, level of engagement, understanding web content, productivity, click-through rates and conversion rates: Comic Sans.” Even though I knew it was a prank, I assumed that the Install button wouldn’t actually do anything. I was wrong. After clicking the button to install the extension and refreshing the page, my computer’s default font permanently changed to Comic Sans. Check out this screenshot of my About page- ha!

2. Google Motion for Gmail - ”Gmail Motion uses your computer’s built-in webcam and Google’s patented spatial tracking technology to detect your movements and translate them into meaningful characters and commands. Movements are designed to be simple and intuitive for people of all skill levels.”

3. YouTube 1911 – Look at the bottom right corner of videos on YouTube today and you’ll see a 1911 button. Click it, and your video changes to sepia tones and old time music plays over the video. I found a clip from Grey’s Anatomy that worked really well with the 1911 treatment; it’s Meredith visiting Derek in jail and telling him she’s leaving him there and going to Owen and Cristina’s wedding herself. I also giggled at this Top 5 Viral Pictures of 1911 video – flugelhorn feline, ha!

4. Angry Nerds – Game developer Atlassian has been hard at work taking what Roxio started with Angry Birds and making it even better. The story line is “one for the ages – a team of software developers, armed with wit and wile, fighting against an evil hoard of bugs. It’s all drama and suspense. Romeo and Juliet, Lord of the Rings, Zero Wing. But don’t focus on the story. Focus on the physics engine. Because that, my friends, is where the magic happens. What our friends at Rovio started, we perfected. These nerds don’t just fly across the screen – they drop out of the sky like Newton’s apple. Engineering has been working on this for months, tweaking the X to get more Y, reducing the Y to get less X. What you see belongs not on an iPhone or a Droid – it belongs in the Smithsonian.”

5. The Huffington Post – You might have heard that The New York Times is requiring a subscription to NYTimes.com (which also includes the smartphone app) to view more than 20 articles a month. The Huffington Post announced today that employees of The New York Times will now have to pay for a digital subscription in order to view articles with words “over six letters”.

On HuffingtonPost.com you can view the first 6 letters of each word at no charge (including slideshows of adorable kittens). After 6 letters, we will ask you to become a digital subscriber. You may choose to subscribe to see the rest of each word individually, or choose a package to access all words of more than 6 letters. This is an example of what you will see:

“Today the Obama admini-[click here to continue word for a small fee] said that the interv- [click here to continue word for a small fee] in Libya would contin-[click here to continue word for a small fee] indefi [click here to continue word for a small fee]…”

If you find any good ones, leave the link in a comment!