Are you familiar with Groovy Girls? They are a line of soft-bodied, yarn-haired, adorable dolls that are sold at Target as well as at bookstores and other retailers.  Lia from Exponent P.R.  sent Kaitlyn a collection of both the dolls and their Groovy Pets, in exchange for a mention here. Groovy Girls RSVP line of dolls and pets was developed by Manhattan Toy to provide a safe way for young girls to experience fun, fashion-filled doll play while promoting age-appropriate values and attitudes.The RSVP in the title stands for Respect, Self-Expression, Values, and Play.

Each doll or pet comes with a code that can be used to access special activities on the Groovy Girls RSVP Web site, www.groovygirls.com. There’s even a special place for moms, too, at moms.groovygirls.com! On the site you can dress your doll, customize her mod pod and attend online parties, all while accumulating points towards a doll donation for a girl in need.

It was extremely generous of Lia to send us eight dolls and five pets, and Kaitlyn is having fun playing with them:

Until I can find a place for them all to live in her room, the dolls and pets are hanging out in the box they came in, which conveniently has a handle for carrying.  I like how the dolls have different colored streaks in their hair, and are fashionably dressed but also DRESSED-bellies and booties are covered,  thank goodness.

The dolls come in two sizes- 13 inches high is the size of most of the dolls you see in the photo. If you look right in the middle of the photo, there’s a smaller Groovy Girl with copper colored hair, she’s smaller than the rest and has a small pet attached, that’s Libbi and Louie, Libbi is 8 inches high.

Each doll and pet come with a code that you enter at www.groovygirls.com. When you create an account, you only get one virtual girl for the site, but each additional code you enter gives you more points for unlocking clothes, accessories, furniture, and other fun things to do in the virtual groovy girl world. I can see girls ages, say, six and up really having fun playing with this website. I’ve been entering the codes from the dolls and the pets and I’m having fun playing on the site!

If you need a birthday gift or gift for another occasion for a little girl, and you want to give them a fun doll that teaches Respect, Self-Expression, Values, and having fun while Playing, I hope you’ll consider getting a Groovy Girl!

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Remember when I told you I’d been chosen to be one of the IZEA Insiders? Well, for my first task, I had the privilege of participating in a campaign to help spread the word about the Don’t Just Give a Gift, Grant a Wish program at Sears. This Christmas, Sears wants to remind you that when you give someone a gift, you also have an opportunity to grant them a wish. The website has these wonderful videos called Celebrity “Wishtories”, stories of how people like LL Cool J, Ty Pennington and Mel B. of the Spice Girls got a Christmas gift that changed their lives. Sears also has a gift registry called “Heroes at Home”. Children whose parents are serving in the military made their Wish Lists, and you can contribute online or at a Sears store to help make a military child’s wish come true.

I received a $100 Sears Gift Card from Sears and IZEA in exchange for shopping at Sears, taking photos, and writing this post. Yes, this is a sponsored post. But yes, I also shop at Sears anyway, so this was not a case of me only shopping at Sears because I was paid to. I’m just putting that out there right at the beginning because there’s already been some grumbling about other bloggers “selling out” and whatever. ANYWAY… I got $100 to shop at Sears.

The first gift I needed to purchase was long sleeve shirts for my nephew. Sears was having wonderful sales yesterday, almost everything was 40-60% off! I found cute shirts at half off, so I was able to get two of them for only $15.49!

As we were passing the boys’ department, Nathan stopped and gazed longingly. He loves those shirts that have long sleeves under short sleeves, and he loves fast cars, so this “Fast and Furious” shirt was just what he was looking for. Best of all, it was only $10.00.

Next up was the tools, and there was where I was determined to find the perfect gift for my husband. I think I’ve mentioned here before that my husband builds us furniture. He has a really old screwdriver set, and he had mentioned to me that he needed ones that he could tap with a hammer without them breaking. The great thing about Craftsman tools is that they are guaranteed. If they break, you take them back to Sears, and they replace them for free! I found the perfect set on sale for $19.99.

For my 15 year old nephew, I wanted to pick up one of the new release DVDs. Sears doesn’t have a big DVD department or anything, but on the display rack they did have, I found every single hot new movie that’s out on DVD. They weren’t on sale, so Iron Man on DVD was $22.99.

I didn’t get a photo of Ryan with his new jeans, but those were also on sale for $17.99. All of that added up to $86.46, so I also picked up some new garland for the tree (2 bunches for $7.18) and a 2-pack of these gel snowglobes for Kaitlyn with little Disney Princesses in them on sale for $4.19, which brought the grand total to $97.83!

Of course, we still had to pay a visit to the Sears Toy Shop. They carry Fisher Price, V Tech, Hannah Montana, High School Musical, Lego, Littlest Pet Shop, Bratz, you could really find a gift for almost every child on your list there. Kaitlyn really wanted a $300 Power Wheels, had to say no to that

SO, how would you like to win a $100 Sears Gift Card? IZEA is generously providing one lucky winner with their own $100 Sears Gift Card to use, so you can participate in your own Don’t Just Give a Gift, Grant a Wish! There are three ways to enter:

1. Blog Comment:
Visit the Sears website and browse around. Then come back here and leave a comment with the name and item #s of the items you would buy with your card (up to $100).

2. Use Twitter to tweet out the following message:
RT @Table4Five please grant my wish to win a $100 #Sears gift card - tweet to make your own wish http://urlbrief.com/286697

I will see the Tweet in my @replies and count it as an entry.

3. Blog Post:
Write a post on your blog linking back to this one. Please leave your URL in your comment in case comment luv doesn’t pick up the right one.

Enter by 11:59 p.m. EST on December 23, 2008. For the complete list of rules, please see the Official Rules page. For more chances to win, visit these other $100 Gift Card Giveaways:
http://toughgirl101.com
http://benspark.com
http://laviedelaurie.com/
http://somethingaboutharry.blogspot.com/
http://corrinrenee.com/
http://mythoughtsideasandramblings.com/
http://www.steven-sanders.com/
http://boatinginbeautifulbritishcolumbia.com/
http://www.juliesjournal.com/
http://www.markburstiner.com/
http://therealtimjones.com/

Thanks for entering and good luck!

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Every conference I have attended, I have taken my laptop. My big, heavy, laptop, which I place in a laptop bag and carry through the airport, take out at security, repack after security, then haul through the terminal to my plane, then store it in the over head compartment, then haul it to the hotel, at which point it goes into a corner of my room and is rarely taken out again. I like having my computer with me, but I don’t love the hauling of the heavy laptop. So when Jenny from Rocket XL emailed me and asked me if I was interested in reviewing the new Sony mylo, my first thought was omg, I can take my computer to conferences without having to take the heavy laptop, woo hoooo!

The Wi-Fi Sony® mylo™ personal communicator connects you to the Web using wireless LAN technology,  so there are no monthly bills or long-term contracts. Call your friends on Skype® for free or IM them on AIM®, Google Talk™, or Yahoo!® Messenger using the back-lit slide-out keyboard. You can  browse the Web, take photos and share them on the 3.5-inch LCD touch screen. All this on a device small enough to take virtually anywhere.

mylo stands for “my life online”, and it comes with built in widgets to help you stay connected to your online life.  Available widgets include the Google search widget and the Facebook® Notifier that tracks activity on your Facebook page, and the  My Contacts widget that works as a consolidated buddy list for all the IM applications on the mylo. More widgets are available for download on the mylo labs page.

Photos: With the built in 1.3 Megapixel camera imaging and everything you do online are at your finger tips. You can capture photos, edit them on the built in photo editor and because COM-2 features upload and download capability, you can post them directly to your blog or even to your Facebook page. All on the mylo without the need for a PC.

Phone Calls: Skype lets you enjoy free Internet phone calls to and from any Skype enabled device and PC, anywhere in the world! Or Skype-Out to any phone number for a nominal fee. Unlimited calls to U.S. and Canada landlines and cell phones are just $2.95 a month, and there are plans for calls to Mexico, and calls to 39 other countries as well.

All that plus a music and video player, and no expensive monthly data plans! And with the Skype feature, it IS a phone too, so it really is every thing you can ever need in a personal device,  and it’s smaller than a PSP so it’s really easy to take with you. Free Wi-Fi is available all over the place now, except for MY LOCAL MCDONALD’S, which was one of the first stores to offer it and they signed a stupid 5 year contract that requires them to charge for the service, grumble grumble.

At $199.99 with no monthly contract, the Sony Wi-Fi mylo is a gift  that will make someone say WOW. And thank you. And WOW, again. I can’t thank Jenny from Rocket XL enough for sending me one!

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How would you like to make a video that gives your spouse or significant other a suggestion for what to get you for Christmas, AND gets you an entry into a sweepstakes with 29 daily prizes of $500 each? You can make a video that shows you, what you want for Christmas, plus Santa and an Elf by visiting SitOnSantasLap.com! The video is cute, and about 3/4 of the way in, you are prompted to type in your name, what you want for Christmas, and then upload a photo. After doing that, you’ll be able to enter the got a wish? Sweepstakes, too. Here’s mine, you’ll need to watch all of it to spot me towards the end:

There’s also a space to email your video to someone, I sent mine to my husband. Hope he takes the hint! The site is sponsored by CEIVA, to promote their Digital Photo Frame that plugs into an existing phone line and lets you send photos right to the frame. Whether your loved ones are near or far for the holidays, CEIVAshare Digital Photo Frames™ are the perfect gift for staying closely connected all year long.

CEIVAshare™ together with PicturePlan®:

* Photos sent directly to the frame from family and friends located anywhere in the world
* No PC or internet required — great for parents, grandparents and everyone else
* Connects to an existing phone line —
just plug, play and enjoy!

Perfect for Grandparents or anyone who would love to see a new photo “magically” appear in the 8 inch high-def display of the frame. The regular price is $229.99, but right now you can get the frame with PicturePlan Lifetime Warranty for only 129.99!

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Candlewick Press is one of the largest independent publishing companies, not just in the country, but in the world, and it’s 100% employee owned. They are committed to publishing only “those books we believe in, only those books that speak to children, and only those that have both words and art of the highest quality.” And that is exactly what I have found to be true every time I review a Candlewick Press title. Two books I’d like to share with you today are Moon Landing, by author Richard Platt, with design and paper engineering by David Hawcock, and A Present for Santa Claus by author David Wood, with illustrations by Dana Kubick.

In A Present for Santa Claus, young Sam wakes up on Christmas morning to find that Santa has brought him just the present he had asked for. That night, he dreams that Santa is back at the North Pole, sad because no one gave him a present. So Sam decides to save his money and buy something for Santa for the next year. He writes Santa a letter and much to his surprise, Santa shows up on Christmas Day! The book has a fun, colorful pop-up on almost every page, and at the end, a magical house with holes to look through to get a special peek inside Santa’s house! Candlewick Press recommends it for ages 4-8, I think it could be for younger children as long as you supervise to make sure they don’t tear out the pop-ups. And the story tells an important lesson about thinking of others during Christmas!

Moon Landing is an amazing pop-up that celebrates the 40th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. With a history of the space program, details about rockets, and bios of the astronauts, this book is part history lesson, and part really fun book for older kids. My 12 year old son gave it two big thumbs up! Acclaimed author Richard Platt focuses on humankind’s dreams of traveling to the moon, the race to conquer space, the technology needed to reach the moon and sustain the astronauts in space, and the moon landing itself. Re-creating the excitement of the expedition are extraordinary pop-ups depicting a rocket, the lunar module, a spaceship, and a spectacular spherical moon, while booklets and flaps offer readers a wealth of intriguing facts. For ages 8 and up.

For information about ordering these or other titles, please visit the Candlewick Press website.

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