I was so thrilled to get an opportunity to review the Disney Classic Lady and the Tramp Diamond Edition, now available on Blu-ray! The Combo Pack also includes a DVD and a digital download. I couldn’t wait to pop it in the Blu-ray player and watch it with Kaitlyn!

Synopsis: A classic love story unfolds in the best Disney tradition as a lovely young pedigreed cocker spaniel named Lady, who lives a pampered life, finds herself falling romantically for Tramp, an amorous street-smart pooch without prospects. Although they have fun together on several dates, including a sentimental spaghetti dinner by moonlight at Tony’s restaurant, their relationship is strained not only by Lady’s loyalty to her human family and their newborn baby, but by Tramp’s devil-may-care attitude that eventually gets Lady in trouble and tossed into the dog pound. However, good-hearted Tramp redeems himself by saving the baby from potential harm and thus wins Lady’s love and the affection of her human family.

As I predicted, Kaitlyn LOVED the movie.  The story is set in the early 1900s and therefore has some aspects that seem old-fashioned by today’s standards, like the fact that Jim and Darling don’t know the sex of their unborn baby, and the Siamese cats which are complete stereotypes. But those are issues that adults would notice, kids just know it’s a movie with dogs and cats and lots of fun songs!

Bonus features on the Blu-ray include:

• Disney Second Screen: Inside Walt’s Story Meetings with Audio commentary
• Diane Disney Miller: Remembering Dad
• Three Never-Before-Seen Deleted Scenes
• Never Recorded Song: “I’m Free as the Breeze”
• From the original DVD release: Lady’s Pedigree: The Making of Lady and the Tramp, Finding Lady: The Art of the Storyboard, Original 1943 Storyboard Version of the Film, PuppyPedia: Going to the Dogs, “The Siamese Cat Song,” Finding a Voice for the Cats, “Bella Notte” Music Video, Trailers, and Excerpts from “Disneyland” TV Shows.

The DVD Bonus features are:

• Diane Disney Miller: Remembering Dad
• PuppyPedia: Going to the Dogs
• Digital Bonus: Diane Disney Miller: Remembering Dad
• Three Never-Before-Seen Deleted Scenes
• PuppyPedia: Going to the Dogs

Here’s the video for “Bella Notte”, the song that the Italian waiter sings to Lady and Tramp when they have their date at the italian restaurant and do the famous sharing a single strand of spaghetti scene:

I highly recommend the Lady and the Tramp (Diamond Edition Two-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo in Blu-ray Packaging) for collectors of Disney movies, and for parents looking for wholesome movies to watch as a family. It’s available on Amazon.com for the incredibly low price of just $14.99!

BUY IT NOW:

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They say that the eyes are the windows to the soul, and they’re not really far off the mark there. One of the most dramatic ways to alter your look would be by focusing more on the makeup you apply around your eye area. You’d be surprised at the wonders that an eyelash curler and a really good mascara can do to widen your eyes and accentuate the color of your eyes as well as help bring out your best features. You may be new to all this and find it a little confusing, but the good news is that you could get loads of different mascaras online at a really reasonable price minus the hassle of having to run out to the stores. Different products are available in order to suit your varied needs and these are great for both outdoor, day use as well as night use.

Makeup kits are a good place to start for people who are new to makeup. These kits are usually sufficiently equipped for casual day use with makeup that is both suitable for school as well as the office. For night use, you might need to settle for a mascara that is darker with perhaps a volumizing effect. On the other hand, if you live in more humid climates, you might have to opt for waterproof mascara so that the mascara stays intact all day long without running. Waterproof mascara could prove challenging to remove, so you need to invest in a good supply of makeup removal cloths. These have a higher content of oil on them so that it’s easy for you to remove stubborn mascara without the need for vigorous scrubbing of any sort.

• Try It: Colored Mascara (Don’t Be Scared!) (refinery29.com)
• 5 Tips For Major Eyelashes A La Adele (thefrisky.com)
• My review: the best and worst mascaras (thisismysoapbox.wordpress.com)

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When you have a large family, space is a hot commodity – and very rarely does it come free and easy. It seems like every closet, nook, and cranny is packed to the brim with odds and ends, and the basement and garage has room for nothing but boxes. Quite honestly, it is a nightmare.

However, to better maximize the space in our home, we recently decided to get a storage unit at the local StorageMart. For a few extra bucks a month, we have been able to clear our closets, park our cars in our garage, and have even been able to free up the space for our kids to have an entertainment area in the basement. A few of the great ways we have decided to use our self storage unit include:

Clothing Rotation

With a large family, seasonal clothing can quickly overrun closets and make it impossible to find anything. However, swapping out clothes isn’t a much more effective space saver if you are simply packing them up and placing them in your garage or basement. To save space, and to keep our clothes safer from mold and mildew, we have chosen to regularly rotate our seasonal clothing and store those we aren’t using in our storage unit. Not only do we save space, but we also know the clothing is better protected than it would be in our own home.

Holiday Decorations

Holidays decorations are only needed once a year and even then only for a brief period of time so why let them take up space in your home for the rest of the year? We definitely don’t now. Instead of packing our decorations into our garage after Halloween or Christmas is over, we take them back to our storage unit and don’t worry about them until next year. By storing our decorations elsewhere, my husband has finally been able to use our garage again, allowing that honey-do list to finally shrink a bit.

Summer Fun

When winter comes all of our fun, yet often larger, summer fun items cease being used. Bikes go unridden, the inflatable pool has to be packed away, and sports equipment simply leans all over the garage. To free up space and keep our items safely stored, don’t keep those items packed at home. Put them in a storage unit instead. They will be safer from the elements and you won’t have to worry about sacrificing the space in winter – a much needed commodity when you’ve got everyone cooped inside.

When you have a large family, you need all the space you can get. While a storage unit does give a family an additional monthly expense, they are often relatively inexpensive and definitely pay for themselves with the extra space they provide you.