Hershey’s Special Dark and Extra Dark Chocolate Giveaway!

This giveaway is closed. Congratulations to the three winners:

1. comment #146 Lindley A

2. comment #235 Holly B.

3. comment #378 susitravl
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With Heart Health Month as well as National Chocolate Month both occurring in February, now is the time to treat your body right. According to world-renowned health and fitness expert Bob Greene, you can stay on track to live your Best Life while enjoying Hershey’s Extra Dark Chocolate and Hershey’s Special Dark Chocolate.

Hershey’s Extra Dark Chocolate is the only chocolate to receive the Best Life Treat Seal of Approval, which was created by Greene and appears on select foods. The treat seal is intended to help consumers make healthier food and lifestyle decisions. Chocolate lovers can visit www.hersheys.com/thebestlife to learn how to incorporate Hershey’s Extra Dark Chocolate in their daily Best Life Diet with recipes like Chocolate Ginger Spice Muffins, Chili con Cocoa and Chocolate-Banana Sherbet.

I received a box of samples of Special Dark and Extra Dark chocolate for review, and let me tell you, this is some GOOD chocolate. I’m already a big fan of Special Dark, so I loved the Special Dark with Almonds.  If you enjoy fruit-and-chocolate combinations, you’ll love the Extra Dark with Cranberries, Blueberries and Almonds and the Extra Dark with Pomegranate, both of which have tiny bits of chewy fruit inside the rich chocolate.  The pouches of Extra Dark contain individually wrapped squares making portion control easy.   One bar of Special Dark and three squares of Extra Dark chocolate have as many antioxidants as 2/3 cup blueberries, a glass of wine, or 2 cups of green tea!

To help my readers start living their Best Life, Hershey’s is sponsoring this giveaway. Three winners will be chosen at random from all eligible comments to win ALL OF THIS:

- 1 box Hershey’s Special Dark Dark Chocolate Bars (36 bars in each box)
- 1 box Hershey’s Special Dark Mildly Sweet Chocolate Bar with Almonds (24 bars in each box)
- 1 bag of Hershey’s Nuggets Dark Chocolate with Almonds
- 1 bag Hershey’s Miniatures Assortment – Dark Chocolate
- 1 bar/pouch combo of Hershey’s Extra Dark Pure Dark Chocolate in one of the following flavors:
- Hershey’s Extra Dark Pure Dark Chocolate
- Hershey’s Extra Dark Pure Dark Chocolate with Cranberries, Blueberries and Almonds
- Hershey’s Extra Dark Pure Dark Chocolate infused with Raspberry flavor
- Hershey’s Extra Dark Pure Dark Chocolate with Pomegranate flavor

WIN IT: For your main entry, leave a comment on this post telling me what your favorite Hershey’s Chocolate is. Enter by Monday, Feb. 22nd at 1:00 PM EST.  I’ll choose three winners at random and email them for their mailing info. Shipping will be handled by the sponsor, JSH&A.  Open to U.S. addresses only.
BONUS ENTRIES: Leave a separate comment for each of the following that you do or have done:

  • Blog about this giveaway and leave the URL in a comment
  • Tweet the giveaway – you can do this once per day, leave a separate comment for each
  • Subscribe to my RSS or email feed
  • Stumble or Digg this post
  • Add Table for Five to your blogroll, leave your URL so I can add you back!
  • Friend me on Facebook – add a message that you’re entering a giveaway so I’m sure to accept your request :)

Thanks for entering and good luck everybody!

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Wordless Wednesday-North American International Auto Show

Photos by Ryan Edwards, age 13

Location: Cobo Center, Detroit Michigan

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Win an adorable Baby Wumbler plush, three winners!

CLOSED – Congratulations to the winner, comment #49 from Monique!

Prizey Pick badge Pictures, Images and Photosedited to add: Thank you, everyone who came here from Prizey, for making this giveaway a Prizey Pick!

The Wumblers are the creation of Laura Wellington, mother of FIVE (congratulations on the new baby!) who used two tragedies to create a world of characters who learn about positive social and global messages while also having fun together. Her Wumblers Patch Store carries board games, books, CDs, DVDs, plush toys, puzzles, and even an iPhone app with a watermelon seed spitting game.  Laura sent Kaitlyn a Baby Girl Wumbler that she absolutely loves, as well as an Alphabet game. The Wumbler comes inside a fabric watermelon, you unzip it and turn it right-side-out, and it’s a plush baby Wumbler wearing a satiny diaper! Seriously, so cute:

From the site:

Laura Wellington, a mother and former teacher, created The Wumblers series and The Wumbler Patch brand to help her own four children cope with the three year passing of her husband from cancer. Not long thereafter, the tragedy of 911 marked a second opportunity for Laura to help children cope with the suffering they were experiencing as a result of the many personal losses plaguing their own families.

The outcome of the meaningful messages, uplifting story lines, and exciting characters embedded in both The Wumblers series and The Wumbler Patch brand was the rapid launching of The Wumblers series and The Wumbler Patch brand throughout the world. A combination of vast parent-child approval and appeal became the valuable seeds in which the success of both The Wumbler series and The Wumbler Patch brand were sown upon.

Baby Wumblers hatch from watermelons in the Watermelon Patch and are totally adorable!  And best of all,  25% of every Baby Wumbler purchase is donated to Tuesday’s Children, an organization that provides resources and support to families directly impacted by 9-11.  Laura and her team have generously offered three Baby Wumblers for me to giveaway to Table for Five readers!

WIN IT: For your main entry, visit the Baby Wumblers page and then come back here and tell me in a comment which you will choose if you win – a Baby Boy Wumbler or a Baby Girl Wumbler.  Shipping is U.S. only.  Enter by January 28th 2010 at 12:00 noon EST.  EDITED TO ADD:  I’m extending the giveaway deadline  because I had comments set to close after 10 days! SORRY!! I will choose three winners using random.org and then email them for their mailing information. Shipping will be provided by the sponsor.

BONUS ENTRIES: Leave a separate comment for each of the following that you do or have done:

  • Blog about this giveaway and leave the URL in a comment
  • Tweet the giveaway – you can do this once per day, leave a separate comment for each
  • Subscribe to my RSS or email feed
  • Stumble or Digg this post
  • Add Table for Five to your blogroll, leave your URL so I can add you back!
  • Friend me on Facebook

Thanks for entering and good luck everybody!

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All Was Merry and Bright

The decision I made to take a break from blogging over the holidays turned out to be one of the best professional decisions I’ve made in a long time.  Compared to last year, when I was stressed out and grumpy over having to be away from my computer, this year my mind was clear and I was able to truly enjoy everything about Christmas. Consequently, it was one of the best Christmases I (and my family) have had in a long time.

My Dad and Stepmom went to Arkansas to be with her mother, so instead of our usual Christmas Eve at Dad’s house, we just hung out here at home. We watched movies, played video games, and then sent the kids to bed so Chris and I could do our traditional “wrapping all the presents on Christmas Eve”.  Even though we both bitch about it, neither of us ever wraps anything ahead of time, so I guess we both like staying up together late on Christmas Eve to wrap.

Oh, Chris made the BEST coffee for us to drink to help us stay up so late – a mix of Boca Java’s Vacation Villa Vanilla and Frosty Snow coffee beans, ground together, then flavored with French Vanilla creamer and a shot of Bailey’s. SO GOOD.

Christmas morning was wonderful. Nathan’s big gift was a bike, which we left sitting out in front of the tree. 

I tend to buy too much for the stockings, making them too heavy to hang from the stocking holders, so those went under the tree too.

I gave Chris a list of suggested gifts to buy me for Christmas. When I saw the pile with my name on it on Christmas Day, I was shocked. He and the kids spoiled me rotten this year!  There were snowman ornaments for the tree that he had bought last summer in Traverse City and kept hidden all this time, and a wonderful, WONDERFUL assortment of PERFECT gifts.

The box on the left is “Twilight Woods” perfume from Bath & Body Works, which Chris and the boys picked out together. They told me that they had all agreed that it smelled “really pretty”, and it does!  The main “notes” are cedar and tobacco, and it smells amazing layered over the Warm Vanilla Sugar shower gel and lotion (also Bath & Body Works).  I also got….

See what I mean? Spoiled rotten!   Considering what a tough year 2009 was for Chris and I, I felt like he did more than just buy me Christmas presents. I feel like he said to me, through those presents, that he still knows who I am, likes who I am, and that everything is going to be okay.

Which is pretty much the best Christmas gift of all.

Since this is already so long, I’m going to do another post tomorrow about the kids’ gifts, and our visit to Chris’ Dad’s house on Christmas Day. Thanks for reading!

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Kaitlyn needs a plane ticket. And a passport.

Littlest Pet Shop playsets come with a little booklet that shows all the pets you can collect, with convenient check-off boxes so you can make sure you are being the BEST PARENT YOU CAN BE by buying your child every single pet. Kaitlyn has been carrying one around since Christmas Day, studying it thoroughly and occasionally thrusting it under my nose saying “can I get THIS ONE? Pleeeeeeaaasssseeeeeee?”  It doesn’t matter that she got eleventy-billion Littlest Pet Shop toys for her birthday and Christmas, she needs more. It’s the American way, after all.

So, I was poking around various websites looking at LPS toys, and I found one that I knew she would love, the Playful Paws Pet Daycare. I was about to click “add to cart” when I realized I was on the U.K. version of the Littlest Pet Shop site. Kaitlyn, who was of course looking over my shoulder, started wailing when I clicked away from the site to go to hasbro.com to look for the playset there.

Kaitlyn (wailing loudly): why are you leaving that screen? I want to look at that!!! (waaaaahhhhh)

Me: because those toys are only sold in England

Kaitlyn (after pausing a few seconds): Do they allow kids in England?

Me: yes, why?

Kaitlyn: So we can go to England and BUY THOSE TOYS!

Good thing for me this old Compaq laptop doesn’t work or she would TOTALLY be tweeting about how MEAN I am  :P

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p.s. those two glowing things in the top right corner of the photo are the eyes of our cat, Blackdrop, a.k.a. Kitty.  And yes, she’s huge.

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How to make a Pixie Hollow BirdFeeder!

Have you ever wondered why Tinker Bell is called “Tinker” Bell? Well, as you will learn tomorrow when you see the brand new Walt Disney Home Entertainment DVD, fairies each have a special talent that is discovered shortly after they are created. A Tinker fairy is one that is skilled in making, building, and fixing things, which turns out to be Tinker Bell’s talent. She also likes to use “lost things” to make something new, and with these instructions, you can tinker with “lost” things to make something new!

You’ll need a large plastic bottle, a long twig, a long piece of string, rope, or twine, and birdseed. Punch holes on both sides of the bottle and thread the twig through for perches. Punch a small hole in the bottom of the bottle. Tie a knot at the end of your piece of string and thread it through the top of the bottle and out through the hole in the bottom for hanging. Fill with birdseed and screw the cap on tightly. You can decorate your bottle with nontoxic paint, glitter, pieces of moss, or anything you recycle from nature.

Enjoy this fun craft project and don’t forget to pick up the Tinker Bell DVD tomorrow!

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If it wasn’t for BlogHer…

So, it’s more than a little disconcerting to have other bloggers say, upon meeting me, that they miss the purple flower I used to have in my header! Here I thought I was keeping it fresh, and instead it turns out I’ve just been confusing the hell out of people who no longer can tell right away that they are visiting Table for Five. I’m so sorry!

Which means I am now attempting to get the purple flower back in my header, as well as a photo of myself, because I also found out that not everyone who reads this blog follows me on Twitter, so they don’t know what I look like! Again, so sorry!

My brain is still a bit discombobulated, so if you’ll bear with me, I’m going to work a bit on emails and some other things for a while, then I’ll be back with a BlogHer recap of some of the finer moments of the trip. It will probably take me the rest of the week just to remember everything that happened!

And then on Monday and Tuesday of next week, I’ll be in Cincinnati at another blogging event-a PR firm that represents Pampers is sending me and some other fine bloggers to Proctor & Gamble headquarters! I can’t wait to tell the Pampers people how their diapers and wipes are the only ones we use, plus I hope I can talk to P&G about their new “Aquaporins” line of products. Should be fun!

So my dears, I’ll be back soon with all the BlogHer talk you can stand. Leave me a comment, tell me what’s going on with you!

The Spiderwick Chronicles-2 Disc Special Edition

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!

Photos and Muppets and Minivans, oh my.

I’ve just been a busy little bee this morning! I had an 8:00 AM conference at Nathan’s school to go over his I.E.P. for next year, so I woke up extra-early to get both Kaitlyn and him fed and dressed, bundled them into the MomVan and turned the key. CLICK. CLICKCLICKCLICKCLICK. Huh? FRAK!

Got them both out of the car, Kaitlyn wailing “Nooo! I wanna go to Nathan’s school and PWAY in the CWASSWOOM!” Called the school, profuse apologies. Now, technically, we could have walked to the school from my house, it’s just down the sidewalk and around the corner, takes about 7 minutes to walk it, but it was already 8:00 and we were going to be late, I knew there wouldn’t be enough time to go over everything before school starts at 8:40. Called Allstate Motor Club, who sent out a very nice young man in a big shiny red truck to jumpstart my car. He saw Kaitlyn watching us from the living room window and told me about the two year old foster child he and his wife are adopting, aww.

Then, I decided to write a post about David Cook winning American Idol, and next thing I knew I was searching for a photo of him and decorating it in Photobucket and making the image in the post before this one, titled David Cook Wins American Idol. If you want to leave your thoughts about that, please click the link and leave a comment! I LOVES me some David Cook, people.

After THAT, I wrote a review for Parent Bloggers Network about a really cool photo sharing site called Kinzin. It’s free to sign up, and what you do is upload photos of your kids and then they send ten prints a month to three different addresses, at $2.99 a month each but the third one is free, so you get all three for $5.98 a month. It’s such a DEAL. Plus you can invite friends and family to view a page for each of your kids where you can post updates of what they are doing, there’s a Facebook application as well as a Flickr group. So whether your friends and family are online or not, you can show them the latest photos of your little darlings! Please click here to read my whole review on MomReviews.

AND, I finally finished watching The Muppet Show-The Complete Third Season, which I received for review. The third season has got some of the best guest stars of the whole show, including including Roy Clark, Pearl Bailey, Jean Stapleton, Harry Belefonte, Danny Kaye, Cheryl Ladd, Raquel Welch, Roy Rogers, Dale Evans, and Sylvester Stallone. And, of course, all of the Muppets, including Kermit, Miss Piggy, Gonzo, Fozzie Bear, Scooter, Rowlf, Crazy Harry, Beaker, and Animal.

It also has a great Bonus Features, including a rare look at the puppeteers, and the dog food commercials that first introduced the character of Rowlf the dog. Just remember, The Muppet Show was a musical variety show, so the episodes are mostly musical numbers, something that is pretty much unheard of these days. There are plenty of hilarious skits though, like the classic “Pigs in Space” and “Swedish Chef”, plus plenty of one-liners that will probably go right over your kids’ heads while you are cracking up. It’s a trip down memory lane, watching The Muppet Show again, I think you’ll like it!

So that’s been my day so far, and it’s not even noon. Whew!

Voice Messaging-a new marketing trend

There is a new way for companies to create, send, and track messages sent to people that want to hear from them, and it’s called Do-It-Yourself Voice Messaging, from a company called Vontoo. Using Voice Over IP technology, Vontoo voice messaging gives companies a whole new way to reach customers by phone.

Why voice messaging? Without having to purchase additional hardware or software, organizations can record messages using just a phone, identify which calls reached an actual person, determine ideal call times, and automatically transfer the recipient to a ticket office or service line. For example, to promote the appearance of American Idol finalist Lakisha Jones at a weekly nightclub gathering, the promotional team had Jones record an invitation to the event. Using the phone numbers of past club attendees who had given their permission to be contacted, the team used Vontoo’s messaging technology to download the numbers, and then scheduled the calls.

Vontoo offers a no-obligation 30 day free trial, and the first 50 calls are free. They have a free “webinar” every Thursday at 3:00 p.m. EST to explain exactly how to create a message, add individuals or groups to a call list, upload an audio file, schedule and send a call, and track the results. Vontoo also has a newsletter delivered by email with calling tips and more. Vontoo is a great way for companies and organizations to reach people who want to be contacted by phone.

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