3/29/13

The Croods

Details:  A cave man's family has rules to keep them from dying.  A cave man's family sticks together.  A cave man's family works together to hunt, and gather, and eat, and fight, they never ever look for something new.  New is Bad.  New will kill you.  Or so says the cave man.  So when new comes to them, the Croods of the cave have to decide to adapt or be left behind in the dark.  New destroyed their cave, and now the Croods must move on.  Eep embraces New with her whole heart, making a new friend, Guy and his Belt, where as her father Grug fights to keep his family safe in these new areas of the land that is before them.  With a great cast of characters: Emma Stone, Nicholas Cage, Ryan Reynolds, and Catherine Keener. 2013 hit animated movie of the Spring.


My Review:  Croods is the epic portrayal of the modern family through all of the below suggestions.
 Issues trusting, issues listening and allowing children to grow up, issues adapting to newer technology, newer ideas, etc.  Children struggling to discover their purpose in life, to discover who they are, what they want out of life etc.  Separation, broken families, orphaned children, trust issues of other people.  Married men living up to the wife's, In-Law's, children's expectations.  Fathers and husbands giving their all to provide, protect, and preside for their families.  Families accepting of the guys or girls that love their older children, accepting of the newer members of the family whole heartedly, accepting that the love of their child's life is different, has fresh new ideas, and the older child will and does embrace NEW with open minds and hearts.  Older children breaking traditions because they see and feel caged up and want to discover life, not just live so they don't die.

When our family saw this movie, the children loved the funny moments of fire burning Thunk, and Grug being "fresh", or when Guy gave Eep and Ugga dumped Sandy on Gran because she kept trying to eat Thunk and Guy and Belt.  I saw all the family issues every family in today's society struggles with.  This is a movie that will make you think, question, laugh, wonder, question, think, and laugh some more.  Its a great movie, well done.  I love the art work Grug is so good at creating!  Families will enjoy this movie very much.

Pros: great for families

Cons: none

Disclaimer: not everyone with share my opinion, I know that and understand that.  This is purely my own opinion, non biased, and honest.

                                                                                     My Rating: high 5

3/27/13

The Hobbit

Details: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is the first of 3 movies portraying the words penned by J. R. R. Tolkien.  Produced by the same directors as The Lord of The Rings trilogy.  Events that happen in the book and the movies The Hobbit happen 60 years before the series The Lord of The Rings.  Bilbo Baggins is the star of the Hobbit, which leads to Frodo Baggins getting into the mess and danger and adventures he does 60 years later.  We see Gandalf the Gray, a Brown and a White wizard all working together to figure out what is happening in Middle-earth where Elves, Dwarfs, Man, Hobbits, and Wizards enjoy peace.  But where new unknown evil is rising up.  The secondary star of the movie is Thorin Oakenshield the Dwarf King.  Baggins is met by Gandalf and 13 Dwarfs to be entreated to join them in reclaiming the lost Dwarf Kingdom taken many years earlier by Smaug the Dragon.  Gaulim is also introduced in the Hobbit, as it is Baggins interactions here in The Hobbit that lead Frodo into danger in The Lord of the Rings.  Ian McKellen, Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage, Sylvester McCoy, Cate Blanchett, Elijah Wood, Hugo Weaving are just some of the amazing cast members playing roles in the movie.

My Review:  I never got to see this playing in the theator, but when Block Buster got it we tried for 3 days to get a copy.  We ended up renting a Blue Ray copy, which was really amazing.  The quality of the picture, the special effects, the plot the characters are very well done.  Its a great way to spend 3 hours of your time, watching a classic novel come to life.  With giants, dark shadows, undead, glowing swords, and cleaver annoyances with some great fighting scenes this is and excellent portrayal of The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien.  I remember reading the book when I was in High School, I read the The Hobbit, and all 3 Lord of the Rings books during Christmas break one year.  They were really good books, and the movies are a perfect!  You can't get over the beautiful music, the breath taking scenery in the Shire, and along the journey to the Elf Kingdom, and over the mountains.  I for one cannot wait to see the next to parts of this trilogy when they come out.

Pros: excellent, great graphics, great plot, follows the book really well

Cons: having to wait for the rest of the story

                                                                                        My Rating

3/26/13

Natural Fast Pain Reliever ~ Noxicare

Noxicare is a products that offers an all natural pain relief

The capsules contain the following medicinal herbs:  Turmeric, Willow Bark, Ginger, Basil, Rosemary, Alpha Lipoic Acid, and Boswellia.  Each have distinct properties to help relieve pain naturally and are anti-inflammatory.  Noxicare also offers a pain relief cream containing the same ingredients.

noxicare pain relief
NoxiCare Natural Pain Relief

My Product Review:  I've always been one to seek after the natural way of healing through herbs.  I personally believe there are a lot of good ones out there, as well as many that can do a lot of harm.  When I had the opportunity to test and try Noxicare, I was anxious to see how well it would really work.  


First of all, I had my husband taking these capsules, twice a day.  He has rosacea that causes pimple like things to get on the inside of his eyelids.  They are very painful for him, and his eyelids swell tremendously.  Several people have recommended that he take Turmeric to help relieve those symptoms.  He did until we ran out, and haven't been able to find more.  In less than 2 weeks after taking Noxicare, his eye has returned to normal and it feels much better.  Normally this would have gone on for a month or longer.


So I thought yeah, this works for him, what about for me.  One night I had a headache that wouldn't go away.  Possibly weather related.  I took 1 capsule, and no joking, within 15 minutes my headache was gone, and it didn't return.  About 4 or 5 nights later I had a hard time sleeping due to back pain from some extra strenuous exercising.  I took 1 capsule, and within 20-25 minutes my back pain dissipated.  I was able to sleep the rest of the night.  And unlike the usual, I did not experience the back pain upon my awakening.


I thought I would need to take a longer to decide if these all natural herbs would do their job or not.  For me it was pretty instant.  For my husband it took a little longer, but he still found relief in a shorter amount of time than usual. 


If you experience muscle aches, back pains, neck pains, cramping or any kind of general pain, this is the product for you. I would highly recommend using Noxicare the next time you are experiencing any kind of pain, for fast and effective pain relief.


Pros:  This stuff really works fast.  My husband was so impressed he is having me order two more bottles to benefit from the BOGO offer.



My Rating:  Thumbs UP!

noxicare pain relief



I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

3/20/13

Preggie Queasy Pops

Preggie Queasy Pops
Preggie Queasy PopsDetails: Three Lollies has created new products that help over come nausea.  All natural specialized lollipops and lozenges to combat queasiness in Pregnant women, and children when they get sick.  The flavors and colors of the pops and drops are natural flavors from essential oils, and aromatherapy meaning that they are drug free.  The Preggie pops and drops are great for stopping morning sickness, help smooth during labor, and help easy pains and uncomfortable-ness for pregnant women. Queasy pops and drops combat nausea through aromatherapy using essential oils and natural flavors to trigger negative taste sensations to stop the nausea feelings.  Queasy pops and drops are made specially for kids, with a separate package and flavors for adults.  The pops for kids come in 7 flavors, and have a shelf life of 1 year.  These are designed to ease motion sickness, and sick stomachs.  They are made with brown rice syrup, cane juice, are drug free, and are also flavored with essential oils and natural flavors.

Preggie Queasy Pops
Preggie Queasy PopsMy Product Review:  When our team ordered these, we were super excited to get the Queasy pops for kids because many of us moms have kids getting sick all the time.  We were also curious to try the Preggie drops to see if these would actually help stop Morning Sickness so many pregnant women get.  Well the day I got the Preggie pops my family went to a restaurant for dinner and I ended up getting food poisoning.  But here's the thing, even though I'm not pregnant, I decided to use some of those Preggie drops to ease the nausea.  And come morning I was so much better, I didn't vomit once! If these can work for food poisoning, then they'll work for Morning Sickness!  The only downfall to the drops is that they were really big, and hard, and where the lable is imprinted into the hard "candy" hurt the roof of my mouth.  So I ended up having to put that part on my tongue.

Preggie Queasy Pops
The Queasy Pops for Kids are very neat too.  They come in 7 flavors that kids will love (at least love most of them).  Our kids didn't like the Natural Cola or Cinnamon flavors.  Peppermint and Green Apple were the popular/ favorite flavors.  Helping with motion sickness and upset stomachs makes these products really great to have on hand for anyone who is around children at all.

One last neat thing about Three Lollies is that they donate a portion of their proceeds to Musicians on Call.

Pros: works well, works fast

Cons: the words on the drops can hurt the roof of the mouth.


Preggie Queasy Pops

3/13/13

Priddy Books USA Activity School book

Details: Priddy books: United States of America wipe clean let's learn activity book is for ages 3 and up.  Has 26 pages of wipe clean activities.  Children can practice writing, counting, and solving puzzles.  Learn about the 50 states, their capitals, their flags, they're state flower,  insect or tree.  Word searches, missing letters, counting images, finding the differences, and more mini activities per page.  Priddy Books has a large variety of Wipe Clean books available in different age ranges, topics, and places.
My Review: We got this book when my son was 4 years old so that he had an activity to do as we drove across country moving.  In the car he got really bored of it really quickly this is definitely something for parents to work on with their children especially as a school activity or at your regular extra learning activity book.  Now that my son is 6 years old he starting to be able to do it on his own if he can now read a lot of the words understand what he supposed to do with a different activities and puzzles and he's having a lot of fun using this as a school activity book.  He's learning a lot about the USA me he's learning about the states their capitals the United States Capitol.  This is supplementing with other states puzzles and activities that we use on the Kindle, On the computer with books and teaching so that everything is just memorized.  I feel like this is a great tool to use especially for home schoolers.

Pros: fun, great facts, awesome activities
Cons: not for children to do on their own unless they can read. 

                                                                              My Rating 

3/11/13

Write, Slide, & Learn School Books

Details: The Write, Slide and Learn book series has 3 titles Math, Phonics and Spelling.  What the wipe clean pages you can write on them, slide to see the answers, and learn which keeps your children engaged and entertained as you work through these books.  These books are for ages 5 and up.  The wipe off pages allow for easy repeated practice.

My Review: Hinkler Books: Write, Slide and Learn: Math, Phonics, and Spelling.  I have only known about these books for a couple weeks now I bought that math book and the spelling book from Goodwill for 3 dollars each.  As I home school my kindergartner in a preschooler I try to find a fun activity books that will help them easily love to learn to read love to learn to spell love to learn to count and write.  These books seem to do that all in one.
The math books specifically helps your child  learn how to count from 1 to 12, word problems, missing numbers, most and least, even numbers, odd numbers, counting backwards, addition, subtraction, and other such a valuable skill that children need to learn. My 6 year old loves using these books!  He loves being able to slide out the answers to make sure he's doing it properly and it helps and learn to visualize the numbers not just write them.
The Spelling book specifically helps your child learn to spell 280 commonly used words, work on beginning sounds, ending sounds, missing letters, rhyming words, consonants and vowels, and other such important skills needed.  Since right now all I have is the last book in the spelling but I can't wait to find the phonics book even if I have to pay full price these are totally worth it I highly recommend these books.
Again these are great for home schoolers for Parents to just want to give their kids extra help with their school work and great for the summertime when you want to make sure your kids don't forget what they learned the previous school year.

Pros: excellent content, easy to use, easy to clean

Cons: I would like to see this series of books come in different levels: like Kindergarten and First Grade.

                                                                                My Rating 


3/4/13

Hiding in Sunshine

Details: A father and teenage daughter co-authored novel.  A thriller story of truth, imagination, and technical terms.  About a family whose life is turned upside down started by an FBI visit.  The Brinkley's are forced into hiding for 11 years.  How can one family suffer so much? How can one family stay together and stay safe through the biggest terror attack the USA has ever know?  How can a genius on the run fight an enemy he can't see?

My Review: This book was a gift from Influenster, which I got for free to read, and review.  I was a little worried about how much of a thriller a book this was going to be.  I enjoy many genres of boos but I don't like to be scared by what I read.  This wasn't bad at all.  What could be better than a compelling story about a family who looses their hard earned fortune, lives, names, friends in a suspenseful novel full of surprising treachery, betrayal, and fear.  I enjoyed this novel.  It was fun and very engaging to read.  I truly look forwards to more books from these authors.  I'm still trying to figure out if this is a real story or not.

Pros: well written, engaging, suspenseful, great

Cons: none

                                                                        My Rating 

3/1/13

Jack the Giant Slayer


Details: 2013 movie with the Fairy Tale Jack and The Bean stalk as the theme.  "Fee Fye Foe Fumm!"  Bryan Singer the producer of X-Men is also the producer for this movie.  Cast: Nicholas Hoult from the newest X-Men, Eleanor Tomlinson, Ewan McGregor, Stanley Tucci, Ian McShane, Bill Nighy.  Here is a great link to find all the details about this movie straight from Warner Brothers.
 
My Review: My husband and I got to go on a date tonight.  We got to watch the 3 D version of Jack the Giant Slayer.  What an incredible movie it was awesome!  The graphics were great, special effects were incredible, 3D was the best 3D version we'd ever seen.  You can see this in either 2D or 3D, but we really liked the 3D.  It wasn't too crazy, no dizzy feelings when the screen pans out.  No fuzzy images because of the disposable glasses from the theater.  We got great seats!  I will personally admit that I closed my eyes about 5 times.  I've have a little bit of a height fear.  Also there were a few gross images (nothing super nasty and graphic, but enough to have the audience all go "ew" at the same time).  I highly recommend seeing this movie!

Pros: amazingly well written, great plot, really good special affects

Cons: none

                                                    My Rating: Giant Thumbs Up