2009 November | Theta Mom®

11.19.09

LeapFrog Leapster2 Review and Giveaway

***This contest is now closed. Congratulations to Stefany. An email has been sent!***

LeapFrog is a company that is leading and designing innovative and educational products that are technology-based, making learning fun for children of all ages. They offer quality educational products at an affordable price point, making any purchase a great investment. The LeapFrog philosophy is that they “put learning first.” This company believes it is this philosophy that sets them apart from other competitors.

I have been impressed with this company and their line of educational, technology-based products for quite some time now, so you can imagine my excitement when I received the email that LeapFrog wanted Theta Mom to perform a review/giveaway! I reviewed the Leapster2 along with two games: The Princess and the Frog (4-7 years) and Star Wars (5-8 years).

The Leapster2 is the #1 best selling educational handheld gaming system. Honestly, it’s the first product that has truly held the interest of my 4 year-old son. I can’t tell you how many times he has received gifts from a birthday party or Christmas and after five days, the excitement wore off and he moved on to the something else. I have a basement full of toys that he hardly ever uses anymore. And then, we met the Leapster2.

You know I only endorse products/companies that I fully believe in and support. I can’t tell you enough how the Leapster2, in some ways, changed my life. Seriously. My son will actually play on his Leapster2 for an hour at a time. He looks forward to playing each time and we even downloaded an extra game from our computer at no extra cost! The gaming and learning possibilities with this Leapster2 are endless!

The touch screen is easy to work with and the buttons are easy for my son’s little fingers to navigate. But, what I love most about this product is that there is real learning going on and my son doesn’t even realize it because he’s having so much fun! He’s counting, recognizing letters, shapes, beginning to put sounds together and form words, all at the press of a button.

The other reason I absolutely love this product is that it transports very easily. We even take it in the car since it runs on batteries, no need to plug in. We invested in a battery charger and rechargeable batteries, so when he wants to continue playing, it’s so easy!

Moreover, along with the Leapster2, there is a CD-ROM called LeapFrog Connect included in the package that actually tracks your child’s learning progress! You can set up an individual account (which we did) to monitor and track your child’s overall performance. This is called The Learning Path and it demonstrates your child’s skill level in Listening and Speaking Skills, Phonics Skills as well as Memory Skills. How awesome is that?

The Princess and the Frog (4-7 years) game: My son loved Cooking with Tiana. He gets the chance to be a real chef, cutting the food and stirring the pot. (Yes, he loves to stir the pot)! He also likes to choose the “right letter” to get to Mama Odies’s House. He tells me with excitement when he gets it right!

Star Wars (5-8 years): My son also enjoys identifying upper and lowercase letters while battling the Storm troopers. He also gets to blast the letters to get more power. What boy wouldn’t want to blast those letters in space? Spelling and letter recognition has never been this much fun!

I cannot tell you enough how much we love the Leapster2 and the learning experience it provides my son. As a Theta Mom, this product is my sanity, because my son’s attention is on something else other than me for once!

The Leapster2 retails for $69.99. You can purchase one yourself, by locating a store here or you can enter this giveaway because LeapFrog is giving one lucky Theta Mom reader the chance to WIN YOUR VERY OWN LEAPSTER2!!! Perfect timing for the holidays Theta Moms! Trust me when I tell you, your child will be ecstatic over the Leapster2!

How to Enter the LeapFrog Leapster2 Giveaway:

Required Entry: I made this SUPER easy: Just follow my blog publicly and tell me you are.

Extra Entries: (You must leave a separate entry for each extra entry to count and extra entries won’t count unless the required entry is done)

1. Follow me on Twitter and leave me your twitter name. (1 entry)

2. Grab one of my cute buttons and add it to your website. (2 entries per button)

3. Subscribe to my Blog. (1 entry)

4. Click to vote for me at Top Mommy Blogs. Just click the banner on the side bar and tell me you clicked. (1 entry)

5. Tweet this giveaway! Just copy/paste the following: Enter to win a LeapFrog #giveaway for a Leapster2 @ThetaMom http://tinyurl.com/ygq7w3n Please RT (1 entry per daily tweet)

6. Stumble this giveaway and tell me you stumbled. (1 entry)

7. Fave my blog to Technorati and use icon in the Connect With Theta Mom green box. (1 entry)

8. Post about this giveaway on your blog and link back to me. Leave me your link to show the post. (2 entries)

9. Add Theta Mom to your blogroll (2 entries)

Giveaway Rules:

This giveaway is open to US residents only. It begins on November 19, 2009 and will end on December 3, 2009 at 10 PM. One winner with a valid entry will be selected at random using random.org. The winner will be announced and must respond with a current email address within 48 hours to claim. Otherwise, another eligible entry will be chosen. Enter as many extra entries as you would like Theta Moms and good luck!

I received the Leapster2 and the two games shown in this post for review. I was not compensated for this review. These are my own opinions about the products, including my son’s experience.

{ 529 Comments }

11.17.09

Blogger Was Like a Really Bad Boyfriend, So He Finally Got the Boot

I must preface this post by saying that many of the blogs I visit are powered by Blogger. Although I had an absolutely horrible experience with Blogger, this will not deter me from continuing to support, visit, follow, and comment on your blogs. This, my dear readers, will never change. However, I needed to make a change for my own site. And since many of you have been asking me why I made the decision to leave Blogger and make the move to WordPress, I am going to dish right now.

Basically, Blogger was like a really bad boyfriend to me; he was always late, sometimes unresponsive, totally unreliable, never supportive, and acted like he owned me. A girl can only take so much before she reaches her breaking point. And this girl had enough.

Blogger Was Always Late and Sometimes Even Unresponsive: My own blog would take time to load and some blogs I visit frequently would take so long to load, and some not at all. This process proved that Blogger was never on time. Even worse, to try and comment on a blog that had restricted users to Google accounts only? Blogger was never on time. Most often, I couldn’t wait around long enough for Blogger to show its face. Is this an Internet Explorer issue? Perhaps. Did it happen to all users? No, but I was certainly one of the lucky ones. Even when I downloaded Google Chrome and other “tricks” that were suggested to me, these problems still existed. This is when I totally reached my threshold.

I need a platform that will always be on time and responsive. I want my page to load easily for readers and make adding a comment a pleasure, not a hassle. No need for logins, passwords, page loads, pop-ups, none of that garbage. One quick form without any login necessary. Completely a fast process that’s consistently easy, seamless. Effortless.

Blogger Was Unreliable: Aside from sometimes not being able to leave a comment all together, there were a few occasions when I was completely locked out of my own blog! I received either a Google server error message or one of those crazy error messages full of code that actually would not let me on my own damn blog! I couldn’t even get to my Dashboard to post my sheer frustration with Blogger. Did it happen all the time? No. Enough to spook me? Absolutely. Enough to make me leave? You better believe it.

I can’t be worried that every time I login to my blog, there is a chance something has gone terribly wrong. I don’t want to have to hold my breath every single time to make sure that my Dashboard will completely appear. Blogger showed me time and time again that it’s simply not reliable. I need a platform that will give me peace of mind when I login to my blog, it will be there!

Blogger Was Not Supportive: With the many issues I was facing, Blogger never came around to help me. I would share my frustration and issues on the help forums and the administrators would never respond to me; not in an email or on any of the Blogger help forums. My time spent there was completely useless. I worried that there would come a day that I would be locked out of my blog for more than a few hours and then what? Hope the Google police would rescue me? Not a chance.

I need a platform that encourages support. I need a community of users that will help you when you need guidance, be there for you in time of need, and help you to find your way through code when you’ve screwed something up. You will get a response from some WordPress gurus on twitter almost instantaneously, let alone the hundreds of users who login to the help forums to chat and support hourly. There is always someone there, regardless of your issue or time of day. Especially since I am a new user, I foresee myself chatting on these boards a lot, and that’s the kind of support I need.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying WordPress won’t have its own issues. Give me some time and I’ll probably find some pitfalls, but at least with WordPress, there is an entire community ready to provide support and give you the help you need. To me this is priceless, and it’s something Blogger could never and will never provide.

Blogger Owned Me: Need I say more? Although I wrote and owned my content, I was always at the mercy of Google. If Google was down, so was my blog. If Google EVER decided one day to erase my little blog out of the blogosphere, it could be done instantly because my domain was pointed to Google, and technically they could do whatever the hell they want with it. This goes for all blogspot addresses as well. Using Blogger, you will always be at the mercy of Google. I have come to realize since I am paying a hosting company as well as my domain name to have a dot com, I want a little piece of that action and I certainly deserve that.

On the WordPress platform, my blog is mine and all mine. I own it. All of it. If Google crashed tomorrow, I will still be standing.

So you see, Blogger was like a really bad boyfriend that I finally realized needed to go. Was I scared to leave? Totally. Was it a leap of faith? Absolutely. But at the end of the day, I had to follow my gut, and my gut was telling me to move on.

As for WordPress? Well, he’s the kind of guy that I want to stick around for the long haul. I see a real future together; one full of stability, reliability, and endless support.

And the best part? He doesn’t own me.

I do.

{ 69 Comments }

11.16.09

Welcome to the New Theta Mom…On WordPress!

So, it’s official.

I am creating and publishing my very first post on WordPress and it feels fabulous! I have to give a huge thank you to Lauren at Restored316Designs. I cannot say enough about her! Not only did she answer the million questions I had about this move, she helped to restore my previous design and moved my blog from Blogger over to WordPress beautifully. There is so much to learn on this platform and she was so patient with me and my emails!

Many of you have been asking why I made the move from Blogger, so I will be posting about my experience very soon…

In the meantime, I still have some tweaking to do here and there, but I would love for you to stick around and check out my new digs! There are so many new features for you to love, but I think my favorite so far is the Connect with Theta Mom box with those awesome icons! It’s such a clean and polished look. Totally loving it!

This is definitely a whole new bloggy world and I couldn’t be more excited about this change. So pull up a chair, grab a latte and hang out with me. We have so much to catch up on!

Oh, I almost forgot…

Welcome home.

{ 57 Comments }

11.11.09

Time Out for Theta Mom Thursday

It’s Time Out for Theta Mom Thursday! For those of you visiting for the first time, the goal is to grab one hour of time within one week to do whatever you want…without the kids. It’s such an amazing proposition, I know! On Thursdays, post how you spent your “time out” (add my button from the right side bar or link to me) and be sure to stop here to link up and meet other Theta Moms to see how they spent their time out!

*** Quick Note: I will not hold our weekly Theta Mom Thursday next week, as my blog will be going through a major transition with the move to WordPress. I know I will be feverishly working on the website, probably more than I should be, so I don’t want to commit to your awesome posts if my site isn’t complete. And then the following week is Thanksgiving. So obviously, we’ll all be eating turkey instead of blogging…so, we’ll meet back and link up again December 3rd. You should all have MUCH to tell me by then! ***

Anyway, you know this move is all I’ve been talking about lately. And now that I have made the decision, I just want it to happen. Perfectly, smoothly, like this instant. But, we all know in the world of the blogosphere, these things take time. And a good thing is worth the wait, right?

Every spare moment, if I haven’t been ranting about Blogger, I have been digesting every single thing I can about WordPress. Every. Single. Thing.

Seriously, I’m getting a little scared. I know it TOTALLY RAWKS and all, but I must admit, I’m shakin’ in my boots a little. Alright, maybe a lot…

Am I an Ivy League Graduate? Yes. Am I a web savvy, tech-knowledge guru of html and CSS pages? Um…..not in the least.

Ladies, my hour (make that ENTIRE week) has been eating, sleeping, drinking WordPress.

I tried to get it in the shot, but can you see the 500 blue post-its I have on like every page? Uh, yeah, this is me. Total easy Blogger chick jumping ship to the land of the unknown without a clue about code. This should be very interesting.

I’m really trying super hard girls…but right now, all I can say is I am so glad I hired a designer!

If you are participating in Theta Mom Thursday, how did you spend your one hour? Link up and share your time out with other Theta Moms!

And don’t forget the $64 Shabby Apple Dress Giveaway ends tonight.

{ 33 Comments }

11.10.09

My Pledge to You: The Theta Mom Community

Many of you know that I was (and still am) having some Blogger/Google issues. I shared my frustration not only through some posts, but also all over Twitterville. I have been thinking about a change from Blogger to WordPress for quite some time, and this drama solidified my need to make that transition. Beginning November 16th, that change will be taking place. I will be sure to post my experience and reasons for making the move as I’m sure many of you will be curious to hear. Actually, my fellow SITS girls just made the move and I couldn’t be more excited for them.

All of this change has given me time to reflect over the last couple of weeks. When I wasn’t commenting as much as I usually do on your blogs because of the challenges I was facing, it gave me a chance to take a step back and really think about this whole blogging process…

I began this blog over four months ago with the sincere intention of building a community of Theta Moms everywhere. This is why I wrote a Mission which you can read here. I wanted to use this website as a platform to share the voice that we all want heard; the fact that motherhood is so rewarding, yet isn’t always easy. I wanted to open the line of communication and start redefining this role of motherhood (as my tag line states) which is in itself quite an evolving process. Since starting this blog, I have met some of the most amazing, creative, and inspiring women. I haven’t met one of you face-to-face yet, but there isn’t a need to. I feel your passion, I hear your stories and I share in this commitment that you have for your own blogs. Through your comments, I have started to build a community. And this is exactly my intention for starting this blog, to begin the conversation…

However, I was on twitter recently and one of my followers (who I adore) categorized me in one of her lists. She listed me as a “Reviews/Giveaways” blog. I have to be honest with you, my heart sank a little. Don’t get me wrong, of course I like Review/Giveaway blogs. In fact, there are so many out there and so many of them do a beautiful job of rolling out multiple contests daily. And, I have started performing reviews and giveaways myself on this blog! Do I enjoy doing them? Absolutely! Do I want to continue to bring you excellent reviews and quality products? For sure! But is this what I want readers to remember me by? Not quite…

I don’t want someone coming to my blog just to see the new “contest” or free product I have available for them. I want a reader to come by and read my blog. I don’t want the fact that by performing reviews/giveaways that I am categorized as just that. I don’t want these giveaways to be the focal point of my blog. I want the content to speak for itself.

Therefore, I pledge to you that although I perform reviews and giveaways, this will never be the center of my blog. Although I get emails from companies pitching me their product(s), I do not and will not work with any company and/or product that I don’t fully endorse myself 100%. I won’t perform a review/giveaway just to do it. It must be worth my time and also your time. At the end of the day, this is not the sole reason my blog is running. It’s running because of the community of Theta Moms I have built since day one, and I will never lose sight of that.

I want you to come to my blog to read compelling content, to relate to an honest and sincere approach on motherhood, and/or share a different perspective. Do I still want you to enter my giveaways? Of course! Will I still get really excited about the products and companies I endorse? Of course! I just don’t want these contests to take away from the community that I have worked so hard to build.

Moving forward, I look forward to your follows, subscriptions, your comments, and your commitment to this process. Just as motherhood is an evolving process, so is this blogging experience. There are a million blogs out there…I want to be one of the ones that you remember and keep coming back to because of the content, not the free products.

For this, I have taken the pledge and I look forward to building this community together with you. After all, we are Theta Moms, and motherhood doesn’t get more authentic than that.

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