Disney has been a celebratory part of so many special occasions in our life.

It started when we got married, we honeymooned there.

We took a Disney cruise for our 10th anniversary.

Amber's 8th birthday was celebrated at Disney World.

Next year we will celebrate our 16th anniversary with yet another Disney cruise!

And then of course there is are all the trips we took just to celebrate being us! (Yes, if I count correctly it places us at 10 trips in 15 years!)

Yesterday we had some folks in to celebrate a birthday in Disney fashion!  And while the party was for one of the "Moms"  the kids had an awesome time partaking in the festivities.  She got free admission to our party, just like she would have gotten free admission to Walt Disney World since it was her birthday!

Mom Select (Mickey Mom's Club) and Walt Disney World Resort, sent us some very fun party items to have a celebration.  Typical of Disney, anything can be a celebration.  An anniversary, graduation, special accomplishment, or a birthday like we celebrated.  Disney can put just the right "magic" to make the ordinary, well extraordinary!

When the box that our Douglas Stuffed Animal arrived in, landed on our doorstep it was like Amber's birthday had arrived early!

You see, Amber is all about fantasy and sci-fi. From the time she was old enough to know what she wanted to play with, it was all about space men, knights and dragons. Forget the princesses. Those days have not come to an end, although the toys have become more sophisticated, the computer games still are all about the fantasy realm. As a matter of fact she has a collection of flying drakes in the game she plays, and the blue ones are her favorite.

Yet at 13, she is still not ashamed to say she likes her stuffed animals and really has always been looking for fantasy type stuffies. Those are kind of few and far between though, and when you can find them, the stuffed dragons tend to look like Puff or Figment rather than one that you would see in a fairy tale breathing fire from it's jaws.

But the collection that Douglas Stuffed Animals has for the fantasy buffs is delightful. Amber chose to receive the Douglas Jade Blue Stuffed Dragon and was not disappointed.


Amber says that she likes the stuffed dragon plushie because it's soft and easily huggable. It's got a cool color scheme and it will stand up to lots of imagination play time, and posing for my art work!

For myself I was pleased to see a real quality toy. The only thing I've noticed about it, is that with much hugging and playing the wings on the dragon have become a little bent, however, since the wings get a lot of "flap" time as the dragon flies across the living room, it is only noticeable when the dragon is taking a snooze in the kitchen cave.

The details are impeccable from the glitter and satin bound wings to the shimmering scales on its underbelly.


So if your kids (or yourself) are wanting some fantasy stuffed toys that don't look overly "cartoony", you must check out the selection at Douglas' online store. Of course they have all sorts of other wonderful stuffed animals also and if you make a purchase you can save 10% by using the code tenoff4moms.

Please read ** About Reviews at the bottom of the page.

But wait...One lucky reader will win a Douglas Toys Stuffed Animal of their choice (except for an over-sized product).

Head on over to their site and look through their fantastic collection of stuffed animals and let me know which one you would choose to bring home.

If you complete the above required entry you are eligible for extra ones! Just leave a separate comment for each one you complete.

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Giveaway ends on May 14th at 11:59 pm CST. Winner must claim prize within 48 hours or a new winner will be selected. US Only ages 13+ please.

Check out more giveaways this week hosted at Mom Most Traveled during her Give It Away Now! Blog Carnival. Read the full story

As some of you may know, Genius received a Fuji Digital Camera last April for her 12th birthday. We bought it at Wal-Mart for a fantastic price in a bundled pack for $71.00 on clearance. It was purchased with money from all three of the grandparents. She was so excited to receive it.

In November when we went to the Mall Of America with the girl scouts, out of the blue, the lcd screen went all scrambled. She was in tears over it. We packaged it up and sent it off to Fuji to get fixed under warranty. They informed us that it would cost us $62.00 to fix it (plus we had paid $8.00 to FedEx it to them), because the lcd screen was cracked. Yes, and we replied so, you won't fix it under warranty? Nope, because it won't break unless undue force was placed upon the screen, and that is not covered. ARGH. No undue force was placed upon the screen it wasn't dropped or anything it just broke (most likely due to shoddy manufacturing). So they wanted us to pay as much to fix it, as we originally paid for the camera! So we told them no thank you. This all happened December 30th.

New Year's Eve, a FedEx overnight package arrives on our doorstep. It's the broken camera returned to us. Fuji OVERNIGHTED it to us. At their expense. What? How ridiculous. That probably cost them almost as much as just having fixed it, and keeping a customer happy. NO MORE FUJI products in this home.

Anyway now Genius needs a new camera, and I've been looking at one of those Flip Ultra Video Camcorder things for her. What would even be nicer for me, would be if I could snag one on sale, or free! I Never Grew Up blog has one up for grabs, if you comment on the blog. If you want to try and win one too, head on over to I Never Grew Up and enter.

Good luck! Read the full story

It's dear Hubby's birthday today!

I have been blessed to be able to spend 15 of his birthdays with him.

Since Genius went to the lake with some friends this weekend -- we caught a movie and some ice cream last night. (If you want a review of the movie An American Carol, which we saw, check the next post down.)

Wednesday his co-workers are treating him to lunch at The Olive Garden, which I shall join in for.

Then on Thursday I will treat him to dinner at Texas Roadhouse.

We party hard when we have birthdays around here!

Tune in next month, to see what we do for mine! LOL!!

Happy Birthday Hubby. I love you!
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