Aloha Friday | The Angel Forever

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Baby Gifts

Posted on September 2, 2011 12:00 am by TheAngelForever

There are days that I would love to have another baby. I mean we have cute kids and it would be a lot of fun to add more laughter to our family. Then reality kicks me in the rear. I think about being up all night with an infant, diaper changes, and the cost. No, two kids is perfect for our family – we are complete!

Of course, I love making things and putting together gifts for new babies. When my life long friend told everyone that she was pregnant, I waited to find out if she was expecting a boy or a girl. The evening that she announced that it would be a little boy, I ran out to the store to get supplies. I had a mission to start a baby blanket for her little one.

This was THE baby blanket that created baby blanket envy with my boys. In the end the blanket was finished and ready to be part of a present for Baby Z.

Of course, I can not knit a baby blanket for every gift that we need. Here’s another baby gift that we recently gave.

You can see some of my knitted wash cloths, along with some other items that the boys require us to include. Yes, we must have a buddy, and rubber duck for bath time. Plus, I think it is nice to toss in some baby wash since you will be using a lot of that with a new born.

So my question to you this week:

What do you like to give as a gift for a new baby and why?

Pssst . . . if you knit or crochet – I am on Ravelry and have more photos of my items on there.

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Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the linky there if you are participating.

Aloha #167

Categories:
Aloha Friday arts and crafts gift ideas knitting looking back me moments photos

That Thing Called Klout

Posted on August 26, 2011 12:00 am by TheAngelForever

Klout stormed onto the social media radar not too long ago. Since that time, it has been watched, analyzed, and picked apart by countless people. I am not here to do that. Instead, I want to admit that I am intrigued by Klout and often wonder how and why it works. I have a Klout plugin on my Seesmic Desktop so I can be nosey.

At first Klout was just a number. According to Klout:

Klout measures influence based on the ability to drive action, not potentially misleading metrics like follower or friend count. Klout has analyzed over 85 million people on major social networks, and is used by over 3000 brands and applications.

Then, they started Klout Perks. This was a way for businesses to work with individuals via Klout to learn about new products from their brands. Some companies that have used Perks are Disney, Spotify, Subway, and P&G. Sometimes, Perks are sent to you via a Tweet from Klout Perks, other times they show up in your dashboard.

Thanks to Klout Perks, I have been able to try Spotify, test Secret Clinical Strength deodorant, and, most recently, help with PACE through a Klout Perk with Dick’s Sporting Goods. PACE helps to protest athletes through concussion education.

Klout also allows you to recognize people that influence you. By going to Klout, you can look at the topics that people are influential in and give them a +K. When you give someone a +K, you are able to Tweet it. There is some controversy about tossing this into the Twitter streams. Some people consider it Spam. I tend to agree, so I add a message to the tweet to personalize it. Here’s an example:

It’s like my view of Follow Friday. Rather than a long stream of Twitter people, I personalize it with something that makes them special to me. People have noticed this and several that I know have started this fun new touch to giving +K to people.

So this week’s Aloha Friday question is inspired by Klout:

Have you signed up for Klout yet? If you have, what do you like and/or dislike about it? I would love to know what topics it says you are influential about. Do you have any thoughts on the +K Tweets?

Disclosure: I was given Dick’s Sporting Goods gift cards because I’m a Klout influencer. I was under no obligation to receive the sample or talk about this company. I get no additional benefits for talking about the product or company. This perk simply worked into my post about Klout in general.

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Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the linky there if you are participating.

Aloha #166

Categories:
Aloha Friday bloggy friends interesting me moments photos PSA twitter

Games for the Entire Family

Posted on August 19, 2011 12:00 am by TheAngelForever

We have collected many board games over the years. Even before we had kids, TechyDad and I had several that we bought for game nights and/or when we had company over. Back in the day, Scattergories, Trivial Pursuit, Monopoly, and Upwords were favorites.

As a child, I remember playing board games with friends all the time. Titles that come to mind include:

The Game of Life
Allowance
Uno
Monopoly
Trivial Pursuit
Boggle

The list could go on and on. Games were huge on cold winter nights, or to pull out during summer days after we ran and played.

Now that we have kids, our most used games are things like Candyland, Chutes and Ladders, Memory, Rush Hour Jr, Uno, and others for 10 and under.

While NHL would prefer his Nintendo DS and Wii games, we all need to unplug. Board games are the perfect time to do this and allow us to have special time together where we can work on many skills. For NHL’s birthday, he received a new game and it has been used a LOT lately. Here it is:

What I love about this game is it takes something familiar with the kids (Disney) and puts a fun spin on it. The kids know the Pictureka game show, so they were excited to have a version for our house. Yes, it says ages 6+, but let me tell you my 4 year old was keeping up with us. The only item JSL needed assistance with was reading the cards. If people told him he was looking for “items with a tail,” he was good to go. Yes, I knew this would be a popular game in our house. Locating games that are appropriate for 4 and 8 year olds can be very tricky, or impossible at times.

So my question to you this week:

What are some of your favorite board games to play with your family and why?

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Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the linky there if you are participating.

Aloha #165

Categories:
Aloha Friday birthday Disney fun looking back photos play time TechyDad

Birthday Cupcakes

Posted on August 12, 2011 12:00 am by TheAngelForever

It’s true. Several years ago, I decided to start making cakes for the boys instead of buying expensive ones from a bakery. Some of this decision was to make matters easier, at least I try to tell myself that. Another factor was the need for an egg free cake since my niece is severely allergic to eggs. The egg free requirement has pushed me to making cupcakes since cakes with the “fake eggs” are too moist and fall apart. Check out what happened to NHL’s special lemon cake that he wanted last August (oy):

Thanks to the cake failing miserably at the last minute, an emergency run to the store was needed. The funny thing was that people devoured the cake mess. So I am now insisting on cupcakes that stay put in their paper boundaries until we can use real eggs. Truth be told, cupcakes are fun to make. Of course, after decorating 10 – it gets a bit tedious when you have other items to prepare for a party. The last request in May was from JSL. He wanted a Jake and the Neverland Pirates Party. The cupcakes that resulted were here:

I have learned that I LOVE my Wilton icing decorator. With one little step, my cupcakes get a boost and look more professional. When we asked NHL what theme he wanted for his birthday this year, I was a bit anxious. Would we be able to find items and how would I be able to carry it into the cupcakes.

I lucked out big time. NHL wanted something with animals, specifically lions. Thanks to his love for the safari at Disney’s Animal Kingdom – the idea was born. Earlier this week we had all of our supplies and decided to do a test batch of the lion cupcakes that I wanted to make for this weekend.

More to come about the lion cupcakes soon. I took a bunch of photos during the experiment and more will be coming after the weekend with the new tools I bought to make it even better. A big thank you to Amanda from The Cupcake Blog for having her amazing resource guide for all things cupcakes. Love the inspiration that keeps the fun going. Oh and my little lion up there, it was featured the other day since I shared it with Amanda on Twitter.

One more thing before I get to the Aloha Friday question:

Happy Birthday Dad!!!!!

So, my question to you this week:

If you could design a dream cupcake, what flavors would you incorporate and what would you decorate it with?

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Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the linky there if you are participating.

Aloha #164

Categories:
Aloha Friday animals baking birthday family food glorious food fun photos yummy

Facebook Fallacies about Breast Cancer

Posted on August 5, 2011 12:00 am by TheAngelForever

If you are on Facebook, then you have probably witnessed some things that you are not fond of. Whether it is Farmville, Poking, or perhaps status memes that are alive and well. The reality is that many of these items are part of Facebook streams each and every day.

Recently, a blogger friend pointed out a new variation of one that is a pet peeve of mine. Basically, a private message is sent to people asking them to post something in their status message. This is what Irene was asked to do:

Women are supposed to put the number of their shoe size, followed by the word inches and a frowny face.

The basic thought by the person that created this status meme is that they are spreading breast cancer awareness. Are they? The reality is that the meme is secretive if you are just looking at it and does not help to get the word of awareness out. On The Crafting Hobbit, Irene really hits home about it in her post titled Breast Cancer Awareness is so much more than a Facebook Status.

So why am I mentioning this now?

1 – Breast cancer has personally hit my family. My Aunt S was diagnosed with it just weeks before NHL was born. She is now an eight year survivor who has battle scars to show her strength and courage. My great-grandmother was not as lucky. She was diagnosed when she was about my age and passed away when she was about 37 years old. My GYN asked me to get this history because she needed to know to schedule my first mammogram. Yes, it would seem likely that I will be getting mine within the next year. Of course, I plan on blogging about my experience to reinforce the importance of this testing and women’s health. My little guy gets to hug Aunt S today thanks to early detection.

2 – Then, there are women like Rene Syler of Good Enough Mother who shares her story. Rene opted to have a preventative mastectomy in 2007. Both of her parents were breast cancer survivors. Although Rene was not a carrier of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes (the only two linked to breast cancer to date), she made this decision and talks to women about how this changed her life. A reader on Good Enough Mother wrote in several months ago asking Rene about Preventative Mastectomy and she wrote about it.

Much like Rene, Irene, who wrote the post I mentioned, is planning to have a double mastectomy this fall. Her mother is a breast cancer survivor, and her grandmother passed away from it at 36. She is a carrier of the BRCA2 mutation which gives her an 84% chance of developing breast cancer before she is 70. As the mother of an almost two year old, she is taking the preventative approach.

These two women are brave and have shown their dedication to educating people about breast cancer. There are some amazing resources on The Crafting Hobbit and Good Enough Mother if you want to help yourself, a friend, or family member. Let’s remember cancer awareness and early detection is key for everyone.

So my question for you this week is:

Do you have a Facebook pet peeve? What is it and why does it bother you. Also, please pay tribute to any breast cancer heroes that are in your life. We can celebrate these people now, not just in October.