NetZero 4G HotSpot and Wireless Service – GIVEAWAY!

39 Comments

Do you remember NetZero from back in the day? I do! My mom was all over their free dial up service back in the late 90′s. But since the dawn on Cable and FiOS connections I haven’t really thought about dial-up or NetZero and I honestly didn’t know if they still existed.

Well they do, and they’ve joined 2012 in style with a new 4G wireless service.

My mom passed away in ’04 but I have a feeling she’d be just as excited about this new service as I am. I’m pretty sure she would have signed up as soon as I told her about it because NetZero is staying true to their name and offering plans that start out at $0.00 per month.

They pretty much have a service plan that will fit every budget and usage need.

In case you are wondering what 4G is … well, think of it as broadband on-the-go. A fast wireless Internet connection that you can take with you anywhere that there is coverage. And there’s coverage across 80 cites and metro areas so there’s a nice chance that you are covered!

Here’s what the NetZero Hotspot device looks like:

It’s small enough to conveniently fit in any bag or larger pockets so you can take it with you anywhere. The HotSpot device allows up to 8 simultaneous devices (laptops, tablets, smartphones, etc.) to connect to it. There’s also a small NetZero device call the “Stick” that looks and plugs into your laptop like a USB drive and gives it wireless Internet access. You can’t share access like you can with the HotSpot though.

And yes, I named my hotspot, Hermes, and that’s the password in parenthesis. If you are within range you are welcome to hop on! :)

That is, unless you WIN YOUR OWN! Because, as the post title suggests, I do have a GIVEAWAY for you!

[Hermes = Greek god of transitions and boundaries. Quick, cunning, and moved freely between the worlds. Protector and patron of travelers. Seems appropriate, yes no?]

You can win your very own NetZero 4G HotSpot Device PLUS 3 free months of Platinum Service. Yep, that’s their top-of-the-line $49.99/month plan.

I know Santa will be bringing lots of tablets, laptops, and smartphones to families everywhere this year. In fact, he already brought a couple of Nexus 7‘s to our house and couldn’t resist delivering them early despite my weak protests.

Your family will LOVE having fast Internet access wherever they go for all their portable devices. For a chance to win, follow the directions in the form below. There are several simple ways to enter, pick whichever ones you want to do.

If you don’t want to take your chances or wait head on over to NetZero today and grab a HotSpot for yourself. (Psst, they are on sale right now!)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

* I am being compensated by NetZero to host this Giveaway promotion.

Tagged With: , ,

Let’s Turn Black Friday Red, White, & Blue

Leave a Comment

If you love to shop “Made in the USA” boy do I have a giveaway for you! Along with a bunch of other bloggers, I’m co-hosting a mega giveaway of American made products and gifts for kids.

This giveaway runs from Black Friday and through December 7, with winners selected each day during the first week of December.

Like the fun gift exchanges we all enjoy with friends, the first winner will have their first choice of prize, and so on, continuing until this huge pile of American-made treasures is in the hands of our readers, just in time for Christmas giving.


Prize Sponsors:

Huge thanks to these fabulous sponsors who offered their American-made products for this fun giveaway. This list of companies is a fantastic source for finding made in USA gifts. Before or after you enter, take a moment to click around and get to know our favorite resources for kids’ stuff made in the USA. Oh, and be sure to follow them on social media to show your support and to hear about upcoming products and promotions.

K’Nex | On Facebook | On Twitter | On Pinterest
K’Nex are the world’s most creative construction and building toys.
Prize: K’Nex Classics 50 Model Building Set with over 700 pieces

Piggy Paint | On Facebook | On Twitter | On Pinterest
Natural, Non-toxic Nail Polish, “Natural As Mud”
Prize: MistleToes Gift Set

Oh Say USA | On Facebook | On Twitter | On Pinterest
Made in USA Store for one-stop All-American-made shopping online.
Prize: All American Toy Collection in a handmade stocking

Pure Play Kids | On Facebook | On Twitter | On Pinterest
Battery-free, Creative Toys with a Focus on Toys Made in USA.
Prize: Wooden Fire Truck Toy

KeepAmerica.com | On Facebook | On Twitter
An Online Source for Things Made in the USA, including toys.
Prize: A $100 gift certificate 

Vermont Teddy Bear Co. | On Facebook | On Twitter | On Pinterest
Gifts & teddy bears stuffed with love in Vermont.
Prize: 15″ Hoodie Footie Bear

Cuddle Smart | On Facebook | On Twitter | On Pinterest
Smart Textiles for Smart Parents! Antimicrobial Baby Products.
Prize: Fold & Go Antimicrobial Changing Pad

Zooguu | On Facebook | On Twitter 
Plush toys, handmade just for you!
Prize: Medium Plush Toy of your choice

Channel Craft | On Facebook 
Authentic American Toys, Games, & Puzzles
Prize: $10 toy, game, or puzzle of your choice

Tailgate 500 | On Facebook | On Twitter
An addicting car racing table game for parties or family game night.
Prize: A Tailgate 500 Game Set

Crazy Aaron’s Thinking Putty | On Facebook | On Twitter
Play with your Thinking Putty at home, school, work, the car, anywhere! Prize: A Trio of Tins of Thinking Putty

Hank Player USA | On Facebook | On Twitter | On Pinterest
Cool graphic tees for infants, toddlers and boys and girls of all ages.
Two Prizes: 2 long sleeved t-shirts, winners choose

Seven Acre Toys | On Facebook | On Twitter | On Pinterest
Fun, safe, and environmentally friendly all natural wooden toys.
Prize: Maple & Walnut Start Stacker Toy

Butterscotch Blankees | On Facebook | On Twitter | On Pinterest
Personalized gifts with love. Blankets, pillows, accessories & dresses.
Prize: A full-sized, personalized acrylic blanket

Our Promotional Sponsors:
The following sites are showing their USA Love by co-hosting this event on their blogs.  Take a moment to get to know these fabulous bloggers who write about a wide range of topics. This season, they are helping to turn Black Friday Red, White, & Blue!

EVENT HOST: 

USA Love List: Stuff We Love, Made in the USA on Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest

Made in America Movement 
Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest
The Turnip Farmer 
Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest
A Grande Life 
Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest
Finnegan and The Hughes  
Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest
Susan’s Disney Family  
Facebook | Twitter 
The Vintage Mom  
Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest
Real: The Kitchen and Beyond  
Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest
Jersey Family Fun
Facebook | Twitter 
Whatever Works
Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest
Delco Deal Diva
Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest
Eco Incognito
Facebook | Twitter 
Diapered Daze and Knights
Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest
A Life in Balance
Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest
My Mommy’s Neighborhood
Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest
The Weights Over
Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest
Thrifty Jinxy
Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest
Cherry Blossom Love
Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest
The Clothspring
Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest
Made in USA Shop
Facebook
Delaware County Moms
Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest
philly fun 4 kids
Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest 
NicholeAnn.com
Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest 

How to Enter: 

We like to keep our giveaways flexible and allow our readers to enter in whatever ways they are most comfortable. There are a LOT of entry options below, but don’t be overwhelmed. They are not required… however, the more entry options you complete, the more chances you’ll have to win. The more entries the better because you could even win more than one prize! Some entry options are available for daily entry so bookmark us and come back!
Just click the Do It! button for further instructions on each entry.  Prizes will begin to be distributed on 12/1 and this giveaway will close at midnight on 12/6. The winners will be randomly selected, verified for correct entry participation, and notified by email.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
If you’ve already entered one contest on USA Love List, entering another will be even easier. Visit USA Love List’s Giveaways Page to find out about other active offers to join.

Easy paper plate Leaf Wreath Craft

1 Comment

I got it in my head that I needed to do *something* crafty for Thanksgiving with the little guy. I really wanted to do a felt hand print turkey but didn’t feel like running to the store for materials.

So I needed another idea and since we are blessed (cursed?) with tons of trees in our little yard I thought a LEAF WREATH would be perfect and easy. So off we went on a scavenger hunt for beautiful Fall leaves.

From trees to bushes we found leaves of all shapes, sizes, and colors. We even clipped a cluster of dried out hydrangeas that turned out to be a perfect accent piece on our wreath.

Un-pressed leaves will shrivel up.

If you don’t have a backyard to “shop” from this is a perfect excuse to get outside and visit a local park.

After you have your leaves you are going to have to press them so they don’t completely shrivel up in a crunchy mess like ours started to do. Oops!

At this point, I went looking for a paper phone book but then remembered I’ve taken to throwing them out as soon as they are delivered. Darn it!

Press leaves in a book so they dry out flat.

Ideally, you should let the leaves be for a week or so.

Flying by the seat of my crafting pants, I only let ours sit for a night.

It’s been a few days since we made our wreath and some of our leaves are curling up but overall it’s still a door-worthy wreath.

Next step, grab a paper plate and cut the center out of it.


Start with the biggest leaves first and begin gluing all around your paper plate wreath base.

Then it’s as simple as layering on other leaves from biggest to smallest while using your artistic license to mix up the colors and shapes.

We used tacky glue (my favorite for crafting) for the most part, but the the pine sprigs and hydrangea required me to bust out the glue gun.

Finally, what’s a good craft without some glitter? We globbed on different colored glitter glue and then spread it out with a paint brush to give our leaf wreath a little shine!

This is a craft that can be done with a large age range that will result in a wreath you’ll be proud to hang on your door! And best of all, it’s super easy  and inexpensive with the biggest hurdle being the part where you should plan ahead and press the leaves.

Tagged With: , ,

Small Businesses Embrace Social Media Marketing

3 Comments

Vertical Response just released an interesting infographic. They surveyed 462 small businesses on how much time and money they spend on social media activities, including finding and sharing content on popular social networks and blogging, and what tasks take the most time.

Bottom line, more small businesses are catching onto social media marketing and are spending more resources on it.

Forty-three percent of respondents spend six or more hours per week on social media activities for their business.

Nearly half of the small businesses who blog spend up to three hours per blog post on at least a weekly basis – time that, prior to having a blog, would have been used on other business activities. Some spend even more time per post. And they should! As easy it looks, a good quality post doesn’t get slapped together in a few minutes.

A company truly invested in social media marketing will then spend more time promoting the post that just took hours to prepare on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google Plus, etc.

Small businesses are recognizing the increasing importance of generating content for social media.

Of course, everything comes at a cost, whether that be time or money. So the question now becomes how small business should spend their time and money on social media?

The answer will be different for everyone. It could be a complete DIY job, hiring an employee or contractor to focus on social media, consulting with a social media expect for training, or completely outsourcing to an agency.

Tagged With: , ,

Hurricane Sandy: A Tale of Caution

9 Comments

So many people on the East Coast have been affected by Hurricane Sandy in one way or another. We personally lost power for an evening and our town held a rescheduled trick-or-treat day on November 3rd due to so many being without power for many days.

But I wanted to share my brother’s story with you. He lives in the Pocono Mountains of PA. Power outages in any storm are not uncommon around there. So it was no surprise when the long arms of Sandy knocked his power our pretty early in the storm.

Sitting at home, alone, in the dark for hours, my brother decided to take a break and charge up his cell phone and listen to the news for a little bit in his truck.

And here’s what he posted on Facebook a little while later:

He told me, “I went out and sat in the truck to charge my phone and listen to the news. I was out there maybe 5 minutes and the tree fell on me.”

Later he commented that, “A little boy in this area died last night when he was hit by a falling branch. I count myself extremely lucky.”

The pictures below show just how close he came to meeting his maker.

So what did we learn from this? DO NOT GO OUTSIDE DURING A HURRICANE, even if it’s just to your car!

And I’ll be gifting my brother a solar and hand-cranked powered emergency radio and cell phone charger. It’s an all-in-one gadget that would have kept him indoors, for sure!

Tagged With: , , ,

Get Your Fruit On for Halloween!

Leave a Comment

It’s Halloween time! Which also means spoiling ourselves with some not-so healthy foods. Chocolate, candies and those good old chips! We all love our chips but the guilty feeling that comes with it, not so much! But hold on! What if you could eat chips and still do your body good? And how about if you could win some of those fantastic and delicious chips? 

How could I not get it?

Leave a Comment

Accessories that match my blog? Yes, please!

Tagged With: ,

Sesame Place during the Fall

Leave a Comment

Sesame Place in October is awesome.

The park is all decked out for The Count’s Halloween Spooktacular.

Children are encouraged to come in costume and trick-or-treat. The treats are good and include juice boxes, toothbrushes, chips, and candy.

The water rides are closed but the rest of the park is open.

Including the swings! Here X is riding them for the first time ever.

And there are plenty of specially-themed and not-too-spooky shows throughout the day.


If you can, book a Dine-with-Me experience. You’ll get to meet and dance with most of the characters.


And blow their little minds out of the water.

Tagged With: , ,

Consignment Sale Shopping

7 Comments

This week I had the pleasure of attending the Western Mainline Just Between Friends Consignment Sale in Oaks, PA,

Just Between Friends is a franchise of mega consignment sales that you can find happening twice a year across the country. Check the Just Between Friends site to see if there is a sale running near you.

I have only been to one consignment sale before. It was a couple of years ago and I made the mistake of going the last day and not even early in the day. Do NOT do that if you really *need* to stock up on clothes or are looking for something in particular. All the great deals will be gone. The only good thing about going at the end of the sale is that many things will likely be half off. Consigners have the option of offering their items half-off if their item didn’t sell earlier in the sale. What doesn’t sell is either returned to the consigner or donated to charity.

This year my kid was in dire need of Fall and Winter clothes so I sprung at the chance to preview the Main Line Just Between Friends sale.

I went with my mental list of wants and needs: Jeans, pants, long-sleeve shirts, boots, a coat, Lego Duplos, Thomas trains and/or Chugginton Trains, and maybe some games.

Between the crowds and the sheer amount of stuff, when you first walk into one of these mega sales it can be a little overwhelming so you really need a list.

Having a budget in mind even is a good thing too, even if it might be hard to keep. I spent almost twice my budget. Oops!

Big bags and maybe a shopping cart, or a big basket to lug around your finds is a good idea too, if allowed. I didn’t think of this ahead of time but noticed a number of power shoppers who did. Luckily the JBF sale had holding area were I was able to drop off bigger items as I continued to shop.

What kind of deals can you expect? This will vary from sale-to-sale and from region-to-region. The sale I went to was in a somewhat affluent area.

But I’ll let you be the judge on how well I did. Here’s what I scored and for how much:

Coat with detachable and reversible hood. Outer jacket with removable and reversible inner jacket. So 2 jackets with 3 looks. The consigner helpfully put the original tag back on so I was able to see all the features at a glance. $8.

Three pairs of trendy GAP Jeans. $5 each.

2 Piece NIKE athlete outfit and 3 piece Thomas outfit. $5 for each outfit.

3 long sleeve shirts and a pair of athletic pants. Brands = Carters, Jumping Bean, & Garanimals. $2.50 each.

Circo pants = $2.50, Sonoma brown jeans = $4, Osh Kosh jeans = $4, Jumping Beans pants = $2.50

3 Garanimals turtle necks, $1 each.

Calvin Klein long sleeve shirt = $3.

Button down plaid shirt with vest and corduroy jacket by Good Lad of Philadelphia. $5 for the 3 piece set.
Wasn’t sure about this one, but thought it might make for cute holiday pics.

Dinosaur costume = $10
(Saw this at Target for $30+)

Thomas & Friends Rescue from Misty Island take n play set. Came complete with a bag of bonus trains: Talking Henry (minus tender), Bertie the Bus, Percy’s Sweet Special, and 2 random cargo cars. $20 for everything

Box of extra tracks = $2.

Big box of Mega Bloks. Consigner had a note saying there were less than 250 pieces but definitely more than 200. $5
Lego Duplo Race Action set. The box was taped shut but at $3.50 I took the gamble. The set turned out to be missing one guy and the paper number track. No big deal!
(Mega Bloks and Duplo sized Legos are compatible!)

And here are a bunch of pics of things I DID NOT bring home to give you an idea of what else is available:



disclosure: I was not financially compensated to write this post. The opinions expressed are my own and are based on my observations. I was provided a small shop credit to facilitate my experience.

Tagged With: , ,

Blogger Beach Bash in Avalon, NJ

10 Comments

I was super thrilled to be invited to the first Blogger Beach Bash hosted at the Golden Inn in Avalon, NJ.

And the reason was purely selfish. My son is 3 and I hadn’t taken him to the beach ever before. What better way to do it than with a bunch of bloggin’ friends!

Unfortunately, the X-man ended up being terrified of the ocean and after the first ankle-deep wave he would have nothing to do with it. He wouldn’t even go near the wet sand. And it was H-O-T. And we traveled 2.5 hrs to get there. And I bought a swimsuit (on clearance for $50), a swim suit cover, beach towels, toys, etc. Ugh!

Then he had to go potty and we had to trudge all the way back to the hotel. That’s when I started to overheat, get cranky, and was about to pack it up wondering why I wasted my time and money. Tried to call the Other Half for moral support and basically ended up yelling at him for [being a douche and] not coming. You’ve been there, right? I’m not the only one, right? Some days this mommy stuff really gets the better of me.

Regrouped and cooled off in Luigi’s Pasta restaurant which is attached to the Golden Inn and served the breakfast we mostly missed earlier due to traffic.

Headed back out just in time to see Sandman Matt from the Travel Channel’s hit show, Sand Masters, start his sand castle building lesson and demo. We also received The Can You Dig It Sand Tool Super Deluxe Sand Sculpting Kit. Can You Dig It Sand Tools - deluxe kitThis kit has everything you need to build awesome sand castles like the masters, including an instructional DVD.The DVD might be the best part of the kit if you are sand-castle-building-clueless like I was. We’ve watched it twice. It’s cheesy but full of tips and super helpful.

I can’t wait until the X-man is older and not afraid of the ocean. I’m imagining lots of kickass sand castle building in our future!

After learning the art of sand castle making we headed back to the Golden Inn for a beach side lunch. Next was the Golden Inn’s pool area.

It was X’s first time in a big pool (I know I’ve totally been depriving the poor boy). I was prepared for a big freak out and thought we’d be leaving soon because I took him to the Y a few months ago thinking we’d try swim lessons. He was terrified of the pool then. I mean shaking and grabbing on to me for dear life even though we were just taking a tour.

Well, guess that’s all gone because he had NO fear and we stayed in the pool for HOURS! Seriously. I was shocked. And as a nice bonus I could actually chat with other moms for a few minutes here and there as we moved about the big pool or sat in the kiddie pool. The pool ended up being the best part of the day.

Worth all the earlier stress and trouble?

As we were heading back to the car: “Mommy, I’m going to miss the beach.”

Totally!

Except next time remind me to treat myself and stay over a night or 2. In fact, I think I need to head back to the Golden Inn for one of the Girlfriend Getaway weekends and REALLY treat myself!

First time with his toes in the sand!

Sand Master Matt Long at work.

Learning from the expert! Sandman Matt teaches us the art of sand sculpting.

Shout out to the other event and goody bag sponsors:

The Painted Home
Jordan Schneider Financial
Suddenly Safe & Secure Systems
Visit AC
Hallmark
Honest Tea
Pop Chips
Truly Custom Cakery
Bai Drinks
Boogie Wipes 

Tagged With: , , , ,
1 2 3 … 6