Cake Wrecks Book and UnderNeat that "A Giveaway"

Read here about the book signing I attended for the fantabulous and hilarous new Cake Wrecks book based on one of my all-time favorite blogs. This book is really funny, as you can imagine, and it's got tons of stuff not on the blog. It is of course in the same spirit of the blog, funny without being mean spirited, family friendly and utterly silly.

If you've read the blog, you'll know how awesome Jen is with her commentary. She's added stories and oodles of new photos. There's a whole chapter on CCCs (cupcake cakes, ptooey), an ode to baby bottoms and "gut-wrenchingly awful, with a snide of snickering schadenfreude" wedding cake wrecks. To be honest I'd never even heard of groom's cakes before this blog, or it might have been the cake shows I obsess over. In this book we've got the question of which you'd rather eat, "a slimy whole fish or a fuzzy, month-old pickle?" Yum.

I'm not going to post any of her cakewrecks here, but here are some of my own highs and lows.

Pigs by me and Soccer cake by Brian, not to shabby. These were two of Donovan's cakes.

Two very busy Star Wars cakes for Keegan's 3rd birthday. Yes, I made one cake for preschool and one for a party at home.



It's Dialga, can't you tell?


And my masterpiece!

Get it, it's a fun book. Support your local bookseller, get it on sale at Amazon, or to win your very own autographed copy of Cake Wrecks: When Professional Cakes Go Hilariously Wrong leave a comment below, describing in detail a wrecked you've had made. No, I'm kidding, just leave any old comment by midnight next Saturday, 10/10 and I'll randomly pick a "winner."

Close Encounters of the Third Grade Kind, It'll make you laugh and cry

This month the entertaining Phillip Done is coming out with his second book, Close Encounters of the Third Grade Kind: Thoughts on Teacherhood. I reviewed his first book here. He wants to add the word teacherhood to the lexicon, after all motherhood, fatherhood and parenthood are all words. In 11 chapters, one for each school month (just like pregnancy, the school year is longer than we think) he made me chuckle, tear up, appreciate teachers even more, and thoroughly enjoy reading about little kids from a teacher's perspective.

I've heard that he's taking a break from teaching to promote his books, which is sad because you can tell from his writing he'd make a great teacher. Just like his first book (with the even better title of 32 Third Graders and One Class Bunny), this new one is full of little anecdotes from 30 years of teaching third graders, such as a heartwarming tale of a troubled little girl reading to a dog, which made me cry both times I read it, or a student's dad bidding $210 at a school auction so his son could go trick or treating with his teacher. It was a battle between two boys who really knew their trick-or-treating, leaving Mr. Done with a list of TRICK-OR-TREATING LESSONS for his October chapter.

After being handed a piece of candy, always look back in the bowl to see
what you did not get.

Old people are very generous or give you one peanut, there is no in
between.

Men don't care what their handing out. Women give
raisins.

Cute costumes = more candy.

His book is full of these "teaching truths" which of course are not always 100% true. I give out organic chocolate or toys, thank you very much. We can forgive him these generalizations, despite being a teacher, because they are clearly written out of love of teaching and many, many years of experience. Besides the funny and poignant parts, he covers the areas children love, like learning cursive, laughing at the teachers foibles and conducting messy science experiments. I see my son obsessed with learning cursive, but I affect the whole experiment when I'm in the class, so I don't often see first hand his spontaneous joy of learning.

My only critique is I think this book could have been shorter. Each chapter covers different aspects of his hilarious and trying life as a teacher, but in some ways it's a lot of the same. I think both his books would make great gifts for teachers and parents of young kids.

I've got two boys who started 2nd grade and kindergarten this year. I have absolutely loved all their male teachers and am glad there are teachers like Phillip and like the wonders in our school who have the patience and humor to teacher our little ones. This book comforted me in the knowledge that 3rd graders are still such little girls and boys, making mistakes, acting silly and being allowed to act like kids.

Pixorial Online Video Service Review

A couple weeks ago I was offered a chance to try out a new online video service thanks again to Silicon Valley Moms blog. In the interest of full disclosure, Pixorial gave me a $50 credit so I would be able to upload content to play with, and a Pro membership (value $24.50). One of the most unique features of this new site is the ability to digitize any form of video. While so far I've only uploaded videos from my Canon digital camera and Flip, I know we've got our wedding video on cassette, and I can bet my dad's even got some old movies on reel to reel. We also have a continual problem with various tapes and DVDs that come with a couple different video cameras we own. The idea is to ensure all the movies are safe and can be seen, in the founder's words:

"Pixorial was created to make it easy for you view, safeguard, and share your most cherished memories with the ones you love.

The site was fairly straightforward to use. As I said I haven't sent in any video, but you can find a review of someone who has here. I chose the upload feature and have uploaded about 8 videos of various lengths. It take a while, and because of the unique digital conversion, you can only upload one at a time, but I'm hoping eventually you can do more than one. I did create a really long movie using the Flip video software and piecing together a bunch of videos, and I could not upload that, so I'll be asking them about whether it's the format or the length. They are very responsive to questions, wonderful customer service, I just haven't gotten around to asking.

Once you have your videos in your media section, you can edit your footage. This way you can pick certain "scenes" or sections of your video. In my case I grabbed just a few seconds of some Guitar Hero playing, split up two different songs from Donovan's graduation, and grabbed about 30 seconds worth of Keegan's entire first grade concert. It's very simple editing, easy to fast forward to the parts you want - doing it directly, or using these cool (virtual of course) magnets to pull the ends of your scenes. I know they are working on an upgrade to the user interface, as right now it's a bit confusing. View to create the scenes, and Edit to produce a show from those scenes. Or go directly to the Produce tab. Here are some screen shots to illustrate, hoewver there are very easy to follow tutorials on the site itself.

After you've created your scenes you can then Produce a Show using the scenes or adding the master, which would be the whole video. There are then options for transitions and titles. I think there could be a lot more too this, and I'm sure they are working on this aspect. On another online video service I've been able to add more color, text right on the video, fun effects (which are in process) and other features. It was quite fast, though, once I got the hang of it.

The third step is share, which might be a DVD or a whole set of them for a volume discount. You can create covers for your DVD as well. I'll be creating one of these for my mother-in-law, since her computer is usually a little too slow for video links. Those all cost something, but you can share on facebook, email a link or embed as I've done below for free, or download a Hi Res version for $1.99. The emailed links takes you to the video, with an option to copy the link or the code for embedding. You can even create a mosaic of a picture of your choosing with thumbprints of the videos, which sounds like a fun idea.

I also posted this on facebook, which took about 10 minutes to appear in my email and was really easy to throw right on my wall. The link worked really well.

There is a free membership offer right now, so you can head on over to sign up. I'll report back once I've located and sent in my "analog" videos. You can even send in a memory card and they will upload all the videos on there, so I may do that as well.

Super Why Camp Activities

As part of our SuperWhy event a few weeks ago we took home a package of activities, just a subset of what PBS brings to their great looking summer camps. There were a few worksheets for each day, corresponding to the superhero Super Why characters. I have to admit, the stars must be aligned, the bribes offered and the energy exhausted to get my boys to actually sit down with crayons. They love the idea of coloring and cutting and gluing, just would rather be outside playing soccer. So it took me a while to get this going, and we ended up doing the first activity in one day, the rest another (instead of one per day).

On the first day you ask a series of questions on day 1 then again on day 5, to see what they learned. Great idea, no tricks, just imparting a love of learning with familiar stories, super powers and solvable problems. For the activities the kids transform themselves into the characters, so they get the powers and do the work. I loved the idea, kids not so thrilled.

As you can see, here is Keegan who has transformed into Alpha Pig. Keegan was enthusiastic, bordering on whiny, wanting to do the worksheets, but they were way to easy for him. Donovan didn't want to be anyone but Super Why, so Keegan got this mask, with the payback of having to pose for a photo. I got a video of Donovan doing the activities for this day, but they were a bit easy, identifying letters and reading simple words. He also already knew the story of the three little pigs.

My kids have lost any remnants of their feminine sides, so Wonder Red and Princess Presto were a no-go on the masks, but Donovan had fun with the work sheets. It really brought a smile to his face when he could fill in the letters and identify the right words. Notice most letters are still backwards. He's not even in kindergarten so I'm happy I don't have to correct these yet.

Finally, the Super Why mask. Too bad mom was incompetent and unprepared when it came to actually figuring out how to get it to stay. In the second photo the mask is taped onto his nose.

Backwards as his letters might be, Donovan is very confident when he writes. In the last activity, they finished the sentences/story lines and drew a picture of the word they chose. Drawing he struggles a bit more, but gee, if someone told me to draw a wolf I would have panicked. His only question was whether it had to look like the picture. Of course not, so I present you with stick-figure big bad wolf.

And pink pigs, of course. Pink pigs are his favorite animal, although he's got emotional troubles with the color pink, what with bro and dad expressing their hate of that color at every opportunity. Phooey, pink is pretty.

Thanks again PBS. I am really impressed with their shows, activities, outreach programs and desire to get parents more involved. I would much rather sit down and read of color and write with the kids. I'm not against TV and computers, but I'd rather have them do that on their own. You can find these activities here and tons of activities on this page

Super Why from PBS

I got to attend another fun and enlightening event with the Silicon Valley Moms. PBS hosted a discussion about kids and learning and their Super Why program at the Stanford Park Hotel, with delicious food and wine (in fact I was inspired to make their sliders for a dinner party).

If you want to see the thoughts on PBS, educational TV, all things PBS, check out the tweets under #pbsparents. Here's one of mine:

Words don't have power until we read them. We can change the story by changing the words. #pbsparents6:59 PM Jun 16th from twhirl

They talked about the development of Super Why and all the research and work that goes into each episode. It is a really cute concept, solving a problem, super heroes, fairy tales and reading. My kids used to watch it, now they'd prefer the online games. The PBS website is actually a bit nicer than others for kids, since the online games are customized for each show. The characters are Alpha Pig, Wonder Red, Princess Presto, Super Why. Even though my son is obsessed with stuffed piggies and pig books, his favorite is Super Why/Whyatt.

What they really wanted to know was how to get parents more involved, how much information they want. Personally I rarely watch TV with the kids, although they don't watch much anymore, it's been replace by the Wii and computer time. Every bit of research shows that reading, and talking to your kids, and reading to your kids, is absolutely critical in doing well in school, in life, to put it in a very simplistic way. I do love how PBS and Super Why focuses on that. My son who's been reading for a while is clearly to old, although he'll watch if it's on. But my 5YO, who is learning to read, very excited when he learns new words, gets completely engaged and likes the web games as well.

A huge shout-out to PBS for giving us wonderful programs for us as children as well as our children. They spoke about a Super WHY reading camps outreach program, which looks wonderful. They also gave us activities to take home, as well as a backpack, book which we read tonight (Jack and the Beanstalk), the Three Little Pigs DVD and one other musical DVD. I've started the activities with Donovan so will be blogging all about that at the end of the week.

Thanks Acitveion and Tech Museum

Silicon Valley Moms blog came though again last week, arranging a fun day for me and the kids. Last week Donovan and I got to attend a very cool and science-filled event at one of our favorite places, the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose. Bill Nye, the science guy, gave us some great experiment ideas and we are now big fans, we just need to snag some of his videos. It was all sponsored by Activeion, which I admit I kept reading as 'activevision" and imagined some futuristic screen.

When I found out it was Activeion, a non-toxic cleaning technology, my enthusiasm waned just a smidgen. I confess, I don't clean all that much, and usually stick to water and elbow grease for the occasional burst of cleaning, resorting to bleach if the sink is really yucky, along with my Roomba for the dog hair. I find myself a bit lost in the cleaning section of the store, so have purchased a variety of various cleaners and have only recently given thought to the chemicals and environment.

When we saw the thing in action, though, my kids and I were sold. It looks like a gun, to begin with, glows green, and you can spray it right in your mouth, does it get any cooler? Those of us with little boys figured we'd need three, and wondered if this would turn our kids into mad little cleaners. The real test, though, was would it work? The idea is it ionizes regular tap water, does something with the bubbles so it changes the way the water affects the dirt, similar to how soap attaches to dirt. Okay, I had to step out for that part of the talk, and unfortunately my more scientifically oriented son was at a soccer game during the demonstration.

I wasn't sure how I could test it. I don't clean much, and like I said I usually use water, anyway. I tried it on windows, not bad, but not streak free. Just the fact that it got me to clean a few windows is a feat in itself, I must admit. I then sprayed the thing all over a grease spattered sink, courtesy of a lamb curry dinner. Wow, have you ever tried to clean grease with plain cold water? It doesn't work. A few squirts of this stuff and the grease was easily wiped away. I love the fact that my kids can play around with it and not risk ingesting anything icky or leaving residue around. And I can madly clean the kitchen without worrying about getting chemicals on food or dishes, meaning I might have a clean kitchen more than once a week. I's not only harmless to the environment, but after the initial cost (which is quite steep, and for full disclosure we got them free) you just use regular tap water.

Don't just take my word for it...read more next week at Silicon Valley Moms blog and check out Bill Nye on the Active Ion website. Thanks again to the Tech Museum and Active Ion for a great day, including an awesome IMAX show about space. Stay tuned for a possible giveaway of one of these babies.

Cool Frame and Phone from T-Mobile

So several weeks, okay maybe more, ago, I got an offer to review a couple techie gadgets. Seems T-Mobile took a survey at Blogher about kids and cell phones, and were asking some moms to review them. I at first was not interested in the cell phone, since it was T-Mobile and I'm pretty set with AT&T, what with the contract and my company paying and all, but the 2nd thing, that sounded really, really awesome. Essentially you can send pictures to a digital frame, from a cell phone, any cell phone. So let me get into a few more details.

First, the phone, camera phone call the MOTOZINE (Motorola ZINE) which has a 5 megapixel camera. I have to admit, the camera took better pictures than my own digital camera, not that that's (my cheap one) anything to write home about. So I have to say, I did love the phone, particularly the camera part. I am not one to read directions (I know I'm not alone here) so it took a few days for me to figure some of it out, and I did have to crack open the manual on more than one occasion, but it wasn't so bad, and my 6YO son even managed to add grandpa to my faves list with no help at all.

I'm going to focus (ha, get it?) on the camera part, just for the record. The first photo of my lovely Christmas tree is from my camera, and the two below are from the MOTOZINE. Yes, we went for the pipe-cleaner candy-cane/painted porcelain pig tree this year, it's all the rage, don't ya know? And I couldn't resist throwing in a family photo, taken in the practically pitch dark, btw.

Another great feature was the photo upload ability. I loved my first camera phone, but went the phone broke (okay, I dropped it for the umpteenth time) my pictures were pretty much stuck, since I had no desire to put the time and money in getting software and hardware to get the photos from the camera to the computer. Sure, it's easier with the iPhone, but you can actually upload all your photos to a kodakgallery album with just a few easy steps. You can still email as well, but not very many at a time, and I didn't try the connection to the computer as the upload was so cool. The phone also takes some pretty good video, and I have to say if I had this phone I would not bother with a digital camera unless I could afford an SLR one.

Next up is the Cameo, which definitely lived up to its description. That link takes you to a brief review, by the way. It looks like a regular digital frame with one really cool feature. Imagine giving perhaps technically challenged grandma a digital frame for Christmas loaded (on a flash memory card) with some adorable photos of her grandsons building a snowman and her great-granddaughter on her first snowboard run. Then the holiday vacation ends, and suddenly pictures of post-Christmas unpacking arrives on said frame from the distant relatives, along with camping photos and a birthday party. For a mere $100 and $10 a month, the whole family can send grandma photos. The frame has it's own phone number, and you can send photos with messages right to the frame, from any cell phone, not just T-mobile (even the iPhone using this little trick). Once you give the frame permission, which just happens the first time, the photos are automatically uploaded.

I didn't get to keep these, just for the record, whatever record that is.