Donating a New Puppy Kit with Milk-Bone® Dog Treats #ILoveMyk9 #CBias

Last week my son and I took a trip to Walmart to buy Milk-Bone®, Pup-Peroni and Milo's Kitchen dog treats along with some other items for a new puppy. You can read my story my story about my dog and see our shopping trip here.

My black lab "Kosha" as my son calls her is one of the sweetest, happy, obedient dogs I have ever had. And over the last 25 years I have had many breeds of dogs. She has been in our home since she was a tiny puppy. She is my side kick and for a few years my "baby" until my son was born. My son and her are best pals. They jump, dance and run together all over the place. She adores him just as much as he does her. My son loves to feed her dog food and give her treats. She is a Milk-Bone® dog. She loves her "cookies" just as much as my son loves Chocolate Chip cookies, and he is a cookie monster! They both could spend all afternoon eating their favorite treats if I let them.

Over the weekend we almost lost our sweet dog! We have a rickety fence on one part of our yard that finally fell over after a windy night and my dog got out. She is not really a runner when it comes to being outside and thankfully so. One of our awesome neighbors took her to a local vet. (Still cant figure out which neighbor it was but THANK U to whoever it was!) When we woke up that morning and my son asked for "Kosha" I opened the door to call her. Normally she comes running to us as soon as she hears me. There was nothing, no bark, no loud trampling noise as she runs, just silence. My son had a panicked look on his face and I was very puzzled. I had no clue the fence on the back part of our house was down. After looking around and realizing what happened we got dressed and were getting ready to go look for her. I looked at my phone on the way out the door and saw there was a message. I almost was going to listen later since we needed to go look for her but I wanted to see who it was. I am so glad I listened because it was a Vet near by calling to say they had our dog and found our info from scanning her micro chip! I was over the moon happy that she was safe and so grateful that we micro chipped her as a puppy.

My son and dog have been pals since he was born!

I grabbed her new collar we got her for Christmas (this was a time for presents!) and some dog treats and we all drove over to the vet to pick her up. When she saw us and my son she wagged her tail like crazy and my son yelled her name and hugged her. It was a very Homeward Bound moment lol. Never have I been more happy to have spent an extra bit of money on micro chipping her. If we would have lost our sweet dog it would have been so sad, and at Christmas time. We thanked the vet and we were given a vague description of our dogs rescuer and took our "Kosha" home.

I know she will be getting a stocking full of Milk-Bone® this year!!!

Getting ready to put together our Puppy Kit Gift

I liked how this all looked but then thought the red stuffing would be a puppy no no

I decided to not include the red festive packing stuff since I am a sure a puppy would try to eat it.

As a frugal Mom I wanted to include some coupons in the basket for the person to buy more treats!

Now that we had our own dog safe and sound at home we wanted to donate our Milk-Bone® Puppy Kit to our local SPCA shelter. Many people will be adopting puppies and dogs this holiday season that need a good home. I know it must be sad for the dogs that are not chipped and were not found if they were lost. I hope all the dogs find a good home.

We dropped off our Milk-Bone® Puppy Kit gift and asked that it be donated to a family adopting a puppy. They were very busy at the Placer County shelter so we did not have the chance to see any dogs or pick a specific puppy to give our gift to, but I know the good people there will make sure its properly donated.

If you are planning to get a new puppy for the holidays or anytime please do as I did and get your dog micro chipped in case they go missing. And of course give them yummy Milk-Bone® treats to make them a happy dog!

The Tree inside the SPCA Placer County. It was full of pictures of animals that need homes.

My son saw a Kitty Cat and kept asking me if I saw it. He said "You See?" Id love to get him a cat but I am allergic!

*This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias. 

All opinions expressed in this shop are my own and your experience may vary. #Cbias #ILoveMyk9

Continuum Games Lumps the Elf Coal Game and Family Talk 2 Board Games Review and Giveaway

Board games have always been something our whole family has enjoyed. We are big on family fun aspect and the challenge of playing one another. Quiz and strategy games where we play as teams can be hours of "low tech" entertainment that we can all enjoy. Especially when its different generations playing. What better time than the holidays to have some new games to play with family and friends.


We recently heard of the company Continuum Games. They make all sorts of games for all ages and age specific games for 3+ to 14+. There are many fun games for adults to play like Reverse Charades and Pitch It.

For this holiday season we had the chance to review Family Talk 2. This game is a conversation starter game. The game is played with cards and it asks random questions to spark conversation. As a family we are a bunch of chatter boxes so this game was more of a novelty. But I can see it working for a party where we have new people there and it would be a good ice breaker.

Game info:

• Second edition of our popular Family Talk game
• Fun, Portable family game of conversation keeps today’s busy families connected
• 100 new and exciting question cards attached to round carabiner clip for use anywhere – at home, at a restaurant, in the car, on vacation
• Questions that get the whole family talking – even hard-to-talk-to Teens!
• Portable, thoughtprovoking, fun!
• Great as a travel game
• Ages 3+

The other game we review is Lumps the Elf Coal Game. This game comes in a cute little stocking and is fun. Its a dice type of game that you are trying to get a set amount of points, sort of like a dice card game. The fun part was any amount of people can play. Our competitive nature made us want to each win for bragging rights! Next time we play we might put a candy reward up for the Elf that wins the most times in a row. That will really get the competition going! This game can be a choking hazard for kids under 3 so be sure to keep track of your lumps of coal.

The Lumps Legend:
Children around the world have been so good over the past few years; lumps of coal have built up at the North Pole. Puzzled by what to do with the excess coal; Santa’s elves decided to create an exciting new game that uses lumps of coal of all shapes and sizes

The goal is to score the most points in three rolls by rolling pairs of the same number. Roll a pair of 3s, score 3 points in a pair of 10s scores 10 points. What makes the game unique is that it has four different types of dice and there are few high numbers. On each turn you have to make decisions on which dice to keep and re-roll. Do you play it safe and hold a pair of 4s, or chance it and try for a high pair? 

Also a 15% off coupon code with the code: funforallages

Lumps, the Elf Coal game is available at Hallmark Gold Crown stores, Books-A-Million, Go! Games and 100s of specialty toy stores in the US. Family Talk 2 can be found online at the Continuum Games website.

GIVEAWAY

Win Continuum Games Lumps the Elf Coal Game and Family Talk 2

To Enter This Giveaway: (mandatory entry before extra entries)

What other games do you like from Continuum Games?

*Leave a comment answering the question and be sure to leave your email address if its not public in your Google account*

Extra Entries: Can be done after leaving a comment for mandatory entry. If the extra entry says 1 extra entry leave 1 comment and 2 extra entries leave me 2 comments and so on.

-Like Continuum Games on Facebook +1
-Follow Continuum Games on Twitter +1

-Follow Frugal Family Tree on GFC ( right hand side) +1
-Like our new fan page on Facebook Frugal Family Tree +1
-Follow FrugalFamTree on Twitter +1
-Share this giveaway on Facebook ONLY, using the Share Button at the bottom on this post. +1 for each share you do. (can be done once a day)

-Copy and Paste This Tweet on Twitter and leave me the link (to find the link click on the time stamp under your tweet. Can be done once a day for the duration of the giveaway)

#Win a Lumps the Elf Coal game and Family Talk @ContinuumGames at @FrugalFamTree #Giveaway ends 12/21







*Limited to US residents; 18 years old and above. Giveaway starts December 16, 2011 and ends on December 21 , 2011 at midnight PST. Winner will be emailed and has 48 hours to respond before another winner is selected. I was not paid for this giveaway or post. The opinions on this item are 100% mine and may vary from others. The sponsor is responsible for providing the prize.

Donating Disney Stockings for Champions for Kids #DisneyCFK #CBias

This year in addition to the regular toy donations we give we were lucky enough to be apart of a great project for Champions for Kids. Each month Champions for Kids has a Simple Service Project that anyone can participate in. For the month of December it was to purchase Disney themed items and stuff a stocking with the toys to donate to kids in need. We were excited to be apart of this project since we are huge Disney fans in our home. I knew right away the type of Disney toys I wanted to donate.

We shopped at our local Walmart to purchase our Disney items to donate. We found lots of great items to buy and gathered many Holiday Gift Ideas. I took my son with me to shop so he can see how we buy gifts for other kids too. We have been buying toys for kids at Christmas time for many years. The last few years since our son was born we try to involve him too. You can read about our Holiday Giving Traditions here.

We were planning to donate our stocking to another little boy so we searched for Boy themed Disney items. There was stuff in the stocking and holiday section as well as the toy section. We searched for just the right stuff to put in our stocking. We also saw lots of yummy holiday treats to eat!

When we got home we made our stocking and wrapped the gifts that would not fit into out stocking. 

For donating our Disney Stocking we wanted to find a new charity this year to go along with the new program Champions For Kids we are working with. I searched locally and found a program that helps homeless families through housing, school and job training and other necessary services. The program is Roseville Home Start. We have driven by the charity at least a few times a week for the past 6 years and had no idea it was there. We were able to donate our stocking and gifts to the children at Home Start. I am happy to be able to give to families that need a little holiday cheer. We will be doing our best to donate all year long to Home Start.

Thank you to Roseville Home Start for allowing my family to visit and donate Disney toys to the children there. Thank you Champions for Kids for the great idea of the December Disney Stocking project. It felt awesome to donate toys to a child and made me grateful for all the blessings in my own life.

You can be apart of the Champions for Kids Disney Stocking Stuffer Project by signing up on the Champions for Kids December Simple Service project page. You can follow Champion for Kids on twitter @championsforkids and be a fan on Facebook.

You can read my Google+ Story by clicking the link below

Google + Story Donating Disney Stockings for Champions for Kids #DisneyCFK #CBias

*This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias. 

All opinions expressed in this shop are my own and your experience may vary. #Cbias #DisneyCFK#ChampionsforKids

Hand Made Home By Mark & Sally Bailey Book Review Holiday Gift Guide

Hand Made Home by Mark and Sally Bailey is a lovely book for many reasons. If you are an artist or craft person then living with art, your own or what you have collected, is an absolute fact of life. Hand Made Home means exactly that. A home that includes objects made by human hands brings beauty, originality, and warmth to it, regardless of the living space's size or value. A unique or original look can be difficult to find when in today's world it is so easy to buy things that are mass produced or come from a catalog. Page after page of beautiful photographs show us the sometimes earthy and Bohemian simplicity of living with the handmade pieces we love.

Mark and Sally Bailey show us the beauty and soul of twelve different homes that are decorated using art and handcrafted pieces. Not everything collected in these homes are of great value. From simple plates to baskets to ceramic birds, the value isn't so much on the monetary, but the beauty. The houses featured in the book are of very different styles. There is a Dutch farmhouse, a Victorian terraced home in London, and a Japanese Modern house. These homes are truly unique and we sense that their owners must be as well. The authors ask them questions about their homes and the answers give us a peek into the minds of the people who have created these interesting places to live. I liked this concept very much. The author's own home is featured here as well. They live in an 18th century farmhouse in the English countryside. It is very easy to see their own fascination with the handmade.

There is also a chapter on collecting and displaying your hand made treasures. From the simplest of objects to items of great value, living with art and craft that you have chosen brings your own style of beauty to light. Hand Made Home celebrates this with a quiet warmth and loveliness all it's own.

You can purchase Hand Made Home by Mark and Sally Bailey from the publisher's website Ryland Peters & Small and other book stores. You can connect with the publisher to learn more about Hand Made Home and find other great books published by them online at facebook and twitter.




* I was not paid or compensated for this post. I was sent a free copy of this book for my review by the publisher/PR company. The opinions are 100% mine and may vary from others.

Thomas & Friends Steam Team Collection DVD Review and Friends and Family DVD Giveaway Holiday Gift Guide

Anytime I have the opportunity to share a new Thomas and Friends adventure with my son its always a good time. The Thomas the Train DVDs are always kid friendly and teaching a lesson through a simple yet entertaining way. My son has grown to love Thomas the Train and his Friends so much over this last year. He loves to yell Choo Choo and make his Thomas toys play along as he watches the movie. 

This DVD 4 pack Steam Team is full of great stories. My son loves that there are 4 DVDs that he can hold and put in the DVD player. He thinks he is a big boy when I let him pick out which one he wants to watch and put in the DVD player. This set is full of valuable lessons like listening to others and friendship. This would be a great set to buy for a new Thomas fan for the Holidays. You can find it in many retail stores as well as online at the Thomas and Friends HIT Entertainment shop. The shop also has Ornaments, Stockings, Christmas Thomas DVDs, Tshirts and more.

 

DVD 4 Pack Summary
It's the perfect holiday gift for your little engineer at an incredible price! Enjoy a trainload of fun and adventure with Thomas and his friends in stunning CG animation when this new collection of DVDs pulls into stores just in time for the holidays. Sixteen fun-filled tales - including exclusive content never before seen on TV - take you once again to the Island of Sodor to ride along with Thomas and all his engine friends as they play in the rain, make special deliveries, work together and celebrate friendship and good fun.

DVDs Includes:
Thomas & Friends: Splish Splash Splosh!
Even when it's wet outside you can still have plenty of fun, especially when you share your adventures with Thomas & Friends! Grab your galoshes and join your favorite engines as they prepare for rainy-day visits, sudsy spills, snowy situations and more in these stories from the Island of Sodor.
Thomas & Friends: Splish Splash Splosh! Bonus Features:

• Lift and Load Crane Game
• Counting with Thomas

Thomas & Friends: The Lion of Sodor
Join Thomas as he roars down the tracks with his most special delivery yet, the Lion of Sodor. But can the other engines convince Thomas in time that his special is not a real lion? Hop on board and learn the importance of listening to others in these lionhearted tales.
Thomas & Friends: The Lion of Sodor Bonus Features:

• Determination Karaoke Song
• Party Train Match Game
• Timmy Time™ Bonus Episode: "Timmy's Plane"

Thomas & Friends: Creaky Cranky
Crank up the fun as the Island of Sodor prepares for the Spring Party. There are engines to mend and decorations to deliver, and Thomas is on the fast track to finish in time. But when there's too much heavy lifting to do, Thomas realizes it takes a team of friends to reach his true destination.
Thomas & Friends: Creaky Cranky Bonus Features:

• The Sound Song Music Video

Thomas & Friends: Thomas & The Runaway Kite
High-flying fun waits ahead with your favorite engine friends! Get ready to rescue buzzy bees, catch a runaway kite and unwrap the biggest present of all. Thomas is on track to reach new heights in these exciting railway adventures.
Thomas & Friends: Thomas & The Runaway Kite Bonus Features:

• How Many Shapes Do You See?
• Find What Doesn't Belong

I really enjoy the DVDs that are filled with multiple HIT Entertainment characters. My son likes to see this pals on on one show. He gets excited for Barney, then sees Thomas, than Bob the Builder, Shaun the Sheep and Fireman Sam, just when he is super excited a Kipper the Dog episode comes on! He does the cutest dance to the Kipper the Dog theme song. Its hilarious!

This DVD has a super cute theme of Friends and Family. I enjoyed him seeing him learn about the importance of loving your family and putting them first. The Barney episode was great showing how one child's family adopts another child from China and how excited the kid will be to be a big brother. Angelina Ballerina was sweet about Angelina taking care of and playing with her little sister. Plus the Thomas and Friends one is a good one about a train who is being a bit selfish but in the end realizes his friends wanted to include him too. Gotta love the lessons these cute characters teach!

DVD Summary:
Enjoy quality time with friends and family with these warm-hearted tales. Share birthday surprises with Thomas and the Percival Twins, while Angelina and Polly choreograph a special show for their parents. Then join Bob the Builder and Barney as they show their friends how to be the best big brother and sister they can be. Siblings, friends and parents alike will delight in these stories celebrating love, friendship and fun!

DVD EPISODES

• Thomas & Friends - "Duncan and the Hot Air Balloon"
• Fireman Sam - "Danger By The Double"
• Bob the Builder -"Dizzy In Charge"
• Barney - "Big Brother Rusty"
• Angelina Ballerina - "Angelina and Polly's Two-Hour Show"
• Kipper - "Cousins"
• Roary the Racing Car - "Zizzy Spectacular"
• Timmy Time - "Timmy's New Friend" (DVD Only)

GIVEAWAY

Win HIT Entertainment Family and Friends DVD

To Enter This Giveaway: (mandatory entry before extra entries)

Who is your favorite HIT Entertainment character?

*Leave a comment answering the question and be sure to leave your email address if its not public in your Google account*

Extra Entries: Can be done after leaving a comment for mandatory entry. If the extra entry says 1 extra entry leave 1 comment and 2 extra entries leave me 2 comments and so on.

-Like Thomas the Train on Facebook +1
-Follow Thomas the Train on Twitter +1

-Follow Frugal Family Tree on GFC ( right hand side) +1
-Like our new fan page on Facebook Frugal Family Tree +1
-Follow FrugalFamTree on Twitter +1
-Share this giveaway on Facebook ONLY, using the Share Button at the bottom on this post. +1 for each share you do. (can be done once a day)

-Copy and Paste This Tweet on Twitter and leave me the link (to find the link click on the time stamp under your tweet. Can be done once a day for the duration of the giveaway)

#Win a HIT Entertainment Family and Friends DVD at @FrugalFamTree #Giveaway ends 12/20






*Limited to US residents; 18 years old and above. Giveaway starts December 15, 2011 and ends on December 20 , 2011 at midnight PST. Winner will be emailed and has 48 hours to respond before another winner is selected. I was not paid for this giveaway or post. The opinions on this item are 100% mine and may vary from others. The sponsor is responsible for providing the prize.

Guest Post Have Sippy Will Travel: Save Zoar- A Historical Settlement in danger in Ohio @zoarohio

Why would anyone want to destroy a historic German settlement in Ohio?  Who would do such a thing?  Our federal government, that's who.  Zoar was founded in 1817 by German religious separatists to set up a communal society in a new way of life.  Zoar is unique in the way it is preserved.  A walk around Zoar is like stepping into a time machine.  Everything is pristine, and you will be taking a stroll though our history.

Little Man, my grandmother, and I had a great time in historic Zoar- we checked out a metal-working shop, amazing gardens, a bakery, a tin shop where the town's cups, bowls, etc were made.  We saw the actual artifacts that the residents used, and were led on a tour by a descendant of the people of Zoar- her father had lived and worked there all his life.  A quiet, hardworking, unassuming people who came to America for a better life and an opportunity for their families, they were often separated from each other for months and years at a time trying to pay back the loan from the land.

Take a look at more of our photos from our trip to Zoar here- and let me tell you, fall is a great time to visit

These people wasted nothing- and especially not time- and did not have easy lives.  These German separatists, mostly farmers, were persecuted in their own land and came here to live and work freely.  Zoar is a living, breathing testament to the American dream and the values that we claim to hold dear.  As a young country, it would be a shame to allow a historical settlement to be flooded- we may not have the history that England or Spain does, but that doesn't mean it is not just as important.  Here is where your hand is needed. 

The current issue is, the levee which is at the base of the town.  This levee is in dire need of repairs according to US Army Corps of Engineers reports, it has a Dam Safety Action Classification 1 rating, the worst rating possible.  The USACE has three options: Repair the levee, tear down the village and let the area flood or relocate Zoar to higher ground.  The only option that makes sense is repair the levee.  Tearing down or trying to relocate the village would destroy this historic treasure.  Repairs would help keep this village alive well into the next century for our grand children to enjoy as well.

Take a look at this petition - please sign it if you agree.  Get the word out, Save Zoar!!
You can follow them on Facebook and Twitter as well.

Please email me at kangabunnie@gmail.com to share this on your site.  Don't forget to sign it, too!  We can all  help save Zoar. 



* We at Frugal Family Tree have signed the petition to help save this historical place!