Totally Cheating on Today’s Post

If I admit it in the headline, you have to accept it, right**

For reals, today’s post is just a link….did you know that The Adoption Writers at Grown in My Heart has a review/giveaway site? Sometimes I forget myself. Then I take on a post to write, and it’s all, hey! there’s this secondary blog with some fun things on it!

SO.

My first post over there is about the Energizer Ultimate Photo Contest and a battery giveaway that goes with it.

**In my defense, I’m coming off of the four-day business trip of BgK, which was sort of out of the blue. My tactic for coping is to keep the children as busy as possible. So I’m kinda tired…..

Day 10 DOWN.

Turning Up Sex and the City 2

As I opened the padded envelope, Mam exclaimed, “Oh mommy! She is sooo beauuuutifulll!” as she snatched my soundtrack of  “Sex and the City 2” out of my hands and just blissfully stared at SJP, who graces the CD case (is it still called an album cover?)

Oh Mam, do I have series to introduce to you in about 12 yrs!!

We opened the CD together and popped it into my laptop. MaM went off to play, and I stayed to listen. And I LOVED most of the soundtrack from first listen. There are songs to sing along with, showtunes, tunes that make me want to belly dance, and a few classics.

My first favorite:  The opening track, “Rapture”, by Alicia Keys. You have to love a song that talks about the characters with whom you’re obsessed. The line “because I’m so Carrie and my man’s so Big” caught my attention, and I just love it.They also managed to have the underlying theme music intertwined in the song, which just made it that much better.

Other favs include a rendition of “Single Ladies” by Liza Minelli. I cannnot wait to see how this plays into the movie. The other renditions that have me curious are the numbers sung by the “Sex and the City Men’s Chorus”. What is that? Why are they singing?? So curious! I’m also really loving Alicia Keys’ version of  “Empire State of Mind (part II) Broken Down”.

The song I turn up the loudest though? That has to be “Can’t Touch It” by Ricki Lee. I love, love, love it, and I’ve been playing it non-stop since I got this CD in the mail from the One2One Network.

To learn more and hear some sound bites, see http://bit.ly/O2Osatc2sdtk. Ready to buy it yourself? Use this link to Amazon: http://bit.ly/O2Osatc2Amazon

The movie was already on my “to see” list, but this soundtrack sealed the deal. The Mr. and I have a Friday afternoon matinee date.

Disclosure: The One2One Network sent me the Sex and the City 2 soundtrack to review, the soundtrack is mine to keep in exchange for this post.

 

I Let Noodles & Company Do the Cooking

The last week of school is almost as hectic as the first week of school. Instead of this looming sense of “we’ve got all school year to figure it out”, there’s this sense of “holy crow, if it doesn’t get done now, it never will!!”, which can be a little overwhelming.

Or a lot overwhelming. This week was a lot overwhelming. By Wednesday night I’d had quite enough, so I decided that I was giving myself (courtesy of MomCentral) a break Thursday night for dinner.

We packed up the kids and headed out to Noodles & Company at the newest outdoor shopping center in Central Indiana. I was excited that not only were there many menu choices, but that the choices spanned continents. I was able to have Indonesian Peanut Saute (yum! more yum!), hubby was able to have Italian, and the kids, well the kids weren’t going to venture out past mac and cheese. I was ok with that–I got to eat Peanut Saute while everyone else in my family was happily eating what they like as well.

Also? I didn’t have to do the dishes. And? Someone else cooked my meal. And? The service was quick so the four of us actually sat at the table all together to eat without chaos. We had a great meal, let the kids play at the playground across from the restaurant, and made it home with plenty of time to spare before bath time. It was a great weeknight excursion (which is saying something, because quite often excursions on school nights are anything but great).

Honestly, part of this review is supposed to include my kids eating vegetables while we were at Noodles & Company. That wasn’t going to happen, unless veggies were added to the cheese sauce discretely. Children with a more diverse palate would probably have no problem with the veggies found in most of the menu items, but my kids weren’t going to stray far from mac and cheese. It’s something I plan on working on over the summer–getting them to at least put more vegetables to their lips.

Check out all of the variations available at http://www.noodles.com/ surely by the end of the summer they will pick something besides mac and cheese, right? New for summer is an Asparagus & Lemon Linguine dish which sounds divine (it wasn’t available the night we went).

Overall, we had a great family night out–I’m so glad that Noodles & Company did the cooking for me Thursday night!

“I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour campaign by Mom Central (www.momcentral.com) on behalf of Noodles & Company and received five Noodles & Company bowl cards to facilitate my review. Mom Central also sent me a thank-you gift certificate.”