The Angel Forever

Have you heard of BrainFuel?

Posted on September 9, 2009 12:37 pm by TheAngelForever

As an educator and mother, I am always looking to find new and exciting online resources to use with my boys. I am a firm believer that integrating technology is crucial with children these days. Recently, I was asked by Mom Central to explore and review a website called BrainFuel. To participate in this Blog Tour, I was given a one month trial to use the Brain Games on Luminosity.

When you go to the website, it is broken down into four sections.

Brain Food:

In this section, a lot of attention is put on how certain foods are important to help your child maximize their brain, concentration and memory during the day. Articles are available to read about different topics and research is integrated into them to explain the rationale behind the findings. A few examples are:

Mom Was Right – why breaskfast is the most important meal of the day
Why Vitamins – research from studies that show how vitamins from a balanced and healthy diet can make kids perform at their best and do better in school.

Brain Health

This portion of the website is broken down further into areas that talk about Brain Facts, Exercise the Brain, Protecting the Brain. There are a lot of facts and ideas in this section to help to understand your brain better. Some examples:

Family Walk – Do you know why a simple walk after dinner can be beneficial to your brain? This little article explains why.
Avoid Brain Drain – Admit it, you have suffered from this more than once in your life. This explains what you can do to prevent it from happening.

Brain Games

We all know that it is important to exercise our body, but it is also crucial to train our brains. This section points readers to Luminosity.com which hosts the special games. These have been developed to help and increase:

Quicker thinking
Improved memory
Increased alertness
Elevated mood
Better concentration

You do have to be a member to use the games and track your program benefits. The nice part is you can sign up for a free 14 day brain training trial and if you like it then get 50% off a one year subscription by using the promotion code 50BRAINFUEL. I just activated my month long complimentary membership (part of the Blog Tour) and hope to start letting my son use it more. I have to say that many of the games look like something that would keep my brain moving. Some game examples are:

Word Bubbles – Works on Processing Speed, Verbal Fluency Head on over to test this out!
Speed Match – Helps to focus on Processing Speed Another game that you can test out on their website.

So far, I like what I see in these games and hope to explore them more with my son. He loves these types of items and will be intrigued with the concept of helping to make his brain bigger and better. I am interested in seeing if we will notice an improvements in his scores.

Brain Forum

In this portion of the website, you have the chance to connect with others to ask question, look for advice and see what others are doing. There are four main branches that people can leave topics/questions within. These are:

Ask a registered dietitian – Submit a question regarding brain healthy nutrition to our registered dietitian.
Food and Diet – Submit your child’s favorite brain food breakfast ideas/recipes
General Discussion – General Discussion is a place for General topics that do not fit into the categories of other forums on Brain Fuel.
Share with us

The forums look like they will be a nice resource as more people learn about this website. At this point, there are not a lot of posts and it is pretty quiet. The perk with that is if you post a question people respond to it rather quickly.

As previously mentioned, I am still exploring all that there is to offer on BrainFuel and Lumosity. I believe that helping children to be the best that they can be is part of our responsibility. This website has a lot of information that will be a nice resource for many parents.

Disclaimer: I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour campaign by Mom Central on behalf of BrainFuel and received an insulated lunch bag from California Innovations to thank me for taking the time to participate.

Categories:
Blog Tour interesting Uncategorized

Off to first grade

Posted on September 8, 2009 10:40 am by TheAngelForever

This morning NHL officially started first grade. He was up at 5:30 thanks to being anxious about the start of school. I tried to explain to him that even when I was a teacher, I got nervous on the first day of school. We talked with him about things and soon it was time to head out the door. Everyone brought NHL to school today. Once we were all dressed and ready we went out the door. Here is NHL all ready for first grade.

Heading toward the car NHL mentioned that he was really scared. JL went to walk and talk with him some as they got into the car.

Once we arrived over by school and parked everyone got out of the car. This is when NHL decided that it would be best to walk super slow. He also requested a trip back to Disney World on the slow trek in. We eventually got him to walk faster along with Daddy and JSL.

When we got into school NHL really held onto my hand. The noise level, all of the excitement, the new place to meet for first graders and all of the kids/parents/teachers was a little overwhelming. I can not say I blame him. I caught myself trying to stop tears a few times.

Soon after this, NHL’s teacher came over to say hello and introduce herself to all of us. I took a minute to let her know that NHL would not be taking the bus that afternoon. At that point the district had never sent us bus information, so I had to make a call. NHL was a little more at ease at this point. When his teacher called all of the children to line up NHL followed along into the line.

We watched and waited as the class slowly walked out and toward their classroom. Poor JSL started to sulk at this point as he saw his big brother leave.

Here is to hoping for a great day and year in the first grade. We all hope that this year and new teacher will be just what everyone, especially NHL, needs.

So how was your back to school so far?

Categories:
jl jsl milestone nhl photos school

Not a beetles fan

Posted on September 6, 2009 9:11 pm by TheAngelForever

Friday afternoon, I called JL at work in a panic. Something caught my eye by the hardwood floors and the wood accent on the wall. With a closer inspection, I saw squirmy white worm-like things. I swept them up, took some photos (I will spare you) and kept looking for more. I was disgusted by finding some additional ones. When JL came home from work, we were not able to find any more. I looked online to see if I could identify what had to be some kind of larvae. It seemed like it was probably powderpost beetle larvae. They basically love moist wood. This summer has been extremely wet and our basement flooded two weeks ago thanks to city sewer issues. When reading more about them, it says that they are very distructive over time and usually are not found until people see the damage. Aside from a few exit holes, and wood dust piles in the basement nothing is very clear to our eyes.

This Labor Day weekend has been painfully slow watching, waiting and cleaning to inspect more. Tuesday morning we will have to call an exterminator to come and see what to do. We clearly have a current infestation and need to get it under control. What we will not know until someone comes is what real damage has already been done. Thanks to this wait, my mind is going a mile a minute:

Is our furniture infested?
Will we need to strip off parts of the floor?
Will we need to vacate the house to fumigate?
How much is this going to cost?
Can these beetles really be controlled?
Did they start from new wood that was added to our walls/kitchen when it was remodeled?
WHY now of all times?

I literally had all of this and more going through my mind last night. Of course finding more of the larvae in the dining room, hall way and our bedroom pushed it over the edge. I cried and rocked myself to sleep for maybe two hours and then was wide awake and crying again. All I could think about were these nasty, gross beetles destroying our house, furniture and other items.

Lots of cleaning and laundry was done today and more will need to be done tomorrow. With any luck, we can get someone here quickly, but we have no clue who to contact since we have never had this before. *sigh*

Thanks to this, I am hereby declaring war on the beetles and other creepy crawly, disgusting things that live and destroy items within my house.

Categories:
bad news house losing my mind messy nasty things vent

Last days before first grade

Posted on September 5, 2009 9:07 pm by TheAngelForever

Dear NHL,

It is still hard for me to believe that you will be heading to first grade on Tuesday. I know that you are nervous about school since things were rocky at the end of kindergarten. This will be a fresh new year, with many new friends and only one teacher. It should be exciting getting to know everyone and learning new things. Always know that Daddy and I are in your corner cheering you on. We will stand behind you and make sure that you are taken care of at school and treated fairly.

This summer has been wonderful. I have watched you play with your brother, read to everyone, do math books for fun, and spend time with your new favorite – the Nintendo Wii. We have also spent a lot of time going to Lowes and Home Depot to build fun new things. Seeing your hands create something new and then use it has been extremely rewarding.

I hope we see the sparkle in your eyes as you discover all that is out there in the world. You love learning and we hope it stays that way for the rest of your life.

Remember that you should never give up, always believe in yourself, and know that you are a winner.

I love you NHL and can not wait to see the world of first grade through your eyes.

Love,

Mommy

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Categories:
Dear Kid Saturday looking back nhl photos school summer

Cirque du Soleil

Posted on September 4, 2009 12:00 am by TheAngelForever

For our honeymoon, just over eight years ago, JL and I went to Walt Disney World. When we were making our plans, one of the must sees was the fairly new Cirque du Soleil in Downtown Disney. La Nouba tickets were quite difficult to get, but we snagged some great seats. As soon as you walked into the specially designed theater you were transformed into another world. The show was like no other either of us had seen before. The performers were amazing and put on the show with such gusto. We immediately became fans of Cirque from that moment on.

When we went to Las Vegas in December 2002, we met my Aunt L, Uncle J and Cousin M there. We all agreed that we wanted to see "O" at the Belagio. This show is the one that takes place around a specially built theater with a pool in it. Tickets for this show were and still are extremely difficult to get. I managed to get some for one of the nights we were there. It was fantastic and well worth the price of the show. On Christmas Eve, we had no plans and went to the box office at our resort to see if there were any tickets. We literally walked up right after someone canceled on two seats for Mystere. We quickly bought them and saw our third Cirque performance. Mystere did not disappoint and became my favorite of the Vegas trip. I loved the clowns in the show and the humor involved. Of course, the seats were wonderful in the specially built theater.

It has been many years since we have had the chance to see another Cirque du Soleil. Right after JSL was born something came to our area, but was not a real Cirque du Soleil. It was more about the music and dance of the show. We opted not to go and see that. Yesterday, my father called and said he had tickets to see the show here. Surprise! Of course, since my parents were going we had no babysitter.

My wonderful husband agreed to be a sweetheart and watch the boys, so I was able to go and see Alegria this evening.Oh my! From the moment we walked in and saw the stage, I knew it would be wonderful.

There is just something about the costumes, music, lighting, clowns, performers that combine to make a truly unique masterpiece. The director Fanco Dragone and his troop continue to amaze me each and everytime.

My question this week:

Have you ever been to see a Cirque du Soleil show? If you have, what did you see? If you have not would you like to go one day?

Now I will be off to dream of magical places in far off lands and more Cirque du Soleil performances in my future with hubby next time.

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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 MckLinky there if you are participating.