Product Review: Guitar Hero On Tour Nintendo DS

It is official!  Ds2’s hopes and dreams have finally come true!  I have been doing online surveys and product reviews for a while now.  Since day one ds has wanted me to be picked to review something, anything, to do with video games.  And with many thanks to Mom Central and their association with Activision, I now have the happiest teenager around. :)

My family is full of video game enthusiasts.  We all have different tastes as far as games go, but I have to admit that we all like Guitar Hero.  The boys like the challenge of the game, dh and I like listening to the music.  I knew that Nintendo had come out with a version for the DS, but wondered just how you could enjoy the game without a real guitar.  Would it be as challenging for the boys and as fun for us as a family?

Yep, it is. :)

The happy bunch after opening the much anticipated box.  Note the Guitar Hero t-shirts.  On the back they say “I rock.”  Told you we were fans. :)

Okay, pardon all the technical jargon I am about to use, but there really is no way around it.  Basically the game comes with a thingy that has the fret buttons from the guitar.  You attach this thingy on to the DS and hold the system in the palm of your hand. 

Like so.

The game also comes with a pick that you use to strum on the touchpad side of the DS.  Not to worry, there is a little compartment on the thingy where you can store the pick.  (Special thanks to ds2 for telling me about frets and touchpads.)

Ooooh, a live action shot!  So you can see the setup is simple and while it’s different than holding a guitar in your hands, it is just as fun to play.  Plus, being on the DS, it’s portable!  Soon after we first tested the games we went on a two hour road trip to a family reunion.  This was my first time to try things out.  I liked it!  It was easy to catch on to the basic mechanics of how to play, but a nice challenge.  Well, I was on easy mode, but still. :)

Guitar Hero On Tour: Modern Hits has 28 songs, multiplayer modes and song streaming…where you can use a wireless connection to share songs between players from different versions of the game.  Mom Central graciously set us up with Guitar Hero On Tour: Decades so we could do just that.  Gotta admit, that is a cool feature that really allowed us to play together more.  And Decades has a few more artists I recognize (yeah, I knew I couldn’t get through this review without showing my age lol.)  Here are the important facts about these products:

Publisher: Activision Publishing, Inc./RedOctane

Developer: Vicarious Visions

Platform: Nintendo DS

MSRP: Hardware Bundle (includes game and Guitar Grip): $49.99

ESRB Rating: “E 10+” (Everyone 10 and older – Lyrics)

Need even more info?  Check it out here at the product website.  I especially like that these games are rated E…for everyone!  Really, if any game companies are listening out there, please make more E rated games!  It’s not that hard, half the T for teen and M for mature games out there could be edited just a little to make them more family friendly.  Okay, off the soapbox.  Final opinion?  Happy kids=happy mom.  You can feel good about putting Guitar Hero On Tour for the DS on your shopping list, it’s a good one.  The end. :)

You Can Tell A Lot About A Blogger…

…from the labels on her blog!  I was doing some rearranging of my blog layout and noticed my labels gadget.  You know what most of my posts are filed under?  The label “Mom Thoughts.”  There are 62 posts with that label.  Wow, I didn’t know I was such a heavy thinker.  Or had so many posts that I couldn’t classify in any other way.

The label that has the most posts after that?  Homeschooling.  Whew.  I was afraid I had lost the whole theme of this blog!  It is, after all, “A place for me to share about life homeschooling and raising 4 boys in the Sunshine State.”

Next most popular label?  With 47 posts it’s “Family Fun.”  Yep, I’d say that is right.  And I can retain my blog title of Fun In The Sun.  Yea!

The next three most used labels really tell something about me.  They are “reading” with 32 posts, “Disney” with 28 posts, and “kitties” with 22.  I do love all three of those things. :)  How I have dreamed of cuddling up with one of my kitties and reading a good book while at Disney World.  Sigh.

So labels aren’t always a bad thing.  I am proud to be labeled a “thinking, homeschooling, family fun, reading, Disney, kitty” mom.   I’d say that is me in a nutshell. :)

Cats On Tuesday: Smokey

 

I’ve noticed that Mimi and Winnie seem to steal the show as far as my COT posts go.  So I decided to focus on one of the older bunch of cats this morning…Smokey.

Smokey is technically ds1’s cat.  He picked him out from a litter not long after we moved into this house, so he’s more local than we are lol.  What can I say about Smokey?

He is all cat.  He goes about his business and expects you to go about yours…making sure he has food, water and love on demand. :)

He purrs like there is no tomorrow when he gets his wish…but is one of those cats that will turn on you and bite the hand that feeds scratches him.  We don’t know why he does this.  We have to warn visitors, because sure enough Smokey will jump on the couch next to them, they will start to pet him and out of no where he will bite.  :(  Why, Smokey, why?

Sometimes he will approach you outside and do what we call the “Smokey dance” where he rolls and rolls on the ground in front of you.  You reach down and pet him of course.  You walk away…and he attacks your leg!  Why, Smokey, why?

  You can’t help but love the guy.  He is just Smokey, and that’s that. :)  For more kitty love head over to Gattina’s blog and join in on the fun.

Muffin Tin Monday: 4th Of July

This week’s theme for Muffin Tin Monday, hosted at Her Cup Overfloweth, is 4th of July!  Good golly, are you trying to tell me that June is really almost over?  Wow.  Well, here is my take on the theme.

Can you believe I still haven’t found a small muffin tin for this project?  I even searched flea markets and nary a one.  Sigh.  But ds4 loves his Christmas platter and muffin liners so as long as he’s happy, I’m happy. :)  We went with vanilla yogurt with chopped strawberries and blue sprinkles on top, peanut butter toast with strawberry and grape jelly stripes, watermelon balls, cheese cutouts and a little mini candy bar (only thing blue I had on hand lol.)

Looks a little unsure, doesn’t he?  It’s the white cheese.  He’s not a big fan of white cheese.  He did try it, though, I’ll give him that. :)  I look forward to visiting all the other muffin tin-ers this week, lots of creative moms out there!

Book Review: Love In The Time Of Cholera

Finished Love In The Time of Cholera. Not my cup of tea, sorry. I mean, it's a well written book, the author is definitely an excellent storyteller. I guess it's just not my type of story? I could not connect with the characters, they changed every two minutes. She loves him, no she loves him, no she loves no one, she's poor and likes it, she's rich and likes it, she likes her life, she runs away from her life...give me a break!!!  He pines for her and decides to wait until she is available for him…in the meantime he has so many affairs and trysts that it fills three journals?   And the “long winded jump to and from every little event” way the story flowed made it soooo arduous to read. But if you skip? You will miss something big. One sentence in the middle of an obscure side story that turns out to be important to the plot will sure enough be there. And I could not wrap my head around the descriptions of the different settings.  The areas are the most beautiful, elaborate places but still overflowing with garbage, sewage, and the people are ravaged by disease.  Well, which is it?   So in the end, I'm glad I read it but I won't be reading it again.  Do I recommend it?  If you are looking for a deep, meaningful, read?  Sure, go for it.  You won’t be sorry.  It’s one of those soon to be classic books that every serious reader should indulge in.  It’s one that will be dissected by more English majors in college classes than people involved in casual book clubs.  I admit the book is still churning around in my thoughts days after reading it.  Despite all that, I can’t put it in my favorite pile just yet.

Itch To Pitch Week 3: The Laundry Room

This week I tackled the laundry room.  I have an adequate sized laundry room.  It fits a washer and dryer and came with a wire shelving system for storage.  My only problem with the shelving is that stuff does not sit properly…it falls over, knocks other stuff, etc. etc.

Oh boy.  How can she find anything in that mess?  She can’t!

Yikes!  Is that a Christmas popcorn tin?

I took everything off the shelves and put some old cardboard display boards from schooling on them to help things stay put.  It worked out nicely. :)

It may not look much better, but it is.  I actually had room to move some things in from the garage that I needed closer access to.

I had two garbage bags full to pitch…mostly empty cleaning stuff.  Thanks to The Happy Housewife for hosting this challenge…I don’t know how you do it in the middle of a move!  This is the third week of getting cleaned and organized and guess what?  Dh noticed lol!  We have a big cleaning session on Saturday mornings before my parents come over for a visit.  Dh went into the laundry room and found that not only had it been cleaned/decluttered, but that all the cleaning supplies he needed to tackle the bathroom were all together in one box!  “Wow, when did you do this?” :)  I think it’s safe to say I’ll be continuing to participate in this one lol.

MFW Kindergarten: Week 3 Ll leaf

We are still enjoying MFWK, even though this third week has been a little rough with ds4 and I.  Ds has been having some issues with growing up…torn between “big boy” and “preschooler/toddler.”  He’s been acting out and resisting our discipline efforts.  And this week was the first since we began with MFW that he acted out during school time. :(  We had a couple of days where he got upset because I had to correct him or had to show him how to do something.  He fluctuates between the desire to learn and the desire to show that he already knows.  Ah, growing up is hard to do.

We still had fun, though. :)

Once again I have to praise the MFW message boards.  There I found a link to International Paper website which had some great posters to download, including one for recognizing leaves and needles.  Ds and I went out and collected several leaves from our yard and brought them in to examine, noting color, texture, edges, etc.  We saved the leaves for some cool art projects.

We used the leaves to make prints, and then painted only around the edges for some neat effects.

I like the format for MFW and how you basically do the same things on certain days, only with different letters/themes.  This is helping ds become a more independent learner…here he is doing his cutting/pasting page on his own.

The school room (formally known as my dining room lol) has undergone some changes.  It involved a lot of mess, moving, moving back, and general anxiety (on the cats’ part…they hate change) but I think I have it like I want for our new school year.  Our first year minus ds2.  Insert tear here.  Anyway, I moved the world map over a bit and put ds4’s MFW alphabet cards on the wall under the chalkboard.  We both like this approach better than flipping through the cards every day.

I moved a bookshelf from the living room into the schoolroom next to my desk, and also put the workbox system cart there as well.  I’m going to need to move the little bulletin board on the wall there.

Finally I moved the table we use to the middle of the room.  It looks cramped but really it works out well and is not really crowded.  We can walk freely from our front door to our kitchen now!  I have a few more changes to showcase, but need to take pics so they will be in a later post.

Our Ll leaf week was not our best.  But they can’t all be the best now, can they?  Next week?  Aa apple.

My Life Is So Like A Comic Strip

Cats On Tuesday: Winnie’s Nap

Yesterday Winnie, being the super smart cat he is, decided to camp out inside and nap on a pillow someone left out on the toy box.  I don’t blame him, it was 100 degrees outside!  Anyway, I couldn’t resist taking pics of his napping self.

At this point ds decided Winnie needed a blanket. :)

 

Which end is up?

Isn’t this how he started?  Well then we’ve come full circle. :)  Head over to Gattina’s blog for more kitty fun and Cats On Tuesday.

Itch To Pitch Week Two: The School Closet

Last week I tackled the front closet for The Happy Housewife’s Itch to Pitch meme.  This week?  The dreaded school closet (in your head you have to hear that being said in an deep, echo-y voice, okay?)

My hall closet serves many purposes.  It holds our towels, acts as a medicine cabinet and houses our homeschool materials.  That closet has got to be a woman with all that multi-tasking.  Let’s call her Betty.  No, Carmen.  Carmen the closet.  Perfect. :)

Poor Carmen has been abused as of late.  Although a few years back I actually got her super organized (labeled shelves and all) she has become a mere catchall for people to walk by and toss stuff that they just don’t want to deal with at the moment.  We won’t name names.

Anywho, enough silliness, here is the before.

Ack!  Clearly people were not reading the labels!

Oh my.

So I pulled everything out and started pitching.  I was pleasantly surprised to see what color my carpet was originally…ah memories.  I sorted, relabeled and tossed to my heart’s content.  And found the last 4 pieces to the U.S. states puzzles to boot.  Yea!

Oh, so much better!

Oooh, I can even see some of that pretty carpet in this pic.

Dh reorganized his files and didn’t need this accordion file folder thingy anymore so I repurposed it to hold construction paper.  That freed up one whole drawer in that white cabinet!  Cool.

These are the books I’m going to either sell on Ebay or use in a swap.

 

This is what I pitched.  Doesn’t look like much, but it sure helped to get rid of it all.

Well, thanks to The Happy Housewife for hosting this…it’s just the motivation I need to get it in gear. :)  Got the itch?  Join in!

Muffin Tin Monday

 

I saw this on one of the many blogs I visit and decided to join in.  It’s fun for both me and for ds4.  :)  Basically you serve your little one a meal presented in a muffin tin.  Now unfortunately I don’t have any small muffin tins so I had to improvise.

I just rummaged through my cabinets and found a Christmas tree shaped platter and put ds’s food in paper muffin liners (Easter themed no less lol.)  Today for lunch he had hot dog, ketchup for dipping, grilled cheese, grapes, yogurt and apple slices.  He ate all except a few hot dog slices.  He did enjoy this little change up in our day so I think we will keep participating…just gotta get a proper tin lol.  If you want to see how some real creative moms pull this off then head over to Her Cup Overfloweth and join in. :)

Family (Re) United

We had our annual family reunion over the weekend.  Lots of fun and family. :)

For the past several years we have held the event at Lake Jackson in Alabama.  Here is ds4 playing in the lake.

My nephew and ds3.  Not to worry, ds actually asked my nephew to push him off the pier lol.

My niece and her twin boys.  I believe she said this was their first time in the water. :)

This bike was a lot of fun, although it was hot hot hot! 

The twins.  What cuties.

Ds4 and one of my cousin’s granddaughters.  They were watching a movie.

 

This is just my immediate family, so you can imagine that the reunion was pretty big lol.  I have 4 older brothers and only 2 are represented here.  Let’s see, besides the 2 other brothers there are actually 6 other family members (and their kids and spouses) missing from this pic.  Gesh, my family is huge lol.  Dh, me and three of our boys are on the right.

These are my cousins.  This bunch represents most of my grandparents' grandchildren.  I think about 5 are missing.  I am the second youngest.

My dad (top left) and his siblings.

Although it was super hot (even swimming in the lake did not help…it felt like bathwater lol) we really had a great time and feel blessed to have such a wonderful family (who can stand to get together at least once a year ;)