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Congratulations to Erica! Random.org chose #8 as the winner. Erica wins the $25 gift certificate. Remember to check out EcoStore for great, safe cleaning and personal care products.

If you have a son or daughter in high school then I have a great book for you! Chicken Soup for the Soul: Teens Talk High School: 101 Stories of Life, Love, and Learning for Older Teens is another phenomenal book in the Chicken Soup for the Soul series. This time readers are reminded that even though high school has its blemishes, you aren’t alone, other teens are going through what you are going through-and they have survived to write about it!

Chicken Soup for the Soul: Teens Talk High School: 101 Stories of Life, Love, and Learning for Older Teens is here to help with a variety of all new stories about real-life from teens dealing with regrets and lessons learned, self-image and self-acceptance, family relationships and more. As part of the all new Chicken Soup for the Soul ® teen series, it is specifically designed with high school students in mind. With topics ranging from “Not Like in the Movies” to “A Hard Lesson,” Chicken Soup for the Soul: Teens Talk High School inspires and supports teen readers as they struggle with fitting in, finding friends and whatever else comes with the high school years. It also helps parents prepare conversations with their children, on everything from divorce, to illness and death, dating and sex.

Inside Chicken Soup for the Soul: Teens Talk High School, you’ll also read about:

• How Michelle Vanderwist survived the emotional abuse from her boyfriend
• How Amy Anderson confronted an eating disorder, and took steps to heal
• How Cristy Trandahl didn’t make the high school cheerleading squad, became a Minnesota Vikings cheerleader, then quit in the middle of the season – more content than ever
• How Bryonna Garcia deals with being a teen parent

You can purchase this book by clicking the link above or you can win it from the Mom Maven!
How to Enter:
**Mandatory** In your comment tell me what issue about raising teens you would like me to talk about on Mom Maven. You must also follow or subscribe to this blog and leave a comment here telling me that you have done this Please leave a valid e-mail address or twitter name so that I can notify if you win. **You must do all of this to be entered.**

If you would like extra entries you can earn them for doing any or all of the following after completing the above requirements:

* tweet this contest and post the url of the tweet as a separate comment (you can do this 1x per day each day of the contest-just post each tweet url in a separate comment)
* blog about this contest and link to this post (not just a link to the contest) then leave me a link to your post in a separate comment
* Fave this blog on Mom Faves http://www.momfaves.com/faves/1495
* stumble this post with a review and link it here in separate comment

This giveaway ends Tuesday 3/31/09 at 11pm. I reserve the right to disqualify any entry that doesn’t follow the above guidelines. Good Luck!

I was beyond excited when I was asked if I would review the new Creative Vado HD Pocket Video Camera. I have been wanting a pocket video camera for a while. I wanted one so that I could Vlog without having to borrow a camera and for personal videos. The Vado HD is so small and cute. It is only 3.9″x 2.2″x 0.6″ in size and weighs 100 grams! It has a 2″ diagonal screen, 2x digital zoom and records up to 2 hours in HD. It connects to your PC with a built in flexi USB connector; it also charges through the USB or an optional wall charger.

You don’t need any additional software for your computer. The software is built in to the camera. You edit and save the video to your computer and you can upload it to the web via Youtube, Photobucket or Box.net so that you can share the video with friends and family. I don’t know anything about video editing-that is my son’s department, but I was able to edit this video and upload it without any trouble.

I took this video at this afternoon’s Works Of Wonder rehearsal. WOW is our homeschool musical theatre class. The sound is magnificent for such a small built in microphone. The colors are crisp and clear and the video is smooth. The camera is very easy to use-it has 1 button that controls recording with the zoom in and out on the top and bottom of the button. I love the size of the camera. It fits in my Vera Bradley media case and I pop it into my purse and carry it with me all the time. I will never miss an important video again. The Vado HD retails for $229.99 and you can order it from the Creative website. They also have a standard, non-HD model that comes in pink or silver and retails for $99.99 but right now the pink is on sale for $30 off! That’s right you can get it for only $69.99. If the pink is what you want click here. The Creative Vado HD is an amazingly powerful camera for the size and price.

I have had to choose a new winner for the Chicken Soup for the Soul: Power Moms book. All e-mails I have sent to our original winner came back as undeliverable. I went back to Random.org and this time it chose #1 as the winner. That means silverhartgirl from Helping Mommys Win is our new winner! Congratulations!!

When I was approached by Ecostore to review some of their products, I was skeptical. I am not an “eco” person. I do recycle some things but I am just not into all the “green” stuff. I checked out their website and several of their products caught my eye. I decided to try the auto dish powder and the Rosemary Orange Shampoo. When the products arrived I was eager to try them out. I was impressed.
From the Ecostore website:
“The Auto Dish Powder is a high performance blend of simple mineral salts, citrus and Coconut oils. Stuck on food and grease won’t stand a chance when it comes to the NO NASTY CHEMICAL products from Ecostore USA.

Ingredients

• Palm and coconut based non-ionic surfactants
• Silicates and carbonates including sodium meta silicate (simple mineral salts)
• Citrates and natural citrus oil
• Cellulose (plant based)
• Fatty acid derivative”

We have done 3 loads of dishes using the Auto Dishwash Powder and it works great! We are not a family who is great a scraping all the food off of our plates and rinsing them well before we put them in the dishwasher. As a result, we often end up with a few plates and silverware piece that are still dirty after washing. Since using the Auto Dishwash Powder, our dishes and silverware are much cleaner. I must admit it also feels good to know that I’m not subjecting my family to the chemicals found in our other dishwashing detergent. The Auto Dishwash Powder is cost effective too. You only use 1 TBS for a load of dishes so you can get approximately 83 loads from one container and this would put the cost at less than 15 cents a load. My usual detergent costs 25 cents a load! For my family, that would save almost $55 a year plus no chemicals on our dishes and silverware.

The Rosemary Orange Shampoo
From the Ecostore website: “This shampoo gets excellent results on fine and oily hair.

Combining nature’s best products and aromatherapy Ecostore USA has created a wonderful shampoo that will bring volume and life back to your hair. (6.8 fluid ounces)

Ingredients

• Water
• Lauryl-glucoside (from glucose)
• Derivatives from coconut and palm oil – olefin sulphonate
• Laureth-2
• Polyol Coconut Fatty Acid Ester
• Sodium Hydroxymethyl Glycinate (from natural amino acid)
• Citric Acid
• Certified Organic Cider Vinegar
• Essential oils of Rosemary Cineol, Orange Sweet Organic, Pine Scotch, Sage and Cypress.”

I wanted to try this product for my 16 yr old son. Like many teens, he has excessively oily hair. We have tried many different shampoos but none have allowed him to go more than 24 hours without shampooing. It seems to be a vicious cycle. I gave him the shampoo and asked him to try it. He was afraid it would smell to “girly” -but it doesn’t. He says you don’t need to use much shampoo and it does work best when you lather it up and let it sit there for a minute or two before rinsing. Since using the Rosemary Orange Shampoo, his hair has been cleaner and softer. He has actually been able to go 2-3 days between shampoos and he hasn’t been able to do that in a long time. He is very happy with his hair and says the shampoo, “Works great!” The shampoo is not as cost saving as the dishwash detergent. Since there is no exact measurement for how much shampoo to use, I had to figure out the price per ounce. For the Rosemary Orange Shampoo it is $1.61 per ounce where his regular shampoo is 33 cents an ounce. To me, the cost difference is worth it because my son feels better about himself and if he is only using it every 2-3 days versus daily the bottle will last for a while.

I bet you want to know what you need to do to win a $25 gift certificate to Ecostore.
How to Enter:
For your first entry: Go to Ecostore and look around. Then come back here and leave me a comment letting me know what you would get with the gift certificate. You must also follow or subscribe to this blog and leave a comment here telling me that you have done this Please leave a valid e-mail address or twitter name so that I can notify if you win. **You must do all of this to be entered.

If you would like extra entries you can earn them for doing any or all of the following:

* tweet this contest and post the url of the tweet as a separate comment (you can do this 1x per day each day of the contest-just post each tweet url in a separate comment)
*Fave this blog on MomFaves-just click this link
* blog about this contest and link to this post (not just a link to the contest) then leave me a link to your post in a separate comment
* stumble this post with a review and link it here in separate comment

The winner will be chosen on Thursday, March 26th at 10:00pm. Good Luck!!

Congratulations to Amber!! Amber won the Chicken Soup for the Soul: Power Moms book. Amber is a power mom. She is the mom of two and her website is Mom-Stuff which is filled with stuff mom’s want to know. She also has a personal blog Wrights Success and her newest adventure is The Wright Hair. Ablog about cute kids hairstyles. Congratulations Amber!

I want to give props to all the Power Moms who entered the giveaway. So here is some link love for the rest of you! Stop by these blogs and websites and say “Hi!”
Helping Mommys Win
Provocation of Mind
Keilann Designs
Bloggy Mom Reviews
A Virtuous Woman
Secrets of a Southern Kitchen

Keep checking back I have 2 cool giveaways scheduled for next week!

And the winner is….Rachelle from Mommy I’m Hungry
Congratulations!!
If you didn’t win and you want to purchase this great book you can get it from Amazon here Chicken Soup for the Soul: Teens Talk Middle School: 101 Stories of Life, Love, and Learning for Younger Teens

Don’t forget to enter my Chicken Soup for the Soul: Power Moms giveaway that ends on Saturday.

Chicken Soup for the Soul has done it again. In Power Moms 101 Stories Celebrating the Power of Choice for Stay-at-Home and Work-from-Home Moms, Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen and Wendy Walker have assembled an amazing group of women and men to share the stories of Power Moms.
The stories are grouped in chapters such as Decisions, Decisions, Outside the Box, Working from Home, Ladies Who Launch and Looking Back. You real read stories of moms just starting out and moms who have been there and done that-and now they are here to inspire you.

In Chicken Soup for the Soul: Power Moms, you’ll read about:
· How Liz Lange raised her children while building a maternity
clothing empire
· How bestselling author Jane Green left an unhappy marriage, became
a single mom, and embarked on a writing career
· How Wendy Walker wrote her first novel from the backseat of her
minivan
· How Melora Hardin of NBC’s The Office helped her daughter overcome
a fear of heights
· How grateful husbands stand in awe of their do-it-all wives

For me, this book is like having my support group of girlfriends cheering me on, laughing with me or crying with me. I have been a mostly stay-at-home mom for the last 7 years and before that I worked in the family business for 8 years and my kids came to work with me. I have been out of the full time corporate work force since 1994. I think I have heard and seen it all, when it comes to being a SAHM or WAHM. I’ve been asked by well-meaning family and friends, “When are you going to get a ‘real’ job?” and “Why are you wasting your college degree?”. I have a real job-it is that of mother, teacher, nurturer, maid, mentor, cook, laundress, taxi driver, and on and on. It is the most difficult, demanding, tiring, low paying job I’ve ever had-and I love it! My degree is in education, I have homeschooled my boys for 13 years, I use my degree everyday.

Chicken Soup for the Soul: Power Moms: 101 Stories Celebrating the Power of Choice for Stay at Home and Work from Home Moms is hot off the presses and you can purchase your own copy with that link or you can win it here from Mom Maven.

How to Enter:
I believe in Power Moms so, for your first entry:

1. If you are a WAHM and have an online business please tell me about your business and leave a link in the post. When the contest is over, I am going to share your businesses with my readers-and hopefully help you build your business.
2. If you do not have an online business but you have a blog you would like to share please leave a link to your blog in your comment so that I can share your blog with my readers.
3. If you don’t fall into either of the above categories that is just fine! Leave me a comment and tell me why you chose to be a SAHM

You must also follow or subscribe to this blog and leave a comment here telling me that you have done this Please leave a valid e-mail address or twitter name so that I can notify if you win. **You must do all of this to be entered.

If you would like extra entries you can earn them for doing any or all of the following after completing the above requirements:

* tweet this contest and post the url of the tweet as a separate comment (you can do this 1x per day each day of the contest-just post each tweet url in a separate comment)
* blog about this contest and link to this post (not just a link to the contest) then leave me a link to your post in a separate comment
* stumble this post with a review and link it here in separate comment
This giveaway ends Saturday 3/21/09 at 7pm. I reserve the right to disqualify any entry that doesn’t follow the above guidelines. Good Luck!

What is BHB? It is the just released CD project from the Ballas Hough Band. Do those names ring a bell? They should. The band is headed up by Mark Ballas and Derek Hough of Dancing With The Stars. Mark and Derek have been performing together for over a decade and they don’t just dance! They both sing, dance, act and play guitar. Growing up in the same household since age 12, the pair has been inseparable.

BHB is their debut album on Hollywood records. I’ve been anticipating the release since a friend of me told me about it and I watched the video on their website. Their sound is a pop/rock mix. It is very easy to listen to and very upbeat. You can hear and feel their dance background in their music.

Each track has it’s own unique feel, which is a nice change from all of the cookie-cutter CDs on the market right now. Mark Ballas wrote four of the song’s including my favorite-track 5 Longing and the 80’s sounding Birthday. Track 11, Underwater, was also written by Ballas and features his more flamenco style guitar playing. Ballas and Hough co-wrote tracks 3 and 9, Closer and Breakthrough. The band collaborated on track 7, Fall which has more of a rock feel.

Check out their website, order it here or just pick up the CD from your favorite music retailer. I think you will be pleasantly surprised.