Minecraft Gameband Party!

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All opinions are mine alone. #GameOnTheGo #CollectiveBias

A couple weeks ago, we celebrated the release of the new Minecraft Gameband, a cool way to have a portable Minecraft, with a fun party. 

Before I go telling you how cool that little thing is, check out our Minecraft everything party. I seriously had such a blast prepping for this party. I made sure nothing was crazy difficult. It's so often that you see these elaborate parties that have just taken so much time and effort to put together. But, I'm here to tell you, that you can throw a fabulous party, without losing sleep or getting grey hair. 

The "Creeper Juice" was a big hit. They were just Mountain Dew bottles with the labels peeled off and duct tape added. 

A little bit of a simpler take on the cake pop, is the marshmallow pop. A large marshmallow is dipped in melted candy melts and voila. Way easier than making all those little balls! I used some black candy melts and a toothpick to make even more Creepers come to the party. 
 When I was done with the marshmallow pop dipping, I used the leftover green candy melts to drizzle on cocoa rice krispie treats. These made for perfect little grass blocks. 

Other cool things we had, were TNT bundles out of licorice, "water blocks" out of blue jello and a pile of "diamonds" from the wedding department of a craft store. I found these printables for the food tent card as well as the small wall art. This one is for the cute TNT wrappers. They used them to wrap little poppers, which were really cute!

There wasn't an unhappy person in attendance, from the little ones all the way to the teenagers!

Especially Cooper, since after all, he was the one with the Gameband.

So what is this thing? The Gameband, by Now Computing, is the first ever Minecraft wearable. It's a USB that doubles as a bracelet and watch. It's also features customization and that's Cooper's favorite part. His scrolls across and says "Coop Rocks!" You can have it show images or phrases, then choose how you want it to scroll. Cooper thinks he's definitely the coolest kid on the block with his cool tech bracelet.

The greatest feature, is that the Gameband saves your worlds, changes and all your work and backs it up on its cloud-based servers. It makes it so that you can play on your computer at home, grandma's computer while traveling for the holidays, or dad's computer on a trip to the office. (Or wherever else you happen to play!) Cooper loves that he can use it on his computer, or mine and always have his work saved for him. 

The Gameband is available in sizes small and large, to fit every Minecraft fan. I found mine in the mobile gaming department at Target. If you have questions or feedback about the Gameband, Now Computing are the folks to reach out to. They make the Gameband and are affiliated with Minecraft. 

Think your Minecraft fan will want one under the tree this year? They're a hot item for the holidays, so make sure you call ahead to see if your store has it in stock. Happy diamond mining!

You can find more from Molly on StilettosandDiapers.com

Christmas Traditions: New Pajamas

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Joe Boxer available at Kmart. 

I'm a sucker for all sorts of festive clothing. Monograms on everything, personalized shirts for the boys at each holiday and themed clothing for vacations; I love it all. Christmas is one of the best times to squish everyone you love into coordinating clothing. My favorite? Pajamas. We we started a tradition 2 years ago, that includes everyone getting a new pair of pajamas on Christmas eve. We all put them on to watch Christmas movies, then all have decent, hole-less clothing on for Christmas morning. 

Last year was our first good pajama shot of the whole family and it's framed in our house. Makes me smile every time I pass by it.

I love the festiveness the new jams bring to the Christmas pictures. 

I think I've bought every style for each of us, from the old man button ups, to the basic cotton sets. I think my favorite style, though, is the tight leg bottoms. It just looks adorable on those little baby booties and I'm so excited that they are in for women this year! 

Joe Boxer has a large assortment of styles this holiday season, for men, women and kids. Their holiday line, available at Kmart, comes wrapped up cute, perfect for putting right under the tree. 

My favorite, the Sweet Dreams set, has already been unwrapped and worn by the Christmas tree with my favorite snowman mug full of coffee. I love that the set is 3 pieces, with candy cane stripe shorts for the not-so-cold North Carolina nights. They will be worn plenty between now and Christmas! 


Kmart doesn't stop with just cute PJ's. They have really cute commercials for them, too! Check these out. I LOVE the preggo dancers! 

Do you have a pajama tradition with your family? 

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Joe Boxer available at Kmart. 

He's a sports freak. SportsFreak365 Review + discount.

To say the hubs is a sports freak, would be an understatement. There is no way, under any circumstance, that he would miss his beloved NY Jets play. And since we haven't lived in NY for 6 years, he pays who even knows what, to make sure all his games are broadcasted here. 

See, his parents grew up in Queens, automatically making him, along with his whole family, NY Jet and NY Met fans. He has huge prints in our basement. Any kind of clothing imaginable. License plate frames on both our cars. And of course, the kids and me have no choice but to be fans right along with him. 

When I told the hubs about SportsFreak365.com, he was more than excited to try it out. See? 

Haha! I begged for permission to use that picture! 

He used SportsFreak365.com to make a custom NFL calendar, complete with his favorite players. He also got to customize each date with text and photos. He put a picture of each person on their Birthday's and a different NY Jet player on each month. 

I always know I'm safe buying Met or Jet related gifts for him for his Birthday or Christmas. It makes gift buying easy; especially to add a little something extra to a gift. 

Do you have a sports freak in your life? Showing off your team spirit has never been easier! Whatever team you root for and whatever sport they play, find the gear you need at SportsFreak365.com. Just in time for the holidays, you can get 30% off any purchase using the code “Clever30.” And while you’re there, be sure to enter to win $500 toward team gear in Ditka’s SportsFreak of the Week Contest!

I was selected for participation in this campaign as a member of Clever Girls Collective.

Scents of the Season

It's amazing how certain scents can bring floods of memories. Just the other day in the grocery store, I passed an older lady and instantly my eyes burned with tears. I smelled my Granny, and how much I miss her made my heart ache. Scents are memory filled, be them sad or joyful. The sniff of a candle, the aroma in a home, the smell of the salty ocean. They all flood my mind with memories. 

This time of year, scents are plentiful and are definitely joy filled. They make me giddy for the Holidays and spending time with my family. Some of my favorite scents are a fresh pine, of course. There is nothing like that family trip to pick it out, either!

The scent of apple pie baking just screams holiday, right? I made my first one for our first Thanksgiving by ourselves in California and it came out perfect, if I may say so. 

And what about the smell of a turkey baking? Yum. (Is it Thanksgiving yet?!)

Sugar cookies baking remind me of the first time Cooper "made" Christmas cookies. It was such a proud mom moment! 

And last but not least, one of the most universal scents of the season, is coffee. My favorite way to drink it is in my big Santa mug. With a pile of family family and friends drinking it with me! 

Dunkin Donuts packaged coffee is available at your local grocery store. I love the Flavors of the Season varieties they have, including Mocha Mint, Pumpkin Spice and Gingerbread Cookie. They are all sure to make your home smell festive this holiday!

These specially packaged coffees even have a little gift tag on them, perfect as a hostess gift or stocking stuffer! Stock up and keep some on hand for last minute gifts, too! Your guest will feel the holiday spirit sipping on these delicious flavors this year!   

Thank you to Dunkin’ Donuts® packaged coffee at grocery for being a sponsor. I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls Collective. All opinions expressed here are my own.

Because my family rocks. Does yours?

This post is brought to you by The New Santa Fe from Hyundai. Think your family rocks? Show us by uploading a photo of your family rocking out. Enter now for a chance to win great prizes.


On any given afternoon, right when the inevitable late day wiggles set in, you'll find my house in a loud, crazy awesome dance party. I crank the music and all the little booties (as well as mine) get their groove on. My kids love it. I love it. We love to rock. 

We got Cooper Guitar Hero for Christmas last year. While I'd like to think it was for him, you can see here that him and the hubs are laying on the ground in a full on guitar solo face-off. I think that solidifies why the hubs suggested it as Cooper's gift! 

Because Cooper really does love music of all kinds, he got this set of very loud drums for his 4th Birthday. He gets down in the basement, playing and singing at the top of his lungs. 

And if those things aren't enough to prove he loves to rock, well this is how he does a wedding reception. 

Yes, we've passed our love of music, loud singing and dance parties right down to our kids. And our family just loves our rockin' time together. 

Does your family rock? Then Hyundai Santa Fe and Rolling Stone are looking for you! If you love to rock, jam, dance party and get into other general mischief with your family, you won't want to miss this contest! All you need to do is upload a picture of your family showing how they rock along with 500 words or less describing it. 

What does the winner get? Prizes include a photo shoot in Rolling Stone, Airfare, hotel and transportation to the 55th Grammy awards and a fully tricked-out Hyundai Santa Fe custom rock 'n' roller! Amazing, right?! Go enter the contest now! 

Contest ends December 14, 2012

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls Collective, and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.