The whole family is ready for the weekend – it has been a jam packed week of activities, homework, and daily drama. The kids have already asked if we can order pizza, pop some popcorn and have a Wii party tonight.
I love the Wii because it is so interactive and has such a great selection of games for 4 players. Our favorite Wii party games are:

Wii Sports – Bowling is by far the best game made for Wii because everyone can pick it up easily and be successful.
Smarty Pants: Trivia for Everyone- Wii puts a fun twist on trivia! Play …read more

My son just turned 12 and I am convinced that he has played or read up on just about every age appropriate video game on the market! It doesn’t matter what game I ask him about, he seems to have some scoop on the game.
When the MomCentral.com team asked if I wanted to help them test out the Game Stop concept, I was very quick to raise my hand. Game Stop, a nationwide chain, is the perfect solution for us as they buy back gently used video games and resell them for a fraction of their original price and they …read more

I never was much on text messaging. The keys on cell phones are so small I never pushed the right button. Plus you have to filter through the letters until you find the right one. And I also pass my letter the first round through. Always.
But then a friend showed me how to put my cell phone on a different setting so I could just type words rather than scrolling through letters. I started to get a little more excited about the possibilities. Then I got my new smartphone with a full keyboard and I’m all over this new fangled …read more

Our teens had pay-as-you-go phones for quite a while before I finally added them to our plan. I wanted to see how many minutes they used a month before I just threw them on to our plan and ended up with a $300 phone bill.
Last summer we got each of the boys a cell phone on our plan and we make them pay the extra $10 a month for their lines. When we got the phones we had them put a text message block on their phones. Even at just $0.15 a text, texting can get quite expensive.
After much begging, …read more

For the past 3 months my son has been obsessed with upgrading his computer. I have heard daily how his current computer’s “frame rate” just wasn’t fast enough to play Microsoft Flight Simulator X Deluxe at its key “max” settings or how his video card just was too old. He has even gone as far as taking components from his sisters’ computers (ooh, they were not happy) in an effort to make his faster.
He has saved his money, offered to do chores daily, and has offered to forgo any birthday presents in order to get new components for his computer. …read more

If you have a budding doctor, nurse, veterinarian or other medical professional in the house, then you have to check out these two very cool games for Wii – Trauma Center: Second Opinion and Trauma Center: New Blood.
My daughter is almost 10 and loves everything medical. She watches when they her draw blood at the doctors, she grills her siblings on the specifics anytime they go to the doctor or dentist, and thinks watching the Science channel is cool. When her 12 year old friend called to say she just got a new game for the Wii, all my …read more

When I was a teen our parents were constantly harping on us about the time we spent on the phone with our friends. Well, when we weren’t at school or hanging out in person, the phone was the only way to communicate with our friends (minus the old pen and paper for long-distance friends). Today’s teens have so many more communication channels available to them – its enough to make a parent’s head spin. After all, “get off the phone, give me your cell, no more texting, enough IM’ing, log off MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, disconnect Skype, and close your email” …read more

The last thing my kids expected on Christmas Day was to get a Wii. After all, we all know that they are next to impossible to get. Luckily my husband had gotten ours way back in October and we just let the kids think that there were none to be had. After all the gifts were opened we told the kids there was one more gift and sent them on a hunt for it. When they finally found it, they were shocked.
Once we got it set up, the fun began. We have four controllers so it could become a real …read more

When I was a teen, mobile phones were just being introduced into the consumer market. They were bulky, expensive and certainly not an item that teens had. But according to a recent Nielsen study, 35% of tweens (ages 8-12) now have cell phones and 20% have used text messaging.
Do your kids have cell phones?
My older two have started asking for one – but mostly because their friends have them. While I have considered getting them, the real need just hasn’t presented itself yet. We live in a neighborhood with very few kids so they don’t really ride bikes around the …read more

I just read a news article from WLKY about a Kentucky school district that is planning to punish students for MySpace postings.  The school board put the policy in place to combat cyberbullying, but many are already questioning it’s first-amendment ramifications.
“The government or school authority now is attempting to regulate speech that is occurring off-site or off-campus,” Sharp said. “The analysis for the courts will be whether or not the school can reasonably forecast a disruption of school activities because of the speech.”
Personally, I do not agree with the Bullit County school board AT ALL! It is not the school’s …read more