“…Tina Pinson has done an amazing job entwining historical facts and fiction without sacrificing either the story or the realistic…

to read the rest go to:   http://www.journeystojoy.net/

http://tinapinson.blogspot.com/

Barney: Planes, Trains & Cars

Beep beep! Toot toot! Make way for Barney™ and friends as they embark on fantastic adventures to places near and far. Using planes, trains, cars, boats and their imaginations, Barney engineers fun with songs and stories about exciting places. He shares important safety tips with kids such as buckling seatbelts and more. Join Barney for some Tee-riffic transportation exploration!

Safety is such an important issue and not always an easy one to address and discuss with little ones. This is one point where I am grateful for shows like Fireman Sam and Barney. This DVD of Barney covers all sorts of fun topics dealing with transportation but gets the important details on safety out there as well. Buckle up! Full of fun songs from my youth and new ones to me as well. This DVD has already been requested many a time in our house.

*Thanks to the publicist for providing a copy for review.*

On DVD and On Demand!

Come along for a dino-mite ride filled with laughter, friends, fun and song with preschool favorite Barney™ and his playground pals in Barney: Planes, Trains & Cars, arriving on DVD, Digital Download and On Demand May 15, 2012 from Lionsgate and HIT Entertainment. Let your child’s imagination be their guide as they trek to places near and far by air, ground, rail and sea – all without ever leaving the comfort of your home – in these four new, transportation-themed adventures.

Trusted by moms and adored by children, Barney displays sharing, caring, imagining, dancing and learning on television and online and through live events, home entertainment, toys and publishing. The Emmy® award-winning series, Barney & Friends™ is one of the top-rated preschool shows today, airing on PBS KIDS® and Sprout®.

Episodes:

• “On the Road Again”
• “Airplanes”
• “The Magic Caboose”
• “Way to Go”

DVD BONUS FEATURES

• Barney’s Color Train Read-Along
• Barney’s Loop De Loop Counting Game

VOD/DIGITAL BONUS FEATURE

• “Glad To Be Me” Bonus Episode

The Barney & Friends series starring loveable, huggable Barney™ and his “dino-mite” friends BJ™, his little sister Baby Bop™, and their cousin Riff™ encourages sharing, caring, imagining, dancing and learning. Barney springs from a child’s imagination and invites children to go and grow as they explore exciting places, always encouraging positive values and good manners along the way! Barney is a beloved character who debuted almost 20 years ago, educating and entertaining each new generation with fun, music and laughs.

Winner will be announced in the comments on May 17th!

Thomas & Friends: Engine Friends

All aboard for some of the most memorable stories of friendship from the Island of Sodor!  Join Thomas and his friends and learn how the Steam Team first came together; how Percy became Thomas’ best friend, and how every engine tries to be Really Useful!  The greatest destinations are often those closest to home…as long as you have your Engine Friends.

For over 65 years, the award-winning Thomas & Friends has taught timeless life lessons of discovery, friendship and cooperation, inviting generations of children to enter a world of imagination through the tracks of a train and the words of a story.

Thomas has changed a lot since I watched the show in my childhood, but I’m glad for where they are going. I do not have any VHS from my youth years, so we’re all starting a-fresh now and what could be a better way than to have a 2-Disc Collection set with 20 episodes!

*Thanks to the publicist for providing a copy for review.*

Aspiring engineers will thrill at over 20 favorite Thomas & Friends® episodes on two DVD discs when Thomas & Friends: Engine Friends, comes to DVD, Digital Download and On Demand May 15, 2012 from Lionsgate and HIT Entertainment. Thomas, Toby, Percy and more favorite engine friends take you back to first meetings, learn about cooperation and discovery and realize the best adventures of all are the ones you can share with friends.  Thomas fans won’t want to miss this timeless collection of Sodor’s finest moments of friendship on the tracks.

Episodes:

• Thomas and Bertie’s Great Race
• Trouble in the Shed
• Saved from Scrap
• A New Friend for Thomas
• Granpuff
• Sleeping Beauty
• Make Someone Happy
• A Bad Day for Harold
• Twin Trouble
• Edward the Really Useful Engine
• Rusty Saves the Day
• Emily’s New Coaches
• Thomas and the Rainbow
• Thomas and the New Engine
• Thomas and the Statue
• Follow the Flour
• Toby’s Afternoon Off
• Edward Strikes out
• Hide and Peep
• Emily and the Garbage

DVD/VOD Bonus Features:

• Sir Topham Hatt’s Scrapbook
• Picture Puzzle Fun
• Who Am I? Trivia Game
• Gordon’s Memory Game
• Which Island Picture is Different?

© 2012 HIT Entertainment Limited. Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends™ Based on The Railway Series by The Reverend W Awdry. Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends and Thomas & Friends are trademarks of Gullane (Thomas) Limited. Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends and Design is Reg. U.S. Pat. & Tm. Off.

Thomas the Tank Engine™ was created by a father for his son over 65 years ago and today is enjoyed by families in more than 185 territories and in 30 languages.  The #1 blue engine and his friends invite children to enter a world of imagination through the tracks of a train and the words of a story. Children embark on adventures with their engine friends while experiencing timeless life lessons of discovery, friendship and cooperation.

Thomas & Friends is the number one preschool toy property in the UK, a position it has held for the past 12 years.  It remained the number one preschool toy license in the US for 11 straight years and has been the number one preschool entertainment brand in the US since 2009. The unrivaled popularity of the global brand continues with Thomas also being the number one preschool toy license in Germany and Australia, as well as the number one foreign preschool brand in China, Japan and Korea.

Connect with Thomas & Friends Online!
Like Thomas & Friends on Facebook
Check out the website too!

Ready for Transportation learning activities?! There are Coloring Pages and Preschool Printable Packs available from various great mamas. Check out my Community Helpers Pinterest Board for many more ideas for activities, books and more dealing with Community Helpers and Transportation!

Thomas and his engine friends reach new heights of fun and adventure in Thomas & Friends™: Up, Up & Away, a collection of four soaring episodes available on DVD, Digital Download and On Demand from Lionsgate and HIT Entertainment.  The all-new release includes special feature content, activities and fun from host Driver Perkins, exclusive only to the DVD.  Timed to the release this spring, five Thomas & Friends toys will also be available so kids can reenact their favorite Up, Up & Away adventures!

For over 65 years, the award-winning Thomas & Friends has taught timeless life lessons of discovery, friendship and cooperation, inviting generations of children to enter a world of imagination through the tracks of a train and the words of a story.

Thomas has changed a lot since I watched the show in my childhood, but I’m glad for where they are going. The clips in between episodes with Driver Perkins preparing fruit for the fair was entertaining and a bit educational. There were even gardening tips! From episodes of learning patience and being calm to paying attention and being responsible Thomas is there for your little preschoolers to learn.

AppleBlossom’s cousin, four months younger than she, loves Thomas and for good reason! The show is a little boy’s dream, but is great for girls as well. The imagination and play comes off screen in so many ways and if we had the room I’d set up a train table for ourselves.

Continuing with more episodes of friendship and responsibility every minute is filled with fun and value. At this time you can also find it on digital download and on demand, so whatever your preference go get it!

*Thanks to the publicist for providing a copy for review.*

Thomas and his friends reach new heights in these high-flying adventures! Thomas and Percy have a special adventure as they try and try again to bring balloons to Mr. Bubbles’ Big Balloon Show. At the Children’s Steam Fair, Emily learns there are great rewards – and laughs — in helping others; Kevin tries his hook at Hide and Peep and Thomas has a wonky whistle! Up, Up & Away for fun and adventure with Thomas & Friends!

Episodes:

• Up, Up & Away
• Wonky Whistle
• Kevin the Steamie
• Emily and Dash

DVD Bonus Features:

• Catch the Balloon Game
• Guess Who? Puzzles
• Exclusive Activities with Driver Perkins

VOD Bonus Features: “Buzzy Bees” Bonus Episode

Thomas & Friends has been making tracks to great destinations for over 60 years with classic stories of adventures from the railways on the Island of Sodor. The Thomas & Friends animated series, narrated by a Storyteller, invites children to enter a world of imagination through the tracks of a train and the words of a story. The series features Thomas the Tank Engine™, a cheeky, fussy, true blue engine who proudly wears the “#1″ on his side and a cast of track stars, including James, Percy, Emily, Henry and Gordon, as well as Sir Topham Hatt™, Chairman of the Railway, who keeps everything running smoothly. As children embark for fun and excitement with their engine friends, adventures unfold that lead to timeless life lessons such as discovery, friendship and cooperation.

Connect with Thomas & Friends Online!
Like Thomas & Friends on Facebook
Check out the website too!

Ready for Transportation learning activities?! There are Coloring Pages and Preschool Printable Packs available from various great mamas. Check out my Community Helpers Pinterest Board for many more ideas for activities, books and more dealing with Community Helpers and Transportation!

Welcome to Pearl Girls™ Mother of Pearl Mother’s Day blog series – a week long celebration of moms and mothering. Each day will feature a new post by some of today’s best writer’s (Tricia Goyer, Sheila Walsh, Suzanne Woods Fisher, Bonnie St. John, and more). I hope you’ll join us each day for another unique perspective on Mother’s Day.

AND … do enter the contest for a chance to win a beautiful hand crafted pearl necklace. To enter, just {CLICK THIS LINK} and fill out the short form. Contest runs 5/6-5/13 and the winner will on 5/14. Contest is only open to US and Canadian residents.

If you are unfamiliar with Pearl Girls™, please visit www.pearlgirls.info and see what we’re all about. In short, we exist to support the work of charities that help women and children in the US and around the globe. Consider purchasing a copy of Pearl Girls: Encountering Grit, Experiencing Grace or one of the Pearl Girls™ products (all GREAT Mother’s Day gifts!) to help support Pearl Girls.

And to all you MOMS out there, Happy Mother’s Day!

What I Didn’t Know by Rhonda Shrock

I always knew I wanted to be a mother.  As a girl, I played house with my dollies, shushing them when they cried and kissing their plastic heads.

Looking back at that girl, I realize now that there was a lot she didn’t know.  This morning over my fresh-ground coffee, this mother of 22-1/2 years scratched out a list of 10 things she didn’t know then that she knows now.

1.  I didn’t know – how could I? - just how completely a tiny, helpless scrap of humanity can capture the heart and hold it forever.  From that first whooshing heartbeat and the first butterfly brushes, a mother’s heart is never again her own.  For all eternity, it enlarges, walking and pulsing and moving outside of her body; in my case, in the shape of a blue-eyed boy with rooster tails.  Times four.

2.  I didn’t know that the size of a mother’s heart is always changing, stretching to embrace each new baby that comes, then growing again to love their friends and then their own families.

3.  I never knew, as I changed my dolly’s dress, how many reasons there are to worry when you’re a mama.   Didn’t know about the nighttime vigils.  Didn’t know the anxiety of separation, the terror that floods when you turn around in the grocery store and they’re gone.  Didn’t know about the fear of the pond next door or the concern that pays for swimming lessons.  Didn’t know the thousand-and-one reasons that keep a mother awake, whispering prayers on her pillow in the dark.

4.  No one told me that loving so much means that you will hurt hard and keen;  that what pains your child hurts you even worse.  I didn’t know then that a playground taunt travels through that smaller heart and lands square in yours, stinging and burning like fire.  I didn’t know that motherhood makes lionesses of us all and that there’d be days I’d have to bite my tongue and pray to not sin.

5.  I didn’t know how exhausting it is, being a mother.  I didn’t know that it takes everything you’ve got and then some.  Didn’t know the bone-deep exhaustion; how it strips you bare and shows how selfish you can be, but, too, that you have more strength than you know.

6.  I didn’t know, playing house, how much joy mothers feel; joy so big that it makes up for the pain.  Just looking at those eyes and the curve of the cheek can make you so happy it hurts.  Watching them grow and find their talent and win at something…all the money in the world can never buy that kind of happiness.

7.  I didn’t know how making babies and raising them, how it binds you to their father.  I didn’t know the intimacy you feel when your eyes meet above those tousled heads, and your smiles say, “Just look at what we’ve done.”

8.  That girl in the homemade dress, she didn’t know that letting go is one of the hardest things a grown-up mama will ever do.  Rocking those babies in that small rocking chair, she didn’t really know that babies grow up and walk away and there goes your heart, out into the big, wide world.  No one told her that part.

9.  I had no idea how rewarding it is, being a mother.  How the happiness that comes from boy kisses and awkward hugs can’t be bought or sold.  How proud you feel when you see what they’re growing up to be and that all the planting and pruning and watering and feeding is finally making fruit!

10.  I didn’t know how much my babies would enrich my spiritual life or how they would change the way I pray.  I didn’t realize they would lead me to a deeper dependence on the Heavenly Father or how I much I would need His wisdom to raise them aright.

These are things I didn’t know before I was a mother.  But I know them now.  Oh, how I know them now!  And I’d do it all again.

Exciting News – the latest Pearl Girls book, Mother of Pearl: Luminous Legacies and Iridescent Faith will be released this month! Please visit the Pearl Girls Facebook Page (and LIKE us!) for more information! Thanks so much for your support!