Thank you Shout Factory for sending us this DVD to review!

Have you ever wondered how ponies in Equestria get their unique markings on their flanks?  My Little Pony: Adventures of the Cutie Mark Crusaders explains the whole process.  Ponies are not born with their "cutie marks" - they are obtained when discovering their unique talent or characteristic about themselves.  It's a rite of passage that every young pony strives to achieve.  

Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, and Apple Bloom are three young ponies with one thing in common:  they are all lacking their cutie marks.  They form a friendship and call themselves the "Cutie Mark Crusaders."  This DVD collection contains five episodes and spans 110 minutes in length.

Here's a breakdown of each episode:

• The Cutie Mark Chronicles - The Cutie Mark Crusaders want to find out how Rainbow Dash got her cutie mark so they ask her and learn her story along with several others.  Coincidentally, many of the Mane Six ponies got their marks as a result of Rainbow Dash's.
• The Cutie Pox - Apple Bloom steals some potion ingredients from Zecora in order to speed up her cutie mark process.  Instead of one cutie mark, Apple Bloom gets several along with new abilities that she must perform constantly.  After missing out on valuable sleep and realizing her wrong doing, Apple Bloom must confess the truth and learn patience.  
• Flight To The Finish -   The Cutie Mark Crusaders wish to carry the Ponyville flag to the Equestria games.  Can they agree on a routine?  Their friendship will be tested as they learn and cope with the strengths and shortcomings of the trio.
• Pinkie Pride - Pinkie Pie wants to be in charge of planning Rainbow Dash's birth-iversary party.  However the job is given to a visiting pony named Cheese Sandwich who is voice acted by "Weird Al" Yankovic.  They challenge each other to a goof off to see who is best suited for the job.  
• Twilight Time -   Twilight Sparkle is kind enough to privately tutor the Cutie Mark Crusaders but word quickly spreads and all of their friends want to spend time with Twilight Sparkle too.  How can they keep everyone happy?

All episodes were great and taught valuable lessons on telling the truth, keeping promises, and valuing friendship.  My favorite episode was Pinkie Pride because I totally did not expect to see "Weird Al" in this show.  All of my kids enjoyed were pleasantly surprised and enjoyed the whole disc.  I highly recommend this collection to any My Little Pony or "Weird Al" fan.

Thank you Cartoon Network for sending us this DVD to review!

Adventure Time: Frost & Fire is a collection of sixteen episodes from seasons one, three, four, five, and six.  The title episode begins with Finn and the Flame Princess on a date and the Ice King gets in the way. Hilarity ensues when the Ice King and the Flame Princess duke it out.  Not only was this fight entertaining to watch, Finn experienced a pleasant dream that he wanted to experience again.  To make that happen he sends fake letters to both parties and waits for the battle to take place.  While he gets to see them fight again, and experiences a variation of his original dream, Finn regrets his actions and attempts to make things right. 

Other than the title episode some of my favorites include Jake the Brick where Jake wants to experience the collapse of an old beat up shack, by being one of its bricks.  Since being a brick is pretty boring, he entertains himself by narrating the nature around him.  Little does he know that Finn is broadcasting his rambling across Candy Kingdom with the help of a walkie-talkie.

I was pleasantly surprised to find another gender reversing episode  with Fiona and Cake in The Prince Who Wanted Everything.  Lumpy Space Prince takes the lead role in that episode.  Since season five or six have not come out on Blu-Ray or DVD yet, many of these episodes were new to us.  There are some classics thrown in like Memories of Boom Boom Mountain that explain how Finn and Jake met.  

While the list price is under $20, it can be yours for less than twelve dollars on Amazon.   There is close to three hours of entertainment (176 minutes) to be had in this DVD collection.   While this DVD can provide hours of entertainment for people of all ages, make sure you're okay with fart jokes before letting youngsters watch this show.    Despite the juvenile potty humor, there are redeeming qualities and good lessons to be learned from this series. 

Disclaimers:

Thank you Leap Trade for providing us with credit on your website to trade/purchase a game!
Although Leap Trade does advertise with us, it does not influence this review of their service in any way. 

Many of us have games laying around that we no longer play or want anymore.  While GameStop is convenient for trading them in, they give you very little money for them.    If you're not in a rush to sell your games, Leap Trade will give you  more credit for them than Game Stop and Amazon.

There is no cost to join the site and after joining,  you can buy Leap Trade credit at a reduced price for a limited time. The game prices are competitive and updated every couple of weeks.  There is a forum to suggest pricing changes if needed. 

The game price is the final price to your door as shipping is included.  The United States Postal Service shipping labels are paid for by the seller and it's very reasonably priced at $3.50.   Tracking is included and easily accessible via Leap Trade's website.

Thank you Alpha for sending us this book to review!

Having read many translations of the Bible cover to cover, I'm still amazed by how much I have yet to learn from this divine book.  The Idiot's Guides: The Bible gives the back-story of each book of the Bible including its author, origin,  location, key verses, and characters.    This book is 346 pages and is broken down into five parts: Understanding The Bible, The Old Testament, History Between The Old and New Testaments, The New Testament, The Apocrypha.  

This book isn't meant to be a replacement for the Bible, but it is a nice compliment and it tells you the key verses and themes in each book. You won't find heavy theological breakdowns as the commentary in Ezekiel doesn't begin until chapter three.  This is an Idiot's Guides book after all.  ;)  I did find the play by play break down of Song of Solomon insightful though.  

There are colorful illustrations for all of the books and many of them have helpful maps too.  Each book has a highlighted verse quoted from the HCSB translation; you'll have to crack open your own Bible to read the rest of the key verses though.  

I appreciate the explanation and history of the Bible, its canonization and the Apocrypha's account.   There are helpful timelines for the chronological order of the Old and New testament books.  I may try reading the Bible in chronological order next time!

Thank you Affirm films for sending us the Daniel Plan In Action DVD set!

While I haven't done any serious dieting, I have tried to stay active and pay attention to what I eat.  After watching the movie Fed Up, our family has cut back on our sugar intake.  The Daniel Plan has five foundations that have a good chance of transforming your body for the better if they are in place.  These include:

• Faith - Relying on God's power
• Food - Eating natural food in proper proportions
• Fitness - Regular workouts  
• Focus - Don't give up!
• Friends - You have a better chance of success if you have accountability partners 

Pastor Rick Warren is one of the founders of The Daniel Plan and is featured on the first DVD with his sermon of The Five Habits of Healthy People.  He goes more in depth of the five foundations and uses Bible verses like Philippians 4:13, 1 Corinthians 10:31, Romans 12:2, Ecclesiastes 4:9, and Ephesians 4:22 to back up their diet program.  While I am all for taking care of my body/temple as 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 says, I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with pastor Rick Warren that it is not a sin if you don't exercise.  Is it a good idea to exercise?  Yes, and the ones on the second disc are pretty good.  

There are four exercise routines and they focus on cardio, abs, upper, and lower body.  Each session is thirty five minutes long and you're bound to break a sweat.  There are lower and higher impact workouts to follow if you need less or more of a challenge.  I must say that after completing these workouts I was feeling muscles I have long forgotten about.  You'll want to have a set of light weights handy for two of the sessions. if you don't have a set of weights available you can use a couple of cans of soup as a light weight replacement.  

I enjoyed the upbeat and remixed praise songs in the background.  If you like them there is a soundtrack CD available for $9.99,  or you can buy the deluxe DVD plan that comes with it and a third workout DVD.  (I was sent the two DVD version so I cannot comment on the third disc or soundtrack).

Thank you No Starch Press for sending us this book to review!

My oldest daughter is 10 and has a knack for math and an interest in game development.  When I heard about the release of JavaScript for Kids, I knew it would be right up her alley.  I was right.  After completing the seventeen chapters, she's still cracking open the book and tweaking her code.  I like how the book has challenges at the end of the chapters to encourage the kids to take their coding skills to the next level.  If you're not an IT major, you can download the code solutions from their website.

This 309 page book is broken down into three parts: Fundamentals, Advanced JavaScript, and Canvas. In parts one and two your kids will learn about syntax, comments, variables, strings, booleans, arrays, objects, HTML, loops, conditionals, prompts, functions, ODM elements, jQuery, animations, and time outs.  The last section focuses on the canvas element and drawing objects like squares, arcs, circles, and later controlling them with keyboard input.

There's definitely a lot to learn in this book and I like how they made it fun to put these concepts into practice.  Throughout my daughter's learning adventure she has created a text based Hang Man game, a random insult generator (what kid can resist that?), a treasure hunt game with a map, and the final program was a Snake game.

The Notepad++ editor that this book recommends is free and will catch some, but not all syntax errors.  Debugging broken programs takes just as much (if not more) time to fix than they do to write.  Sometimes the show stopping errors are typos, other times it's a misplaced space or semicolon.  Fortunately, my computer science major husband was able to catch some of the errors in my daughter's programs when I couldn't find everything.  

Thank you Shout Factory for sending us this DVD set!

I remember collecting and playing with My Little Pony toys as a kid.  I don't recall watching the show much though.  Fortunately with the helpful DVD set My Little Pony Classic TV Collection, I can relive my childhood and be reminded of how animation has vastly improved since the eighties.  :)  The lessons of helping others and treasuring friendship are timeless and my kids enjoyed watching the 4 disc set.

Each disc is approximately 3 hours, so there's twelve hours of entertainment to be had.  My daughters and (surprisingly) my son enjoyed watching the show.  For any person who has seen The Simpsons, they will recognize the voice of Nancy Cartwright who also voiced Bart Simpson.  

The episodes are pretty short, being around eleven minutes each.  Not surprisingly, there are many multi-part episodes so it's important to watch them in their proper order.  There's a wide variety of ponies including earth ponies, pegasus ponies, unicorns, sea ponies and Spike, their dragon friend.  Some episodes feature male ponies!  (I always wondered where the baby ponies came from!)  Megan and her sister Molly are their human friends that tag along for many wild adventures.  

Thank you Echo Connect for sending us a prototype review sample.

Echo Connect has launched an Indiegogo campaign for their revolutionary dual connector charge key.  It's an Apple licensed and micro-USB charging device.  Because of its small size it can be worn on a lanyard or key chain.  

We were sent  an early prototype that unfortunately broke for us within hours of use.  Our review sample only had a micro-USB connector that came out completely.  The final version of the product will have both connectors attached to each other in a Y shape that should prevent that from happening again.  Another modification from the prototype sent to us is that the USB connector will have metal housing around it.  One change I hope they make in the final product is that they flip (or give the option to) the micro-USB connector around.  My Samsung Galaxy 4 phone had to be upside down when I connected it to my laptop to charge.  It won't matter for portable charging devices though.  Since this is a small device there's not much clearance for tablets and I had to remove my 8" LG tablet's cover to charge it.

Because we do not own an iOS device and our review sample did not have an Apple connector, we cannot comment on that aspect of the Echo Connect.  As I'm writing this post their campaign is fully funded and all of their $9 early bird sales are gone.  The $15 tier is limited and the $19 tier is unlimited.  For $25 you can get a personalized key.  The writing on the prototype was rubbing off within hours of receiving it. I hope the quality is better for the final product.      

Digital gaming on PC is taking off with services like Steam, GOG, GamersGate, Green Man Gaming, Origin, and Uplay.  Electronic versions of games are often cheaper than their physical counterparts.  Consoles also offer games in digital formats in their electronic stores like Nintendo's eShop, Play Station's store and Xbox's marketplace.  Many console games are only available digitally so checking out the shops every now and then is highly recommended.     Instead of comparing prices on several sites to get the best deal, CheapDigitalDownload.com does all of the price comparison shopping for you!  They also anonymously test their suppliers to ensure the confidence of their customers.

CheapDigitalDownload features prices for the latest games on many platforms including PC, Play Station, Nintendo, and Xbox.   Besides games, CheapDigitalDownload also offers competitive prices on gift cards and subscription plans.   While the Nintendo prices are well above retail, there are plenty of deals to be had in the Xbox, PS4 and PC section.  Some games can be yours for less than a dollar!

When I was in the market for an Xbox Gold subscription I purchased my two year code through them.  Instead of receiving a physical code, I was e-mailed a clear photograph of the back of a card and it worked flawlessly.  Why pay fifty dollars on Amazon for a one year membership when I can get a two year subscription for the same price on CheapDigitialDownload.com?  

There are plenty of ways to get free games through CheapDigitalDownload if you have social media accounts.  If you connect your Facebook account with their website you can earn points by registering, visiting, and commenting on the site.   There are also daily and weekly raffles to enter in as well using e-mail, Twitter, Facebook and Google+.

Disclosure: I was financially compensated for this post. The opinions are completely my own based on my experience

Thank you Kelly and Hall Book Publicity for sending us a copy of this book!

Kristiane Cates was living the dream with a successful, handsome, and doting husband.  After three years of marriage they were having some difficulty getting pregnant and prayed to have children to which the Lord provided them with a boy, and later on a girl.  Things continued to go well for them - in fact too well as they had a feeling that they were soon going to weather a difficult time in their lives.  While their premonition was correct, looking back on it all, Kristiane recollects how the Lord was with them every step of the way.  It's amazing how He dropped several hints of His presence in the most trying of times.  

Just because we're Christians, we're not entitled to an easy life.  After losing her son in a car accident in which she was the driver, Kristiane struggled to cope with the grieving process and hold her family and marriage together.  It was a long and difficult journey that doesn't have a fairy tale ending.   While the book ending seems a little rushed, it was cool seeing how the Lord turned her into a powerful prayer warrior.  

There are many lessons to be learned from The Golden Thread.  Just because somebody looks like they have it all together on the outside doesn't mean that is the case.  If you're blessed with a wonderful family, do not take them for granted and thank God for them DAILY.  As a happily married mother of three, this book made me give thanks for my many blessings and it made me cry on several occasions.  While there were moments where I didn't want to put it down, other times I was afraid to pick it up in fear of it making me cry again.

Thank you Shout Factory for sending us this DVD set to review.

Transformers Beast Hunters takes place after the Beast Wars series.  In this universe the part organic part robotic Maximals are descendants of the autobots and are led by Optimus Primal who has a gorilla like appearance.  The Decepticons are now known as Predacons with Megatron as their leader.  The scenery on Cyberton has changed as the planet is lifeless and mostly empty with the exception of deadly Vehicon drones patrolling it. Since Cybertron is filled with Enregon, both factions are fighting to save or control it.  Can the Maximals master their beast like forms and stop Megatron from taking over? 

This DVD series has 4 DVDs which include both seasons and all twenty-six episodes.  There are 690 minutes of nonstop action with 3D rendered computer animation.  The voice acting and character development is pretty good if you can look past their animal appearances.  Many episodes teach about the value of friendship, teamwork, restoration, and forgiveness.   While those are good attributes, there are some flaws worth mentioning as well.  There's some adult humor and a few phrases may go over younger kid's heads.   For younger kids/preschoolers  I recommend the Rescue Bot series since the action in Beast Machines may be a bit intense for them.    

For grade school age boys this is a DVD set worth looking into.  The price is a reasonable $22, especially for nearly 700 minutes of entertainment!

Thank you Cartoon Network for sending us this DVD!

The Finn the Human DVD has sixteen episodes from various seasons and will entertain people of all ages for 176 minutes.  Here's a breakdown of the episodes:

1. The New Frontier - Finn dreams of Jake's demise; can he save him from his fate?

2. The Lich - The world is in danger and it's up to Finn and Jake to save it.

Thank you Shout Factory for sending us this movie to review!

My Little Pony Equestria Girls: Rainbow Rocks takes place after the Equestria Girls movie that was released in 2013.  While I recommend seeing Equestria Girls first, it's not required since there are a couple of flashbacks to fill in the story gaps.  Most of the seventy-minute movie takes place in the parallel human world where each pony personality resides in humanoid form.  

Canterlot Highschool has gotten three new students that seem to be mesmerizing everyone they come in contact with.  Instead of a peaceful musical showcase, these newcomers convince the school to host a Battle of the Bands.  Will the newcomer's band, The Dazzlings take the crown, or will The Rainbooms (with the help of Princess Twilight) win the contest?

The music from both bands is catchy and fun to listen to. My kids liked the music, visuals and character personalities.  Even my son enjoyed the movie.  There are some good messages taught including the power of forgiveness and friendship.  Any fan of My Little Pony or Equestria Girls should consider adding this movie to their library.  The blu-ray/DVD/Digital Copy sells for $17.99.    

Thank you NIV 2011 Bible Properties LLC for sending us a review sample!

NIV Live - A Bible Experience is a cinematic performance of the Bible that brings Genesis through Revelation to life.  It's more than someone reading the text here; the Bible is being acted out and even sung in some cases.  This rendition features Oscar winning actors, background music and sound effects to make it an immersive experience.   My kids, who normally ask to play music instead of talk radio while driving, did not mind listening to the book of Acts.  They enjoyed hearing the story of Paul being shipwrecked while trying to seek an audience with Caesar.  There was the sound of ocean waves, seagulls in the air,  the ship's crew in the background along with the narrator and Paul, Felix, and Agrippa being voiced by different voice actors.    The audio quality is really good and has 3D theatrical sound. It includes deep bass that you can hear through a subwoofer.

The gospels are all extremely well done and the voices for the apostles, God, Jesus, Roman soldiers, and Pharisees are all top notch.   I enjoyed listening to Isaiah, Proverbs, and Psalms as well.  Some of the Old Testament sections like Jesus' lineage and the temple specifications are still a little yawn worthy, but are well voice acted regardless.  :)  

There are three ways to enjoy this audio Bible experience.  For $19.99 you can gain access to the app on a single (Apple, Android, or Amazon) device.  This includes both text and audio versions.  You can create custom playlists and synchronize them.  The app is really easy to use and sounded great on my Samsung Galaxy S4.  

For $49.99 you can have up to six devices using the mobile app.  You'll also have access to the online web Bible and mp3 downloads.  Make sure you download and backup the mp3's right away since you only gain access to them for thirty days after registration.  

Thank you Shout Factory for sending us this DVD to review!

The Transformer Rescue Bots series is a great show targeted for school age boys.  The characters carry over from the previous shows, but watching them is not required to appreciate these episodes.  This Mystery Rescue has five suspenseful episodes lasting 110 minutes.

• Countdown - Some weird bugs are teleporting people all over town into an abandoned cavern.  Will the Rescue Bots find everyone in time before they run out of air?
• The Haunting of Griffin Rock - There are reports of ghost sightings all over Griffin Rock.  Do ghosts exist or is there some other explanation?  Perhaps Doc Greene's Spectral Vapor Filter will help solve this mystery.  
• Spellbound - The rescue team is vacationing in Blossom Vale when people start acting unusually.  Cell phones are to blame as they are somehow hypnotizing people.  Cody must get to the source and save everyone before it's too late.  
• Blame the Gremlins - Many people blame technical problems on gremlins.  What if they're real and are attacking the electronic devices in Griffin Rock?
• Feed The Beast - Cody has an encounter with a bigfoot like creature called the Maine Ridge Monster.  Despite photographic evidence, nobody believes him.  Where does this monster stay and how did it come to be?  The town will soon find out!  

My son enjoyed this DVD and is a fan of the show.  There are some supernatural and mysterious themes in these episodes, but most of the phenomenon  get explained through science.  The humor, animation, and voice acting is well done.  All in all this is a pretty good DVD for $13.

(Affiliate link)

Thank you Pure Publicity for sending us this DVD to review!

After the death of his father and losing everything, Jake and his mom move in with her estranged father.  Neither of them realize that Jake's grandfather is a legendary surfer and known by all of the locals.  Instead of surfing the internet, Jake is encouraged by his grandfather and love interest to surf the ocean instead.    

Learning to surf isn't easy and to make matters worse, Jake isn't the only guy attracted to Kayla.  He is both physically and verbally attacked by the town bully whom she isn't even remotely interested in.  The town's surf shop owner Cody (American Idol's Jason Castro) is one of the only friends Jake has.  

The only other actor I recognized in The Perfect Summer was the mother's boss played by Louis Mandlylor from My Big Fat Greek Wedding.   The acting was decent but the sound quality was really poor.  Even with the 5.1 sound selected, we only had stereo sound and the voices were noticeably switching channels often.     The story was decent and had some Christian themes woven throughout.  The take away message is to try your best and not give up.

Thank you Education.com for sending us a one-month trial code!

Kids are getting tech savvy younger and younger these days.  Why not use their computer skills to help them increase their math and reading proficiency?  Brainzy offers over three-hundred games and activities to keep them entertained and sitting still. Their format, which uses catchy music and colorful animations, is similar to Sesame Street.

Brainzy follows the Common Core guidelines and offers both family and classroom versions of their programs.  Families can pay as little as $3.99 a month if billed annually, or in monthly installments of $6.99.  There’s a seven-day trial available to see if your children are compatible with the browser-based program.  ;)  Each family account can support up to three players.

At this time Brainzy has curriculums for Pre-K through First Grade.  My son, who is in first grade, enjoyed using Brainzy while my older daughters watched and chimed in as well.  They wished there were higher level courses available.

Thank you Shout Factory for sending us these DVD's to review!

I used to love watching Pee-wee's Playhouse as a kid.  Now that most people have forgotten about Mr. Reubens' indiscretions, what better time to introduce him to the next generation!    Each show begins with Pee-wee getting a secret word from Conky, his robot friend.  Every time somebody says that word in the show, everyone is encouraged to scream.  (AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!)   So from here on out, the secret word will be DVD.  Everybody knows what to do right? 

There are many regulars on the show including Cowboy Curtis played by Morpheus.. I mean Laurence Fishburne, and the late Phil Hartman who played as Captain Carl.    This DVD (AHHHHHHHHHHHH!) set contains twenty-three episodes, divided into four discs.  In addition to the shows, there are brand-new interviews from the cast and crew.  There's over nine hours of silliness to be had in this collection.

This show is pretty clean and often teaches good morals and manners.  There are lots of cartoons and clay animated shorts that are fun to watch.   The visuals are pretty good, with exception to the old school cartoons that showed their age twenty-five years ago.  (Yes it's been that long and I feel old now.)  Everything else is bright and colorful.     

Thank you Cartoon Network for sending us this Blu-ray to review!

Like many shows, Adventure Time season 4 resumes from a cliff hanger and ends with a new one.  Season 4 starts with Finn trying to make a relationship work with the Flame Princess after giving up on Princess Bubblegum.   There are a couple of problems with their relationship though.  For starters, she burns Finn when coming in contact with him and the other problem is that she’s emotionally unstable.  If she gets upset, she can get out of control and destroy towns in the Candy kingdom.  Princess Bubblegum wants Finn to be aware of the dangers and to break off the relationship, but he brushes her off thinking she’s just jealous.  

Love is in the air for another episode titled Dream of Love.  In this episode Tree Trunks falls in love with a pig and their open display of affection is upsetting the townsfolk.  They are told to keep their love private, but everywhere they go to make out, they get discovered.   There is one scene where you can see them kissing in the shadows and you see some tongue action going on.  When told to move in together, Tree Trunks declines saying that it would not be proper since they are not married.  Unfortunately, Jake doesn’t follow the same guidelines as Rainicorn announces at the end of one of the episodes that she is pregnant.   

The Ice King is desperate for a wife and makes himself one from body parts he steals from princesses across the kingdom in the episode Princess Monster Wife.  Needless to say, she’s not much of a looker, but her heart is in the right place.