Congratulations to the winners of my blogiversary giveaway.  The two people who will receive a copy of Sue Johnson’s book GrandLoving are Julianne and Grandma Shelley.  Congratulations!

You’ll be getting your copy of the book soon in the mail.  (Sue is off helping with grandchildren so it might be a few days for her to send me your books . . .)

Today is a momentous day.  It’s my blogiversary — the anniversary of my blog.

Four years ago, I started a blog called ninalewis.com. That was where I wrote my grandmotherly ideas.  Two years ago, I switched my hosting services and bought the domain name for Grandma Ideas.  (Not too many people type in Nina Lewis when they are doing a search about activities that grandmothers can do with their children. . . )

So today is the second anniversary of my Grandma Ideas blog — my blogiversary!  Woot, woot!

I’m throwing myself a blogiversary party.  See the balloons up over there? Aren’t my party decorations fabulous?  Maybe I ought to string some crepe paper.  Throw confetti.  Do something wild.

In honor of this momentous occasion, I am giving a gift to YOU!

I have two copies of the book GrandLoving: Making Memories with Your Grandchildren to give away to two of my lucky readers.  Sue Johnson, the wonderful, kind, gracious, creative author, is donating them for my blogiversary giveaway.

A HUGE thanks goes out to her!!!

To be the lucky recipient of one of the copies of this book, post a comment here sharing one of your memories of your grandmother. Simple, huh?

You have until midnight on Sunday, February 27 to post a comment. Then, I will use random.org to select two winners from all of the people who have commented.  I will post the winners’ names on Monday morning.

To all of my readers who are grandmothers, this book is great to have in your arsenal.  For those who are grandparenting from afar, Sue has a chapter of ideas for you.  I love the Secrets in Wax (p. 49) and Goodnight Grandma and Grandpa (p. 54) in that chapter.

For those readers who are not grandmothers (yet), this would be a great resource when your turn finally comes.  Or, gift it to your mother, your mother-in-law, or your favorite aunt.  Or to your favorite Wal-Mart greeter. They would really appreciate it.

So, hurry, everybody!  Post a memory of  your grandmother. Now!

Now for refreshments. Here, have some cookies.

And a drink of pop.

Thanks for coming to my virtual party.

The other day I was contacted by a sweet Russian mother, Irina, who has a 7 year old son.  She shared with me how her son sometimes had nightmares from the stories she read him at bedtime. She didn’t like that so she decided to do something about it.

She co-founded AppGrade, a company that develops applications for the iPhone and iPad. Their team of writers, artists, and developers from around the world (Russia, Holland, Germany, Israel, Lithuania, Ukraine, and the U.S.) developed Clever Tales, a collection of 40 tales (with original artwork) for children.  The stories are divided into two groups — one for preschool age and one for children 7 years and older.  The stories teach good values such as cooperation, kindness, working together, and selflessness.

My favorite story was The Two Chefs.  Here is a screen shot of the story and some accompanying pictures. (I love the pointy nose on the skinny chef!)

Here is a screen shot of A Tower of Bricks.

Here’s a screen shot from a story about hedgehogs. Our youngest son was enamored at one time with hedgehogs.  He wanted one for Christmas.  Hedgehogs were not available in the local pet stores.  (What a relief!)  I think he would have enjoyed me reading this story to him!

This application also has music to accompany the tales.  You can put it on sleep mode.  After you finish reading, the gentle music will play for twenty minutes and then shut off.  I really like this feature!

You can bookmark your favorite stories for easy access.  You can personalize it: change the size of the font, set it for day mode or night mode (which has a dimmer light so the light isn’t so bright), have larger sized images, change the background color, and the theme.

I think that the stories for younger children should have a wee bit more images.  I personally think that it’s hard to hold the attention of preschoolers with lots of text and not very many pictures.

If you have an iPad or iPhone, this would be a fun application to have when your grandchildren come for a visit.  Especially if they are spending the night with you!

You can get it for $4.99 in the Apps Store in iTunes.

(Disclaimer: I was given a promo code so that I could review this application)

A while back (like last April), I shared on my site a paper city made by Joel. It warmed the cockles of my heart. (Both his city and his willingness to share.)

I recently visited his site again and was enthralled with two of his recent projects.  I e-mailed him and begged, pleaded, cried, whined, flung myself on the floor and threw a tantrum asked if I could share his idea.  He graciously said yes.  He’s that kind of person, you know.

Not only is he gracious, he is uber creative.  I told him that he has more creativity in a fingernail clipping than I could ever hope to have in ten lifetimes. It’s true. Just ask me.

One of his projects was the memory game. The picture up above is of the memory cards that you get. (It’s purtier than the memory game that I made for my children when they were little. . .  )  Simply print the picture two times on card stock, cut them apart, and you’re ready to play.  If you have far away grandchildren, this would be something easy to send them in the mail.

Joel’s second idea that I wanted to share is his thaumatrope.

Now, I think that I have a vocabulary that is larger than the average man on the street’s vocabulary.  But, Joel skunked me on this word.  (Not only is he creative, he uses words I don’t know.  Dang, I hate it when that happens . . . )  I won’t hold it against him because he probably knows that word because he’s so artistic and I am so not and this is an artistic thingie.

Thaumatrope (pronounced thaw-muh-trohp is a thing-a-ma-jig that has different pictures on opposite sides and when it is twirled it looks like one continuous picture. Joel made a bird thaumatrope. He shows how to make it and shares two templates — one in color and one in black and white that your grandchildren can color whatever their little pea-pickin’ heart desires.

Hope you have fun making these with your grandchildren — or sending them to the grand lads and lassies that live far away.

And a big thank you goes out to Joel!

(He has written a book of children’s crafts and games that promotes creativity and imaginative play.  It will be coming out this fall.  If you like these activities, you might want to check out his book!  I know I will.)