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Very little pre-ambling chatter-boxing needed for this post.. Long story, short- in celebration of a few things (say, me turning thirty one and surviving another year of the After without running away and leaving my kidlets in the care of my mum or the cats or something) but mainly because a) you lot are awesome and deserve cool things and b) it‘s almost officially summer here in the Southern Hemisphere; I am very chuffed to introduce to you all…

The RRSAHM Super Huge Mega Awesome ‘Welcome To Summer’ GiveAway!

Australian residents only- my OS readers, I owe you a giveaway. I know.

Annnd… enough of the boring stuff. On with the goodies. Ladybugs and jellybeans- here’s what you can win…

* Three Nice’n Easy and Wella Pro Series summer style packs, each with a Nice’nEasy hair colour and a Wella Pro Series Colour shampoo and conditioner.
Huge thank to Wella and Nice’n Easy for this one. Did you know 71% of women colour their hair (GFK Beauty Care Women Survey, 2008), and therefore requires special treatment since colouring makes it more vulnerable?  Preserve the vibrant, healthy look of hair shades with Wella Pro Series Colour which intensively nourishes and protects; where Nice ‘n Easy provides 100 percent grey coverage while delivering natural looking colour in the comfort of your own home.

* One E-Z Spray Tie Dye Kit- RRP $29.90
Perfect for summer fun with kids, this awesomely easy to use pack from Creativity For Kids is a perfect ‘stocking stuffer’ style present. Or- even better- one of those things you buy on the (school holiday) days you’re really losing your mind.

* One seriously awesome Logitech product pack- including an M305 wireless mouse (RRP $69.95), a Logitech HD C510 WebCam (RRP $79.95) and a Logitech Keyboard For iPad (RRP $99.95).
All thanks to the awesome tech geeks at Logitech, whom I love dearly and have blog-raved over a few times now.

* One copy of Sharon McGuiness‘ children’s book, ‘Coming Home’.
This one’s a very special prize. This book, written by a reader of mine and published by Wombat Books, is the beautifully, sensibly written journey of a
father’s struggle with depression, told through his daughter’s eyes. All royalties go to the Black Dog Institute, and a huge thanks to Sharon for sending me a copy and donating one for the giveaway.

* Two Angry Birds Space packs- each featuring 1 x Angry Birds Space 5” Talking Plush and 1 x Angry Birds Space Back Pack Clip.
Huge thanks to Moose- the best toy makers in the stratosphere. Because everybody- especially the Chop- loves Angry Birds.

* Two Starmaid SuperStar PopCorn Makers.
This is my absolute favorite new product of 2012. It pops a stack- 12.5 cups, to be exact- of fresh, fluffy oil-free popcorn in your microwave in just two and half minutes. It’s cheap, healthy, oh so convenient, and gets itself a tremendous five out five jellybeans on the RRSAHM Ranking Stuff Scale.

* Three super funky WAFF notebooks- RRP $19.99 each.

 Because I know how much y’all love notebooks, and these are among the funkiest I’ve seen. Rubbery, tactile, grippy, and you can buy and add extra clip bits, not to mention position those clips wherever you like. The price tag is totally worth it- this A6 diary is refillable with any generic brand notepad of the right thickness. Win!

* One Flying Penguin wooden toy prize pack for little ‘uns- including a Upper and Lowercase alphabet blocks (set of 14) by Uncle Goose, Melissa and Doug Pound a Peg and an EverEarth Shape Sorting Noah’s Ark.
Thanks to the online store with the world’s coolest logo, Flying Penguin, for this amazing wooden prize pack, designed extra-specially for two year old’s. You have no idea how much I want to keep the Ark for my Fairy Garden… but I won’t. Connect with Flying Penguin on FB here.

* Sev<
span style="font-size: small;">en boxes of Smooze- RRP $6.95 each
Smooze Fruit Ice is a 100 per cent natural coconut-based ice block that can be eaten frozen, put in curries or stirred through yummy smoothies (see recipes on their Facebook page). Available in four delicious flavours: Simply Coconut, Pink Guava + Coconut, Mango + Coconut, and Pineapple + Coconut, Smooze Fruit Ice is as easy as shake, freeze, cut, push, slurp. Great for kids and parents alike, stick a Smooze in your freezer this summer! Available in the dessert aisle (next to jellies and maple syrup) of your supermarket.

* Five copies of  ‘The Three Stooges’ on DVD. 
 The Farrelly Bros. bring back a beloved classic comedy act with ‘The Three Stooges’, a contemporary take on the world’s favorite trio of boneheads out now on Blu-ray and DVD from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment. Moe, Larry, and Curly grow up finger-poking, nyuk-nyuk-nyuking and woo-wooing their way to uncharted levels of knuckleheaded misadventure. Now, out to save their childhood home, only The Three Stooges could become embroiled with an oddball murder plot…while stumbling into starring roles in a phenomenally successful TV reality show.

*One copy of each- the Toddler Friendly Baking ebook and the Toddler Friendly Cooking ebook from Keeping Up With The Holsbys. -RRP $15
As we know, I have a terribly short attention span which results in an inability to cook pretty much anything. These ebooks mix easy to cook recipes with stories, both funny and heartwarming, revolving around the invention of each recipe and the constant food struggles mums with toddlers know all too well. Each dish, desert and snack featured is nutritious and will inspire fussy eaters to be more adventurous, with foods they know love getting a toddler-friendly revamp that will satiate the bigger kids (including mums and dads) appetites, too.Keep Up With The Holsbys on their blog and their FB page.

 * One $150 Spotlight voucher.
Stand back- no punching on over the Spotlight voucher, please, ladies.. I’m well aware of the depths of some of your addictions. Spotlight is the bestes place for everything, but especially Christmas- create, decorate and celebrate with Spotlight. You can shop online here, and connect with them on FB here. Oh, and here’s Kristie and I wearing Spotlight Xmas wreaths on our heads. Tra la la la la, la la la la.
 

While obviously this isn’t an entry requirment- that would (probably) be grossly illegal- I will take this chance to remind you to donate one dollar to the #BloggersToBorneo appeal. It’s for orangutans. And orangs are cool.

In news much closer to home, the kidlets and I are going to be having an awesome time this weekend running (ambling…?) in the NSW Variety Santa Fun Run, representing Team RocketMan Media.

Three farcically undersized-for-Santa’s suits have arrived at the TinyTrainHouse, just in the nick of time. I’ll be posting later this week with the three of us in all our red and white fluffy glory. In the meantime, here’s an artist‘s impression of how I may look on Saturday…

Maybe.

You can sponsor us here, and any funds thrown our way- in support or pity, I’m not fussy- are much appreciated. There will be a vlog on this one, of course- coming soon.
 

In fact, in my head, I call them ’orange utans’. You know those weird things that stick with you from when you’re a kid? ‘Orange utans’ is one of mine. I remember being young– maybe eight or nine, I’m not sure– and in the car with my mum and my brother, living in Paradise but making the hour and a half round trip to the BigCityTown at least once a week. We played games in the car– long before in–car DVD players, I’m not even sure we had a cassette player. So we played guessing games and number plate games and Eye Spy and a more modified version of Eye Spy that was more along the lines of ‘I Think…’

“I’m thinking of something that is the colour orange, and it’s an animal” says eight or nine year old Lori on one particular drive. And, as is the fashion, my mum and brother put forward as many guesses as they can think of (”Tiger? Butterfly? Cat? Giraffe?”) while I sit, smugly, shaking my head ‘no’ to every guess they make.

“OK” says my mum after what felt like a very long time, “we give up– you’ll have to tell us the answer.”

“It’s an orange utan!!”

My mum laughed so hard she nearly couldn’t breathe and had to pull the car over to the shoulder while she recovered.

The whole ‘orange utan’ thing followed me around for the next couple of years, one of stories parents tell when they’re demonstrating how gorgeous and cute and potentially stupid their offspring can be.

And that’s, really, about as far as my knowledge of orange orangutans stretches.

Which meant it was time to do some research. And here’s what I dug up…

Nine Things You Really Should Know About ‘Orange Utans’ (especially of you happen to be trekking into the wilds of Borneo in just a few (eep!!) short months time).

• Orangutans are, like chimpanzees and us humans, classified as a Great Ape (remind me to put that on my Internet dating profile). The easiest way to tell the difference between monkey and ape…? The tail. Or lack thereof.

• Orangs are considered ‘solitary but social’ creatures. They live mainly alone, especially males. Females raise their offspring for six years before the wean and become independent, learning how to survive in the forest. But, while loners, orangs hang out in casual social groups, often connected by one dominant (big daddy) male, and have been known to interact and play when they encounter one another, especially if food is not scarce and there’s no need to biff on for it.

• Orangutans are one of the few primate species not to engage in infanticide (killing babies). Why? Well. It’s partly due to the inherent promiscuity of female orangs, who are, reportedly, flirts even into the first months of pregnancy– designed to confuse the daddy orangs as to who’s baby is who’s.
  Other than that, orangs don’t kill babies because they’re just too cool for that.

• Orangs are arboreal- (is that not the up there with the most awesome words you’ve ever come across?) meaning they live in trees. They also build themselves intricate sleeping nests– with mattresses, pillows, the works– specifically designed to hold their weight, every single night.

• They not only have opposable thumbs… they have opposable toes as well. Not to mention a 360 degree rotating hip joint.

• Despite the rumors, make orang utans generally don’t get the hots for– or try to rape and pillage– female humans. Even if they are Julia Roberts. (It only occurred to me, writing that, the inherent redhead stigma that comes with that particular piece of tripe. Good grief… people are weird.)

• Orangs have been known to blow raspberries.

• Orangutans are chronically endangered, with less than 30 000 estimated to be left in the jungles of Borneo and Sumatra.

• It costs the disturbing, disgusting amount of just forty five dollars to buy a baby orang to keep as a pet in Indonesia. I can’t even tell you how sad that makes me. Especially when it costs just $55 a year through Orangutan Odysseys, to have that tiny orang utan cared for in a nursery, then hopefully rereleased back into the wild.

And that, ladies and jellybeans, is the facts on orangutans. In case you missed it (where have you been…?)
us bloggers are going to Borneo. You can come too.

If that’s waaaay too much of a stretch, I totally understand. So I’d love for you to donate just one dollar to help cover the cost of my trip, to ensure the awareness we’re raising for Orangutan Odyssey and the orangutans of Borneo comes to them for nix.