Who wouldn’t like $100 for 10 minutes of “work”?

Now that I have your attention, I need your help. (More about the $100 in a second.)

We are at a crossroads on PrimeParentsClub.com and we need your help! As we move forward, we want to know what you want more of, less of, or what new additions you want on the site.

To help us, we are asking you to take around 10 minutes to complete this survey for us. We are asking that you give the questions honest and thoughtful consideration as it will help us bring fresh content and get awesome giveaways for you.

$100 Visa Gift Card Giveaway

We understand that your time is precious, so we want to reward you for helping us.

For completing the survey, your email address will automatically be entered into a random drawing for a $100 Visa gift card giveaway.

That’s it! Complete the survey in an honest way and you’ll automatically be entered!

Want a second entry for the $100 Visa gift card giveaway?

Just share the survey with another parent age 35 and up. At the end of the survey, they will have the chance to put in the email address of the person who referred them. (IMPORTANT: Make sure they use the same email address you used when completing the survey.) Then, you and the person you referred get an additional entry for the gift card drawing! (Yep, you can refer multiple people!)

Prime Parents Club Survey

To get started, set aside around 10 minutes and click on the link below.

Click here to take survey NOW!

You have until June 10, 2012, midnight (EST) to complete the survey and be entered into the drawing!

This week’s Pin of the Week comes from well, we’re not sure…

Here we go…

Fairy Glow Dust

Related: Pin of Week | Fruit Waffle Cones

Think you have an awesome pin worthy of our Pin of the Week feature? Contact us and include a link to your pin on Pinterest. We may just feature you next week!

Don’t forget to follow us on Pinterest and Facebook so you know if we pick you!

Music: “Little Penguin” by Gurdonark (feat. Debbizo)
http://ccmixter.org/files/gurdonark/31120
is licensed under a Creative Commons license:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

As a food allergy mom, I’m accustomed to baking without eggs and milk. Recently, I attempted a dessert that was also gluten free. I was amazed at how well it turned out (yes, I had my doubts).

This recipe is easy to adapt for several food allergies; the version I made was dairy, egg, gluten and nut free, almost soy free (there was soy lecithin in the rice milk), and low in sugar.

Just remember to read the ingredient labels beforehand to make sure there are no hidden allergens.

Food Allergy Friendly Fruit Cobbler

Ingredients

2 tbsp butter substitute (I used Earth Balance)

1 cup baking mix (I used Bob’s Red Mill Dairy, Gluten, Wheat Free Biscuit and Baking Mix)

½ cup sugar substitute (I used organic blue agave)

½ cup milk substitute (I used rice milk)

3 cups fruit – fresh, locally-grown is preferred or frozen (I used frozen blackberries)

RELATED: Sugar-Free Angel Food Cake

Directions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Melt butter substitute in a square baking dish.

In a bowl, combine baking mix with sugar and milk substitutes. Add to baking dish. Spread evenly.

Add fruit.

Bake for 30 minutes.

Cool or enjoy warm with an ice cream substitute. I used So Delicious Coconut Milk Vanilla Bean.

Let me know how yours turns out in the comments below.

Shannon Morgan is a working mom of two, one with multiple food allergies, from Maryland. She is a blogger, editor, writer, and social media manager. When not working, writing or hanging with her family, Shannon is training for her next race, dreaming about a vacation and drinking way too much decaf coffee.

Shannon also owns Shannon Morgan Creative and blogs about tales of healthy living inspired by food allergies at {SMC} A Storied Table. Email her at shannon at shannonmorgancreative dot com. Follow her on Twitter @SLDMorgan or @AStoriedTable.

Plain pastel walls in kids’ rooms just don’t inspire, and it is hard to feel creative using the commercially available wall decals and stickers. Parents want to spark imagination with their children’s personal space, which is difficult when the room looks just like everyone else’s. Instead, consider these five do-it-yourself wall art ideas that will make your kid’s room unique.

Creative Decorating Ideas for Your Kid’s Room

Make the ‘Refrigerator Door’ the Wall

Your child’s artwork is one-of-a-kind, and what better way to make her room her own? Magnets aren’t just for the fridge door anymore. With a few coats of magnetic primer (available at most major home improvement stores) and a top coat in the color of your choice, you can turn the bedroom wall into an art gallery, showing off masterpieces from your little Renoir. For children under three, magnets are best kept out of reach, due to the small parts.

Inspire Adventure

Not only do large maps make fantastic wall art – you can get them for far less than traditional wallpaper. Coordinate paint colors with the shades on the map, and then cover the wall with every corner of the globe. Your child will never run out of things to look at, with colors and shapes galore. You can count on this wall art to stimulate your bedtime storytelling, as you just have to look around to find the setting for your character’s adventures.

Bring the Sidewalk Inside

Kids love to go big with massive sidewalk chalk art. Why not bring that creativity into the bedroom? You won’t have to struggle to think of rainy day activities, when an entire bedroom wall is finished with chalkboard paint. Kids will create their own temporary wall art, and when it’s time for a change, they can just wipe it away and start fresh.

Make Mirror Images

Babies love to look in the mirror, and small children need large reflections of their latest dress-up ensemble. When you don’t want to risk a glass mirror in the bedroom, try mirror spray paint to make wall decor interesting. While this paint doesn’t have the crisp reflective properties of glass, it is safe and offers enough of a view to inspire.

Create Framing

If your circumstances don’t allow large-scale experimentation with paint and papers, you don’t have to give up on the idea of fun do-it-yourself wall art. Choose yard sale frames with potential, and get creative with paint and finishes, then fill with a variety of fun, inexpensive art. Use pieces of interesting, kid-friendly wrapping paper, for a low-cost framed piece that can be switched frequently. Create a one-of-a-kind 3D look when you use a stencil as a template and fill the shape with a variety of glued-on buttons. Tiny shadow boxes with interesting curios or doll house-sized scenes are a great way to get creative on a smaller scale. What to put in a frame is only limited by your imagination, so keep your eyes open and enjoy the possibilities of magazine pages, interesting family photos, and more.

Don’t settle for the same hum-drum wall decorations that are on every child’s bedroom walls in the country. Instead, choose a unique approach to your kid’s decor with easy, inexpensive do-it-yourself projects.

Guest Wagner Meters is a world leader in moisture measurement products, with an expanded line of hand-held wood moisture meters that set the worldwide standard for accuracy and reliability to help you avoid problems with your important wood projects.

Image: clarita

The number of women giving birth in their late 30s and early 40s is on the rise–from movie stars to moms next door, it seems like older moms are everywhere. However, there has been a buzz around in the past few months calling older moms “selfish” and giving birth after 40 “unethical.”

Dr. Barry Walters, an Australian obstetrician, stated in an interview with The West in 2011, “it was selfish and self-centred of older women to have babies because they were likely to be elderly and infirm [sic] when their children were in their teens and early 20s.”

Some are also saying that waiting until after 40 to give birth may even be unethical due to increase in birth defects. However, according to a post on League of Ordinary Gentlemen, although the chances of children born with defects and disabilities increase with moms over 40, they are still rare.

“Women in general have a 97-98% chance of having a child without a birth defect. About chromosomal abnormalities: a 40-year-old woman has a 98.5% chance of having a baby with no chromosomal abnormalities. A 45-year-old has a 95.2% chance of having a baby with no chromosomal abnormalities.”

Andrea O’Reilly, an associate professor of Women’s Studies at York University, told ParentCentral.ca, “‘Selfish’ is the criticism often leveled against older mothers. It’s assumed that the mother won’t be around to perform the necessary duties that, today, last well beyond 18.”

What do you think? Is having a baby after 40 selfish, unethical, or both?

Having two children has awakened a powerful desire in me, one that I have never experienced before:  the need to be organized.  And in the wake of that has come a massive need to clean and purge my house of excess.

With things like clothing, I normally just donate, but in my zeal to clean I came across some odd items, like some candy corn Halloween lights that had been pawned off on me, which I was probably never going to use. Rather than discard these items, I decided to post them on my local Freecycle group.

What is Freecycle?

Freecycle is a grassroots, nonprofit network that is based on the concept of neighbors helping each other out, and keeping good items out of landfills. Founded in 2003 by Deron Beal, it started in Arizona where Deron worked for a nonprofit organization called RISE, which provided recycling services in Tucson, as well as transitional employment for those in need. When they came across perfectly good items that still had life in them, the members of RISE began calling other nonprofits around the area to see if they wanted some of these items. This lead to Beal setting up the first Freecycle email group—and thus, the Freecycle network was born.

The Freecycle concept has spread considerably in the nine years since it started, and is now in over 85 countries. There are more than 5,000 groups, with nearly nine million members worldwide. They estimate that they keep over 500 tons of garbage per day out of landfills, which is incredible.

I love Freecycle. It has engendered in me a new sense of community and I love helping others out. Since I joined, I have given away maternity clothing to a mom in need, cloth diapers to a family expecting their first child, formula samples, and those hideous candy corn Halloween lights to someone who appreciates them far more than I did. I also managed to score a beautiful toy chest for my sons from another Freecycler, and I can’t wait to paint it and put it in their room.

Another great thing about Freecycle is if you have food that is expiring and you know you aren’t going to have time to use it, you can post on the network and maybe even help out someone in need. A girlfriend of mine recently shared with me that she had a very grateful recipient of some canned and frozen food, a man who was a few days away from a paycheck and really appreciated the food.

Freecycle really is changing the world—one gift at a time.

The TV spots for Dark Shadows make it seem like it’s going to be a comedy, but in reality, it’s more like a drama with some laughs thrown in; an extremely campy drama, too, although the TV show upon which it is based was supposedly very campy as well. The show ran from 1966 to 1971, and Johnny Depp himself wanted to bring it to the big screen. The performances in Dark Shadows are all spot-on, but unfortunately the movie tends to move slowly and wear out its welcome at times.

Barnabas Collins (Johnny Depp, The Rum Diary) lives in the 1700s and has found his one true love; before finding her, however, he had the misfortune of fooling around with one of the family maids, Angelique (Eva Green, Casino Royale), who is actually a witch. Angelique decides that if she can’t have Barnabas, no one can, and she puts a curse on his beloved, who throws herself off a cliff. Barnabas does as well, in order to save her, but then realizes that Angelique has turned him into a vampire. Angelique leads the townspeople on a witchhunt to the Collins mansion, where they wrap Barnabas in chains and bury him in a coffin.

Two centuries later, in 1972, construction workers are digging in that same spot, when their machines hit the coffin. Curious, they open it, only to find Barnabas, who is extremely thirsty. Barnabas finds his way back to the Collins mansion to find his present-day descendants living there: Elizabeth Collins Stoddard (Michelle Pfeiffer, New Year’s Eve), her daughter Carolyn (Chloe Grace Moretz, Kick-Ass), her brother Roger (Jonny Lee Miller, TV’s Dexter), his strange son David (Gulliver McGrath, Hugo), and a few other people, including David’s psychiatrist (Helena Bonham Carter, Alice in Wonderland) and the new nanny Victoria (Bella Heathcote, In Time). Unfortunately, his family has been living in near-poverty since the family business was almost extinct, and Barnabas decides to try to revive it. He also runs into Angelique, who has been alive for the past 200 years, and who is now a successful businesswoman who owns almost the whole town of Collinsport.

Maybe see this film. The movie lags in many places, and although the story is interesting, I sometimes found my attention wandering. Johnny Depp is great, but Eva Green actually steals the show, playing the crazy witch that still lusts after Barnabas after all the years. The Collins family members, too, played their parts nicely, especially Michelle Pfeiffer and Chloe Grace Moretz, who has a paranormal secret of her own. The movie was a lot more campy than I thought it would be, which was fine, but I was surprised to find out it was more of a drama than a comedy. Its PG-13 rating, too, is not entirely accurate in some parts – if there was a rating between PG-13 and R, I would have rated it that, due to a few sexual scenes, though there’s not much language in it. The music in the movie is a bright spot, as it’s all ’70s and ’80s music, and fits in very nicely with the film and the dark cinematography. The end sets itself up nicely for a sequel, and I’m betting that if Depp and his co-stars do well at the box office, we may see one happen; I would be interested in seeing it, but only at a matinee or at a free screening.

Dark Shadows is currently in theaters, and is rated PG-13 with a runtime of 113 minutes.

Rating: 3 stars out of 5

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is a Fox Searchlight film with many actors whom you will recognize, regardless of your age: Maggie Smith (from the Harry Potter movies), Bill Nighy, Judi Dench, Tom Wilkinson, to name the top few. It also has Dev Patel, from Slumdog Millionaire, as an entrepreneurial young man who is trying to run the Marigold Hotel or, to use its full title, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel for the Elderly and Beautiful. The movie has a lot of heart, as well as great music and cinematography, but it tended to run a bit slow throughout.

All of the above characters end up staying at the Marigold Hotel, but all for different reasons. Muriel (Maggie Smith) needs a hip replacement, and if she doesn’t fly to India to get one at a fraction of the price, she will be on a long waiting list in the U.S. instead. Douglas (Bill Nighy, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End) and his wife Jean (Penelope Wilton, TV’s Dr. Who) are broke, and go to the hotel instead of living in a tiny apartment. Evelyn (Judi Dench, My Week with Marilyn) is newly single, as her husband just passed away, and wants to go on an adventure in India. Graham (Tom Wilkinson, The Debt) has just retired from being a judge, and grew up in India; he hasn’t been back in forty years, but there is someone special whom he wants to look up there. Madge (Celia Imrie, TV’s Kingdom) comes to India to have a good time. And finally, Norman (Ronald Pickup, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time), doesn’t really have a clear reason, but it seems like he wants to find a girlfriend there, even at his “advanced age.

None of them have been to India before except for Graham, and they meet each other on the flight going there. They soon find that the Marigold Hotel is not as it appeared to be in its brochure – as Sonny (Dev Patel) cheerfully says, the brochure represents “how he imagined it to be” rather than the hotel’s actual condition. However, India soon charms most of the guests, and each of them find their own reasons for liking it.

Maybe see this film. The movie is at its best when it is also at its wittiest, as it is for most of the first third or half. Both beautiful scenery and Indian music abound here as well. When the film starts to slow down, and gets more serious at the same time, it started to drag a bit for me. I did like the ending; I just wish it had taken less time to get there, though at the same time I can’t think of any scenes that I would have cut. Marigold Hotel will most likely find a more captivated audience in the older generations, but fine performances are given by the core actors throughout, which can be appreciated by anyone regardless of age.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is in theaters today, May 4th, and is rated PG-13 with a runtime of 124 minutes.

Rating: 3 stars out of 5

*Author’s note: I saw a screening of this film on March 14th. The version I saw may or may not be the final version.

If you’ve followed me for any amount of time, you’ve read about my quest for a more organic lifestyle. It’s slowgoing for us, but I’m still learning and trying to make small changes with a few little steps at a time.

One of the things I was shocked to learn about when I first started researching organic living is how much pesticides and other things used around your plants affect what goes into your body. For example, did you know that the Environmental Working Group (EWG) created a whole list—a “dirty dozen”–of 12 fruits and vegetables that are harmful to you if you don’t purchase or grow them organically? The top five alone with the highest levels of pesticides might shock you—apples, celery, strawberries, peaches and spinach!

So, what should you do to ensure that your garden isn’t just a big hot bed of pesticides that you and your family will eventually ingest? Start with the basics:

1. Create a good soil base.

Creating an organic soil base may be the most important step. If you’re using organically grown plants, but have soil filled with yucky stuff, then your quest for organic isn’t going to work. Try a prime organic soil like Whitney Farms®, which is all natural and uses only ingredients straight from the Earth.

2.  Buy organic seeds or plants.

Search your farmers’ markets and local plant stores for organic seeds and plants. That way you know they have been harvested in exactly the way you want to grow them.

3. Use an all-natural, organic food.

 Again, if you’re prepping your soil organically and using organic plants but feeding them with a bunch of pesticide-ridden ick, then what’s the point? Whitney Farms makes a good choice for this also because they have organic plant food with “beneficial microbes.” In plain speak, that just means they have specially designed protein-based blends to provide your plants with healthy nutrients to help them grow and thrive (you know, without the ick factor)

Are you ready to start with these basics to organic gardening? We have an awesome coupon for you to try out White Farms soil or food. Go on, head over to Whitney Farms® to redeem it. Growing season is upon us!