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Archive for February, 2010

Happy 77th Newsweek!

Posted by Katie on February 17, 2010 in General

newsweek_logo-708539The popular news magazine is celebrating a big one today — happy 77th Newsweek!

Founded by a former editor at Time magazine, Newsweek is the second largest newsweekly in the country!

Now owned by The Washington Post Company, the publication holds more National Magazine Awards than any other newsweekly — and based on its roster of commentators (which include the likes of Anna Quindlen and Fareed Zakaria) — this shouldn’t surprise you.

But Newsweek isn’t just popular here in the U.S. — it publishes editions in Japanese, Korean, Polish, Russian, Spanish, Rioplatense, Spanish, Arabic and Turkish with a worldwide circulation of over 4 million! Pretty impressive…

Happy birthday, Newsweek! Here’s to the next 77!

Celebrating 127 Years of Ladies’ Home Journal

Posted by Katie on February 16, 2010 in General

1261058019_evziz9fa3quidonThe popular women’s magazine, Ladies’ Home Journal, is celebrating a big birthday today — 127 years!

Ladies’ Home Journal, or LHJ as it’s often called, provides all kinds of great health, fitness, and nutrition information as well as fun beauty tips and tricks for entertaining friends and family!

Take a minute and check out their health page (www.lhj.com/health). There you can find all kinds of workouts — specific to each region of your body! There are also tips to help you relieve stress and get better sleep!

Oh, and don’t forget to scroll to the bottom of the page to take some of their quizzes like the “health IQ” test or the “getting enough sleep” quiz. For 127 years old, LHJ has still got it :)

Happy birthday, LHJ! Here’s to many more!

Tip Tuesday: Throw a Great Party at a Low Cost!

Posted by Katie on February 16, 2010 in Tip Tuesday

birthday-party-manners-600We’re all trying to save some extra cash these days, but that doesn’t mean you can’t throw your child an amazing birthday party!

I went to essortment.com to learn how I could plan the best party possible without breaking the bank! Check out their tips below!

Before you do anything, decide how much money you are willing to spend on your child’s birthday party. It is much too easy to start spending and spending without realizing how much money is leaving your pocket. Set up a party budget and allot money for each item(s) like the cake, the food, the party favors and the games. Do your absolute best to stick to this budget.

* Many parents worry about the decorations when, in reality, kids could really care less if you get the cheap balloons or the expensive ones. If a decorative item is up hanging on the wall or from the table, unless they can play with it, kids will not give it a second glance. If money needs to be cut out from anything within the party, cut it from the “decorations” expense, since decorations seem to be more for the parents than anybody else.

* Probably the biggest expenses for parents are the food and drinks. Think of your kids. If you were to make a delicious and expensive filet mignon and put it next to a chili dog, what do you think your children will reach for? If you said the chili dog, then you’re right. Children can have the simplest and cheapest food items served to them and they will eat them right up.

* As for the cake, instead of going to a local bakery and spending a fortune on a cake, make one yourself. Better yet, make enough cupcakes to give to each of the children and personalize them with their names, using some store bought colored frosting.

* Instead of buying games for the children to play, look online for games the kids can play with very little equipment. Go to your local dollar store or discount store and buy small prizes to give out to children who win the games.

* You may think you will need to provide entertainment like clowns, jugglers, hula dancers or magicians for your child and her friends, but the children will have more fun entertaining themselves. Set up small play stations around your back yard where kids can play with different toys or play different games. If the parents of the invited children allow it, set up water guns and water stations around the yard where children can shoot and refill.

* Instead of inviting your child’s whole class to your house, let your child host a sleep over, where they invite either all the boys or all the girls (depending on whether you have a son or daughter). Other than food, sweets and breakfast, you will have very little to provide. Set some rules for how loud the kids can be, where they can play and what time they need to go to sleep and the party will be pretty much self-sufficient.

Happy Birthday St. Louis!

Posted by Katie on February 15, 2010 in General

st-louis-arch-addressMissouri’s largest city, St. Louis, is celebrating a birthday today!

246 years old today, St. Louis is a city with a lot to offer! From its contributions to the musical styles of blues and jazz to the home town of some of the nation’s greatest sports teams, St. Louis is a thriving metropolis!

Whether or not you know anything about the “Gateway to the West,” you likely do know St. Louis hosts one of the most beautiful architectural structures in the country — the Gateway Arch.

In case you wanted to learn a little more, here are some little known facts about the arch!

    • The Arch is the tallest national monument in the United States at 630 feet; it is the city’s best known landmark and a popular tourist attraction.
    • Construction began February 12, 1963 and the last section of the Arch was put into place on October 28, 1965.
    • The Arch is a structure known as a catenary curve, the shape a free-hanging chain takes when held at both ends, and considered the most structurally-sound arch shape. The span of the Arch legs at ground level is 630 feet, the same as its height.
    • Each year, approximately a million visitors ride the trams to the top of the Arch. The trams have been in operation for over 30 years, traveling a total of 250,000 miles and carrying over 25 million passengers.
    • The Arch weighs 17,246 tons. Nine hundred tons of stainless steel was used to build the Arch, more than any other project in history.
    • The Arch was built at a cost of $13 million. The transportation system was built at a cost of $3,500,000.
    • In order to ensure that the constructed legs would meet, the margin of error for failure was 1/64th of an inch. All survey work was done at night to eliminate distortion caused by the sun’s rays. Since the Arch was constructed before the advent of computer technology, relatively crude instruments were used for these measurements
    • The Arch sways a maximum of 18″ (9″ each way) in a 150 mph wind. The usual sway is 1/2″.

For more information, visit www.gatewayarch.com/Arch

Happy Birthday YouTube!

Posted by Katie on February 15, 2010 in General

youtube_logoEvery once and awhile, a technology comes around that changes the way we communicate with each other.

One such example is YouTube.

It was only 5 years ago today that YouTube was launched — allowing even the most technologically-inept (myself included) to share videos across the internet!

Created by 3 former PayPal employees, YouTube became an instant internet sensation — and everyone took notice, including Google. The internet giant purchased the company in November of 2006 for $1.65 billion!

And YouTube is only continuing to grow. As of October, 2009, YouTube was serving over a billion views a day worldwide!

So what’s the most popular YouTube video ever made? I guess you’ll have to check out the video below to see for yourself!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Posted by Katie on February 14, 2010 in General

lace-edge-heartFrom everyone here at the Official Birthday Blog, happy Valentine’s Day!

Today is a special day where we celebrate the love and affection we have for the important people in our lives — but I’ve always wondered what it’s like to have your birthday on Valentine’s Day…

Do your friends and family pay enough attention to you? Do you still get presents (no, heart-shaped candy and red roses don’t count)? Is your birthday cake decorated with hearts and flowers instead of balloons and streamers?

If any of you have a Valentine’s Day birthday, write in and let me know what it’s like! In the meantime, here are some celebrities celebrating a very “romantic” birthday today :)

  • Musician Rob Thomas
  • NFL star Drew Bledsoe
  • Magician Teller (of Penn and Teller)
  • Journalist Carl Bernstein
  • Mayor Michael Bloomberg
  • Actor Freddie Highmore

The More Birthdays Crew Presents at the Washington Health and Fitness Expo!

Posted by Katie on February 13, 2010 in General

Did you know the Washington Health and Fitness Expo is the nation’s largest public health fair? In fact, the event attracts more than 85,000 attendees to the Washington Convention Center in our nation’s capital each year, and I had the opportunity to join in the festivities a few weeks ago!

The More Birthdays crew spent a weekend presenting at the expo from our birthday-themed booth. We spoke to hundreds of attendees about the movement for less cancer and more birthdays and signed up more than 550 new members!

Owly Images

We definitely brought the party (and raised awareness too). We passed out hundreds of our signature red birthday hats, bumper stickers, and More Birthdays T-shirts. Our very own Alex Mudry was a huge hit as she baked the American Cancer Society’s official birthday cake on the healthy cooking stage in front of some very hungry spectators.

We even caught the attention of Top Chef finalist Carla Hall who dropped by to get her picture taken and join the movement.

For those of you who didn’t get a chance to stop by, check out our video below!

Celebrating Honest Abe!

Posted by Katie on February 12, 2010 in General

abraham_lincolnPresidents’ Day is right around the corner, so it seems timely to wish a happy birthday to one of our nation’s greatest presidents, Abraham Lincoln!

Our 16th President, Honest Abe Lincoln, led this country through one of the most difficult times in our nation’s history, the Civil War. A time of incredible internal strife, Lincoln successfully saved the Union and abolished slavery.

Aside from his tremendous leadership skills, Lincoln is also widely considered one of the greatest orators of our time, penning the Gettysburg Address and the Emancipation Proclamation!

To learn more about our President Lincoln, check out www.whitehouse.gov!

The son of a Kentucky frontiersman, Lincoln had to struggle for a living and for learning. Five months before receiving his party’s nomination for President, he sketched his life:

“I was born Feb. 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky. My parents were both born in Virginia, of undistinguished families–second families, perhaps I should say. My mother, who died in my tenth year, was of a family of the name of Hanks…. My father … removed from Kentucky to … Indiana, in my eighth year…. It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up…. Of course when I came of age I did not know much. Still somehow, I could read, write, and cipher … but that was all.”

Now that you know a little more about our 16th President, go out and enjoy your Presidents’ Day weekend!

Bye-Bye Birthday Treats

Posted by Colleen on February 12, 2010 in General

So long, cupcakes. Au revoir, petit fours. Sayanara, snack cakes. My sons’ school has recently said “no more birthday treats” for intermediate and middle school students – “as a way to encourage health and wellness.”

kids eating healthy-saidaonlineWhile my kids are bummed, I am totally fine with this. One thing that they really liked about being able to take in treats is that then, everyone knew it was their birthday. But, they still get their birthday announced via the morning announcements, and they do get to come out of uniform on their big day, so their classmates are definitely still aware that it’s their birthday, treats or not.

Now, I get that not having birthday snacks at school isn’t going to solve the childhood obesity epidemic we’ve got going on, but to me, a simple change like this is one step in the right direction to creating a culture of wellness for kids while they’re at school. Granted, in terms of helping with weight control, skipping birthday snacks throughout the year can’t make up for school meals that are high in fat and not-so-high in fruits and vegetables; vending machines that have high sugar, high calorie snacks and drinks; limited requirements for physical education – and the lunches packed full of processed foods that can come from home.

I also get that changing only what’s going on in schools won’t solve the problem, either. Healthy school meals and more physical education won’t make up for eating a bunch of junk food at home while watching TV or playing computer games. But those changes in schools will help. They are a piece of a giant puzzle.

What’s going on in your kids’ schools? What, if any changes, have been made to try to promote your kids’ health? Have healthy changes been made to school meals or vending options? Have they banned birthday treats or bake sales? What about PE? How often does your child have it?

Happy Birthday Jennifer Aniston!

Posted by Katie on February 11, 2010 in General

jennifer-anistonEveryone’s favorite “Friend” — Hollywood superstar Jennifer Aniston — is celebrating the big 4-1 today…and she’s never looked better.

But she isn’t just a pretty face — she’s a Hollywood heavyweight! As of 2009, her movies have grossed over $900 million in the U.S. and $1.5 billion worldwide.

And Jennifer is a great celebrity to acknowledge on the Official Birthday Blog because she loves birthdays! In fact, she’s known to throw big bashes with her friends to celebrate her special day.

But Jennifer also understands the importance of helping others. This year, Jennifer has asked friends and family to skip the gifts and instead, donate to charity!

And Jennifer isn’t the only celebrity giving back. Check out our celebrity gallery to see what celebrities have joined our movement to create a world with more birthdays to celebrate!

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