New Year, What's New on Netflix? #StreamTeam

Hello darkness my old friend...
I've come to talk to you again...


It's been a little while.


I'll fill in on life soon, but for now I'm going to continue on with a New Year and what's going on with Netflix! We have been having a ton of really cold and snowy days this winter which means a lot of staying inside and cozying up with a lot of Netflix.  Some of what we're watching and looking forward to watch

The little girls and I have been loving watching the newest Trolls: The Beat Goes On!
We've already watched and RE-watched!

We have been excited about one of our favorite children's books Llama Llama coming to life in a new exclusive show! It just started last Friday, so gather your kids and your favorite red pajamas and tune in!

Andrew has found an old show and has been watching Breaking Bad and BoJack Horseman ---can I just say one more time that it's weird having an 18 year old kid???  I wish he was still the age where he was watching shows like Jimmy Neutron and Phineas and Ferb.  This growing up thing is tough on a mom, you know.  Thank goodness the little girls can watch Phineas and Ferb right on Netflix too!

The teen drama doesn't end at the television, unfortunately, so for our very own teen girl drama queen, she is still making her way through Gilmore Girls.

Even my husband has spent some of this freezing cold January wrapped up in Netflix shows like Spartacus and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: Runnin' Down a Dream. 

What I love is there's something for everyone!

I'm looking forward to the second season of the Santa Clarita Diet. It was such a unique, fun, weird show! 

Also upcoming in February: 

Queer Eye is returning after 15 years with a brand new Fab Five and the crime drama starring Regina King, Seven Seconds.  There's a non-typical coming of age story with a set of dueling drama and A/V clubs set in the 1990s called Everything Sucks! and a show about 4 bright and savvy friends growing up and navigating life in South Central LA called On My Block.

Also keep your eyes open for a new take on a few classics later this year! One of my personal favorite movies as a kid was Benji ... get ready to welcome that lovable dog back in Benji coming to Netflix this March. Lost in Space was definitely a hit in my house growing up. I can't wait to see the reboot of this classic set to launch mid year!

What are you watching on Netflix???

Disclosure: As a member of the Netflix #StreamTeam I was provided subscription to Netflix and also exclusive insights or other products. All opinions are my 100% my own and I was already a proud Netflix subscriber prior to this opportunity. Please see my full disclosure.

Girl Power #StreamTeam

I grew up in a house with my mom and dad and two brothers. I was raised believing that I could do anything to which I set my mind.  There were never limitations put on me because I was a girl.  In fact, when I was in first grade I approached a boy at the playground and excitedly said, "Vance, I'm on your baseball team!"  I remember him saying, "No you're not, girls don't play baseball."  This was 1980 and girls playing baseball was not the norm. I was one of two girls who did play baseball that year.

As a mom of both girls AND a boy, I feel an immeasurable responsibility to raise these children into capable, kind, honest, loving people.  We live without gender stereotypes in our house just as I did growing up. All six of us pitch in to our household.  My husband and I believe in all hands on deck and each member contributing to our family regardless of gender.

We have one very girly girl -- who loves dresses, hairbows and all things sparkly. She equally loves the solar system, playing in the dirt, and fishing.  Our youngest has a much more rough and tumble personality and prefers to wear pants over dresses who loves riding her scooter, playing in the dirt, and singing.  Our newly teen girl loves Harry Potter books, playing her flute, doing well in school, and hanging out with her friends.  All of them different, but all of them confident and thriving.

March 8 --International Women's Day was recognized across the world. We didn't do anything specific to celebrate, but the little girls wore their new favorite PowerPuff Girls shirt and said they had girl power as I snapped their photo.

I spent International Women's Day doing my job of being a wife and a mom. Kids up and off to school, the teenager to work, making supper, the first grader to dance class, then I went to a parent meeting for band, and a PSAT review.  There's a lot of "every day" in it, but it is my most important work.

We definitely celebrate strong women in our house, in our family, and in our world.  It is my greatest hope that my girls grow up believing anything choose to do is a possibility for them!

We love being able to find strong girls in the shows we watch on Netflix too! 
Netflix has some female characters that both boys and girls can rally behind. Violet on A Series of Unfortunate Events, Eleven on Stranger Things, Tip on Home, Lorelei on Gilmore Girls just to name a few!

What strong female characters are you watching and loving?

My kids current favorites on Netflix :

Violet:

 Goldie and Bear

Lily:

Magic School Bus

Reagan:

Gilmore Girls

Andrew:

Iron Fist

We are LOVE LOVE LOVING the all new Julie's Greenroom with the amazingly talented icon Julie Andrews!  My little girls are so excited to see the ins and outs of theater and the characters are fun!  Stay tuned for some more from us about this show and in the meantime....check it out!!



Disclosure: As a member of the Netflix #StreamTeam I was provided subscription to Netflix and also exclusive insights or other products. All opinions are my 100% my own and I was already a proud Netflix subscriber prior to this opportunity. Please see my full disclosure.

I Cheated on My Husband #StreamTeam

My husband and I like to watch lots of different types of shows. He likes a lot of epic, historical or documentary-like shows where I like a lot of crime drama, teeny-bopper, or feel-good type of shows. We seek to find something to watch together often and I love when we land on a show that we both love.  The only problem?  Our schedules don't always match up to continue and man am I ever a binge watcher.  If I have time for tv, I love to watch to finish!  Netflix always has something we can agree on!

Our latest together show is Santa Clarita Diet! I had no idea what to expect with this show, but we both like Timothy Oliphant and Drew Barrymore, so instead of reading about it, we just decided to watch it.  It was REALLY funny and more than I expected, so I'm glad we did.  The only problem?? I ended up cheating on my husband....

and kept watching this show ahead of him!

What can I say? I was hooked and didn't want to stop! And I even have my own smoothie cup!

There's one other show that we watched together and both can't wait for the next season that I cheated on him with: Stranger Things.    That was ok, though---I just rewatched and pretended I hadn't seen them! :)

On those days where I have simply JUST.HAD.ENOUGH. and the kids are FINALLY in bed and I can't wait to dive into my bed with Netflix and my late night snack of ice cream, I turn off the monitor in the little girls room, lock my door, and pretend I don't hear the 87 times my 3 year old gets out of bed to go to the bathroom/needs a drink/just wants one more kiss/has slept enough/can't fall asleep/needs to find a stuffed animal or whatever else she tries to finagle.  So I guess I cheat on mom-ing sometimes too.   Most recently I did use this one to watch a few more episodes of A Series of Unfortunate Events even after Lily had gone to bed!

Sometimes on days when I'm totally over it, I grab the iPad and plug in my headphones and just watch a few episodes of my latest binge while I'm in the same room as the kids if I'm not able to escape to a bath or my bedroom. I've just started Shameless.... why didn't I watch this earlier??? Of course, my husband has been trying to get me to watch it for years.

Some days I just need a break. A break from kids. A break from people. A break from the have-tos like laundry and cooking.  Thankfully, Netflix lets me cheat a little bit and I don't feel one bit guilty!



What are your Cheat Worthy shows on Netflix?  Here's some Netflix's favorites!

From left to right: Stranger Things, Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, A Series of Unfortunate Events, One Day at a Time, Ultimate Beastmaster

Disclosure: As a member of the Netflix #StreamTeam I was provided subscription to Netflix and also exclusive insights or other products. All opinions are my 100% my own and I was already a proud Netflix subscriber prior to this opportunity. Please see my full disclosure.

The Tween and Teenage Years #StreamTeam

Nothing certainly has slowed down since 2017 started and finding some time to connect with the kids and Netflix has been a little more challenging between a working teenager, basketball pep band, cheer, jazz band rehearsals, lacrosse, homework, and even the regular evening routine.

Being a parent of older kids is way more challenging than the little ones. I've been saying for years that I'd take a thousand toddlers over teenagers.  The conversations are more challenging--subjects that aren't always easy. It's difficult sending them off in different scenarios -- in a car with other teenagers or off to overnight camps. Discussing digital responsibility and the permanence of things like that are definitely not part of what I envisioned when I became a mom. Gone are the days of being able to know my weekends are full of all my kids snuggled up watching a movie with us. Now we have to check work schedules and social calendars.  We do still make sure that we connect however, even if it is "just" watching tv together.

I definitely love a classic feel good show or movie and I've totally passed that on to Lily for sure. She is empathetic and feels deeply when watching tv, listening to music, or interacting with people.

We were all looking forward a show this month that would pique the interest of the older kids when we learned that Netflix was doing an original of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events.

The older two, no problem -- I knew they'd easily find humor in it and Neil Patrick Harris absolutely didn't disappoint.  We're only two episodes in so far and that's only due to our family schedule! I was very cautious about Lily watching because she is so empathetic and even the premise of the show with the parents could have been enough to impact her emotionally.  We watched the first episode together and talked a lot through it with many reminders that it's pretend and just a show.  She likes it and wants to watch more, but doesn't love it like the rest of us. That doesn't surprise me at all. She's teetering between wanting a little more than "baby shows" as she calls them and still being very young.

We have always been very conservative with our kids regarding tv and movies.  People we know have let their younger kids watch The Walking Dead and we're still pretty guarded about our oldest! Even though in the last couple years or so, we've started to give him more space regarding movies and shows, we still have conversations about what he's watching and why he likes it or why he wants to watch it.  Of course, he just says we're babying him.  There's plenty of time to be exposed to enough difficult stuff in the world, there's no reason to invite it into our home through the television.

You know when you blink your eyes and they go from 1 to 17...

Once again, thank goodness for Netflix! We can always find something for everyone!

Count Olaf’s Dreadful Picks. Only the most handsome, talented, brilliant man of all time could come up with a list this fantastic. Add these titles to your Netflix watch list or risk the most dreadful January yet.

“Witness the greatest act-OR of all time, obviously.” “Any show where cats are eaten must be a good thing.” “The Galra Empire is almost as dreadful as I am… almost.”

“A jungle where everyone fends for themselves or dies. Sounds like a great place for the kids to visit.” “How treacherous must the alien world be to want to leave Earth. I must visit.” “I thought those Baudelaires were pesky twerps, but they don't hold a candle to Degrassi: Next Class.”

Disclosure: As a member of the Netflix #StreamTeam I was provided subscription to Netflix and also exclusive insights or other products. All opinions are my 100% my own and I was already a proud Netflix subscriber prior to this opportunity. Please see my full disclosure.

A Year in Netflix #StreamTeam

As the year winds down, I always find myself reflecting on the year that is wrapping up.  What did we do as a family that we set out to do?  What were our favorite memories? What do we wish we had done more of?  You get the idea.

It's been 3 years since we dumped cable and Netflix is still our go-to for tv watching. Quite simply, Netflix is a part of our family.

2016 Netflix favorites:

January 2016, we spent a lot of time watching Making a Murderer and Nurse Jackie. The girls were loving The Dawn of the Croods.

February brought us some cozy socks, Fuller House and all the nostalgia with that I lovelovelove about family tv watching! We watched a lot of the movie Home and now we still watch Home: Adventures with Tip & Oh.

March was the month of Lego! Bionicle, Lego Friends, Lego SuperHeros, Lego City.  Lego is a GREAT way to connect my teen and little ones --they all love the blocks and the shows! Everything is awesome!

April was sibling choice for movies and Shark Boy and Lava Girl took the prize! We watched it...A LOT! 

May meant Mother's Day and finding some shows that dealt with real life concerns. The little girls stuck with Veggie Tales and Daniel Tiger, while the big kids leaned towards Project MC2 and Degrassi High. There really is an episode for everything! 

Summer started off with lazy mornings after a busy school year had ended! The girls watched PowerPuff Girls, CareBears, and Hotel Transylvania 2. I, on the other hand, had to find time to sneak away to watch Bloodline and Orange is the New Black and totally binged on 11 seasons of Criminal Minds! 

July we spent doing a lot of running around to rehearsals and practices and in our downtime, we watched a lot of Word Party, more Powerpuff Girls, and Back to the Future! We took Netflix with us on the road on vacation as well!

August we found ourselves jamming to a brand new show on Netflix --BeatBugs!  It's December and we're still watching this show! It's been a family favorite for sure!

September kids were back to school and Disney came to Netflix! Zootopia was the top watched movie in our house!  Holes and Frozen Fever and Tarzan were a few more top watched!

October meant a lot of thinking about Halloween costumes! Ideas from Netflix like Beatbugs, Pokemon, and still Hotel Translyvania 2. Masha's Spooky Stories also became a Netflix fave!

In October, I was also invited back to the #StreamTeam for another year! This was such a blessing and I'm so very grateful and honored to continue! 

November, hands down, was filled with anticipation for Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life! Black Friday couldn't get here fast enough! I spent the day curled up on the couch, binging on all 4 seasons with many laughs and lots of tears.  So bittersweet! And I'm *hoping* we just may see something more! Reagan and I started watching the series together also. She was a rookie!  It also brought a new season of our favorite Beat Bugs--we can't get enough of this show!

December we watched things like the Fireplace with Holiday Songs, Fuller House Season 2  added Troll Hunters to our playlist. We love Netflix originals and are excited to see Troll Hunters and what other new shows Netflix has planned this year!  Like I said, Netflix is part of our family --Movie nights, kids shows, date nights, mom date nights, and all by myself nights! 

Thanks for a great year, Netflix!

New on Netflix.

Trollhunters: Season 1 - 12/23   Fuller House: Season 2 - Now on Netflix   Lost & Found Music Studios: Season 2 - Now on Netflix

Luna Petunia: Season 1 - Now on Netflix   Chasing Cameron: Season 1 - 12/27   Yo-Kai Watch Movie - Now on Netflix

Disclosure: As a member of the Netflix #StreamTeam I was provided subscription to Netflix and also exclusive insights or other products. All opinions are my 100% my own and I was already a proud Netflix subscriber prior to this opportunity. Please see my full disclosure.