The Longest Ride Comes to Blu-ray and DVD on July 14 ⋆ My Sparkling Life

The holidays will be here before we know it, there’s no use in fighting, there’s no way to slow it! While you’re making those lists and checking them twice, don’t forget to add the Chrismas classics – SANTA CLAUS IS COMIN’ TO TOWN! 45TH ANNIVERSARY COLLECTOR’S EDITION, FROSTY THE SNOWMAN 45TH ANNIVERSARY COLLECTOR’S EDITION and THE ORIGINAL CHRISTMAS CLASSICS ANNIVERSARY COLLECTOR’S EDITION GIFT SET on Blu–ray and DVD to be precise!
These beloved Christmas classics have warmed the hearts and hearths of families for 45 years. Whether you are celebrating lasting family traditions or making new memories, no holiday is complete without gathering your family around the living room for the most popular holiday specials in television history!
Santa Claus is Comin’ To Town! 45th Anniversary Collector’s Edition
Create joyful memories with this delightful tale of the original Santa Claus–Kris Kringle. Discover the true meaning of Christmas with this classic story that the whole family will enjoy.
ALL-NEW Bonus Features:
Be an Artist and Create – Learn to draw Santa and Topper the Penguin from DreamWorks Animation’s Director of Character Animation Joe Vance. Plus, craft activities for the whole family.
Kringle Jingle – It’s a holiday tradition to sing carols with friends and loved ones. With this musical feature, some adorable young children lead the singing of the classic holiday song, “Santa Claus is Comin’ To Town.” A delightful way to get into the holiday spirit.
Santa Special Delivery – In honor of the 45th anniversary, enjoy a peek inside Santa’s mailbag to learn 45 fun and interesting facts about the Rankin/Bass holiday special and the Christmas holiday.
Frosty The Snowman 45th Anniversary Collector’s Edition
Celebrate the season with Frosty the Snowman, and share this beloved, original classic story of how the world’s most famous snowman came to life one day. This anniversary edition has new special features that will make Frosty the Snowman a hit for the whole family. Sing, laugh and create wonderful holiday memories for years to come.
ALL-NEW Bonus Features:
Be an Artistand Create– DreamWorks Animation’s Director of Character Animation Joe Vance teaches viewers how to draw Frosty and Santa from this holiday classic. Later, his wife, Joanie Vance, a Kindergarten teacher, joins in and provides instructions for some fun and festive art projects to create using the newly made character drawings. This is a great way for the whole family to spend time together around the holidays.
Magical Melody – Sing along to the thumpety, thump, thump sounds of the popular tune, Frosty the Snowman
Frosty Snowflake Surprises – In honor of the 45th Anniversary of the Rankin/Bass holiday special, enter a magical winter wonderland to learn 45 fun and interesting facts about everyone’s favorite snowman and this wonderful time of year. There are also some surprises along the way from an adorable bunch of helpful kids.
Also includes the 23-minute holiday special Frosty Returns!
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer 50th Anniversary Collector’s Edition
Celebrate 50 years of “The Most Famous Reindeer of All” with this Original Christmas Classic® told and sung by Burl Ives! Relive the magic when Rudolph visits the Island of Misfit Toys and Santa asks Rudolph to guide his sleigh on Christmas Eve.
Classic Bonus Features:
Rudolph Unwrapped – Learn 50 Fun facts about the creation of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
Sam the Snowman’s Sing-Alongs – Sing along with two of the most beloved songs from the TV Special: Holly Jolly Sing Along and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Sing Along.
Pop Up Book – Watch the pages come to life as Sam the Snowman tell you the story of Rudolph.
Learn to Draw – Sketch classic characters Rudolph, Hermey and Bumble.
The Original Christmas Classics Anniversary Collector’s Edition Gift Set
Share the wonder and the joy of these seven timeless stories with your children and grandchildren…creating new memories and holiday traditions that you will cherish through the years.
The Chrismas Classics Gift Set Includes:
Santa Claus is Comin’ To Town!® 45th Anniversary Collector’s Edition
Frosty The Snowman 45th Anniversary Collector’s Edition
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer 50th Anniversary Collector’s Edition
Plus Frosty Returns, Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol, Little Drummer Boy, and Cricket on the Hearth!
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A special Thank You to Daddy & Co. for providing a product to facilitate my review! When it comes to having a baby, everyone gets so excited to get gift for mommy and baby…but what about daddy? Daddy gets forgotten half the time, but one company has gone out of their way to make dad feel like a part of the big day too! Daddy & Company® is the offspring of Robert Nickell, who fathered his first four children more than 20 years ago. Daddy & Company® was conceived when Robert, who remarried in 2007, discovered he was about to be a father all over again in 2009! Not wanting to endure the pains of wearing uncomfortable street clothes while comforting his laboring wife, Robert hatched the idea of creating doctor-like scrubs for himself. It seemed a natural thing for him to do — since Robert is a pharmacist by profession. To eliminate the confusion between “who’s the doctor” and “who’s the daddy,” Robert fashioned the concept of “I’m The Daddy®” medical scrubs. We were sent the Daddy Swag Gift Set and hubby was so excited and even more so with everything that I pulled out of the box that it comes in! The box set includes an assortment of great gifts just for Daddy… • DaddyScrubs – Edgy, Navy • I’m the Daddy Tee – White Edgy • I’m the Daddy Hat – Navy • I’m the Daddy coffee mug This set retails for $89.95 and is well worth it! I’m so glad that there is finally a company taking dad into consideration! Daddy & Co. has a variety of gifts…including other gift sets, a variety of apparel, home & office and more! I highly recommend surprising the new daddy in your life with a little gift of his own, especially the scrubs! So cute that he can be in the delivery room in his “I’m The Daddy” scrubs! The scrubs come in three colors..Navy, Green and Khaki. They are made of 65% polyester, 35% cotton and fit a little snug ( I got hubby a 2x his normal size and it was a little snug around the chest area ). The tee shirt is made of 100% cotton and fit true to size. The hat and tee have been worn multiple times and makes him proud every time he puts it on. He uses his “I’m the Daddy” mug with his coffee every morning and uses his pens at work. This has been such a great gift set that last long past the hospital stay!
Disclosure: This post may include affiliate links with fund the Mom of 4 Boys blog. I have received a product(s) for review purposes only, however I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. Daddy & Co. has not influenced the editorial nature of this post, and No other compensation was received. Please see our disclosure policy for more information.

Storytelling has been around more ages. Stories create feelings and emotions that connect with people in different ways. Whether the story is in a book, or on the screen it’s always interesting to learn about the process from the storytellers themselves. I had just that opportunity the other day when I was able to sit down with 4 amazing story tellers about their shorts in the new Disney Shorts Blu-ray/DVD coming out August 18.
We started our morning with a delicious breakfast out on the terris of Disneyland’s Grand Californian Hotel, then headed into the conference room for a Q&A session with Mike Gabriel who directed Lorenzo, Peter Del Vecho who produced Frozen Fever, Mark Henn who directed John Henry & Dorothy McKim who produced Get a Horse!, The Ballad of Nessie, Tick Tock Tale, Prep & Landing and Operation Secret Santa.
For more than nine decades, the name Walt Disney has been preeminent in the field of family entertainment. From humble beginnings as a cartoon studio in the 1920s to today’s global corporation, The Walt Disney Company continues to proudly provide quality entertainment for every member of the family, across America and around the world.
Walt Disney Animation Studios is releasing TODAY (8/18) on Blu-ray and Digital HD an extraordinary new collection of award-winning and beloved short films including the never-before-released Frozen Fever, starring Frozen’s Anna, Elsa, Olaf, Sven and Kristoff, and the Oscar-nominated Lorenzo. The Short Films Collection also includes the 2012 groundbreaking Mickey Mouse cartoon, Get A Horse! as well as hailed Oscar® winners Paperman and Feast. Enjoy them together for the first time in this must-own collection, featuring all-new extras including introductions and interviews with the Disney Animation filmmakers themselves.
It’s such an honor to sit with these amazing film makers to ask questions, and get some insights as to what drives & inspires them to create these films. They were all excited to be there and to share a few things about Disney Shorts that you may not have known.
1) Not all shorts have Easter Eggs … As you probably know Disney artists love to add in Easter Eggs. As Disney fans, we love finding Easter Eggs within the Disney films, and short films because they are often referenced to other films and pop culture. During the panel, we learned that each of the members of the panel has all appeared in full-length animated films as background characters. You can find Peter Del Vecho in The Princess and the Frog, Mark Henn in Finding Nemo, Dorothy McKim in Beauty and the Beast and Mike Gabriel in Oliver and Company.
When we asked about Easter Eggs hidden within the short films in the collection, we were told about a few you may have noticed, such as the appearance of Baymax as a reflection on one of the Snowgies in Frozen Fever & Oswald appearing in Get a Horse. But Mike Gabriel says that he does not like Easter Eggs and feel they take away from the film. He said that when he directed Pocahontas, in the background of one of the scenes some of the Indians had cell phones…but he had them take them out. So, needless to say, you will not find an Easter Egg in Lorenzo.
We were all dying when Peter Del Vecho told us that there is an Easter Egg hidden in Frozen that has yet to be found by anyone…and no he wouldn’t tell…I don’t know about you, but I think I might just watch it a few more times with a magnifying glass.
2) There Has Only Been 1 Featured Movie To Be Made From A Short. Mark Gabriel explained that many times shorts are “created from a technical side to test out a new process for a feature.” Dorothy McKim mentioned that with shorts, many times it’s also a great opportunity to “test out talent.” The shorts are not really ever done by a “big” director who’s already done a feature; but many times it’s someone who might be in animation who pitched an idea and waits to see if John Lasseter gives the thumbs up to move forward. I’m sure by now you’re dying to know what short was the only one to move on to a feature…”The Sorcerers Apprentice” went on to be made into Fantasia.
3) More Research Than You Think Goes Into Making A Short. Mike shared how he had a Tango short and the production team had to learn how to TANGO! The team wanted to find out how the real Tango looked and was done, so for the film they brought dancers in so they could study to movements and style. He said, “That was one of those fun Disney moments when you’re watching Tango dancers in your story room!”
Dorothy talked about her work on Get a Horse! and how the team wanted everything to be authentic to the original short. They headed over to Walt Disney Imagineering, which has the library that Jimmy McDonald created for all the sound effects back when Walt was alive. The library curator demonstrated how to use the props and they used those actual ones in the short.
Peter said that for Frozen Fever they built on the research that was already done for Frozen. “We went up to the Ice Hotel in Canada and spent a day doing interviews all day long. The way that research trip influenced the short was that we set the short in springtime.”
Mark and his team did a research trip to Talcott, WV, the location of the Big Bend Tunnel that John Henry supposedly had dug. The team spent a couple of days there at the John Henry Festival. Along with that trip, they also went to Washington D.C., to the National Gallery, where they had access to artwork, that most people don’t have access to, related to John Henry.
4) Animators Are Humble and Often Touched By How Much There Films Connect With Fans. Dorothy’s discussed a story about Meet the Robinsons – a story about adoption. Steve Anderson, the director of Meet the Robinsons, was adopted. When he was adopted, his adoptive parents gave him a letter and told him when he was 18 he could open it and read it, which entailed details about his birth mother (Dorothy stated he was about 6 years old at the time he got the letter). Dorothy said that for years Steve wanted to open the letter, and yet, all of a sudden, Steve was 24 and had completely forgotten about it. He never opened it. “When we made that movie, so many people that were adopted connected with that movie. To have people come to us and say that really changed my life and connected with me… that’s my ultimate thing. To reach out and help people… ” The whole room was teary eyed at this point, then you have Mark share his story….
“We make these films first for ourselves and what we believe is going to be really fun and entertaining and put them out there and hope that the audience is going to embrace it as much as we have. I had a case yesterday…coming to an event like this, people are so amazingly kind about how things have affected their lives. I had a young man come up to me yesterday and tell me that “Aladdin saved my life.” I got chills talking to the guy.” – Mark.
Then Peter chimed in with his story: “Just coming to D23 and seeing the people who took the time to actually make their own costumes! Even the new Anna dress… the fact that people create that and all the YouTube videos, all of that. But certainly for the movie, a lot of them centered around the song ‘Let It Go.’ The one that sticks out to me the most was a guy who had fought in the Gulf War and had lost both his legs. He said that the song Let It Go made him realize that he needed to accept who he was. Stories like that are extremely powerful.” I don’t think there was a dry eye in the room at this point.
As artists they hope to make that connection, but are still blown away and feel completely blessed when they do.
5) Shorts Are Artist Driven. A good idea can come from anywhere, and one of the things that make Disney short films unique is that anyone at the Walt Disney Animation Studios can pitch an idea for a short film. They are not top people in the company telling the artist what is going to be done next, rather short films can come from any one, like the artist themselves.
Walt Disney Animation Studios Short Films Collection includes:
Frozen Fever (2015)
Feast (2014)
Get A Horse! (2013)
Paperman (2012)
Tangled Ever After (2012)
The Ballad of Nessie (2011)
Tick Tock Tale (2010)
Prep & Landing: Operation Secret Santa (2010)
How to Hook Up Your Home Theater (2007)
The Little Matchgirl (2006)
Lorenzo (2004)
John Henry (2000)
We loved all these films, although there were a few that seemed to connect with us more than the others. Feast is my favorite, The little Matchgirl and Tick Tock Tale really touches my soul. While Paperman & How To Hook Up Your Home Theater had us laughing. We definitely adore this collection and love that each is a different tecnique in animation and each beautifully and artfully done.
Walt Disney Animation Studios Short Films Collection is available August 18 on Blu-Ray and DVD.
You might also like to learn about:
Animation Film Slate | Live Action Film Slate | Playmation | Parks & Resorts News
This event was part of a paid press trip to Anaheim for the #D23Expo, all experiences and opinions are 100% my own.

Digital currency is certainly changing financial norms and the way it all operates in general. Cryptocurrency is just one example of how it all seems to be changing, and what we consider as being the traditional format of currency is widening its net to the online world. There are many online sites that involve gaming and allow the ability to make real money from the virtual money you make in the game itself. For example, anyone who was a fan of Runescape and played it in the past could make money from it. You can now sell your runescape gold because it’s very much something that’s wanted by those who still play it. Just like those games you have on your phone, you pay for any upgrades that you want as part of it.
Set Up An Online Shop
An online shop can be something for those who have things to sell and want to take a crack at making a successful business. A lot of websites like Etsy and eBay as examples allow their users to create shops on their accounts and can, therefore, sell a variety of things. There’s really no limit to what you can sell. So if you want to sell clothing, you’ve made yourself or bath bombs and other smellies now’s the perfect opportunity to give it a go. It costs nothing to set the virtual shop up, and many businesses start from the home anyway.
Offer Your Talents Or Skills
We all have talents and skills that vary, and to say you don’t have anything significant to offer means you’ve just not explored that thing that you’re good at yet. You can now sell your services and talents online, whether that’s being a dab hand at putting up shelving or being an expert in fixing technology. There’s always going to be someone who needs something that they themselves can’t do, and if you can make money from it, why not give it a go?
Become Self-Published
Are you creative with your writing? Ever thought or dreamed of publishing your own book? Well, that might have been a pipe dream before Amazon, and the internet, in general, came along. Now though, there’s a high chance of you being able to become self-published with platforms like Amazon having the ability to sell your own book. It doesn’t guarantee you success at selling, but it gives you the opportunity to make your book successful and to become a publisher in your own right.
If you’re wanting to make a bit of money from being online, then why not give it a go? You could turn it into a successful venture.

So who is Evil Bratt?
Balthazar Bratt is a former child actor and TV star. He became an international sensation during the 1980’s, starring as the title character in the hit TV show Evil Bratt (1985-1987). Despite high ratings, the show was famously pulled off the air before the end of it’s third season when Bratt hit puberty and literally outgrew the role.
Bratt was last seen in 1989 outside a newsstand in Hollywood, California when a tourist caught him on tape ripping up tabloid magazines with his face on the cover. According to the footage, Bratt was wearing a version of the costume his character wore on Evil Bratt, his hair still styled in the iconic Evil Bratt mullet.
Amazingly, Bratt never resurfaced publicly after that incident and all accounts of his whereabouts seem to have been erased or destroyed.

One thing I love, but never really get are photos of my children…especially with myself included…It’s so difficult to get all 4 of them to sit together and all look at the camera at the same time, but this year I was approached my Canvas People to check out their new Canvas Creations so I decided it was time to take that much-needed photo with my boys. I set up the shot, set up the camera and had my SIL take the photos..I say photos because, that’s right, just to get that ONE photo, we have to take several (15 to be exact)! But it was so worth that one shot for my Mother’s Day Canvas Creation!
Whether it’s for Mother’s Day, Father’s Day or other life events, you should check out Canvas Creations at CanvasPeople.com. The hardest part was getting the perfect photo to use! Canvas People makes it so easy to select the canvas that I liked and upload the perfect photo. It only took a week for my canvas to come in and I LOVE it! Adding the extra “creations” part makes it so much more unique and fun!
The canvas itself is well put together and the imagery is top notch. It’s the perfect addition to our photo wall!
Close up of canvas print
Normally priced at $99 for a 16×20 canvas print (plus $19.95 shipping), Canvas People has given me a coupon link that gets you your own Canvas Creation at 80% off! That drops the price to $19.99 + shipping for a total of only $39.95! This Coupon is Valid through May 31, 2016. With over 50 templates to choose from, you’re sure to find the perfect gift for any occasion!
ORDER YOUR CANVAS CREATION TODAY!
(Order by April 30 to guarantee Mother’s Day delivery!)
One (1) lucky My Sparkling Life reader is going to win a 16×20 Canvas Creations. This giveaway is open to residents of the US who are 18+ until 12:00 PM EST May 11, 2016.
THE FINE PRINT: ENTERING THIS GIVEAWAY MEANS THAT YOU ACCEPT BOTH MY RULES & DISCLOSURE. I WILL NOTIFY WINNER VIA E-MAIL AND THEY WILL HAVE 48 HOURS TO REPLY BEFORE I AM FORCED TO REDRAW WINNERS. NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED. EACH HOUSEHOLD IS ONLY ELIGIBLE TO WIN THIS PRIZE VIA BLOG REVIEWS AND GIVEAWAYS ONCE. ONLY ONE ENTRANT PER MAILING ADDRESS PER GIVEAWAY. IF YOU HAVE WON THE SAME PRIZE ON ANOTHER BLOG, YOU WILL NOT BE ELIGIBLE TO WIN IT AGAIN. WINNER IS SUBJECT TO ELIGIBILITY VERIFICATION. MANY WILL ENTER, FEW WILL WIN! PLEASE ALLOW 8-12 WEEKS FOR DELIVERY OF PRIZING. MY SPARKLING LIFE IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY LOST OR MISDIRECTED PACKAGES. PRIZING PROVIDED AND SHIPPED BY Canvas People. IN THE RARE OCCASION THAT A PRIZE DOES NOT ARRIVE (WHICH HAS HAPPENED), PLEASE NOTIFY ME.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received one or more of the products or services mentioned above for free in the hope that I would mention it on my blog. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”