Wife Swap Is Seeking Smart Homes

August 30, 2008 12:00:44 by Paulene Hinds

ABC’s hit show Wife Swap, wants to add a few tech-smart families into their reality fray.

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An Upper-Class Wife Swaps Lives With A Carnival Wife On Wife Swap

August 20, 2008 03:00:22 by Paulene Hinds

This week on Wife Swap, a very organized wife who is raising her kids to be the best and brightest swaps lives with a laid back mom whose kids run wild in the traveling carnival she owns and operates with her husband.

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Wife Swap: Wrestling Family Swaps With Artistic Cafe Owner Family

August 13, 2008 03:00:18 by Paulene Hinds

Tonight on Wife Swap, a wrestling/sports crazy wife who does all of the dirty work for her family swaps lives with a wife who owns a busy coffe house where the kids do the dishes.

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More Wives Are Swapping Lives Tonight

July 2, 2008 03:00:38 by Christine_Navratil

On Wife Swap tonight, things are about to get a little crazy in the Galvan and Martin-Portala households when mom leaves the nest and moves in with the other family for two weeks of learning and teaching.  Will the experiment prove to help these moms or will they still believe that no other way but their way is correct?

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Wife Swap: Tanya Ives Swaps with Pam Coste…

May 14, 2008 07:44:26 by Jennifer_Brown

Get your motors runnin’, Wife Swap fans! It’s Motorcycle Mama vs. The Artiste on tonight’s episode.

Tanya Ives is a motorcycle mama, a prop in her sons’ stunt show. Raising a family whose motto is “face your fears,” Tanya is all about devoting herself to her kids, even to the tune of standing in the middle of a giant steel globe while her boys circle her head on their motorcycles. Tanya’s devotion means The Ives family spends 11 months out of the year living in hotels.

Tanya is about to swap with Pam Coste, a painter completely devoted to her art. In fact, the three Coste children all share a single bedroom to give Pam room for an in-house art studio. But the Costes are all about conservation, and follow a “living simply” plan. This means they conserve energy, have only one (hybrid) vehicle, and follow a vegetarian diet. Pam’s husband David is a music director and is all about teaching and learning when it comes to his kids.

The wives swap and right off Pam has to attend one of the Ives’ stunt shows. “If I were Tanya,” she says, “…I would be bored to tears, and scared.” She also doesn’t care for the Ives’ diet, and balks when she has to serve takeout meat and potatoes out of Styrofoam containers. In the morning, she’s upset that she’s not allowed to journal and feels like she needs to get her thoughts out of her head. Later, after Pam gets her environmentalist hackles up over the fumes in the stunt show, she confronts Shawn about his kids not being exposed to enough educational opportunities. The confrontation gets ugly. “What’re your kids learning?” she demands. “No to be around people like you,” Shawn retorts. The confrontation is more than Shawn and the Ives kids can handle. They ask Pam to stay in a hotel and not bring her negativity into their happy home.

At the Coste house, Tanya complains that Pam’s artistic lifestyle is, “definitely not me.” She’s especially frustrated when she has to spend time in the morning journaling, leaving the kids to fend for themselves. She finds out that Pam’s kids spend their free time “crystal rock smashing.” That is, beating rocks with golf clubs to find “crystals” inside. Tanya finds the pastime boring and sad. She confronts David about his kids’ recreational activities, but he’s flip about it and sees nothing wrong with it, leaving Tanya more frustrated than ever. Later, Tanya cries as daughter Mina complains that she’d like her own bedroom, but she must make the sacrifice for Pam’s art.

After a week, it’s Rule Change time. “It’s time for the family to stop living for Pam’s dream,” Tanya tells the Coste family. “You’re all a bunch of artistically-stunted wasteful thrill-seekers,” Pam gripes at the Iveses.

Pam’s rule changes include making the Ives family lock up the keys to all of their vehicles. Also, they must eat according to her vegetarian tastes. When she makes a vegetarian breakfast, however, Shawn proclaims that he won’t eat it unless the dog will eat it. The dog turns up his nose at the food, so Shawn hops on a horse and heads to the nearest fast food restaurant for a burger. Pam tries to confront him on what he’s done, but Shawn makes no bones about his unwillingness to change. Later, Pam has the Ives family journal their thoughts. But when she asks Shawn to read his to her (it’s filled with hateful stuff about her), he refuses and tosses the journal into the pond. But when Pam hits a brick wall with the kids over signing a contract that will scale down their stunt show habits, she tries instead to sing her proposition to them–an act so absurd it cracks everyone up. The Ives boys thaw a bit toward Pam and soon she has them painting pictures for their mother. “This is a sign of hope for this family,” she says.

Tanya’s rule changes include giving Mina her own room. But David’s not on board with this rule and squashes it, much to Tanya’s dismay. Tanya also instructs that Pam’s artwork will be sold at auction, the money raised to go toward something enjoyable for the kids. But Mina cries when choosing her mother’s artwork to be sold without her mother’s knowledge or permission. Tanya relents and agrees not to actually sell the work, but to hold an auction to see what the work would bring in monetarily if it did sell. Everyone’s happy until an art critic shows up at the auction with less than favorable things to say about Pam’s art. David takes the criticism personally and blames Tanya for displaying art that was not ready to be sold. Later, when Tanya takes the kids BMX bike racing for fun, David’s still hot under the collar and makes a pain of himself. But Tanya presses forward, taking the kids to all sorts of adrenaline-rush activities, including ATV-riding, and eventually David sees the fun in it all, too. “I’m thankful for Tanya’s perception,” he says. He turns the media room into a bedroom for Mina.

The two weeks are up and it’s time for the couples to reunite. Tanya is quick to tell Pam, “You have three wonderful, beautiful children.” But when Pam tells Tanya that her boys didn’t seem happy and calls her a “prop” in the boys’ show, with no ID of her own, Shawn gets hot under the collar and has to leave to cool off. Tanya follows him out and tries to get him to rejoin her at the table, but he won’t do it. Tanya comes back in by herself to finish out the task at hand.

Since the Swap, Shawn is more appreciative of all that Tanya does for the family and the boys now have more of a say in what shows they will perform in. The Costes are having once-a-month “family fun days” and are enjoying the pleasure Mina gets from having her own bedroom.

Reality TV Magazine is your source of Wife Swap news. For other great reality TV news, please feel free to visit SirLinksALot: Wife Swap.

Photo Courtesy: ABC

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Wife Swap: Terri Tassie Swaps with Michelle Tyson…

May 7, 2008 07:26:23 by Jennifer_Brown

It’s another week of Neat Freak Mom vs. Anarchist Mom on tonight’s Wife Swap.

Terri Tassie and her husband Tom believe in everyone operating on schedule and everything being in its place. Terri is a romance enhancement saleswoman and Tom owns a car dealership and together they believe that hard work and a rigorous schedule will make for happy kids and healthy adults.

Michelle Tyson, on the other hand, doesn’t do discipline. Her husband Todd is a bail bondsman and works until all hours of the night chasing down bad guys who break the rules. An odd choice of career for Todd, given that he doesn’t enforce any rules in his household. There are no chores for the kids, dinners are fast food, food-fighting monstrosities, and the kids openly curse with no reprimand from Mom and Dad.

The wives swap lives and right away there is drama when Michelle has to dump the children’s clothes on the floor because their dresser drawers aren’t neat enough. Michelle doesn’t like this punishment for the boys, nor does she care for Tom, with his “disturbingly flashy” clothes and his wild hand gestures. Her solution? Dump Tom’s clothes on the floor so he can see how it feels. “I’m done! You’re a dictator!” she says, and storms out of the room. Her plan doesn’t work—Tom just makes the boys clean it up anyway.

At the Tyson house, Terri struggles with the profane language of the girls, who are very in-your-face about their right to drop f-bombs whenever they feel like it. When Terri catches 10-year old Autumn in a lie about leaving her backpack at home and confronts Autumn about it, the girl calls Terri a b*tch. When Terri appeals for Todd’s help in the matter, he says he has no problem with Autumn using “the B word” on Terri and Terri is further disturbed, worried that some day Todd will be arresting his own children.

After week one, it’s time for the new wives to change the house rules. “All work and no play make you a dull family!” Michelle says to the Tassies. “Todd, you’re asleep at the wheel when it comes to being a parent,” Terri accuses.

At first the ultra-respectful Tassie kids get rankled by Michelle’s new rules and refuse to participate. “Right now these kids are really making me miss my kids,” Michelle sobs in her bedroom. Eventually, however, the kids relent and follow Michelle’s first rule: to mess up the house and have fun. They write loving messages on the bathroom mirror in shaving cream for Tom, and then adorn the living room with streamers and balloons. The kids have fun, but Tom isn’t feeling the love. “If they wrote, ‘I love you’ in somebody’s blood that they just murdered, it doesn’t make the murder okay,” he says. Later, the Tassie family gathers together to try to get Tom to follow Michelle’s rules. But, once again, he refuses and Michelle storms out, crying, and stays in a motel room. The Tassie kids miss her terribly and she decides to come back for them the next day. Once back, she makes Tom listen to a lecture about how controlling your kids is bad (it’s just a video of Michelle telling Tom that controlling your kids is bad), and he decides not to make waves. Going along with the flow, Tom decides to relax and join the family in building a tent out of sheets in the living room and then eating a fast food dinner inside it.

At the Tyson house, Terri has set a timer on the family: Have the whole house cleaned up in 77 minutes. Anything left on the floor after 77 minutes must be thrown away. Autumn doesn’t care for that rule and says to Terri, “Bite me!” When Terri takes down Mia’s rude posters, Mia too gets huffy and drops a curse word. Terri’s rule about that: if you cuss, you must clean the potty with a toothbrush. But Mia won’t do that, either, so Terri responds by tossing every stitch of clothing out of Mia’s closet and onto the floor. Mia doesn’t plan on cleaning up that, either. Terri appeals to Todd once again for help and once again he won’t do it. “I’ve lived your boring lifestyle and it sucks and you suck,” he says. Defeated by the strong-headed girls, Terri decides to try to reach Autumn through calm, rational cleaning, and tries the same approach with Todd, who gets so touched by Terri’s thoughtfulness in setting up a shopping date at the pet shop with him and his son Michael, he has to leave the room in tears. Finally working together, Todd gathers the family together and gets them all to clean the house and makeover a salon in the basement for Michelle before she gets home.

After two weeks, the families reunite. Michelle tells Terri, “I don’t feel like your kids feel free to express anything.” “I never heard the f-word more in my entire life,” Terri counters. But Michelle can’t really get in a word edge-wise over Tom, who wants to argue every point that comes out of her mouth. Finally, Michelle admits that she could be a little firmer with the kids and could use more “me-time.”

Since the Swap, nothing has changed in the Tassie house. But in the Tyson house, Todd has been working less and hanging out with son Michael more. Michelle feels much more appreciated.

Reality TV Magazine is your source of Wife Swap news. For other great reality TV news, please feel free to visit: SirLinksALot: Wife Swap.

Photo Courtesy: ABC

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Wife Swap: Stephanie Sundstrom Swaps with Joy Tower…

April 30, 2008 08:54:34 by Jennifer_Brown

Reality fans, start your engines! Tonight’s Wife Swap swaps drag-racin’ mama, Stephanie Sundstrom with supercleaner Joy Tower.

Stephanie Sundstrom is all about hitting the road. For Stephanie, her husband Chuck, and their four children, drag racing is the #1 priority. There’s no time to worry about housekeeping when there’s a car to be raced, and the Sundstrom house shows it. The family keeps their clean clothes on a pool table rather than in their closets and drawers, and it’s been a while since the place was really given a good scrubbing. But Stephanie doesn’t care. Nor does she care about the neighbors who continually call the police to complain about her race car’s noisy engine, or care about disciplining her kids. Going into “parenting mode,” claims Stephanie, makes her “feel old.”

Joy Tower is an upper-middle class mom, schooled in cocktail parties and heavy-duty cleaning. She and her husband Paul expect cleanliness and respect out of their children, and make dining a five-star experience right there at home every night. Joy gets a ton of—ahem!—joy out of cleaning (insert rim shot here), to the point where she cleans her granite countertops to a shine a couple times a day.

Joy and Stephanie swap places and it’s not long before the tears are flowing. Joy is instructed by the family to empty her suitcase onto the pool table, along with all the other clothes. “This is mental!” she cries when, frustrated, she can’t find her clean and pressed clothing. Joy also fails to find the fun in the loud exhaust of Stephanie’s racing car and calls the noise “inconsiderate” to the neighbors. She’s also less than impressed with the children’s lack of table manners at dinner and breaks down into tears again when the rowdy boys won’t listen to her while wrestling in the living room. “Stephanie and Chuck should be ashamed of themselves,” she cries. While Joy is able to enjoy a bit of drag racing with Chuck, another showdown between Joy and the man of the house regarding cleanliness leads to Joy calling the Sundstrom house a “crap hole,” and charging that the family is “totally, exactly a white trash family.”

Meanwhile, at the Tower house, Stephanie is cleaning, cleaning, cleaning, trying to keep up with the rigors of Joy’s high housekeeping expectations. While Stephanie is surprised, during the hosting of a cocktail party, to find that Joy’s friends are not snooty and judgmental as she’d thought they would be, she is saddened when the kids complain that Joy needn’t prepare such fancy dinners for them all the time. Stephanie makes an effort to stick up for Joy, but the kids are insistent that Joy puts too much effort into pleasing them. Stephanie turns to Paul and he, too, agrees that Joy does too much cleaning. Stephanie’s ticked that nobody in the family will stick up for Joy.

After a week of living like the other mom, each mom changes the rules on her new family. “Drag racing has dragged you down!” Joy tells the Sundstroms. Joy’s life is �