Okay, now that you are done screaming with me, let me tell you all about it.  Due to some Christmas money, gift certificates, and money we didn’t spend on Christmas, we were able to pull this off.  Disney is offering a buy 4 night get 3 free deal.  This also includes your park tickets.  Also, if you go before March 29th, you get a $200 gift card to Disney when you get there.  I was able to find airfare from Southwest for $78 each way for each of us.  To save a little money, we are making Will a lap baby (wish me luck on that one).

I was to Disney when I was 15, but haven’t been back since.  This will be the first trip for Bill, Madison, and Will.  Madison is pretty excited.  Since I have a few weeks before we get to go, I’ll be talking a lot of Disney. 

However, Bill has already told me I am not allowed to pay for internet access while I am there, so you all will at least get a  little break from the Disney madness.

Tell me about your trips to Disney.  Anything we definitely need to do?  Any advice you want to give me?

I’d also like to thank all the people who entered the contest.  I love doing giveaways, and I was glad to see so many people who entered.  Keep reading, because I plan on having quite a few new, great giveaways coming up for this year!

Since having kids, I turned into a big softie.   Yes, I’ll actually admit it.  I cry at things I never would have before, and I think about things that never would have crossed my mind before having kids.  I’ll be honest here — I get all teary eyed at Sears new commercials.  Their new campaign is about how one gift can change someone’s life.  Since I absolutely love Ty Pennington, I thought I’d show you what he had to say:

Okay, now that I’ve got myself composed again, I need to tell you what wishes Sears answered for my family. I was provided a $100 gift card from Sears that we were able to use this weekend.

Bill and I bundled the kids off early yesterday morning and headed off to Sears.  I luck out since Sears is actually walking distance from my house, and we actually shop their quite a bit — off the top of my head, we got a bench, our snowblower, and our lawnmower from there.  However, on this trip, we had no idea what we were going to get.  My Christmas shopping is pretty much done, so we were going to try to find something for the kids.

The first place we checked out was the outdoor decorations. Madison is always wanting more for our yard, and this isn’t something we spend a lot of money on.  Shortly after this picture was taken, Will decided to lay on the floor and talk to one of the deer that they had for a decoration.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t get the camera out fast enough to get that embarrassing photo of him.  Nothing really caught our eye in this department, so we headed over to toys.  Of course, there were a lot of toys to pick from, but really, my kids don’t need another $100 worth of toys right before Christmas.  Since the favorite part of any store for my husband is electronics, we headed to that department.

Once we were in electronics, my husband immediately walked towards the TVs even though we really don’t need one. Plus, $100 doesn’t really buy a TV (or at least not the ones he was looking at). Madison was being her normal hyper self running around looking at things until she saw the guitar hero bundle.  Yes, that is my whole family playing Guitar Hero in Sears.  Madison asked us if we could buy her the drums.

Now, the school district I live in has cut the art and music programs from the curriculum and will not be adding them back.  I have written many posts on this blog about how awful I think this situation is and how I feel that music definitely is a class that should not be cut.  My daughter loves to play instruments and sing.  I can’t imagine depriving her of it.  With the $100 Sears gift card, we will be able to fulfill her wish and give her the additional music support she will not be getting from our school.  Who knows — Madison may end up to be  talented singer, dancer, in a band, etc.  However, I’d love to give her the stepping stones she needs to reach her full potential.  (Plus, well, Guitar Hero is fun for mom and dad too.  Dad was all over getting it when I told him there was 3 Tool songs and Freak On A Leash by Korn.  I also need to add that the gift card paid for a portion of the cost of this bundle.  I paid the rest.)

Since we got such an awesome family gift from Sears, I’d like to extend this awesome opportunity to one of my readers.  Yes, I’d like to give you a $100 gift card to Sears to use however you like.

You can enter via blog comment, tweet or blog post:

Blog Comment:

I just need you to tell me what you think you’d want to spend your $100 on.  Head on over to Sears and let me know the item number of what you like.

Twitter:

I’ve made it super easy for you to Twitter about this contest.  Just tweet out this message:

RT @blm03 please grant my wish to win a $100 #Sears gift card – tweet to make your own wish:  http://urlbrief.com/8e0599

Blog Post:

You can also enter by writing a post about the contest and linking back to this post.  Make sure you leave a comment with the URL to your post, so I can count it as an entry.

Each tweet, comment or post counts as one registration.  You can register up to three times by tweeting, leaving a comment, and doing a post on your blog.  The winner will be chosen at random by IZEA based on all entries.  This contest goes until December 23 at midnight EST.  Good Luck!

Check out the other Izea Insiders for more chances to win:

BenSpark

Steven Sanders

Corrin Renee

Elizabeth

Laurie

Kat

Heather

Brett

Circuit City (filed Chapter 11)
Ann Taylor- 117 stores nationwide closing
Lane Bryant, Fashion Bug ,and Catherine’s to close 150 stores nationwide
Eddie Bauer to close stores 27 stores and more after January
Cache will close all stores
Talbots closing down specialty stores
J. Jill closing all stores (owned by Talbots)
Pacific Sunwear (also owne d by Talbots)
GAP closing 85 stores
Footlocker closing 140 stores mo re to close after January
Wickes Furniture closing down
Levitz closing down remaining stores
Bombay closing remaining stores
Zales closing down 82 stores and 105 after January
Whitehall closing all stores
Piercing Pagoda closing all stores
Disney closing 98 stores and will close more after January.
Home Depot closing 15 stores 1 in NJ ( New Brunswick )
Macys to close 9 stores after January
Linens and Things closing all stores
Movie Galley Closing all stores
Pep Boys Closing 33 stores
Sprint/Nextel closing 133 stores
JC Penney closing a number of stores after January
Ethan Allen closing down 12 stores.
Wilson Leather closing down all stores
Sharper Image closing down all stor~s
K B Toys closing 356 stores
Loews to close down some stores
Dillard’s to close some stores

(If any of these stores are wrong, let me know so I can correct it.  Snopes has confirmed some of these)

First, you need to log into the Box Tops site and create an account.  You enter your state and your school or if you don’t know that, just enter your zip code.  I personally entered the school and state.  From there, you are able to see how your local school is going.  Now, how do you increase that number?  Well, you can collect box tops with that logo on it.  They also have a Marketplace.  Now, until recently, I did not know about the Marketplace.  This works so awesome too!  There is a list of stores that will give a percentage of whatever you buy from them back to the school.  There are stores like Avon, Gap, Kohls, Best Buy, Leap Frog, Target, and Walmart (this is just a couple of them — the whole listing is on the site).  All you have to do is log into the Box Tops Site, click on marketplace, then click on the store you want to shop it.  That’s it.  Once you checkout, the percentage you purchased will then be applied to your school.  If you are Christmas shopping online anyway, why not help out your local school (and if you don’t want to help any of them out, I’ll tell you the school we are sending our money too, and you can use them).

Did you know that Box Tops has donated more than $250 million to schools nationwide since 1996?  Would you like to help raise that number?  Then start collecting Box Tops and use their Marketplace to do your online shopping!  To help you get started, I am giving away a $50 gift card to Barnes & Noble (thank you Barnes & Noble for your support of such a great program!).  What do you have to do?

Each one of these things will give you one entry:

1. Leave a comment on this post. I want to know why you want this $50 gift card to Barnes & Noble!
2. Twitter about this contest. Please leave me your username so I can verify.
3. Stumble this post. If you don’t know what Stumble Upon is, please read Lori’s post at Blogging Cents. She explains it extremely well.
4. Add this post to other social media sites like Digg, Kirtsy, Blogging Zoom, Reddit, Propeller, Etc.

For 5 additional entries,

1. Blog about this on your blog. Please give me the URL, so I can verify.
2. Add this to any forums you belong too. Please give me the URL, so I can verify.
3. Subscribe to this blog using either my email or RSS feed
4. Add my badge to your sidebar:

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This contest will end November 26th at 8:00 pm CST and is for US residents. Good Luck!