TThis post is sponsored, but the ideas, thoughts and ramblings are my own.
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:
I took this picture of Madison late last night. We had put her bed, and about an hour later, she came screaming out of her room. She was crying so hard that we had no idea what happened. All I know is that I saw she had a mouth full of blood, and I ran her into the bathroom. We still couldn’t figure out what had happened, but we had her rinse her mouth out with water and calmed her down a bit. What we learned was that somehow she took her Pumpkin flashlight, and whacked herself in the face. You can’t tell from this picture, but she actually somehow cut two little spots below her lip, and her entire lip is swollen. She also had some black and blue marks show up instantly. After we calmed her down and found out what happened, she says to me “mommy, do you want to take a picture?”. That’s my blogging girl! LOL She knew I was going to write about this. LOL
The good news is that she is okay today. The swelling went down, and she just has 2 little cuts below her lip.
How was your Halloween? Here is Chicago we had a beautiful day. The last two Halloweens it was so cold that we have to dress the kids in layers of berghaus clothing, and they were still cold after about an hour. Not that they wanted to quit trick or treating or anything, but I was worried about how cold it was. However, this year, we didn’t have that problem. I think it was almost 70 degrees out. I definitely had the kids and myself overdressed. I actually found myself sweating at times. Isn’t that crazy?
We went with my neighbors and their kids and ended up trick or treating for about two hours. About half way through, we went back to our houses and got a wagon. Will was getting super heavy a that point. Bill would have been here to help, but he got stuck in a huge traffic jam trying to come home (obviously, everyone had the same idea to leave early). After the third house, I quit walking Will to the door. His 27 pounds gets quite heavy when you have to walk up porch steps several time. However, Madison made sure he was taken care of. She asked at almost every house for candy for her little brother. Then she would run to Will and put it in his pumpkin. It was cute, but highly embarassing for me.
After two hours, Bill ended up getting home, and we went to his brothers house. We were suppose to trick or treat over there, but the kids were pretty much done (which was fine with me, because I was beat). We just ended up ordering pizza, and the kids just played together.
All in all it was a pretty good day. How about you? How did you spend your Halloween?
Bill just called home to let me know he is coming home early. Since we haven’t had a chance yet to get pumpkins, we are going to go grab some tonight. I know that Madison is going to be super excited. She has been asking for a week when we can carve some pumpkins.
I have looked at more showers in the last year than I ever have wanted to. We remodeled my upstairs bathroom and added a new shower last summer. We also added a new tub and had to tear down all the tile that was there before (good times, let me tell you). This summer we added a new bathroom to the basement downstairs. I don’t miss living in a construction zone. However, it is very nice to have two full bathrooms now. However, both of my bathrooms spaces are small, so I could not go all out like I wanted to.
In the basement, we had very little space to work with due to the configuration of my basement. We ended up putting up a shower enclosure (However, I had no idea that you could get a shower enclosures online. If I would have known that, I would not have let my husband pick it out. Somebody had to stay home with the kids, so I let him pick it out by himself. He did do a good job, but I probably would have picked something different.) However, if you only have a small space and want to add a full bath, I definitely recommend shower enclosures. They offer a lot more room than they look, and it is nice having two showers when you are trying to get ready for parties and such.
Eventually, when we add on to upstairs, I am going to check out the shower store and look into getting discount steam shower. We are going to add in a hot tub up there, so we need the shower to be seperate. What would be better than a steam shower? They look awesome and extremely relaxing. If you are lacking on space, they even offer steam showers with minitubs attached!
I personally can’t wait to remodel again, so we can spruce up our house. Even the economy is in the tank, houses still are a good value. Even though houses prices have dropped for the time being, they will bounce back. Remodeling also makes it more enjoyable for you to stay in the house you are in. By building out our basement, we can definitely stay in this house a lot longer (my upstairs only has 980 square feet, so we were a little cramped up here).
What does your bathroom look like? What kind of upgrades would you like to make?
I took this picture of Madison late last night. We had put her bed, and about an hour later, she came screaming out of her room. She was crying so hard that we had no idea what happened. All I know is that I saw she had a mouth full of blood, and I ran her into the bathroom. We still couldn’t figure out what had happened, but we had her rinse her mouth out with water and calmed her down a bit. What we learned was that somehow she took her Pumpkin flashlight, and whacked herself in the face. You can’t tell from this picture, but she actually somehow cut two little spots below her lip, and her entire lip is swollen. She also had some black and blue marks show up instantly. After we calmed her down and found out what happened, she says to me “mommy, do you want to take a picture?”. That’s my blogging girl! LOL She knew I was going to write about this. LOL![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=3510828d-8bf6-420d-84d5-43cdc2c8784d)
Bill just called home to let me know he is coming home early. Since we haven’t had a chance yet to get pumpkins, we are going to go grab some tonight. I know that Madison is going to be super excited. She has been asking for a week when we can carve some pumpkins.![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=b3f05bbf-3b1e-48b1-97a0-71d42d918301)
Granting Wishes at Sears
Tuesday, December 16th, 2008TThis post is sponsored, but the ideas, thoughts and ramblings are my own.
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:
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.
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
Tags: bench, Bill, bit, blog, bundle, camera, campaign, card, christmas, comment, contest, dad, decoration, Department, distance, family, floor, gift, Guitar, head, hero, house, Husband, idea, lawnmower, life, lot, luck, madison, mind, money, morning, music, picture, place, Plus, post, school, sears, Shop, shopping, snowblower, Someone, something, talk, top, trip, tweet, Twitter, Ty Pennington, weekend, yard, yesterday
Posted in contests | 427 Comments »