I had some great experiences shopping this year before and after the holidays. Now, I am still not sure where there is a local TJ Maxx by me. However, I did some shopping at the one in Wisconsin by my family after Christmas. It is was just liked I remembered — great items for low prices. With the economy the way it is, we all need to start shopping at places like this. You get the same quality items — just at a way better price!
Now, the one of the best shopping experiences I had this holiday season was at Marshalls. We had a holiday party to go to on December 20th. Now, I personally hate shopping in the month of December, because well, it sucks. However, my wonderful little girl outgrew her Christmas dress! It fit at Thansgiving, and it looked like she grew 2 inches from then! Instead of panicking, Madison and I headed over to Marshalls. Now, this was high holiday shopping time, and I was impressed. They had a great selection of kids clothes that were marked, so it was super easy to find what we needed. The fitting rooms were clean and large enough for me to go in the room with Madison. On the way to the fitting room, I found shoes. I was able to try on about 20 different pairs that I liked. I loved that they had the little foot stockings at the end of each aisle for you to use when you forgot to bring socks. Being the weekend before Christmas, I was seriously concerned about checkout. However, they had a great system going and every register was open. (Nothing irritates me more when you go to a store that is really busy and they only have one or two registers open, and they don’t open any more). We had a great experience on Marshalls, and I will definitely be going there for more presents and items for my kids.
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:
Which is why I haven’t been posting here too often. This last week has been a long and trying week for us. Nothing major has went wrong — just a ton of little things. I took last weekend off, and I just never got back into the swing of things. The highlights of my week — Will getting diagnosed again with impetigo and we got new cable, satellite, and phone service. I’ve got a ton of catching up to do, so I’ll be posting a tad later with the other events.
We have a very busy weekend ahead of us. Our original plan was to finally finish putting the basement together. We still have a ton of crap in the garage that needs to come in, pictures need to be hung, totes need to be gone through and put away, wall plates need to be put up, etc. However, Bill got invited to a gold outing, so he’ll be doing that all day Saturday! My parents are coming down too, so my dad will be going with him golfing. My mom and I will be stuck with the kids, so I don’t think we will be doing any shopping. However, I think I may try and go into the attic and pull out the kids winter clothes. It is October, so it needs to be done. My only fear is that the minute I put their summer clothes away, it will get warm again. I’m just not sure what we will do with the rest of the time.
We decided to join a new church here. We haven’t 100% decided to send Madison to private school yet (we have a school referendum on Nov. 4th. If that passes, it solves all of my issues with the public school. However, after watching the debates of Friday night, that may not hold true either. If McSame, I mean McCain, wins he proposed a spending freeze. In theory, that sounds great. However, the schools don’t have enough money for No Child Left Behind as is. If they keep the amount frozen, that means even less money going towards the kids.) The church we joined is a part of hte private school we are looking at. It is a very cool looking church, and we have been there before. Bill’s friend got married there and his daughter will be baptized there this weekend. We also started working on her tuition. They have a program called VOICE. That has you buy gift certificates from them for stores like Speedway, Kohls, Jiffy Lube, Walgreens, etc. to name a few. A percentage of the purchase amount goes towards the school. Madison has to raise $150 with that. With the certificates I bought on Sunday, we are up $17. Woohoo! The cool thing is that everything we earn over the $150 gets taken off her tuition. If we don’t end up sending her there, I just figure that money will go towards another family who can use it. I just think that is super cool that we can start earning towards this now already! So, if anyone needs gift certificates come Christmas time, let me know!
I’ll be honest, this school decision makes me sick. I get a stomach ache every time I have to think about it. I would rather have to use a colon cleanser than have to make this decision. Public schools are suppose to be good. I shouldn’t have to worry about the class sizes or if subjects like music and art are being taught. I just always assumed that my kids would be able to have the same education I have.
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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
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