$200 Gift Card #Giveaway Educational Toys Planet "Preseason" Toy Shopping

*This is NOT my giveaway, I am just hosting it here. I am NOT responsible for choosing and contacting the winner, shipping the prize, etc.




Get your Holiday shopping started early with Educational Toys Planet $200 Gift Card. Beat both store and online crowds in 2013 by engaging in "preseason" toy shopping! As always, we have you covered with thousands of hand-picked gifts for kids  from hundreds of manufacturers.  Feel free to enter below and/or host on your blog for free and earn additional entries! Good luck and happy preseason shopping!

One lucky winner will receive $200 eGift Code from Educational Toys Planet!

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Need Help Finding A Halloween Costume?

With a week and a half left until Halloween, we are cutting it close in our search for the perfect costumes for the kids. Thankfully, we found my son a costume last night. But for our daughter we have not had much luck. Maybe I am picky? But I just have not seen anything I like so far. I am afraid we won't find anything for her. 

And who is coming to my rescue?



Now I am not afraid anymore! They have tons of options and variety. I can find the perfect costume for Alba. And if you too are cutting it close, just click that link and find the perfect costume for yourself, your child, or whomever you are looking for! Happy Halloween!




Rebecca


*This post contains an affiliate link. I am not compensated for this post. 

Winner

As someone who spends a significant amount of time entering giveaways, it is always nice to get that winning email in your inbox. It really is satisfying. Knowing that your time and effort was not a complete waste. I would say for every 50 I enter, I win 1. Maybe? I don't really know. But I can tell you that since August 2009, I have won over 400 giveaways....more even. I used to be really good at keeping track using google notebook. But google closed that and so I began using a physical notebook. But somehow that has been misplaced. 

What do I win? Tons! Books, books, and more books. A play kitchen (that was stolen when we moved so we are getting the kids a new one). Two digital cameras. Cloth diapers. Toys. Winter boots for myself. Gift cards. Clothes for the kids. A play mat for the twin grandsons. A car seat for my daughter. A step 2 cozy coupe. DVDs. A black and decker drill. Wine glasses. A high chair (which I am waiting on). Most recently.....an iPad mini! That was exciting to say the least! I gifted it to my fiancée. He has never had anything like it of his own and I already have my own iPad mini. It was an early Christmas gift! I recently won a Haba toy for my daughter that I have hidden to save for Christmas. A Umi Shoes gift card which will allow me to order a pair of shoes for one of the kids to save for Christmas. A gift card to Toys R Us which will be great for Christmas shopping. And a few other things. 

Do you enter giveaways? Do you follow along with blogs that are interesting to read and also host giveaways on products they have reviewed? That's all it takes! Find some blogs that interest you. Start reading. Start entering for items and services that interest you. 

The basics:
* You need an email address. One that you check daily. And really, you need to check daily, because winners usually have somewhere between 24-72 hours to reply to a winning email. And if you miss the specific deadline to respond...well, you have most likely missed out and another winner will be chosen. And that stinks when you take the time to enter! It happened to me once when I was giving birth to my daughter. I missed the deadline and lost out on several cloth diapers and a few other related items because I was to busy pushing! 
*You also need to make sure that you are following the rules of each giveaway. Some are only open to the Us, some are just for Canada. Some are both the US and Canada, and some are worldwide. The majority of them state who can enter. 
*You need to make sure you do the mandatory entry....95% of the time there is one. Sometimes there are two mandatory entries. It just depends on the giveaway and the host. And you need to make sure you are really doing what you say you are. So if you say you follow the blogger on Twitter, make sure you are. If you say you did, and that comment or entry is chosen as the winner you will be disqualified if you are not really following. And believe me....they check! I have been lucky in a few instances that I forgot to verify email subscriptions and a few bloggers let me know. But that is NOT typical. 
*If there extra entries, do them if you can! It gives you more chances to win. 
*And basically one last thing...there is never any reason to be rude through comments. If you don't agree with someone on their views that is okay. There are ways to excess yourself without being rude. You don't have to enter a giveaway. They are optional. 

Do you need help entering a giveaway? Or just have a question? Let me know here or email me privately at bekki1820cb at gmail dot com I would be glad to help you and answer any questions you may have. 

Good luck! 

Rebecca

Domestic goddess....I think not.

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I am far from the domestic goddess I wish I could proclaim to be.

I hate cleaning. Once in awhile, I get a fire under my tush and I clean all day. But for the most part, I get away with do the minimum amount of cleaning. I am trying more though. Ultimately, I am the person that gets more done in the hour before someone shows up at my house than I do in a month! Just a note though: I adore cleaning and organizing for others. I thrive on it.

Our weekend plans include rearranging the living room to make room for a hutch cabinet for books. We also want to make room so that the kids have more room to play. I also want to go through our belongings and do a big overhaul. We have so much stuff. And not enough space. The living room closet could easily loose half if not all of what is in it and I would be fine with that. Our bedroom closet is the same. We have our Christmas decor stored in there and I really want to move it all to our shed outback. Still easily accessible, but no longer taking up valuable space. And Lawson's room....it needs a deep cleaning. He has a very spacious closet. I just need to put some serious thought and creativity into organizing it.

The kitchen is...well, it is a disaster area. It's not very big. But that doesn't stop us from loading the table down with clutter. Lawson's school work, bills, junk mail, crayons, hats, snacks, etc. The end of our counter is loaded with the same stuff as the table, with some tools, restaurant napkins, and random trinkets thrown in for good measure. I think I can get a handle on it. Maybe?? I guess it would actually require taking everything off the counter and table and wiping them both down. Then I need to go through each and every item and trash the majority of it. And I need to use the end of the counter as a bill station. I have a three drawer container I can use to corral Lawson's paperwork we are keeping, bills, and pens and pencils. Then putting everything else away where it belongs.

There is another part of being domesticity. Cooking and baking. I love it. But I am not always the best at it. I have recipe books. I have a Pinterest account. For some reason I have epic triumphs one day and then epic fails the next....on the same recipe! I need more practice I guess.

I am pretty proud of my most recent triumphs though. Homemade applesauce and apple jam. I picked a bunch of apples at my step-daughters house and also got some apples given to me. I knew I wanted to make applesauce. I had done it before with apples from a day apple picking at a local orchard. I used my crockpot for that. Easy and simple. I used about 15 apples. Just a few tablespoons of sugar. And plenty of cinnamon. And about 1/2 cup of water. A couple of hours later it was done. I left my apple sauce chunky. I like it that way. I actually prefer my applesauce plain, but the kids enjoy it with cinnamon. And honestly, I don't like adding it in later. It's one extra step. Talk about lazy!

I had only tried my hand at canning once before and I was so nervous and not sure what I was doing. I made pickled green tomatoes. I never actually ate any. I was too afraid I would get sick. Those tomatoes are still sitting in my moms cupboard. Lol.

I found this excellent recipe for Apple Pie Jam.  I decided to give it a try. I bought some jars and pectin. I also decided to buy myself a water bath canning pot with rack. I knew it would make my job a lot easier. I also grabbed a canning funnel for pouring the jam into the hot jars. I made the jam according to the directions, jarred and processed it. It was o much easier than I imagined. And the flavor of the jam....out of this world! It is exactly like eating a slice of apple pie on thanksgiving! Minus the crust. My son enjoyed it right of the spoon as well as on toast. We made 7 half pint jars. I made another batch yesterday. These are to give to family and friends. I am excited for them to try it out. 

I picked up a bag of pears today to try my hand at pear jam. My aunt makes the most wonderful tasting pear jam. I would so love to be able to replicate it as closely as I can. It makes me miss the pear tree we used to have at our old house. I also grabbed some mini cucumbers to try making some quick refrigerator pickles. I am excited for that because I love pickles and so does my family. I hope they turn out. I think overall, pickling is the part of food preservation I am scared of the most. Well, that and making my own homemade sauce to can. I need to work up the nerve to try it one of these days. I have found that with support (from family and friends) and inspiration from this excellent blog, I am stepping out of my comfort zone. 

Wish me luck in my adventures of being "more domestic". 


Rebecca 

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Another year gone

Another year has gone flying by since my last post. It frustrates me to no end. I desperately want to use this blog as an outlet. And then it never happens. Life gets in the way. I spend more time keeping everything bottled up rather than using the one thing that allow me to get it all out there. I also wanted to use my blog as a review and giveaway blog as well. I did a few reviews and giveaways in the past. And now is the time to get back into it if I can. If companies and pr reps are willing.

So my request for today is simple: accountability. Can someone (or several people) PLEASE keep me accountable? Call me, text me, FB message me, comment here on the blog. Make sure that I am writing at least once a day. I will never accomplish this without someone to tell me point blank, Rebecca, you need to do this. I would be appreciative, not annoyed. I promise!

So three cheers to getting back into the swing of things!

Rebecca