Awesome giveaway - A $25 Shell Gift Card!

So I've got another wonderful giveaway for you!

This time I'm giving away a $25 Shell Gift Card, no strings attached.

There are two rules to entering:

• You must be a follower! You need to follow publicly or I won't be able to verify it.
• You must leave a comment on this post. Any comment will do (except for profane, etc), but if you'd like to tell us about yourself that's wonderful, or just say hi!

You can get extra entries by doing any (or all) or the following and leaving a separate comment for each extra entry:

• Blogging about this giveaway (make sure that you link to this page)
• Subscribe to this blog via Reader
• Grab my button and put it on your blog (worth two entries, leave two comments)

Please make sure if you have a Blogger profile that it is public! If you don't have a Blogger profile, please leave your email in your comment. Winners will be notified by email so I have to have it!

Giveaway is open to US only
Giveaway ends March 31st at 11:59pm PT
Good Luck everyone!

THIS GIVEAWAY IS CLOSED!
Congratulations to our winner, Teresa E!
Please contact me by Monday April 5 or I will draw a new winner!

Another Giveaway... Atari My Horse & Me PC Game

Since my first giveaway was so popular, I'm offering up another giveaway.
I'm giving away an Atari PC game called My Horse & Me.



According to Atari: Almost every girl at some point in their life, dreams of riding or owning a horse. They share a special friendship that is nurtured through riding, training and caretaking. This unique horse experience is now captured in My Horse and Me. My Horse and Me is the most complete and most realistic horse experience simulation on PC. Just like in real-life, name your very own horse and groom, train, and compete in equestrian competitions.

• The only horse game with the official FEI license.
• The only horse game to offer official tracks and official leagues (including some bonus cinematics) in game.
• Feed, groom and manage your horses stable.
• Compete anywhere in the entire world and become a champion or play dozens of fun and thrilling mini-games : catch butterflies, memory game mode, and more!
• Give you and your horse a custom look! Pick from an array of horses and riding outfits.
• Take pictures of you and your horse throughout the game and share them with your friends.

It's rated "E" for everyone, so even the littlest ones (like my 3 year old!) can enjoy it.


There are two rules to entering:

• You must be a follower! You need to follow publicly or I won't be able to verify it.
• You must leave a comment on this post. Any comment will do (except for profane, etc), but if you'd like to tell us about yourself that's wonderful, or just say hi!

You can get extra entries by doing any (or all) or the following and leaving a separate comment for each extra entry:

• Blogging about this giveaway (make sure that you link to this page)
• Subscribe to this blog via Reader
• Grab my button and put it on your blog (worth two entries, leave two comments)

Please make sure if you have a Blogger profile that it is public! If you don't have a Blogger profile, please leave your email in your comment. Winners will be notified by email so I have to have it!

Giveaway is open to US only
Giveaway ends March 30th at 11:59pm PT
Good Luck!!

THIS GIVEAWAY IS CLOSED!
Congratulations to our winner, lisagee

My First Blog Giveaway... A Bath and Body Works Basket!

Okay everyone, this is the first Blog Giveaway that I'm hosting. After winning several awesome things from other blogs I figured I would pay it forward and host my own giveaway!

I'm giving away a Bath and Body Works Basket. The products are all Japanese Cherry Blossom scent. I LOVE this scent! I like fruit scents the best and the Japanese Cherry Blossom has a wonderfully rich cherry scent that is very strong at first but fades to a nice level quickly.

The basket contains:

Body Lotion
Body Cream
Hand Cream
Bubble Bath
Body Wash

This awesome basket is worth over $55!

There are two rules to entering:

• You must be a follower! You need to follow publicly or I won't be able to verify it.
• You must leave a comment on this post. Any comment will do (except for profane, etc), but if you'd like to tell us about yourself that's wonderful, or just say hi!

You can get extra entries by doing any (or all) or the following and leaving a separate comment for each extra entry:

• Blogging about this giveaway (make sure that you link to this page)
• Subscribe to this blog via Reader
• Grab my button and put it on your blog (worth two entries, leave two comments)

Please make sure if you have a Blogger profile that it is public! If you don't have a Blogger profile, please leave your email in your comment. Winners will be notified by email so I have to have it!

Giveaway is open to US only
Giveaway ends March 19th at 11:59pm PT
Good Luck!!

Check back soon for another giveaway!

CONGRATULATIONS to the winner, rosannepm.

THIS GIVEAWAY IS CLOSED!

The Ravings of a Sleep-Deprived Woman

Now, we've all had the day (or week, or year!) where you're stumbling around in a sleep deprived fog. It's a fact of life, and it sucks, but it's still life. As a mom, I should be used to it by now, but I'm much less used to it now than I was when I was working 70+ hours a week.

As a working woman (not a mom), 5 hours was my normal sleep for the night and I only got crazy tired with 3 hours or less. Now that I'm a WAHM, I need 8 hours of sleep at night! I know, it's crazy! Our whole family are late-to-bed, late-to-rise people (the kids included), so even when I know I have to get up early for something, I still can't get to sleep earlier than 1 or 2, which really sucks when you're getting up at 6:30 to help out a friend!

I've tried just about everything I can think of to keep myself awake and it's no longer working. I don't drink coffee, but I've tried caffeine, healthy snacks, non-healthy snacks, exercise, wrestling with the kids... but everything just makes me worse.

I'm whining, and I know it... so I'm going to say goodbye and start working on my first Blog Giveaway! Hopefully I can stay awake long enough to set it up. Sleep well!

A fun day exploring the world (and the universe)

This week we took a day trip to the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. It's an easy drive from our house but I haven't been there since I was a teenager, and they just finished a HUGE remodel! It's an amazing museum and aquarium, and we had a ton of fun!

Bok Boy looking at the rays through a hole in the walkway.

Little Miss and her "big girl" cousin looking at animals.
There's a gorgeous 4 story rainforest, and you can see the whole rainforest

from underneath the lake at the bottom of it.

The Tyrannosaurus skeleton is a huge hit with everyone, children and parents alike!

Coral Reef Fish

One definite note, if any of you should decide to visit, please don't decide to go on the first nice day (aka not raining) of a holiday week! We stood in line outside for over an hour to get in, and if we hadn't bought our tickets early we wouldn't have gotten in at all! They announced at about 11am that they wouldn't be selling any more tickets because the museum was too full, and they were having to wait for people to leave before anyone else could go in.

It was, however, an amazing trip, even with waiting for so long! The major downside was that Claude, the albino alligator, was injured and wasn't on display. The kids (and I) were really looking forward to seeing him, but apparently he made another alligator mad and the other guy bit him!

The planetarium show was a little disappointing, as it wound up being essentially an Imax movie about saving the planet rather than having much information about the solar system.

For a relatively small museum/aquarium/planetarium, it managed to easily fill a whole day, and children 6 and under are free, so it wasn't overly expensive.

Fear of the Teen Years is instilled in me at a very early age

After picking up my daughter from daycare today (which is supposed to give me a couple hours of "me" time once a week, but instead lets me run errands and clean house), we're driving along quietly and suddenly my daughter says "Jackson knows how to kiss". Right about then I couldn't say a word... I couldn't even think! My brain was stuttering and all I could think was "You're 3!!!"

After a large gray streak instantly appeared in my hair and my heart beat until it just about burst my ribs, I finally realized... I looked at my daughter in the rear-view mirror and said "Is Jackson a baby?" She looked at me like "duh mom!" and I realized that a couple of simple words from a small child can shave several years off your life!

What the heck am I going to do once she's old enough for the kisser (or kissee) to not be a baby? I think I'm going to have to agree with my husband and put bars on all the windows!

Joining the world of blogging!

While I've been a follower of several blogs for quite some time, I finally decided it was time for me to join the ranks. This is my first blog, so bear with me!

I'm a work at home mom of two children, living in sunny California. I'm in my early 30s, have been married for almost 7 years, and have two beautiful children who keep me extremely busy. Virtually overnight I went from "just" working at home and raising kids to shuffling kids to school, preschool, karate, soccer, swim class... you get the gist!

Luckily for me I can't fully blame my loss of sanity on my children, but I think I'm in danger of losing what little I have left!

I'm hoping that this blog will be a combination of all types of information and conversations, along with helpful hints, reviews, and (of course) giveaways!