Get your own pair of simulated diamond earrings, free!*
Aug 26, 2010 Product Giveaway, Sponsored Post
A new website called DiamondEarrings.org has an innovative promotion going on. They’re not selling anything yet, but are spreading the word about their site by giving away free pairs of simulated diamond earrings set in sterling silver, and will ship them anywhere in the continental U.S. It works like this:
1) Mention the site DiamondEarrings.org on twitter, facebook, myspace, or your own blog.
2) Go to DiamondEarrings.org and click on “Order Now” on the top right of the page.
3) Fill out the required information and pay for shipping, only $3.77.
4) Wait for your earrings to arrive!
That’s not all: I’m giving away three pairs of these simulated diamond earrings on my site, which will save you the shipping and handling costs!
To enter just leave a comment on this post before I close the comments around noon-ish on September 9th, 2010, and I’ll draw three winners via random.org. Only one entry per household please! To enter you have to live in the continental U.S., and you have to be at least 18 years old. For complete rules please see my Giveaway Rules Page.
Good luck, and go get your earrings!
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has Compensation Levels of 9 & 11. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information. Amy also blogs at Filming In Brooklyn, Behind the Screen, Momtourage, and podcasts with The Blogging Angels.
* Just pay shipping and handling fees of $3.77
Tags: diamond earrings, jewelry
Get Your Own Eggo Breakfast Pizzas!
Jul 29, 2010 Product Giveaway, Product Review
Eggo™ Real Fruit Pizzas
I was sent these new Eggo™ Real Fruit Pizzas to try, and honestly I wasn’t sure when they arrived that they were going to be my thing. I mean, I love pizza, and I love granola, and I love many other Eggo products, but I’m not crazy about yogurt mixed with other things and I’m pretty picky about fruit. I could really only be a food blogger within a narrow niche of picky vegetarians who aren’t crazy about typical vegetarian go-to foods. 
But anyway, I was happy to try something new with an open mind. I made the strawberry Real Fruit Pizza in the microwave for my family and while we liked it, my husband hit the nail on the head: it was good, but we’re a crisp crust family. The microwave preparation makes a tasty breakfast pizza with a soft crust, but I made the next one – Mixed Berry – in the oven, and that made ALL the difference. I’m not even all that crazy about blueberries or raspberries, and yet I wolfed the mixed berry one down myself in about three minutes. And it only took seven minutes to bake in the oven. Totally worth it if you like a crisp crust (if you like soft crust, you’ll be thrilled with the lightening-fast preparation of these breakfast pizzas in the microwave). Read through to the end to see how you can win your own Eggo™ Real Fruit Pizzas sample pack.
Morning Routine Renewal
Mornings around here have settled into a routine, but I’m not sure it’s a good one. The kids get out the door on time for the camp car-pool, but they’re usually making their own breakfasts and I’m often scrambling to get their camp backpacks packed at the last minute. And inevitably someone remembers that they need something signed, or a costume, or a special shirt, or something else I’m not prepared for. Sadly, any change to this will involve me, um, you know, not being a completely lazy disorganized ass, but it’s worth it if I can make things a bit smoother in the mornings. They only have a few weeks of camp left, but these changes that I’m planning on making will carry over well to the school year.
- I’m going to enter all of their camp information into my google calendar, so that I don’t waste time searching for the camp calendars (I’m hopeless with paper, I think it hides from me). I check that calendar multiple times each day, so I won’t be blindsided by pajama day or color wars day or let’s-see-if-we-can-make-your-mom-yell-in-frustration-while-getting-ready day.
- I will get all of that stuff prepared the night before, so that there’s no running around in the morning searching for things that I find ten minutes after the kids leave.
- I’m going to make them set out their clothes the night before, so that I’ve got a better idea of what I need to get ready for them. Having a 25-minute quick cycle on our washing machine is great, but having to wash underwear last-minute makes for a harried morning. Besides, a watched dryer never dries (although here’s a bonus tip: throwing a couple clean, dry towels in with the wet underwear speeds things up).
- I’m going to wash and cut up fruit for the kids the night before. They’ll eat it if it’s all ready for them, but if they have to wash it and prepare it, they’ll ignore its existence.
- I’m going to stock a bigger variety of breakfast foods that they can make themselves. While I’d love to vow to be downstairs with them at breakfast time, it’s just not likely most days. With four people showering I’m usually the last one in (unless I want to get up at 5:30, which I don’t) so I’m just being realistic about this one.
- The biggest change I’m going to make is re-instituting our daily checklists. I’ve used these off-and-on over the years when I felt like I was being a real nag. Instead of chasing the kids around reminding them to put their dirty clothes down the chute or to brush their teeth, or punishing them endlessly after the fact, I put everything into a checklist for each kid so that they had no excuse for forgetting something. It’s not foolproof, but a lot of the stuff they were just honestly forgetting, so this helped them focus. After using it for a while they always get into a groove and then we let it go, but they need it again, definitely. And if your kids aren’t old enough to read, I did Fiona’s first checklist with little pictures: the toothbrush, the light switch, etc. Worked like a charm and checking things off made her excited.
The Giveaway
I’d love for you to share some morning tips of your own that have helped you out. Five winners will be chosen via random.org to receive two of the new Eggo™ Real Fruit Pizzas (both varieties, Mixed Berry Granola and Strawberry Granola, one each) to sample. (This contest is running on some other blogs, so if you win somewhere else you can’t win here as well.) Out of all of the comments on all of the blogs running the contest, five will be chosen to receive another sample two-pack of Eggo™ Real Fruit Pizzas plus a couple of Eggo coffee mugs.
All you have to do to enter is leave a comment with your best morning streamlining tip. Please make sure you leave a valid email address so that I can get in touch with you if you win. Entries will be received until 12am on August 5th, 2010 (confusing, I know – just consider it late-night on August 4th). Any entries received after that time will be removed. Five winners will be chosen by random.org sometime on August 5th.
This promotion is sponsored by TheMotherhood. Giveaway is open to legal residents of the continental U.S. who are at least 18 years old. Only one entry per person please. For my complete givaway rules, please see my Giveaway Rules page. You can see all of the very official somebody-else-came-up-with-them rules here. Want more info about Eggo™ Real Fruit Pizzas? You can join The Motherhood EggoAm Circle. Good luck!
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has Compensation Levels of 2, 10 & 11. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information. Amy also blogs at Filming In Brooklyn, Behind the Screen, and Momtourage.
Tags: #EggoAM, breakfast, Eggo Breakfast Pizza, Eggo Real Fruit Pizzas, morning routine
Win an XBox Live living room makeover!
Mar 5, 2010 Product Giveaway
My XBox Life
XBox has been a big part of my life for years. We started out with an original XBox – it was actually our very first DVD player! When the XBox 360 came out, I got my husband one for Christmas, then an XBox Live membership, and as a reward got to sit next to him on the couch as he talked into a little microphone strapped to his head. I amused myself by telling him that yes, I would like fries with that.
Once Jake was old enough to hold a video game controller – a day I think my husband had been waiting for since our firstborn had emerged from my womb, pointy-headed and be-penised – the two of them would sit on the couch together, shooting two-dimensional people and blowing things up and driving fast in cars to get to other places to blow other things up. Sometimes it’s a plane. Sometimes there are soldiers, sometimes girls in bathing suits. I think I might be talking about more than one game here, but they all look basically the same to me. When Jake and Daddy play XBox together, Fiona and I exchange a look that says it all: we don’t get it, and we don’t want to.
But then Rock Band came out, and suddenly I had a use for the XBox. Fiona, who was born singing, grabbed the mic immediately (she had always been a loud child and definitely didn’t need amplification, so we learned quickly how to turn off the mic’s sound and still have it register in the game). We discovered that Jake actually had a talent for drums, complete with rock-star like tantrums when he can’t master a section of a song (seriously, he’s throwing his sticks at a fifth-grade level). The Ass showed his inner Hendrix on guitar. And then there was me, all thumbs, stuck in the back playing bass: our little band’s very own Mike Huckabee, playing the same few notes over and over again, knowing I would never be as cool as the rest of the band.
Well, eventually I got better. Actually at this point I kind-of kick ass at Rock Band, on bass and guitar (but no drums, it’s truly embarrassing how uncoordinated I am). And thanks to the good people at XBox we’ve got more family games to play together, like Sing It and Scene It, and an XBox Elite to play them on. We’ve moved beyond just gaming with our XBoxes, using them to watch Hulu and Netflix and stream music from our computers. Someday I expect them to cook me breakfast.
XBox Live Giveaway – enter by March 8th
XBox Live is running a fantastic giveaway, the XBox Live Just Press Play giveaway, but you have to hurry: entries will be accepted until a minute before midnight on March 8th. And you want to enter, because here’s the prize:
- a $2,500 gift certificate to Crate & Barrel
- an XBox 360 Elite
- a 47 inch LG HDTV
- a Bose speaker system
- an XBox 360 game pack
- a Netflix account
- 4,000 Microsoft points
- some wireless stuff to help you get everything set up and play wirelessly
It’s all worth about $5,000. That’s right, $5,000. You can register here, and good luck!
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has Compensation Levels of 1 & 8. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information. Amy also blogs at Filming In Brooklyn, Behind the Screen, and the NYC Moms Blog.
