Reading is So Important and So… A GIVEAWAY!

 contests  43 Responses »
Mar 132009
 

We’re a reading family. I always have my nose in a book (even if it is a horribly cheesy book that features teenage vampire love). FireDad loves to read. And it seems we’re raising two little readers as well. If you could glimpse at my living room floor right now, you might think a library had blown up. But, no, we have just finished up an evening read-a-thon. I’ll clean it up soon. I promise. But the mess was worth it. Watching LittleBrother’s vocabulary expand in front of my face fills me with pride. And watching BigBrother’s brain make connections and his imagination sore through the pages of a book, well, it makes me melt. And so we’re proud to bring you this post… and giveaway!

To help get the word out about National Reading Month (March), we’re participating in a giveaway with Leap Frog! That’s right. Leap Frog! A huge favorite in our house!

Tag ReaderThe prize is a Leap Frog TagReader bundle that includes Dr. Seuss’ Cat in the Hat and Green Eggs and Ham. It also comes with a story called Ozzie & Mack. If you’ve got a child in the 4-8 year age range (or surrounding ages) who is working on readking skills, this is definitely something you want to pick up. Don’t believe me? Check out this comprehensive review. But, as a real quick overview, it’s basically a pen (no ink!) that helps your children learn to read. (Did any of you have something similar in the 80′s? Because I did. But this is cooler.) It can hold up to five books. And there are bunches of compatible books! Win!

So, how do you win? What’s the catch?

First off, I want you to visit the Leap Frog Reading Pledge and pledge to read some hours with your children. (Or grandchildren. Or siblings. Or what have you.) The point of this giveaway is to raise awareness about the fact that it is National Reading Month and to inspire parents to read with their children. It’s just so important to read with your kids. I know that FireDad and I both have such a love of reading because our parents took the time to read with us.

Okay, now that I trust you have made a pledge to read (which involves a coupon for you for $10 off TagReader systems and books…), here are the steps to enter.

1. Read this great review (includes pros and cons) of the TagReader system.

2. Come back to my post here and tell me in a comment what you expect will benefit your child the most with the Leap Frog TagReader system. You may do this once.

You want some extra entries?

3. Tweet this giveaway on your twitter stream and bring me back the individual URL of your tweet (found by clicking on the time that you posted your tweet). Post it as a new, individual comment. You may do this once. Please copy/paste this tweet: It’s National Reading Month! Celebrate by entering to win a Leap Frog TagReader at Stop, Drop & Blog! http://tinyurl.com/SDBtag

4. Blog about it on your blog, linking back to this post! Include a link to the review in your blog post, please! After doing some, come back to my post here and post it as a new, individual comment. You may do this once.

5. Use other social media (facebook, digg, stumbleupon, etc) to link this post. After doing so, please return to this post with the username and link (if applicaple) to your shared link in a new, individual comment. You may do this once per social media engine.

The contest is open now through March 26, 2009 at 12:00pm EDT. At that point, this post will close to new comments and a winner will be picked via random.org. One winner will be chosen and contacted via email. Winner will have 12 hours to reply or another winner will be chosen. Winner must reside in the United States. Winning will be shipping straight from vendor. (Meaning, I don’t have it in house!)

So, get to entering and sharing word about the contest. And if you want to up your chances of winning, check out these blogs: 3 Carnations | So Much More Than a Mom | Goddess in Progress | What about Mom? | Parenting by Trial & Error | My Sweet Baboo | Verbatim | Miss Britt | Callapidder Days. They’re all giving away the same package. Go enter!

[Thanks to Leap Frog for the chance to participate in something as awesome as National Reading Month. And thanks to Christy Matte for such an amazing review.]

Updated at 4:01pm, March 26, 2009: Winner Amanda, chosen by the random.org number generator, has accepted the prize. Thank you all for your entries. Now get to reading with those kids!

Room-a-Day Giveaway + A Giveaway Here!

 contests, Home Ownership Rocks/Sucks  18 Responses »
Jan 302009
 

I was privileged to be a part of a web conference with Thom Felicia. Don’t know Thom? I don’t know how! Thom is an interior designer, author and host of Dress My Nest! He’s just a man about town. During the web conference, I learned a bit about organization, decorating and other stuff that I simply am not good at doing.

One tip that I liked, mainly because it told me that I was doing something right with my total lack of decorating ability, was that a toy corner in your living room was fine. (Thank goodness! Remember my lamenting the addition of a toy corner? I’m not a total failure!) Thom then went on to talk about how rooms/space that were off-limit to kids taught them more about cleaning up and such. Apparently Thom has not been to our small house. That said, for the most part, our bedroom is off limit to the kids. Unless I’m too sick and tired to move from bed and it is a day that FireDad is at work… then we play in my bed all day. You make it work when you have to, ya know?

All the same, I learned quite a few things (some of which are in his new book) that I hope to implement in the next five months. I’m pretty sure that Thom would have a near coronary if he found out that we’ve lived her for over three years and I still don’t have proper window treatments in the living room. Gosh, I could use his expertise.

Which is why I entered the Room-a-Day Giveaway. Have you? You should. You can enter now through March 6th. Go do it!

But before you do, I’d like to give you a chance to pre-win. You know, just in case you actually win the big-big prize. (In which case, please have Thom order you an extra pair of curtains and send them to me, okay? Thanks.) But seriously, I have a great prize pack to offer up. It just arrived today and it’s pretty nice!

First and foremost is Thom’s new book, Style. I’d keep it for myself but, let’s face it, I’m a lost cause when it comes to decorating. Unless I win the room-a-day sweepstakes, I’m just sorely out of luck in this department. Here’s the book itself:

See? It just looks too swanky for me, doesn’t it? Hopefully our winner will take pity on me and come decorate my house.

And then, up next, we have a big bag full of goodies from Kimberly-Clark, the co-hosts of the Room-A-Day Giveaway! What’s in the bag? We’ll let’s see.

1 Roll of Kleenex Viva Paper Towels, 1 package Cottonelle Fresh Flushable Moist Wipes, 1 box Kleenex Expressions, 1 package Poise Pads, 1 package Kotex Pads, 1 bottle Huggies Soft Skin Shea Butter with Oatmeal Wash, 1 package Huggies Supreme Thick and Clean wipes, 1 package Kleenex Anti-Viral tissues, 1 roll Scott Extra Soft toilet paper. (LittleBrother’s hand not included in winner’s prize package.)

That’s a bunch of stuff! Of note: LittleBrother grabbed the small package of tissues and ran with them. If they arrive at our winner’s house smelling of pretzel stick spit, please accept my most humble of apologies. One of the tricks of working from home is trying to keep the kids off of my work. I sometimes fail. Do forgive! (That said, they’re anti-viral so you should be fine, right?!)

So, how do you win these nice prizes? It’s simple. You help ME!

WHAT WOULD YOU DO WITH MY LIVING ROOM WINDOW?! Viewed here:

(Check out all that snow outside. Goodness.)

I’m embarrassed that it’s not a very big window and, if we had the money (gee, thanks economy), we’d replace it with a double-width window. But, right now, this is the window that stays. We have blinds because we don’t like people on our street being able to see into our home. Other than that, I need help. How to create the illusion of something bigger, grander, without creating a hazzard? (Meaning, drapes to the floor might not be the best idea with a three year old and a one year old, right? Or is it okay? I have no clue. Help.)

And so, please leave a comment with what you would do to our living room window. Note that the colors in our living room are various blues and we do not plan on changing the coloring anytime soon. (Our walls are a light beige.) If you could, oh, make it affordable, I’d be grateful. Pictures and links to specific ideas are not necessary but would be highly appreciated. So, of coruse, the rules.

1. One comment (with an idea for the window) per person.

2. You can receive one extra entry by tweeting the contest. Just copy paste this into your twitter account and then return here to leave a separate comment with the link to your singular twitter (not your twitter name). To grab the URL for the singular tweet, click on the “time” in which you posted (2 minutes ago, as an example) and grab the URL that way. Copy/paste this:

Win with Thom Felicia & Kimberly-Clark at Stop, Drop & Blog! http://tinyurl.com/c6s64c

And that’s it!

The giveaway will be open through Saturday, February 7, 2009. One random winner will be chosen via Random.org and contacted via email immediately. And hopefully, in the next month or so, I will post pictures of my new window. (Note: I don’t have to “do” what the random winner has suggested. I mean, what if it was something I hated! Ha!)

Don’t forget to enter the Room-a-Day Giveaway while you’re at it! Now get to decorating my window, please.

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