Giveaway Winner Communication

Every morning, I eagerly open my own email to see if I've possibly won something. Usually there's nothing there, but occasionally I get a pleasant surprise. So I'm stunned that it's been so difficult to communicate with the chosen winners for my last giveaway. I've just sent an email to the 3rd chosen winner after the first two didn't respond. She has a blog of her own so I'm hoping that's a good sign. It's not a big deal other than being slightly more work for me and a big delay for the sponsor to get the information they need. Oh well, I tried (and will continue to do so) and I'm glad to have every one of my readers. After all, my blog's not primarily about giveaways.

Proud Military Dadda

Bro Bro monkey has been so close to crawling for a few months now. Everyone who has seen him kept saying how close he was and that any day he'll be cruising along. Well, 'any day' took about 3 months, but he's now mobile, just not with the typical crawling we expected. He decides where he wants to go, turns that direction and uses his arms to reach out and drag himself there.

It's been a few years since Dadda monkey was in the Air Force, but he still works for them indirectly and is very proud of all of it. Dadda monkey, with beaming pride, says that Bro Bro monkey does the best military low crawl he's ever seen. He definitely has some arm strength and just today he started opening the DVD drawers like his sister used to do. Just after crawling over to the drawers and opening them, Monkey girl went over and closed them and gave her brother a hug. I love watching them when they interact together and can only hope they'll always get along this well.

Finding Proper Places for Things

Since we moved into this house, I've been struggling to find places to put all my junk. I know I have too much stuff, but weeding through it is easier said than done. In addition, there are a lot of things I know I want to keep. However, this house has very little storage and there's only so many things I feel comfortable with storing in the garage. This weekend we're getting another storage tote to finish putting christmas stuff away (yes, I know it's June, just don't look in my dining room). I also found a box of my old flight attendant uniforms that I guess I want to hold onto, but the best way I can think of to store them is with space bags so I have to order a couple of those.

Also, my camera charger is lost AGAIN so I'm delaying some of my posts until I can get my camera charged again. Take a guess what other object doesn't have an appropriate place for it and all of it's accessories/boxes. That's right the camera. If it did have a normal storage spot perhaps I wouldn't keep losing the charger. The good news is we've been working on getting the house organized so it shouldn't be long until everything has a proper place. Now getting the monkeys (including Dadda monkey) to put everything where it belongs is a whole other task.

Nursery Decorating Lessons Learned

Since decorating both baby's rooms I've learned a few things. I don't intend to have any more children, but I thought I'd share some of these things with you. In order of importance:

• With my daughter's room, the first thing I learned is to not decorate with wallpaper border (at least not at chair rail height). Monkey girl developed a habit of playing with the border while getting her diaper changed. Also, she's taken off a good portion of it around her crib.
• With my son, I learned that the small changing tables are good for space saving in the footprint of the room, but I really need the extra length of a dresser to keep items like diaper cream and wipes easily accessible. I'm going to have to replace Bro Bro monkey's changing table with a dresser in the near future.
• Waterproof mattress pads are vitally important.
• Blinds are also vitally important if you value not getting up as soon as the sun does. (Tip: point the blinds down towards outside so the sun doesn't come through as much)
• Small bookshelves are a must, though I'm still trying to figure out how to divvy up the books between their rooms.

Bookcases are also obviously good for getting into gift boxes to play with tissue paper.

Safety Innovations Door Locks Giveaway Winner

A winner has been selected, with the help of Random.org, for the Safety Innovations giveaway. Congratulations to Laura!

I've sent the winner an email. If I don't hear a response within 72 hours, I will select a new winner with Random.org. Thank you to everyone who participated and a special thanks to Safety Innovations/Safe Beginnings for sponsoring the giveaway!

Favorite Kitchen Chopper

I'll admit that occasionally I find myself watching QVC and mentally bookmarking an item for later consideration. One day a food prep device was on and I showed my husband. He agreed that we 'must' try it. So we ordered it, all the while hoping it would be better than the slap chop type things we had before. You know the kind; they're hard to clean and are messy to work with. Anyways, the Kitchen King 11 piece Food Preparation Station lived up to the hype. This is one of those items that I love to share with my friends because it truly is wonderful.














 

It's similar to the salad spinners and that's even one of the attachments. You simply put your items in the bowl and turn the handle. Three blades chop your food quickly and efficiently. I am even willing to do onions now with this chopper (that's my nickname for it). I haven't done chocolate yet, but I don't foresee that being a problem. There's even a mandolin attachment for the top that I haven't used yet. Suction feet keep it secure while you're chopping and there's a lid for storing your items in the same bowl when you're done. This, along with my Kitchenaid mixer, is one of my top choices in kitchen gadgets. I'd have loved to see if I could give one away to my readers, but I can't find the company's contact information, but you can order one from either QVC or Amazon.


                                                                                                                                             

Happy (Friendly) Friday!

Happy (Friendly) Friday! It's a good day at the Monkey house since we found out we got HOA approval for our playset. Also, the contractor has agreed to start work on the 15th, which is a little later than we were hoping for, but it's really only 10 days away.

Now I have to figure out a good Father's Day gift. I was thinking of buying Dadda monkey a gas grill, but I'm worried that he'd rather choose one himself. I have a tough time with gifts because he accuses me (probably rightfully so) of buying things for the house and calling it a gift for him. Personally, I'd be overjoyed if for my birthday he bought me...oh, I don't know...a new countertop for the kitchen, or a new dining table, or put money aside to go towards a deck, or hardwood floors, or ...! See how easy I am. :)