Smug Bug

My baby is going through a "mom preference" phase. One thing that cracks me up about it is whenever someone hands him to me he immediately snaps his head around to look back at whoever just had him. He gets this look on his face as if to say, "Nyah nyah nyah!"

My mom made up the perfect term for that look: "Smug Bug."

Warhammer Online Give Away

Deep down, I feel I have an artistic soul. I want to make beautiful things. I've tried my hand at knitting, sculpting clay, painting, music, sewing, cross-stitching, landscaping, scrapbooking, photography, etc, etc, etc...

And on this, my first give away, I want to give away something I've made. Luckily for you though (especially considering some of my work), I'm giving away something I made at my job, not as a hobby.

I work for Mythic Entertainment and we just launched a new computer game, so I'm going to give away a copy of Warhammer Online, Age of Reckoning . I've been working on it for three years and am so excited and proud that it's doing so well.

The winner gets to pick a prize!

• Choice #1 - Free copy of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning
  
• Choice #2 - Goody package of Warhammer Online stuff. This is random "loot" I've gotten at work. Some of the things I have to choose from are a coffee mug (more like a tankard), a coffee table book, playing cards, a graphic novel, posters.

The game would be a great Christmas present, but if you already know someone that plays the game (not hard to imagine since we've already sold over 750K copies!) they might enjoy the stuff from the grab bag instead.

What you need to do: Post a comment stating which prize option you want and what you'll do with it if you win. Easy!

Deadline: October 31st at midnight EST. I'll pick a winner the next morning (or really late Friday night if I'm not passed out in a sugar coma from swiping my kids' Halloween haul).

For more fun giveaways this week, head over to Bloggy Giveaways

Edit: I should add - I will be deleting posts that aren't entries or are from Warhammer gold sellers or hackers.

To the Haters

To everyone in the rest of the world that hates the U.S. and wished that we would get what was coming to us... Hope you LIKE IT. :(

(that link used to take you to an article about the market crash of '08)

Nickel and Diming

When my oldest daughter started preschool this fall I paid them a pretty good chunk of money. They had an option to give us a 5% discount on tuition if we paid for the whole year up front. I had been socking away some money for a while and had enough to manage this, so I went ahead and did it. Better making 5% on the money than 2% in my savings, right?

I felt really lucky to have had the money to be able to do this. We’ve been through some tough financial times in the past, and I think we learned some really valuable lessons about debt and savings. That’s not what I want to write about today though.

What I want to write complain about today is how this preschool has been squeezing us for more and more money, and it hasn’t even been 2 months yet! Just off the top of my head, here are all the things they’ve said we need to pay for on top of tuition:

• Ice cream day
  
• Field trip
  
• School shirt to wear to field trip
  
• School pictures
  
• Yearbook
  
• Book Order
  
• Candy to throw from parade float
  
• Birthday treats to share with the class
  

I am not a stingy person. I want my daughter to have things the other kids have, and I want her to be happy and enjoy school. However, this is just completely over the top. We paid for preschool already, not to mention paying an ENROLLMENT FEE and a great big BOOK FEE. This isn’t even a fancy shmancy preschool. It’s a nice church-based program.

So what gives? ME. Hahahaha.

Ha.

Really – does a 4-year-old need a yearbook? It’s ridiculous. Matching t-shirts for a field trip? That’s what they tried to get me to buy this morning and it finally set me off.

The note says, “All students are to wear their L.S. Preschool T-shirts and/or hoodies.” I didn’t even know they had L.S. Preschool gear. And of course the field trip is tomorrow.

Did I pony up the money for the t-shirt? I know you’re wondering…

I did not. I refused. I told her teacher that it was too last minute and I didn’t have the money for it. She’s a good woman, and I caught her nodding her head when I inadvertently (I couldn’t stop them!) rolled my eyes about buying shirts for a field trip that we are chaperoning.

Later I complained to my husband about how that school is nickel and diming the heck out of us. He agreed and was very sympathetic while I ranted about how all these $5's and $10's are adding up. Even though he hasn’t been the one forking over the money on a practically weekly basis, he is dealing with preschool while he’s off work this week, and he’s the one going with her on the field trip tomorrow. So I told him it was his call.

And guess what?

He is going to buy her a t-shirt when he picks her up today. He says she can use it multiple times throughout the year and it’ll be fun for her to have a shirt with her school’s name on it. I totally bet he gets the hoodie too.

In the words of Precious Roy…. SUCKER!

Birthday Fun

This year my little girl turned 4. I had no idea that 4-year-olds would already be into Barbies, but I decided to go with it. So for her birthday cake... let me first say that I am not a baker. I am not a cake decorator. So although this cake is no big deal to some of you Cake Decorators Extraordinaire, this was quite an accomplishment for me.

(Before I tell you about the beginning of her day though, one more cake-related thing: After we sang and my daughter blew out her candle she looked at her cake and then ran to the other room and brought back the advertising insert that came with her birthday Barbie. She opened it to a page with a photo of a store-bought sheet cake with a picture of Barbie screen printed (or however they do that) on the top and told me that was the cake she wanted. Nice, huh?)

Anyway, this year for her birthday I decided to try to start some new family traditions. The first thing we did was give her a stack of 4 donuts for breakfast since she was 4. She was beyond thrilled. This is the girl that gets maybe one doughnut/year and here she was with 4 all for herself. Her birthday was on a Sunday, and I should have gotten her up earlier since she dawdled over those doughnuts like you wouldn't believe. It was a lot of fun though.

I had the dining room decorated and her pile of presents on the kitchen table when she woke up, but we didn't let her open any presents before church. Instead, while she ate lunch after church we hid her presents in different places and hid clues with them. Then she got to go on a treasure hunt to find her presents. This worked out SO GREAT! She typically gets bored and tired of opening presents after just a couple (can you imagine? Bored and tired of presents. Poor thing.) But with the treasure hunt she got to open a present and then go running around the house looking for her next present. This really kept her excitement level up and it was a lot of fun for us too.

I am going to skip the nostalgic writing today about how my little girl is growing up so fast. But I couldn't resist a photo from then and now.


My little girl is growing up so fast!