Mommin' It Up!

December 11, 2013December 11, 2013

SuperFan. Or SuperfAunt.

So guess what? I…don’t really like sports. I’m not opposed to them, I just don’t really care who wins. I mean, I guess if I had to choose, I’d choose Ohio State over Michigan like the rest of population of this state, but in all honesty…I don’t give a crap. Which is very FREEING. Plus? Football games are long. Noise on my tv for several hours straight? PASS. Recently Joshua an Sophie have decided that they “like” football thanks to the NFL Rush Zone tv show on Nicktoons…which they watch online since we don’t have cable. Yesterday we had a snow day and I bundled them up and they spent an hour and fifteen minutes outside playing FOOTBALL! Which up until a week ago, neither one of them could care less about.

My athletics apathy pretty much extends to all sports unless the Olympics are on. I am an Olympaholic and I LOVE everything on the Olympics! I’ll even watch curling, bring it on if Team USA is involved! I can’t wait til Sochi, and then, I can’t wait til after Sochi so I can stop caring again.

But there is one sport I enjoy in a specific way. I enjoy high school basketball…when my nephew is playing. Actually I have several basketball-playing nephews, but only one in high school. Next year I will have three in high school so my level of caring might actually triple. Eek! I don’t think basketball is much fun to watch until kids are older, so forgive me if I sit the junior high games out. But I enjoyed watching the few games I went to last year so much that this year Bobby and I bought a season pass to get into all the Varsity home games. Weird, RIGHT?

Well last night was the BIG rivalry between sister schools Dayton Christian (my alma mater and where my kids and my oldest nephew go) and Xenia Christian (where my other nephews play but they are still in 8th grade.) So I was glad to get to go, since it’s the most-anticipated game of the year. And it was a NAIL-BITER!

We started out down, were down by 5 at the half, then came back in the 3rd quarter and were up by 15, then BLEW that and the lead got down to 1 point! Finally, we were up by 6 but the entire last quarter was extreeemeely stressful.

It was a good, exciting game. I yelled myself hoarse!

And I needed a XANAX. My heart was pounding and I couldn’t wait for it to be over because the back-and-forth was killing me.

I am way too old for this. And this is just my nephew playing. If it were my own kids, I am sure I would’ve had to breathe into a paper bag. Let’s hope they remain blissfully unathletic so I don’t have to go on blood pressure medication to make it through a sports season.

Whew! I can’t even tell you how crazy I felt last night! Are you a superfan when your kids play sports? Or can you relax and chat with the other parents?

December 10, 2013

Completely Stumped.

I’m almost done Christmas shopping… for everyone but my kids. Possibly the most important shopping I do. Sam is easy – he’s thrilled with anything Lego, Star Wars, or Super Hero.

Kate, on the other hand, not so much. I am completely stumped! She hasn’t really come up with anything she wants (and, based on that fact, she obviously has everything she needs). She says she wants to do things – go to a movie with her dad, paint pottery with me… and while I am all about giving her experiences rather than more stuff, that doesn’t exactly make for an exciting Christmas morning. The only thing I can think to do is to make certificates for those things, put them in boxes and wrap them up! But is that lame and will she regret that when her brother has tons of fun toys to play with that day?

Any suggestions for a nine-year-old girl?

December 9, 2013December 16, 2013

Slice = online shopping organized {+ iPad Mini giveaway!}

This post and giveaway is sponsored by the Slice app. All opinions about the app are my own.

As I have mentioned like, 400 times, we have three family birthdays between November 16th and Christmas. That’s two kids and a husband I’m buying birthday presents for BEFORE Christmas and then of course, I’m also buying presents for everyone else in our family by Christmas. Oh, AND my mom and grandma give me money to buy all my kids presents from them, too. So I am buying a crap-ton of gifts this time of year! I buy so much stuff that I have to make a list of what I’ve ordered for whom (and whether it’s a birthday or a Christmas present) to make sure I’m not forgetting a gift or doubling up on one. It’s fairly mind-boggling. Like most savvy and super-busy mamas, I do most of my shopping online. All of this crazy birthmaspalooza shopping has led to piles and piles of packages in my living room, my bedroom closet, and my office closet! I vaguely take notice of what they are and then when the birthday comes around, I dig through the packages hoping that what I ordered has actually arrived. I’m such an organizational genius!

There's much more...in my bedroom and office closets. — There’s much more…in my bedroom and office closets.

So when I got an email asking me to try out Slice, an app that is basically the perfect assistant for a busy online shopper, I knew I had to check it out. Before I agreed to work on a review and giveaway with Slice, I downloaded the app to make sure that it would really be a helpful tool. After all, there wouldn’t be a point if I thought the app was a dud.

Slice is the opposite of a dud! It IMMEDIATELY proved very useful! I signed up, connected it with the two different email accounts I use for online ordering, and WHAM – soon my Slice app had a neat list for me of what I’d ordered, whether it had been shipped or not, when it was expected, or if it had already been delivered. Oh, and uh…how much I’d spent (ouch!). It even reminded me about some things I forgot I’d ordered…oops! Let me show you (I wish I could show you my OWN screen shots, but then several people would know what I’d bought them for Christmas, soo…here are some from Slice):

(I find it humorous that there are only a couple items for this person! Mine currently says 6 Pending, 1 Shipped, 1 Delivered.)

Slice not only tells you what packages are coming and when (you can even use the app to TRACK YOUR PACKAGES, how great it that?!?!?), it also tells you if there have been any price drops on the items you’ve ordered. A lot of retailers offer price adjustments but most customers are too busy to watch for them. Now, Slice will do that for you! So if that Furby Boom you ordered for your little hellraiser goes on sale a few days AFTER you buy it, Slice will send you a nice little notification so you can go get yourself a price adjustment!

Another fab feature Slice offers is a recall notice. If something you’ve ordered is recalled for any reason, Slice will notify you via the app – so you’ll have a personal alert you can’t miss!

Not only will you get an alert if an item you’ve purchased has been recalled, Slice will also provide you with a link to get the info you need from the Consumer Product Safety Commission Recalls Lists so you’ll have all the info you need at your fingertips immediately. Safety has never been more convenient!

If I haven’t already convinced you that you NEED Slice (and it’s available for iOS, Android, and the WEB – so you have no excuse not to get it!!), here’s a little incentive. If you sign up for Slice via this blog post, you’ll be entered to win an iPad Mini!!

That’s right, all you have to do to enter is sign up for Slice, then come back to this post to leave a comment telling me that you did so. When you comment you must comment with the email address that you used to sign up for Slice. My friends at Slice and I will be verifying that those email addresses are valid when we pick a winner! If your email isn’t signed up, ya can’t win.

Are you ready to have your online shopping be ultra-organized? Wouldn’t it be great to win an iPad Mini this time of year? Go for it! Simply sign up for Slice on the web, for iOs, or for Android then come back here and comment with your email address letting me know you did so.

One winner will be chosen at random from qualified email addresses on Monday, December 16 at 3 pm EST. This is valid in the US only, winners must reside in the US. GOOD LUCK!

Happy shopping and Slicing this holiday season!