Your kids (and you) are going to love this!

Ξ July 31st, 2008 | → 4 Comments | ∇ Just Fun Stuff |

If you or your kids like ocean life or animals, you will love this! Click on that little square in the lower right-hand corner to make it bigger.

Wordless Wednesday- Bugs

Ξ July 29th, 2008 | → 7 Comments | ∇ Wordless Wednesdays |

The Countdown Begins

Ξ July 29th, 2008 | → 16 Comments | ∇ Bloggity Business, Deployment |

You know how my husband just got back from a six-month deployment?

Well, he’s leaving again sometime around October 1.

We still have plenty of time, you might think.

It’s two months.

Nine weeks.

And then he’ll be in Iraq.

The past few years have been unexpectedly full of deployments for us.  By the time he gets back from this one, sometime next spring, he’ll have completed three deployments in less than four years.

So I may be gone from the blog more often than normal for a while.  Yesterday I had intended to host a giveaway for the Bloggy Giveaways Carnival, but due to some airline delays my husband ended up with a day off yesterday.  We took the kids to a nearby water park and all turned pink and happy.

And I don’t mind missing the giveaway.  I’ll have one of my own one of these days, but over the next several weeks, I’ll be looking to spend as much time with my husband and family as possible.

Which, given his busy schedule may not be all that much, but still.  I’ll be trying to stay off Twitter as much as possible outside of the kids naptimes, and if I have a choice between time with Isaac or writing a blog post, he’s going to win.

I’ll still be around, just quieter.

And I’m sure I’ll be back regularly once he’s gone.

I’ll need the support.

Do you use ebates?

Ξ July 26th, 2008 | → 2 Comments | ∇ Everyday Stuff |

Because I just signed up and I’m seriously kicking myself for not doing it earlier.

If you don’t know what it is, it’s a website that you go through any time you need to do some internet shopping. You go through them to the site you want to shop at, and you get a percentage back of what you spend, between 1-10%. Plus they have coupons.

July and August are expensive months for us this year. Here’s a breakdown of what we would have gotten if we had used ebates:

• 1 ticket to my brother-in-law’s wedding in CA- $450 (1% = $4.50)
• New make-up from Sephora because I finally got too allergic to mine- $100 (4%= $4)
• New dress from Ann Taylor for a wedding- $60 (3%= $1.80)
• A few more summer clothes from Eddie Bauer’s sale to get us through the season- $120 (4%= $4.80)
• A ticket to a conference in Utah- $460 (1%=$4.60)
• A rental car in Utah $80 (2%= $1.60)
• A mouse for my laptop from Apple Store= $14.99 ($.14)

I’m sure there are a few more things I could add, but that’s already over $20.   Lunch at Chick Fil A for the whole family.  Four caramel macchiato’s at Starbucks.  A quarter of a tank of gas (ok, that doesn’t sound great, but still!)

But I just signed up yesterday, so I only have the $5 they give you for signing up!  If you’re interested, they also give $5 when you are referred by a friend, so the next time you need to do some shopping on the net, go sign up at ebates first!  If you tell them you were referred by my email address (afteracupofcoffee AT gmail.com) or sign up through this link then I’ll get a referral bonus!

Every little bit helps these days, right?

More questions I don’t want to answer

Ξ July 25th, 2008 | → 6 Comments | ∇ Kids |

I got all of these in one car ride:

“Mommy, sometimes do mommies leave and live with other daddies?”

“Do some kids have a mommy and a mommy?”

“Do mommies get married and have babies?”

“What if two girls live together and want to have a baby?”

“What does a girl do if she doesn’t find a boy to marry and she wants to have a baby?”

Oy.