Be A Smart and Cautious Shopper

If you tend to give gift cards around the holidays, you need to becareful that the cards will be honored after the holidays. Stores thatare planning to close after Christmas are still selling the cardsthrough the holidays even though the cards will be worthless January 1.There is no law preventing them from doing this. On the contrary, it isreferred to as Bankruptcy Planning. Below is a partial list of storesthat you need to be cautious about.

Circuit City (filed Chapter 11)

Ann Taylor- 117 stores nationwide closing

Lane Bryant

Fashion Bug ,and Catherine's to close 150 stores nationwide

Eddie Bauer to close stores 27 stores and more after January

Cache will close all stores

Talbots closing down specialty stores

J. Jill closing all stores (owned by Talbots)

Pacific Sunwear (also owned by Talbots)

GAP closing 85 stores

Footlocker closing 140 stores more to close after January

Wickes Furniture closing down

Levitz closing down remaining stores

Bombay closing remaining stores

Zales closing down 82 stores and 105 after January

Whitehall closing all stores

Piercing Pagoda closing all stores

Disney closing 98 stores and will close more after January

Home Depot closing 15 stores 1 in NJ ( New Brunswick )

Macys to close 9 stores after January

Linens and Things closing all stores

Movie Galley Closing all stores

Pep Boys Closing 33 stores

Sprint/Nextel closing 133 stores

JC Penney closing a number of stores after January

Ethan Allen closing down 12 stores

Wilson Leather closing down all stores

Sharper Image closing down all stores

K B Toys closing 356 storesLowes to close down some stores

Dillard's to close some stores

My Little Rocker Baby

Dear Santa...

I've been extra nice this year. You think you can help a poor mother out and give her the Christmas of her dreams? Please Santa???? I only want...

*A full nights rest. My 7 month old son to finally start sleeping through the night. He had done it for about one week back when he was 5 months old. Can we try that again and make it stick this go round?

*My 4 year old daughter to stop her whiney tantrums! I can't take anymore of them! I keep using you as a threat to her, but it's not working. Help a mother out here Santa!!!

*I never..................in a million, trillion, zillion years thought that these words would EVER come out of my mouth, but Santa I think I want a minivan. Yep you heard that right people.....a minivan. I always see these parents at the daycare getting their children in and out of their vans with such ease while I'm struggling in my car to get both of the kids out with Ashlyn's PILE of toys in the backseat. If I do get one I like the look of the Nissan Quest. The reason I like the minivan also is the automatic door open feature. How great would that be to push a button and the door opens right up?

*Healthy children. My kids have been passing germs back and forth for the past couple of weeks. The doctors are practically living off of all of our doctors visits! Stomach bugs, Coughs, Colds, Rashes, Fevers, Flu Shots, Check ups. I'm sick and tired of going to the doctor. It's a big circle of germs. You go to the doctor for one thing and then you come back home with another illness. Arrggghhhh!

Crazy Diet!

On the way to school Thursday morning we had a little mishap in the car. Brennan, who is definitely a spitter upper, sounded like he spit up during the car ride to school, but as I looked in my rear view mirror to see if everything was ok I notice that not only is formula spewing out his mouth, but it's also coming out his nose as well. We went on into daycare because Ashlyn had to go on to her classroom and Brennan had to be cleaned up. His teacher's and the assistant director said that since it had only happened once he could go ahead and stay and if it happened again they would call me. We all kept telling ourselves that maybe it was just acid reflux. Well about 20 minutes later.................when I was almost at work.............my phone rang and guess who it was.......yep Brennan's teacher. He had thrown up again. I turned around and raced to go get my sick little boy. When I got there not only was he sick, but 3 other babies in his class! Poor babies and Poor teachers! That was a MESS! I took him to the doctor. Stomach virus it was. No formula for 24 hours and lots of pedialyte. That means one very unhappy baby and one very tired momma! Oh, and did I mention that it wasn't just throwing up? Nope......it was coming out both ends! But Brennan was a trooper! By Friday he was feeling much better. Then Saturday rolled around and guess who the virus struck next? Yep......You guessed correctly. I'm telling you I have never in my life made so many trips to the toilet. One bathroom was for puking and one was for pooping. Sorry for being so graphic, but it's the truth. Ha! I'm telling you the God's honest truth, I lost 14 lbs in one day due to this nasty little virus................14 lbs in one day!!!! Crazy isn't it?

A & B's School Pictures

They actually turned out really well! I was very pleased.

For school pictures these aren't bad at all!

A few more Halloween pics

My Stinker and My Tinker