Just a reminder...
"Dillons grocery stores" will be giving away FREE bags of Chips on April Fools Day (Tomorrow: Friday, April 1, 2011) beginning at 3 pm and going until 8 pm (or while supplies last). Locally this means you will want to stop by Bakers, and in Utah is, I believe it is Smith's.

Since this is "while supplies last", I would stop by at 3 pm. ANd take note-it is one per customer. I will have just gotten out of th ehospital, and my mom and Wes will both be home, so maybe I will send them over...or maybe I will go too and we can get 3 bags of chips?! :) We shall see!

It was a big day for Armour as well as his (and dad's) modeling shoot magazine came out. Could not let the day pass without including that as well! Here's a pic of the cover and the inside pics:


Didn't it turn out cute!!

I got all spruced up early yesterday morning to go in to the hospital: 

And by early afternoon, he had arrived!





Everest Spencer was born at 1:34 pm on 3/29/11. He was 8 lb 12.1 oz and 22 inches long! All went well and baby and I are recovering at the hospital happily!!

Do you remember I told you that through my association as a BzzAgent on Bzzagent.com,
I get the chance to take a challenge from Silk! I get to try the Silk for Milk 10-day challenge!

Here is the 411 on how it all works: It is simple, just replace your milk with Silk for 10 days and see (to quote Silk) "how easy it is to enjoy wholesome, plant-based nutrition".  Cat and I made an update video on how it has been going for us a few days in. Check it out:

So, are you excited to try the challenge with me yet?! It is not too late to start!! Go here to the Silk website and read about the challenge! Then (and this is a favorite part for me) click here to sign up for the challenge and to get a COUPON for your first carton of Silk!

Ok ladies, I have to tell you that as a teenager and young adult, I was one of those ladies that rarely went out without make-up, and I was a perfectionist about my makeup. I was a drama major in college so I had to take a number of make up classes and learned a lot about how to apply make up just how I like it. By the time I met my husband, I feel that I had pretty much perfected my make up applications and I could do it QUICK!! LOVE that.

Those of you that know me now are probably saying, WHAT?! Beckee in makeup?! But yes, Beckee is a make up snob. But, I don't wear make up over to drop off at the school or to stop by a playgroup unless I can get it just right. So I wear it less often...Oh the other reason I wear it rarely is that my husband HATES the feeling of makeup on his skin. Which means I don't often wear make-up-especially lipstick-anymore. I would rather have Wes kiss me than look great! How is that for brutally honest?!

One of the issues Wes has with make up-especially lipstick-besides how it feels is that is always gets all over him (transfers) and that through the day it fades and I have to reapply then re-transfer to him.

So, imagine how excited I was when, as a Bzz agent I was given the chance to try out this new Maybelline SuperStay 24™ 2-Step Lipcolor! It looks like just the solution to my lipstick problem...it is a 24-hour longwear lipcolor that doesn't crumble, cake, fade, feather or transfer.

OK-so, NO transfer to Wes and it won't crumble or cake (making that terrible texture Wes hates) or fade so I have to reapply?! AND it won't transfer to Wes?! Um...I cannot wait to try it out!

And guess what, I got my sample from Maybelline and Bzz agent just the other day. I will be testing it out for 24 hours tomorrow, and will report the results, but I wanted to know if any of you have tried it? If so, what did you think?!

**As a Bzz Agent I was given free products for me to try, and I was given coupons to share. As always, all opinions expressed are my own.***

Why am I Searching on Swagbucks you ask?! Well, today, as with EVERY Friday, is Mega Swag Bucks day! That means more chances to earn more Swag Bucks (which will earn you gift cards or prizes!!)! So, make sure to use Swag Bucks for all your searching needs today!

If you have not joined yet, click on my referral link here and start earning Swag Bucks with me! This is a GREAT time to join-with Mega Swag Bucks going on today!! As an FYI, I have gotten $160 in Amazon Gift cards so far and I have 153 Swag Bucks left. (450=$5 Amazon card).

If you are new to Swag Bucks, please read my explanation of Swag Bucks here. And my explanation of the changes to Swagbucks here.

Wow-I have quite a few things I want to blog about today on here, and my plan was to wake up and blog after the older kids were off to school on the bus. But, I think we may be in the calm before the storm with this baby coming! Here is the thing. I have slept MAYBE 2-3 hours a night this whole week. I have been too uncomfortable, adn I have been contracting and just basically miserable all week. But then last night, I felt calm and exhausted, and I slept...I slept like (forgive me for this) well, a baby! ANd this morning, after getting the children on the bus, I fell right back asleep. The younger 2 kids have been watching way too much PBS this morning, but they let me sleep!!! And I just woke up...

So, I will work this afternoon on the blog a bit as soon as I get the preschooler to school. Hopefully for all your email subscribers/readers, I can get all the stuff done before the email goes out today, but in case I don't, just remember-you can stop by the blog and see what has posted, or wait until tomorrow and it will be conveniently delivered to your email as usual!

Here is my weekly WINsday update: (You can see the explanation of my experiment/idea to keep track of my "wins" in the first "WINSday" post here).

I started keeping track of my wins on the blog on 1/16/11.  So far (as of yesterday-Wednesday March 23), I have won 52 giveaways. You can check out the complete list of winnings here!

What have you won lately?! I would LOVE to hear about your wins!!

Did you try for this today?

TODAY the first 200,000 fans to visit the Suave Beauty Page on Facebook will be able to request a FREE full size bottle of Suave Professionals! I am excited to try for this one!!

I am sure this will be one of those Facebook Freebies you have to get right when it goes live, so I wanted to give you a heads up about it (But it looks like they are giving a lot away-so this one is probably worth trying for!!)!

Tomorrow, March 24, the first 200,000 fans to visit the Suave Beauty Page on Facebook will be able to request a FREE full size bottle of Suave Professionals! I am excited to try for this one!!

Here are my favorite deals in Omaha grocery this week:

Hyvee

• Braeburn Apples $.88/lb
• Red Onion $.88/lb
• Baby Red Potatoes $.88/lb

In addition to their regular week long special, Hy-Vee also has a 4 Days of Beverage Buys Sale Wednesday 3/23-Saturday 3/26 that includes the following:

• Hy Vee 24 pack drinking water $1.99 with in ad coupon
• Dr Pepper, 7-Up, A&W, Sunkist, RC or Diet Rite products 12 pacls 3/$9 (only ok...)

No Frills Fresh

• Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts 3 lb bag $4.77
• XTra 2X Laundry Detergent 68.75-75 oz $1.98
• Creamette Pasta 12-16 oz $.78

Bag N Save

• Birdseye Steamfresh Vegetables $.79
• California Navel Oranges $.69/lb
• Boneless Beef Rump Roast $2.88/lb
• Old Orchard Apple Cocktails $.97

In addition to their regular week long special, Bag N Save also has a 3 Day Sale Friday 3/24-Sunday 3/26 that includes the following:

• Dole Classic Iceberg Salad Mix $.79 (limit 2)
• Hunt's Snack Packs (4 pack) $.79

Baker's (Remember their sales are almost always WITH card)

• Coke product 2 L $.89 (Note: these are cheaper at Super Saver for their weekend sale, but I wanted to include this since the SS weekend sale only lasts 3 days and this price lasts all week)
• Capri Suns $1.40
• Coke Product 24 packs $5.49

Aldi

• Whole Fresh Pineapple $.99 each
• Navel Oranges 4 lb bag $1.49
• Bananas $.39/lb
• Cantaloupe $.99 each
• Strawberries (1 lb clamshell) $.99

Super Saver

• Dozen Large Eggs (generic) $.85
• Best Choice Vegetables (canned, 14.75-15.25 oz) 3/$1
• Best Choice Happy O's cereal 15 oz (generic cheerios) $.98
• 10 lb bag Russet Potatoes $2.48
• Best Choice (generic) soda 12 packs 5/$10
• Super Saver White Bread $.77
• Mangos $.44 each
• Best Choice Cake Mix 18.25-18.5 oz $.58
• Green Giant Peeled Baby Carrots 16 oz $.77
• 50% off Keebler Crackers (cannot price match this)

In addition to their regular week long special, Super Saver also has a Weekend Sale Friday 3/25-Sunday 3/27 that includes the following:

• Coke Product 2 L $.78
• Boneless Angus Beef Sirloin Steak value packs $3.77/lb
• Yellow Onion $.44/lb
• Clementines 5 lb box $5.46
• Delimex Taquitos, 25 oz. $4.98

Fareway

• Prego Spaghetti Sauce 24 oz $1.48

***Remember that I generally just price match at Walmart as much as I can rather than go to all the stores separately! I LOVE being able to do that. You can also pricematch at Target, but I find it easier to pricematch at Walmart.

As I looked through my coupons on my Sunday paper, I took special note of the above pictured ad...I have not posted about it yet as I am a slacker...sorry...but nonetheless, I wanted to mantion it. I will also remind you about it as the time approaches.

Essentially, it is letting you know that "Dillons grocery stores" will be giving away FREE bags of Chips on April Fools Day (Next Friday, April 1, 2011) beginning at 3 pm and going until 8 pm (or while supplies last). Locally this means you will want to stop by Bakers, and in Utah is, I believe it is Smith's.

Since this is "while supplies last", I would stop by at 3 pm. ANd take note-it is one per customer. I will have just gotten out of th ehospital, and my mom and Wes will both be home, so maybe I will send them over...or maybe I will go too and we can get 3 bags of chips?! :) We shall see!

Today for Wordless Wednesday, you get a short (7 second) video of E Dawg's famous Smoulder (as learned on Tangled).

Hope you all enjoyed that-I know it brightened my day!

Two of my favorite things are College football and college basketball. So, naturally I LOVE March Madness! Each year we, as a family fill out brackets and do a family March Madness pool (no money involved-it is all about the winning-which we all love to do). When I say we, I mean my husband and kids and I do this.

Well, I have to be honest...between the terrible feeling of late pregnancy and the fact that My Utes were not even in the tournament this year, I was not big on doing our annual game. However, Wes and I decided to go online and fill out our own brackets at least and at least play the bracket game as a couple. We filled them out and saved them and moved on with life.

Here is the frustration, when we went to check our brackets a couple days ago, somehow my bracket saved properly, and Wesley's has disappeared...it is gone and we cannot find it anywhere-and for the first time in 10 years, we did not print them out! EEk...frustrating!

One more thing, and DO NOT tell my brother-in-law about this, but I find it quite frustrating that I find myself cheering for BYU to win for the first time in my life...in fact, I have them playing the final game against "THE Ohio State". It just feels wrong, but I guess all I can say is go Cougs...it feels particularly wrong since they are playing an personal emotional fave (Gonzaga) in this coming round...it was tough to choose BYU (of all teams) to beat the Zags, but it had to be done...had to...

I just realized that when I said not to tell me Brother in law about this, I meant Jeremy, but as I think about it, do not tell Cody or Bret either...seriously...thanks! :)

I love Nutella, L.O.V.E. it!!! So in spite of the fact that I was so close to my due date, I could not help but accept when I was offered the chance to host a Nutella Breakfast Bar party! It was through Mommy Parties, MomSelect and Nutella that I got this awesome opportunity!!!

DO you know what Nutella is? Well, to quote their website, "Nutella is a tasty hazelnut spread that contains quality ingredients such as skim milk and a hint of cocoa." It is fantastic and has always been a favored treat at our house growing up! I had never thought about using it in something that was not a dessert. That is part of the reason I really wanted to host this party where the focus was on using Nutella as a part of a healthy breakfast!!

"BREAKFAST?! REALLY?!" I thought? Well, Let em tell you, I used some of their ideas for my breakfast bar, and the kids and adults alike loves them-waffle sandwiches, fruit with Nutella (we used Bananas, apples and strawberries), Nutella and fruit wrap ups (using tortilla shells). We also talked about how easy and tasty it would be to use on crepes or whole wheat toast.

Look at some of the spread I served:

And Nutella sent some sweet bags for the guests to bring home:

Each bag included the following items:

In case you cannot tell what is there, each guest got:

• Nutella spread sample packs
• Nutella coupons (LOVE coupons!!)
• A Nutella Tumbler mug (and there are high quality BTW)
• A Nutella spreader
• Nutella tip cards
• Nutella Breakfast Bar recipe ideas
• (and I threw in a few other things for fun!)

It was a great party and well loved by all. Here is a pic that did turn out:


If you want to check out and buy some Nutella for your family to enjoy, go to the Nutella website and you can print out a $1 off coupon (look at the bottom right of the page).

AND if you want a chance to win a case of Nutella, check out this monthly sweepstakes on their website. I would be in heaven to win this!!

Thanks SO much Mommy Parties, MomSelect and Nutella for letting me host this great party! It was a blast and a bit hit!

***Disclosure: I received a Nutella Party Package through Mommy Parties, MomSelect and Nutella & no other compensation was received. All opinions expressed are my own!***

What's in a Name?!

Well, those of you that know me personally know that my children all have quite unique names. I have 2 girls and 2 boys. Each has a "unique" name as well as a family name. I have not used their names on here, but for the purposes of this post, I suppose I cannot keep their awesome (in my humble opinion) names quiet. But before I tell you their names, let me explain what my definition of "unique" is...

In case you did not know, the Social Security Administration keeps a list of the most popular names in the US. If you go to the SSA website here, on the lower right side is an area that says "Popularity of a name" and has a number of boxes you can fill in (Name, which sex it is associated with, and how many years back you want to look). You can look back as far as 100 years and it keeps track of the top 1000 names per year.

When I say I want a "unique" name, I mean the name cannot have been in the top 1000 anytime over the past 100 years. AND I have 4 kids who all have a "unique" name by that definition. You can look them up and see-my girls are Solace and Kindle, and my boys are Ender and Armour.

Well, of course as we have more kids, it becomes harder to find a "unique" name that is not TOO far out there, that both Wes and I like. And so, this child is nameless...due so very soon and nameless. We have a few ideas for the unique part of the name that fit my criteria, but my favorite name (Sawyer) is on the list and gaining popularity like wild fire (Thanks a lot Lost)!

The names we are considering are cute, but nothing has quite hooked me like Sawyer. So, he remains nameless. And I am totally open to suggestions...do you fine readers have any?! I would L.O.V.E. to hear what ideas you have because I am running out of time and ideas and Wes says this time I have to pick...(yeah right)...

(Oh..and please don't judge me too harshly if he ends up as a Sawyer in spite of my unique-requirement...)

Why am I Searching on Swagbucks you ask?! Well, today, as with EVERY Friday, is Mega Swag Bucks day! That means more chances to earn more Swag Bucks (which will earn you gift cards or prizes!!)! So, make sure to use Swag Bucks for all your searching needs today!

If you have not joined yet, click on my referral link here and start earning Swag Bucks with me! This is a GREAT time to join-with Mega Swag Bucks going on today!! As an FYI, I have gotten $150 in Amazon Gift cards so far and I have enough to get another $10 in Amazon cards with 45 Swag Bucks left. (450=$5 Amazon card).

If you are new to Swag Bucks, please read my explanation of Swag Bucks here. And my explanation of the changes to Swagbucks here.

Here is a 10 point code for Pampers Gifts to Grow Program: T9PDXPKKGA3M4GK. Go log in and enter it in your account for the 10 points.

Thanks Cuckoo for Coupon Deals.

Here are 2 new Huggies Enjoy The Ride Rewards codes worth 5 points each:

• BKKDNLKMKHRHPGB (5 points)
• BKKCSBBMSPNSPGB (5 points)

I just tried them and both worked in my account! Go enter your codes here.

Thanks See Me Save.

I just wanted to make sure you are all wearing the green today-and if not, I am sending pinches across the Internet! :) Hope you have a happy fun (and SAFE) holiday!

For our family, we will be eating a green dinner, I am sure. It seems that no matter what I cook on St Patrick's Day, those darn leprechauns get into it and turn it green. Tonight we have a jello salad, stir fry with rice, cute kid sodas, and cupcakes. Hopefully I will remember to take pictures of whatever the leprechauns do to it all...

My daughter has a small guiter (it is really a large ukelele) and she is always losin gher picks, so I LOVE this freebie! You can go here to request a free guitar pick holder with 5 picks!! You will have to confirm the email they send you after you request if you want to make sure to get this one!!

Thanks Save the Coupons.