Halloween is fast approaching. Once the school year starts time just flies by! Most year’s Halloween sneaks up on me, but this year I am better prepared. Taj, my almost 8 yr old, loves to dress up year round, so most of his costumes are pretty worn out. I started my search online for boys costumes. Almost immediately I found the website CostumeDiscounters.com. Taj is always and forever into super heroes. So I searched through their huge selection of superhero Halloween costumes . There were so many to choose from!! Spiderman, Iron Man, Mr. Incredible!! Taj’s newest favorites super hero is Captain America. We looked through the child Captain America costumes and found the perfect one! The price was right, the look is perfect and Taj couldn’t have been more excited when it showed up FAST on our doorstep. They offer same-day shipping if ordered by 3pm EST.

We’ve had Captain America running around our house for 2 days now! The quality of the costume is great. It’s sturdy and well-sewn– it has to be to withstand the abuse my 8 year old will put it through! One thing- I am glad I ordered the large (10/12) even though Taj is younger. I checked the size chart on their website and that helped me make my decision. That was a helpful tool.

Because of the impressive quality, fast shipping, inventory and easy to navigate website, I will be ordering Liv’s costume from here as well. I am just waiting for her to make up her mind– Smurfette? Tinkerbell? Or a princess… again? They have costumes for adults or bigger kids as well, so Isabel, my 12 yr old, is excited to find her perfect costume too!

 

A really cool thing about having a blog is sometimes I get the opportunity to review products and then pass on my real opinion about them. TShirtPrinting.net recently sent me a shirt to check out and review. Let me start by saying, when I opened the package my 16 year old said, “Ooh! I get it!!!” He wanted MY shirt. Hmmph. As if. This is the shirt I got from TShirtPrinting.net:

I have a thing for tshirts… as in, that’s pretty much all I wear. And I like them to be different and not like everyone else’s. This gray monkey shirt fulfilled my demands. haha  The tshirt itself was a Gildan Heavy cotton Tee, made of 90% cotton and 10% polyester. It’s really good, thick stuff. It has withstood the washing machine and still looks great after several washes. I am impressed by the quality.

TShirtPrinting.net offers custom tshirt for orders as small as a dozen pieces. They have over 20 years in the screen printing industry. Their prices are reasonable and the shipping is quick. And I personally know the quality of their products is great.

I love the Christmas season. Although I think most people are “good” people all year round, the Christmas season seems to bring out the “good” more often. I wanted to share a cool opportunity with you presented by the Feed it Forward Giving Center. Thru the month of December Restaurant.com is letting you send $10 Restaurant.com Gift Certificates to anyone you would like! Loved ones, friends, neighbors, etc…  You can give up to 40 $10 Restaurant.com Gift Certificates every day! What an awesome way to spread the Christmas cheer!!

I already love Restaurant.com anyway. I buy gift certificates thru them all the time. But this is just such a sweet opportunity! And it’s FREE!!! All you need to do is create an account, choose how you want to connect (Facebook, Gmail, Yahoo, or just enter emails…) and then send out your FREE gift certificates via email. Don’t miss out on this great opportunity!

I just joined a new TEXAS BLOGGERS FORUM. I’m not sure how many of my readers are from Texas… Most of the ones I have met are in Utah, Washington, etc… But I still wanted to pass on the info.  This is a great place for TEXAS BLOGGERS to come together and get to know one another. I’ve had fun reading thru the forums and posting. Other bloggers are posting helpful links as well. It’s fun to find out there’s a blogger friend right up the road from you.  They are even hosting a giveaway for a $20 Amazon.com gift card. You need to join the forum to enter.  So, if you’re a TEXAS BLOGGER definitely check out BLOGGINGTEXASEVENTS.COM.

Our family was so excited to take a trip to Utah this summer. It’ was definitely a loooooong drive- at least 20 hours each way- but so worth it!! We drove our Yukon. It’s a 2004, so before leaving we got a complete tune up. The brakes were fine so we weren’t in need of a brake job. Thankfully it is easy to find a Dallas auto repair shop thanks to sites like repairpal.com.  It’s so important to make sure the car is in great “shape” before taking a long trip. W had the belts changed and spark plugs, etc… to make sure it was ready to go. I love my Yukon and I am so thankful to have that much room for our big family. And it has so much power- kinda like an Chevrolet Silverado.  I LOOOOOVE having that power. I love to merge on the highway and leave slow cars in the dust. haha Driving 20+ hours doesn’t sound 1/2 bad with my car.

Please view my disclosure.

Have you heard of Local.com? It is a local search engine.  It’s a hybrid of the following sites – Citysearch.com, Yelp.com, Yellowpages.com, Superages.com. Local.com offers the convenience of viewing the content from all these sites that I listed (Citysearch.com, Yelp.com, Yellowpages.com, Superages.com) with just one stop.

If you are trying to find accurate driving directions, business contact information and hours, as well as reviews from mulitple sites , Local.com has it. It’s pretty much a 1 stop shop for finding local businesses and services. Users can also write their own reviews and contribute. I like the fact that users can write their reviews because I know it’s an honest opinion- not a sales ploy.

So about 2 weeks ago I was on my way to Dallas when my Yukon started making this funky noise. It sounded like something just grinding as I drove. Not good. We went to get whatever it was fixed. Honestly I can’t even remember what it was exactly, other than something was wobbly, it was a good thing I got home ok and it cost $500 to fix. Yuck. We were saving money to get a tune up before we go to Utah this summer. I guess we better start saving again. lol

Thankfully we knew a great, honest repair shop here in town because we take our cars there when it’s time for an oil change. But sometimes that is not the case. That’s why repairpal.com is a great site. That site gives you independent and unbiased repair estimates, user ratings and reviews, plus advice you can’t get anywhere else. Say your Acura Integra starts giving you trouble while you’re traveling thru Houston. Houston is ginormous. How are you going to know a place you can trust to take your car? Not all repair shops are equal. You can go to RepairPal.com and look for a Houston Auto Repair and even search your make of car for familiar problems. You can find a shop, with real customer ratings and reviews. It’s not paid advertising, just honest opinions from people who have been in your position. You can even get an estimate of what your repair should cost so a repair shop can’t try to screw you. Awesome! And once you’ve experienced a repair shop you can rate them on RepairPal.com as well. It’s a definite win-win!!

Please view my disclosure.

My outlook on life has changed dramatically in the last few months. 2009 really sucked eggs- BIG TIME.  Most of y’all know that my husband and I were served papers from both of our exes. And these were major court papers. The lame thing about this is that you can’t just ignore it. You are forced to answer by hiring a lawyer. If you don’t then the courts assume you agree with everything in the papers and file in the petitioner’s favor. We, obviously, couldn’t let that happen. So, 2009 was spent figuring out how to pay retainer fees and making payments with money we don’t have.

During this time we seriously talked about renting our home out. We even went as far as to look for apartments for rent in our area. We were going to move our family of 7 into a 3 bedroom apartment. How is that fair? Man, it put me in a bad mood for the entire year! Moving is such a pain anyway, with finding the right place, packing, changing schools, church schedules, moving away from friends. You have to check out neighborhoods, school districts, etc… There’s so much to think about. I know I always looked online to read reviews about different apartment complexes, areas of a city, etc… I hate moving with a passion. I don’t like living in apartments with children. I’ve lived in my fair share of apartments. I had one downstairs neighbor that would ram her ceiling with a broom everytime my 3 year old ran thru the living room. Really?? You live in an apartment, there’s gonna be some noise! Another time my husband and  I had just been married, so the family below us had newlyweds above them… Yeah… Sorry about that ~j.  Moving on… I don’t like moving. I am thankful for sites like Move.com to help make the moving experience easier…

The thought of renting out our home to a family and moving just so we could pay for lawyers was so frustrating to me. It’s still frustrating, but we decided we aren’t going to lose our home and let all this affect the lives of our children. I’ve decided to not let the choices and actions of selfish people affect ME. The last 10 years of my life I’ve been doing that. I’m done. I choose to be happy. I choose to see the silver lining. I mean, honestly, all this court crap has made my kiddos cling to me more. They know that I’m fighting for what THEY want. They love me more for that. Sei and I have grown closer too. We’ve been in and out of court with exes for our entire marriage. It’s draining emotionally and financially, but we have that awesome of a relationship where we absolutely DO NOT allow it to mess that up. Another thing that has surprisingly changed my attitude is Mary Kay. I am stoked to be a beauty consultant. Getting to go to weekly meetings with awesome women, dressing up (which I thought I’d hate!!), having parties getting to meet new people, etc… has changed me in so many ways in just a few short months. It’s been rad.

You know how people will say they are “so thankful” for their trials? Well, maybe one day I’ll be to that point, but right now I’m not. I’m not thankful for all this at all. It makes me mad. But these trials have made me stronger. They’ve helped me grab a hold of my attitude and adjust it. I still don’t know why Sei and I felt so strongly to move to Texas. I really don’t. But… we’re here. And I’m not going thru the nonsense of moving again, so we might as well make the best of it, right?

I heart my family.

Please view my disclosure.

Over the years we’ve had a few cars. Most of them started out as what we thought was “great” and ended up as “ghetto.” Thankfully we have 2 really reliable cars right now that we hope will be with us for years and years. One way we are helping make this a reality is by having a regular tune up on each car.  We’ll be making a very long trip this summer in our Yukon, so a tune up is essential!! Another thing we do is make sure we get an oil change when needed. This is such a simple thing to have done, but some people never do it. That can ruin the engine.

Finding the right auto repair shop can be hard. You don’t know their specialties or reviews. But now there’s Repairpal.com Let’s say you need Houston auto repair. You just go to Repairpal.com and type in your zip code.  You’ll be given a list of shops in your area with reviews as well. Not only that- if you are trying to find info about a particular car- like an Acura Integra- you can find reviews and  information from other owners right there on Repairpal.com. It’s an awesome site.

Please view my disclosure.

I am lame. Here it is less than 10 days before Christmas and I haven’t finished my shopping. I didn’t do the whole Black Friday thing and now as I scramble around trying to find gifts I am thinking maybe I should have!! Did you go out shopping early after Thanksgiving? I went to Costco with my sister, for milk…