And the winner is.....

The winner of my first ever giveaway is.....drumroll please.........

Jalena's Mommy!!! Random.org picked comment numner 9 and she was the luck winner.

Send me an email at cortney0509(at)yahoo(dot) come and let me know what color, I am assuming pink for your sweet little girl!!

True Random Number Generator Min:1 Max: 19Result: 9

Thanks for everyone that participate and stayed tuned, once we get back from vacay there will be a couple more fun giveaways! Something straight from the Mountains of NC for sure!!!

MckLinky

There’s a great new “linky” service available and I wanted to let you know about it. It’s called "MckLinky". After realizing the need for a new, reliable link-list capability, Brent Riggs and MckMama got together to create a free, easy to use linky service for all their blog friends.

"MckLinky" is a free links list feature that allows you to do include lists of other blog links like MckMama does on Not Me Monday. Some people call them “carnivals” or “memes” but you can use "MckLinky" any time you want your blog readers to leave a list of links on your blog. It’s simple, reliable and free.

So try "MckLinky" today!!

**Contest now closed, winner very very soon!! Mickey Mouse Ears......A Giveaway

In 10 short days my family and I will be embarking on our week long trip to the most magical place on earth, Walt Disney World! In honor of our trip I am super excited to host my very first giveaway. I have been thinking for a couple of weeks now about a fun giveaway and this fits perfectly.

The winner of this giveaway will get a set of these straight from the mouse's house....

Do you have a child that loves Mickey or Minnie, maybe a niece or nephew, god child, heck maybe even you want a pair. The winner of this giveaway can pick either pink ears or black ears and I will even get the mouse to put the name of the person you are giving them to on the back.

Alright are you ready to enter the giveaway, there are many ways you can.

1. Post about this giveaway on your blog, link back to my post and then put a comment on this post so I know that you blogged about it.
2. Tweet about the giveaway make sure to either @cortney0509 me or put the blog link in your tweet, then come back here and let me know you tweeted so I can make sure it counts for an entry.
3. You can tweet every day once a day from now until the end of the giveaway every day that you tweet make sure you come back here to let me know you tweeted.
4. You don't have to have a blog to post, if you want just leave a comment in the comment section letting me know anything you want about yourself and that counts too, but make sure to leave your email!
5. You can even enter by just leaving me a comment about who you would want to win the mouse ears for.
   

The giveaway will run from right this second until Tuesday July 30th at 9p.m. est. I will pick the winner using random.org and their number generator based on the number of comments I get. The winner will be posted on my blog right after the contest ends. We will be back from Disney on July 13 and I will mail the winner their prize then!

Good luck and I am super excited about my first giveaway!!!

Not Me! Monday

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

• I was not supposed to make a dish from our culture for my son's multicultural picnic at school this week and I most certainly did not forget!
• I then did not stop by the grocery store after remembering that I forgot to search for a cultural dish. I most certainly did not purchase a German chocolate cake, because hey I am German after all! I would have never done that!!
  
• I did not let my 3 1/2 year old son play for hours outside, in a huge field, during Ft Benning's Independence Day celebration this weekend. I would never allow him to do that, I mean that is really gross.
• I also did not allow him to eat and M&M ice cream sandwich cookie and a blue sno-cone for dinner, but hey he did have water to drink! Not me!
  

Wordless Wednesday

Best buds already!

Baby J's Macbook Giveaway!

I found this family's blog Cole Family Mission Blog while visiting MckMama's blog this morning. This family is in the process of adopting a child from Korea and are in hopes of raising money through a raffle, the winner of the raffle will win an awesome Mac Book laptop computer! The best part, this is not some crazy expensive raffle, for each $5 you donate you will get an entry, plus if you blog about it you can be entered as well, if you don't have a blog you can forward email your friends, get your entries doubled and be in a drawing for a Target gift card. The best part everything you donate goes to aid in their adoption process.

I do not know this family, but felt led to post this for others to see as adoption has been an idea that Daddy C and I have been tossing back and forth. No, not right now, but when the boys are a bit older, it would be so wonderful to give a better life to a baby girl in need. So, if you feel led hop on over to their blog and see what they are all about!!

Not Me! Monday!

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

I most certainly did not take entirely too long at the grocery store yesterday while the hubby was home with the boys to simply enjoy my first time alone in weeks!

I did not buy my husband a Father's Day present that while I know he will enjoy, I most certainly will enjoy as well.

I also did not entertain the idea of buying my husband tickets to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. I would never think about spending so much money to go to a soccer game for one day in a foreign country.

I do not let baby C sleep in a onesie so in the morning I do not just change his diaper and put a pair of shorts on him, it does not makes life so much easier.

I do not love clipping coupons and saving money at the grocery store. I do not love saving more than I pay. What 26 year old would get a thrill out of that?

Vacation Gleaton style, on a budget!!!

We are a little under 3 weeks away from our 2 week vacation and 24 days off of work for the hubby! This will be our first vacation with Baby C and as a family of 4!!!!

First stop.....why only The Happiest Place on Earth none other than Disney World. We will spend 7 days and 7 nights at this magical destination. Disney is offering an amazing military discount this year, without me working and without such a great deal there is no way we would be able to go on such an amazing vacation. The military member gets a free 5 day Park-hopper pass with the water park and more option for......FREE and can also purchase up to 5-5 day base tickets for $99 dollars. WOWZERS!!!! The water park and more option as well as the park hopper option can be added for $25 each, so our 5 day Park hopper with water park option will cost us $148. Of course since I am all about saving money and getting a good deal I will share with you the savings of such an amazing deal....if we were to buy these tickets at the gate we would be paying $322 for each adult ticket and $287 for the child ticket, plus the $60.58 in tax for a grand total of $991.58. Heck, that is my whole budget for the trip!!!!! I am so thankful that Disney has given this opportunity to Military families!

I was also able to snag an amazing deal on lodging for that week. Usually we would stay atShades of Green, which is on Disney property, but due to this amazing discount Disney is offering they are booked until September. So I was able to book 7 nights at The Radisson Worldgate Resort for $329 for the whole week courtesy ofArmed Forces Vacation Club. So you want to know how much the AFVCLUB saved us, you got it! If I had booked directly with the Radisson and used their military rate it would be $609.07.

I have quite a few other ways that I plan on saving money this trip as well. Everyone loves Disney souvenirs right? Well I have purchased Disney items from Wal-mart, Target, etc and plan on giving T something each night while we are there. He also has saved $71 that he can spend on whatever he wants while he is there. Our room also has a refrigerator and microwave, therefore we will eat breakfast in our room before we leave, take sandwiches to the parks(0n most days) as well as snacks. I am going to buy all of our food and drinks before we leave town so I can shop the sales and get the best prices, from experience if you wait to get to the Orlando area and grocery shop there you will pay a fortune! I have also purchased certificates from Restaurant.com, if you Google restaurant.com coupon codes you will be able to find at least a 50% off code, however the other day I found an 80% off code and was able to snag $25 certificates for $2, there are some restrictions on the certificates, but it tells you what they are so you can decided before you buy. One of the days we are there we also plan to hop on over to Busch Gardens using our free passes thanks to herosalute.com, for the past 3 or 4 years the Anheuser-Busch corporation, that owns Busch Gardens and Sea World has offered a free one day ticket to either park to military memebers and their dependents. This will be our 3rd straight year taking advantage of this opportunity. Tampa is only about an hour and a half away so we will come back to Orlando that night to avoid paying for another hotel.

After we leave Disney we will head to my parent's house in Charleston for a couple of days to regroup, get family pictures taken, wash clothes and of course visit them! Daddy C, T and I will then leave there (Baby C is staying) and we will head to the mountains of NC, first stop will be Boone, where we went to college, to visit a friend and do some hiking. Second stop Brevard, NC, where Daddy C's parents own a little place, we will stay there 2 days and enjoy hiking and family fellowship time all alone with T (he needs it!). Third stop Asheville, there were are camping for 2 days, for $29 a night, this is the only place on this leg of the trip where we will have to pay for lodging.

Of course I will post tons and tons of pictures when we get back and probably even while we are there, both or hotel in Orlando and our campground (yes, our campground) have Wi-Fi!!

This will be T's 3rd trip to Disney, so for good measure I will leave you with a picture from his first two trips!

T at Disney February 2007, 16 months old

T at Disney April 2008, 2 1/2 years old.

Amazing Picture

When I was looking through some old pictures last night, I found this picture from last year's water jump at Tybee Island. The hubby did not have to jump (whew), even though he really wanted too, but since his platoon is the one that had all of the cameras they had to take pictures and be the rescue swimmers (if you guys know C, you know that he is NO rescue swimmer). Anywho, I found this picture and thought it was amazing, I have no idea how I have never seen it before!

It makes me wonder what the people on the tanker thought, I bet they thought Tybee was being invaded, especially since the majority of the crew on the tanker was probably foreign, as I believe this is a tanker from a foreign country.

My husband has a totally, completely normal job, I mean who does not experience things like this on a regular basis while at work, come on!!!

Saturday Family Day!!!!

On Saturday morning we packed up the kids, our cooler, diaper bag, beach bag, float for baby C, beach chairs, etc, etc, etc and headed on a mini-adventure to Pine Mountain. It was such a fun day!!!

First up, the Pine Mountain Wild Animal Park. Now upon entering this park you can either A. Drive your own car (which I do not recommend seeing as when we entered there was a giraffe that stuck it's head in our window) B. Ride the bus that leaves every hour or so with all of the other hot and sweaty people or C. Rent a really cool zebra striped van that you think may stall out in the animal park as you are driving through and if it does you may get eaten by the camels or something of that nature. We opted for C, although not the safest I was not going to be stressed out about a ostrich pecking my car or a camel spitting on it and I was not going to have to be annoyed by all of the stinky people crammed on a bus with no AC.

Here I am with my all too adorable children. T has decided that he is a rock star rapper or something and will only wear his hat side ways!

Watch out for the drooling tiger!!! He is mighty mighty scary!

Oh No....he is gator bait!!!

This was right before the giraffe stuck its head in the window to get the food out of Daddy C's hand. I am not sure if this is the animal or not that snorted all over him!

T getting brave! He would only feed the animals with small mouths.

After the wild time we had at the animal park we headed to Callaway gardens to go to their "beach". I fully intended on paying the $20 to get into the park but upon arriving Daddy C handed her his Id so we could get the military discount and she asked if we were stationed at Benning, why yes we are. She handed us a map and a receipt for $0 and along we went. Apparantly those stationed at Benning and their familes get in free....Woo Hoo!!!!

We did a little of this.............

A little of that..........

Then some of this.............

Maybe a little too much of this.........

Which then led to alot of this.......

And after a lot of the above we had one happy little dude on our hands as witnessed by this......

Oh and T and Daddy C had an awesome time on this huge inflatable water slide. I would say they went up and down about 2o times!!!

Look at that face.....Priceless!

We had a great weekend and I am so glad we are able to make such special memories together!!!

A Sad Girl, In A Not So Lonely World.

Today as I sat in Church listening to the word of the Lord and singing my praises to the Lord I caught a glimpse of a young woman (about my age), she reminded me exactly of myself. She sat alone in the pew with her infant son and around her neck was her husband's dog tag and his wedding band. When I looked at her it took me back to some of the saddest times in my life, you see for those of you who do not know me IRL, I have been that girl, sitting in the church pew alone with my infant son sitting next to me. Not only have I been that girl with her infant, but I was that girl with my son when he was 1 and 2 also. No this is not a pity party for me, but it was surreal to look at her and see myself, I looked at her and saw all of the sadness that she was feeling inside, her husband has recently left, now while she is not new to these deployments she now has an infant that counts on her to be strong. And that is the exact situation I found myself in 3 times within the last 4 years. She did not have to tell me she was hurting and sad, I could feel it, she did not have to cry for me to know that she was hurting, I felt it.

I now enjoy my husband as he has chosen to take a non-deployable position and is home! He will never have to face War again, he will never have to leave his boys while he goes away for months at a time, never knowing if he will make it home. He is here and here to stay. I pray daily for all of my girlfriends who are just like the girl I saw at church. I pray for the children that are left behind and wait to see their Daddy's again. I pray for our soldier's who leave their families behind to ensure our freedom is protected.

Little does the young woman at church know that while she may be a sad girl and may think she lives in a lonely world where no one really understand her. She is a sad girl, in a not so lonely world where many of us have been and many more continue to be.

The "Love Ya" Blog Award

My sweet Blogger friend Tina at It may be a crazy life, But It is our life was sweet enough to give me my first ever blog award!!!



The "Love Ya" Award states:
These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award.

The following people are who I am awarding this award to:

Stacy at Ramblings
Noele at Life with Peanut & Bugga
Aly at The Infertility Overachievers

There are 3 blogs that I feel deserve this award that I follow, the rest of the blogs already get so much attention!!!

Worldless Wednesday (Almost)

On this particular day we had two great things happen the first was the "Ranger Panties" came out of retirement and the second was this guy (which would be my husband) broke our 3 year old's Slip-n-Slide. I guess he should of listened when it said the weigh limit was 125!

Healthy little Ham!

Baby C had his 4 month well-baby check up today and is our healthy little ham! His ear infections from last week are still healing, but other than that he is healthy and thriving!!!! Here he is striking a pose while waiting for the Dr to come in. Today he is 4 months and 17 days old, he weighs 13 lbs 14 ounces( he lost about 7 ounces this week due to being sick) and he is 24 inches long. The Dr said as long as he is eating 6 ounces in a sitting then he can start on rice cereal and a vegetable( woops, we started that last week ;).

He thought that baby in the mirror was something else. He could have stayed there all day and "talked" or more like yelled at his own reflection!

And for good measure, Mommy and her little ham!!!

Not me! Monday

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

• I most certainly did not in a moment of pure weekness, while my sick 4 1/2 month old whom could not keep down his formula and was starving, feed him a jar of sweet potatoes which he completely inhaled and kept every bit of that down! I would not feed him those, he is not supposed to eat that yet! Nope, not me!


• I also did not allow my husband's medic from work diagnose me and then give me antibiotics all based on what my husband told him. I then did not take those said antibiotics and in 3 days I did not fell 100% like a new woman. Who would allow an Army medic treat them via a 3rd party? Hey, I figure if he can save lives on a battle field he can certainly treat my sinus infection or whatever I had.


• I did not hear my 3 1/2 year old screaming my name while outside with his father yesterday. When I went outside I did not see my 27 year old husband and my 3 1/2 year old son in my 4 1/2 month old son's baby pool. Then in true redneck style my 3 1/2 year old did not ask me to bring his dad a beer. I then did not get the camera, hand them each a beer (unopened of course!) and take a picture. Nope, not me!

Now head on over to MckMama's Blog and link up to Mr Linky to get in on all of the fun!