The Winner Is....

The winner of the Fiber One 80 Calories Cereal prize pack is:

Toystory

Thank you to everyone who entered!

We're a Classy Family

In a few weeks Hubby and I will be celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary. While we should be planning a fun night out for the two of us, that's just not going to happen. Our babysitting situation is, to say the least, unpredictable. (I think that's the nicest way to say it). So, rather than be disappointed at the last minute or have to deal with ridiculous drama, we have decided to simply have a celebration with the six of us. It's not exactly the way I imagined spending my 10th wedding anniversary. Shouldn't we be revisiting our honeymoon destination (Hawaii) or gifting me with diamonds?!
Anyway, last night I casually asked the girls where they thought we should go for dinner. Their answers were quite amusing:

• "McDonald's!!!" 
• "Taco Bell!!" (I think they've eaten there once)
• "Pizza Hut!" (Again, not regulars there)
• "Taco Bell. No, wait... Target!"

I tried to explain that Target doesn't have a restaurant, but it was pointed out to me that the Pizza Hut Express at our local Target has an area with a few tables. I lost that argument.
I think we'll veto their choices and go for something a little classier... you know, Chili's, Olive Garden, something with style!
Don't forget to enter my giveaway!

5 Going on 50

It is always fun for me to check on my daughters before I go to bed. They have such different "sleep personalities." Roo's signature sleeping position is what I call "The Frog." While in the NICU, she was often positioned to sleep on her stomach with her arms and legs bent, making her look like a tiny frog. (Yes, babies should sleep on their backs, but when they're hooked up to a zillion monitors I guess it doesn't matter). She still ends up in this position when she's in a really deep sleep.
Sue Sue often sleeps on her back. I don't know how she finds this comfortable. I am not a back sleeper. Still, most nights that's what she prefers.
Cakes is often sprawled on her stomach, with her arms and legs going every which way. Typically she will roll around and end up sleeping across the width of her bed. I end up moving her back to her pillow almost every night.
And then there's Tortilla. Like her sisters she has a pillow and a Pillow Pet on her bed. For the longest time she would sleep on her Pillow Pet and I would have to move her other pillow to give her more room. Then one night she said "Someone keeps moving my pillow." I explained to her that I had moved it so she wouldn't be cramped in her bed. She looked at me and said "That's my back pillow!!" So now each night I fight the urge to rearrange her pillows, no matter how uncomfortable she may seem. After all, her "weary" 5-year-old body needs the comfort of a back pillow!
Don't forget to enter my Fiber One 80 Calories cereal giveaway!

Giveaway: Fiber One 80 Calories Cereal Prize Pack

I am a big fan of cereal for breakfast. A bowl of cereal tends to fill me up, but not make me feel as though I've started my day with the "wrong" food. That's why I was excited to be asked by My Blog Spark to try Fiber One 80 Calories cereal.
I'm smitten. This cereal has a light honey flavor. It's filling and satisfying, which helps me get through the morning. While I'm not a huge calorie counter, I like that the box tells you how many more calories you'll add if you pair the cereal with cut up strawberries (25 calories for a 1/2 cup, FYI). I've seen tons of commercials for Fiber One products during which the actors extoll the wonders of how full the food will make you feel. I was skeptical. I have to say I've been eating this cereal every morning for about a week and I no longer have the mid-morning "I need food now" moments that I have experienced after eating other cereals. I definitely recommend giving this cereal a try.
Now for the fun part. General Mills and My Blog Spark are providing one lucky Buried in Laundry reader with a prize pack, which includes one box of Fiber One 80 Calories cereal, one sensor pedometer with USB connector to chart walking progress and one neoprene iPod/Smartphone holder with an arm strap. 

To enter the giveaway: (all comments must contain a valid email address or your address must be easy to find on your profile)

• Leave a comment telling me what song helps jump start your exercise routine. This step is mandatory. No other entries will count if you do not complete this step.

For additional entries: (leave a separate comment for each entry)

• Become a follower of Buried in Laundry or let me know if you already follow
• Tweet about this giveaway (one tweet a day) and include @quadmamablog in your tweet

• Blog about this giveaway and include a link back to this post

The deadline to enter this giveaway is 9am MST Sunday July 31, 2011. The giveaway is open to U.S. addresses only. Once the winner is randomly selected and notified, he/she will have 48 hours to respond or a new winner will be chosen. I reserve the right to delete any entries (because I'm getting tired of people not following the mandatory entry step but trying to enter by completing other steps).
Disclosure: General Mills and My Blog Spark provided me with a prize pack identical to what the winner of this giveaway will receive. All opinions about Fiber One 80 Calories Cereal are my own.

Why I'm Strarting to Enjoy Facebook Again

It took me awhile to get on the Facebook bandwagon. Who wants to put that much personal information out there? Who has time for it? Once I finally joined, I was initially obsessed. It was fun to see what my peers have been doing since graduating high school and college. 
Then the thrill wore off. I would still go on once a day or so, but if I didn't, I didn't care. Now I'm back to having fun with it. Why? Because I've found tons of pages that offer coupons, freebies, etc.
Months ago I "liked" the page for my local Chick-Fil-A. This provided me an opportunity to take my daughters for a free lunch when the restaurant was testing a new program. The need for volunteers was advertised only on Facebook. Tomorrow I'm going to make $50 for one hour of work for helping my local children's hospital test a new website. Again, volunteers were only recruited via Facebook. A few weeks ago a friend encouraged me to "like" the page "Money Saving Mom." The page constantly alerts fans to freebies and coupon deals. In just one week I've earned a coupon for  a free bag of salad, a free sample of body wash and a coupon for free cat food. I'm all about free, plus it's always fun to try new things.
If you have even a remote interest in Facebook, I would encourage you to figure out what you like and then "like" those pages. You never know what deals will come your way!

The Backpack Battle

When my daughters started preschool we had a fun time picking out backpacks. By sheer luck, I found bags that were smaller than a traditional backpack, which worked great since my girls weren't quite 3-years-old. I let them pick whatever character they wanted and none of them ended up picking the same thing. 
By their third and final year of preschool, it was clear their backpacks had seen better days. The straps were either broken or on the verge of breaking. Plus, the once size-appropriate backpacks now seemed too small. My daughters kept asking when they could get new backpacks. My answer: when you start kindergarten.
We are now in the process of getting ready for kindergarten and my girls are excited to buy new backpacks. However, they are not excited by my rule: no characters. Cakes had her heart set on a Rapunzel backpack. I thought long and hard before I made my decision. I'm not buying new backpacks every year, although I will buy them on an as-needed basis (loss, damage, etc). My concern is that while Rapunzel (or Sleeping Beauty or Tinkerbell or Minnie Mouse) is the coveted character this year, next year she may be so "last year." Considering how much backpacks cost, I'm not going to buy a character backpack this year, only to be informed it's babyish in first grade.
I've made a deal of sorts with my girls. If they choose a "plain" backpack that will last for several years, I'll let them pick a character lunch box. They seem OK with this arrangement, but so far we haven't found a Rapunzel lunch box. (This may not matter as Cakes is now leaning toward a Hello Kitty lunch box). 
On a side note, as Purex Insider, I submitted an article to Purex and it was selected for the company's website. You can read it here.

An Interesting Revelation

When it comes to personalities, Sue Sue is typically my most outgoing daughter. She's chatty. She's friendly. She's precocious and precious. She's also extremely stubborn. She knows what she wants. Her favorite phrase right now is "Why should I?" She is what my mother meant when she said one day I would have a daughter just like me. And yet, she is still the sweetest thing ever.
One night during our vacation each of the girls had a small personal container of ice cream. Sue Sue picked mint chocolate chip. She delighted my family (some of whom she was meeting for the first time) by eating her ice cream and repeatedly pointing out that I never buy mint chocolate chip ice cream. According to her I only buy "boring vanilla." (This is not true. Sometimes I do buy mint chocolate chip, but overall we don't have a lot of ice cream in the house). Then she pointed out that whenever the ice cream truck drives by the house, I never let her buy ice cream. (This is true. I'm not shelling out money for overpriced ice cream from a creepy dude in a truck). At this point we had just spent two days on the road. I was exhausted. Out of exasperation I said "Well, I guess I'm just the meanest mom in the world." Sue Sue looked at me, stunned and said "No. You are not a mean mom. You're pretty nice." I hope this has nothing to do with the fact that one of the movies we watched in the car was Annie. Compared to Miss Hannigan, I'm the best mom on the planet!

Are We There Yet?

If you hadn't noticed, I've been gone for a few days. Well, more like a week. We took a vacation of sorts and visited my family in Ohio. We haven't made this drive in several years. It involves driving for two days through many states. We were on the road for 12 hours one day and 8 hours the next. (We broke it up that way so we could spend the night with relatives rather than stay in a hotel). 
I dreaded traveling with four 5-year-olds. I envisioned constantly being asked "Are we there yet?" Instead, they traveled surprisingly well. They asked that question repeatedly, but understood the concept of "No, we have to watch two more movies before we're there." (If you don't have a portable DVD player, get one. It was a wonderful thing to have on this trip!)
Here are somethings I learned on this vacation:

• The Tooth Fairy will find you even if you're not home. Roo lost her first tooth on the 4th of July. I knew the tooth would likely come out on our vacation, so I took her gold coin with us. She, her sisters and her two cousins were delighted to wake up the next morning and find the gold $1 coin.
• Clouds are made in Indianapolis. We drove by some type of steam-emitting factory in Indianapolis and the girls insisted it was a "cloud factory." Who knew Indiana was home to Mother Nature?
• Water parks are fun at any age. We spent an afternoon at a swimming pool with a water slide. None of my girls nor their younger cousin were tall enough to go on the water slide by themselves. Fortunately we had enough adults to take them down. It was fun, but I was pretty bruised at the end of our water adventure.
• Old habits are hard to break. As a child and teenager, family vacations meant popping on my ear phones, turning on my Walkman and sleeping in the car. I can become severely motion sick, so sleeping was the best way to get through a long trip. Now that I'm an adult I sit in the front and motion sickness isn't a problem. Unfortunately, if I'm in the car for more than an hour, I have the irresistible urge to sleep. I'm not sure how Hubby felt about that, although I tried to stay awake for most of the drive.
• It pays to have a creative sister. My sister has my mom's superb sewing skills. She made pillowcase dresses for the girls and their younger cousin for the 4th of July. The dresses turned out amazing! (Can you tell which one of my daughters wants to be on Toddlers and Tiaras?) 

I had a heck of time adding this picture to the post, so I'm not going to worry that it's not all nice and centered like I wanted!
All in all, we had a blast. We are exhausted! We returned on Saturday and since then I have been frantically doing laundry! I'll have more to post about our vacation in the days to come.
On a side note, I wanted to let you know about a deal being offered by Purex and Parents magazine. The two have teamed up to offer a full year subscription to Parents for just $4! All you need to do is visit 
https://www.purex.com/parents-promo and enter promo code PX0167 at check out. (You'll have to cut and paste the link because Blogger and I are not getting along this morning).