A Giveaway for Maya's Birthday!

Today was Maya's birthday party!  On Wednesday she'll be 4 years old.  She had a great time at the party and was totally exhausted by the time everyone left.  More party pictures will come some other day, but check out this cute one (she's got an animal cracker in her mouth):

She's just so adorable, I can't stand it.

Check out her birthday shirt!  It's a little blurry in that picture, but it says her name, has a big 4, and (of course) an alligator.  She loves it.

I found the shirt on Etsy, and once I received it (and thought the quality was great) I emailed the shop owner, Jill,  to see if she was interested in giving away a discount to one lucky blog reader.  She happily agreed to give away 50% off any one personalized shirt in her store, lil sha-bebe. 

Fine print: I paid full price for Maya's shirt.  I am not getting anything in return for this giveaway.  I just liked her shirt and thought it was worth a shot to ask about getting a discount to give away to one of you folks.

I took 2 closer-up pictures, but I took them after the party, so ignore the spots:

Jill's store has over 200 shirts listed---I can basically guarantee that if you spend some time browsing over there you'll see something adorable, either for your child or to give as a gift to some other lucky little one.

Here are the details:

Prize: 50% off any one personalized shirt from this Etsy store. 

Giveaway Details: Entries start tonight and will end Thursday at 3pm (NYC time).  Winning comment number will be chosen using random.org, and if I don't hear from the winner after 24 hours I will pick a new winner.

Entry Details:

• You enter this giveaway by commenting on this blog post (not on the blog's Facebook page).
• You can enter up to 6 times, and each entry must be a separate entry.  If you put them all in one entry, it's only going to count once.
• It's generally best (but not necessary) if your entries include your email address.  If they don't, I won't be able to contact you if you win, and if you miss your 24-hour winner window you'll be out of luck. (So if your email address isn't there, be sure to check the blog on Thursday night, 5/31!)

How to Enter:
1. Leave a comment on this post.  (Any comment will do)
2. Like us on Facebook, and leave a comment that says "I like you on Facebook!" (if you already like us on Facebook just leave a comment saying so.)
3. Follow us on Twitter and leave a comment that says "I follow you on Twitter!" (if you already follow us on Twitter just leave a comment saying so.)
4. Go check out Jill's etsy store and leave a comment letting me know which shirt catches your eye.
5. Share the link to this blog post on Facebook and leave a comment letting me know that you did.
6. Tweet the link to this blog post and leave a comment letting me know that you did.

 
Good luck!

News in brief & new giveaway winner

-Maya loves school.  LOVES.  I picked her up yesterday (and will every Weds, to go to after school feeding/speech therapy) and got to see her so excited, running around and pointing to show off the classroom, hugging her teachers, etc.  It's too cute.  The teacher even asked her "Where's Adam?" and she toddled over to bulletin board with the kids' pictures and pointed to the right kid!  (She doesn't know everyone, but she's learning.)

-Maya does not love the bus.  I don't think she hates it, but she doesn't love it.  On the FB page (which you should like) and Twitter (where you should follow) I've mentioned that there have been some tears (yesterday from Maya and then me, today just from Maya).  Today was a better ride, though, with less crying, and the bus people seem nice.  We're hoping that it will get easier.

-Maya's made some great art (pictures in my Twitter feed) and so did I!  The teacher sent home a leaf to decorate with some family pictures.  Maya was a fan :)

-Parker is not having a good week.  He spends a lot of time moping in his crate.  But also, he gets to run in the baseball field on some mornings (I couldn't take him with Maya, because the field isn't fenced in---I worried that he would bolt after something and I would be stuck with the jogging stroller).  He loves the running, but doesn't like the quiet apartment.

-We have a new giveaway winner!  The previous winner never claimed the Leapfrog DVD, so we have a new winner, care of random.org:  Comment #22!!

"Queen Amy said...

I know my letters and my daughters know their letters, but I love coming here and I would really like to win your giveaway and give it away to one of the children I work with who hasn't learned their letters. That sentence had a lot of letters!

August 22, 2011 11:05 PM "

 

Congratulations, Amy!   Email me to claim your prize!

Maya picked this ****giveaway*****

In the past I've talked about Maya's love for letters and how amazed I've been as she seems to be learning them through osmosis.  This is due partially to her natural interest in letters (she's always been interested in the writing on T-shirts, bags, etc) and partially to one really great video:

When I saw Maya starting to recognize letters, I asked for alphabet exposure ideas from one of my message boards, and several of the moms replied "Teaching letters?  All I did was put on Leapfrog Letter Factory and my kids magically learned them."   So I picked up the video, put it on, and a few short days later Maya was already copying the letter sounds (check her out in this video).

Amazing!  And since she's nonverbal, really amazing.

She can't say "A" (like the long A sound in plate), but she can say "ah"   . . . and quickly I could show her an A and say "What letter is that?" and she would say "Ah!".  I would never have thought to teach her to tell me the letters with their sounds, but it worked.  Suddenly she was able to tell us how much she was understanding.  (Similarly, she can say "ba" and "da" but not B or D.)  I couldn't believe how interested she was in the video, or how quickly she starting picking up the new information.  I'm a big fan. 

So when Maya grabbed the video off of the store shelf the other day (she recognized the box, sneaky girl) and I saw that it was on sale, I decided to get one for a giveaway :)

This video is my favorite.

You guys are going to love it!

(FYI: I am not affiliated with Leapfrog in any way.  I'm not receiving any sort of compensation from the Leapfrog folks.  Maya just loves this video, and I've been impressed with how much it has taught her, so I thought I'd pay it forward.)

Here's how to enter the giveaway:  Pay attention, because you can enter up to 5 times! 

 

1. Leave a comment on this post. Any comment will do . . "Hey, I want to win!" "Giveaways rule" "Maya is awesome", etc :)

 

2. Like our page on Facebook ("Uncommon Sense Blog") if you don't already. Then, leave a comment here that says "I'm a Facebook follower!" (If you're already a Facebook follower, you can leave this comment too, of course.)

 

3.  Follow us on Twitter!  (This is new! See the twitter feed on the top right corner of the blog?)  Our Twitter name is "UncommonBlogger". Then, leave a comment here that says "I'm following you on Twitter!" 

 

4. Share the link to the giveaway on Facebook. Then, leave a comment here that says "I shared the giveaway on FB!"

 

5. Retweet the link to the giveaway on Twitter (once you follow me on Twitter, you can just retweet my giveaway post).  Then, leave a comment here that says "I retweeted the giveaway!"

 

Remember to leave a separate comment for each entry!

 

Winner will be chosen the evening of Tuesday, August 30th.  The latest that an entry will be accepted is 5pm (EST) on Tues, 8/30, via random number generator.  The winner will be announced the same evening and have 2 days to contact me before I pick a different winner. 

Winners, a loser, and Twitter

Winners:  Dave, Maya & I had a great weekend :)

1.  Lots of playground time, some dog park time, general happiness and soaking-in-the-sunshine:

I love to climb so high . . . and Daddy's a great spotter. 

 I made it to the top!

Blowin' kisses to Mommy on the ground

We've taken to sitting anywhere.  Right in the middle of the action for a milk break?  No problem.  It's kind of strangely liberating to just sit right down wherever you please.

2.  We went to a birthday party today and Maya got to wear a dress!  Of course, this is not her first time ever wearing a dress, but it kind of was the first time that she really got to wear a dress.  Before, she wore dresses to events that either a) would have her in our arms/in a highchair the whole time (like out to dinner at a restaurant)  or b) would be in a safe enough place that we could tuck the dress into her diaper cover and let her crawl around like that.  But now she's walking!  And she can wear a dress to a party and walk around in it.  Pretty amazing (and pretty adorable, too).

It doesn't get any sweeter than this, does it?

Loser:  Parker did not have the best weekend.

A totally accidental dog park incident left him cut up.  And now until the skin heals he remains banished from the dog park (since I don't want any dirt to get in the wound).  Good news is that it's healing very quickly.  Poor dude.

Ouch.  Parker, by the way, is still obviously crazy about the ramp.

Twitter?

Since the whole Kristi Yamaguchi twitter thing, I've been wondering what the deal is with twitter.  Then someone asked me last week if I'm on twitter.  Truth be told, I'm not even sure if I should be capitalizing Twitter . . . I'm not twitterliterate (twitterate?).  But it got me curious about who reads here and is into Twitter----please take a moment and cast a vote in the new poll (upper left corner).  Thanks!

PS.  If you didn't see the Helen Keller video that I posted on the blog's Facebook page, you have to go check it out.  It's totally amazing and inspiring!

Kristi Yamaguchi strikes again, again

I'm sitting here, staring at the computer screen, thinking that I can't believe I'm about to write another blog post about Kristi Yamaguchi.  What a strange turn of events. 

Yesterday afternoon I received an email alert about a new comment on Kristi Yamaguchi Strikes Again.  I opened the email and read "Hey, you really made an impression on Kristi! She tweeted about you today!"

Wait, what?

So I thought, "Ok, a tweet = twitter.  Where's Twitter?  How do I find Twitter?" 

I googled "Kristi Yamaguchi Twitter" and found it. 

What?!

That blue hyperlink takes you directly to the "Kristi Yamaguchi Strikes Again" post.  It's a "heartwarming story"!  The "sweet girl"  is Maya!  The "mom" is me!  (Really, no adjectives?  I would have preferred "awesome mom" or "hilarious mom".  I think tweets have a limited number of characters, so I'm going to assume that an adjective just wouldn't fit.  Yeah, that's probably it.)

And then, later last night, it showed up on her Facebook, too!

This image is more difficult to see---but that's Maya's picture, right in the first status update!  Kind of trippy to be on Kristi Yamaguchi's facebook page and see Maya's smiley picture looking back at me.

:)

In non-Kristi-Yamaguchi-related news, I'm working on some household labels, another DIY project that I think will be pretty easy.  I'm also going to a workshop tonight on using the iPad with kids with special needs, so I'll be sure to update on that when I get a chance, too.