Sick....Again...

Looks like little Bailey is having a tough fall. We got home from a tough trip to Arkansas on Wednesday and now she's sick. Fever, runny nose, cough, etc. Poor thing - she's pitiful when she doesn't feel good. Hopefully she's building up her immune system! We kept her home from church so she wouldn't get the other kids in the nursery sick.

My Reputation

My reputation, at least among my family and friends, is that I'm a bit of a cheap skate. I'll admit it - I like to save money. I'll often tell people about the prices I paid for different things and they'll ask 'How'd you do that?' or sometimes they'll just call me and ask me to find a good deal for them.

I try to do most of my shopping on the internet. There are a couple of different reasons for this but the two big ones are that it's easier to find coupons and comparison shop AND it keeps me from having to go out and fight crowds (which I hate doing). Here are a couple of tips that may help you save some money and keep you from calling me to find a deal for you!

1) Look for online coupons that can be used for the item you're buying. Here's a list of sites I check frequently when looking for coupons:

http://dealnews.com/coupons/
http://www.wow-coupons.com/index.php
http://mommysavesbig.com/

If a coupon doesn't turn up there, I usually do a Google search for the store name and the word 'coupon' or 'promotion code'. There's a lot of junk to weed through in the search results - but I'll typically search for 5 or 10 minutes looking for a code to use.

If I still can't find a coupon, I'll check Ebay. Some how, some way there are people on Ebay that are able to get coupons that the general public can't get. I buy drug store coupons on there all the time. These usually cost about $3.00 and I have to wait for them in the mail - but it's a pretty easy way to save big $$$ and it's easy to figure out whether the benefit outweighs the cost.

2) Use an online rebate site. My favorite site for online rebates is:
http://www.ebates.com
Another option is:
http://www.fatwallet.com

To use these sites all you do is sign up for an account and then go to the site BEFORE you go to the site you're shopping on. These sites make money by 'referring' traffic to the online retailers. You go to Ebates, look at the list of stores they work with, click the name of the store you're interested in (Best Buy, Buy.com, etc.) and Ebates automatically takes you to the site you're interested in shopping. Typically you'll get a 2-3% rebate on what you buy by taking this one extra step. During Christmas or anytime you have a lot to buy, that adds up. Last Christmas, I think we ended up getting about $25.00 for simply using these referral sites.

3) Look for 'hidden' discounts. This one is a little harder and takes a little time. I typically will try to find out if a company gives discounts to students, employees, military, etc. Some do, some don't. Barnes & Noble, for example, gives a 6% discount AND free shipping by simply using their military link rather than going to their traditional site. Inventory/selection is the same. I use that military link every time. If you want more details on how to do some of this type of stuff, call me :)

Hope this helps somebody!

Career News

After so much bad / sad news, I thought I'd share some good news. I got a promotion last week! I've been with North Highland for about 2.5 years and was promoted from Manager to Senior Manager. Our company is structured like this:

Consultant
Senior Consultant
Manager
Senior Manager
Principal
Vice President

So...I'm now closer to the top than I am to the bottom! All it really means is that I have some additional responsibilities over and above the work I do for the clients we work for. Things like mentoring junior level people, selling our services, etc. It's nice to feel valued though. Britney's family made me a nice sign and her step-dad made me a strawberry pie!

Best Baby Products

I started thinking about my post last week regarding the customer service we received from the company that publishes the sleep book. Lots of people have asked us what products we would recommend to new parents as "must have" items. The four items I'm showing here are absolute essentials for us.

The Happiest Baby on the Block DVD - unbelievable success using his methods for calming fussy babies. It really does work like magic.

Miracle Blanket - we tried other swaddling blankets but this one works the best (and you need a swaddling blanket for a happy baby!)

Baby Einstein Activity Center - we call it the excersaucer but whatever. Bailey loves playing in this thing and it keeps her interest for a long time!

Fisher Price Swing - we got the aquarium version that is now discontinued. We didn't like the swing at first because we thought it swung too fast. That was before we learned that babies like the most aggressive swinging available. Rookie mistake. We love the swing now!!

If you need to buy a baby gift for someone or something for your grandkids, etc. - check these out.

I'm So Proud

I'm so proud of my wife. She's strong in ways that I'm not and does things that I could never do. She's the "spokesperson" in her family and on Monday, her family asked her to deliver the family remembrance at her grandmother's funeral. It was unbelievable. There was not a dry eye in the place and we heard from every single person there how she had just 'wowed them' with her words. She didn't even do it using notes and she only found out she was speaking about an hour before the funeral. I told her what I'll say here - it was literally the best eulogy I've heard. I'm so proud of her. She ended it like this:

To the great-grandkids, she was Maw Maw
To the grandkids, she was Grandmother
She was Mother to Peggy and Tom
She was a devoted wife to Jim (She called him Jimmy)
She was sister to Alma, Mildred, and Buddy
She was daughter to Arthur and Beulah
But, most of all, she was Katheryn and we will always love her

Awesome.

Sad Day

It's a sad day for us. We say goodbye to Britney's grandmother today. She passed away this morning after a brief illness. We'll be heading to Arkansas in the next day or so. Please keep Britney and the whole Thompson/McKinnon family in your prayers.

It Still Exists!

What is 'It'? I'm talking about customer service - something we all probably thought was completely dead.

One of the biggest struggles we've faced as new parents has been getting Bailey to sleep consistently. The first three months of her life were like a bad dream for all of us - waking up every two hours, trouble getting her down, you name it. It was then that Britney heard about a book on the Today Show called 'The Sleepeasy Solution' by Jennifer Waldburger and Jill Spivack. Britney devoured this book in a day and within a week, our life (and our baby) was radically changed.

Now - that sounds great - except for the fact that babies tend to regress with each milestone they hit. This "about to crawl" milestone has been a bear. Bailey wakes up in the night, starts practicing crawling, and we end up in her room 3 or 4 times per night - not to mention the fight we have getting her down now that she has things she'd rather be doing (like rocking back and forth or acting like she's going to crawl and then not doing it).

Britney decided it might be worth our time to send the authors of the book a note on our struggle. We were at our wits end and didn't have any better idea on what to do - so she gave it a shot. Instead of disappearing into the black hole traditionally known as customer service, we actually got a detailed, personalized response from the company?! Can you believe that?! We tried their suggestion last night - Bailey slept all night long. Unbelievable.

Buy the book for yourself, as a baby gift, whatever - you won't be sorry!

A Picture's Worth a Thousand Words

I've shared a number of pictures with people over the last 8 months showing Bailey as she's grown. If you haven't met Bailey yet, however, you should know that some pictures capture her personality better than others.

Take the picture on the left for example. One of Bailey's favorite activities is looking at her feet and screaming - exactly what she's doing here.

The picture on the right is another of Bailey's favorite activities - dressing herself and TJ up like gangstas. OK - we posed her for that shot.

Getting Started

I finally figured out how to upload video to YouTube and got some good response from friends and family. This blog will be my attempt to do more of the same - share with you what's going on in our life, what's happening with Bailey, funny things that TJ does (as well as not-so-funny things), etc. I may try to link out to some of the cool stuff that I find on the web, sites I like to visit (not those sites), and really anything else that comes to mind and can be shared on a blog. Consider this a test run to see how it goes.

If you're interested in seeing the YouTube posting, see below:


Let me know what you think!!