Little Mermaid Give-Away

I'm so excited - this is the greatest give-away ever! Okay... maybe not ever... but I am SO excited about it.

When I heard that Disney was making a prequel to The Little Mermaid, I was ecstatic. Here's the review as written by Erica of 5 Minutes for Mom:

Jodi Benson as Ariel and Samuel E. Wright as Sebastian, reprise their famous roles and put on an incredible show as they help to tell the story of a time when music was banned from the underwater kingdom of Atlantica. We watch as Ariel, torn between family duty and her love of music, makes a difficult choice in hopes of restoring music, friendship and love to the kingdom.

Since a Disney movie isn’t complete without a villain, Sally Field joins the stellar cast as the voice of Marina Del Rey, the evil governess for King Triton’s daughters.

I enjoyed watching the beginning portions of the movie, where we get to see Ariel, already a daddy’s girl, as a young tot. As a mom, I was also touched while watching Ariel’s mother as she lovingly sang to her daughters.

The animation is definitely up there with the original film. The musical numbers are also fun, but don’t compare to those we instantly fell in love with in the original Disney classic. For a straight to DVD movie, however, The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Beginning is superb.

In stores, the movie retails for $29.99, and I do feel it is worth every cent.

I've entered the contest, and I hope I win, but if I don't, I'll definitely go buy the DVD myself.

Turbo

My "About Me" mentions my spastic miniature dachshund, and just in case there was any confusion about him... I thought I would post some pictures so you could get to know him a little bit.

He loves sleeping in our clothing... sometimes he even burrows down into our laundry basket.

As much as he loves sleeping in our clothing, it's only a substitute for our laps. I really think that this dog wants nothing more in life than to be cuddled up on Zach and my laps, and if he can't be on top of us, then he settles for cuddling up next to us.


I realize he doesn't look especially long or dachshund-ey in any of these pictures so far, but really... he's a hot dog.One afternoon when I was sitting on the computer next to the coffee table, he crawled down my shoulder from the couch, and slowly extended himself so that he was sitting on my shoulder, but had his front paws on the table. He's such a funny little dog.

He's also one of the least photogenic dogs EVER. I've taken what must be hundreds and hundreds of pictures of him, and in ALMOST EVERY SINGLE ONE he either squints, closes his eyes, moves at the last second or does a special combination of the three. I've tried everything I can think of: flash, no flash, calling his name, jingling things behind the camera, hold treats behind me, but nothing results in great pictures... except for chance.

PRIZEY

So I recently discovered this, and it's amazing! Prizey lists dozens and dozens of great give-aways, and while a lot of them are aimed at kids or moms, a lot of them are just awesome for anyone, like one of their more recent ones, a $200 American Express Gift Card. See? Cool.

And what's even better... Prizey led me to discover PrizyBooks! Give-aways... for books! Free books! It isn't updated quite as often as Prizey, and doesn't have as many give-aways, but I'm still excited about keeping an eye on it. I really can't imagine many things more exciting than a list of chances to win free books.

One of my favorites!

The Warm Biscuit Bedding Co. is holding a give-away for one of my favorite childhood toys: the Fisher Price Chatter Phone!

I'm so excited - if I had kids (or was planning on having them anytime in the near future) I would definitely participate in this giveaway.

New Quote

“You read your first draft to find out what you have written. As simpleminded as that sounds, it’s both true and profound. You can’t revise intelligently until you have an accurate and comprehensive sense of what is actually on the page, and the difference between what you intended to write and what you actually wrote can mean the success of failure of the project. Don’t assume that you wrote about what you set out to write about.” Philip Gerard