Sadly though, only one of you could win the $200 Visa gift card and that person was commenter #515…

And #515 belongs to…

Congratulations!  Shoot me an email at katie@marriageconfessions.com to claim your prize!

Thanks to everyone for entering to win.  Special thanks to Flip video and BlogHer for sponsoring this fun giveaway!

The kind folks at Flip Video asked me to share about a time when I wished I had my Flip Video camera with me to capture a moment.  But the thing is that I always have my Flip video camera with me.  We bought this camera at the same time we bought our big girl photo camera.  I was about six months pregnant and we decided to splurge and get us a camera and a video camera so that we could document Bean’s little life from Day One.  We got a Flip because it was small, compact, affordable, and because it is really cute!  (That last one was my criteria…)  Flip just released their new SlideHD camera and so I have begun campaigning for one of those, too!

I love my camera because it is so small that it fits anywhere.  Its assigned place in our house is on our living room coffee table in the basket that holds our remotes.  We keep it here because no matter what’s going on, we can grab it at a moment’s notice.  That’s how I’m able to capture things like this video, where Bean is moaning for his Tylenol bottle.  It wasn’t a big moment where I planned to have my camera, but because the Flip is so portable I was able to have it handy right when the moment presented itself…

So, there haven’t been too many times when I’ve missed something that I wish I’d have had my camera for.  But there was this one day when we all were at the playground together for the first time.  I had thrown my camera into my purse, but forgot to grab my Flip video camera.  It was Bean’s first time in a swing and I wasn’t sure how he’d react.  I sat him in the infant swing and gave him a good push and instantly this perfect, loud, gut-belly laugh exploded from his little mouth.  It was such a pure, sweet laugh and everyone on the playground started laughing back at him.  It was that contagious.  I did get pictures with my camera and they were pretty good.  But they just didn’t capture that laugh.  And I would love to be able to hear that again.

Today on Marriage Confessions, Flip Video is sponsoring a $200 Visa Gift Card giveaway in celebration of the release of their new Flip SlideHD video recorder!  You can use the gift card for anything really, but I would highly recommend using it towards the purchase of a Flip SlideHD video recorder so that you’re sure not to miss those little gut-belly laughs in your life!

To enter to win, leave a comment below telling me a moment or time when you wish you’d had a video camera with you.  Your comment can be as simple as, “When my sister flipped over the coffee table in her prom dress and landed in a bowl of salsa” (that’s a true story, by the way…) or you can share the whole doggone stinkin’ story that you really should have captured on camera.  I’m easy to please.

Also, there are four other bloggers hosting this same giveaway, so be sure to visit their blogs and enter to win a total of FIVE TIMES!!!  For a list of participating blogs, visit the BlogHer round up reviewer page.

For more information on the NEW Flip SlideHD camera, visit the Flip website.  For BlogHer’s official contest rules, please visit the BlogHer website.  The giveaway runs from May 17 to June 14, 2010.  Good luck!

…to lucky Alex because Alex is pregnant!  And if you value anything during pregnancy, its some gooooooood sleepin’!

Alex, Select Comfort will be in touch with you directly via email.  Congratulations and sweet dreams!

Well, yeah.

The box modeled here by my lovely sister, Ginny, who is in town this week taking care of me and Chris while we take care of Bean Bag.  Yeah.  She’s awesome.  But not awesome enough for me to share the actual pillow with her.  Only the box.

They were going to send me and Chris each a new, soft, pillow on which to lay our pretty little heads and dream and dream and dream.   All I had to do in return was review their product on the blog and then give a set of pillows away to you guys.

Well, yeah.

But when I pulled the pillows out of their boxes (standing in my driveway because I was so excited), I was confused.  It was foamy.  And it was layers of foaminess.  And it was hard.  Hard layers of foaminess.

Well, huh?

I was bummed.  More than bummed.  I had been wishing and hoping and dreaming and praying for some good pillows, darn it, and here I was with a foam brick that weighed more than my car.  But, not being one to complain (oh, look!  lighting just struck next to me!), I hauled my two heavy-duty pillows inside for further examination.

When I got them up to my bedroom and laid them on my bed, I was crushed even more.  There were waves in them.  One big one at the top and one smaller one on the bottom.  My pillows were slowly losing their appeal and for about 10 seconds I seriously considered shoving them back in their boxes and re-gifting them to someone that I didn’t really like.  But Chris came in and said I shouldn’t judge so quickly.  So, we put pillowcases on them and decided to give them a try that night when we got into bed.

The minute I laid my head down, I knew this was not the pillow for me.  First of all, Chris and I got into an argument over which wave went at the top and which wave went at the bottom.  He thought the bigger wave should go on your neck for support, but that wave was entirely too big for my neck so I flipped my pillow and put the big wave at the top, like a bumper, and the little wave at the bottom for support.  It was supportive, but it also felt restrictive.  Chris said I couldn’t make a decision until I slept a full night on the pillow, so I shut my trap, kissed him goodnight, and drifted off to Tinsel Town.

I am not kidding you or exaggerating when I say I had the best night of sleep in my life.

I tried to re-enact my heavy sleeping, but I couldn’t quite get the drool placement correct.

For real, people.

I can’t even tell you how the pillow slept because I slept so heavily and soundly on it that I don’t even remember it.  And I know that I slept good on it because I woke up in the morning (Imagine!  An entire night of sleeping!) and my head was in the exact same position as when I went to bed.  And that NEVER happens to me.  I’m a tosser and a turner.  I move around in my sleep like a crazy person.  And because I’m a light sleeper, every toss and turn I make wakes me up.  But with this pillow, I kid you not, I didn’t move a muscle and so I didn’t wake up all night long.  Sure, it is heavier than any other pillow (or bag of cement…) I’ve ever owned, but to me that’s a small price to pay for something that gives you such pure sleep!

Sometimes I get sent things to review or talk about on my blog and I never put it up here because I didn’t really like the product.  And then I feel bad cause I got something for free and I don’t want to tell everyone that “Hey!  This product sucked!” because they were so nice to send me something in the first place.  So, I only actually blog about products that I actually really liked and this one is at the top of my list, let me tell you.

If you know someone who is pregnant or is a new mom or dad, give them this pillow.  If you know someone who doesn’t sleep well (like me!), give them this pillow.  If you know someone who has back problems and just can’t ever get comfortable, give them this pillow.  They will love you and buy you presents and we all know that the only reason to give presents is so that we get bigger presents in return, right?

Now, the only downer to this pillow is that its so darn expensive!  This one retails for $100 – $150 each.  Ouch!

OR YOU COULD GET IT FOR FREE!!!  (or you could actually order it on sale right now on their website – I just checked and its listed right now for $75 – $100…)

Enter to win a memory foam pillow for yourself by leaving me a comment telling me how many hours of sleep you need to function the next day.  Personally, I’m a 5-6 hour girl myself.  Any less and I’m a beast.  Any more and I’m a slug.  But 5-6 and I’m pretty much ready to face the day.  What about you?

The giveaway will end Thursday @ 10PM EST, and the winners will be announced Friday.

(You should know that if you enter this particular giveaway, your name and email address will be given to Select Comfort.  This information will not be distributed by Select Comfort, but only used to add you to their mailing list.  Marriage Confessions will not retain your email address for any other purpose.)

Special thanks to Natalie at Select Comfort for contact me and coordinating this giveaway!

You are the lucky winner of a HomeGoods $100 gift certificate.  I’ll be in touch with you via email to work out the logistics.

And just to ensure that all’s fair in love, war, and blogging, Amy was chosen by Random.org.  See?

Be sure to check back on Marriage Confessions Reviews for other periodic giveaways and fun product reviews.

Special thanks to BlogHer for their support of this giveaway.  And, of course, a SUPER DUPER THANK YOU to HomeGoods for continuing to make my home good.  And for now making Amy’s home good, too!

So.  A couple weeks ago I posted pictures of my master bedroom and shared about my style dilemma.  The dilemma being that I didn’t have any style.  I had found two lovely duvet covers from Pottery Barn, but a couple different readers left comments that I should check out HomeGoods before spending all that money.  This sparked a giant “duh!” moment for me because HomeGoods is just up the street from my house and I have practically furnished the entire rest of my house there, so why stop in my bedroom?

I went out that afternoon and bought this lovely stark white duvet cover.  Its stark white because my husband has no imagination whatsoever.  But that’s a different blog post.

The very afternoon that I went to buy my new duvet cover, guess who sends me a $500 gift card to use to spruce up my bedroom….  HOMEGOODS!  Boy, do they know how to make a girl’s day!

When they sent the gift card along, they suggested that if I was in need of decorating ideas (yes, please) I should try their new StyleScope feature on their website.  So, one afternoon while the Bean was sleeping and I had sufficiently bossed Chris around for the day, I went to their website and answered some fun questions about myself and my style (or lack thereof) and VOILA!  It spit out my style portfolio:

I AM COUNTRY ECLECTIC.

It basically nailed me dead on and nicely told me that I have no official “style,” but that I value “wide-ranging interests and influences.”  This would probably explain why I have a tea-rose country rug in my living room (which I bought a year ago at HomeGoods, ironically enough) and hanging above this country rug is a five-foot abstract painting.  They don’t really match.  But they do.

Its country eclectic, people.  Leave me alone!

Anyway, armed with my new style, Chris and I headed up to HomeGoods to see what we could find.  We first headed over to the decorative pillow section.  With a non-negotiable stark white duvet cover on our bed, colorful throw pillows were mandatory.  We decided we would just pick out the pillows that we liked and then pick a color scheme from there, right on the spot in the store.  Lucky for us, they had just gotten their new fall merchandise in and their throw pillows runneth over!  But the time we piled up all our options on the stroller, poor little Beanie was buried.

Once we picked out these beautiful, jewel toned, Mediterranean-esque pillows, we headed over to the art section to see if we could find something to match.  Here’s what we came up with.  I think it looks really great:

With our bed finished and art now for the walls, we decided to check out dog beds for the puppies.  The dog crates in our bedroom are such an eye sore, so I thought maybe we could find dog pillows that sort of matched. At first I thought we’d have to just settle for something that sort of came close to our theme, but I guess they had just gotten in a shipment of dog beds because HOLY COW were there a ton to choose from.

I think we got pretty darn close.  And the dogs love them!  We call them their Big Girl Beds.

At this point, I made Chris tally up our purchases cause I ain’t so good with the numbers.  I figured we had probably come pretty close to maxing out our $500 limit.  But we had barely spent $100!!!!

I made him recount.  And then recount again.  And then he told me to quit ordering him around.  And then I told him to recount again.  And then he said he was going to leave if I wasn’t nicer to him.  And then I said GET YOUR OWN BLOG!  And then he said DESIGN YOUR OWN WEBSITE!  And then we realized we were sort of stuck in this together.

So I made him recount one last time.

Then we decided, well, shoot!  We’ve got all this money left on this gift card.  And there was an entire rug department on the back wall….  Could we?  Should we?  We couldn’t!  But we did!

WE BOUGHT A RUG, TOO!!

Beanie was so darn excited that he pooped his pants.  Really.  Right there in the store.  So I took him outside for a diaper pit stop while Chris checked us out.  When he met us at the car he was smiling like a little kid.

“You’ll never believe this,” he said.

“They asked you to leave because they thought it was weird we were taking pictures in the store?”

“No,” he said.  “There is still $100 left on the card!”

SHUT. YOUR. MOUTH.

We went home that night and set up all of our purchases.  Our room looked beautiful.  It changed the whole look of the room and we didn’t even paint yet!  It looks warmer and cozier.  And just like my style profile online said, it matched, but it wasn’t matchy-matchy.

BEFORE….

AFTER…

A couple days later after the excitement of my shopping spree started to wear off, I mosied back on up to HomeGoods by myself to spend the rest of the gift card on whatever I wanted.  It was glorious.

I replaced all of my dishtowels with these super bright red cloths and a few autumn decorative towels for fall.

I bought a lovely wicker hamper for our bedroom that matches the Mediterranean theme we had going on.  Its huge and sturdy, which means my dogs can’t knock it over and bury bones in the dirty clothes as they have been known to do.

I tried to find a reason to buy this African mask, but I couldn’t come up with anything.  Bummer.  I hated leaving it behind.

I bought picture frames for mine and Chris’ offices so that we can finally bring pictures of Beanie to work.

I bought a Yankee Candle in a cinnamon scent.  Because its just not fall until the cinnamon candles come out to play.

I bought a new kitchen rug because I’m tired of standing in my kitchen and feeling crumbs under my feet.

And my favorite thing I bought….  I bought this super cute cover for my ironing board!  Isn’t it awesome?!?!?  Mine has been solid light blue for years and I hate it.  So when I stumbled on this bin of trendy, cute patterns at HomeGoods for $12.99 I said to myself, “BUY THEM ALL!”  But then I remembered I only had one ironing board.  So I took the poke-a-dot one and called it a day.

In all honesty, I’m reviewing HomeGoods because they were kind enough to give me a gift card to go play in their store, but I really would have made over my bedroom there anyway.  So much of my house is decorated in HomeGoods merchandise.  From the pillars on my mantle…

…to the rug on my living room floor…

My entire house is a HomeGoods shopping spree.

The kind folks at HomeGoods didn’t want me to be the only one having all the fun.  To enter to win your own $100 HomeGoods gift card – take the StyleScope Quiz and tell me what your style is in the comments below – or you may leave a link to your post on your own blog in the comments below. The contest will begin at September 14th and will end October 14th.  Make sure that the e-mail address you leave is correct so I can notify you right away and tell you to START YOUR SHOPPING ENGINES!

Rules to Play:

No duplicate comments, please.
You may receive an additional entry by linking on twitter and leaving a link in the comments.
You may receive an additional entry by blogging about this contest and leaving a link in the comments.
This giveaway is open to US residents, aged 18 and over.
Winners will be selected via random draw, and will notified by e-mail.
You have 48 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected.

Please see the official rules here:  Official Rules

For even more chances to win, visit Several other bloggers were given gift cards and have posted about their styles and shopping experiences, too.  Check out what the rest of the BlogHer Reviewers found at HomeGoods – you’ve got 8 chances to win a $100 HomeGoods gift card.

Also check out: Open House - HomeGoods’ Blog for anyone that loves their home.