I Love Swagbucks

In a post quite a long time ago, I casually mentioned Swagbucks and promised to do a post about it at some point.  As I sit here kinda-watching the Super Bowl, I finally decided to get around to it. Do you know what Swagbucks is?  Do you already "Swag"?  If not, you totally should! Swagbucks is a search engine, like Google or Yahoo.  And honestly, I often get better search results with Google, which is why I don't use Swagbucks as much as I should for optimal results.  But what makes Swagbucks so awesome is that you earn FREE MONEY just by using it as your search engine.  And if you're willing to put in a little extra time, you can really rake in the dough, er, Swagbucks. Here's how you can earn money with Swagbucks: If you install the Swagbucks toolbar, you get 1 Swagbuck each and every day when you open up your Internet browser.  You don't have to download the toolbar to use Swagbucks, though, you can just go to http://www.swagbucks.com/.  Having the toolbar is convenient for searching, though. You sometimes earn Swagbucks when you use it to search.  You can use it to get to sites you visit every day anyway, like Facebook or Hotmail, or search for any random thing.  In just a half hour tonight, I earned 12 Swagbucks for searching "Super Bowl!" and 9 Swagbucks for searching "straw bale gardening."  When I earn for searching, it's been anywhere from 5 and 19 Swagbucks.  Once I even got 50 Swagbucks for a search!  Oftentimes, of course, I don't get any Swagbucks from a search, but I typically do at least once a day.  It can also be sneaky - sometimes you won't  initally get Swagbucks, but if you go to page 2 or 3 of the search results, you will! From my personal Swagbucks page, I can go to the Earn tab and earn 1 Swagbuck every single day for doing each of the following: voting in the Daily Poll, viewing the No Obligation Special Offers (NOSO - all you have to do is click "Skip" or "View Next Offer" at the bottom of each screen for a few screens to get your Swagbuck; you don't have to actually look at the ads or enter any of your info), and clicking on "Trusted Surveys" (again, you don't have to do any of the surveys, you get 1 Swagbuck just for opening the surveys page).  These are easy ways to get Swagbucks every day; sadly, I neglect them and only do them sporadically.  If I just spent a couple of minutes each day doing this, I could rack up a lot of extra Swagbucks over time. Two words: SWAG CODES.  Swag Codes are awesome and real Swaggernauts who are devoted to earning $$$ with Swagbucks can earn a lot just by checking for Swag Codes regularly.  They're little codes that you enter on your page and that give you a predetermined number of Swagbucks (4, 15, it vaires).  When I feel like checking for a Swag Code, I find the easiest thing to do is go to this website: http://www.we-love-swag-bucks.com/ .  They find and report any Swag Codes that have been released and tell you where to find them, so it saves you the trouble of searching for them myself.  There is a time limit on Swag Codes, so you have to enter them before the deadline, but they're an awesome way to get extra Swagbucks.  If you have time to kill, "Trusted Surveys" can be an awesome way to earn large amount of Swagbucks.  You may or may not qualify for a particular survey, but if you do qualify and complete it, you'll get a certain number of Swagbucks: 10, 25, 50 . . . one time I even took a survey for 150 Swagbucks.  I've done surveys giving my response to a proposed Red Lobster commercial, giving a profile of my automotive preferences, things like that.  They can be pretty boring, but if you don't have anything else to do, they're a good way to rack up points.  Now - what is the point of all this?  What can you actually DO with Swagbucks?  You can use your Swagbucks to "buy" a lot of different items in the Swag Store, but the best deal out there (and the one I always use) is to buy $5 Amazon.com gift cards.  You can redeem 450 Swagbucks for one $5 Amazon gift card.  And you can keep stockpiling your gift cards on your Amazon account until you want to use them towards a purchase.  I joined Swagbucks (which is free and easy) at the beginning of July and I have earned $30 in Amazon gift cards, and that's without really using Swagbucks that much.  (I just get busy and don't take advantage of it like I should.  I usually go through long dry spells where I don't use it at all and then a short spurt where I use it a lot.) That's $30 in free money. Here's what I earned just TODAY: 1 for using the toolbar 12 for a web search 8 for a Swag Code 1 for doing the daily poll 1 for visiting the Trusted Surveys page 10 for taking a survey (took me less than 5 minutes) 2 for viewing the NOSOs (usually it's only 1; there was a bonus today!) 9 for a web search If you want to try Swagbucks (and you should try it), please go to this link to sign up: http://www.swagbucks.com/refer/Myoo - - it's my referral link, so if you sign up through this link, I'll earn Swagbucks every time you earn via web search.  It's a win-win thing.  :) But even if you don't go through my referral link, I still think you should check it out!  Even if you only use it now and then, you'll still be able to slowly earn enough points to get a free gift card.  What's not to love about that?

From Loving the Life We Live

34 weeks

From Loving the Life We Live

4D Ultrasound

As promised, here are the pictures from our 4D ultrasound this past Monday.  While the baby wasn't cooperating very well for a full-face shot, the ultrasound technician was able to get some quick profile shots before our shy baby shunned the camera completely.  :)

For some reason, this next one was a little harder for me to "see" at first, until Greg explained it to me.  The left hand is up by the baby's face in the top left, then you can follow it down and see the bent elbow, then the upper arm ending in the shoulder on the right.  We're looking at the left side of the baby's face.  The word "CHIN" is right underneath the baby's chin; you can see the lips, nose and the side of the eye above it, and the pudgy little cheek.

 This final picture is a regular 2D one, pointing out all the hair that's growing on our fuzzy baby's head.

Looking at these pictures, it's still amazing to me that they are of a little tiny person living inside of me.  It is completely mind-boggling.  This "sneak peek" is so special, and it makes us even more excited to see our adorable baby in the flesh this March!

From Loving the Life We Live

The BIG News!

We have some BIG news to share! Today we had an ultrasound to get baby's measurements.  Our baby is perfectly proportioned, measuring in the 97th percentile, and estimated to currently weigh a whopping SIX POUNDS!  That is a lot for 33w1d gestation . . . in fact, I'm measuring 2 weeks ahead!  If our baby keeps growing at the same rate (and it might not - growth may slow down), his or her birth weight would be estimated at 9 lbs. 3 oz. Now that is what I call BIG news. What else did we learn at today's appointment? Our baby is shy...or stubborn...or both.  The ultrasound technician had a hard time trying to get good pictures and a decent shot of baby's face because the baby's face was pressed into the uterine wall.  Then the baby turned over so his or her face was completely obscured.  Camera shy!  We got a couple of decent profile shots, though, which I'll post as soon as I'm back at work and have access to the scanner.  With the winter storm they're predicting, though, you may have to wait a while for that. Our baby is hairy.  No baldy babies here! Our baby is frank breech.  He or she is all curled up in a ball with his/her feet all the way up by his/her face. Our baby's heart rate was 135 (I forgot to report the heart rate at our last appt. - it was hovering around high 140s to low 150s.) The amount of amniotic fluid is right where it should be, so that's great. My doctor is going to keep monitoring the big baby situation as we go along.  Our baby is healthy, so that's great news.  The frank breech position will be a problem if it stays that way, so we'll see if the baby turns on its own over the next weeks.  If the baby doesn't turn (so far, it has never been head-down) or if it just gets too darn big, we'll be looking at a C-section.  If a C-section has to be scheduled due to the breech position, it will likely be sometime in the 39th week. With the baby measuring so far ahead, it makes me think that I may have less than 7 weeks left even if I go into labor naturally.  Better start making a to-do list and checking it twice!

From Loving the Life We Live

Belly Dancing!

The following video is the result of dozens of painstaking attempts over the past few weeks to catch our camera-shy baby in action. Here I'm lying on the couch on my right side, finally succeeding in my quest to capture some "belly dancing" on film.

From Loving the Life We Live

32 weeks

From Loving the Life We Live

Ignorance is Bliss

Last night we had our second (and final) labor and birth class.  It's amazing how 6 hours can make you feel completely prepared for giving birth (yeah, right!).  In all honesty, though, the classes were very good and I did learn a few things. Including things that I would rather not have known. Last night, our main topics of discussion were C-sections, epidurals/pain relief options, and labor positions.  The C-section portion involved a nice little video giving an animation and explanation of the C-section process.  This made me decide that, if I am going to have an operation, I would really rather not know the details of exactly what is going to happen in the operation.  And since you're conscious for a C-section (unless it's an emergency one and they have to knock you out completely), you're lying there awake and just thinking about exactly everything that is happening on the other side of that little curtain barrier, even though you can't feel it.  The part that never occurred to me before is the part where, after they slice through the layer of skin and fat and before they slice open your uterus, they have to take their hands and pull your abdominal muscles apart so they can get to the uterus.  Ewww.  The whole thing is just kind of disturbing. Let's change the subject. We're delivering at the county hospital, Hendricks Regional Health.  It's about 10-15 minutes west of our house.  (The other hospital in our county is 5-10 minutes east of our house.  We're smack dab in the middle, very conveniently situated if we ever need to rush to a hospital!). It's a good hospital and has some nice amenities like free massage therapists and whirlpool tubs in some of the labor rooms.  Plus, all the rooms are private and they don't feel as hospital-y as they do some places.  I think (hope) we're going to have a good experience there. Hopefully without the C-section.  Although, at that point, I'd probably be so ready to have the baby out that I wouldn't care what was happening on the other side of that screen!

From Loving the Life We Live