My Favorite Things

I am so excited to be a part of this fabulous blog hop, hosted by Laura at Where the Magic Happens! Thank you so much, Laura, for all of your hard work!

What an exciting time of year- and what an exciting give away we have for you! Wait until you see all of the great prizes.   We all decided to share some of our FAVORITE things- and then donate one of our favorite things for a HUGE give away.
                                             

Here are a few of my favorite things to share with you...

First of all, my favorite restaurant-
For me, it's all about the company- not about the restaurant.  When Jeff and I are with my parents, sister, and brother-in-law on Sunday mornings for breakfast, it is Wegmans. Every Sunday!

We all meet and eat and talk. It's perfect. The food is good, but that's not the reason it is perfect! It's just being together.

Where ever we get to meet my daughter Ellie and her husband Matt out for dinner is my favorite- Texas Road House, Applebees, or the little pizza place we meet half way between our houses. My son, Matt, and his girlfriend like to go to Friendly's. Emily and I love to go to Subway or California Grill.  Their French fries are totally worth eating. You know how sometimes fries aren't really worth the guilt? Well, these are. OK maybe we dip them in ranch dressing, too.  Neither one of us is proud of it. It just happens.

 If Jeff and I go out, we aren't really fancy "out to dinner" people. We like trying new, nice places, but we love our good old Spiedie and Rib Pit.

Yum. Our area is sort of famous for spiedies. We always say that if we were traveling, we would never stop here, at Lupos (below), just because it's so "understated." You literally go inside, order, move to the side, get your order, and go. (Think Seinfeld's Soup Nazi), but the spiedies are fabulous- so fabulous. There's always a line- no matter what time of day.

Y.U.M.  Seriously.

Our area even has a Spiedie Fest each year to celebrate this awesomeness.

The first Wednesday of each month, my friends from school and I all go to Antonio's- a great little Italian restaurant.  We just love to go and eat and talk and laugh. I'm pretty sure we could be just about anywhere together as long as we had a chance to talk and laugh.

My favorite beauty item lately has to be Wen fig shampoo and sixthirteen from Chaz Dean, from QVC. My sweet mother got some for me because my hair was breaking and just so sad.  My hair is naturally curly (but not that "pretty naturally curly" that does what it's supposed to do) so I straightened the life right out of it.  I really do think this cleansing conditioner is helping.  Thank GOODNESS.  I am also taking all sorts of vitamins to make it stronger from inside out. And trying to drink more water, and not washing it so much... and spending all this money...  I should just let it curl.  Anyway, meanwhile...

 My favorite thing to do over the holidays is definitely play games as a family.  We love our games.  Here are some of my favorites!

My favorite thing to use for school is probably my Prezis.  I use them all the time on the Smart board. I have all of my favorites together in one place, easy to use, ready to go! In fact, I even made one about My Favorite Things! I teach the children the song each year. They love watching all the different people sing the song.  The children  bring in their favorite thing to share with the class. I take each child's picture with his/her favorite thing, and then we all write about our favorite thing. Here it is if you would like to use it, too! The pictures that go with the words of the song are in the middle. I just click though them as we sing.  Around the edges are different people singing the song that the kids love to watch!

My favorite thing that I am giving away for the give away is an ebay gift card.

... And here's why. Everything that I seem to really like, goes away.  I know that sounds over-dramatic, but I used to love Lipton Cherry-Almond tea. It's gone.  I loved Ryder perfume from Hollister. Gone.  I loved Mood Sweet Cravings lotion from Victoria Secret. Gone.  I loved chocolate raspberry creamer for my coffee. Gone. Jeff and I even had just found a favorite restaurant we LOVED, and ... it closed. Do you see a pattern? I know. I am sort of scary.  I feel like I'm the best anti-marketer out there.  If I like it, take it off the shelf!  Anyway,  thanks to ebay, sometimes I can find those long lost things I loved like perfumes and lotions (ok- not the coffee creamer...) , so I thought you'd have fun finding something for yourself there, too.  Merry Christmas!

Because we value our followers and wanted to treat you to our favorite things Oprah style, we have put together the best giveaway of the season! My bloggy friends and I welcome you to the best, biggest, most cheerful event of the season:

Because we value our followers and wanted to treat you to our favorite things Oprah style, we have put together the best giveaway of the season! My bloggy friends and I welcome you to the best, biggest, most cheerful event of the season:

7 winners for 7 prize packs!

Come and enter the giveaway and check out my bloggy friends' favorite things:



a Rafflecopter giveaway

An InLinkz Link-up