Disney Store Coupons and Disney Website Coupon Codes
Disney is closing several of its retail outlets across America. Every Disney store that is closing will be issuing 15% off total purchase coupons that can be used another Disney store retail outlet. They will also have an online shopping code that can be used at ShopDisney.com by entering the Disney website coupon code into the order form at checkout.
Since many cities have more than one Disney store, parents of kids who love Disney might want to watch for when their (mostly) local Disney store will be closing and drop by for both the free 15% coupons, as well as any markdowns and clearance prices that they might have. Rather than ship stuff back to the warehouse, closing stores will likely offer sales and prices below what you can usually get as a great deal at the Disney Outlet website at Disneyoutlet.com
Here is the details from the official Disney press release. All stores will be closing within “the next few months” during 2010. Check and see if there is one near you going out of business and then keep an eye on the local news for details about the closing, or watch the Disney.com website.
**
Disney Store Closing Several Stores to Focus on New Interactive Stores
This statement was released by Disney Stores. We lost our Disney Store several years ago in the first round of closings, and it was absolutely heart-wrenching for me. I know there are going to be many people very upset about this, and I just want you to know that my heart goes out to you. I definitely know the feeling of having your local “touch of Disney magic” closed down.
Press release as follows:
Making the decision to not renew a store lease is never easy and we take these types of decisions very seriously. We value Disney Store cast members and our guests, and hope that for those of you affected, you will continue to be a Disney Store fan. The stores that will be closed over the next few months are listed below and will begin to offer discounts and clearance specials soon.
Closing stores will also provide coupon offers in-store good for 15% off your entire purchase at participating alternate locations. DisneyStore.com will offer 15% off your entire purchase and free shipping for all purchases over $50. Limited time only. Offers may vary by store. Please visit your closing store for more discount offers and more details.
We continue to plan for the future and look forward to launching newly designed Disney Stores across the US and Europe. Look for these highly interactive new stores to roll out over the next five years.
Again, thank you for your continued support and remaining a loyal fan to the Disney Store.
USA
ALABAMA
Riverchase Galleria – Birmingham, AL
CALIFORNIA
South Bay Galleria – Redondo Beach, CA
COLORADO
Southwest Plaza – Littleton, CO
FLORIDA
Broward Mall – Plantation, FL
GEORGIA
Arbor Place – Douglasville, GA
IDAHO
Boise Town Square – Boise, ID
ILLINOIS
Yorktown Center – Lombard, IL
Spring Hill Mall – West Dundee, IL
INDIANA
Glenbrook Square – Fort Wayne, IN
Greenwood Park Mall – Greenwood, IN
KENTUCKY
Florence Mall – Florence, KY
MASSACHUSETTS
Silver City Galleria – Taunton, MA
MICHIGAN
RiverTown Crossing – Grandville, MI
Southland Center – Taylor, MI
NEW MEXICO
Coronado Center – Albuquerque, NM
OHIO
Belden Village Mall – Canton, OH
SOUTH CAROLINA
Broadway at the Beach – Myrtle Beach, SC
TENNESSEE
Coolsprings Galleria – Franklin, TN
Opry Mills – Nashville, TN
TEXAS
The Parks At Arlington – Arlington, TX
West Oaks Mall – Houston, TX
Collin Creek Mall – Plano, TX
VIRGINIA
Dulles Town Center – Dulles, VA
Valley View Mall – Roanoke, VA
CANADA
BRITISH COLUMBIA
Metropolis at Metrotown – Burnaby, BC
MANITOBA
St. Vital Centre – Winnipeg, M
ONTARIO
Scarborough Towne Centre – Scarborough, ON
**
For those of you in Colorado, you may have noticed that the Disney Store at Southwest Plaza is on the list of closures. The one in the Park Meadows Mall closed some time ago, but there is still a Disney Store up in the Flatirons Mall. So, watch for the Southwest store to start going out of business and then head down for the big sales and the coupon. Then you can use it up at the Disney store in Broomfield.
How To Get Baby To Sleep Best Tips and Tricks
New parents face one issue that matters more than all of the others: How to get a baby to sleep.
Mastering the parenting skill of putting a baby to sleep is one of the most important, and the trickiest. Fortunately, there is plenty of parenting advice out there for how to get a baby to stop crying and fall asleep. Unfortunately, much of it is not very helpful for Moms and Dads looking for a usable answer.
Parenting Books Advice on Baby Sleep
There are literally thousands of books out there with advice for parents. Whether first time parents, or parents with previous children, there is a top parenting advice book out there waiting to be snatched off the bookstore shelf. Some of them are very authoritative sounding. They are written by doctors or they bear the names of well respected medical institutions like Children’s Hospitals or doctors groups like the American Medical Association (AMA) or the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP).
Other books are more “friendly” sounding. The bestselling parenting books
Regardless of which of these books you choose to read, they all say pretty much the same thing. While each particular book will have its own add-on steps, or a differing rationale about why their plan is the best way to get a baby to fall asleep, the core solution is always the same: using a pattern that leads up to nighttime or naptime to make it easier for baby to fall asleep.
(I will be deliberately avoiding the use of the “R” word here for those poor souls who are looking for the information contained in this article and try to find it by excluding pages that have the R word. — If you are wondering what the R word is, you haven’t read very much about sleeping babies yet 
The idea is that by performing the same activities in order each time you put baby to sleep, the baby will grow accustomed to the pattern and then fall easily asleep in a peaceful no cry manner.
While the suggested events to execute this plan differ from book to book or parent advice column, the overall concept is the same. Dim the lights, minimize stimulation, read one book, sing two songs, and place the baby gently into the crib while they are drowsy, but still awake so that they can quickly soothe themselves off to dreamland. Once you’ve done this a few times, your baby will practically put themselves to sleep.
This is the kind of sleeping solution that only an academic or clinician could love. It is very true. This procedure does, in fact, work to help all babies fall asleep faster and easier. So, why then is this advice so utterly worthless?
Parenting Tips for Reality – Welcome to the Nursery of the Real World
What could be simpler than establishing a repeating pattern for baby’s nighttime?
Steps To Get Baby To Sleep Easy and Fast
- Give your baby a kiss.
- Change baby’s diaper and clothes.
- Sing baby a song.
- Read baby a book.
- Sing baby another song.
- Place baby gently in the crib.
- Say Goodnight to baby.
- Walk out of room.
- Baby falls asleep.
- Repeat.
Anyone see the catch?
The problem with the above system is that #9 has to happen BEFORE this plan can work. How can a reasonable solution include having the problem already solved as one of its steps? Just because a Top 10 Parenting Book says that establishing a nighttime ritual is the smartest parenting strategy for getting baby to sleep doesn’t mean that baby know it!
In the real nurseries and baby’s rooms of the world, little baby boys and little baby girls don’t know what comes after Step 8 (or any other step for that matter). Try the above procedure with a baby that has trouble sleeping and you’ll get a new Step #10 – Baby cries! Unfortunately, this plan has the same last step.
BEFORE you can establish any sort of sleeping ritual, you have to be able to make baby fall asleep. THEN establishing a repetative pattern can help make the process of putting baby to bed easier. But, until then, the above plan is worthless with a capital ‘W’.
What parents need is a real world method of Best Tips To Get Baby to Sleep and Top Tricks Parents Use For Sleeping Babies. These methods include ways to make baby sleep NOW, not after you’ve established some mythical sleep formula. When a baby is screaming in your face, the last thing a parent needs is a high-handed lecture about what will be the best long-term sleeping solution. They especially do not need to be told that the way that Mom and Dad have been putting baby to sleep before reading this enlightened version was all wrong, and frankly, is the cause of baby sleep problems they are having now.
The real world, tested in my own home with two babies, including one who has colic, strategies are coming soon in the Undefeated Daddy plan for Getting Baby to Sleep.
Extended Warranty Rip-off Scams Ends With SquareTrade – Money Saving Tip
Square Trade offers extended warranties on tons of stuff. In fact, chances are that if the retailer you are buying the product from offers an extended warranty, SquareTrade does too. It operates as an online business at www.squaretrade.com.
The difference between them and electronics stores or other retailers, is that they aren’t trying to make up their low profit margins on pricing by selling way over-priced warranties. (Circuit City went out of business when they couldn’t sucker enough people into buying warranties anymore.) Instead of price gouging naive customers with overpriced extended warranties, SquareTrade operates more like a traditional insurance company. What they do is estimate how frequently a certain product or type of products requires warranty service, and the average cost of each warranty service. Multiply that out, and you get the overall expense of offering the warranty. Then, you add on a normal profit margin to each warranty sold and, voila, a profitable company that sells reasonably priced warranties. This is a good business model, unlike trying to squeeze the maximum dollars out of every customer’s pocket ,and then hope that they don’t realize that they have been cheated. That means that their warranties are priced like they should be without a huge markup.
The other very important difference is that when you have a SquareTrade warranty, you have a warranty that was explained, represented, and sold by Square Trade. When you buy a store warranty, you have a warranty that was sold by an employee at the store, who may or may not have fully understood it. Either way, that warranty is NOT a product or service of that store. That warranty will be from some third-party that you have never heard of. That means the store will only be able to say, "Sorry, we aren’t who you need to talk to."
However, the most important difference between a SquareTrade warranty versus a regular warranty from the store is that the warranty company doesn’t care if you have a good experience or not. You didn’t know who they were when you bought the extended warranty in the first place, and you won’t know who they (or one of their many subsidiaries) is when you are contemplating buying a warranty next time. In other words, they have no incentive to give you good service or worry about getting a bad name. On the other hand, SquareTrade is a stand alone company that would quickly go bankrupt if it got a bad reputation. In fact, they need your repeat business. The only way that is going to happen is if you are a satisfied customer, which means giving you a much cheaper price than in the store, and actually trying to satisfy you if something goes wrong while your product is under their warranty.
Don’t take my word for it. Go online before you go shopping for something. Get a quote for what the extended warranty from SquareTrade will cost. Then, go into the store and let the salesperson tell you how much their extended warranty will cost. The price difference between a SquareTrade warranty and store warranty will shock you. In many cases, the warranty offered by the store is double the price of the Square Trade warranty or more!
Cheap Christmas Toys 2009 Shopping Deals and Tips
With Thanksgiving falling on pretty much the last possible day in November, Christmas has come hurtling toward Moms and Dads like a runaway freight train with a turbo-booster. That means time is tight for shopping for Christmas presents for children, toddlers, and babies. Now, anyone with good parenting skills wants to provide a Merry Christmas (or other happy holiday) for their kids with plenty of presents without breaking the bank or raiding the college fund.
Additionally, no one wants to spoil their kids either. Add to that the fact that a lot of children already have more toys than they can play with, and you have parents torn between buying lots of toys for Christmas to fill up that space under the Christmas tree, and Daddies and Mommies wondering if they shouldn’t buy any new toys at all this holiday season.
Fortunately, it is possible to have it all when it comes to Christmas. The plan is simple. Get great deals on as many toys and presents as fit into your budget, thus satisfying both the no-overspending need AND the have tons of fun Christmas toys to play with on Christmas morning. What about the over-filled toy boxes and closets and shelves?
Before Christmas have a frank, but not depressing, talk about how not everyone is as fortunate as them. Use this as a time to play up how lucky your family is, and how great it is to be part of such a loving household, instead of dwelling on how sad it must be to be in the reverse situation. At the end of the conversation ask them to go through their toys with you and decide which ones should be donated to other kids who might have more fun playing with them. If you have a particularly green child, play up the recycling angle. If you have a got to have it all kiddo, play up the need for plenty of space to put those new Christmas presents.
Make the donation before Christmas to open up some room. As an added bonus, make sure to keep the receipt. Donations to charity are tax deductible, and nothing helps cushion the expense of the holiday season like parents saving money on taxes.
Find Great Deals Online for Christmas Toys and Presents
When it comes to finding the best deals online, there are too many Johnny-come-latelys, deceptive websites, advertising filled webpages, and sites pretending to list only great holiday savings deals links, when they are in fact, listing whatever links offer up the highest commissions to webmasters who send paying customers their way. Get suckered into using one of these bait-and-switch online "deals" scams and you could actually end up paying more than you would have by walking into your local store and grabbing the hottest toys right off the shelf.
To avoid these issues, use online deals websites that are community based. That is, online deal lists that are submitted by, ranked by, and commented on by an active deal community.
One of the best online deals websites is SlickDeals.net (notice the net, not com)
[That is not a paid link or an affiliate link or anything. Hover your mouse over the link and you'll see it goes straight to www.slickdeals.net, or if it makes you feel better, just type it directly into your browser. – The only ads I get any money from on this website are those Amazon ads and the Google Ads]
Slickdeals has a Frontpage that lists what the moderators have chosen as the absolute hottest deals as submitted by their readers. These deals are displayed as a simple list of links. Click on the ones you are interested in, skip right by the ones you are not. If there is a free shipping code or a 20% coupon code, you can be it will be listed there alongside the deal. No need to go find a great price and then hunt all over the Internet to find a free-shipping code or watch your entire savings go up in smoke to shipping and handling costs.
The best part about Slickdeals and their online bargain listing is that every listed deal has a link that says "Discuss". Click that link and you will find a huge user base going back and forth over whether or not any particular deal is a hot deal or not. Even better, you will also find people going back and forth of the quality, specifications, features, and brands of every television, video game, watch, jacket, dress, and toy listed. This is incredibly helpful if you are buying gifts that for that special someone that you aren’t very familiar with.
You will get a much more realistic impression of what makes the best cordless phone, or the top LCD television set by reading the ongoing discussions in the slick deals forum than you will by trying in vain to sort through which reviews are real, which reviews are fake, which comments were left by employees, or which commenters were paid to rate the product high.
Don’t even bother searching for something like best computer monitor. You’ll be on a shifty website before you can say widescreen. Instead, head over to slickdeals and read a few of the discussions about some of the computer monitors on there. By the time you are done, you’ll know what some of those numbers mean, and more importantly, why it matters whether or not it has HDMI inputs or built-in speakers. (Yes, if they are big on photos and videos. And then, no, if they have other computer speakers that they will probably be using anyway.)
Here is another money saving tip. Torn between whether or not to get the extended warranty? Don’t buy it from the store or website! Instead, check out the extended warranties from a company called SquareTrade. Good luck and Merry Christmas!
By the way, a couple of other deal sites that I have had good experiences with are GottaDeal.com (which also has a coupon code section) and DealNews.com.
Height-Weight Charts For Children
As a concerned parent, it is comforting to be able to occasionally take a look at what is "normal" or "average" when it comes to child development, even if the experts think that parents are better off not being concerned about what normal is. However, wanting to know what is best for our children is the most important parenting skill there is.
Truthfully, the experts do have a point. Obsessing about what is normal or average or "right" when it comes to baby development or toddler development isn’t always a good thing. Every child is different, and every baby is different in how fast they grow and put on weight, just as every toddler is different when it comes to how fast they walk or run, or even how big they are. However, withholding information from concerned parents is never a good idea. When people lack the information they want, they tend to infer their own data, and when it is worried parents we are talking about, we tend to assume the worst. It certainly wouldn’t send most parents into a frightful state of paranoia if we got a good look at the official height-weight charts for toddlers and the official height and weight charts for babies.
Unfortunately, the Internet doesn’t offer too much help for a curious parent who wonders if their 3-year old is taller than average, shorter than average, or bigger than average overall. Too many search engine results point to preachy articles about obesity in young children and toddlers. Most parents can eyeball their toddler or small child and have a gut feel about whether or not they are starting to get "big boned." But, for parents wondering if little Sally is shorter than other 4-year olds, or if it just so happens that her handful of friend are all just taller than average, such articles are no help.
Trying to limit a search to reputable sources only makes it worse, because these are the doctors, counselors, and other experts who like to hold that information about whether or not a kid is average weight or average height close to their vest. Instead, they hand out patronizing answers like, "perfectly normal" and then tell us "I wouldn’t worry about it." Like that helps.
So, it was with some excitement that I found the official U.S. government height and weight charts. These are the height-weight percentile charts with the graphs of curving lines that show exactly where your child falls with regard to how tall or short they are relative to their peers in the United States. The reason they are so hard to find is that they aren’t called what you think they are. They aren’t listed on a government webpage under height-and-weight charts or height-weight graphs, but are rather listed as Clinical Growth Charts, and they are on the CDC (Center for Disease Control) website of all places.
Is My Baby Tall Short or Average? Is My Toddler Taller or Shorter than Average?
Of course, there is, in fact, no reason to lose even one second of sleep over the fact that a toddler or baby is shorter or taller than average. The growth rates change dramatically, and a kid who is tall today can end up average or short tomorrow. However, more facts and truthful parenting information is always a good thing to have. If nothing else, it can get you to stop worrying, especially if it turns out your little one is just a tiny bit taller or shorter than average.
Ironically, at these younger ages, the percentiles for height and weight exaggerate the actual differences between the size of toddlers. That is because when dealing with a 36" inch tall child, a full 10% difference in height is just three and a half inches. As relative percentiles to their peers, the numbers are even smaller.
For example, in 2-year old boys, the difference between 50th percentile, and 95th percentile is just 2 inches. In other words, the difference between perfectly average and taller than 95% of all little boys who are two, is just a two tiny little inches. That leaves a lot of room in between for everyone who is "a little taller" than average.
*****
*****
Search
Other
Link It, Fav It, Share It
