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Top 10 Christmas Gifts for the Special Guy On Your List

Women get a bad rap for being picky present-openers but, when it comes down to it, men can present their own challenges during the holidays. They certainly don’t drop as many—ahem—hints as women do about what they might want. Plus, men tend to be more the type to go ahead and buy themselves the things they think they need. If you’ve reached your “challenge accepted” moment in the relationship, we can help. Read on for 10 Christmas gifts for the special guy on your list.

1. Totally Ticket Time 

While something your man can physically open is great, an experiential gift can be equally as wonderful (if not more!). Get your main squeeze tickets to see his longtime sports team, his favorite band, or a play at your local theater. The huge bonus of going this route is that you get to go, too!

2. The Way to His Heart is Through His Tummy

You’ve heard this a million times and, unless you’ve found the exception, most men really love to eat. Hopefully you’ve scored one who loves to cook as well. Even if you have, though, you could turn the tables and make him a meal. Another alternative would be to hire a private chef to cook a romantic dinner in. Lastly, the health nut guy in your life would likely love a membership to a home meal service, like Blue Apron or Home Chef.

3. Accessories, Accessories, Accessories

These are the kinds of thing that men often forget to buy themselves. From a new watch that he’s wanted to replace for some time like this hyper masculine JORD wood watch to jewelry (personally, we think men don’t wear this enough), this will be something he’ll love because he likely wouldn’t have gotten it for himself. Allow him to let his personality shine through with a men’s underwear from Stance. These undies definitely put the “fun” in “functional”.

4. Trip the Light Fantastic

Have you been itching for a trip? Of course, buying your loved one a vacation is no small gift by any means, but if you’ve both been talking about it for a long time and you’ve got the means, there’s nothing better than a weekend (or week!) away together. Whether it’s a quick jaunt to the mountains or a trip overseas, this will be something you’ll both treasure forever.

5. Go for the Gadgets

Again with our sweeping generalizations, but there’s no denying that a lot of guys love their gadgets. A new iPod touch, a super sleek smart phone case, or an iPad mini are rarely, if ever, going to go to waste in the hands of a man. Need some inspiration? Simply head into your Sharper Image for gift ideas you might not have come up with on your own.

6. Man Crates

Have you heard about these things yet? This is the dude version of the gift basket. From the Grill Master Crate and NFL Barware Crate to the Personalized Whiskey Crate and the Slaughterhouse Crate (don’t ask), there literally is a man crate for everyone.

7. Clothes

Your man would likely prefer to watch whatever sporting event is being televised than go shopping, so buying him clothes is doubly awesome. You’ll not only help him to be more stylish (right, ladies?), but you’ll also save him from a chore he likely does not enjoy.

8.  Let Him Choose With Bespoke Post

A monthly subscription service like Birchbox for Men is already fantastic, but the reason Bespoke Post takes it to the next level as there are a number of different gifts that men can choose from. So you’re getting him a gift but he still gets the metaphorical remote. It’s a win/win, right?

9. Booze, Bro

While this probably isn’t recommended if you’ve been dating for years (when something a bit more intimate might be appropriate), booze is a great gift for guys when it’s early on in the relationship. If you’ve already done the whiskey thing, opt for tequila.

10. Grown Up Stuff

Let’s face it—many men are resistant to growing up, so they might still be carrying their money in a big wad of cash and their work papers in a backpack. Help your man move on to the next level with a stylish money clip and/or briefcase.

Have a special guy in your life? Get him one of these special gifts during the holidays this year and watch him react with delight.

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WORX GT 2.0 Trimmer & Edger As Seen on TV | Does it really work?

Do you ever get caught up in infomercials and think, "I NEED that!"? That happened to my husband when he saw the WORX GT 2.0 rechargeable grass trimmer and edger. When he found out that our neighbors both next door and behind us got one and highly recommended it, we went out and purchased one. I was so skeptical because of how light weight it was. How can this thing that even I can easily use do the job? 
It took under 10 minutes to complete the assembly and we let the battery charge overnight before testing it out. The trimmer is very quiet, very different from traditional gas powered ones. I couldn't believe how quickly my husband blew through our edges and how amazingly clean and beautiful it looked! He trimmed all along our garden beds, shrubs and fence line with ease.

He says that it is a powerful tool and is ridiculously easy to use. He found a new toy and I am not mad about this one at all! It cost us about $120 and is worth the investment. The best part? It is battery operated and you never have to mess with the gas can with that oil and fuel mixture. We are so pleased with our purchase and plan to buy the newest Worx power tool that came out called the Jaw Saw. If you need a new grass trimmer/egder, we highly recommend this one! You can order it online or do like we did and buy it at your local Lowe's store.
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Most husbands have a beer fridge. Look what mine has...

Our family took a trip to Charlotte a couple weekends ago to celebrate William's 5th birthday. Our first stop was the Bass Pro Shop. Actually, we went there 3 times that day! It is Dwayne and William's favorite store. I think they could spend hours in there if you let them. They both enjoy father and son fishing time so me and the girls went our way and the boys stayed at Bass Pro Shop.
When we met back up, I see a styrofoam cooler in Dwayne's arms. I just gave him "the look" and he goes straight into "the pitch". He tells me that the fishing season was getting ready to start and how it would be a good idea to grow his own worms. **Insert stinky face here** Well what is a wife to do... you have to let men do man things from time to time. I listened to his very convincing pitch along with dozens of reasons why his idea was so brilliant. I let him purchase his funky little worm growing foolishness. I won't say that there wasn't any eye rolling involved. 

He ended up not being able to use the styrofoam cooler kit because it was too big for our mini-fridge so he use some of my old food storage containers instead. He poked tiny holes in the tops of the containers.  He purchased some sort of packing material that you add distilled water to that has the food the worms need inside the mix. All that was left was to add your own worms.  
It is all very disgusting to me but I am still amazed at how quickly they have multiplied! I won't talk about Dwayne's debacles with some escapees.
I have told him that as long as I don't have to do anything with his worm growing experiment, he can have at it. Of course the business man in him wants to start selling them. I can't deal with this dude sometimes! I suppose there are worse hobbies he could be into.
And yeah, he is that serious that he has dedicated "worm water". I just can't....

SO, what crazy little hobby does your spouse have?
Shelly, Mom Files
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Wordless Wednesday

When the boy is with his dad, all is well in the world... until they both get hungry at least!




Shelly, Mom Files
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Get to Know Olympic Hopeful David Oliver

Hey guys! I wanted to take a moment to introduce you to an athlete named David Oliver. Many of you might already know who he is or have at least heard of him. David Oliver is a USA Track & Field athlete (in hurdles) with many championships, awards and honors under his belt. Some of those athletic achievements include being a three-time USA Outdoor Champion, two-time NCAA All-American, 2008 Olympic Games bronze medalist and several other awards and honors. You can take a peek at his specific rankings and events here. It's quite impressive!
He will be leading a spectacular group of American hurdlers in the 2012 Olympic year. He is hoping to pull from the momentum he had in 2010 since he has been fighting through injuries in 2011. I am quite sure that through determination, hard work and a positive mindset, he will be amazing!

Besides being an incredible athlete, he also helps inner-city children through his organization called SUB 13. In October of 2011, David and his SUB 13 organization hosted their annual speed and agility camp in his hometown of Denver, Colorado. The kids went through a series of drills focused at helping them improve their performance. You can check out the full photo album of the event on the Facebook page. Imagine how cool that would be to get training from such a popular athlete? I know it had to be a big boost for those kids to learn from someone that took time out of his busy schedule to work with them. I have always respected athletes that give back to their community in such a big way.

You can check David Oliver out on Facebook and Twitter as well as his official site.

Psst.... stay tuned to find out how you can get a chance to meet David Oliver in person and help your child's school with Coca-Cola. I promise you that you won't want to miss out on that!
Shelly, Mom Files
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Is my what nasty?

The other day my son was doing something that really annoys me to no end that I think every member of the male species does... touching his 'man parts'. I told him I thought it was nasty what he was doing and he responds "Is your penis nasty too?". I told him that girls don't have a penis and that our private parts were different. I realized that we have not had the conversation yet about the differences between boys and girls. Being the active, typical boy William is he just sort of moved on to the next thing. My husband heard our brief conversation and starts to laugh at me. He says that maybe it was better I explain that to him since I might handle it better. MEN!
Shelly, Mom Files
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Sometimes I just want to say....


I am sure some of you will not be surprised to know that this post is about my dear husband Dwayne. He gets these ideas in his head sometimes and because I am a great wife, I humor him. We live on a pond and he LOVES to go fishing as often as he can. Our pond has all kinds of fish in it although we have never eaten any out of there before. I took him to the store so he could buy some new fishing supplies. He was going to wait until it cooled down a bit this evening to see if he could catch anything. That was all he was supposed to do.

How about an hour before he went out there he starts rummaging through MY kitchen looking for items to cook fish with. He went on and on about how he was going to catch the fish and get it straight into some hot "grease" as he calls it (country ain't it?). I'm sorry, when we lived in Miami we used to catch fish and eat it all the time. Here in South Carolina, we just go up to Publix or Kroger and buy it ready to cook. I will spare you all the gross details of his stanky fishes he caught. I cleaned the 3 fish he brought in and cooked them. He sat at the table feeling like a King, bragging about his catch. Then all of a sudden things got quiet. Very quiet. I asked him if everything was okay. He looked at me out the corner of his eye and said next time he wants fish he will just send me to the store to buy it. I just giggled a bit and almost said "I told you so". He knew he lost this one. I am going to talk about him for a very long time. Sometimes men get into this "manly-man, I want to conquer the world" state of mind and as a good wife you just have to let them have their fun. I am quite certain Dwayne learned his lesson! Now I am off to go get the fish funk out of the air :)

Shelly, Mom Files
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Boys like to spit huh?

I have discovered over the past week that William enjoys spitting for no reason. He will make spitty sounds and start laughing. I am feeling like he is going back to the baby days. I try to get him to stop and he still does it. I can't figure out what caused him to start this. I had a couple men doing some home improvement work on my house and I asked them if their sons did it. They immediately said "oh yeah" Then they go on to tell me that it doesn't stop. Eww!! I was so disgusted! The girls never did anything like this so I guess it is a male species thing. Gosh, boys are some gruesome little creatures :p
Shelly, Mom Files
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Give someone the tools they need this holiday

Home Depot is offering many hand tools by the Husky Tools brand under $20 this season with prices starting as low as $4.88. Not a bad option for dad's stocking stuffer. You can never go wrong with a useful and practical gift (not to mention low cost). You can check out the line of Husky Tools holiday deals here. Be sure to "like" them on Facebook to get updates.




Shelly, Mom Files
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It's not just a hat

See the hat in the picture? Well it has been in Dwayne's life for about 10+ years now. He LOVES this hat dearly. A friend he used to work with (who is now deceased) in his 911-communications days gave it to him for Christmas. Dwayne used to work the graveyard shift and the center would be freezing due to all the high-tech equipment. So regardless of what it felt like outside, he wore it for 12 hours straight inside the workplace. He loved this hat so much that he would wear it to bed at night during the winter months. Sexy huh?

We were in Walmart together (hat included) about a week and a half ago and when we got back to the house he was frantic. He ran back out the front door and was down in my car, the yard and even his car. He runs back in the house to ask if I had his hat. I told him that I didn't. He freaked out and declared that he has lost his hat. He was thinking he dropped it in Walmart. I asked him if he wanted I would go with him to look for it. He was so sad. He was even teary-eyed. This hat was filled with sentimental memories. We did not return to Walmart that night. He had a mini-memorial via YouTube videos of old songs that reminded him of his dawg that gave him the hat. He said good-bye to his hat.

We went to Walmart a couple nights ago and I suggested we see if there was a lost and found. Indeed there was. Dwayne described his hat and viola, there it was! I think he almost cried tears of joy when he was reunited with his precious and very filthy hat. He was ALL smiles. I was happy for him. We brought it home and I washed it up and made it Downy fresh. He was whole again. He knows he will keep better track of his things. Bless his heart, he's a simple man. Can't be mad at that :)

Shelly, Mom Files
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The Man Room

We recently did a little home improvement project in Dwayne’s Man Room. Yeah, I let him have a room all to himself. I say he is lucky. I would have otherwise turned it into a playroom. I really wanted to get some new bathroom furniture, a bedding set or repaint the kitchen but the Man Room project won.

So the Man Room project was to replace the old carpet with new flooring and we opted to go the frugal way by doing the work ourselves. We went with a higher end vinyl tile (self-sticking) since the base of the floor is concrete. Dwayne let William help with the rolling of the first few tiles. Don't laugh at the rolling pin, I did say we were doing things frugally!
When the boy started doing wild things like this it was time to send him upstairs to his sisters. Things started to get rather sticky (literally) It took us about 7 hours since we had to cut all the detailed edges and corners. Those were the moments I wanted to jump out the window. I could not wait to be DONE!
We were both is so much pain we could not believe it. Your boy Dwayne behaved like the usual fool and I did have to say a few (dozen) choice words. Let's just say he likes to try some really dumb things instead of doing it the proper way and I have to get on him. Thankfully we made it through and it came out really beautiful~ besides his wall art. His favorite stuffed bass. People always ask him if he caught it. He tells them "Sho nuff, caught it at an estate sale!".
I am kind of jealous now. I think this color is so nice with his custard colored walls.

Now we are thinking about the next project.... Who knows what the next Shelly & Dwayne adventure will be!

Shelly, Mom Files
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I love my husband but....

Dwayne took the day off yesterday so that we could run some very important errands and also attend Briahnna's last volleyball game (details on that later). It is not often that Dwayne is home in the middle of the week so I was looking forward to it. Why did William feel that he should be mischievous ALL day long? Seriously, he is almost a complete angel during the week and he got into every kind of trouble possible. One of those bits of trouble required the use of a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. I don't get it. My sweet child was a monster yesterday. Dwayne laughed it off and said it was testosterone hanging with testosterone. Well no thank you. Go back to work.
Shelly, Mom Files
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He is so annoyed with me :)

Remember back when I posted this? If you have been reading Momfiles long enough then you know how proud Dwayne is of being a manly man. He was so annoyed today when I took out this raspberry shirt for him to wear to work. You should have heard all of his snarky comments haha! He was even more irritated with the name of the color. He was like " Now that's some bull%@(^!"


Shelly, Mom Files
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Wordless Wednesday

Three generations....

Can you tell William loves to read?

Shelly, Mom Files
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Old school or just a plain old fool?

Remember this a couple weeks ago?

Last night Dwayne and I went to Walmart so he could look for a couple items. He needed to get ....cassette tapes..........*crickets*............ Who does that? He was so happy they actually had it and they were $1.78. I know he is old school but I am beginning to think he is an old fool!

Shelly, Mom Files
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I know I say it all the time...

The male species...the ickiest species EVER! My son has started the popular man trend of putting his hand in the front of his pants (under the diaper). I will never understand the need to fondle the man parts. I know you ladies (and men) know what I am talking about! UUUGGHHH!!! So so icky!!

Shelly, Mom Files
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What real men do...



They mentor our youth.

Shelly, Mom Files
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Men in Pink

Last year I purchased Dwayne a spring suit during the off-season for a deal you could not beat. He wanted to wear it to a recent speaking engagement but I told him he needed the right tie. We went out to shop for one and I already knew before we even walked into the store what I would love for him to get. It was between mint green and rose pink. He fought me down like you would not believe. PINK???? On a manly man?? Oh he was not having it. I was able to get him to consider a fun blue and he grabbed the pink just to shut me up. He then proceeds to walk up to the side entrance near the men's department to ask the lady working in that area what her choice would be between the blue and the pink. Without even giving it a second she instantly blurted out "pink!" There were some other ladies in the area making purchases and they all agreed that pink would look good on him. He was mad but the votes were unanimous. Now how in the world does he come home to try the tie on with the suit and suddenly he started to suck in his gut and poke his chest out. He then stares at himself in the mirror as if he was saying "Damn, I'm fine". It turns out that he loves the tie and I am sure he really loved all the compliments he received from all the ladies. MEN!!


Shelly, Mom Files
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Flashback Friday/ How to impress your mate (re-post)

How To Impress A Woman:
Wine her, Dine her, Call her, Hug her, Support her, Hold her, Surprise her, Compliment her, Smile at her, Listen to her, Laugh with her, Cry with her, Romance her, Encourage her, Believe in her, Pray with her, Pray for her, Cuddle with her, Shop with her, Buy her flowers, Hold her hand, Write love letters to her, Go to the end of the Earth and back again for her.


How to impress a man:
Show up naked ... Bring chicken wings and beer ... Don't block the TV and shut your mouth!
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What ever happened to bar soap?

My father-in-law sent me shopping the other day for bar soap. His one request is he did not want common, everyday Irish Spring or Lever 2000 (aka Man Soap as Dwayne calls it). The FIL prefers his soap to come from Bath & Bodyworks or a boutique type shoppe. He used to buy his soap through Avon and they discontinued it about 2 years ago. I went to Bath & Bodyworks and they only had the "high dollar" variety and they too discontinued the glycerin soaps bars. I searched a few more stores and it was the same story. No bar soap. I finally found some at World Market. I did not realize that specialty soap would be that hard to find! I think we will stick with the normal, affordable and easy-to-find stuff in our home! Personally I think bodywash is way better.
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