Word Of The Day Winner--August

Well, the correct guesses have been thrown in a hat once again.

I must have the smartest readers in all of Blogville! I cannot believe you could so easily find words like pusillanimous and panoply hidden in my stellar text. Please tell me, how could you tell they weren't from my vocabulary? I'm going to have to try a lot harder this next month if I'm going to get any by you.

The first place winner for the month of August is...Lisa, your faithful commenting paid off once again. I have another secret to confess. Do any of you remember when Dan won for the second month in a row and I still hadn't given him the first prize? Well, I'm kind of (exactly) in the same situation with Lisa. I do have it--I do! I will try and deliver her gift certificate to Portrait Innovations to her in the morning when I drop my Grant off for his first day of preschool. (Sob, sob!) Lisa, thanks for playing along. You had the second most correct guesses behind the second place winner. Who is that you ask? Read on. The kids had to do the name drawing in the dark. In fact, they had already gotten in bed when I made them come outside to pick the winners. I'm a great mom that way. It's all about priorities! Claire drew... I have to admit I was so happy to see hugeyah's name. I have been wondering who you are since the first day you commented. Who is hugeyah? Would you please send me an email to maxandmichelle@aol.com so that I will know where to send your prize? You can choose between a $15 gift card to Cold Stone Creamery or $15 Amazon ecard. Claire's first question was, "It it a boy or a girl?" If only I knew! All I do know is that hugeyah guessed the most times-pretty cool! Thanks, hugeyah.

The final winner for the month of August is....drum roll please...

Trish, you finally won! It's funny--Trish has let my kids know how disappointed she was that they haven't picked her name. Now maybe Garrett has earned himself an extra helping of dessert the next time they have us over for dinner. (Which is often--she's an excellent hostess.) Trish's prize is a $10 gift card to The Gap. I hope she doesn't spend it all at once.

Now it's time to admit an ooops we had while drawing names. One entry went flying out of the hat and Hank grabbed it. You should have seen me dashing for his mouth before he swallowed it. I try to keep things fair. This is a clean contest and all entries should be accounted for when the children are drawing. Hank didn't see it that way. All he was thinking was, "Do I even think this tastes good? Why is she trying to get it from me? It must be worth something. I better keep trying to swallow it." Score one for the human--I got the soggy name out but decided not to put it back in the hat. Dena, we apologize for the error. I would love to buy you a dessert at the next girls night. Mud pie? A cookie? You pick, I pay.

Something interesting I noticed this month. Dan was one of the winners in the last two contests held, yet didn't enter even one correct vocab guess in August. Should this tell me that Dan was worried I might throw yet another Starbucks gift card his way, or was he trying to give the rest of you a chance to win? Inquiring minds want to know.

Here is the list of words for the month of August:

• lachrymose
• malediction
• schadenfreude
• pusillanimous
• malingering
• sapient
• repletion
• puerile
• forlorn
• extol
• panoply
• gustatory
• comity
• melange
• spoony
• tutelage
• disparate
• aestival
• renascent

My favorite of the group? It definitely has to be schadenfreude. It will forever remind me of The Olympics and my cruel thoughts aimed at innocent individuals from other countries. I'm not proud, just honest here.

Thanks to all of you for playing along. Now go out and use these words in your next conversation--show the world how educational blogging can be!