Happy Halloween!!!

Happy Halloween to you! I wasn’t holding much hope for our  house participating, considering every time I tried to get Ava’s costume on her, she’d pitch a fit! However, she was quiet cooperative today and wore her costume! I also thought she wouldn’t trick-or-treat because she’s not so fond of people she doesn’t know, but she marched herself right up to doors said “trick-or-tree” and then said thank you after getting her candy! I was so proud of her! Here’s our little witch!!

   

Now, we can move on to getting through Thanksgiving (which I like just fine), and onto my favorite season, the Christmas season!!! woohoo!! Wishing you all a good week!!

The one that is random!

I have a few things I want to cover in this post so it will kind of be all over the place. How’s everyone doing this week? We’ve already got 2 of the 5 work days down, so that’s definitely a good thing!

First of all, please go check out this giveaway by clicking on the picture:

My friend Sarah from Life {Sweet} Life has put together three amazing chances to win over $300 worth of products made up from donations from various people. You can read the entire story on her blog, but the short version is that her niece has hearing loss and her hearing aids are maxed out and can do no more for her should she get worse. She needs cochlear implants but her insurance will not cover it. By donating $5 to Laci’s giveaway, you can get an entry to one of the awesome set of products! Please take a moment to check this out and help if you can!

And next – have any of heard of Amazon Mom? If not, go here and check it out! Y’all, yesterday I paid $24.50 for a big box of diapers that would normally cost me around $45!! If you sign up for Amazon mom, you get 15% off of things like diapers and wipes! Then, if you sign up for automatic delivery, you get an extra 15% off! So you have the potential to get up to 30% off! I’ve heard if you have a coupon code you can combine that too! They offer FREE two day shipping on diapers and wipes as well. Can’t beat that people! I wish this had been around when Ava was younger and we went through soooo many diapers!

And lastly, just a little on the Lady of the House! Over the weekend, out of the blue, Ava decided she needed to play with her babies! We’ve had them around for a long time and she’s shown a little interest in them, but not like now. She took them shopping in her cart, pushed them in the stroller, fed them in her chair, and went and grabbed her night-nights (blankets) to cover them up! When I was a little girl, my great uncle made me this baby cradle. I’ve had it in Ava’s room with her stuffed animals and dolls and pulled it out the other day. She loved putting the babies to bed and rocking them! So cute! i love watching her grow and enjoying new things!

Ok, that’s all! I told ya it was random! hope you all are having a good week!!!

A girl can dream..

I’m kinda down about some stuff tonight so instead of dwell on it, I’m going to blog about some nonsense!

First of all, how about a blast from the past??! Have y’all heard about this?

There’s a book coming out next year that is about the Sweet Valley Twins, 10 years later. Apparently there’s a lot of drama that has gone on between Elizabeth and Jessica and I can’t wait to get my hands on it!!! Sadly it doesn’t come out until March!! Will any of you read it??

So, now then. Can y’all believe it’s almost the end of October?? That means the countdown to Christmas is on! 66 days people! I’m working hard on figuring out what to buy people and decided maybe I should come up with a wishlist of my own.

First up:

5 Quart Kitchen Aid Artisan Mixer

This may qualify me as crazy to want this as a gift, but I really want one of these: Shark Steam Pocket Mop

And I’ll take a break here to mention that a couple months ago, our vacuum cleaner broke and we had to get a new one. We got the Shark Navigator and let me just say, I WANT to vacuum now! I LOVE that thing!

A long shot on my wish list is new bedroom furniture:

And that’s all – no need to be greedy! ha! These aren’t even necessarily things I want for Christmas, just on my long term wish list! A girl can dream, right?!

So, tell me, what do you want for Christmas (or just whenever?!)??!

Giveaway winner!!

The winner of the giveaway is…

 

Anna!!!!!

I’ll be in touch with you to get your stuff to you! :)

Thanks to all who entered and remember, you can always go here to place an order! And don’t forget about the items that are available to support breast cancer research!!

Super Saturday!!

Hi! Did you have a nice weekend? We sure did! We sure are exhausted though! Sadly we spent most of Saturday apart. Zach had to take his kids to a contest so Ava and I were without him.

We started our day off with breakfast at “Chick-flay”!

After that, we headed about 20 minutes away to watch Zach’s group perform! Ava was more interested in playing in the bleachers!! After watching them, Zach had to stay there most of the day. Ava and I hopped back in the car and headed to our next destination. A family at our church has land down in the country about an hour away from us. Each year, they have a big bash down there. My parents and their friends always go and camp, and Ava and I headed down for the day. Ava had an absolute ball!!

Her buddy for the day – Aunt “Snephanie"

She LOVED the water and the rocks

They had a bingo game in the barn and my dad stayed back with Ava while the rest of us played for prizes! He got smart and just moved his chair to the water where they played for about an hour!

Another activity they have is a hay ride! Ava was excited to take a ride with the tractor, even if she doesn’t look it!

After the hay ride, they had goodies and candy spread out for the kids to “hunt”!

We had such a fun time – the only thing that would have made it better was if Zach could have gone with us. Ava has already said she wants to go back next year!!!

While we were there, my brother and his girlfriend gave Ava some pumpkins they carved for her. I took some pictures of her this afternoon with her Mickey and Minnie pumpkins! This was after she lost hold of her pumpkin and it rolled away from her! :) She thought it was funny! 

I hope everyone else had a great weekend too! Don’t forget about my giveaway – you still have time to enter!!! Go here to do so!!!

Have a great week!! :)

It’s giveaway time!

My Pampered Chef business has really blossomed and I’m so excited for the opportunities it’s presenting! I enjoy doing cooking parties and I LOVE our products, so I wanted to share some fun things with a lucky winner, including a couple of my favorite items!

Ok, first up:

Pampered Chef’s Season’s Best – Fall/Winter Recipe Collection

Twix-it clip combo pack in pretty fall colors! 

Sun-Dried Tomato Herb Oil Dipping Seasoning

Smoky Barbecue Rub

And these last two are some of my favorite items that I use all the time! First up, the Small Mix N Scraper. Small is used loosely here. This is a normal sized spatula and it is the BEST spatula I’ve ever owned! 

And lastly, the Mix N Chop!

This is one of the most popular items I sell! This is used to help break up your ground beef, ground turkey, sausage, whatever! It helps get your meat to an even consistency and if your meat is still a little frozen, this helps to break it up easily!

Each of the following is worth one entry and please leave a comment for each:

1. Leave a comment telling me about a PC you love or would like to have
2. Be a follower or become one
3. Follow me on twitter  - click on the bird on my sidebar(I’m private so I’ll have to approve follower requests)
4. Tweet about the giveaway
5. Blog about the giveaway and leave a link (3 entries)

Also, please go to my site and check out some of our amazing products! If you love to cook or if you know someone who does, PC products would make great Christmas gifts!

Also, during the month of October, PC has a line of PINK products to support Breast Cancer Awareness. For each of these pink products purchased, PC donates $1 for breast cancer research. You can check out the pink products, as well as others, here!

Giveaway will end at noon, CST, on Tuesday, October 19th. US residents only and please make sure there is a way to contact you if you do not have a blog! Good luck!!!

Good weekend!

Why is it that Saturday and Sunday always pass by soooooo quickly?? I hate that it feels like we blink and the weekend is over. I’m ready for another vacation! Too bad I have a couple more months to wait for some extended time off of work!

Anyway, we had a fun weekend! We went to NWA yesterday to watch the Hogs play (the longest game E.V.E.R.) with our friends Adam and Sandy. Before we headed to their house, we stopped by to see my brother Stephen. We’d been to his house when he first moved in but hadn’t been back to see it all put together. Ava found a little toy in one of his extra rooms that she thought was pretty cool:

Good thing those live at Uncle Stephen’s house and not ours! :)

We woke up and went to early morning church and came home and lounged for a while. This afternoon, I headed with two of my friends/co-workers to see a movie! We all enjoy reading books by Karen Kingsbury and one of them was recently made into a movie! The movie isn’t showing everywhere but it was playing in NWA and we all wanted to see it so jumped in the car to head up there! We had lots of fun and the movie was sooooo good! The song that played at the end of the movie was “What I Cannot Change” by LeAnn Rimes. I’d never heard this before but the words to the chorus are so true and so pertinent for our lives:

“I will learn to let go what I cannot change. I will learn to forgive what I cannot change. I will learn to love what I cannot change. But I will change whatever I, whenever I can.”

Such a good reminder that our lives and the situations we face our out of our hands and we must rely on Christ to get us through! We can however change our attitudes and behaviors and how we react to said situations! Definitely a reminder I’ve needed as of late!

And to wrap up, just a cute new thing Ava is doing. Lately we’ve noticed her “singing” along to theme songs of her favorite shows. I took a video of her tonight signing along to the theme of one of her favorite shows, Little Einsteins (or Ein-stei-eins in her words! I love that she adds that extra syllable!). You can’t hear the actual song very well but you get the idea!

Hope you all have had a great weekend too! Be thinking of me tomorrow morning as I sit through a two and a half hour meeting – happy Monday to me! :)

Life lately

I’ll be honest here. Age 2 is kicking my rear! Wow! The last few weeks have held a very headstrong and stubborn child full of lots of fits, lots of tantrums, and lots of whining. (oh, the whining is the worst!) (ha – and here I am doing the same!) I feel like we get home after work and spend the whole evening “fighting” and I don’t like it one bit! Anyway, I know it’s just a phase. (Can you veteran mamas reassure me that it gets better?!) Thankfully, we had wonderful night tonight that came at just the right time for this worn out mama!  We spent some time outside this evening in the BEAAAAAAAAAUTIFUL weather that has arrived and we heard lots of sweet giggles!

Trying to ride her tricycle Then realized it was just easier to push.. she walked around saying “weeeeeeeee!” 

Love this sweet smile!

Hope everyone is having a good week! Be sure and check back – I’ll be posting a giveaway very soon!!