A SUPER FUN GIVEAWAY

The reason I started this blog is to preserve memories. It's my photo album, scrapbook and Katie's baby book! It has turned into so much more.  This community of people is just fabulous and encouraging!  It's been a place for me to vent and also celebrate. I have asked for advice and prayers and have always been overwhelmed with the kind responses. It's even fun to talk about reality TV with you. 

 I wanted to show appreciation for anyone that reads this blog, with a fun gift!

This is for old readers and brand new ones too!

I have included some of my favorite things:

Jesus Calling Devotional

3 Tyler Candle Votives 

Green bubble necklace

Leopard zip bag

 Turquoise ring

Super cute scarf  

Nepal hand beaded bracelets

Sideways cross necklace

A $5 gift card to McDonald's.   

( This is to buy 5 delicious Cokes! Not for the food, but I can't really enforce that!)  

A cute tape measure 

Lip Gloss from Bath and Body Works

And a "PLAY" sign, because I like to play! 

  

These adorable note cards, from my friend Catherine, will be included too! 

Her business is called Everything Design, because she can do everything!

Her facebook page is here.  

 Here are some close ups of the loot:

 I love this ring.  And it's stretchy, so it should fit everyone.  Those aren't real diamonds, just in case you were getting excited!

This green bubble necklace will make any outfit fancier:

 And the leopard zip pouch can hold all your make-up, money, or coupons!

Nepal beaded bracelets. You can wear them together or separately:

 Here's the cute tape measure:

 This is perfect to carry in your purse when you need to measure furniture for your house.  I once ordered a WAY too giant couch for our house and a tape measure would have given me a little perspective! 

And I wear my sideways cross necklace all the time. Hopefully you will too!

And this scarf is so fun. I know half the country is freezing cold and half is warm right now.  So for some of you, this might have to be worn next year.

 The Tyler candles I included are High Maintenance, Homecoming, and French Market. These little votives will smell up your whole house! 

I think McDonald's cokes are the best ever. They make me super happy! And they are the perfect companion for running errands. 

 And these cute note cards will be personalized after I choose the winner!

 It all totals to almost $200 worth of fun stuff!  

 Here are the details:

 You have to be a blog follower to enter.

Just leave a comment and that's your entry!

You can just say Hi, or maybe tell me what you would like to see more of on this blog. Don't tell me what you'd like to see less of, because that might hurt my feelings!

You can enter a 2nd time if you post about this giveaway on your blog or facebook page. 

The more the merrier!

And because of shipping, I can only ship in the U.S.  

I'm sorry about that. 

 I will announce the winner next Thursday, February 7th. 

Comments will be opened until the winner is announced!

GOOD LUCK!

I Went Shopping For YOU Today!

Did you know green is THE color for 2013?  Well it is, and you can have this green bubble necklace, along with some other fun things.  
We will get to that in a minute. 

 Remember when I sweetly posted this yesterday?

I guess Katie reads my blog and put me to the test!  
I am not saying she was a distraction last night, BUT if I was saying that, then maybe she was a distraction from watching The Bachelor and SLEEPING! She was up the majority of the night.  Which never happens.  She slept soundly from 4:30 to 8:30 am, then begged to go to school?  I wasn't planning on it, but let her.  I told her sweet teachers to call if she got too tired.  She did! 

Katie had a great nap at home, then at 5:00 (when her doctor's office closes) she told me her ear hurt.  So we went to Care Now and she has an ear infection! It's only her second one ever.  The doctor said it was due to allergies.  So thankfully she is not contagious since she went to school today!

The good news is, that during those 2 1/2 hours of freedom, I went shopping for you! 
I love this little blog and you blog people so much, that I want to do a give away!  I will have the official entry up tomorrow.  That's the plan anyway.  Katie might have a different plan for us! 

Here's a sneak peek!

I am just picking 1 winner, so they get everything.  You just have to be a blog follower to enter.

I LOVE this devotional Jesus Calling.  It's short and sweet and uplifting and comforting:

 I found a way to send you a McDonald's Coke! They are the BEST!  I don't recommend the food, but their Cokes are Heaven sent. And they make me happy, so I want to make you happy. 



Some Tyler votive candles









And you will get your own personalized note cards from my friend Catherine.  I love these and have done several different styles for gifts.  She always makes me fun stuff for Katie's birthday parties too.

 And there's MORE!  I will get a picture of everything tomorrow and give you more info too!


Hopefully we will get to sleep the whole night, otherwise I might keep everything for myself to ease the irratableness! 

A Recipe and BUNCH of Other Stuff

 Don't you want to stick your face in this bowl?!

It's a brownie trifle. And it's super easy to make.  

Just layer brownies, chocolate pudding and cool whip.  Then do that 2 more times.  I use Duncan Hines family size brownie mix in a 9x13 pan, 2 packages of instant Jell-O pudding, and a big container of cool whip. 

 It's a perfect dessert to bring to someone's house or to make when you are having company. Everyone likes brownies right? If they don't, they shouldn't be coming to your house anyway, because they are completely nuts!

 We had my in-laws over for lunch after church yesterday.  We each take a turn cooking on Sundays, so we just have to do it once a month. 

Here's the chef:

 We had roast, mashed potatoes, green beans, corn, salad, carrots and rolls. YUM! 

Marcus takes his church shirt off as he is walking in the door! The poor boy can hardly handle "fancy" clothes. Good thing he's a fireman! 

Katie LOVES to entertain her cousins!  She and I stayed home from church yesterday, because she has a super stuffy nose. It's not good manners to put your snotty kid in the church nursery!

 

Last night we fired up the popcorn maker I got Marcus for Christmas.  It was so fun and so good! 

 Katie was patiently waiting for her popcorn.

We had lots of family time this weekend.  Friday night we celebrated my mother in law's birthday.  My niece made the awesome cake. 

 Do you notice someone's hand getting super close to the cake?

This is the cake maker, Melissa, with the birthday girl. The grand kids call her Annie.

 Can you tell that Katie is excited about the cake?

 I am thankful for such a sweet mother in law!  And I am thankful for the son she raised too!

Her other son, Marcus's brother, got her a BRAND NEW CAR!  Isn't that fun!?  I need to take a picture of it.  We got her new towels and some Bath and Body Works shower gel, soooo we are probably still the favorites!:)

OK, I am long winded today.  I think it's because I've had a bunch of tea.  So I am going to keep going. You can take a bathroom break if you need one. 

 The other day, Katie was so excited to show me the seahorse that she made:

 Katie: Mommy I made a seahorse!

Me: I love your imagination!

Katie: NO! It's a SEAHORSE!

I am barely on Facebook. I have about 60 friends and I like it that way. I mainly use it to keep up with the teenagers at church.  FB is almost too outdated for them though.  It's mainly for us old folks. 

Anyway, I was encouraged by this post from Lisa:

 

 I don't want Katie to ever think that emptying the dishwasher or doing laundry is more important than she is.  I can see how she might get that idea though! It's a balance.  Things have to get done, but I also need to take time for legos and play doh.

So that and the trifle recipe are my gifts to you today. You're welcome!

Pillows, Dirt and Truth

 I got some cute chevron pillow covers at Hobby Lobby yesterday. 

They were half off and just $3.50 each! 

And they help fulfill my new year's resolution of adding more turquoise to my house!

 They had tons of colors and patterns to choose from including sequins and burlap.  I just wanted to share since they are such a great deal right now!  

This little dirt ball is my sweet baby girl. 

 This is what Katie looked like after playing with Daddy in the back yard. I had to give her a shower then a bath! And I found dirt up her nose. I know for those of you with boys, this is a daily occurrence.

 I MAY have over reacted a little bit!

And I haven't shared my 2nd memory verse with you yet. 

This is #2 out of 24 that I will be memorizing for the year. 

It's Philippians 4:8

Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.

source 

Can you imagine what my attitude and outlook on life would be if all the things I am thinking about are true, honorable, right, pure, lovely and admirable, excellent or praiseworthy? 

It doesn't leave any room for "What if's".  Like what if something happens to Marcus or Katie?  I promise you I have planned both of their funerals several times in my head before!  Sick huh?!  If I can't get a hold of Marcus at the fires station for a while...well, I guess he died. If Katie sleeps for 12 hours in a row and I don't see her moving on her monitor...I assume she stopped breathing! And in seconds I picture my life with out them and wonder who I will ask to be Marcus's pallbearers!

My thought life can be pretty dramatic!  I need to take my thoughts captive and focus on what is true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, excellent and worthy of praise!

Speaking of something lovely...

I am gathering stuff to do a fun giveaway next week. 

 

I just LOVE you all so much, that I want to do something fun and give you presents! 

Will You Accept This Rose? Or Taco?

  

So, The Bachelor was awkward last night...as usual!

I watched Kacie's scenes peeking through my fingers. 

I am so glad I am married and don't have to date anymore.  And I am really glad none of my single years were on national television...or Facebook. 

That's one advantage to being old. None of my shenanigans are documented! I will deny whatever you might have heard!  

  

And I think we all learned a lesson last night, to not be a gossiper or a tattle tale.  The Bachelor is educational!

 And I hope Days of Our Lives has called Tierra, because she would do awesome on that show!

 The Bachelor is comical and awkward sometimes, but I still love it!  And I really like Sean. I'm the sucker that believes he will find true love and get married!

(Oh, and not to sound like a grandma, but the girls' dresses were so dang SHORT! Like they were so short that it wasn't flattering. And they could barley sit down without showing their bits and pieces!)

 My life is less dramatic, but it's still fun!

Tonight we went to Taco Tuesday with The Osbornes!

Katie and Charis. 

 This is Charis's CHEESE face! I love it! 

 

These girls were wild monkeys, and doing some WWE moves in the booth.

 I love that they love each other! 

 

 These twins are Katie's surrogate siblings! 

Courtney and Drew:

Drew was asleep in the booth for most of the meal!

After dinner, Marcus went to the Rodeo with one of his friends.  So Katie and I went to my parent's house.  We weren't ready for the fun to end!

This girl is silly!  She had us laughing so hard tonight! 

If she were to offer me a rose, I would totally accept it! 

This is A Business Meeting...

OOOOPS!  I accidentally deleted my last 100 comments!  I feel sad about it.  I was TRYING to delete all my spam comments and deleted the good non-spammy ones instead!

I am getting WAY too many spam comments.  They all go to the spam folder, but it is also flooding my regular email.  I hate to make you enter a code before you comment, because I really don't like entering those things and it usually takes me 3 tries before I get it right.  That's not good for the self esteem.  And I hate to block anonymous comments, because I know some of you don't have a google account or don't want one.  We'll see...

My point is this...

Some of you asked questions in the comments and I answered you in the comment section.  Now they are all gone.  Ask again, if you didn't see it.  And I only answered in the comment section if you are a No-Reply Blogger.  Meaning when you leave a comment I COULD email you if your email was available, instead it has your name and No-Reply.  I just changed mine recently and you should too!

You can find instructions on how to do it here.

It's easy peasy!

This picture is in no way related to this topic what so ever!

This is from donut Friday! 

I guess today will just be cereal Monday!

Moo

 My friend Anna, let me borrow 2 cow hide rugs that she is not using at the moment. 

 It's nice to have good friends with fun stuff!

 This cow is in my bedroom. I like her. She makes me feel skinny...and crave Chick fil A.

The other rug is blue! I sure would love to see a blue cow!

 That pesky patch of sun was not helpful during picture time.  

I bet a cat would really appreciate that patch!

I am not keeping the blue one, because it did not go with my turquoise mirrors.  

Although, in this picture it looks like they match perfectly.  In real life they don't.  And one of my New Year's resolutions was to add more turquoise to my house.  So the royal blue cow is moving on to greener pastures at my friend, Catherine's, house.  She thinks it will look good in her son's room.  I will MAKE her take some pics for us!

I really want to be the girl that has a blue cow hide rug in her house, but it's just not meant to be. Hopefully a turquoise cow will die of natural causes in my front yard! 

Forever Lazy and Forever Friends

Yesterday we woke up to some surprise sleet and a teensy bit of snow! 
 It has been so cold here(for Texas), but I love it!

I keep taking extra showers in the day just to thaw out and warm up!

I feel like I NEED some of these Forever Lazy Pajamas.  Have you seen the infomercial?

They say you can wear them at a football game!?

I think I would just wear them in my house, but you just never know. I have worn some questionable things to Walmart before.

Right now they are buy one get one free!  So Marcus and I can be twins! He would be pretty cute in these. 

I feel like their marketing team failed a little bit on the name though. Forever Lazy? That's not very positive! How about Forever Cuddly or Forever Adorable?

Speaking of adorable...we celebrated my friend, Courtney's, birthday last night.

We went to Olive Garden, because none of our husbands ever want to go!

Michelle, Catherine, Anna

Paige, Me, Rene

We shut the place down and then went to Anna's house, because we weren't done chatting yet!

Surprise! Anna's Christmas tree is still up! 

 I was pretty excited!

Anna has 3 boys that are 6 and under, so there is no time or energy for things like taking down Christmas trees! 

Do you love that cow rug?  She just let me borrow a blue one and a regular cow colored one!  I will try to decorate with them and share about it soon!

And I also wanted to show you her fabulous kitchen table she painted!

I shared pictures of Anna's house here about 4 years ago.  It's a little different now, but the pictures are still fun!

I am off to do a little cow hide decorating and some online ordering!