A Day late and a...

Well we won't even go into the shortage of dollars discussion. 

I was reading to my girls last night as I put them to bed and I made error of reading to them while sitting in my bed.   Apparently my reading was so boring we all fell asleep.  Including me... at 8 p.m.  So I neglected to announce the winner of my insufferable contest.

Random # 12 came up which means Keri-Ann won this little necklace and earring set...

 

Along with a little motivational angel.

Yeah for Keri-Ann!  I have to mention that Keri-Ann is one of my motivational muses.  She had 5 kids 5 and under when I met her (twinners included).  I don't think I ever see her without a beautiful smile on her face.  My first 5 were spread out over the course of 13 years and they tuckered me out daily.  Sadly my smile was more of a grimace.  Working on it though. So today in honor of Keri-Ann's win I'm going to SMILE!  Even when my herd drives me bonkers I'm going to Smile.

Happy Friday Everyone!

Keen Give-away at DYM

The ever-and-always Awesome Daring Young Mom is having a super KEEN Giveaway right now. You could score some nifty shoes for you or anyone in your family. Or pick out a really happening bag instead.

I'm so breaking the covet commandment right now. So check out the company website here. Pick your favorite item and then visit Kathryn and leave a comment on which item you drool over the most and you could win it.

Then you could stick it under the tree and pretend Santa didn't have to tighten his pursestrings after-all.

Stick a Fork in it!

'Mom, there are dingle-hoppers everywhere,' Hope announced to us this morning as we were all waking up. Yes, she often dresses like a blue fairy with a bad eye for shoe size. It's amazing she doesn't fall down more often but she's got quite the balance for a 3-year-old.

So I looked out the window and saw these all over our front lawn.

A literal army of little Forks.

I instantly groaned thinking Evo-man was up to his wasteful Shenanigans again, or maybe it was some of Abners friends punking our house. Teenagers can be soooo annoying.

So I went down to investigate and I found this on the door.

Afterthought: If the meaning of this yard prank flys over your head. That's o.k. I forgive you for knowing nothing about Twilight. The setting of the book is mainly centered around the town of Forks, WA (hence the forks reference.) We now return to my reaction.

It was meant for me of all people. My moan and groaning chagrin immediately departed and my school-girl giddiness took over. Wow someone cared enough to come in the middle of the night and risk stepping in Dog droppings to surprise me. Turns out around seven of my Twilight Obsessed Friends all got Fork’ed last night. So now there’s a big mystery Who-Dun-It being bounced around. I for one think it was amazingly clever and way cooler than toilet paper ever could be. I have the bestest friends Ever!

It got me thinking about Twilight again so I snuck off to the movie again this afternoon and guess what – It’s actually better the second time around. Maybe if I go again it will just keep getting better and better and better. Shhhh! Don’t tell Prince Erik.

O.K. I know you’re all sick of hearing about Twilight from me so that’s enough. I did get some other fun surprises today. Princess couldn’t wait to open this little treasure we got in the mail today from Faith of ‘Has Anyone seen my cape?’

She sent me one of her fabulous Etsy creations that I won on a contest on her blog. The surprise was not only did I get the cute Mommy and Me barrette that I picked out.

And she added the sweetest little Love barrette as a bonus.

Thank you Faith! The girls and I love them and I’ll have to get some more, soon. I'm thinking her 'Hope and Joy' barrettes are quite cute as well. Check out her shop sometime soon.

It was really my day for mail. I also received an early Christmas present from my brother Arrow and his wife. They sent me the perfect gift that I have to just totally plug –especially if you have a fire addicted pre-teen in your home. They remembered me blogging about how much I love, love, love scented candles but don’t get them anymore because matches are about as dangerous as markers around here. It’s not a risk I’m willing to make. So they sent me the next best thing.

Scentsy Wickless Candles!

This sweet plug-in has enough wattage in it to melt little wax cubes of delicious scent that can fill your entire home and camouflage the stinkies.

Prince Erik had it going when I got back this evening and it was the most welcoming gift to walk through the front doors and catch a whiff of ‘Vanilla Walnut’ instead of the customary ‘Smelly Diaper’ or 'Burnt Toast'.

Thank you, Thank you Bro and Family.

Last but not least – I did listen to your comments. I even fielded phone calls begging me not to take my scissors to (re-purpose) – and hack up the beautiful tablecloth I scored at the thrift store.

So it will remain a heirloom tablecloth and grace our family table as often as I can bear to leave it there – but never at mealtimes until we learn some table manners.

Such a great 'Happy Thought' Day. Thanks again to everyone who made it possible from pranksters to Faith to Arrow's family.

Zoinks - How to pick a Thing-a-ma-jig Winner?

There Really is no other way to do this. So this here Knucklehead will attempt to use your favorite (hmmm) words to announce the Marvelous winner of my alternate reality Thing-a-ma-jig Give-away. My English Teacher would be so Proud!



Zoinks, How to choose a winner? I know – I’ll just kick my Sugar-jets into gear long enough to go to Random.org to pick my splendid winner for me. Then I’ll sit back, throw on some Holiday music twinkle-ling with tintinnabulation (had to look the definition of this one up [The ringing and sounding of bells]). What you don’t hear is the sheer elation of my Yepperdoodle family who is just going to Love that I’m getting more of my clutter off the counter and sending it to… Ms. Mary Poppins herself – Treasure Ann, for her random word of Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. So Huzzah for Treasure Ann! I Hope you enjoy your new Rock-On sparkles courtsey of Ethel.



And to all my commenters, blog followers, and lurkers I wish you all a most Wonderous and Blessed Day.

Toodles

200 Bloomin Twiddley-wink What?

Well I did it, I survived my first 200 posts. Even better news is – So did You! I’m amazed and extremely awed by all the new bloggy friends I’ve made over the past year. You even put up with me as I expanded my blog readability from …

to…

See this old dear can learn new tricks.

In celebration of all things me (well I can, it’s my blog after all) I thought I would have my sparkley-est give-away yet! Some sweet bling-bling for you!

I even put a little thought into this one (believe it or not). So this gift is a Vicarious Fawndear Alternate Me! Things I would love but can’t really justify having because of, well, me. I know, I know I’ve probably lost you with my scattered train of thought so I’ll try and explain.

The sparkly jewelry I’d wear if I actually dressed in something other than work-out clothes (which I don’t). But if I did, I’d wear them. That and I don’t get myself too much bling-bling because if I did my little girly’s would wear it and most likely break it. This cute set I got from my friend Ethel who sells sweet twinkly wearable jewelry on the side. Let me know if you want me to hook you up with her. It pink and white crystal.

I love candles but I don’t have any (anymore) because I have a phyro-kid that might burn the house down if he saw an open flame.

I actually do have re-useable shopping bags, a trunk full of them x's two vehicles. They go with me everywhere because I do want to do my part to save the planet. Problem is, when I arrive at the store, do-Yah think I’d remember to take a few of them in? Nope (Sigh). I use them for a lot of other things though – impromptu gym bag, diaper bag, church bag, etc. One of these days I may just use them for the purpose for which they were intended. This one is darling though.

So you win this contest and you’ll be livin’ the life I think of living. I know, deep thoughts here. Maybe after this post I’ll be back to Elementary School level.

I thought I’d make the contest rules simple, cause that's me simple. Well that’s at least what I’m trying to be. I’m not going to ask you to post about this contest on your blog or explain your most embarrassing moment. All you have to do is type your favorite word. A One Word comment!

That’s all.

Here are some examples. Hope’s favorite word is ‘Dingle-Hopper’.

(From the Little Mermaid). When she wants to eat or do her hair she runs into the kitchen asking where a dingle-hopper is. And now you know how she really got those curls.

Evo-man’s word is Awesomeness,

Princess – Mommy (Oh, how sweet)

Lea - Art ,

Abner – Liberate,

T-Rev – Existentialist (O.K. for the record this kid didn’t get any smart DNA from me or Prince Erik he’s just one of those kids that plucked it out of randomness).

And my Husbands favorite word to say… ‘Your Right Dear’ (I guess that would disqualify him because it’s more than one word.)

Some of my favorite words are… dream, believe, serendipity, imagination, charity, faith, hope, twinkly.

I also like words that aren’t words like Snork, Toodles, Diddlywhop, and Bloomin-Ba-geebers .

So tell me your favorite word and you may have a chance to win my 200th Post Give-Away!

Contest ends... um, let me think… O.K. a week from tonight. So I’ll pick a winner - Thursday November 13th. Sounds like a hum-dinger of a fun week.

Thankful for Bloggy Busy-mess!

I've decided that only on one of my posts would you get both broken eggs and pearls.

Such is my life of late. I've been soooo busy lately I'm behind on a few things. But that's nothing new.

So to begin day three of my whole Thankful heart month - Can I just tell you all Thank you for the kind words you've said to me about my latest attempt at art on my last post. I have the nicest friends in the blogging world who say the nicest things. I'm really starting to believe everything you say.

Treasure Ann was sweet and gave me a really kind Blog Award which I will post more about later when I choose my own winners.

I'm also participating in my first ever Blog Swap and my creative juices are turning full power with excitement because I want to do a good job and the other participants seem so creative themselves. You can find out more about them here.

Finally there is the sweetest give-away of this...

from Peep Toe Pumps and Pearls in celebration of her 100th post. So go check her out and tell her kindly that I sent you.

I'll get back to you real soon - well as soon as I can clean up this...

and this...

And NO - I don't have a hideously yellow bathroom. Just a camera with a broken indoor flash. But again - I'm so grateful I still have a semi-functional camera and I know where to find my magic erasers.

They are my latest in gifts left to me from one of the most influential people I have known in my life. I'll explain this in a near future post as well. Happy Thankful Blogging to you all. And again, many thanks for the comments.

And the Winner Is...

Before I announce the winner's I have a bit of sad news. I had to disqualify PE from the contests on account that he's sleeping with the judge and because his idea of a Craft site is a 'Water (boat) Craft' Website. He knows boats are a sore subject with me especially when it's sitting on your front lawn irking the neighbors and growing a mountain of tall grass under it. Don't worry I'll forgive him.

So Mr. Ghostie goes to Natalie where it will Happily Haunt her abode.

And My Fairy Portal goes to Miss Sunshine Dawn and her daughter Rachel. Hopefully it will encourage the garden fairies to leave her Mum's garden and come for a visit.

Thank you ladies for commenting!

I don't want to Grow - Up!!! & Give-away

What two give-aways in two posts? But you gotta read this post to find out about the prize and super easy contest rules.



'Imagination is more important than knowledge. For while knowledge defines all we currently know and understand, imagination points to all we might yet discover and create.' ~Albert Einstein

I was informed by my daughter’s fourth grade teacher that it isn’t cool for 9 and 10 year old girls to talk about such things as faeries, being a princess and make believe. It is cool to talk about clothes, crushes, girlfriend stuff and what-not. So far the other kids are not teasing her about her topic’s of conversation choices, but the teacher is afraid it’s only a matter of time.

Me, Myself and I have probably always had a good solid foot in the land of imagination. I love it. I was one of those kids who could go out in the backyard and spend the entire day, by myself with my imaginary friends, and have a great time. I still take a foray into imaginary worlds with my books (vampires in Forks – anyone?) or play pretend with my girls in the park and help them build fairy houses with leaves, nuts and fallen branches. At heart I’m a big kid with a huge imagination. And I love Holidays like Saint Patricks Day, Halloween and Christmas because they feed that imaginative spirit.

This year I’ve think I’ve got to tell my oldest daughter about Santa and it’s killing me. I’ve never lied to her I usually let her come to her own conclusions but she keeps telling me that all her friends at school are telling her that Santa isn’t real. When she asks me I say things like, ‘Well what do you think about that?’ Even in her Christmas Letter to Santa she asked him if he was real. When I found out (at twelve, mind you) I sobbed like you wouldn’t believe. Finding out that certain magical things you believe in aren’t quite real can be a huge downer.

But I’m a bit stimied as to how to encourage a healthy imagination in my children without bringing on the teasing from other less-inspired children.

I will tell her that she definitely is a Princess and always will be because her Heavenly Father is a King! She should never, never think herself not worthy of that title. I will tell her angels are real and miracles do happen . And I will tell her that imagination is a very powerful thing, and unfortunately there are kids out there that have grown up so glued to the television or gaming system that they don’t have an ounce of imaginative spark in them. So she will have to be careful from now on who she shares her thoughts and dreams with. And I will tell her that dreams can come true if you work hard enough.

So as to the give-away. Here’s a little portal to imagination. Keep it up year round or pull it out for special occasions to invite the magic into your home.

I made it with a little fairy dust glitter, love & from the clay that you bake in the oven.

I love crafting these doors and I’ve seen some on Etsy but if I charged what they do on Etsy I’d be paying myself maybe $3 an hour for how long it takes me to make them. I make them because I enjoy crafting them. I realize that I forgot to include instructions in how to make them. I'm working on some PDF patterns that should help the craftily challenged people out there. I'll try and post them soon, but it may be a couple of weeks.

To win it – Leave a comment (That's a tough requirement - isn't it!) Optional is telling me how you feed a child’s imagination while keeping them grounded in reality.

Blogging Birthday Gifts!

Well I made it and lo and behold you all are still with me. Today I'm celebrating my 1 year bloggin' Birthday. And it couldn't have been a better year!

So instead of begging for presents and well wishes I'm going to have a Bloggin' Birthday Give-Away!


This here little Ghostie stands 12 inches tall from ground to crow wing and would look cute in almost any Halloween Home.

How to win little Ghostie? Submit a comment to this post and also write down the name of your favorite Crafty/Sewing/Artistic Website or Blog (I'm diggin' for Christmas ideas, you see). And if it's a frugal craft idea site then that's even better.

So I'll announce the winner a week from today!

And thank you for being my blog friends for the past year.

P.S. I'll be celebrating my blasted bloggin' birthday all week long so be sure and check back because who know's what other fun is in store.

Host Winner Is...

Evo-man covered his eyes and pulled out of our one clean kitchen bowl a crude slip of paper – identical to all the other crude slips of paper, but for one word. And the winner of the personalized copy of Stephanie Meyer’s latest book is Susanne! I wish I had one to give to everyone who entered. That's the only bummer about contests. You can only make one person's day. Someday I'll find a contest that everyone can win.



I just finished reading a borrowed copy of the same book this very morning and I have to admit that it’s probably even a better written story than the Twilight series. I'm not obsessed about it like I am with the others, probably won't re-read it a gazillion times but it was a very engaging tale. It did take me a good hundred pages and a whole day to get to the point where I was so sucked into the story that I couldn’t put it down unless my eyelid’s hurt too much from the toothpicks propping them open. So it did take me a whole two days to read. It is not the girly-girl swoon-fest that Twilight books are, but it deals much better with seeing people overcome or understand prejudices, and discover what love means to them and what’s it worth.


And it's a Sci-fi that doesn't feel like a sci-fi. Don't know what that's worth? Maybe it means that it will appeal to both Sci-Fi people like my Trekkie Husband or non-Sci-Fi people like me.


Like I said before, it doesn’t take a whole lot to please me. Of the two books I’ve read recently, Twenty Wishes (Which I like the premise of, but not so much the delivery.) and The Host – I like ‘The Host’ ten times more.


So if you don’t already have your own copy, borrow one, check one out or better yet buy one.

They are out right now, but Stephanie Meyer’s often gives signed copies of her books to sell at her local and favorite bookstore in AZ. Here is their website. Changing Hands Bookstore. If you really want signed copies and are not willing to do the fanatical extreme like drive four hours and pay to be surrounded by a bunch of screaming ladies, (Poor Prince Erik) then you might want to keep checking back with them so see when they will have more signed copies available for sale.


Now I’m off to clean the house after my sewing and reading sit-in. I’ve got one more day until
P.E. gets back with his boat from the San Juan’s. I think I’ll start with the dirty dishes.

Who else has read ‘The Host’ and what do you think?

Return of the Dinosaur.

I'm attempting to post this from an old ancient computer in the back room of our home. I ended up loaning my husband my laptop since his was swiped earlier this week. Currently my little brain is with him in the San Juan's relaxing on 'THE BOAT', which leaves me the Dinosaur.

The sun came out today so I retreated to the shadow's of our home. Squinting gives me headaches and until it decides to shine for more than a couple of days it's hard to adjust to so much light.

So while inside I attacked the mountain of laundry that built up during the sewing episode of last weekend and I did some reading.

I couldn't wait to get my copy of 'The Host', by Stephenie Meyers at next weeks signing so I was graciously loaned a copy from a friend. I figure the best time to read is while Prince Erik is away. I'll then furiously clean the house Friday night before he comes home Saturday.

So just a reminder of my Free 'The Host' Giveaway. Contest ends tomorrow. Everyone who enters the contest will have a chance to win. Just add a comment to the above highlighted link.
I'll probably choose the winner tomorrow night after the munchkins are in bed which might not be until around 9:00 (If I'm crazy lucky). But I will post the winner before midnight just so I can keep my streak of A-Blog-A-Day-In-May going.

Wow! I think the fossil is actually going to let me complete this post. Yippee!

'The Host' Give-Away

Stephenie Meyer's new book is out and no I haven't read it yet! But I get two of them for buying tickets to her book signing in Portland. I don't need two. I'm planning on getting both of them signed and giving away one of them to you?

I guarantee that the winner will get a copy of the book 'The Host'. Of course, I can't guarantee that it will be signed because she may have writer's cramp by then. But there is a very good chance that it will be. I bought the dang ticket's for that purpose, didn't I? You may even luck out and get it personalized.

How do you win?

Just comment on this post. Everyone who enter's will have their name put in whatever clean container I have handy and I will pick the winner. Or better yet I'll have Hope do it for me because she can't read and is therefore unbiased. So the winner will be chosen on Friday, May 14th. Edit: I mean Friday, May 16th. (See this is what happens when you post at 11:30 at night)The winner can then tell me if they want it personalized(within reason) or just signed.

Best wishes.

B.A.B. Accountability Contest

Want to help me overcome one of my addictions. PLEASE! Then enter for your chance to win $70 worth of Free Build-A-Bear Stuff. I have a $60 Gift Certificate and a $10 off coupon that I'm willing to give away in order to keep me honest. I really have no more room in my girls room for more clothes or pets, and I'd be too tempted to use them if I even venture within 10 miles of the B.A.B. store. So if you're Trenadoll, who is disgusted by the cost - Think of taking your Twiggy, Girly-Girl and Little Man there just for the experiance and it's all free. They would worship you for life. Or if your Arrow's Wife on a tight college budget this would be a great way for fun kids birthday presents. And DaringMom, aren't you all about overcoming consumer motivation - can I tempt you with a store I don't think Magoo will slobber on everything. Am I mean or what - trying to give away my addiction by tempting others with the experiance?

Anyway, leave a comment on this post and on Saturday March 8th I'll let one of my munchkins pick a random winner, out of this finely decorated B.A.B house.

See how creative my kids got with their time last month. It will be this house's last hurrah, before being sent to the recycling retirement home for B.A.B. Houses. Please, please help me so I don't tempt myself again. Your odd's of winning are pretty good since I'm not an ubber famous blogger with a gazillion hits a day - Yet.