Love this So much

How stinking cute to see a Daddy and Daughter singing duo!? Ellen recently had them on and I just fell in love with them :)

Such a feel good video

Free Pair of Petrol Jeans!

Win A Pair Of Petrols!

Are you passionate about Petrol? Are your friends & family fans too?  Invite them to Like our page & you could win a new pair of Petrols!  Here's how it works: tell your friends to leave YOUR name in the comments section below this box.  Anyone with 20 or more mentions by January 31st wins a pair of Petrols  (minimum of 20 mentions to qualify; one mention per person.).  What are you waiting for?!?!

PLEASE let them know Stephanie Cobb sent you so that I can get my free pair and then I will post for you as well once you post it so you can get your free pair!!! Thanks!!!!

Just click on above link, like them, then post that Stephanie Cobb sent you on their wall! 

One little Word: ORGANIZE

Ok so it isn't that little of a word but it is my word I have chosen to focus on for 2011 (and hopefully the rest of my life!).

I am not doing the Ali Edwards One Little Word challenge per se; but I still think it is a good idea to give yourself a word to focus on as it can help keep you on the right path for goals.

Things I want to organize in my life are:

• Our home (an obvious one! so I will break it down a bit...)
• Basement storage side
• Basement craft area
• Drawers in kitchen
• cabinets in kitchen
• Gabby's room
• any other places that collect clutter!
• My weight (I know it seems a funny thing to want to organize but I mean I need to stay organized so that I have healthy food options around me to stop me from putting the junk in my mouth!)
• My schooling (I WILL be more organized and work on papers earlier than the night before they are due!)
• my scrapbooking (always a challenge area for me but this year I want to keep on top of AT LEAST our family's Project Life album and anything else I take on will be bonus!)

I will try to do some updates and let you know how I am doing with my word (and the projects that require my magical word!). So far the first week of January I donated a back seat and trunk worth of stuff hooorayyy! Then last night I managed to throw a heaping pile (prob a grocery bag full) of papers away I had saved for various (unneeded!) reasons in our living room ottoman! I plan to keep on this path and try to minimize all the STUFF we have in our home one week at a time!!!

Make Your Own Chocolate Kit (or gum or gummies!) Review/Giveaway

Have you heard about the company Glee Gum yet? This company has some amazing fun and natural candy making kits for you and your family! We were lucky to be able to try out the chocolate making kit and me and Gabby( my 8 year old daughter) had a lot of fun! 

Getting out the ingredients and reading the directions

making sure the cocoa butter has melted enough before adding vanilla and cocoa powder and sugar

the fun part! Choosing what we wanted in our chocolates! My daughter was going a bit wacky going through the cupboards wanting to put in cotton candy and other things haha....we settled on some almonds, m&m's, and some plain chocolates :)

mixing in the magic crystals!

couldn't resist trying it ;)

MMMMMMM!

the finished products! 

Now  my husband is a bit of a chocolate snob being from England and all and he claimed this was some of the best chocolate he has yet to have in America! Now that is saying A LOT! He devoured almost all of them him self besides the few Gabby and I managed to snag for ourselves! They were very fudgy and delish!

What is great is that like I said these are all natural kits! No worrying chemicals or preservatives! A little more about the kits from the Glee Gum folks:

Available in Make Your Own Chocolate, Make Your Own Chewing Gum, and Make Your Own Gummies, these activity kits are all-natural, educational, and eco-friendly. With pre-packaged ingredients and easy-to-follow instructions, everyone aged 8 and up gets a real kick out of making candy from scratch. Focusing on the history behind and the origin of these candies, each kit is designed to captivate your interest, connect you to the global community, and create something yummy to eat in the process! 

The Glee Gum folks have been kind enough to also offer up a kit of your choosing to a lucky winner

 (U.S only!)! Ways to enter are as follows (please enter a comment for each entry)

1.  Follow this blog
2. Follow me on twitter
3. Tweet about this giveaway up to 4x a day (link me to your tweets)
4. Follow Glee Gum on Facebook
5. Follow Glee Gum on Twitter
6. Enter any of my other contests
7. Put my button on your blog and link me to it

Best of luck! Contest ends Friday February 18th at 10 pm eastern time

Neatnik Saucer Review/Giveaway!

This product is a mama's dream! Especially so for those of us who are doing the baby led weaning approach and/or moms that are concerned about keeping floor and highchair area as tidy as possible! This innovative product was made by a mother who not only had concerns about keeping the floor clean when her little one dined but also about having her baby surrounded by a clean surface!

The neatnik saucer combines a highchair cover and I what I like to call a table bib into one! Not only does the baby sit inside of this protective saucer but there is also little loops to attach toys or pacifiers! And there is a raised edge all the way around so no worries about stuff just sliding off onto the floor or table!

We went to Olive Garden recently and the neatnik saucer worked like a charm! I was sad that I had remembered my camera but ditzy me had left the battery to my camera at home in the charger! Good thing for cell phone cameras!

The waitress commented on the neatnik saucer straight away saying how she had "never seen one of those before, how neat!" We also got many good stares from other mothers around us whose babies didn't have their magical spaceships (another name we have taken to calling it heehee!) for their children to sit in. 

Our only complaint about the neatnik saucer is the fact that some places tables are a bit high! So a lot of the food slid down the saucer and into Lainey's lap. No problem though as I just tucked one of the cloth napkins provided into her lap and she happily ate. 

I am sure the wait staff were also happy that the  saucer kept any rogue pieces of broccoli from sliding onto the floor as well!

The neatnik saucer comes in several cute prints and we were lucky enough to score one in the Chicago print (black and white checkered) to try out with Miss Lainey! If you would like your very own Neatnik Saucer you can Buy One Here! or try to WIN One by doing the following!!!

Please leave a comment for each thing you do!

1. Mandatory Entry Follow this blog and say that you do!
2. Follow me on Twitter
3. Tweet about this giveaway 4x a day!!! Leave link to each tweet!
4. Like Neatnik Saucer on Facebook and let them know I sent you! (If you already like them just let me know your FB user name you like them as)
5. Add my Button to your blog (5 entries!)
6. Enter my other giveaways!

Good luck!!! Contest ends Friday February 18th at 10 pm eastern time.


I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commissions 16 CFR, Part 255 Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising. Tomoson Product review & giveaway Disclosure.

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10 Months

Well Miss Lainey Bear aka Lainey Bug aka Buggy ;) you are officially 10 months already! Jeesh almighty you are growing WAY too quickly for us young lady! Cannot believe I need to start thinking about your 1st birthday more as it is going to be here in a blink!

This month....

• You now have 3 teeth! two bottom middle and your top front left (the right is going to come out any time now!)
• You are still loving guacamole and hummus especially on crackers, you also love egg salad and pancakes!
• you are saying Mama and Dada and what sounds like Dog....still not sure if you realize what each means though haha
• You speed crawl all the time
• You are cruising like a pro along the furniture now 
• You have let go while standing a couple of times (you mostly do this in the tub eeeek! not the BEST place to try this missy!)
• You ADORE the show Yo Gabba Gabba and no matter what is going on you start dancing when you hear it come on
• Personality is developing more and more and it cracks me UP! For example you were standing holding onto the couch and the ottoman and just kept lifting one leg outwards in front of you like you were kicking as you smiled away, so cute! 
• Way too heavy for your swing now but we still put you in it from time to time for you to just chill after nursing and such
• You are already attached to "Owly" a little brown blankie with owl head, you HAVE to have it to sleep with and will grab it and crawl around with it when you are sleepy 
• 
  

Don't You Love Productive Days?

Now today hasn't really been the most productive day- but it has been my favorite type of productive day; one that is also relaxing!

This morning Gabby and I made pancakes (she is so much better than I am with timing them to flip and she did them all!). After the girls had their pancakes (and me my english muffin,cantaloupe,and string cheese) Gabby and I headed out and shoveled the driveway. We created a hill so that Gabby could use her sleds a bit on it and I have to admit I even took a slide down too!

I printed loads of coupons out to start prepping for another one of my 2011 goals (USE more coupons and stop paying full price for so much stuff!).

I also finally changed out a picture in one of our collage frames we have hanging in our living room (the previous picture  had a white border that would peek through and it really drove us nuts!).

Oh and did I mention I got in over an hour nap with Miss Lainey? SO nice!

Day 2 of Weight Watchers is going awesome for me and we plan on playing some more games as a family tonight (played Guilty Party on Wii last night and are hoping for Creationary tonight if Lainey goes down earlier!). Dinner is going to be something easy like frozen pizza or potpies with rice so it shall be a relaxing evening too YAY!

Oh and I also got my pics to finish up 2010 Project Life so I am working on that each evening too!!! Cannot wait to have it done by end of month yayyyy!

2010 Project Life Progress

Happy to report I got quite a bit of work done on my 2010 album last night....(I am making myself complete this in it's entirety before I allow myself to purchase 2011 haha!).

• used my corner rounder on ALL photos I have in it so far (January through July)
• August-December photos are on their way via Snapfish!
• Journaled for January and February (I WILL keep up to date on this for 2011 album!)

I also learned some things I will not do or should I say do differently for the 2011 album and these are

• make sure to take loads of horizontal photos so that I am not struggling with making vertical pics fit (Although there are vertical page protectors to order this year but then I would have to have certain amounts of each etc....and yeah too much work; I did get smarter for the 2nd half of 2010 and order the vertical ones in a 2x3 size so they fit into the little pockets)
• KEEP UP WITH JOURNALING on monthly basis! 
• Use more of the "guts" that come with the kit (I have loads of spares from 2010 that I am debating what to do with them?!)
• keep more receipts and tickets and such to stuff into the pockets or additional page protectors I add in

Overall I am SO beyond happy I started this in 2010 as just last night as I was working on it my hubby was enjoying seeing pictures and remembering stories to go with those pictures! If you are like us at all you take loads of pics but then they just sit out there in cyber land...Project Life is such an easy and fun way to bring those photos back into your home to touch and look at and share! 

WINNER of the Pink Princess Gift Certificate!

And the magic number generator chose comment number 22 Congrats Lyndsey! I will contact you for mailing info to pass onto Pink Princess so you can receive your gift certificate! Thanks everyone for entering and Thank you Pink Princess for sponsoring this giveaway!

22 

lyndseyluvsjj said...

I follow you on Twitter as lyndsey1stunna.

lyndsey.rullman at hotmail dot com

December 31, 2010 12:25 PM 

2011 Has Arrived!

Happy New Year All! I am sure many of you out there are hoping for great things in 2011, I know we are! Although we had the arrival of Miss Lainey this past year it also has been a tough one on us financially which of course can sadly affect you in other ways as well! We have tried to not let us down too much though and are making some positive changes in 2011 to hopefully remedy this situation!

I am starting Grad school which will HOPEFULLY lead to higher pay in the near future and my lovely hubby is going to start caring for our cute (yet quite the handful!) little niece during the week along with our girls.

The big thing I hope to change in 2011 is my health!

this pretty much sums up how I have been feeling past month! I just have been such a sloth it is disgusting! It has caught up to me and my energy level is feeling at an all time low despite getting more sleep. I know it is because I have been putting junk into my body therefore I am feeling like junk! THAT is going to change STAT! I picked up lots of fruits and veggies already as well as my handy dandy healthy soups (yes loaded with sodium but they are easy to grab for lunches and I know they are much better than many other choices out there!) 

I start weight watchers hopefully by the 15th of the month and also hope to start being more ACTIVE! 

Stay tuned!

Happy 2011!