Congrats to Comment 3 (I used Random.org, but I’m on a mac and can’t figure out how to post the picture here). Amanda L please send me your address to ninabeth19 at gmail dot com and I’ll get your free brushes in the mail to you!
Thanks for entering and check back next Wednesday for another giveaway!
Recently I was given the opportunity to review several of Python Printable Games. I was able to look at the Thanksgiving games and the United States Trivia.
One thing I loved about this company is you have access to the games as soon as you buy them. You don’t have to wait for anything to ship and you don’t have to go to the store to get it. It’s all from the comfort of your home. I’m usually a last minute planner, so if it’s midnight the night before your party or event and you need some games, this is perfect!
Thanksgiving Games – “We have over 30 printable items, including scavenger hunts, trivia, party games and craft activities suitable for Fall Harvest and Thanksgiving: even NFL games for the guys to play in the evening!” My favorite is a Fall Scavenger Hunt. It even gives clues for younger kids. Here is a Fall Harvest and Thanksgiving coloring page giveaway . It also has a coupon for $5 off $19.95 or higher purchase.
United States Trivia – “All 50 states are represented, with 15 questions per state, totaling 750 questions. Quizzes cover state nicknames, trees, flowers, capitals, history, funny facts, bizarre laws and local customs and more.” I really like trivia. I thought I knew all the odd facts about my state, but surprisingly there were several questions I didn’t know the answer to! It’s fun to know little trivia facts, who knows where it may come in handy! (At Freshman Orientation when I was in college, I won a gift for knowing that OSU’s original mascot was the Tiger, but it was so close to Princeton’s mascot and colors, we changed to Pistol Pete for our mascot.) Here is another free printable with some coloring pages and trivia games.
Let me know if you decide to get either of these items, I loved them and I know you will too!
Product review & giveaway disclosure: 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.”
Product review & giveaway disclosure: 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.”
Lately, I’ve been contacted by a few companies to review their products, so for a while I’ll be hosting “Win it Wednesday!”
hairfreé®. They are “the healthier alternative in hair styling”.
From their website: “Are you tired of frying your hair just to get a smooth, silky, sexy finish? Forget those expensive high heat flat/curling irons that damage your hair! Now there is a viable alternative called hairfreé® the new revolutionary brushes that will give your hair that same smooth, silky finish without the burning damaging effects! hairfreé® brushes use the latest in ceramic technology to produce straight, soft, manageable results! What’s more hairfreé® brushes are only fraction of the cost of those expensive flat/curling irons and come with a 30 day money back guarantee! If for any reason you are not satisfied with the results after using hairfreé® brushes simply return them no questions asked for your refund”
I received both the round and flat brush. I really liked that the back side of the brush was a mirror, very nifty. The one thing I didn’t like about the brush was that the bristles are very pointy, so when brushing your hair, you need to be really careful not to push too hard. Other than that, the brush was very easy to use when straightening my hair. I noticed that my hair was a lot softer than when I use my flat iron. Also, it rained the morning after I used the hairfreé® brush and my hair got slightly damp, but surprisingly my hair didn’t curl back up!
Do you want to try this product? Just leave me a comment (with an email address so I can contact you) you have until midnight on October 26 to be entered. I will announce the winner on October 27.
This Product Was a Free Giveaway
This weekend we went to eat at John’s dad and stepmom’s house. I volunteered to make dessert of course! 🙂 ). Running to Walmart to get ingredients for recipes isn’t nearly as easy as it was before Elizabeth came along. So, I had to make a dessert with ingredients I had at the house already.
The cookies in the middle are Iced Pumpkin Cookies and the cookies on either side are Soft Oatmeal Cookies (I used more cinnamon then it calls for).
I’m always looking for easy and delicious recipes, what’s your favorite go-to recipe?
Normally, I am not a very organized person. I try so hard, but I just get busy and things quickly become disorganized. However, having Elizabeth has taught me that I time is so very precious and if things are organized and everything is in its place, then jobs go by much faster and I have more time for fun things! After I made Elizabeth’s baby food, I opened the freezer to find this (well, I already cleaned off the top shelf when I took the photo, so imagine that it’s really full also! 🙂 ):
Ahh! There is no room for anything! Well, actually there is. I have a small chest freezer in the garage that hardly has anything in it. Since Elizabeth was napping, I decided to organize everything (inside freezer, outside freezer, and fridge.) I meant to take before pictures of everything, but I forgot, I was too busy organizing!! 🙂
Here is the freezer/fridge after:
Here is the outside freezer:
See how much room there is! I only got rid of just a few things, most everything is still in the freezer though. Everything is just stacked in nice piles and organized.
Now, I can easily see what food I have and what dinner possibilities we have! Having this organized feels so great! What is something you’ve organized lately?
I absolutely love my house. It is the perfect house for us. But there are some things that just aren’t as pretty as I would like them to be. 🙂 The bathroom mirrors are 1 thing. There isn’t anything wrong with them, they just don’t have a “wow” factor.
I remembered reading a post Rhoda had done a while back about a cheap and easy way to frame this type of mirror. I knew I had to try! I measured my mirror and new the sizes of molding I needed. I called ahead to Lowe’s and as long at you buy the wood from them, they will cut it into any size you want! Jackpot! I could do the whole project by myself! So, off to Lowes I went to get the molding and corner square thingys (yes, that is a technical term). All of the materials only cost $27!
When I got home, I spray painted the trim and squares.
Then I used my handy dandy hot glue gun to adhere the trim. I started in the lower left corner because I don’t have any “wiggle room” there. on the other sides if I’m off a little big it would be okay. So I started there, then worked my way to the upper right corner. Don’t worry, if you glue it on crooked, it will just pry off, then you can pull the glue off of the wood and mirror. See –
Isn’t it just beautiful!! I really do love how it came out!
Give it a try! The hardest part for me was trying to find a glue gun to borrow at 9:00 at night while I had a sleeping baby. 🙂 Don’t worry, my mom bought me my very own glue gun after this, so now I’ll have one when I need it!
This last week I realized something…. baby food is expensive. Really expensive, 2 servings of Gerber baby food is approximately $1.25! Which that may not sound like a whole lot, but average 4 servings a day times 7 days a week, 4 weeks a month and it’s $70 for 112 servings (approximately, I’m not the math person in this family). So, I wanted to try my hand at making baby food. I’ve heard it’s not hard, so I thought today was a great time to try it during Elizabeth’s nap time.
I bought 2 sweet potatoes at the grocery store. Peeled them and cut them into cubes. Then I boiled them until they were very tender, drained the water, and mashed them up in my mixer. The mixture was a little thick, so I added some formula to make it creamier.
These two tiny potatoes made 14 servings!
Cost of Potatoes – $1.20! divide that by 12 servings and it’s only 10 cents per serving! So for a month it would be $5.60, but cheaper than the $70 for buying baby food at the store! And beside the cost benefit, by making the food myself, I know exactly what Elizabeth is eating! (It’s amazing the junk that companies put into food products!!)
If you’re wondering about the cute containers I used for the baby food, my mom got a case of them at a garage sale for really cheap (mom, you need a search bar on your blog so I can find where you posted about them 🙂 ). They are 2 oz cups and they’ll work perfect for this use. Also, if I take baby food somewhere, I won’t have to worry about bringing home dirty dishes or losing a lid, etc. I just love them!
I love glass canisters. I think they look so cute on the kitchen counter. When I moved into this house, I knew I wanted to get some, but unfortunately my budget would only allow me to get these from Walmart (big ones ~$8, small ones ~$4). They are “the look” I wanted, but I’ve never been happy with them. They need something extra. And whenever John cooks, I always have to come in the kitchen 15 times to tell him what is in each canister.
After seeing my friend Clara’s canisters a year ago, I knew I wanted to do what she did! But alas, I didn’t really have the money and I didn’t win her giveaway… drats. So, I just kept my boring canisters.
I’ve heard about personal die cut machines that cut vinyl and I knew that I wanted one! Although, I felt it was silly to get one when my mom has a cricut. I went to Walmart today to get a few things and I thought I’d stop by the craft section and see if I could see how much the vinyl machines cost (I was thinking Christmas is right around the corner and maybe I could save all my Christmas money and get it.) BUT, look at what I saw!!
Cricut Vinyl and Transfer Tape! I didn’t need to get a new machine after all! Each of these items were only $9, I could definitely afford $18 for this project. So, I went to my mom’s house to get to work. I wasn’t sure exactly what size to make the words, so I first cute the words out on paper so see what size would be perfect (I ended up printing the word 8 times to get the right size/font so I’m glad I didn’t waste all that vinyl!).
Perfect! Now we are ready to cut the real thing! After you cut the shapes, you arrange them (backwards) on the transfer tape. (I had to use a piece of scotch tape to tape the transfer tape down because it kept rolling up.)
Then you pull off the backing from the vinyl.
Then place the tape on the canister, rub all of the letters down, then pull off the transfer tape and there you have it!
Now John can tell exactly what is in each canister without having to ask me. And they look a lot cuter with the names on them!
Total cost of this project was about $1.50!! (I only used less than 1/8 of the vinyl and just a tad of the transfer tape!)
I have LOTS of other ideas swirling around in my head of what else I can do, so stay tuned!!
I’m so sorry I haven’t posted in a few days… I have a good reason though!! 🙂 Last weekend was so crazy busy, but sooo much fun! On Saturday, we went to Jenks (about 1 1/2 hours away) for our nephew’s first birthday party! Then I had to get ready to have 24 people at my house for lunch on Sunday!! Elizabeth’s baby dedication was Sunday morning at church, then all of our families came over for lunch after that.
Before we went to church, my friend Emily came over to take a new family picture of us. We’ve been trying to get a new one for a long time, and this was the perfect time to take it.
I did simple for dinner. I ordered a sandwich meat tray from Walmart and bought various rolls and buns for the sandwiches. My mom brought chips and some dip and my mother-in-law brought some yummy wraps. I did make Elizabeth’s first cake though! I wasn’t really sure how I wanted to decorate it, so this is what I came up with Saturday evening at 8:30. (Ignore the not smooth icing, I was too tired to make it completely smooth!)
I also made yummy cake balls.
Here are a few pictures from the dedication and dinner.
Last week John said to me, “Don’t laugh at what I’m about to say… I’m really craving red beans and rice.” And of course I laughed because we never eat beans (except black beans with Mexican food). But like a good wife ( 🙂 ) I wanted to make him what he wanted. There was a slight problem though, I didn’t really know what Red Beans & Rice were. Well, I knew the obvious that is was red beans cooked with rice, but I didn’t know if you were supposed to add anything else or if it was all mixed together or separate. Luckily All Recipes came to my rescue. They have several recipes for Red Beans and Rice, after looking through a few, I picked one and started cooking! (I was really excited to find that smoked sausage was an ingredient, yumm!)
Love, Sweet Love 
