I received some winnings in the mail today, & it caused me to reflect on how many companies are starting (or, maybe because I'm starting so late in the game, they've been noticing for a while) to recognize the power in numbers that come from the "Blogger" community. I know I've been at this for maybe 2 months, & the welcome has been astounding! So many Moms & other bloggers going out of their way to hand down tips, advice & friendly welcomes & recommendations, it's truly been inspirational. I also looked up Anissa today (from Hope for Peyton) & was touched to see how many bloggers reached out with their prayers & thoughts for her & her family when this awful tragedy occurred. It does make one feel part of something.
I decided to quickly post some of the pics I have from the giveaways I won. So starting with the IDog - which is so, SO cool, this was from Amy at Resourceful Mommy, now she has a great site & I'm thinking she's also the queen of Twitter parties, which I have yet to figure out! So thank you to her for this great prize, & to the Idog soft speaker makers!
Next is the Baby Emi anklet I won from Dwana at A Bittersweet Existence, this giveaway is beautiful! I canNOT wait for summer! My daughter threw a fit when I told her she couldn't wear it until then, so I'll be dealing with that all night now *groan*
Then! (yup, there's more! As Susan, from 5 Minutes for Mom once said "I should buy some lottery tickets" :D) I also got the cute "Buddy Top" (I picked Chip, the chick) thanks to a giveaway hosted by The Blogger Mommies (they have a store also, which is where this darling hat came from) And if you adopt all 8, you also receive a 'special collector hat', & they're so darn cute, I may just be doing that! And "A" fell in love with Chip (whose little card says "He's a chick that believes in himself", so they also come with little motivational sayings, which I thought was adorable.
And last, but definitely not least, I won TWO giveaways at the SAME TIME on Pats site Here and There, which has some great travelling tips, so you should go by & check her site out.
I won a softlips, (I already posted those pics when I got them - my kids ran off with 2 of the lip glosses!!) I also won a Yo Yo Lip Gloss giveaway, & these are cute little 'mini' lip glosses.(Which my girls haven't seen yet, so I may even get to keep some of them!)
Well, that about wraps up my shout outs to these awesome blogs, and the great companies that decided to do giveaways & get their name out there.
Also - for those who don;t know, I'm hosting a giveaway (my first! Let's hope I don't screw that up, lol) for Belly Charms, a seriously amazing store that you can find here they do jewelery for Mom-to-Be's (belly buttons rings, that are flexible, for when you have a bun in the oven ... or several, as the case may be) and lots of personalized jewelery for Moms - where you can have pretty much anything put on it, team colors, names, letters, what ever you can think up can probably be done for you! So that's mid-February sometime, he owner of this fabulous store recently endured a move, so when she's settled, she was kind enough to offer to do a giveaway for me!
I knew it wouldn't be long before my last 'whiney' post bothered me enough to get back on here and do some fluffy stuff - and I found it in my bathroom, and I cannot believe I haven't posted on this, in the depth it deserves, sooner.
Ok, well, I won a giveaway that was hosted by Felicia, at Go Graham Go!, where she does wonderful reviews, has tips, great links, and just general cool blogger stuff. Anyway, the winner received a beautiful personalized bracelet from Belly Charms, which specializes in Belly button rings for Moms to be (they're flexible, and allow a mom to be to keep her edginess, I think it's a cute idea!) There are also bracelets & anklets personalized for Moms, they make them with a selection of swarovski crystals, you can personalize it however you like, your favorite colors, a sports team, names ... they're great! Well, I won, and was quickly contacted by Felicia, then Sonya at Belly Charms, to see what I wanted. Well, I picked the 1st initial from everyone in my family, I tried to arrange them in a way that the letters looked like they mean something, and it doesn't just look like a jumble of hodge podge letters. Well, Sonya then asked if I wanted a 'spacer' between the letters, which I hadn't even thought of, and was absolutely thrilled that she even thought to ask. Especially since I won a giveaway, which means I'm not actually a 'paying customer', per se. But she was very professional, and it was lovely dealing with her.
I then got my package in the mail, 2 days after it was shipped, talk about fast!
It was beautifully presented - it literally took my breath away, and I hadn't even gotten to see the bracelet yet!
It was done very professionally, and considering I had won a giveaway, I was absolutely impressed! I immediately emailed 3 of my friends who were waiting for me to get the bracelet, because they wanted to order from Belly Charms themselves, but wanted to see what my impressions were.
My bracelet was absolutely perfect! I picked the "Tahitian" color, in medium wrist size (which I did find I should have ordered large, the medium for me, is still small, I can wear the bracelet (wild horses couldn't stop me from wearing it!) but it's hard to get the clasp done up, being that I should have picked a bigger size - nothing at all to do with Belly Charms. Anyway, I had the initials QACJAC, in that order, placed on the bracelet. Here's the final result!
Wow, my arm looks not so pretty, but the bracelet looks amazing! I'm so pleased with how it turned out, I've showed it off to everyone I know! I have recommended it to several friends, including my online ones, (that includes the 3 who were waiting on how my bracelet turned out before going ahead with their purchase) and I'll leave it said here Belly Charms does gorgeous work! They're professionals, in every sense, they know their craft & obviously have fun with it. The talent they have for making customized jewelery is blatantly obvious, & it shows through their pieces how skillful they are, & how beautiful their jewelery is.
I also wanted to quickly add, I won a giveaway (another!) from Here and There, actually I won TWO, so that makes my total THREE, from Here and There alone! Well, I won a "SoftLips" giveaway, & I love SoftLips, so I was super excited to get this! But, unfortunately, my daughters love SoftLips as well, so when I went to get all the SoftLips together and take a picture, I could only find 3 still in the package!! Oh, the bane of having young girls who know a good thing when they see it. I then went to hunt the culprits down (knowing full well who was involved) & learned that they thought it was one for everyone, seeing as there were so many! (I won 5, at least I'm pretty sure I did, I only have 3 left, and I'm only assuming they took 2!) So I clicked a pic of just one (& at least it was the flavor I really wanted to try! They left me that at least ...)
I was excited to try the new "Pure" Organic line, Chai Tea being a "OOOOH I want to try THAT!" one for me, so as I'm writing, I will now open the "Chai Tea, flavored SoftLips, new Organic line of PURE" & write what I think. Give me a sec to open it ...
Firstly .. like the 'hiss' from a soda drink, my girls have fine tuned their hearing to hear the 'pop' of a lip gloss cap from up to 4 yards away, most impressive. They came wandering over as soon as I opened the cap, & it smells phenomenal! I get the hint of vanilla in there somewhere, but it smells like I want my next batch of cookies to smell like! Now for the lip test ... it tastes a little like Chai Tea, there's a 'spark' to it that I can't quite identify, some vanilla like I said, but there's something else, and the aroma from my lips goes all the way to my nose ... I can smell this while it's on! I don't think I've ever had a lip gloss do that for me before! It went on smoothly, feels great, smells fantastic & tastes good too! I think they've found a winner. Thank you to Pat at Here and There, go click over to her blog (& Felicia's, Belly Charms and Softlips) all the links are here, and google connect blog follow them all, or Facebook them, Twitter follow - whatever your poison is. They're all fabulous and you won't be disappointed!
Ok, there's one more thing I wanted to blog about. I took the girls to the "Squealqueal" of Alvin & the Chipmunks, 2. It was cute, the girls loved it, the songs just sounded so funny. Although, don't they always when you speed them up & chipmunk sound a song? I remember doing that to my step fathers old school record player. He had a collection of oldies - from the 50's & 60's, & my Mum had more modern records. (Can you actually say 'modern' and 'records' or 'vinyl' in the same sentence?) like Madonna etc. and I would speed them up with friends of mine & giggle away at how clever we were, & how funny it sounded!
Anyway, they had some Beyonce songs (of course, we've all seen the preview with the Chipettes singing "All the Single Ladies). That is seriously one song that I only need to hear a part of and it is stuck in my head all bloody day!
Funny. Anyway, it's a cute holiday movie, I took the boys to see Avatar the other night, the girls weren't allowed to come see that one, and it always makes me nervous viewing a movie with my children that I haven't seen beforehand. And this is one I wished I'd seen first hand. There was a huge amount of cussing in it, no 'F' bombs, or anything like that, just a large amount of cuss words, that truthfully, I thought brought down the show. It was unneceassary but that's Hollywood for you. It's not considered watch worthy without a couple of good one liners, some cussing and when you throw some nudity in you have a childrens movie! (good grief)
Anyway, Avatar was actually quite good, but for kids, stick to the PG13 rating. (My other son is 10, so I considered him too young, for all the cussing etc.)
But the Alvin & the Chipmunks 'Squeakqueal' is a good one. Cute, a good story about friendship and trusting your insticts, it's a one-we're-going-to-buy. And the girls loved it!
We were going to originally go and see 'The Princess & The Frog', which my girls were SO looking forward too, until a friend of theirs told them it was a movie for 'babies', so they suddenly wanted to go and see Alvin first, which I was disappointed in, tried to reason with them that this little girl also thinks she was set to STAR in HSM3, before she got really sick and they asked "Gabriella" (Vanessa Hudgens) to 'fill in' til she could come back, but she found she didn't want to do it anymore. Or that she's a 'secret' Princess, she just can't tell anybody. Now, to me there's nothing wrong with little girl fantasies, I think they're cute and harmless, but when it turns into it being "she" is the 'only Princess' when my girls try to join in, or when they try to do dance numbers from HSM3 & are promptly told they're 'doing it wrong', "watch me", and they're left to stand there while little miss shows off & they aren't having fun anymore, then it bothers me. So I really wanted the girls to go see 'The Princess & the Frog', which I informed them is not for 'babies', it's for every little girl who wants to watch a great movie about a Princess - and their Mommies who want to watch too! But Alvin won out , mostly because when we entered the movie theater there was Alvin stuff everywhere - and Christmas things too, but not much cutouts of 'The Princess & the Frog', which was a shame. But anyway! I digress ...
So that's me for today, I actually feel a teeny bit better, so I bet if I go lay down, I'll be doing ok by tomorrow! (fingers crossed)
As for my New Years post, which I caught sight of my many, many pictures in my camera, I will get to it (sorry B) probably tom. or the day after. Sounds about right though, a New Years 'Joe' post 4 days after the fact? lol, I'll get there though!
(...all the single ladies, all the single ladies ... now put your hands up!...)
Here's some more links I received today, you may want to be quick as they may not last long!
Free Pampers Potty Training Kit - This would be perfect if you have a child about to hit that terrible stage that every parent dreads ... (DUN DUN DUNNNN) the Toilet Training Stage!
This is a free sample of food for pets from www.myhealthfoodforpets.com (I think the brand is called 'Lifes abundance') As it states on the website - make sure this is the kind of food your pet could tolerate, as they do have sensitive stomachs!
I also received a free $10.00 Gift Card from Totally Kids, Furniture & Toys. What I had to do was Facebook Fan "Totally Kids", comment on their wall (at their website) which 2 products I loved, then send my name & address to jesse.shoptotallykids@gmail.com, easy peasy! Deal Seeking Mom also has the complete details on her website here
So that's me for my Lively Links for today, I hope these help in any small way. I also need to post I WON ANOTHER GIVEAWAY!! Can you believe it?!! I'm so very psyched, my luck has proven to be just fantastic this Christmas season, & again, I want to thank all the wonder Blog Moms who spend their days bringing amazing deals, reviews & giveaways to all of us who anxiously await them!
This win was curtesy of Here and There and it was a (shhh! Because this is going to "J" and it matches something we already got him that he really wanted) Slingz, this cool way of carrying your skateboard or RipStik, it slings over the shoulder & makes it super easy for the 'boarder' in your life to move around when he's not skating! So very cool, (& of course, I'm so very thankful!) Truely, you all need to get out there & follow those fabulous Blog Moms who go out of their way to PR & bring these to all of us - it is absolutely NO scam, and just so fun!
Also, as a side note (last - but certainly NOT least) our family is sending out prayers & heart warming thought to 'Shellie Ross' & her family having had tragedy strike them in the worst way possible, the loss of their son, Bryson, who was 2 & drowned in the family swimming pool. There may be controversy surrounding this awful event, but at the end of the day, a little boy was taken from his family during the Christmas season, and I can't think of a worse thing to happen to anybody. My heart goes out to them all, I hold my kids alittle closer today, and give thanks to my Heavenly Father for blessing our family with safety, and sincerely pray he sends comfort & peace to Shellie, her family, & those EMT responders that had to be on call that day. We all need to think twice about how lucky we are, and Shellie, my heart bleeds for you, I'm so sorry.
Rest In Peace Bryson, and may he watch over his family from heaven.
Well, that about wraps up my shout outs to these awesome blogs, and the great companies that decided to do giveaways & get their name out there.
