Cordial Lee Giveaway!

I'm excited to announce a giveaway from a company that I love!

You have a chance to win a...

Personalized Tooth Fairy Pillow

or

$20 Gift Voucher

(your choice)

from one of my favorite Mommy-owned companies...Cordial Lee!

Cordial Lee's owner, Shelby, is a former teacher and now stay-at-home mommy of three beautiful girls that pursued her passion for monogramming and graphic design when she started staying at home.  She is such a hard-working entrepreneur, a kind person, is easy to work with and will try to meet almost any request you have for the personalization of an item.  Her online gift boutique and print studio has grown rapidly over the past few years! You can read more about her here.

Codial Lee offers items such as personalized invitations and stationary, boutique kids' apparel, appliqued, personlized clothing, personalized decor, as well as women's bags, to just name a few!  I have personally purchased many items from Shelby for my sweet Adeline and myself and am always impressed with the quality of material and items she uses, as well as the amazing attention to detail you can tell goes into her choice of fabrics and personalization of an item!

Shelby recently created a Personalized Tooth Fairy Pillow for Adeline to use in the future that I just love and Adeline was pretty excited about when she got it in the mail!

 

 

The Tooth Fairy Pillow makes a great gift and a great collectible! The fabric choices were perfect and the quality of the product is better than any of these I have seen.  Cordial Lee doesn't miss a detail...down to the adorable packaging!

The pillow has one side with a pocket, ready for the tooth and the money! It also conveniently hangs from a door or a bedpost!

 

GIVEAWAY:

The choice of one personalized Tooth Fairy Pillow (or) a $20 Cordial Lee gift voucher will be awarded to one randomly selected person.

HOW TO ENTER:

You have FIVE chances to win!

The first mandatory entry is to become a fan of Cordial Lee on Facebook, comment on Cordial Lee's page that I sent you, and then come back and comment on this post that you are a fan of Cordial Lee on Facebook!

EXTRA ENTRIES:

You can earn one extra entry for each of the following. Please leave a separate comment for each entry in order for each to be counted.  Make sure to leave your email address with at least one of your comments so that I can contact you if you win.

1. Become a public follower of this blog!

2. Visit Cordial Lee and then come back and comment on this post with the link to your favorite product!

3. Grab my button for your site and/or add me to your BlogRoll on your blog!

4. Visit my blog and comment on another post.  Let me know in the comment section of this post which post you visited!

DETAILS AND FINE PRINT:

Giveaway ends: Friday, May 3rd at midnight (eastern time)
Winner randomly selected and posted on Saturday, May 4th.

*Winner must be from the US or willing to pay the international shipping charges.
*Winner has 24 hours to respond to my email.
*Winner has 72 hours to claim their prize from Cordial Lee once the winner has been announced.


Have fun and good luck! :)

oh yeah....

We went on vacation in January...

and it was fabulous...

...but I haven't shared any details yet or documented it at all on the blog! 

We originally planned to go to Disney world in October of this past year, right before Adeline turned a year old...but she had a big ear infection/allergy to antibiotics/possible fever virus saga and was as pitiful as can be...and we didn't get to go! (Oh, and then her daddy ended up with the flu at that time too! ;)  So we rescheduled and went in January.  It was amazing!!

We went to Disney World for 4 days...

 And then to the beach for a few days!

So I've decided that there are too many details, too many tips, and way too many pictures to put into a post or two.  So once I have all the posts organized and ready to go, I've planned a vacation week here on the blog! There will be details about our trip, plus road tripping tips, Disney World tips (organized by park), and beach-going with a toddler tips!  Stay tuned, and I will post to give a heads up of when it's coming!

still

Being still...

Not something I'm good at. At all. I busy myself. I multitask while I multitask. I worry. I get anxious. I try to handle it all. Myself.

But I'm really working with God and trying to let go and let Him change this in me. He knows me. Thank goodness. And He's fighting like mad to release me of this little quirk.

He's teaching me to be still. In many ways. For many reasons.

I convinced hubby a year ago that we "needed" our living room chair we have now for moments like tonight. I fell in love with the pattern. Paisley. Blues, greens, neutral. Perfection. I knew it would allow me to be still. To just be.

Truth: I can count the number of times I've intentionally used it to be still the past year on one hand.

Tonight though...it's different. It's not often I like different. But this change God is doing in me...it's a good thing. Hubby is asleep, baby is asleep and this I-don't-want-to-hold-it-all-together-on-my-own-anymore Momma is relaxing in a quiet house after a mad dash hour cleaning session and a busy, emotional roller coaster of a week.

I'm being still, taking a deep breath and feeling blessed.

"The Lord will fight for you...you need only to be still." -Exodus 14:14

monthly pic how-to

I have had many people inquire lately how I create the monthly update pics of Adeline.  (You can find those: here, here, here, or here!)  I was so excited when I learned about this trick and found this site, that I'm excited to share!

I use the website, PicMonkey.  It's free (mainly-unless you want to get super, duper fancy)!

First, I just make sure to have a picture of Miss Adeline (that's not hard to come by ;) that has a nice foreground image of her, but also has a lot of background area so that text will fit.

Example:

 

{1}

{2}

{3}

 

{4}

Clear as mud? ;)

This has been such an easy, fun, and creative way for me to keep an update on Adeline each month after she turned 1!  I try to be good and make these as soon as she turns another month old, but that just doesn't always happen.  I can't imagine why! ;)  If I forget what she's been up to when making my photo, I just go back and look at my Instagram pictures or my Facebook pictures from that month to get ideas. 

I like to save these in a special photo "Adeline-Year 2" on Facebook and on my computer under Adeline's file of pictures, in which I have another file titled "Monthly Pictures".  I also update them to the blog each month, of course. :)

I have noticed these do not print correctly from places like Walgreens, etc.  (the text doesn't fit all within the dimensions of the photo).  I would just recommend printing them from your computer on nice stock paper if you want them printed.

Other ideas with PicMonkey:  Text art for blogs, etc, or you can even do collages and make a Facebook timeline photo.

Enjoy!

16 months!

Oops! Adeline has been 16 months for almost a month now and is creeping up on 17 months! Here is a glimpse of our sweet 16 month "baby" girl!

family day!

Since this week is my Spring Break, Justin took today off for us to spend as a family! We knew there would be good weather, so it was the perfect day to plan some outdoor fun and mark some errand running off our list.

We started the day at Chick-fil-a. We enjoyed it in the car in the parking lot while Adeline napped. This kind of car nap rarely happens these days so we didn't wake her for lunch and just let her eat her meal when we got to the zoo.

Our big event was going to the zoo today. We wanted to try to get in at least one more visit before we renew our membership for another year. It was a busy day because of the (finally) nice weather. But another perk of a membership is we didn't feel bad if we skipped an exhibit or didn't spend as much time at one because it was too crowded. However, we were pleasantly surprised with how much we were able to do and see!

Last year, Adeline took it all in, but she wasn't waking yet. This was her first zoo trip walking and she was so excited when she got to "wah" (walk). She LOVED all the birds, and most other animals, but she was nervous and reserved around any animal in the ape family- which we found random and funny because when you ask her what a monkey says, she's quick to say "ah ah". She told all the animals we saw to "shhhh", with her finger to her mouth, which means either they were sleeping or she was telling them to go to sleep. She said "qua qua" at almost every bird we saw and roared at the lion. LOVE all the animal noises and names she is learning these days. She thought the penguins were fun and met them for the first time because they weren't on exhibit last year. The giraffes are always a fave, but the camels seemed to be a new fave this year. Random. ;) She enjoyed the wallaby walkway where you are a part of the exhibit- but none of the furry friends came as close to her as she would have liked. :) She was such a good girl getting in and out of her stroller (that doesn't always happen) and had fun strolling around and snacking as she gazed at all the animals. We ended the day at the zoo on the Carousel- her absolute fave when we were in Disney World- so we had to let her reminisce and enjoy a ride today. She made noises the entire ride, begging for "moh" when it stopped. She is so much fun- no matter what we are doing!!

After the zoo, we headed to Babies R Us and Toys R Us- our baby gate broke so we had to exchange and Adeline had a gift card still from Christmas, so we let her go shopping for a new "bay-bee" and some more "chuh chuhs" (trains). The art of distraction is a MUST when we shop these days...empty hands are not her favorite thing and going bye bye isn't cool unless it means we're leaving the house and she knows she's headed somewhere. But our sweet girl made out pretty well with a new baby doll, sling included, a new take 'n play Thomas the train set, two more new trains, and new Mickey coloring paper for her Color Wonder crayola markers.

We ended the evening with dinner at Qdoba (a fave of all of ours and a Lowe's trip.

Love days like today. Perfection.

date night budget-style

Justin and I got the gift and blessing of a date night tonight! My aunt is in town and was happy to watch Miss A while we went out for the evening.

I can count the number of dates we've had since Adeline on two hands. We always have such good intentions but we get so tired and busy that we let it slip as a priority.

We've really been working on trying to at least do a date night a month- I know, not perfect, but getting somewhere! We do have A LOT of evenings together on the couch and more impromptu time together. :)

When we do a date night, we really work hard to still stay within our budget. It's always fun to see how God can take a little and make it into such a fun, full time together! Tonight was no exception.

So tonight we started with dinner at Bucca di Beppo. We shared a salad and an entree (their portions are HUGE)!

Savings: $10 from a $10 off $20 or more coupon from our local fundraising coupon savings book.

Next, Justin planned for us to go bowling! We haven't bowled since our first or second year of marriage. :) We had a ton of fun and had kinda forgotten that playful/flirty/competitive side of dating. Success. :)

Savings: $15 savings with a buy one game/get one game free coupon from our local fundraising coupon booklet.

After bowling, we hit a Starbucks drive-thru and both splurged on frappuccinos.

Savings: $5 with my birthday freebie drink and $5 for the other drink with a gift card.

We ended our night at Barnes and Noble- both grabbing a stack of magazines (I NEVER take a moment to look at magazines anymore. Such a treat!) and sat to enjoy our picks for a while.

Overall, our $75ish date cost us around $15 of our personal money after using gift cards, coupons, cash we had been gifted, and choosing some free fun. Blessings!!

We came home to a sleepy Adeline (it's often so much easier to just let Adeline go to bed late on this rare occasion than leave step by step directions for whoever is watching her. Plus the fact I'm still nursing her- just easier all together! :)

We had such a blast and are always so blessed when we are intentional to spend alone time together. I'm so grateful for a man that pursued me like crazy before dating and still does 5 years into marriage.