Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Wordless Wednesday: May 8, 2013 (w/linky)- Time to Plant a Garden

The weather has finally warmed up and we decided to plant our garden this past weekend. We had the grandparents down to visit, had a cookout, and just enjoyed the afternoon together.

I'd never seen beet seeds before. They are sort of weird looking.

I am also linking this post up to:

Looking forward to seeing your Wordless (or not so wordless) Wednesday posts this week.

Monday, May 6, 2013

Tuesday's Giveaway Link Up- May 7, 2013

Welcome to Tuesday's Giveaway Link Up with your hosts Karen @ Tots and Me and Emily @ Emily Reviews

So glad you could join us as we share our giveaways on Tuesday's Giveaway Link Ups.

Our co-hosts this week are Kim from Mommie...Again and Sue from My Photopage.

This link up will be posted Monday at 7 PM est. and run all week long! Make sure you stop in as often as you can to list your latest giveaways.

Here is how to use the Giveaway Link Up

1. Post your reviews and/or giveaways, as many as you have, be sure to add the end date (family friendly please)

2. Help spread the word about the giveaway link up by grabbing our button, Tweeting or posting on Facebook. (Not mandatory- but it helps get more exposure to your giveaways as well!)

3. Take a moment to enter any giveaway that strikes an interest to you!

If you would like to follow the hostesses, we will gladly follow you back! Simply leave us a message to do so.

Featured Giveaways

American Girls Bitty Twins Giveaway (2 Dolls, 2 Outfits, 1 Book) Ends 5/13

Celebrating Moms Amazon eGift Card Giveaway (1-$500 GC, 3-$100 GC) Ends 5/11

$25 Gift Card to Old Country Buffet, Hometown Buffet or Ryan's Ends 5/7

Young Science Club Kit for Kids: Choice of Bubble Science, Rainbow Science or Kitchen Science Ends 5/8

BellaVita Iphone 4 or 5 Wristlet or Wallet Ends 5/12

Thank you for linking up with Karen @ Tots and Me & Emily @ Emily Reviews along with Kim from Mommie...Again and Sue from My Photopage.

Muffin Tin Monday: I is for Insect

This week we started our Ii:Insect Unit. Of course I had to make an insect muffin tin.

The top three compartments hold the body pieces to our Make-Your-Own-Insects.

6 pretzel stick legs

3 Peanut butter and jelly sandwich body parts

2 cucumber wings with 2 cheese shred antennas

2 grape tomato ladybugs on a spinach leaf

Cool whip covered with graham cracker crumbs for an anthill (with mini chocolate chip ants)

Ants on a log (toast with peanut butter and raisins

Here are the legs and body parts

And the wings and antennas

Amelia thought we needed an "I" so she made one before she knew what the pretzel sticks were for.

Then she built her insect.

Hannah made hers next.

And she had to kiss her ladybug.

Tabitha finally came downstairs and got to make hers.

Here is Harold's muffin tin:

He had mini chocolate chips, cucumbers, peanut butter and jelly sandwich bites, cheese, pretzel sticks and pb toast. Wasn't sure if he could eat the raisins, so I passes and gave him some banana after he was finished with the muffin tin.

Sunday, May 5, 2013

G is for Gifts

Ever since our little guy has started walking, he has been bringing me gifts.

He started out by bringing me almost every sock from our clean sock pile.

Recently he has been bringing me lots of little things he finds lying around. And he is just so happy about it. In the pictures above, he was bringing me shoes. You should have seen his face light up when I accepted them and thanked him for them.

The reason this suddenly means so much to me now, is because it helped me to better understand that God wants to accept the gifts he gives to us. We just started reading the book One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp in our Bible Study group and I am starting to focus on the grace that God extends to us and the gifts that God has given to us. We are learning about being thankful and finding joy.

When I see how much my son appreciates that I am accepting his gifts and being thankful and appreciative, I can more easily understand that God wants us to be thankful for what he has given us.

Friday, May 3, 2013

Lovin' the Weekend Blog Hops: May 3-5, 2013

Welcome to Lovin' The Weekend Blog Hops with your co-hosts:

Karen from Tots and Me, Maria from Adventures of the Mommy Homemaker and Rena from An Ordinary Housewife.

Thank you to every one who has stopped by, whether this is your first visit or you have been a faithful ongoing participant!

I am sad to say that Maria will no longer be able to be a co-host after this week. I have appreciated all that she has done and she will be missed. However, that means we are on the lookout for someone to take her place as the 3rd co-host.

(If you are interested in this position, please click here to fill out the form.)

We would love for you to stop by each of the co-hosts and follow us, then feel free to add your links to any or all of the following linkies.

We also randomly choose a Featured host each week from the Lovin' The Readers linky. This week we are featuring Stacey from This Momma's Ramblings.

Here's what she has to say:

"My name is Stacey and I live in a small Midwest town in Illinois. I have been married to hubby number two, for eleven years and we have two kids together and I have a son from my first marriage. I am in my second year of home schooling my two youngest kids, and love most every minute of it. LOL! Three months ago I worked a full time job, for over eighteen years and I quit to become a SAHM for a couple of years...more if I can figure out how. I started "This Momma's Ramblings" in January to share my new daily adventures of being a SAHM, wife, teacher, maid, and every other thing that goes along with being a mom. I share random thoughts, recipes that I make, things that I have learned, and any other oddball bit of nonsense that pops into my head. Friendship, support, encouragement, and laughter are the goals that I hope to acheive and maybe bringing in a few dollars wouldn't be a bad thing either."

Don't forget to link up to the Lovin' the Readers Hop if you would like a chance to be a Featured host next week. Please comment with a way to contact you, especially if there is not an obvious way mentioned on your blog. We would love to include a little write up about you and your blog in the next week's Lovin' The Weekend Blog Hop post, including a link to your blog. And you will get to include the linky codes on your blog. Sound fun? We're looking forward to getting to know our readers better.

Here's how this blog hop works. We would appreciate it if you would follow Tots and Me, Adventures of a Mommy Homemaker and An Ordinary Housewife then please head on over to our Featured Host and follow as well. If you no longer have GFC please follow in some other way. After that there are three different linkies you can link to. Whichever one you choose to link to, please grab that button and share it on your blog (the codes are on Tot's and Me's sidebar). We'd love it if you could tweet or in some other way share about this blog hop, the more people who know about it, the more potential visitors and new followers of your blog. We'd love to meet some new friends this weekend.

Some people are more interested in just increasing their numbers, while others really want people who appreciate their blog and want to keep up with their posts. So, there are two separate blog hop linkies.

The third linky is for you to link up your giveaways.

If you are interested in increasing the number of followers to your blog via GFC, Linky Followers, email, Twitter, Facebook or Google+ link up here. We will follow you back if you follow us (just note which one you are linking to):

If you are interested in gaining followers to your blog who will read and comment and truly find an interest in your blog, link up here:

If you have family friendly giveaways to link up, here's your spot. Please make sure to include an end date for your giveaway.

We are so glad you stopped by. Please leave a comment if you link up and we will be sure to stop by and follow back.

Don't forget to check out my "Blog Hops" page for other great blog hops!!

Thursday, May 2, 2013

Celebrating Moms Amazon Gift Card Giveaway

Celebrating Moms

Moms, such important people in our lives. Where would we be without them? Do you have a special way to say how much you love your mother on Mother's Day (which is right around the corner in case you didn't realize)? My mother is so faithful in sending out cards that I know I can't forget to send her one to let her know how much she means to me. Here is a great Mother's Day Giveaway for you.

Join us for an exciting giveaway from Save1.com worth $800 in value, and enter for your chance to win one of four Amazon e-gift cards!
One winner will receive the Grand Prize of a $500 Amazon e-gift card
Three winners will receive a $100 Amazon e-gift card!
We hope this will be a very special blessing to all the moms out there. Enjoy this delightful infographic about mothers and don't forget to enter for your chance to win in the giveaway!

*Will you help Save1 reach their goal of feeding 100,000 children? Each time you and your friends share their website on Facebook, "Like" their Facebook page, and sign up for their newsletter, Save1 will provide three meals to a child in need. This takes just 60 seconds to complete! Go here to help make it happen now.

Giveaway Time!

This special Mother's Day giveaway is brought to you by the generous sponsors at Save1.com.

This event was organized by Rebecca at Love2EncourageYou.

Prize: There will be four winners total for this giveaway. One (1) winner will receive the Grand Prize of a $500 Amazon e-gift card! Three (3) winners will each receive a $100 Amazon e-gift card! The total value of all prizes included in this giveaway is $800 value in Amazon e-gift cards!
Location: Must be a resident of the USA or Canada.
Age: 18 years or older to enter. Void where prohibited.
Date: This giveaway begins on 5/02/2013 and will end on 5/12/2013 (Mother's Day) at 12:01am Eastern time.
Please support the sponsor and follow Save1 on:

Enter the giveaway using the Rafflecopter form below. Once the mandatory entries have been completed, it will unlock the additional optional giveaway entries that you can enter to increase your chances of winning. If you complete ALL entries in the giveaway form you are entitled to a free bonus of 10 additional entries! Best of luck to each of you! Happy Mother's Day! a Rafflecopter giveaway