A bowl full of lemons.: Silhouette GIVEAWAY!!!!

I entered A bowl full of lemons.: Silhouette GIVEAWAY!!!! I'm really hoping I win. The design possibilities are endless!

Winner of the Cheerful Children Store Credit

With the help of random.org, the winner of the $20 Cheerful Children Boutique store credit has been chosen.

-- Drum roll, please --

The winner is Sarah from Tired Mommy Tales. Congrats, Sarah!!

Thanks to everyone who entered. Don't forget to still send your friends to the Cheerful Children Facebook page, as I will be having more give aways in the future.

Cheerful Children GIVE AWAY...

My Facebook page has reached 150 fans!! I'm super excited about that. And guess what I'm doing in celebration of that milestone....


A GIVEAWAY!!!



What's up for grabs? Store credit to the Cheerful Children Etsy store. That's right. Get excited! It'll be good for $20 credit. This can include shipping if your total with shipping is at or below $20. I debated what to offer for this give away and decided I should let the winner choose for themselves.

Here's how you enter. You can have up to two entries.

1) The first way to enter is to simply leave a comment on this post telling me what you'd choose. Get creative. What theme would you choose? It can be any of my products listed on Etsy customized any way you want. OR it can be something you would like to see in my store. Be as creative if you want.

2) Become a follower of this blog. I'm going to strive to update it more regularly. And you never know... I may even post coupon codes here ;). Make sure you leave a comment here saying you are now following. That will be your second entry :).

Please leave your e-mail address on your comments. This is how I'll reach you if you win.

Each comment will be assigned a number (in the order they are posted) and a winner will be chose using a random number generator.

The give away will be open until March 16th at midnight Eastern Time. I will announce the winner on the 17th.

Have fun, be creative, and don't forget to still spread the word to your friends! I'll have more of these give aways in the future when I reach milestone numbers with fans.

Party Success!

So, Alyssa's party was a week ago today and I'm just now getting around to blogging about it. I've been insanely busy.
I finished up student teaching the Thursday before the party. Friday I spent the whole day baking. Saturday was spent cooking and then the party. Sunday was church and then our couple's group Christmas party. That Tuesday I graduated. That whole day was busy, busy, busy. Wednesday my mom came from my home town to go shopping. It's only an hour away, but it started freezing over while she was here, so she was stranded. I didn't complain :). Thursday we used our time wisely and went shopping again. Yesterday was Alyssa's birthday. She and I went to see my class I student taught with for their holiday party. Then we had birthday lunch with Daddy. Then she took her nap and we ordered pizza and had birthday cake. My "little" (not so little anymore... almost 21) cousin came to celebrate with us. Then today, we took the birthday girl to the aquarium. Whew!

Okay, back to the party. I ended up making most of the stuff. I wasn't pleased with the cake at all. I was this close to just chucking it and going to Kroger, but I spent $25 on that stupid cake pan.












I was not impressed at all.

I also make the cupcakes, which I ran out of time on. I wasn't thrilled with them either, but they'll do.










I, however, LOVED her shirt and tutu. I made both of them too! They came out exactly as I had planned! I think cake decorating can be left to someone else haha.













I was told about a friend of a friend, who has now become a friend (follow that?) who had some awesome party ideas for me. She's the one that told me about the balloon wreath. She had a ton of great ideas, but I decided not to go overboard since we had it at an indoor place that was already decorated. She was nice enough to make 2 dozen beautiful sugar cookies and a banner, though. I am eternally greatful for that. Seriously. They were amazing. You can read about them here at her blog.

I did learn a few things from this experience.
1) I will never attempt a home made cake again for a special occassion. A few friends made it look totally simple. I'll leave that to them haha.
2) I have great friends :).
3) I'll be buying most things next year. I won't go overboard and be Super Mommy. My mother in law actually had to come rescue me the morning of the party before I went insane.

Anyways, I'm going to wrap this up because I'm super tired.

Happy (belated in blog land) Birthday to my sweet little Alyssa!

The Amazing Shutterfly...

Have you checked out Shutterfly lately?

They have some awesome Christmas cards. And believe me, I shopped around.d Shutterfly has been my favorite by far. We will definitely be ordering through them. And lucky me... I found this promotion to get 50 free cards just for blogging about them. How lucky is that?

Here are a few of my favorites:





























I love this one. It's very bright and colorful. I like bright and colorful. Hubby will probably think it's too "childish" but what's he know? ;-)
































I love this one because of the meaning behind it. Jesus is the reason for the season :).


















Simple, but elegant. I think this one is my favorite.



I've used Shutterfly in the past for Photo Books and was very impressed!
With Alyssa's birthday coming up very quickly, I've also got my eyes on the thank you cards.
I'm also thinking that these calendars would be a good gift in the future.

I definitely advise you to check them out for your future photo purchases. I have been very pleased with all their products I've received so far.

Which style is your favorite? Check out their collection for yourself. You may just fall in love :).

Five Question Friday... Better Late Than Never

1. What is your favorite part of a Thanksgiving meal?

Food wise, I'd have to say my freaking awesome sweet potato casserole.

But in general, it was seeing Ally Kate enjoy the meal like a big girl. This was her last first holiday, so it was bitter sweet. She loved all of her food. But her favorite was the same as mine. What can I say? I make a mean sweet potato casserole.

2. Are you a host or a guest for Thanksgiving this year?

Host.

We had planned on having 18 people over - me, hubby, Ally Kate, my mom, my dad, my brother, my SIL, niece, nephew, my other brother, my other niece, my MIL, my FIL, my SIL, her boyfriend, other niece, and other 2 nephews.

It turns out that Ally Kate woke up that morning at 3;30 am gasping for air. Scared the bajeebus outta Mommy and Daddy, let me tell you! We were at the children's hospital within 10 minutes. But what do you know? They are CLOSED! She was actually better by the time we got there, so we decided to come home and see if we could get her to drink some fluids before we decided to go to the ER. Hubby got smart and Googled "wheezing in infants." What do you know? Croup is the first thing that comes up. It sounded exactly like what she had. So, we followed their guidelines of a steamy shower and humidifier and got her back to sleep.

When we informed our families later that day, my one brother, SIL and other SIL decided not to expose their kids to it. So, it ended up only being 9 people. It was definitely more relaxing that way, but I felt awfully bad about it :-/.

3. When you think of one Thanksgiving tradition, what comes to mind?

My Daddy's dressing lol. My granny used to make it for our Thanksgiving get togethers. Then when she got too sick, my aunt started making it. Then when Granny died, we stopped getting together for Thanksgiving, so my Daddy makes it now. It's freaking delicious! This year, he made a pan for our get together, a pan for my brother, and a pan for me!! I was so excited.

4. You have two pieces of pie in front of you and you HAVE to eat one...do you choose pumpkin or pecan?

Ick. Give me apple, please. I never even liked sweet potatoes until very recently when I was forced to eat them because they came in our farmers market basket haha.

5. Are you a Black Friday Shopper?

Not a part of the morning crowd. No way. We tried that one year and I will probably never do it again. That was nuts. All to save a few bucks. I'd rather spend the extra money to be shopping with the "normal people" ;-). And stay nice and toasty in my bed.

BUT we did venture to Costco last night and it was almost bare in there. Guess all the crazies were at home in bed haha. We did get a Magic Bullet for $32. Woo! I'm excited, but too lazy to wash it :-/.

____________________________________________________________

I'm hoping to get back into the hang of this blogging thing since I'm not consumed in lesson plans anymore. I don't think I ever mentioned it on here, but I started student teaching in August. I'm with a 3rd grade class at a school VERY close to my house. I absolutely love the kids, but am SO glad I don't have to write lesson plans anymore. I kid you not when I say I turned in 40 pages of lesson plans for ONE WEEK! College requirements are a bit ridiculous, don't you think?
Anyways, I have 8 more days with my little rats and then I get to go back to being a SAHM / craft-a-holic!

Balloon Wreath

Ally Kate's 1st birthday is quickly approaching. I've made it my mission to do a few DIY things for it. First up is this balloon wreath. It was super simple. I just followed the tutorial from How Does She?. I will warn you that it takes a ton of balloons, though.
I love the way it turned out.

Still need to do:
* A cupcake shirt
* A tutu
* A giant cupcake cake
* Cupcake Bites

May also make:
* Cute shoes