March 2011
  

Sparkle Farms Bloomer Shorts Giveaway


Well you all know now (from my Barbie Modesty post a couple of weeks ago) that it's important to Ken & I that our girls are & learn to be modest in their dress.

I think the "diaper cover" that goes with baby girls' dresses is wonderful. As Talia got older & became potty trained, we re-named them the "panty cover" and then, suddenly & sadly, we hit a size that rarely included these covers and left us wondering how to ensure modesty for a little girl who hasn't quite mastered sitting and playing modestly in a skirt.

We've been making do with random leggings and tights and things, and I've been wondering what we'd use when it got too hot for that in the summer.

Enter Sparkle Farms and their bloomer shorts... when I first heard of these I was so excited about them! They're exactly what I was looking for. They're totally cute and have an adorable name. I could not ask for more!

Ours arrived in the mail & I took a few photos for you to see what they come with. For $25, you get 3 pairs of bloomers (bottom, right), a cute Sparkle Farms tote bag (top, right), and a cute Carrying Pouch (bottom left) for your bloomers.


They come in 3 colours- pink, purple, & white (perfect). Each pair has 3 cute sparkly jewels on one leg, and they are labeled on the inside without a tag, so there's no itch-factor. They come in size 3-7, and you can buy them individually.



I really love how this product is the perfect size & fit for its purpose. I totally recommend it & think it'd make a great gift as we come up on Easter dress time :)

And now for the coolest part of this post: Sparkle Farms is offering you all $5 off of a $25 order when you use the code "bloomers", AND they're going to give one set of 3 bloomers (with all the fun stuff I showed you above) to one of you, for free!

All you have to do is enter below & I'll announce the winner on the blog! :)

How to Enter:

Leave a comment for each entry!!

Mandatory Entry:

Be a Follower of my blog (scroll to the bottom of the blog to find the widget & click on the Follow Button)

Extra Entries:

"Like" Raising Memories on Facebook

Follow Raising Memories on Twitter

"Like" Sparkle Farms on Facebook

Follow Sparkle Farms on Twitter

Post about the giveaway on twitter, your blog, or facebook, with a link back to the blog. (You can get 2 entries for each of these, so post two comments to let me know you did it! :)

If you really want to have more entries, you can comment on any entry on my blog and let me know here, which one you commented on. (I love to hear your thoughts through comments!) You can do this as many times as you want.

You can do the same as above, for the Sparkle Farms Blog, and come back here to tell me which post(s) you commented on.


Giveaway Details: This giveaway closes on Thursday, April 14th. The contest is open to Canada & the U.S. A winner will be chosen randomly from all of the comments. Winner will be contacted by email (please include your email in your comment if I can't find it through your profile). If you do not respond within 48 hours after I email you, a new winner will be chosen. The winner will be announced on the blog on April 16th.

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. Tomoson Product review & giveaway Disclosure.
Sponsored by Tomoson.com

Birthday Placemat

For Ken's birthday this year, the girls helped to make him a birthday placemat.



Here's What We Did:

1. Cut out small pieces of white cardstock, decorate with pictures or messages
2. Glue decorated white paper to colourful scrapbook paper
3. Laminate

You're done! :)

Hope you get some fun out of this idea, too. :)

Oh, & if you haven't entered yet, this is the last day to enter the Gaddy Nipper Crayons Giveaway! There'll be another giveaway starting on Thursday, & the Crayons winner will be announced on Friday, so stay tuned! :)

Grandma Dress

My mom is pretty awesome in the sewing department.

She made my sister's baby's blessing dress. She made an apron for me & then later she made a matching apron for Katrina. Something else I've shared on the blog is the ZigZag girl that she made for Talia.

That's definitely not where her sewing talents end- she made little girl dresses for me when I was young, she made my prom dress, she made Talia's flowergirl dress for my SIL's wedding, and the list goes on.

Her latest creation is a dress for Talia & we're so excited about it! :) She even snuck in a little pocket and a bow on the front of the dress so that Talia could see it (my mom remembers being disappointed that she couldn't see the pretty bow at the back when she was little).


Here's Talia, checking out the twirl & posing with Grandma for a photo.


Thanks Mom, for making such a thoughtful & fabulous gift for Talia! If it weren't for you, I wouldn't be starting on my own sewing journey- I admire your talent & am so glad you're there for me when I have questions!

Headshots for Jinelle



My husband's cousin Jinelle is a talented singer and entrepreneur. She asked me to do some headshots for an upcoming audition for her, so we headed to her house to play. Well, we "worked hard" (finding good light, making ourselves a backdrop, etc.) while my girls played with Jinelle's mom & brother... and their costumes :)



Here are a few of my favourite shots of the gorgeous Jinelle :)


We got some "for fun" shots with her guitar to add to the mix..




SwagBucks

Ever heard of SwagBucks?

I think I had kind of heard about it (like I wasn't really listening) and then a couple of weeks ago, I decided why not try it out?

Well, in less than 2 weeks, I've already earned enough swagbucks to get myself a little gift card to Amazon and I'm on my way to another one. What did I have to do? Nothing I don't already do!!
All I did was sign up for SwagBucks, and start using Swagbucks.com to do my online searches. I randomly earn SwagBucks, and it just continues to add up. It's pretty nifty!


And if you invite your friends to join, you earn extra bucks when they earn bucks, as a little thank you from SwagBucks for spreading the word.

So, if you want to check it out, go sign up! (and I'll love you for signing up with my link ;) (P.S. you automatically get 30 swagbucks just for signing up!)

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p.s. if you're a die-hard "swagger" you can earn points from doing extra things on their website like answering polls, playing games, watching little videos, and signing up for deals they offer. (For example, right now you can get 1000 swagbucks just for doing a 1-month free trial with NetFlix!.. that's enough for more than 2 $5 gift cards to Amazon :)

Oh, and you can put your Bucks toward other things too- they have a "Swag Store" with tons of options. You can even donate your swag bucks to help in Japan! Good stuff!

Last tip: download the Swagbucks toolbar. Just click on the Toolbar Button on the top menu of the Swagbucks home page and then click download. That helps you remember to search through swagbucks instead of another search engine, so you'll earn swagbucks!

Snow Fort!

What do we do with a backyard full of snow?
(besides think of ways to make food out of it?)

This! :)

Baby Brooklyn


Earlier this year we visited my sister & her family for a few days since she just had a new baby. During our short visit, we were able to spend some time staging some photos of her precious new baby, Brooklyn Rose. I've been behind on posting any photography stuff, so it's taken me this long to share some with you!

Gaddy Nipper Crayons Giveaway

I've seen several moms around blogland making homemade crayons (taking old, broken crayons and melting them down into fun shapes). I love this idea & it's been on my To Do List for quite a while. Problem is that I haven't been very good at saving up broken crayons.

Someday I'll do it... I hope. I think it'd be a fun project!
Well, if you're like me & it'll be a while before you get to that point, but you still want to enjoy fun-shaped crayons, I recently found Gaddy Nipper Crayons - they have a ton of fun shaped crayons for sale!

They sent us a Crazy Easter Egg filled with bunny shaped, easter coloured crayons & paper easter grass.




Now, this was just a regular sized easter egg with a few little bunny crayons inside, but man! What a reaction from my girls! Talia looked at them & tried to figure out what they were for (I didn't tell her they were crayons right away) & when she figured it out, she thought they were awesome & got right to work with them. Katrina on the other hand, had a blast with the PAPER EASTER GRASS! lol Now I know what her easter basket needs in it ;) Oh, but she later thought one of the bunnies was a candy- we narrowly avoided disaster! ;)

You can get these little easter eggs in packs of 20 to use as gifts for the kids in your child's class at school (I think that's a really fun idea).

Well, we had fun with them & I think they're a great idea for easter baskets (especially if you're avoiding candy). Gaddy Nipper Crayons wants to send one Raising Memories reader a 2-pack of Crazy Eggs (with 3 bunny crayons in each.. complete with easter grass- important if you've got someone like Katrina in your life ;)

Sooo... You want to win??

How to Enter:

Leave a comment for each entry!!
(no mandatory entry this time- just do as many and whichever entries you want)

Be a Follower of my blog (scroll to the bottom of the blog to find the widget & click on the Follow Button)

Visit Gaddy Nipper Crayons, and tell me your favourite kind of crayon that they sell.

"Like" Raising Memories on Facebook

Follow Raising Memories on Twitter

Comment on another post on this blog (leave a comment here, telling me which post you commented on). You can do this as many times as you want.

Post about the giveaway on twitter, your blog, or facebook, with a link back to the blog. (You can get 2 entries for each of these, so post two comments to let me know you did it! :)

Giveaway Details: This giveaway closes on Wednesday, March 30th. The contest is open to Canada & the U.S. A winner will be chosen randomly from all of the comments. Winner will be contacted by email (please include your email in your comment if I can't find it through your profile). If you do not respond within 48 hours after I email you, a new winner will be chosen. The winner will be announced on the blog on April 1st.

Paper Flower Service Project

Remember the paper flowers we made last winter?

This winter we made some just like them, but we added little notes to them and delivered them to people to cheer them up!


please excuse the fuzzy photos


In case you're going cross-eyed trying to read what the note says:
"We wanted to share a sweet smelling flower with you on a chilly day, to bring a little sunshine to your heart. Have a warm day!"

It was a fun little service project to do together & Talia got really into picking people to deliver them to :)

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Note To Self: You're Doing Okay

Sometimes the thoughts in my head about myself are unbalanced toward the negative. I think of the good and the bad that I've done and I give the good too little time on the "stage" of my mind. The bad gets more stage time, and it's not good for me.

Do you do the same? I'm pretty sure a lot of us do this. I think it takes some fighting to change. So, today I'm writing to myself. And I'm giving equal stage time to the good as the bad.

I'm not perfect, but I'm doing good things. I need to keep improving, but all is not lost & although I'm messing up on some things, I'm succeeding at others and I'm recognizing where I need to improve.

Note to self:

Today Katrina drew a really cool picture and you weren't really paying attention when she told you she was drawing a face. You should've enjoyed it & gotten excited with her about what a good job she did. Instead you noticed the little drawing on the floor by the pencil crayons after she had gone to bed and asked yourself if she had really drawn everything on that page (cuz it was pretty darn good for a 2 year old) or if Talia had done some. And then you felt bad because you hadn't been paying close enough attention at the time, to notice. Fix that next time, k?

Dear Self,

You're doing okay though. You have been encouraging Talia and getting excited over her progress as she practises "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" on the piano. You also helped her memorize the first Article of Faith and taught her about what it means. And you carefully explained about what divorce is when she asked questions about The Parent Trap, and then made sure she understood about Eternal Families.
You're doing good things. You're doing okay.


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p.s. Congratulations to Regina from Chalk in My Pocket, you won the My Lip Stuff giveaway (& you have a great blog with really cute ideas by the way- love it! :)

St. Patrick's Day Blast from the Past

St. Patrick's Day is coming up on the 17th!

One of our favourite ways to celebrate St. Patrick's Day is to make a green breakfast!




We've done some fun rainbow treats, too- like a rainbow cake:




...and rainbow cupcakes: (which might look more St. Patricks-y if you used primary colours... I'm on a quest to acquire some good primary colour food colouring this week because we've got plans ;)




I should've added our Fruitloop Rainbow! Better late than never :)




St. Patty's Blast From the Past #2 Post is Here!


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Modesty is Always In Style

For Talia's birthday she received several dolls that were dressed in rather short skirts from friends at her party.

It's important to Ken & I that we teach our girls the value of modesty.

After thinking about the "immodest" dolls that she had received, I decided that I wasn't comfortable with ignoring the standards we have set- even for dolls. I didn't want to take her new gifts away, so I decided to talk to her again about modesty.

I set the new dolls out on the table, I asked her what modesty was (and she surprised me with how well she already had it down). Then I asked her about each doll- "is she dressed modestly?" "What is immodest about her outfit?"

Next I got out all of my fabric scraps & together we chose fabric to go with each "immodest" doll's outfit. Then I got sewing. Here's one example:

I want to give the girl some sleeves, but I'm not sure how to pull it off on such a small doll (and with my limited sewing skills).. anyone have any suggestions???


I'm really happy with how this went- now when she plays with the dolls, she won't be getting the subtle message that the way we dress isn't that big of a deal. Instead, she'll be reminded of the importance we place on dressing modestly. I feel so much better about those dolls now!

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Feature Time



Talia's Teddy Bear Picnic Party is being featured today over on "Or So She Says".

I'd love it if you'd stop over & leave a comment!

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...and while you're actively participating ;)

Enter the My Lip Stuff Giveaway (it ends soon!)

And Tell Me Something About You!

Getting To Know You - Favourite Food

So I've been blogging consistently for over a year now. I've been sharing the activities we do, some of our ideas, and my photography. I've loved having you share the cool ideas and activities that you do, through Sharing Time.

Now, I want us to get to know each other a little better!

So, let me start by telling you one random thing about me, and then I want you to tell me something about yourself!

1. I love chocolate, but not just any chocolate- it's got to be good chocolate! My favourite is Lindor. I can't tell you how thrilled I was when we got a Lindt outlet near us! I usually have a stash of chocolate somewhere in my house (I think I got that from my mom). Confession time... my current stash includes Chirardelli peppermint bark, peanut butter M&Ms (hard to find in Canada, so Ken bought a HUGE bag when we were last in the U.S.), some Lindor, Lindt Orange Intense thins, and Xocai nuggets.


Now, tell me something random about you! You could tell me a bit about you & how you came upon my blog- why do you keep reading?

& if you have any questions about me, ask away! I'd like to do more posts like this (perhaps some a little more in depth ;) because I'd like to get to know those of you who are reading this!

Facepaint for Fun!

Ever done facepaint for no reason? Just to spice up a regular day?

I still remember how exciting it was to be able to wear face paint on Hallowe'en!

And it sure excites my girls :) So, one day we just got out the face paints & put a sparkly rainbow on her face for no reason.


(she's looking at her reflection)


We have the power to add a little magic to our kids' lives- even when there's no special occasion :)

Enjoy

There is a trend going around Mommy Blogs where you choose a word of the year- sort of like a New Year's resolution, but it's just one word that you want to focus on that year.

At the beginning of the year I decided to choose one and I decided that the word that represented most what I wanted to work on or improve in my life this year is "enjoy".

Because I often tear up at the thought of looking back on this stage of my life and having regrets.

I have these moments of clarity when I can see so clearly what I need to be doing and thinking and feeling as a mother at this stage in my life and then I cry because of all of the moments that have passed already that I should have enjoyed fully but didn't and because of all of the moments in the future that I won't fully enjoy.

I want so so badly to just treasure and savour each moment of this Mommy life.
I need to enjoy it.
It speeds by so quickly and I can hardly bear to think of the time in the future when it will be gone.

So, I'm trying to remind myself to enjoy what's happening in my life now (now as in this stage of my life and now as in this exact moment of the day) - not to rush through any of the little 'boring' tasks in my day, but to slow down & enjoy them and experience them with my children and through their eyes as much as possible.

I want them to look back on a present mother.
I want them to know that I enjoy being with them.
And I want to enjoy them during this time before this stage has passed.

So They'll Know I Existed

I have a pet peeve. At the end of the year, I have hundreds of photos of my family & like 4 of the photos are of me or have me in them. Not cool! Ken & I are working on this- I hand him the camera occasionally & he even reminds me to get infront of it sometimes.

So anyway, when I heard about this:


I thought I'd share this:



Sweet girl was sick that day and we were having a total relax day. (She had a perfectly awesome fountain ponytail earlier in the day- wish I had a shot of it to show you!) I need to take more photos with me in them- even if they have to be this kind of self portrait that makes my forehead look huge (yes it does. I cropped part of it out so you wouldn't see) and my arms look freakish. And it takes a few tries to get both of our faces in. But it's so much better than nothing!

I should do this more often.

Measuring Your Hands & Feet

I just found this post from a year ago that never got posted:



We measured our hands & feet today. Did you know there is a whole blog dedicated to crafts with hands & feet?


First we traced Talia & Katrina's feet & hands, then Talia used a measuring tape to measure them.


She learned about:


- where to start with the measuring tape

- how to read it

- how to write some numbers

- how to write the " for inches.


She also continued after we were done by tracing her hand on the other side, colouring it in, measuring it, writing the measurement, and then suggesting that she could cut it out.

My Lip Stuff Giveaway

I have this issue... when it's cold out, my lips are in a state of perpetual dryness. They're always like peeling & flaking and I have a nasty habit of biting them when they do that- cuz I hate the feeling of dry/flaky lips. (Hmm.. was that too graphic for you?... at least I didn't post a photo ;)

I rarely come across lip balm that I actually like or think seems to work. I had the opportunity to review some of My Lip Stuff's products recently and though I'm no expert on ingredients, I can tell you this (from my experience & from reading their website) :

1. My lips are feeling good!
2. I love the texture of her lip balm- it's not waxy/fake feeling.. know what I mean?
3. My favourite flavour so far is "Gingersnaps & Jam".. it's so unique as far as lip balm flavours go, and it makes me think of the holidays in a craft store (is that weird?)
4. My Lip Stuff doesn't use harsh ingredients or test on animals.
5. Talia's favourite flavour is "Cookies & Cream" (convenient for me since I'm not too fond of it, so she won't hog my favourites ;)
6. Katrina likes any flavour & just gets really excited when I let her get her hands on them (and really mad when I don't let her ;)


7. My Lip Stuff is going to give one Raising Memories reader a surprise 6 pack of lip balms!

Sooo... You want to win??

How to Enter:

Leave a comment for each entry!!

Mandatory Entry:

Either be a Follower of my blog (scroll to the bottom of the blog to find the widget & click on the Follow Button); or subscribe to my RSS Feed

Extra Entries:

Visit the My Lip Stuff website, and tell me your favourite flavour or product that's not lip stuff! (brace yourself, there are 500 to choose from!)

"Like" Raising Memories on Facebook

Follow Raising Memories on Twitter

Post about the giveaway on twitter, your blog, or facebook, with a link back to the blog. (You can get 2 entries for each of these, so post two comments to let me know you did it! :)

Giveaway Details: This giveaway closes on Thursday, March 11th. The contest is open worldwide. A winner will be chosen randomly from all of the comments. Winner will be contacted by email (please include your email in your comment if I can't find it through your profile). If you do not respond within 48 hours after I email you, a new winner will be chosen. The winner will be announced on the blog on March 14th.

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