Awesome Giveaways

Well, here I am blogging again about some giveaways, but these are seriously awesome! If you ever read my blog, you seriously just have to check out MommyandMegiveaways. They review products sent to them and more often than not, the companies also sponsor giveaways for those products!! So, I was introduced to this by a friend of mine, and I've been relatively hooked! I've won a couple pretty awesome things, not the least of which was Microsoft Word 2010 for our MAC! So, if I haven't convinced you--go check them out! Right now they are doing a fun 12 days of Christmas giveaway (hence the button farther down on my blog). All of the giveaways for this event are A.W.E.S.O.M.E.!! Here are just a few:

Mobi is sponsoring a giveaway for their digital Mobi Cam baby monitoring system. This little trinket is valued at $229 and could be won for free!! (if you're not at least curious about this blog by now, you're crazy!!)

ZVOX is sponsoring a giveaway for a Z-base 555 Stereo System!! This is a $399.99 value!! It is a surround sound with no external wires or speakers etc. This is a huge offer!!

Angeles is sponsoring a giveaway for a their crib which has the following features:

1. It is fully compliant with the NEW December 2010 safety guidelines!!! That is the most important thing for you to know. This crib is safe for your children.

2. It has a 5 year warranty.

3. BONUS! It comes with a mattress.

4. It meets or even exceeds the 16CFR1632 and 16CFR1633 flammability standards! (I told you this crib was safe)

So cool!! They also did a giveaway a little while back for a little Trike and they have tons of other great looking products!!

Scentsy, which is not part of the 12 days of Christmas event is also doing a giveaway. I have a scentsy warmer and I LOVE IT! It has been a great way to make our house yummy without the danger of fire and without me having to bake something :) This consultant is giving away a warmer and a scented bar to go with it! This gives you an idea of their typical daily giveaways!

At any rate, I'm obviously hooked! Who doesn't love free useful things?? So one of the ways I can boost my entries is to blog about the giveaway, but even more than that I want to share this wonderful blog with those of you who read this! I'm sure we're all bargain shoppers and what better bargain than brand new and free?? So, check it out at your own risk of complete addiction :)

A Mighty Fortress is Our God

I've been wanting to post this for a while now, just didn't seem to find the time to sit down and do it. But, since I'm relaxing at grandma and grandpa's and Makaela is sleeping (yes, still sleeping at 5:30) I thought I'd take a quick minute to do this post. We sang an arrangement of this song last month in choir--correction--the choir sang an arrangement and I played piano. That whole accompaniment thing is still a stretching experience for me, so the Lord must still have more He wants to teach me through it. Anyway, as we were singing first service, I was completely overwhelmed (to the point of tears which is not necessarily the best thing when you're trying to play the piano) by the goodness and greatness of our God!! I wasn't the only one, and it is always so encouraging and convicting to my heart when the spirit moves so greatly within!! So, I wanted to share the words because they are so powerful and God used them to speak deeply to me.

"A Mighty Fortress"

Our God is a consuming fire, a burning holy flame, with glory and freedom;

Our God is the only righteous judge, ruling over us with kindness and wisdom;

And we will keep our eyes on You, we will keep our eyes on You.

A mighty fortress is our God;

A sacred refuge is Your Name.

Your kingdom is unshakeable;

And with you forever we will reign.

Our God is jealous for His own, none could comprehend His love and His mercy;

Our God is exalted on His throne, high above the heavens, forever He is worthy;

And we will keep our eyes on You, we will keep our eyes on You.

A mighty fortress is our God;

A sacred refuge is Your Name.

Your kingdom is unshakeable;

With you forever we will reign.

A Mighty Fortress is our God!!"

Pumpkin Carving

This Saturday we (and by "we" I mostly mean Nathan) got around to carving Makaela's pumpkin! I have this thing with the sliminess of pumpkin innards, and I thought with my current pregnant state, it might not be wise for me to try and gut the pumpkin unless we wanted to clean up more than just pumpkin innards :) I suppose that's enough, if not too much, said :) So, I was the designated photographer and Nathan and Makaela gutted the pumpkin. Since she seems to have no fear of anything, I figured she'd have no problem with the feeling of the pumpkin innards, and she didn't. She had fun pulling out pumpkin seeds when they weren't slipping out of her hands :)

Dada got busy carving the cutest ladybug on the face of the planet into her ladybug--all freehand!! We found a cute picture online to mimic and Nathan did an AWESOME job!! Here are pictures and a video of the festivities :)

Probably more excited about eating and sitting on top of the

table than the actual pumpkin and the task at hand :)

Assessing the situation

She saw mama cut the top off the pumpkin, so she decided to

pick up the knife and "cut it" herself...saying "cut it, cut it" :)

her latest "smile" :)

Getting the template on the pumpkin

helping dada clean out the inside

Picking up the seeds off the table

Back up to the table for some more action!!

Working hard and Hardly working--which is which? :)

Checking out the progress

Hard at work

checking out the candles inside

hm...what to think about this whole pumpkin thing??

The proud maker, and proud owner :)

Showing off her pumpkin :)

The finished product--way to go dada!!

Family Pumpkin Patch Trip

Here are a few pictures from our trip to our local pumpkin patch. It was a fun little place here in Port Orchard with 2 patches of pumpkins, and 1 patch of small sweet pumpkins to make fresh pumpkin pie. There was also a "hay castle" with a few slides for the kiddos and a trail through the woods following a little story. This particular farm allows you to come toward the beginning of pumpkin season and choose your pumpkin, personalize it, then the pumpkin grows with the personalization in it. Kinda fun thing we will have to keep in mind for next year :) Anyway, I forgot the camera so these pics are from my phone, and because we were using my phone, we couldn't get a clear picture of all 3 of us :)

A friend of mine who works for Deere says this one is probably from the 80's!!

In the Hay Castle

Sliding down with Dada

The wagon ride probably would have been much more fun (at least for dada)

if the handle of the wagon wasn't broken :) but we made do :)

She loved this rocking horse! She was rocking so hard she was

close to tipping herself off the front side!!

Sweet girl and dada in the pumpkin patches.

Pumpkin Time

A few weeks back, our friend Rosie invited us to a "mommy fellowship" group at her husbands old church. The event for the day was going to a local farm and pumpkin patch :) Makaela's first experience with pumpkins and pumpkin patches, but not her first experience with farms and chickens. She had fun talking to the turkey's and the chickens, and enjoyed looking at all the different pumpkins. The girl has no fear, I tell you. She was ready to just tear through the patch no matter how wet it was, no matter what vines tripped her, she just kept going :) Unfortunately, dada had to work, so our first experience in the pumpkin patch wasn't with him, but we went again to a different one 2 days later to have a family pumpkin event :) Here are some pics from our time :) Pumpkin carving post is coming next!!

Checking out all the pumpkins

Gotta choose just the right one :)

For whatever reason, this was a favored face for pictures during the day :)

More Giveaway Items

Hello blogging world :) I'm here to just do a quick little note on some awesome giveaways from MommyandMegiveaways!! They always review such fun things and so I stick my name into the pot a few times to try out my luck. Today's lucky blog items I'm going for are:

A Labor Gown from a company called Labor Looks. Super cute and much more modest little gowns for the hospital :) I'd love to have one of those suckers when April rolls around :)

An electric breast pump from Evenflo

and...a cutsie little trike from a company called Angeles. Here's a picture!!

Here's to hoping--and getting a few extra entries for blogging :)

Bella VS. The Bunny

Recently, Makaela was given one of those little furry toys that have plastic feet on the bottom, and you can wind them up and they hop/jump all over the place. I must admit, there are a whole slew of toys that make me think "I wonder what Bella would do with that". :) you know you've got a good dog who will provide LOTS of entertainment when you look at things and ask yourself that question. So, of course, I thought "I wonder what Bella would do with this bunny". Well, here are 2 videos of what she did. We knew she would probably freak out a little and definitely want to play with it. In the first video, you get the idea of how she initially reacted to it. It wasn't even 2 minutes before she had the plastic feet off of that little bunny, so you were left with the bunny, the little winder gadget on the side, and a buzzing noise when the area where the feet used to be was triggered. The result is in these 2 videos. Enjoy an if you're like me, grab a tissue or 2 because I was laughing so hard I cried :) We love our crazy Bella

p.s. please excuse the condition of my house in these videos :) We were having a lazy day :)

p.s.s. I just watched the videos again and yep---still laughing so hard I cry :)