Little Tikes Garden Chairs {Giveaway} – CLOSED

Can you tell that we like to read?

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Yes, we like to read lots.

All winter long and into the early spring we were shut ins around here.  So all of our reading took place indoors.  We didn’t even venture out to the library.  No siree.  Why is that?  First, it was super cold outside.  Second, it was super cold outside.  Third, it was super cold outside.  Okay you get the idea.  It was super cold outside.  Then… Don’t even get me started on the amount of snow that was dumped on us.  Loads and loads.  All winter long.  I thought that it would never end.  We even got a snow storm when I was postpartum in the hospital with Cache.  Oops. I think I must have left that out of Cache’s birth story.   Yes, I know that I forgot to put that part in.  Basically a HUGE snow storm decided to come rolling in the day after he was born and we weren’t sure if we were ever going to get to leave the hospital.  For some reason when it snows in St. Louis the ENTIRE city shuts down.  Does that happen in other cities?  Anyway, back to our love of books… Now that the weather is simply glorious outside (not too hot and not too humid yet) we can take our reading outdoors.

My friends over at Little Tikes sent Banjo and Ruby these adorable garden chairs.

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The chairs are the perfect size for their little tushies and are now their favorite reading spots in the backyard.

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I LOVE that my sweet littles LOVE books.

Now… for the giveaway!!!

The winner of this giveaway is going to

receive TWO garden chairs from Little Tikes

in the colors red and orange!

(Enter on the Rafflecopter below.)

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*This giveaway is open to US entries only.
*The winner of this giveaway will be drawn no later than the evening of Monday, June 23rd and will be emailed.  If the winner does not respond within 48 hours, a new winner will be drawn.
*This posting and giveaway are sponsored by Little Tikes, but all opinions are strictly my own.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Little Tikes Picnic Table {Giveaway} – CLOSED

We finished our patio late in the season last year, so we didn’t really get to enjoy it before it started to snow.

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But this year we were ready for the spring and summer!  In fact we have been dining al fresco for quite a while now.

littletikes6Basically as soon as it stopped snowing.

That’s why when my friends over at Little Tikes  (Yes, I said LITTLE TIKES *squeal*) offered to send us a picnic table for our kiddos I jumped at the chance.  And of course you know what that means…  If I get one then one of YOU gets one, too!  *SQUEAL* from you, right?!

The Easy Storeâ„¢ Picnic Table with Umbrella is amazing.  Seriously dandy.  As soon as it came Banjo had to open the box immediately.  He even starting dragging the pieces from the front entry to the back patio.  Fortunately for me it require no tools to put together.  I’m all about the ease of things like that.  The entire table just snaps together and the instructions were super easy to follow.

Here we are at snack time:

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And then dinner time with cousin H:littletikes

My kids cannot get enough of their new table!

What’s more???  It stores aways really dandily.

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And now… The moment you have all been waiting for…

The GIVEAWAY!!!

The winner of this giveaway is going to receive an…

Easy Storeâ„¢ Picnic Table with Umbrella

from Little Tikes!

And the crowd goes wild!!!

(Enter on the Rafflecopter below.)

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*This giveaway is open to US entries only.
*The winner of this giveaway will be drawn no later than the evening of Monday, June 16th and will be emailed.  If the winner does not respond within 48 hours, a new winner will be drawn.
*This posting and giveaway are sponsored by Little Tikes, but all opinions are strictly my own.
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Spring has FINALLY sprung!

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I don’t know about where you are, but here in St. Louis the sun is shining.  The flowers are blooming.  The grass is turning a brilliant shade of green.  Yep.  It simply glorious outside.  The spring has finally sprung around here!  I knew this day was coming eventually, but I also knew that the weather wouldn’t just suddenly change over night.  Especially not after what we dealt with for what seemed like eternity.  We had the LONGEST winter ever here!  I’m sure this sentiment resonates with the rest of the country; except of course for places like Florida and California.  Most of the country is highly envious of those types of places.  I’m talking the raging, green-eyed monster.  For St. Louis at least there have been signs of the coming days of honeysuckle and lilacs for quite some time now.  Albeit very slowly, but it has been warming up and the forecast hasn’t been predicting any of those crazy snow storms.  In fact the recent thunderstorms and even tornadoes (scary as those are) in the St. Louis area led me to believe that spring really was on its way.  Yes, I believe it’s FINALLY here!

With the spring weather also comes the need for some spring fashion.  That very need actually sent me to the mall last week, but I returned home with much disappointment.  I only made one measly little purchase.  A somewhat (long sleeved; mind you) spring blouse that definitely won’t carry me into summer.  All of the stores must not have been catching on to the hints of spring, because they only had winter clothing in stock.  Heavy sweaters galore, but nothing for spring.  It’s possibly that they are now stocked for spring this week, but I was at the mall LAST week.  I don’t have time THIS week to go back.

In my desperation to have something that I could fit in (remember I just had a baby 9 weeks ago) for this warmer weather I turned to my old standby.  Online shopping.  I will admit that typically I’m a little hesitant with clothes shopping online.  It’s difficult to often know the sizing or how the item will fit.  Generally I’ll only shop online at stores that I’m familiar with already.  Or ones that my friends have recommended.  So it took A LOT of bravery on my part to place an order on a deal site.  But after this purchase:

photo-90I will be purchasing a lot more off of that deal site!

I’m absolutely in love with this top.  I found it on the Jane deal site for only $19.99!  Isn’t that a steal of a deal?  I’m talking waaaaayyyy dandy.  It has these faux buttons up the back.  Seriously going to be my favorite all spring and summer long!

Jane features boutique clothing items for up to 80% off.  Each deal only lasts a matter of days or until they sell out.  So some of the more popular deals are only be around for a few hours!  Like these two deals:

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GONE.  Totally gone.  I shouldn’t have waited so long to make my decision.

Good thing they still have plenty of these cute maxi skirts!

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Click here…

Don’t miss your chance to get a deal at Jane!

Now… What did you see at Jane that you’ve gotta have?

*I am part of the Jane affiliate program, but I really did purchase the above blue top with my own funds.  All opinions are strictly my own.

New family members!

The end of July we went on our annual vacation to Lake Powell.  It’s in Utah/Arizona and always a family reunion of sorts.  ALL of us stay on a houseboat for an entire week and there are A LOT of us.

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This time around there were 28 of us.  Again… all on one house for a week.  Fortunately for us it’s a big houseboat.  🙂

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It’s always a fun trip, but this year it was also very eventful!  The second night we were all surprised when my niece’s boyfriend (who joined us at the lake this year…brave boy) proposed!  It was great news and we were all very happy.  After that how could the trip get even more eventful you ask???

Well, the very next day my brother-in-law and his wife received a phone call (on the boat) from the adoption agency they have worked with in the past.  They have been on the waiting list for quite a few years to adopt again and to no avail.  Out of nowhere a birth mother selected them to adopt her 10 month old twins!  It has been over 5 years since their last adoption and we were all ecstatic by the fabulous news.  So now in addition to their two girls they have another girl and a boy!

My friends over at Joovy wanted to be involved in the blessed union of adoption and welcoming the newest additions to our family.  They are the experts on baby gear and knew that twins require double the gear.

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Joovy was nice enough to send my brother-in-law and his wife a fantastic welcome home gift for their twins.  The Caboose Too Ultralight!

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Aren’t they adorable?  My sister-in-law said that it’s the perfect stroller for doubles.  It’s really light weight and the back seat can easily be converted to a tandem for when the babies are older.  Most importantly due to the positioning of the seats the babies aren’t able to pull each others hair!  We were able to officially meet the little cuties last weekend at the wedding of our niece.  They of course had their Caboose stroller in tow.   🙂

Oh and here’s a picture of the bride and groom with the happy parents of the bride looking on admiringly at all of their children.

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Love them all!

Thanks again Joovy for sending the stroller to my family and helping to congratulate them on their newest additions!

The summer phrase that strike fear in the hearts of women everywhere.

What are the words???  Swimsuit Season.  You are feeling really fearful right now, aren’t you?  Maybe I’m alone in this, but I ate a few too many treats over the holidays and then it just sort of continued into the new year.  Valentines Day.  Then Easter with those addicting Cadbury Mini Eggs.  It’s time that I face the facts.  And the fact is…  I’m not in the shape I want to be in for Swimsuit Season!

Sorry to burst any bubbles for the rest of you, but the days at the pool are just around the corner.  As in Memorial Day weekend is next weekend and that’s when many pools open up.  At least that’s the magical weekend for pool openings in St. Louis.  Even though our current temp outside looks like this:

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And we could very well be swimming today, but Memorial Day weekend it is!

Due to my skin cancer scare I will forever be found at the pool sporting one of these:

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It’s what my dermatologist recommended and I figure it’s better to be safe than sorry.

However, I still need to be in shape for that rash guard!  Argh.  Cadbury Mini Eggs you really ruined me.

The difficult thing about getting in shape is you can only do so much with just diet and you can only do so much with just exercise.  You actually have to combine the two to really get in shape and be healthy!  I’m the cardio queen and can do hours on the elliptical, but it only ever gets me so far.  Even when I’m also watching what I eat with the cardio hours.  I was still always left with this sort of skinny fat business.  How do you get rid of skinny fat???  Build muscle.  I know that hours of cardio doesn’t build it, but still had no idea what to do without a gym membership.  How was I going to be able to do weights at home?  I’m too busy to go to the gym.  I have kids.  I’m busy, busy, busy.  The excuses just kept piling up!

Fortunately the answer sort of fell into my lap.  Okay it did fall into my lap!

A few months back I was asked to do some consulting work for this new fitness company:  Revolt.  I thought, “Sure.  What the hey.”  Working as a liaison with getting bloggers set up on the fitness program and following their success has been an eye opening experience.  They are getting some awesome results and all from their own homes!

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With Revolt you get access to meals plans, daily workouts, and online support.  All for less than you pay each month for a gym membership!  Now I know that I do technically work for Revolt, but I would love to have a Revolt team.  Where we can all work together on the fitness program.  Wouldn’t that be fun?  Something we can all keeps ourselves in check on.  Who’s with me?

JOIN THE REVOLT!!!

Disclaimer:  I do work for Revolt, but I think it’s a really great program.  All opinions are strictly my own.

Summertime!

Right now I’m dreaming of warmer days and time spent on the boat:

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It’s going to be here eventually, right?  Please say it is.  Can you believe we has snow flakes falling last week???  Sure they didn’t last long and sure they didn’t stick, but just the sight of them sent shivers up my spine.  Plus, it was just toooooo cold outside!  That might have induced the shivering…  But seriously there shouldn’t even be the mention of the word snow in late April.  We shouldn’t have to be using our fireplace either.  April is supposed to be the time of rain showers to bring those May flowers, but the temperatures are supposed to still be in at least the 60’s!!!

So I’m ready to welcome in the humid St. Louis summer.  Bring it.  After our horrible winter and “spring” I’m actually looking forward to ushering in the heat.  (Don’t ask me my feelings on this in August.  We will just pretend that I love the humidity.  Even then.)  For now I can dream of the warmer days spent playing outdoors with these monkeys,

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and wearing my flip-flops and shoes without socks again!

But what’s a gal to do when the toes just don’t plead for the flip-flops?  Sometimes they ache for the support!  And the wearing of shoes without socks…  Well, who wants to ruin their favorite pair of shoes by sweating straight into the sole?  Solution to both problems can be found be found below:

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Give ’em pads that you can wear with flip-flops to create comfort.

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See that?  It’s a shoe insert that will keep the inside of your shoes cleaner and smelling fresh when you decide to go sock less!  🙂  Thank you Foot Petals for bringing comfort to the styles of summer!

*This posting was sponsored by Foot Petals, but all opinions are strictly my own.

Finally spring!

Spring has finally sprung around here and it is about time!

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Our tree decided to bloom with its gorgeous white blossoms.  Not sure what kind it is, though.

Guess I’ll have to do some research and get back to you.  😉

As I said it’s great that we are finally in the spring season.

Mere weeks ago (the end of March) we were buried in snow here in St. Louis:

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One day it was gorgeous outside.  Temps in the upper 50’s.  Then literally the very next day we had over a foot of snow.

But here we are less than a month later and able to enjoy the outdoors!

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The kiddos and I have been having a grand time with the nice weather.  We have been trying to take walks on a daily basis.  Ruby loves to ride in the big red wagon and Banjo loves to run ahead of us.  It has also been fun to get out and see the neighbors and I’m grateful for the wonderful street that we live in.

This gorgeous weather is a reminder that swim suit season is lurking.  In the coming weeks I’ll be sharing with you about some great workout programs.  Perfect for getting in shape for the swim wear.  For now let’s have a look at some of the ‘it’ styles for the summer from some of my favorite lines:

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(DownEast Basics)

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(Shabby Apple)

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(Lands End)

What will I be wearing this summer?  Well, given my latest skin biopsy and subsequent minor surgical procedure scheduled for later this month I won’t be showing much skin.  In fact my doctor recommends that I wear a rash guard from now on.  Maybe this one from Lululemon:

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Happy swim suit shopping!

My words of advice:  Wear sunscreen.  Don’t go tanning.  I wish I had known this when I was younger.