Just A 'Swingin!!

Being a mom of a little boy I've learned a lot, especially about how active boys are! Jackson can go full tilt until he crashes, usually right after he protests about how "not tired" he is! I love that he is an active little boy, and that he would much rather play outside than sit around in the house watching yet another movie or TV show. Jackson doesn't have any kind of electronic games yet, so we definitely are all about encouraging good family fun outside for several reasons:

• Outdoor activities are good for him by keeping him active and encouraging his imagination. He can pretend to be anything he wants to be, and with just a few props at his disposal he can play forever. Between bicycles, bubbles, his sand box, chalk and his fort, he has no reason to ever be bored!
  
  
• It keeps my house clean! The more time he spends outside, the less I have to clean inside!
  
  
• It's free and in this economy, free is always good! We can go in our back yard and play with his wood swing sets for hours which means that I'm spending quality time with my favorite kiddo in the great outdoors, and not spending money, which makes me very happy!
  
  
• Most importantly, it's just plain fun! Playing outside brings out the kid in me, and let's me have fun with my child which is a win-win for all of us. I have found that it's during those times that he opens up to me the most, which in turn means that I get to be "part" of his world in a way that wouldn't be possible if we were just watching TV.
  
  And anytime I can spend with my favorite little man, is time well spent for me!

(*This post is being sponsored by CSN and their family of fabulous online stores. Click the link to check out one of their high quality online stores.)

Shutterfly Christmas Cards

One of my favorite things about the Holiday season is sending and receiving Christmas cards. Before Jackson was born, Jeremy and I would just send out generic cards, but since Jackson has been around, we’ve used the opportunity to show family and friends how much our little man has changed. Over the past few years I’ve used various companies, and while I’ve generally been fairly pleased with the final product, the overall experience has been somewhat of a hassle. Either I’ve spent way too much time perusing card designs only to have to settle for a design that looked very cookie-cutterish, or I’ve gotten hung up in the design process when dealing with slow websites which is so frustrating.

This year, things are going to change!

I learned from a fellow blogger that Shutterfly is doing an amazing Christmas promotion where bloggers receive 50 free photo cards for blogging about Shutterfly. When I read that I was hooked and immediately signed up! I’ve used Shutterfly in the past and was very pleased with the upload process, the photo quality, and especially how quickly my order was filled. Unfortunately I’m not the best at actually printing out pictures, but hopefully that’s going to change. That’s my top resolution for next year!

After I signed up for the blogger promotion, I jumped onto Shutterfly and began checking out the selection. Y’all, I was amazed! You can narrow down your search in just about a million ways, from card size to how many photos will be displayed, and from price to color. The card designs range from retro to contemporary, and everything in between! You can definitely find something that fits your style and budget. I’ve narrowed my favorites down to a few of their religious cards, and after we do a photo shoot with Jackson later this month I’ll make my final decision.

Here are a few links so you can check things out for yourself!
Christmas cards

Christmas photo cards

Religious Christmas cards

Don’t forget that Shutterfly also does photo calendars and gift tags, so it’s like the Wal-Mart of the photo world! You really can get everything done in one place, for very reasonable prices. I hope you have fun checking Shutterfly out!

My only compensation for this post was receiving 50 free Holiday cards from Shutterfly. My opinions, as always, are my own.

Yes To Carrots Winner!

Drum roll please!!!! The winner of the Yes to Carrots giveaway was entry number 5! Samantha over at Work in Progress!


Congrats Samantha! I'll be in touch with you!

Yes To Carrots Girls Night In and Giveaway!!

Yes to Carrots has hooked me up again! Last Friday night I kicked Jeremy and Jackson out of the house for a few hours and I held a Yes to Carrots girls night in at my house. I invited several friends and family and we had such a good time! YTC sent a box filled with goodies and snacks for the girls to try including Pop Chips, Melody Gardot cd’s, and YTC Mud Masks and Pampering Hand Spa. We had a great time pampering ourselves and just enjoying hanging out!

I decided to go all Martha Stewart and make Carrot Cupcakes with homemade cream cheese icing in honor of YTC and they were delicious! In going with an “orange” theme, I also served cheese dip, orange slices, orange kool-aid, and served a veggie tray including carrot sticks (of course!). YTC also sent me a very snazzy “Carrot Lover” apron that I adore, but the only picture of me in it was courtesy of my sister who snapped a shot of my hiney. I decided against putting that picture online!

We decided to watch a movie and the top 2 choices were between Steel Magnolias (an absolute favorite of Southern girls) or Twilight (also a great movie). It was really close, but we ended up watching Steel Magnolias and we spent most of the movie quoting our favorite scenes.

Some of the YTC Loot!

The Power of Orange!

Miranda trying the Pampering Hand Spa

Britney and Miranda

Crystal, Kellyn, and Jamie enjoying the movie

My Mom crocheting

And Miranda's baby James joined us!

We had such a good time and I have decided to spread the YTC love once again and have another YTC surprise giveaway!! All you have to do to win is to leave me a comment with your favorite “Girls Night In” movie and your favorite quote from the movie. It’s that simple! You can also get another chance to win by becoming a follower of this blog, and following my other blog. Just leave separate comments for each entry. So that’s 3 chances to win per person!

For the record, you don't have to have a blog to win as long as I have an email address to get in touch with you, and the only catch is that you must be living in the United States to win.

The contest will end at 12:00 midnight on September 15th. Good luck and get busy quoting those movies!

Yes to Carrots Giveway

Updated: This contest has closed, and I'm just laying it out there that although the contest was completely random, the winner is Kellyn, my sister, on her 25th birthday. Isn't that crazy!!

Hey everyone! Welcome to my new product review and giveaway site, Around the Wade's World. I started this page so I could still offer fun giveaways without having to worry about the BlogHer ads contract on my other page. This way, I can still have the best of both worlds!

So without further adieu, let's get to the fun stuff!!!

Y'all probably know by now that I love Yes to Carrots! Well, they have 2 new products that I want to share with you: their C Me Blush Lip Tints and C Me Shine Lip Gloss. I've tried both and loved them!

The Yes To Carrots™ Lip Care products soothe, nourish and condition your lips with all-natural, 95% certified organic ingredients, and as always, these Yes To Carrots products are free of parabens, phthalates, phenols & petroleum, free of carmine (a colorant & harsh additive), and undergo absolutely no animal testing!

I have to say that I was a little bit leery of using the lip gloss since I usually don't really like how it feels, but I was pleasantly surprised by this line of glosses. They weren't sticky and messy like so many lip glosses, and it looked and felt completely natural. When using the Lip Tints, I especially liked the natural hint of color, and found that when I used them with the lip glosses, that it gave me just enough color to suit me, without being too heavy or dark for the spring and summer seasons. It's great that with both lines, the colors are sheer enough that they could work with every skin tone!

The Lip Tints are available in Chocolate Kiss, Natural Smile, Ready Red, Cotton Candy, Sunset Pink, Coral Sunshine and and the Lip Glosses are available in Playful Nude, Rose Bliss, Flirty Pink, Carrot Kiss, Red Hot, Cocoa Loco.

And now the best part!!!! One lucky winner is going to get to try some of the C Me Blush Lip Tints and C Me Smile Lip Gloss for free!!!

How do you enter? I'm so glad you asked! I've got a plethora of ways to enter for this fun giveaway and you can do them all if you want!! For the record, you don't have to have a blog to win as long as I have an email address to get in touch with you, and the only catch is that you must be living in the United States to win.

Here goes....

1. You can leave me a comment telling me one thing that you ALWAYS say "Yes" to. For instance, I always say yes to mint chocolate chip ice cream!!
2. You can become a follower on this blog. Just look on the left hand side and click follower.
3. You can become a follower on my other blog. Just leave me a new comment here if you do this.
4. You can blog about this contest and then send me the link.
5. You can tweet about this contest and then send me the link.

Is that clear as mud? Remember, you can enter up to 5 times per person if you do all the methods, just please make sure that I have a way to get in touch with you. Good luck, and the contest will close Thursday night at midnight!