Avon Winner! & Blog Hopping!

The winner of the Avon Beauty Prize Pack giveaway is...

Comment # 91- Gina!

Congrats Gina! I just sent you an email!




I've decided to do some blog hopping this weekend! I'm linked up over at The Daily Dish for the Circle of Friends Weekend Blog Hop!  If your a new follower be sure to leave me a comment so I can follow back!

Also come back tonight or tomorrow for Mom Blog Monday blog hop! It's a ton of fun! Happy Hopping!

Throwing in the towel!

Potty training has pretty much come to a stand still for about the past 2 weeks. I've been trying so hard to push through it but this morning I pretty much called it quits. Noah went through THREE pairs of underwear in less than an hour! Failed to tell me he had to pee until after he had already peed his pants. This has been happening on and off for about 2 weeks now. He'll have a good day here or there but then he'll have a horrible day or two or three! So this morning I was so frustrated and just asked him if he wanted a diaper and he said yes. So he's been in diapers all day.

I am just so sick of washing underwear and sheets and clothes. He was doing so well the first few weeks and hardly had any accidents and then all of the sudden its like he just quit trying. I have a few theories as to why. My main one is that maybe he is sensing that the baby will be here soon and he wants to be the baby as long as possible. I'm not sure. I do know that he has to have some sense of it. We are starting to bring out baby stuff and talk about the baby more as we prepare and I know he hears us and most likely is beginning to understand.

I've decided I'm just going to let him completely lead the way. If he wants to be in a diaper I'm going to let him be in a diaper. If he wants underwear he can have underwear. I'm not going to force anything on him. He's been in a diaper all day but still has asked to go sit on the potty a few times today. So maybe tomorrow he'll be all about being a big boy again. But even if I have two in diapers come this winter, I'm still going to let him lead the way. Otherwise we both get extremely frustrated and that's not good for either of us. :(

Hometown Memories

Today I went to see my mom and sisters (and pick up Noah bear because he spent the night with them-can't forget little guy lol). Well my mom still lives in the town where I grew up and I am super sappy these days [stupid pregnancy hormones] and I found myself just remembering some really good times in my hometown. I really took a walk down memory lane today.

Brian picks on my little hometown and calls it redneck town or hickville (he's not really one to talk..he grew up in a small country town too), and I thought the same thing until I moved away lol. I wanted nothing more than to get out of that little town. But now I love that little town. It's part of who I am now. I miss the Friday night football games, the riding around in the parking lot at the high school, the little fiasco's my friends and I would have...including going mud bogging in the dark and stealing little "for sale" or "yard sale" road signs! (terrible I know!)

This is the town that I experienced my first heartbreak, lost my virginity, and made some of the best friends I ever had. It's where I grew up...literally and figuratively. It may be a little hick town but it is the town that made me.

Reminds me of this song by Miranda Lambert....



Do you have any hometown memories? I'd love to hear them!

Chicken Soup for the Soul {Just for Teenagers and Just for Preteens} Review + Giveaway!

We all know being a teenager is hard! Those years were really the best of times and the worst of times for me! I look back and I miss the freedom of having no bills to pay or responsibilities, being able to sleep until noon, and hanging out with friends all the time. But I also look back and remember being bullied, my first heartbreak, and constantly worrying about how I looked and what people thought of me. They were some tough years! I remember as a teenager reading Chicken Soup for the Soul for Teenagers and some of those stories really helped me through some tough times. I could relate to a lot of the teens in the book and felt like I wasn't going through things alone when I read this book.

Now there is a new, more updated version of Chicken Soup for the Soul- Just for Teenagers!  A lot has changed since I was a teenager (even though it doesn't seem like it's been that long ago). Nobody had Facebook or Twitter when I was in high school! If you got bullied at school, you could at least escape that at home! Now there is cyber bullying and sexting and all kinds of different obstacles teens have to face!  This book is for those teens. Just for Teenagers deals with real life issues teens today have to face. I love that it deals with the issues of today and not just the same stuff that I went through. (Although a lot of it is similar too). This book covers friendships, dealing with tough times, liking yourself, and reaching your goals. It also deals with things like being bullied or having that first heartbreak. This book let's teens know they are not going through this confusing, mixed up life alone and that all teenagers face these issues all the time. It's a support group in a book!

Being a Preteen can be just as hard as being an actual teenager! Your not quite a child anymore, but your not an adult or even a teenager for that matter! Your stuck right in the middle, trying to find some identity within yourself and just trying to make it through. Chicken Soup for the Soul- Just for Preteens is perfect for your student who's stuck right in the middle of being a child and being a teenager. This book covers issues Preteens face every day such as starting a new school, making new friends, liking yourself, being bullied, and that first crush. It also lets preteens know they are not a lone and covers almost anything they could be going through.

These are both great gifts for the teen or preteen in your life!!

Buy It!

http://www.chickensoup.com/

or visit your local bookstore

Win It!

One lucky follower will win their own copy of Chicken Soup for the Soul- Just for Preteens! 

Stocking up for Baby!

Ok so some of ya'll are going to be really disappointed with me. I have decided I'm not going to try to cloth diaper baby Isaac right from day one. I know! I know! I'm pathetic lol. But honestly I just have no idea what it's going to be like with a 2.5 year old and a newborn and I really just don't want to bite off more than I can chew right away. I may have him and it may not be too much of an adjustment and decide to give it a try pretty quickly. But I'm not going to go in thinking I absolutely have to cloth diaper him right from the start. So I am slowly but surely stocking up on disposable diapers and wipes for little man. Of course, using my coupons, but there's another trick to it too..to get them at an ultimate low price! (Like FREE!)  Here's how!

So if your not familiar, a lot of the bigger drug stores have rewards programs where you can purchase certain things and get a certain $ amount back in the form of the stores rewards. Walgreens has Register Rewards, Rite Aid has +UP buck, and CVS has ECBs (Extra Care Bucks). These are the 3 main stores I shop at. All 3 of these stores usually have some pretty decent sales on diapers, that usually consist of receiving their rewards if you buy a certain kind or a certain amount.

So for example, recently at Right Aid they had a deal where if you bought 2 Jumbo Size packs of Pampers at $9.50 each you would receive $4 in +UP rewards. They also had a deal that week where if you bought a Gillete Proglide Razor for $9.99 you received $5 +UP rewards. So I took advantage of both of those deals and did this:

(2) Pampers Swaddlers Jumbo Pack (36 count) @ $9.50ea
Used 2 $2/1 Pampers diapers
 = $15.00

(1) Gillete Proglide Razor  @ $9.99
Used $4/1 Gillete Proglide
=$5.99

Used $5 +UP Rewards I received from a previous transaction.

Total =$15.99 - $9 UP Rewards I got back = $6.99 for whole transaction!! 


If you divide that total up between the three items its less than $3 an item! And the best part is I have $9 to get another pack of diapers for almost free!

There's deals like this all the time at all three of these stores! I got some super cheap wipes at Walgreens just the other day too! If your in the south like me check out Southern Savers each week for the best diaper deals around the south. Another great blog that does the weekly diaper deals is Just Married with Coupons! Both of these sites will tell you what the deals are with what coupons to use and how cheap you can get the diapers for! All you have to do is go to the store armed with the right coupons! It's such a great way to get diapers and other baby products for super cheap!

Fotobounce Review!

Fotobounce is a really cool new software for organizing and sharing your pictures! If your anything like I am, you have a ton of pictures! I swear I take pictures of Noah daily! With Fotobounce I am able to keep all those hundreds of pictures organized and safe right here on my laptop!

So what exactly does Fotobounce consist of? Well it's basically a software you download to your PC that keeps track of all your photos for you. But that's not all it does! From there you can have your photos organized exactly how you want them, even by someone's face! With the face recognition feature you can view all the photos with Grandma in them in all your albums! But you can also organize them by date, or event, or significant place...it's basically however you choose to organize them! But that's not all! You can edit your pictures also! You can crop them, change the coloring, rotate, and everything right there! I love this feature because I am constantly changing something or croping something out of my pics. But my favorite feature of all? You can use Fotobounce to post pictures to Facebook, Twitter, or Flickr!! All with a simple click! Don't feel comfortable putting pictures on those websites? No problem! You can create a network right on Fotobounce of your family and friends, known as "Bouncers" and share those pictures safely and privately! That way you don't have to worry about anyone you don't want seeing the pictures seeing them! How cool is that?! A new improved version has just been released called Fotobounce 3.5 and a new program called Fotobounce Viewer has also just been released which allows you to view Fotobounce libraries safely and securely on your Android, Windows Mac, and Linux systems!

I am really enjoying this new software! It was so easy to download to my computer and it makes my photo obsession so much more pleasant lol! I can do everything I need to all on this one program! It's so nice to be able to upload my photos, edit them, and share them all in the same program! My favorite feature of course is being able to share on Facebook and Twitter! This is seriously my favorite new way to organize all of my photos!

To download Fotobounce for yourself and join in on the fun go to http://fotobounce.com/download/!

Well Boo :(

Well I had a really good blog post to post about how I am using my coupons to stock up for this baby and ways you can get some great deals on diapers and such, but this evening I started having horrible hip pain again and now I just feel like crud. So tomorrow I'll post about the diapers and stuff. Sorry :( I also have some new reviews/giveaways to post this week! Yay!