Some Pretty Festive Home Decorations

Festive and Fabulous | Shop the Lakeside Collection for Fall Entertaining Ideas

These pumpkin canisters are only $13.94 for 4

I love these Rooster theme bowls too! Only $12.95 for the set

Beauty Can Be Natural! No Need For Chemically Charged Beauty Products With Good Earth

This is not the first time I am talking about Good Earth Beauty. In fact, Good Earth Beauty is a company I order from a couple of times a year now. They sell my absolute favorite bug spray.

This time around I was sent Pumpkin Chai Shampoo and Lavender, Vanilla Lip Scrub which I can tell you will be another favorite.

The Pumpkin Chai Shampoo smelled so good we didn't even get a photo before we used it so this photo shows it after at least five shampoos.  It is probably the thickest shampoo I have ever used and a little goes a long way. It smells amazing but if you are sensitive to smell it could be overpowering for you. Personally I love it! The whole bathroom smells like it when I am done showering and I can't stop smelling my hair.

The Lavender Vanilla Lip Scrub is like nothing I have ever tried. This exfoliater for your pucker is a sugar scrub that not only smells and tastes amazing but also moisturizes your lips!

You take some on your finger and rub it into your lips. The harder part is not licking it off but if you do....it's completely fine. It is after all natural made up of only sugar, organic sunflower oil, organic coconut oil, organic almond oil, organic shea butter, organic jojoba oil and flavor so lick away but as you know licking doesn't really help your lips especially in this weather. It was 35 degrees this morning when I woke up.

Isn't it pretty?!

Brightly Lit!

This is what it looks like when the sun comes over the mountain and hit just one small sections of homes. Took this while driving the kids to school. It was so foggy but this area was so brightly lit, it could not be ignored.

Photo Friday

Unsolicited Love - Halloween Costume 2007

This is a blog post from one of my blogs back in 2007

God has been shining down on my in the past few days. Today while lying on my son’s floor watching Spykids 2 with him. He came over to where I was lying put his head on my hip wrap his arms around my waist and said, “I love you mom!”

I truly had to stop myself from tearing. This was the first time he said it without me saying it first.
I had to wait 4 years, 5 months, 10 days but it was worth it.

Handsome you made me so happy. I can’t even tell you how hearing those words made me feel. As you grow up into the awesome man I know you will be try to remember how important and powerful those words can be when they truly come from the heart.

If you feel it, say it. I think those words can’t ever be said enough as long as they are true.  I tell you, Daddy and your sister I love you at least 5 times a day. You never know when it will be the last time you say it to someone you love.

My parents must have felt it but I don’t remember ever hearing it. I probably say it a lot, well mostly because when I feel it I want to say it but also because I want you to hear me and be able to pull it into memory whenever you need it.

Always know how in love I am with you and how happy I am that I was chosen to be your Mommy.

Haunted Warehouse Sale - ORDER NOW FOR NEXT YEAR AND SAVE BIG - Get Up To 70% OFF #deals #sales

Enter the site here: Shop Lakeside's Haunted Warehouse Sale 

| Now up to 70% Off

Halloween Solar Garden Statue is 50% OFF

Color-Changing Halloween Lanterns are so adorable at only $3.95 - They are so cool. Their eyes light up.

Set of 6 Skeleton Hand Treat Bags - 6 for only $2.95

Halloween Trick Or Treaters

I so need that bat metal hanging lantern!

The Amazing World of Zhus - A Video By Goddess #TheAmazingZhus

The Amazing Zhus allow kids to astound their friends with fantastical feats of magic and thrilling stunts! This new collection from Cepia, LLC, the master toymakers behind ZhuZhu Pets® and The Happy's™, make magic and performance fun by letting boys and girls learn to act out magic tricks or simply enjoy the delight of astonishing friends and family with stunts.

My kids still love their Zhu Zhu pets. We have posts here,  here and here about our love of them. Now we love the Zhu Zhu brand even more thanks to Cepia's latest creating to the group.

The amazing Zhus is by far one of the coolest toys my kids have played with so far. 

Here is Goddess explaining some of what they do:

Take Echo With You Everywhere App #EchoInsiders

Goddess getting an eye exam - the doc is so sweet he even took a photo of Echo's eyes after the photo of the back of her eye so she could see it

We love our Echo. The kids do take him everywhere. You can take him too by downloading the Earth to Echo app.

 

To use, follow these simple steps:

1. Download the free app from the App store on any iOS system - https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/call-him-echo/id925984709?mt=8

2. Point your device's camera at any Earth to Echo key art 

3. Make sure you are in a well-lit room and enjoy Echo zooming around 

4. Take a picture with Echo wherever you go on your adventure!

If you love the movie, love Echo or just like to enter giveaways...enter my Earth To Echo Blu-ray Combo Giveaway.

A Mother's Quest Is To Do Her Best

 
If you are not a Mother you don't understand how hard life can be sometimes. No matter what you are going through you have to keep going. There is no time to stop because there are others who count on you to make their day. Whether it is to make their meals or just to be the smile they see when they wake or that reassuring face they see before bed, you know they NEED and count on you so YOU MOVE.

Maybe to some my day doesn't seem busy, or meaningful. Maybe to some my day seems full of nonsense that doesn't contribute to humanity or to the financial pool of life in a way that they believe it should, but to those I say; I don't judge you! Stop judging me!

Every day moms/dads/caretakers (whatever, I know there are a ton of folks doing this too) wake, smile, start their day with getting others ready to start their day and think about those others all through the day while attending to the things they need to get done.  

Here's a look into my typical day:

• Get up
• Say good morning to my son who is either waking or already awake
• Check my daughter and make sure she is covered because it is only 4:45 and neither kid NEEDS to be up.
• Look at the news for the weather of the day while drinking a half cup of coffee.
• Say good-bye to my husband
• Start breakfast for my son
• Turn on my computer and check email and see if there are blog comments that need to be moderated.
• Go to Facebook and see what is going on with friends.
• Turn on Hootsuite and set up a bunch of stuff to run during the day while I am out
• Start the process of waking my daughter which can take 20 mins to 2 hours
• Post something to my blog
• Get out her clothes and make her lunch
• Wash, get dressed and brush my hair
• Go back to my daughter and see if she is getting up (usually not)
• Make sure my bag and the kids backpacks are packed
• Dress my daughter who at this point usually has only 35 minutes before we walk out the door
• Make my daughter breakfast
• Brush my teeth and remind the kids to brush theirs (my son has always already done it)
• Depending on temp (start car)
• Brush my daughter's hair 
• Head to car
• Drive the kids to school (my son goes in but my daughter waits until the last minute)
• Head to the gym for an hour
• Get on the phone with a friend
• Get back home and jump in shower
• Get dressed for work
• Throw clothes in the wash
• Eat
• Check email
• Throw clothes in the dryer
• Write something for my blog
• Run out the door for work
• Do my 3 hours as a lunch/recess aid
• Wait 1/2 hour for the kids to get out of school
• Arrive home and get snacks
• Homework which can take 1 to 2 hours
• Make dinner
• Check email
• Read with my daughter
• Clean dishes
• Write something for my blog
• Give up my computer for the kids to do a math website while I put clothes away
• Enter giveaways, advertise giveaways, post to Hootsuite
• Edit some photos
• Put kids to bed
• Check email
• Watch something on Netflix or read
• Go to bed and say a prayer for strength, peace, and good wishes for others. Sometimes have a good cry
• Fall asleep wake up when you hear the door open
• Say hello to my husband 
• Go back to sleep until the alarm or kid wakes me before doing it all over again

Now if you are in a great mindset where life is going well, this would just be tiring, overwhelming, monotonous even but throw in some heartbreak, drama, medical issues, life stress (like bills and money), day to day crap and you have a stressed out mom BUT...a mom who will still smile in the morning at their children's tired faces and ask what they want for breakfast just to do it all over again. 

Moms bend but don't break. I hope to always be that mom. Kudos to all the moms who smile regardless of what is going on in their life! Your rock GIRL!

Some Pretty Blue Finds + A My Goddess

This weekend I headed out with Goddess for our weekly get the hell away from Football Sunday drive. 7+ hours of uninterrupted football doesn't sounds fun to us and well, the boys would prefer us gone. 

We go wherever the road leads us and while we mostly did grocery shopping we did spot a place we have passed but never went in. Thankfully yesterday, we finally walked inside. Both of us loved it! We didn't know where to look first because there was just so many places for the eye to go.

We loved all the colors but especially all that red, white and blue

I can't get enough of these mixed media pics. Always loved them!

We loved the soft robin egg blue candle lantern and Goddess really loved the Day of the Dead glasses. They are so pink!

Hello Americana...let us not forget all the stars and stripes! We wish we could have taken pictures all day.

That basket full of handmade ornaments definitely caught our eye as well as the vintage looking sign.

I seriously want this necklace

AND...when there are hats around; TRY THEM ON!

It was a bit cold outside but she will always pose!

Blast From The Past - My Ballerina - Originally written 2008

My Ballerina

Originally Posted August 24, 2008

Be still my heart. This morning I took my daughter to a free introductory ballet class for little 2-4 year old preschoolers. We went last year but she and her brother got bored when the instructors took too long to get things moving. We were the only people to show up and they kept hoping others would come in. We left and when I saw they were doing it again this year, I left my son home.
She was excited and we dressed in her pink tutu, leotard. She was excited and so was I when we walked in 5 minutes before class and saw 5 little ones already sitting on the floor with an instructor.
She was asked if she wanted to come sit with them; to which she said yes without even looking at me. I took my place against the wall with the other smiling parents. I felt bad that we had dressed up because no one else had. Not bad for my daughter, just bad for the other girls because the instructors made a big deal about her outfit. Thankfully the girls are so young I doubt any of them took it personally.

When the class started she took directions well and proceed to really enjoy herself while I (the only parent with a camera, of course), snapped quiet pictures (no flash to disturb) and some video.
She wants to go back tomorrow, but I told class isn’t for a few weeks and that if she liked it we would see.

I really hope we can afford to send her because she did exactly what I would have wished. She walked right in, took direction, smiled, laughed and sparkled all day. She even dance counted a few times 6, 7, 8.

Since losing my mom when I was 12 this was exactly the memory I was hoping to be able to make with my own daughter. I took ballet when I was her age and I hope we can manage it for her.

Just Watched Hollows Grove You Never Get Out! Made Me JUMP Twice

Tag Line:  You Never Get Out

The 411 by Maria:

We love horror movies but especially this new genre of takes on reality ghost shows where investigators head into various locations and give you a history of what happened there as well as their investigation. I am not going to lie; I am a big fan of these types of shows.

In Hollows Grove a bunch a paranormal investigation team explore an abandoned, haunted orphanage.  It takes a while before the "real" ghosts show up (midway through the movie). Before that the team are setting up their shots and scaring each other. 

I definitely jump twice but shook about 5 times and I think that was because of the audio. There was a lot of whispering or low talking and suddenly there would be the loudest sound. 

The effects of the "ghost children" were fair but part of me wishes there was more interaction. 

The coolest scene shows about 5 or 6 children walking toward the investigators but only one of them can see it. 

Bravo Craig. I loved it!
 

Falling Star Release Day Giveaway

Drew DiPalma feels like he’s living a lie. He’s had it with his Hollywood persona, the high-maintenance women, and his sleazy agent.  To escape the madness, he flees to a tourist town he’d often visited as a child. He never expected to find love on that little island. Then he stumbles upon Lainey alone on the swing set of a deserted beach.

After a dozen internet dating disasters, Lainey Riccardo has given up on romance—until she meets a West Coast hunk who has no trouble winning her heart.  But Lainey only knows him as Drew, not the Oscar-nominated actor who’s constantly scandalized in the tabloids. When she learns the truth, will the small town Jersey girl be able to accept Drew’s fast-paced life? Or will the truth drive her away forever?

Order Now for only $4.99

 Amazon         Barnes & Noble              Smashwords

Laura “Luna” DeLuca lives at the beautiful Jersey shore with her husband and four children.  In addition to writing fiction, Laura is also the editor of a popular review blog called New Age Mama. Her works include romantic thrillers, paranormal fiction, contemporary romance, and young adult.

Follow the author Website | Facebook | Twitter | GoodReads | Pinterest

The Giveaway

One lucky winner is going to receive an amazing prize pack that includes a $25 Amazon GC,

 

A Jersey girl prize pack including a Wildwood Mug, key chain, and statue, jewelry box, and more!

And we saved the best for last. The winner will also receive this gorgeous hand-sculpted "Garden Mother" statue that was created by Sharon Coslop, an amazing artist who inspired one of the characters in Falling Star. This piece is a painted, fired earthenware clay sculpture, 8” wide and 12” high, ready to be hung.  It is durable, but an indoor piece, because constant weather exposure would affect the paint.

To enter this giveaway, simply fill out the giveaway tools form below.   Giveaway is open to the US only.  Ends 11/24/14 at 12pmEST. Winner will be notified via email and will have 48 hours to reply before another winner is selected. Good luck to everyone!
 

Entry-Form

Disclaimer: Maria's Space is hosting for the author. No monetary compensation was offered or received. I will receive an electronic copy of the book for my honest opinion.  

Halloween Candy From Your Past

Play A Game, Win Some Chocolate!!!!! Your Favorite Childhood Games Are Now Much Sweeter!!!!

Gamesformotion Adds Sweet Spin To Favorite Childhood Games With Chocolate

Handsome and Goddess where way excited to get these games obviously!

We started with Guess Who which is a game they play more than any other.

They played enough rounds until the chocolate was all gone! We had to split the HUGE gold chocolate coin in the center. No one wanted to not have it!

Next they moved onto Candyland! Who hasn't played this game?

Here are the candy pieces

Look how colorful this is! We love it.

YUMMY!

So much fun! We think that since people like to bring candy when visiting this just adds something a little special.  Great hostess family gift if you are visiting for Thanksgiving or Christmas. Also because of the price, great stocking stuffer item.