Beddingsets.com WINNER!!

Here are your random numbers:

5

Timestamp: 2009-07-10 01:15:00 UTC

ETA: That would be Stephanie D!!! Congrats girl! I think I already have your email too!

Splash Cove

Another neat thing about living here is all the pools and water play places. My gymboree playgroup today met at Splash Cove. Well, it was actually just Jenna and another little boy, but she had a blast. This place was really neat. See that waterfall? It was in that bucket on top and every couple of minutes it would all come down and Jenna would start saying, "Wow, wow, wow" and she would clap for it. So we did a lot of just watching the bucket come down.

She also did a lot of crying at first. Every time we've gone swimming this summer, she seems to take a long time to warm up to the idea. And as it's about to time to leave, she then starts having fun. Same story today.

She liked just walking around and of course, I had to go chase her and drag her back into the water. I'm really hoping that next summer she will love it from the beginning.

And finally, one of the few pictures of her having fun. She really did have a lot of fun towards the end. She started playing a lot more and trying to drink the water. This is her with the other little boy in our group. He is really a cutie and I think I would definitely approve if they started dating. :)

Anyway, it was a really neat place and I'm hoping we will be able to take JM there one of these days too.

And tonight starts Big Brother 11!!!!!!!!!! Who else is excited? This better be a good season!
So today was a good day! Splash Cove, Big Brother, and the winner of my giveaway coming up soon! :)

Fun Summer idea!

One of my favorite things to do now is browse Etsy. I never knew there were so many neat items there! I came across this really neat shop Little Bit Funky. And then I see that she has a blog, so of course I like her stuff, I want to look at her blog!

Anyway, I didn't feel right about copying her picture over here, but you can click here to see what all I'm talking about. Basically, she froze some of her kid's toys overnight in a big ice block, and then the next day, the kid took it outside to try to get the toys out.

Wow- that explanation doesn't sound very good, does it? You'll have to check out the link to see! Anyway, I just thought it was a neat and easy, and FREE idea, so I thought I could pass it on. :)

Oh, and while I'm on the mention of Etsy - does anyone have any favorite sellers they want to share?

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Don't forget that my giveaway will end tomorrow night (It will probably be around 8:30 Kansas time.) So don't forget to enter for a rug or pillow from beddingsets.com!

Favorite photos - blog hop

Not much is really going on around here lately, so I thought I'd participate in the blog hop. The theme is Favorite Photos. And yes, I have a quite few actually, but I think these are at the very top of my list. I'm so lucky to have a husband who has a passion for photography. He is excellent at what he does and I'm so jealous of his talent.

This one wasn't too long ago, so I'm betting you all probably remember it. It's funny because not too long ago I saw on a local photographer's blog, the same exact red door with another kid in front of it. Anyway, I just love this one of Jenna.

This was when Jenna was exactly one week old and was on Thanksgiving of 2007. This is probably my favorite newborn pic of her. The ironic thing is that we didn't really do a lot of newborn nice shots with her - so you better believe that the next baby will be getting those fancy shots done! Anyway, I just love the colors in this one and the fact that she's awake and looking!

And this was for our Christmas card of 06. That was our Tulsa apartment in the background. JM actually took this one too with a remote. But it's just one of my favorite shots of us all pre-Jenna.

***Also, don't forget that my giveaway ends on Thursday night. If you haven't seen the post, you can check it out here.

It's GIVEAWAY time!!!!!!!! **CLOSED**

***This contest is now closed. Congrats to Stephanie D!****

Woot! It's a great day! First off, it's my birthday!! And on my birthday post, I get to do a special giveaway from Bedding Sets. Bedding Sets.com offers a wide variety of bedding for children and adults. Not only do they offer bedding sets, such as comforters and quilts, but they have some very neat home decor items.

One lucky reader will receive the rug or throw pillow of their choice up to a $55 value. Who couldn't use a new rug or pillow??



I love these rugs!

And look at the cute pillows!

To enter:

• to receive one entry - simply post a comment here after you have looked through www.beddingsets.com telling me what you would choose if you win.
  
• to receive four entries - blog about this giveaway on your blog and feel free to copy and paste this: Beddingsets.com offers a wide variety of bedding for children and adults. They also offer home decor items such as rugs and throw pillows. One lucky reader will win a rug or throw pillow of their choice, up to a $55 value from www.thestoryof5.com
  

• This contest will stay open for one week and the winner will be announced next Thursday July 9th. Winner will be contacted via email, but must respond within 48 hours.
  
  
  

GOOD LUCK!!!

July 1st!!!

These months just seem to fly by now. I can't believe it's already July. There are good things and bad things about July - I'll start with the good - this is the official start of JM's new year and is now a pgy3 (that means post-graduate year 3 - 1 year of internship and has started his second year of residency) With another possible 4 years to go, I'm looking forward to every July - it's one step closer! And the bad is that he had to go back to doing consults for the month of July and August. I can't really tell you what "consults" mean, but all I know is that he never gets home until really late and it sucks. As I type this, it's now 8:36 and he's still not home. Bleh!

Anyway, on to more about July 1st!

I finally tried Pirate's Booty today. I've heard so many people say they love this and I don't know if they've just never sold it anywhere else I lived, but I finally found some. It was really good! Even Jenna loved it! Have you ever tried it?

Later on this afternoon, we had a playgroup at the park. Jenna had 1.5 of a brownie and loved every second of it. She was actually begging for more and if I would have let her, she would have probably ate about 4 of them.

And then later tonight, I made star rice krispies. I let her have the batter after I was finished and it kept her nice and happy for about 30 minutes. Seriously...that long. She was quite the crankypants before - so whatever works, right??

These are the finished product. Some of my stars turned out a bit funkier than others. But oh well...something different, at least, right? I got the idea from this blog. There are tons of other ways you could make them so I'm hoping to make them again (or another type at least) and maybe with practice they'll start to look better. I think they are actually fun and very simple to make - I think I have more fun with something like this, than other things like cakes and brownies....

And on a different note - I'm working on an upcoming giveaway from beddingsets.com - Stay tuned because you won't want to miss out!

Another good-bye

Well, it's that time of the year again - time to say good-bye to someone else. This is the deal with being a resident/wife. It's been a lot of fun (really!) moving around, but it seems we are always saying good-bye to someone around this time of the year. Except this time, we're not the ones moving. It's our friends. I met Whitney (yes, another Whitney!) at Gymboree classes. We actually signed up on the same day. Our kiddos are 4 days apart and they actually seem to enjoy one another. Adelan kept saying "Nenna" to Jenna all day today - so cute! Anyway, Whitney's husband has completed his fellowship and will be moving on to Nebraska in a couple of weeks.

This is Adelan and Jenna. After Gymboree and nap, we met up with them in the afternoon at the Loose park spray park area.

I think Jenna is taller than Adelan!

Jenna really didn't do too much there. She did play with this for a while though. She also went swimming twice yesterday and she cried during both times. I keep telling her that she used to be a beach baby and loved it, but I guess she's had a change of heart since last year. (or maybe she just really would rather be back at the beach instead of the pools!)

And I brought them both gogurt for a snack. They both looked so cute sitting together like big kids eating their yogurt.

We'll miss you guys!

OH!! And how I could forget - we have another thing to say good-bye too! GOOD-BYE PGY2 YEAR!!!!!!! :)