Jennifer

24 Days of Thanks leading up to Thanksgiving!

November 24, 2011 by Jennifer Leave a Comment

November is a month we really sit back and think of all the things we are thankful for. Each day on Facebook, I have been posting what I have been thankful for. I am sharing all those statuses here today. I am truly blessed with this life and I couldn’t have any of these blessings if it wasn’t for God’s will.

Please enjoy your family and friends today and let them all know how thankful you are for them. You just never know how much it will help one’s soul.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING from our house to yours!

Day 1: I am thankful for the 1 hour nap Scott let me take after dinner tonight while he played games with the girls. Now back to work 😉

Day 2: I am thankful for my husband who didn’t blink a eye when I told him the vertigo and inner ear was back and drove me all the way to Hickory for a school meeting.

Day 3: I am so thankful for Jesus dying on the cross for our sins. I have came short of the glory of God, but with guidance and direction in prayers with our Lord and Savior got back on track and living for him with my sweet little family. God is good and has proved that over and over so many times to me. I would NOT be where I am today without him that is for sure!

Day 4: I am so thankful for my first born Madisyn RaeAnn. She is such an old soul and wants to help everyone and anyone. Her teachers said at conference last week, she is everybody’s friend and is right there to help all the other kids. I love her so much. She stops me in my tracks very often with her thoughtfulness. Thank you Lord for blessing me with her!

Day 5: I am so thankful for my extended family. We celebrated two birthdays today and just reminded how blessed I am to have such a loving and supportive family. Thank you Lord

Day 6: I am thankful for my beautiful blue-eyed 7 year old Lyndsee Marie! She can turn anyone’s frown into a smile with her comedian ways. She keeps us laughing for sure. Also, her fashionista style may drive me batty at times but she has her own style and we love her so much for that. Love you SISSY!

Day 7: I am so thankful for my inspiring, faith filled friend Janelle T. We have been through so much together over the last 8 years. What is amazing is this friendship is purely online. We have never met but her faith and support shines so bright. After an awful day today, she surprised the girls and I with a video tonight of her talking to us. Thank you so much Nell. I LOVE you, the girls love you and Scott does too. This is what friendship is all about!

Day 8: I am thankful for doctors that really care about you and want to find out the root of the problem.

Day 9: Today, I am thankful for my step-daughter. We give a whole new meaning to a step-parent relationship. I couldn’t imagine the last 10 years without her in my life. Yes, there have been times that I wasn’t sure how I would handle her… but I am so proud of where she has come today. I am thankful for her love for me, M and L and of course her dad. KK, we love you with all our hearts!

Day 10: I am very thankful for faith filled friends. It is such a blessing to be surrounded with friends who uplift my family and their sweet prayers. I couldn’t imagine life without being surrounded by all the faith and inspiration.

Day 11: I am blessed and thankful to live in a land of free. We would not be able to have this freedom if it wasn’t for our wonderful military. They put their lives on the line every single day for us. What a remarkable thing to do for your country. It reminds me of Jesus giving his life for our sins. We are truly blessed indeed!

Day 12: I am thankful for my beautiful niece and nephews. They make me laugh, they make me smile, and I love how we can just let our hair down so to speak when we are together. They will always have a special place in my heart. I love you ALL so much and blessed to have you in my life.

Day 13: I am thankful for social media. Social media is a huge part of my job for one reason. Second reason though is all the people I have met through social media that I can put up a request and know I will have SO many wonderful prayers that would not be possible without social media. It makes me smile and I feel so blessed. THANK YOU!

Day 14: I am thankful for awesome co-workers. I love how we can brainstorm, share ideas and we all reach in and help each other out. It makes work such a positive environment and helps get the jobs completed.

Day 15: I am thankful for Dina Freeman (my boss). She is a blessing to me more than one way. She has been such a positive to my family for the last 3 years. Make sure you stop and tell the people that make your life better thank you this month. They deserve it!

Day 16: I am thankful for my girls love of Jesus. Madi wrote a book and brought it to me this afternoon. I love she says: “… because when you make Thanksgiving dinner you give to your family and you give thanks to Jesus and that is what Thanksgiving is all about.” ♥

Day 17: I am thankful for a friend I have had since I was 14 years old. I have known her for over half my life – Cindy McGuire. It is not everyday a friend offers to be with you at the hospital just as she did today for my MRCP tomorrow. She is supportive, always asks about my girls, always praying for us and genuinely cares. I am blessed to have wonderful friendships and so happy Cindy is one of them!

Day 18: I am thankful for the christian music that played in my ears during my MRCP today. The nurse asked what kind of music I liked and I said something light. She said I have christian on right now, I will turn it. I said actually please keep it on that music. It really helped calm my nerves during the test. Now the waiting game.

Day 19: Thank you Lord for the heat on cold nights. Thank You that there’s milk that hasn’t expired yet in the refrigerator. Thank You for the clean sheets that will greet me when I go to bed. Thank You for giving me life and breath and keeping me in Your perfect care for one more day. Amen!

Day 20: I am very thankful for blogging. I get to express my thoughts, keep a journal of my girls childhood and get to go on many travel trips with my family. I have met so many amazing people through my blogging journey. I was able to spend the evening with one of those amazing people today – Leigh Caldwell!

Day 21: I am thankful for my job. It allows me to provide for my family and make sure all our needs are taken care of. My husband’s job ranked three years ago when the economy crashed and people stopped wanting new houses. It was such a blessing I had a secure job. Thank you Lord!

Day 22: I am thankful for safe travels. We take many road trips and I am always so relieved and happy when we arrive home safely. I am also very thankful for a hubby that does all the driving and doesn’t complain one time. Very blessed with my hubby and our girls that love road trips just as much as I do!

Day 23: I am very thankful for having a roof over our heads and a place for us to create family memories. As we all are sitting around tonight in the living room, I sit back and look how blessed we are to all be together as a family. Who knew 10 years ago, my life was about to change from a mom of zero to a mom of three beautiful girls and now I have them all three back under the same roof tonight. Thank you Lord!

Day 24: I am thankful for my Mom and Dad. They gave me life with the help of our Good Lord and I could not be more thankful. Thank you for giving me a great upbringing and so thankful you can be here for Thanksgiving with me. I am thankful several extended family members can join us and so thankful I can provide a great Thanksgiving dinner to the ones I love.

Why BEN 10 Galactic Racing is the perfect holiday gift? – WIN

November 23, 2011 by Jennifer 22 Comments

Do you ever have a problem trying to figure out what to buy that special little boy in your life? That is me with my nephews. I am always scratching my head. Thankfully, D3Publisher helped make that decision for me this year.

For the past year, I have heard tidbits here and there about BEN 10. Since I have girls, I didn’t realize how popular this TV series was among kids. The publishers have took this hit TV series (among 4.3 million kids) and made a racing game.

Fans of BEN 10 will enjoy an experience like never before in a galactic grand prix filled with surprises at every turn. My nephews are going to be so stoked! An extra special addition is the game is 100% authentic to the show.

Not only is the game crazy fun for kids, but it is also perfect for families as up to four players can play together. Who doesn’t love a little high-speed, family friendly competition?

Players can choose from up to 30 karts, and experience more than 25 race tracks which include action-packed courses that shift mid-race, on five massive planets. Players can race as Ben, who can transform into aliens mid-race by picking up special power-ups, or as other characters from the BEN 10 universe.

BEN 10 Galactic Racing is available for the Nintendo DS, Wii, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. It will be available on the Nintendo 3DS later this month.

WIN!

3 lucky fans are going to win their very own copy of Ben 10 Galactic Racing – $39.99 ARV.

To Enter:

Disclosure: I was provided a copy of the game in order to facilitate this review. All thoughts and opinions are of my own.

DIY Ruffled Scarf – Great homemade Christmas gift!

November 23, 2011 by Jennifer 1 Comment

This season, my entire family is getting back to what Christmas was really about. It is not going to be all about the hottest Christmas items this year, instead we are concentrating more on Jesus, family and homemade gifts. I am not a fan of all the commercialism that Christmas has began, and it warms my heart to give and receive homemade gifts. Those are really the best kind right?

I am a huge scarf fan and was so excited when my classmate on campus showed me her DIY ruffled scarf. She had sent me a message and I asked her if she would like to guest post here to share with all of YOU? She very excitedly agreed. Please welcome Cassandra Hartley from Flying by the Seat of my Pants.

Thank you Jen, I am so glad to be here.

What’s a girl to do with an old t-shirt? Well, if you’re like me, donate it to Goodwill. But some brilliant woman somewhere along the line decided to get crafty with them and turn them into scarves. I was (as usual) wasting time browsing on Pinterest one evening when I ran across this delightful idea, and promptly pinned it to my Crafty Stuff board.

Now anyone that knows me, knows that I don’t generally gravitate towards ruffly things. But the caption caught my eye- “3-4 no sew scarves made out of old t-shirts”. I had to know more. The link on the Pin led to a blog linked to an instructional video on just how to accomplish this. I watched the video that night, and made a mental note to look through the clearance rack next time I was at the store.

Sure enough, Sunday afternoon found me at the Wal-Mart, and by some fluke I actually remembered to look through the clearance rack to see if they had any cheapo knit tees. Sure enough, I found two 2XL chocolate brown tank tops for $3 each. Done! I used one top last night to test the method, and sure enough it worked, so tonight I documented the steps to do it as I could not find another blog listing the steps out for people like me who learn via reading, not by watching a movie.

What You’ll Need:
A Big T-Shirt or Tank Top (I went for a 2XL)
Scissors
Fabric Glue
A Circle about 8-9″ diameter. (I cut the flat bottom out of a 10.25″ styrofoam plate.)

Cut off the bottom seams of the shirt. Cut off the top of the shirt just under the armpit seams.

This will leave you with a stretchy tube. If you want, you can just stretch and pull on it like a saltwater taffy machine and call it an infinity scarf. I’m not a fan of that look so we’re going to keep going.

Cut the side seams completely out of the tube. You should now have two panels of fabric.

** This is a good time for me to mention how essential it is to make sure you’re working with jersey knit fabric. Why? It’s super soft, won’t wrinkle, is stretchy, and best of all won’t fray! That’s why the original pattern calls for use of an old T-Shirt. I go on closet cleaning sprees every 2-3 months, donating the castoffs to Goodwill, so I didn’t have any broken in shirts to use, but the new bought items worked perfectly.

Set aside one of the panels. Take your circle guide and figure out where to cut to get 4 or 5 portions out of each panel. I was able to get four out of each panel of my tank top. If you notice, those are not circles just yet- I didn’t have a light colored pencil to trace around the circle, so I cut out the square around it.

Make certain that you end up with a long rectangle from one side of one of the panels. Set it aside- you’ll need it later.

Next, round off the corners of the squares. (See why not tracing the circle pattern earlier was not a big deal?) You should end up with one pile of scrap cloth and one pile of 8-10 circles. Don’t sweat it if the circles are not uniform and are a little lopsided. It won’t matter.

Now comes the fun part! I was distracted talking to people on Facebook during this part, so I forgot to get a photo, but we’re going to take the scissors and cut each circle into a spiral.

When you hold up one end of your new cloth strip, it should look something like this. See how it naturally wants to curl around itself? Help it along by stretching. You heard me. Hold one end and run your other hand down the strip while stretching it. It’ll curl even more- and it’s kind of fun to do!

Repeat that for the other circles. You should now have a nice pile of curly cloth strips. If you cut your spirals like I do, you’ll have one pointy end and one blunt, rounded end. This is perfect.

Take two strips and glue the pointy ends together, one right on top of the other with the long curly ends going in different directions. Essentially, double the length of the curlycue. Repeat for the other pairs. You’ll probably have to hold together the glued part for a few seconds to set up the bond, and be careful when moving the newly glued pieces around until the glue sets up.

Not quite the Golden Arches…..but you get the point. Because I had 8 circles, I ended up with 4 pairs of strips.

Next, stack the glued parts on top of each other, bing bang boom done. Remember that rectangular piece I had you hold out earlier? Now is its time to shine! Round off its corners into a big oval and put a spiral slice into it as well. It won’t be quite as curly as the others, but that’s OK too.

Take this new short strip you just made and tie it in a Larks Head knot around the four glued pieces. (If you need a reminder how to tie a Larks Head knot, click here.) Gently tug the knot tight.

DONE!

Scarves really don’t get easier, cuter, or more eco-friendly, folks! I rocked mine today with an aqua shirt and a denim jacket as needed. With my baked marble earrings and nerdy glasses, it was the perfect fall look!

Supplies Needed (and my cost to buy them)
1 old T-Shirt or a cheap tank top ($3 at Walmart but this could well be in your closet!)
Aleene’s Fabric Fusion glue ($5 at Walmart)
Scissors (If you don’t have these on hand already there is a problem)
Paper plate (pennies)

Awesome homemade gift idea for a special friend and/or family member!

Coolest adventure family game–Happy Feet Two WIN!

November 21, 2011 by Jennifer 45 Comments

Welcome to the big HOLIDAY giveaway week here at One Moms World. We are starting off a week of giveaways today with a game that will have the whole family in stitches. Seriously, the game is that much fun.

Happy Feet Two – The video game is poised to be on of the coolest adventure games for the entire family this holiday season. We are very picky when it comes to games that we pick out for our family and I am very pleased to say this game is rated “E” for Everyone by the ESRB.

Since L is such a huge animal lover, I knew this game would be a huge hit with her. I didn’t realize though the whole family would enjoy it so much?! We literally have a foot stomping good time as we say here in the South.

Happy Feet Two is a 3D musical adventure game inspired by the whimsical Antarctic world of the upcoming animated film Happy Feet Two. Whenever we are at SeaWorld or the Zoo, a penguin exhibit stop is very high on our list. I often wonder if the first movie of Happy Feet had something to do with that strong attracting to Penguins. Even the hubby loves penguins.

The game has dangers threatening the penguin nation, and the whole family has to work together which includes dancing, to save the penguins from extinction. Very exciting and a team building game for sure.

Game Features:

Side-by-side Co-op Play: Players can get into the rhythm with friends and family with co-op play as Mumble and Ramon, two of the film’s main characters.

Tap to the Beat: The game’s all new, controller-based dance system uses players’ rhythm to bring the Antarctic landscape to life. Players can tap to the beat of the music, compete in penguin dance showdowns and belly sliding races.

Meet the Cast of Characters: Players can use dance moves to recruit other penguins with unique abilities or win over other animals that advance the adventures.

Pretty cool interactive features right? You can WIN a copy of the Wii version for a special family holiday surprise.

To Enter:

Disclosure: I was provided a Happy Feet 2 Wii game in order to facilitate this review. All thoughts and opinions are of my own.

How do I display all these beautiful Christmas cards?

November 18, 2011 by Jennifer Leave a Comment

It is getting closer to the time that my mailbox begins to fill with Christmas cheer from all over the world. I cannot wait to see all the unique and beautiful cards from my friends. M, L and I get all giddy when we get to open the cards but what do we do with the cards after we have ohhh’ed and ahhh’ed over them? We decorate with them of course. My precious Grandma would always display her cards over the archway in her house, and I have always followed her lead. This year at our new house though, we do not have an archway so I went through the internet and found some creative ways to display your cards.

I love this Christmas Tree display and vase display from Tip Junkie:

If you have a fireplace, this is a super cute idea that was posted on Make and Takes – Christmas Card Garland.

Use your Christmas cards for decorations with this ribbon display from Better Homes and Garden.

I really think we are going to go with the Christmas Tree display from Tip Junkie. How will you be displaying your Christmas Cards this year?

Tiny Prints provides simple, modern, and unique stationery from Christmas cards, New Years cards, party invitations, and address labels to thank you cards. Once the holidays have come and gone, Tiny Prints will still be here to fill your stationary needs with their exclusive designs from the nation’s top designers. All year round, you’ll fine business cards, birth announcements and even custom wedding invitations. Come try the easy card personalization, a powerful preview engine and top-notch customer service and paper quality for yourself. With Tiny Prints by your side commemorating every holiday and momentous occasion is a cinch!

Disclosure: This is a sponsored post from Tiny Prints. As always, all thoughts and opinions are of my own.

Jennifer

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