A Visit From the Fairy Hobmother

What would you say if I told you I was visited by a fairy this week?  Would you think I was crazy? Out of my mind? Lying?  Well, make no mistake about it, this week I was visited by a fairy.

Fairy Hobmother

It’s true, the Fairy Hobmother to be exact!  He was gracious enough to bestow on me an Amazon gift card courtesy of the folks at Appliances Direct.  Trust me, the Fairy Hobmother couldn’t have come at a better time – tax time is right around the corner and we owe big!

 

Would you like an extra special, magical visit from the Fairy Hobmother?  All you have to do is leave a comment below and you might be the next person to receive an Amazon gift card!

 

*Throws handful of glitter in the air.*

 

Disclosure: I received a gift card to facilitate this post.  See, this is proof that the Fairy Hobmother does exist!

My Donation to Locks of Love

Donation to Locks of Love

 

I’ve always wanted to donate my hair to Locks of Love and I’m so excited to finally be able to do it!  I’ll share more details about my process later but I was so excited and I wanted to show you pictures right away.  I’ll also have to show you a picture of my hair after I’ve styled it. 🙂

 

Have you ever donated your hair to a charity?

Letter to My Daughter – About Love

A Letter to My Daughter About Love

 

My Dearest Daughter,

 

It’s true that Valentine’s Day might be a big over-commercialized holiday where companies everywhere are shoving their cards, candy, flowers, stuffed gorillas holding hearts that says, “I’m ape over you,” BOGO dinners, and everything pink and red imaginable at us.  I love love and I enjoy celebrating it.  The love between a husband and wife is special, the bond between grandparents and grandkids is sweet, and of course, as you know, the Daddy & daughter relationship is one of a kind.  However, the marketing of Valentine’s Day can sometimes leave me feeling a bit jaded about the holiday itself.

 

I am so ridiculously in love with your father, and he’s in love with me.  I desire that for you.  When you are much older and the time is right, I want you to feel this degree of mutual love.  Self-sacrificing, want-what’s-best-for-the-other-person, long suffering kind of love.

 

“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” – John 15:13

 

As you grow up and you start feeling your heart thump in side your chest when you see a certain boy remember to slow down and just be friends for as long as you can.  You’ll want to marry someone who is your best friend.  Try and wait for someone who knows what you’re like on a bad day and wants to be around you anyway.  Someone who can make you laugh when you’re feeling blue.  Someone who can admit when they’re wrong and apologize for it.  Someone who accepts you as you are but being around them makes you want to be a better person.  Wait for someone like that.  A box of chocolate hearts is nice but it won’t mean much if the person who gave it to you doesn’t cherish your heart.

 

Though I think the commercialization of Valentine’s Day is a bit over the top, I’ll never tire of your Daddy showing his love for me – even when he brings a heart shaped box of candy or musical candles that play, “You light up my life.”

 

All my love,

Mom

 

A few bloggers and I decided to put together a Letters to our Children blog hop and we hope you’ll enjoy reading these heartfelt letters to our children.  There are 13 blogs in total and to hop over to the next blog please visit, Penelope’s Oasis.  She’s fabulous, I know you’ll enjoy her!

March Photo A Day Challenge

 

Because each of our Photo a Day Challenges were more fun than the last I couldn’t help but host another one.  Welcome to our March Photo a Day Challenge!

 

Did you play along with us last month?  If you’re a regular photo-a-day’er or if this is your first challenge we welcome you to come and join us!  This is all for fun so if you skip a day or two you can make them up later or just forget about them.  No pressure!  This is just a fun way to slow down and focus on the beauty in life.  Every day moments in life are beautiful!

 

 

March Photo a Day Challenge

 

 

It has been a true joy to see all of your fun pictures and to get to know some of you better!  More and more people are participating but I try to make it around and comment or like everyone’s pictures every few days.  I can’t wait to get started looking at this month’s pictures.

 

How to participate:

All it takes to join in is to simply take a photo and post it on a social media site with the hashtag #EmbracingBeauty.  I’m using Instagram and sometimes I’ll post them on Twitter and Facebook too.  When you tag your photos with the #EmbracingBeauty hashtag they’ll join the list of photos under the #EmbracingBeauty hashtag.  If you click on the “#EmbracingBeauty” it will pull up everyone’s photos who are playing along.  You can see all the fun photo ideas other Embracing Beauty readers are sharing.  What fun!!

 

Who’s ready to join me?

Get Affordable Spring Style with Cookie’s Kids #CBias #CookiesKids

It’s almost Spring here in North Carolina folks and I’m excited!  While we’re still having a good number of cool and down right cold days, we’ve had enough a few really warm days to get me in the mood for springtime.  I’m not ready to put away our sweaters and coats yet but I am ready to shop for warmer clothes.  You never know when another heat wave will come, right?

 

I don’t have to worry about shopping for new clothes for myself because I have enough clothes from last season to make due for now.  My husband is the same as me but our daughter is a different story.  She is growing like a weed!

 

Buying clothes for kids can sometimes be difficult.  You don’t want to sacrifice quality for cost.  Kids will be kids and will wear out cheap clothes but paying top dollar for clothes seems crazy when they grow out of them so fast.  That usually means I shop the clearance racks at stores that have better made clothes.  While I like shopping and I enjoy doing this, I don’t always want to leave my house to shop.  That’s why I am excited to tell you about a new online kid’s clothing store that is incredibly affordable with well made clothes!  I couldn’t believe the prices!

 

Cookie's Kids Clothes

 

Together Cookie’s Kids and Social Fabric gave me $30 to spend at Cookie’s Kids so that I could review my shopping experience.  While I was excited about shopping at a new store I thought, “$30?  You’ve got to be kidding me? That won’t be enough for an entire outfit.”  Well, it was!  $30 bought two outfits and a pair of shoes!

 

Cookie's Kids Cart

 

Cookie’s Kids has an easy to navigate site, great prices, and brand name clothes.  Yep, you read that right, brand name clothes!  Carter’s, Ralph Lauren, & Young Hearts just to name a few.

 

Cookie's Kids Outfit

I bought two outfits that I thought would be perfect to interchange with each other and a pair of shoes to match them both.  I bought the shoes in a bigger size than she wears right now so she can enjoy them in both Spring and Summer.  I was excited for her to try these on and I’m very pleased that they look just like I thought they would!

 

Cookie's Kids Clothes

 

Isn’t she stylish?  This is the first time she’s tried on skinny jeans but I think she wears them well!  I love all the detail on these outfits.  This one has plastic rhinestone buttons and a cute front tied belt.  The other outfit has embroidered designs and a belt to match.  You can’t see the belt in the picture above but go to my Cookie’s Kids Google+ album to view that and more!

 

#CookiesKids

 

Are you ready to get shopping and see what deals you can find?  Cookie’s Kids also has adorable Girl’s Dresses, Boys Suits, and School Uniforms.

 

Follow Cookie’s Kids on Twitter and follow Cookie’s Kids on Facebook so you’ll never miss out on a promotion.

 

Happy Shopping!

 

I am a member of the Collective Bias™ Social Fabric® Community.  This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias™ and CookiesKids.com #CBias #SocialFabric. All opinions are my own!

Daughters Love Their Daddys – Mine sure does anyhow!

Daughters Love Their Daddys

 

This past weekend my family had so much fun together.  We read books, played ball, went to a Valentine’s banquet together, and ate leftover cupcakes and cake squares that my sweetheart bought his two ladies for Valentine’s Day.  We had a great time!  Every Monday I’m always sad to see my husband leave and go back to work.  We still have a good time around the house but it’s not the same as when everybody’s here.  Does that make sense?  Well, yesterday around 3 o’clock my little girl went to the window to wait for Daddy.  She stood there for a while admiring the surroundings and watching a neighborhood cat stroll around but eventually she got tired of waiting and started calling out his name.  “Daddy, daaaaddy.”  It was adorable!  I took a picture {the one above} and shared it with my husband on his Facebook page with the note “Someone sure misses you today!”  He had to come home early from work so I could head out to an appointment so they were able to enjoy some extra Daddy/Daughter time last night.

 

Reading to Toddler

 

This morning we went through our usual morning routine and just as he was about to leave she wanted him to read her a book.  He stopped and took the time to read it before leaving which I thought was awfully sweet.  I also took a picture of that too!  {Having an iPod can be very convenient for spur of the moment pictures.}

 

We waved goodbye to Daddy like we do every morning and sat down for a time of reading.  We read through a few books but then she wanted down.  She will usually sit my lap as long I’m reading to her so when I sat her down I was curious to see where she would go.  You may have guessed it; she went back to the window!  We’re currently “storing” her Minnie Mouse 4-wheeler in front of the window until we can find a better place for it.  {You can just see the front of it in the picture above.}  She worked hard to carefully push and pull on it until it was free from the window.  Then she returned to the window, placed both elbows on the window sill and rested her chin in her hands.  She sat content for a few moments and then again started calling for her Daddy.  How sweet!

 

When she went down for her nap I emailed her Daddy to tell him what happened. He emailed back, “Oh that makes me sad! Can’t wait to see her again.”   *My heart melts!*  I say, “She can’t wait to see you, that’s for sure!”  Then he emails back and says this,

Emailing Baby

My heart once again turns into a dripping puddle of love.  All I can think is how amazingly blessed I am to have such a sweet husband!  While I am writing to her once a month here on my blog in my Letters to My Daughter series, I never thought about emailing her.  What a great idea!  I can write a long letter or just a short thought for the day.  Gmail has a massive storage so chances are very slim that we would ever run out of room.  I love the idea!

 

One of my most prized possessions is a small stack of letters my Mom wrote me when she was pregnant.  I hope my husband and I can be a blessing to our little girl the way that my Mother was to me through her letters!

 

Email your baby now so they can read it later!

 

What do you think about sending emails to your baby?  Have you ever done it?

 

Call Me Maybe Nail Art

Call Me Maybe Nails!

These sweethearts whether near or far will always be connected by their love.

Right now, they’re talking on the telephone and he’s making her blush.

 

One of my good friends, Emily from Live2Save2Live, told me about a nail design contest that Sally Hansen was hosting.  I didn’t really figure I had a shot but I thought it would be fun to play around with polishes to find a design to fit the “Sweethearts” theme they chose.  My final design turned out better than I thought it would so I’ve decided to submit it.  I have titled it, “Call Me Maybe.”  What do you think?  Cute?

 

To Vote: 

To vote for my design, go to Sally Hansen’s Nail Art Contest to vote for my entry.  Thank you!  {It should pull up my entry automatically but if it doesn’t just search for Ashley Walkup.}

 

How To Replicate:

To replicate this simple design all you need is a couple basic nail polish pens and a nail polish in your favorite shade.  I recommend practicing once or twice on paper with an ink pen and then once with the polish pen before you dive in.  Also, make sure the polish pen has dried fully before giving it a top coat {if you choose to do so}.

Girl’s Night In with Kleenex – Softness Worth Sharing #SharetheSoft #CBias

Kleenex is a brand that I grew up with and still love.  In my opinion, no other tissue compares the softness of Kleenex.  This week my family came to visit and we had a tremendous time. We went to the mall, out to eat, shopping at Walmart, and had a girl’s night in.  It was a fun time!  My grandmother drove down to spend her birthday with me, well, technically with my daughter but I think she liked being with me too.  We had a great girl’s night in with Kleenex and the amazing video-streaming service Vudu!

 

Kleenex Vudu Coupon

 

Walmart has packs of Kleenex that have a $4 off coupon for Vudu.com.  Being a fan of watching movies I thought this would be a great opportunity to check out Vudu.com.  It’s a service where you pay by the movie and then stream your movie directly to your XBOX 360, Playstation 3, Roku, Android Tablet, Blu-Ray Player, iPad, computer, or other available options.  Vudu was easy to install and figure out.  You can sign up online or through your computer!  If you’re interested, I noticed that they are offering ten free movies when you sign up now.  You don’t get to pick which ten are selected for you but I found a few that I would like to watch in my ten.

 

If you’re new to Vudu you can either watch one of your free movies or buy a pack of Kleenex for a $4 coupon.  If you’ve already registered with Vudu you can still redeem the coupon found on Kleenex boxes.  To do so, head to Walmart.com/Kleenex.  Click through to redeem your code and then you’ll be redirected to the Vudu site where you enter the unique promo code found on your coupon.  Now all you have to do is choose your movie, grab your box of Kleenex {in case it’s a sappy movie!}, lean back and enjoy!

 

Isn’t it a clever idea to pair Vudu and Kleenex?  Not only do you need tissues for a sappy chick flick but if you’re sick you’re likely to need tissues and a good movie while you’re laid up.  I think it’s genius!

 

Kleenex

 

We went shopping for Kleenex at Walmart and left with them, a birthday cake, and a few Valentine goodies.  It was a fun trip and we went at a wonderful time of day.  It wasn’t crazy crowded like it normally is when I go.  I’ll have to remember to go shopping in the early afternoon next time!  Go here to see details of my whole Walmart shopping trip.

 

Disclosure:  I am a member of the Collective Bias® Social Fabric® Community. This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias® and Kleenex® Brand Tissues #CBias #SocialFabric

Pull-Ups First Flush Party!

Huggies Pull Ups Logo

As you know, I’ve been working on potty training my little sweetheart and we’re making progress.  Small baby steps.  Pull-Ups knows that parents often dread potty training and procrastinate starting the process.  They are seeking to make the process easy and fun by helping Moms through Potty Training Parties.

 

Pull-Ups

 

 

They provided me with the basic supplies for a great Pull-Ups party!  They gave us potty training progress charts, stickers, party hats, and party noisemakers.  Oh, and of course Pull-Ups…which we used as prizes for the games.  Super fun!   They even had the perfect gift to give the moms and dads – Pull-Ups coupons!

 

Pull-Ups Party Hat

My little sweetheart didn’t like her hat…in combination with everything else going on.  After we removed it, she calmed back down and enjoyed the fun.  She couldn’t quite get the hang of the noise blower but she enjoyed watching everyone else play with them.

 

 

Pull-Ups Coloring

 

We had “First Flush Celebration” color sheets for the kiddos to play with and I couldn’t believe my little girl’s sheet.  I’ve never tried to teach her to color in the lines because I figured she was too young but look closely, she did it on her own!  Of course, she scribbled all over the rest of the paper but she colored inside of two shapes without going outside.  I am proud!

 

 

Minnie Mouse Pull-Ups

 

These new Pull-Ups are ridiculously adorable. I’m talking serious cuteness!  You know I have a small, or maybe medium-sized obsession with Minnie Mouse?  Well, these diapers feature Minnie Mouse in the cutest way possible.  Because I don’t want to show you a picture of my kid’s bum, take a look at the back of the diaper package to see for yourself.  Super duper cute, right?  Well, not only are these Pull-Ups fashionable but they also have a neat feature.  The images disappear when they become wet {called Learning Design Pull-Ups}!  What a great extra method to help kids remember to go to the potty.  Pull-Ups also has a heavy overnight version and Pull-ups that get cool when they’re wet.  What will they think of next?

 

Pull-Ups Pants

 

 

Potty training is HARD work because each kid is different and as Huggies says, “Because no two kids train alike!”  What worked for one kid might not work for your next and what works for your best friend’s kids might not work for either of yours.  These differences make it ever so important for moms to communicate with each other about what worked and didn’t work for them.  That way, instead of beating your head against the wall when one technique doesn’t work you can just try another one.  Plus, Huggies has an awesome Pull-Ups Big Kid app to help those kiddos who are just starting or in the process of potty training!  The Big Kid App is packed full of tips, tools, games and more to help us celebrate every milestone with our Big Kids.  If you have a potty training tot you might want to download the app for your little one.

 

Don’t forget to also check out these sites for the latest Pull-Ups info:

 

When you visit Pull-Ups Facebook page, you’ll see a great sweepstakes they’re currently running.  I’m pretty excited about it!!!  You can enter to win a trip to the most magical family getaway destination on Earth!  Can you guess where that is? : )  Good luck!

 

Disclosure: I participated in a campaign on behalf of Mom Central Consulting for Pull-Ups. I received product samples to facilitate my review and to host a party. I received a promotional item as a thank you for participating.

Letter to My Daughter

My daughter

 

To my dear, beautiful, sweet daughter,

 

You are the happiest, most amazing, gorgeous little girl.  Today, your Mommy is not having a good day. I woke up tired and it’s only gone downhill from there. Today is one of those days when it’s hard being a Mommy.  I’m trying my best but it’s difficult.    It’s especially hard because you are so precious and I feel like I’m letting you down.  Today, I’m not the Mommy you deserve.

 

I know that in the long run it’s okay.  Some days will be filled with fun, educational play and some days we’ll settle for blocks and a little cuddling on the couch watching Sesame Street.  I hope you’ll remember the afternoons where we cooked french fries in your kitchen, read books, and had a ball practicing our fake sneezes.  I hope you’ll remember knocking down my block castles, rocking your baby doll to sleep, and dancing like lunatics in the living room.

 

I also hope that I remember days like these.  In 20 or so years when it’s  your turn to love and care for a toddler I hope that I remember what a hard day is like, how lonely this parenting gig can be, and how cabin fever can mess with your head.

 

I hope that in remembering I’ll make up for the sluggish days like today by comforting, loving, and championing you; by letting you know that I think you’re a wonderful woman and mother.  I know you will be!  Please know that I will always be your Mommy and I will always be here for you!

 

You and your Daddy are the best things that have ever happened to me.  I’ll love you always.

 

Mom

 

 

A few bloggers and I decided to put together a Letters to our Children blog hop and we hope you’ll enjoy reading these heartfelt letters to our children.  There are 13 blogs in total and to hop over to the next blog please visit, Penelope’s Oasis.  She’s fabulous, I know you’ll enjoy her!