- Scarlette’s like “Hey, when are y’all going to finish staining these steps?”

- Scarlette learned to blow me kisses. It’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. I’m this close to entering her in a Toddlers & Tiara’s-esque beauty pageant. And by “this close” I mean Jeff said over his dead body.

- So instead, I put a video of her blowing kisses on youtube. It worked for Justin Bieber. She’s also pretending to be a dinosaur. And while watching the video I noticed she was signing “more” to me, probably because I had been bribing her with the plastic easter eggs full of puffs sitting next to me. I didn’t even notice that at the time. I am a terrible mother.

- Just kidding. I’m an awesome mother. I know all of the words to Elmo’s World.

- Remember how I joined Clickin’ Moms? They sent me a coupon code to share with y’all so if you use the code FRIEND you’ll get 10% off any standard subscription. I highly recommend them for learning your camera. Just the lesson on histograms alone changed my life. Also the one titled Tips For Photographing Uncooperative Children…

- I have a new giveaway up. One of my blog sponsors is giving away a $20 gift card to Target. I’m pretty sure everyone wants one of those. Including me. I feel a bit sad that I am ineligible to enter, actually. That’s how much I love Target.

- Jeff and I built a raised bed vegetable garden this weekend. It may surprise you to know that I am very handy. As in, I used my hands to hold all of the boards that Jeff was nailing.

- I’m about to try to make chicken and dumplings. Wish me luck.

Seeing Scarlette wander into her room, pull a book down and start reading to herself brings me immense joy in this season.

I’m sharing a little joy with y’all today in the form of two giveaways! I meant to have these up this weekend but we ended up in Urgent Care w/Miss S, who is (no worries) completely fine and spent the day happily carrying around the new pair of flowered shoes that my mother bought her for being such a brave girl. Mommy and Daddy bought her a new toy after the whole ordeal but apparently flowered shoes are the way to my child’s heart.

First, a copy of Wednesdays Were Pretty Normal, which is a fantastic book. If you are a parent of a child who is or has been critically ill, this is a wonderful read. And if you aren’t, it’s still a good read and also an excellent gift for someone who might be going through something like that – Click here to read my full book review and win one of five copies!
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Second is this beautiful pendant necklace,called The Hope Pendant, made from Jerusalem stone. I’ve been wearing mine through this Lenten season to help me remember the seven sacred pauses. I think it would make a great Easter gift for someone special (even if that someone special is you) so click here to read my full review and enter to win one of your own!

This week I’m not sharing my newest project life pages because I included way too many pictures of Scarlette in the bathtub. I’d have to blur pretty much the entire page in order to post it online. And that just defeats the whole purpose. But take my word for it: they are really cute pictures.

Instead, I’m hosting another mini giveaway from our friends at Clorox. Which, coincidentally, would coincide nicely with the photos of my nekkid baby playing with shaving cream in the bathtub, if I were posting those photos :/

Here are a few things of note that I would print in a newspaper, if I had a newspaper. Along with my Dear Abby column.

1) The winner of the Elissa Hudson print is Kristin Owens and the winners of a class by Classes Kara Made are Kaycie Eddie and Kendra Jones! Congrats ladies, watch your emails for more details from me.

2) I am working on bringing back the photo editing class and the blog design class. I have a new website format for online classes and I need a few people to test it out. If you’d like to take one of the classes for free in exchange for giving me some site feedback, please leave a comment below with which one you’d like. I’ll pick five for each class at random.

3) Google is discontinuing Google Friend Connect for non-blogger blogs on March 1. That’s a bummer because I know many of us follow each others blogs using it! If you’d like to keep reading here you can get updates by subscribing to my rss feed or subscribing through bloglovin. *eta: some of you asked about subscribing by email and yes, you can get my blog posts via email here! HTH!

I thought that since I’ll be losing the blogs I follow in GFC as well, this would be a good time for me to host a blog link-up party! Leave a link to your blog in the linky below and that way we can all find new blogs to follow while we’re making the transition away from GFC!