I know! I know! It's October! None of us want to hear about Holiday Cards, yet! Well, believe it or not, while some of us are cringing at the Santa Claus' in the stores, others are already planning out their holiday cards. They're browsing through all of the options and planning their family photos.

No matter which category you fall in, you cannot deny that Shutterfly has some of the greatest card choices for making personalized holiday cards. Every single year, I go there and I look through them, wishing that this year I had just a little extra money so that I could send out something like this instead of my dollar store selections. Do you guys feel the same way? If so, I have a bit of a treat for you...are you ready? How would you like the opportunity to win $50 off an order from Shutterfly? Now, I warn you that it won't include shipping and cannot be combined with other offers, but still, that's pretty awesome, right? I just love being able to bring things like this to you! Check out the Rafflecopter below and once you're done, why not browse the site a little and maybe even pick up a little something off their Special Offers page?


a Rafflecopter giveaway


This post brought to you by Shutterfly. All content is 100% mine because I wrote it. ) 

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Last week was our 2nd annual camping trip. I have to say that it was yet another fantastic time. With my life being so up in the air sometimes, it's just plain wonderful to have something that you just know is going to be amazing. Honestly, I'm already looking forward to next year's trip and that time spent with my family. Those that I consider family are a rather small group but I cannot imagine my life without them and any time that I get to take my boys and share new places with them is the highlight of any period of time.  Here are a few of the pictures that I took while we were gone:








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This isn't a new picture but it's one of my favorite ones right now. These three are my family and I don't know what I would do without them. I love them so much. I took this outside of Cracker Barrel on the day we took Justin back to the airport. This was the first time we took the boys along with us and watching their tears broke my heart just that much more. I am so glad though that we all love each other so much. We really are a family.







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I'm so sorry that this is late. In all of the drama that has started happening since my grandma's death, I just didn't get this posted yesterday. I do hope you can forgive me. These last few days have been really hard on me and I'm trying hard to make sure I do what needs to be done.

In the spirit of keep on keeping on, I bring you this week's challenge. This week, we're back in our bedrooms We're going to open up that top drawer and we're going to get rid of anything that we don't love or that doesn't fit. For me, this is my underclothes drawer and I can guarantee that some purging is going to get done. I swear I have bras in there that haven't fit since I started having kids! Here's a peek into what I mean:

Aren't slipper socks sexy?

I'm looking forward to being able to reach into that drawer and actually find what I want. Right now, it's dig around in the hopes it's in there. Not conducive to stress free living, I tell ya!

Speaking of stress (I'm the queen of transitions today!), I do have to say that having these yay locations in my home has really helped over the past few days. Granted, most of my house looks like a tornado hit it, but being able to walk into any room and see a space that's clean and tidy has helped calm down the chaos in my brain.  It even works in last week's challenge...the laundry shelf...

Everything in its place!

It's so nice to be able to walk into the laundry room and just throw in a load of laundry without digging around for where I put anything that I might need. Plus, my kids were super excited when I found this:


Yep, that's an entire container of batteries. This used to be our battery jar but somehow the lid got misplaced and I must have put the jar up on the shelf until I found the lid. Well, I haven't found the lid, but I did move this container out to the shelf that holds all of the Wii supplies and the kids now have an ample supply of batteries to run their remotes for a while. That's almost as good as finding cash, folks!



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Ahhh! Double digits week! How can we possibly be this far into the year already? This means that, in theory, we have tackled 9 different areas in our homes. I don't know about you, but seeing those yay areas still make me smile just a little bit when I walk into a room and see them. They still motivate me to work on the next area because I know that by the end of this year, I'm going to have the spaces and rooms that I want to have. I'm creating a better and healthier space for both me and the boys.

I don't have after pictures for last week's challenge because it was simply getting rid of old/expired medications and it turns out that I didn't really have much to get rid of. However, I do have a before picture for this week!

My laundry supplies shelf..wow! How did a pillow end up there?

This week, we're headed back into our laundry areas. I want you to take a look at the area where you store your laundry supplies. I honestly thought this wasn't going to be an area I needed to tackle. After all, I'm pretty good about throwing out empty bottles of laundry soap and things like that...Surprise! Look at that cluttered mess. I don't remember the last time I actually wiped down the shelf. I know what I'll be doing this week! Time to see just what else has moved in without me realizing or remembering that it's there. Time to clear it off, clean it out and wipe it down.

How many of you will be joining me?



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Wow, week 9. The last time I posted, it may have been week 6. I bet you're wondering what happened to 7 and 8, eh? I know there were really good reasons that they didn't get posted but blast if I can remember now what they were! I do hope you'll forgive me though!

This might be a good time to mention that if the challenges don't go live here, they are going live over at the Facebook group. It is a closed group so nobody outside of the group can see your before/after photos. If you'd like to join, just drop me a line and I'll get you added.

Now, on with the show....Since I didn't post my before and after photos for weeks 6, 7 and 8, I'm going to share them with you now. I don't want any of you thinking that I'm not right in there with you as we do these. Ready? Let's go!


This is my bedside table after I got it cleared off, but clearly before I dusted it. Eww! What I love most about this is the fact that I now have space to put my new table lamp..as soon as I remember where I put it! I do need to take some time and get those stickers off of there. I have no idea how they got there, but they need to go!  (Week 6)



 Week 7 - Before : The bookshelf of doom..Ok, it wasn't that bad but it was pretty ick. The challenge for the week was to tackle just one shelf in the living room. This was my choice. There were books falling off the shelf and about an inch of dust.

Week 7 - After: Far less dust and far less books. I actually pulled a dozen books off of this shelf and posted them to PaperBack Swap. I realized that as much as I love John Grisham, I rarely, if ever go back and read his books again so I kept only a few that really appealed to me and let the others go. Actually, they're still here so if you're a fan, find me over on the site and request them!

 Week 8 - Before: Last week, our goal was to tackle just one side of the kitchen counter. In this case, we started with the left side. This folks, was my left counter before I started. Food that needed to be put away mixed with dirty dishes waiting to be washed and all sorts of things! You see, I haven't had a functioning kitchen sink since before Thanksgiving. We did have a plumber come out but he didn't fix the problem and we haven't really had the money to try again since. What does this lead to? Using up all of the dishes in the house and then being completely overwhelmed with what to do about it. I'll tell you my solution below because I can't wait to show you the after picture!

Look! Clean counter! My favorite part? The labeled containers. This is something I've wanted to do for a while but never had the proper tools. Justin got me a new labeler for Christmas and I had the most fun labeling all of those containers. I still have a couple of empty containers that will get filled soon but for now, seeing the ones that are done puts a big smile on my face! Where did all the dirty dishes go, I'm sure you're asking yourself...Well, they went to my bathroom. That's right..this girl has been kneeling over her bathtub doing dishes. It's a slow process because I only have a small shelf in there that I'm able to use for drying, but bit by bit, I am catching up on all of those dishes. I refuse to let a goofed up drain/vent/whatever it is get in the way of me having an area that I can prepare food for my family. After all, there are those who don't even have running water, how can I complain about a few minutes kneeling on the floor doing dishes?

There we go. I think that has us all caught up until this week. I don't actually have a before picture because this is a task, that for me, is a relatively small one. This week, I challenge you to go into your bathrooms. Find wherever you store medications and check those expiration dates. If it's expired, let it go! That's it. Pretty simple, huh?

See you next week for a new challenge!


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I don't think I've done one of these in a while and it's one of the topics I've missed the most. Sadly, I haven't taken any super awesome pictures this past week. That's really something I need to change. I've gotten back into the habit of carrying my camera everywhere, but I haven't stopped to take any photos in a while.

So, while I don't have anything super awesome, I do have a picture. I present to you...Butterflies as colored by me. I posted this on Facebook in an "art exchange" between Kate and myself.






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Some of you might recognize the kiddo below. That's Ben, my oldest. Tonight was his first ever choir concert. I snapped this picture in his dad's kitchen afterwards. Ben has cerebral palsy and as some of you know, photographing a special needs child can be difficult. In Ben's case, when he sees the camera, he grimaces (he thinks it's a smile). Tonight, I discovered the secret to getting a real smile from him. All I have to do is pretend to be my bossy gps and he starts laughing.


I love this kid. He did a fantastic job at his concert and I am so proud of him


PS For more tips on how to photograph special needs kiddos, check out this wonderful post by Ryan over at NoMoreBacon.
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Once upon a time there was a girl and she had a pretty shiney laptop. In fact, she even named him Shiney. Shiney and the girl were the best of friends until one day, Shiney started making a very bad noise. Worried about her friend, the girl talked to lots of people to try to see what was wrong. She loved Shiney and she was very worried that he was very sick. After a little while, it was discovered that Shiney had a bad fan. It was explained to the girl that this was like a bad lung and without a transplant, Shiney would die! Luckily, it was pretty easy to get a new fan and soon, the girl had one all ready to go into Shiney. She took Shiney to someone who knew how to do fan transplants and here's what happened next:







Once it was all done, Shiney was a much happier laptop. Who knows...maybe Shiney and the girl lived happily ever after! The End.



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He's growing up so fast. Every time I look at him, I see more young man and less little boy. Sometimes I wish he'd just slow down a little bit but all the time, I'm incredibly proud of the young man he's becoming.



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It's Tuesday and I'm back! Did y'all miss me? It's been a rough few weeks but I'm back. I'm 100% well but I'm one heck of a lot better. This is going to be a quick post because I need to get out the door to get my kiddos. So, here we go...

Does anyone remember that we were working on cleaning out the fridge? Well, here's mine (after I filled it up with deliciousness last night):


It's not perfect but it sure is one heck of a lot better! How did you guys do on that? If you got it done, make sure you leave me a link to check out so I can give you some comment love! Plus, cleaning is more fun when you do it with friends.

Now, for this week, I'm keeping it simple. I want you to do one drawer. For me, it's going to be this kitchen drawer here:

It's not really a junk drawer. It's all kitchen items. I just don't remember what the heck is in there anymore. That means it's time for a clean out and most likely a serious purge. If I don't remember having it in there, chances are I haven't used it in the 2 years or so since I put it in there!

That's it for me for today. It's another crazy busy day and I need to scoot! Let me know how y'all do! You know I care!



New to Tackle It Tuesday - Clean Life, Clean Home Challenge? Don't worry! Just jump into this week's challenge. Be sure to come back and post your blog links to celebrate your progress and achievement!

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Welcome to week 5, everyone! How are all of you doing on your weekly challenges? Are you keeping up? Don't worry if you've missed a couple. Every little bit helps.

This week was a tougher week for me and instead of being ahead of y'all, I'm right where you are. Lots of life changes happening around here and on top of that I've been battling some sort of cold for about a week now. It comes and goes but it always seems to come on the days when I need to get tons of stuff done!

I did get my laundry area done though.  Ok, I got the shelving done. There are still a bunch of boxes in there waiting for me to sort so that I can start packing up packed boxes in there. One project at a time though, right?  Here are my finished laundry shelves:



So much nicer. It doesn't stress me out to have to find something on them or to empty the lint trap anymore! The basket is a bit too big but it holds some odds and ends, like Mr Clean Magic Erasers and such. I ended up finding a bunch of change up there too so that was a bonus!

Now, for this week's challenge. Does your fridge look like mine? Is it an ongoing collecting area for future science experiments? When was the last time you cleared it out and wiped it down inside? I confess that it's been about ...umm...well, never since we moved in here. Ouch! Oh wait, let me add to that...Yuck! Let's get that space cleared out so that we don't stress out just opening up the door to find a snack.

My space:



I can't wait to see all of your shining refrigerators next week! If we start getting enough participants, I'll add an official linky here. For now, if I say link up, I just mean to make sure you leave a comment each week showing the previous week's challenge. :)



New to Tackle It Tuesday - Clean House, Clean Life Challenge? Don't worry! Just jump into this week's challenge. Be sure to come back and post your blog links to celebrate your progress and achievement!

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