Know what you’re missing from your life??   That would be cookies!

Know what would make you smile instantly??  That would be winning some cookies!

This blog post is the perfect stop for you then!  I’m partnering with Gourmet Cookie Bouquets to bring you the sweetest giveaway this blog has seen!

Take a minute to stroll around their site and get your stomach good and worked up!  Now imagine finding out your the winner and getting to come back in a couple weeks to pick out the exact assortment you want and having it delivered right to your door!  There’s nothing more fun that going shopping and not having to pay a thing!  And the best part about this giveaway?? There will be two lucky winners who get to pick the assortment of their choice (up to a $75 value)!

Two lucky winners!!

It’s a busy time of year coming up and I’m going to go ahead and guess that you’ve got something you could use this cookie assortment for… graduation, wedding, BBQ!  I’m sure it will not go wasted!  So no more delaying, hurry and enter so you can be one step closer to getting that winning email!

The giveaway rules:

*Enter using any of the Rafflecopter choices available for below.  Entries will be reviewed, and duplicate or uncompleted entries will be removed.

* If you have problems using Rafflecopter, be sure you are running the latest version of your web browser and have JavaScript updated.

NOTE – You must complete the specified entry task in order to be eligible to win the contest. If you click the green entry button without completing the task, your entry will be thrown out (disqualified from winning the prize).

*Contest is open to all residents of the 48 Contiguous States and only to those 18 or older!

*Winners will be chosen by random. The winners will receive their choice of cookie box or tin valued at up to $75 from this cookie tin and gift box page.

*Winners will be notified via e-mail. You must respond within three days of being contacted. If you do not respond within that period, another winner will be chosen.

*The full list of rules can be found here .

*Sweepstakes ends at midnight EST on May 26th, 2013. The

sweepstakes winners will be announced by June 2nd, 2013.
a Rafflecopter giveaway

I love classic muted colors.  Chocolate browns, blacks, greys… they make me feel warm and safe.

Know what else I love?  Bright pops of funky colors!  Hot pink, turquoise, apple green… they make me feel alive and bouncy!

I’ve always been drawn to vintage-y patterns. Lace, doilies, cross-stitch.

And, you got it, I love the new design trends too!  Ikat, polka dots and even chevron!

I scored this tablecloth at Target for $4.84!  It was the perfect deep, rich chocolate brown and I love that it looks like it has some texture to it.   Of course, it couldn’t escape my pops of color!

This is a super simple little project that was done in about 5 minutes tops!

Supplies:

Solid color tablecloth

Martha Stewart Eyelet Lace Stencil Set

Martha Stewart Fabric Paint

Martha Stewart Stencil Brush

Piece of scrap cardboard

All you have to do is make sure you’re working on a flat surface and tuck the cardboard underneath the part of the tablecloth that you’re working on because the paint could seep through.  Pour a little of the paint onto a paper towel and lightly dab your brush into it.  Dab off any extra paint onto your paper towels and then dab it onto the stencil on your tablecloth.  Repeat as often as you’d like and you’re done!

Super simple! Super fast! Super impact!

Linking up to:

Tatertots & Jello,

I’m a vicious cycle kind of girl.

Stop it right now! I know you’re getting jealous. You’re thinking you want to be just like me so you can be a vicious cycle kind of girl too.  I know it, trust me. I’ve been dealing with the envy since I was a little ol’ teenager.

I’d get to school and one of my friends would fake a yawn and exclaim how she was “sooo tired”!  Then someone else would announce, “I know! It took me like 15 minutes to fall asleep last night! I didn’t think it was ever going to happen!”.

Ummm yeah, that sounds like heaven.  It’s always boggled my mind how someone could complain about taking 15, 20 or even 45 minutes to fall asleep!  I’ve read magazine articles that say if you aren’t asleep in 15 minutes, you should get up and do something and then come back and try again.

I.CAN’T.IMAGINE.

Honestly, I spent years… YEARS… where it would take me 2-4 hours to fall asleep. Yes, hours.  And therein lies my vicious cycle.  I would go about 2 or 3 weeks with this kind of sleep pattern.  Late to bed since I’m a night owl, hours to fall asleep, being forced awake by my alarm clock in the middle of my REM sleep and then wandering through my days not feeling the best until I would get knocked out by a migraine.  I’d curl up in a dark room in the fetal position for a couple days where I did nothing but sleep and when I emerged, I’d start the pattern all over again.

I told you all to be jealous.

BUT… there’s a happy ending to my story!  I’ve gotten a bit better at figuring out my triggers and how to avoid this.  I’m still not the best sleeper… by far… but I’ve found some things that work for me! Some are going to sound downright obvious. They’re things that I used to roll my eyes at when people would suggest them, because it just didn’t seem like they could make that much of a difference, but they really do work!  Cliches are usually cliches for a reason… they’re proven correct over the test of time! I’m not a doctor a nurse… just a regular old insomniac sharing some things that have worked for me!

10 Tips & Tricks to Get the Heck to Sleep!

1)  Turn off the screens!  It really does make a difference! I turn off all screens about 45 minutes before I go to bed, including putting my cell phone in the kitchen. I used to put my phone on my night stand and claim it was for security.  Even though I didn’t check it through the night, that little blue light going off constantly was keeping me awake.

2) Get a hot shower at night.  I used to be a complete morning shower girl.  I never used to come out of my bedroom until I was showered and ready for the day.  I think I actually needed the shower to wake up!  But I gradually started switching to a hot shower right before I go to bed and it relaxes my entire body and makes me SO tired!

3) Drink water after 5:00 p.m.  Alright, you caught me.  There’s no real scientific reason I wrote that time… I just felt like I needed a specific time. The more important point is to put any other liquid down!  I’m not a coffee girl, but I do like a diet soda a bit too frequently.  Not sure why I thought I was immune to caffeine, because it definitely was not helping me in the evenings.  Even beer or wine makes it harder for me to fall asleep.

4) This one is harder for me, but I try to only eat fruit in the evenings.  I’m a total sweets nut, and could totally eat a cheesecake drenched in ganache each night, but I’m getting old and apparently I’m not immune to heartburn.  Eating a banana instead makes me SO much more comfortable!  Plus in addition to eliminating the heartburn, the potassium in the banana is good for leg twitches which have also been known to keep me up at night! Double win!

5) Exercise!  Duh, right?  It really does work.  Exercise and your entire body becomes healthier, including sleeping better.

6) Use Lavender right before bedtime.  I’ve done this a few different ways over the years, but normally it’s just a few drops in a hot shower.  I’ve also been known to put a few drops of lavendar oil in a humidifer and let it fill up the whole room!

7) Read a book! I can’t even begin to tell you what a difference this makes! Can somebody explain to me why this works so well??  Even if I only read for 15 minutes, it just flips a switch and I automatically fall asleep faster!

8) This might sound goofy, but if I’m having an extra hard time falling asleep, I chant “sleep” in my head.  Over and over again.  I just lay there and silently chant, “sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep…”.  I think the trick for this is, it forces me to not think about anything else. I can’t make to-do lists, I can’t re-hash the day, I can’t mentally plan my grocery list… I can’t think about anything else, but saying one word over and over again is monotonous enough that it puts me to sleep.

9) Go to bed earlier!  Remember when I said I was a night owl??  Yeah, I’m not too good at trusty ol’ #9 here.  I can’t think of the last time I went to bed before 11:00.  It’s not uncommon for me to be up until 1 or 2 a.m.  BUT, and it’s a big but, I always have a harder time falling asleep the later I go to bed. You’d think it would be the opposite and you’d be so tired by then that you would pass out, but it just doesn’t work that way.

10) Don’t be hesitant to take a sleep aid to help you get back on your normal sleep cycle!  I might need it more often than others, but I think lots of people (even normally good sleepers), can get their schedules out of whack and need a lttle extra help getting back on the correct cycle!  I recently started taking ZzzQuil for just this reason and it’s worked perfectly!  I take it for 3 or so days until I notice I’m getting back on track and then I’m good for the next couple weeks!  It works perfectly and does just what it’s designed to do- help you get your sleeping back on track without being habit-forming!  It’s from the makers of Vicks NyQuil, which is reassuring to me because I’m a total scaredy cat when it comes to some medications.  But I need this.  My life is busy enough that going through the vicious cycles of my teens and early 20′s just isn’t an option anymore.  With ZzzQuil, I wake up feeling refreshed and ready to take on the day!

What are your tricks to getting to sleep fast and staying asleep?  Have you given ZzzQuil a try yet?

Give ZzzQuil a try and let us know about your experience by tweeting with the hashtag #ZzzQuilNight or by telling them on Facebook!

Last week I returned after being gone almost a full week at SNAP in Utah. I’m not one of the moms that was frantically calling home in between sessions trying to check up on the husband kids.  I’m a pretty stinkin’ lucky lady, because that stuff doesn’t even need to cross my mind.  My husband’s pretty fantastic every day around here- doing laundry, dishes, cleaning bathrooms, vacuuming.  I think I could stand to step it up a bit.  So he had it down pat with me being gone for the week.

So I staggered in Monday morning around 2:00 a.m., because I’m so cheap that I named my own price for a flight on Priceline and got a crappy midnight landing time.   The alarm went off at 7:30, and I rolled out of bed to see my 11 year-old son standing there dressed like he was from the Colonial time period.  He had his khaki pants tucked into some knee high soccer socks so they were all bunched up around his knees.  He had a big poofy, white shirt with a scarf coming out of the top.  The kid was ready to go for Colonial Day at school.

Except Colonial Day wasn’t until Thursday. He was 4 days early.  I was thiiiiissss close to letting him go.  Then I remembered that he’s a 5th grade boy and that might not be as funny to him as it was to me.   I cracked up all day, but he was very grateful that I didn’t send him in dressed like that on a regular school day.

At dinner that night, we were all catching up from my week away and I mentioned to my husband how he was dressed that morning and how I almost let him go to school like that.  Oh the look on his face!  His response, “Well you should have, because this stinker came downstairs last night at 8:30 p.m. and told me he needed a Colonial Day outfit for the next morning! I made it the whole week with nothing going wrong and he threw that at me right at the final bedtime!”.

Guess what I did??  Laughed and laughed and laughed…

But dinner was good!

Kielbasa Macaroni & Cheese

Ingredients

1 cup milk
1 egg
1/4 tsp  pepper
1/4 tsp salt
1 Tbsp butter
6 oz. cheddar cheese, freshly shredded
10-12 ounces dry pasta (I used penne for this recipe but normally use shells)
1 tbsp. butter
1/2 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 package turkey kielbasa, cut into slices
1/2-3/4 cup vegetables (corn, peas, broccoli)

Directions
Bring a large pot of water to boil. Add the pasta and cook according to package. If you are using a frozen vegetable, you can add it to the noodles for the last 2 minutes of cooking.

While the pasta is cooking, whisk together the milk, egg,  black pepper, and salt. Set aside. Melt butter in a skillet and cook kielbasa, onion and garlic until it is heated through and starting to brown. Set aside.

Drain the pasta and return to pot over medium-low heat. Pour in the milk mixture and cook, stirring constantly, for about 2-3 minutes, or until it starts to thicken up a bit. Add the shredded cheese in small increments, stirring constantly, until it is all added and melted. Stir in the kielbasa mixture until it is evenly coated. Serve and enjoy!

If you've followed me for any amount of time, it's probably a bit obvious that my life kind of revolves around kids.  Parties for the kids, holidays with the kids, decorating for the kids, cooking with the kids…  it's absolutely FANTASTIC!! 

This is exactly what I dreamed about when I was a little girl and imagined being an adult!  I wouldn't change a thing about it… well, mostly.  You see, sometimes in this mad, running around world, it gets a little chaotic.  Okay, you caught me, A LOT chaotic.  Mix that with my kind of scattered personality, and things tend to get lost and misplaced quite a bit.  Yeah, it's fun to live with me. {snort}

I've had various ways throughout the years of trying to keep track of projects and ideas.  Different tools I've used to try to keep them organized so that I can go back a year or more later and know exactly where to look for ideas I want to recreate.  None of them have really lasted long, though, and I'm always looking for a new way to organize my projects. 

I think I may just have hit the jackpot this time, though.  I think it's a good one, people!

Have you discovered dio yet? 

No!!  Oh good! That means I get to explain it to you!  dio.com is a new site where you can create an interactive experience and social experience! 

You create a room and you can add photos, videos, texts and more to your room.  You can add even more rooms so that they're all inter-connected and take you and anyone else who might be viewing it on a journey of sorts.  It sounds a little confusing, but it's actually pretty straight-forward. 

And, honestly, if you're a blog reader or a blogger yourself… chances are your a pretty visual person. That's exactly who dio was created for!  Somebody who likes to see and feel as if they're experiencing right along with you!

Since I'm a kid fanatic, I created a place where I can take you through my life with kids!  How we party together, vacation together, craft together, cook together…

Above is an image of my room on Cooking with Kids.  You can add as many photos as you like and up in the left corner, you can see the additional photos that I added under "In This Room".  When you click on each photo, it gives you a better description and you can even include direct links or the recipes!  HereI'll have all my recipes that are good to use with kids in one spot. No more looking around to track them down!

If you look a little farther down on the left hand column, you'll see something labeled "exits".  This let's you go into an adjoining room.  I made all of my rooms that had to do with kids adjoining, so I can easily move between them.  If you click on this adjoining room, "Kids' Parties", it takes you into a room with pictures on fun ideas for parties with kids.

Then you can also see all of the adjoining rooms I have linked up to this one! 

One of the newer features that is pretty cool, is that you can have co-creators of rooms!  So more than one person can link up a room. This would be pretty awesome to do after a vacation and each family member gets to take a room and share the pictures that stood out to them and write captions letting us know why! I'd love to see what my kids came up with for that!

Take a look around the rest of my site and follow me (Natalie at A Turtle's Life for Me).  Then poke around the rest of dio.com and see what experiences other people are creating! It's pretty amazing all the different interepretations everyone has of this!  What kind of experience would you create?  How would you link your rooms together?

Guess what?!  Now you can not only create a place on dio.com, but when you do, you'll be entered to win a $100 Amazon gift card!  Cool beans, right?

All you have to do is hop over to dio and register as a user.  Create a place and then come back here and leave me with a comment and the email you signed up with to be entered to win.  Check this link for the rest of the Contest Rules. 

You can also tweet a message about your place and include @dioplaces in your tweet with a #discoverdio hashtag.  And Like dio on Facebook for even more ideas of how you can use this site to help organize your ideas and create a visual space for your experiences!

I have always wanted a mudroom/laundry room combination.  I pin them, I tear them out of magazines, I sketch them out on notepads.  I’ve also, sadly , never had one.

Our first house had a single car garage and in the back of it, was a tiny little room that had our washer and dryer.  So when it was laundry time, I’d grab the laundry basket, scurry across the concrete garage floor while hoisting the laundry basket over my head so I could make it around the car and then stand, shivering in a freezing cold garage while I loaded the washer up.  And you know??  I was thrilled to have it all!  Thrilled to not have to go to a laundromat! Thrilled that in the summer, I could go right out the back door of the garage and straight to my clothesline!  I really didn’t mind it that much at all!  But it wasn’t a mudroom and there were spiders and dirt and garden tools.

But we left that house and moved into the current house we live in.  There was a nice, normal, little laundry room right off the kitchen that led into the garage.  There was nothing to it and guess what??  Six years later… there’s still nothing to it.

Well, unless you count a mess as something, but I choose to ignore it which turns it into nothing.

See my little piece of molding with the hooks? Yeah, ummm, that was my attempt at trying to decorate and add some organization to this room.  The bookbag and coat you see hanging are the most that have ever hung on those poor hooks. They just DO NOT get used. : (

You know what does get used, though?

This ridiculous shelf above the washer and dryer is piled high and often and really, REALLY not the best use of this space! There’s so much space above it that is wasted and my kids don’t stand a chance of being able to reach it.  And I want them to reach it. I really do!  They’ve been doing their own laundry for years now, but we still have to help them with the laundry detergent part.  Not just because they can’t reach it, but also because most bottles of laundry detergent are pretty big and bulky and could come pouring out way too fast.

So we’re going to use this little space right in there and build a shelf for the laundry detergent!

I know what you’re thinking, “Okay, so the laundry detergent will be closer to the kids now, but it’s still big and bulky and could pour out too fast!”. Oh no, my friends! I’ve figure out a way to solve that too and it’s as close as a Target run!

Suddenly, getting your kids to do the laundry is as simple as telling them exactly how many squirts to put in the machine!!  They don’t have to pour, they don’t have to measure… they just have to be able to count to 4 while they pump!!

And the size is perfect for not only their little hands, but also for my little laundry room that is short on space!!

So I’m going to head back in and see if I can wrap this little makeover up (we already have 2 coats of paint on the walls and new cabinets!!), and while you’re waiting for my big reveal, pop over to Method’s FB page and enter to win a year’s supply of laundry detergent!  I will be super jealous and you will have super clean clothes! Score!!

This is a sponsored post but the opinions are 100% my own.

There isn’t much in life that feels like more of a punch in the stomach to me, than seeing children who are starving.  I’m not referring to my kids playing outside too long and missing lunch. I mean actually starving children.  It hits me hard and doesn’t really leave me.

After having worked in elementary schools the past couple years and seeing it first-hand, I decided to try to do something small-scale and locally to help.  Just a couple weeks ago, I introduced a Community Soup Night at my bakery where no one has to worry about paying. For that evening, everyone is welcome to a bowl of soup and a roll… no questions asked.  I pretty much cried the entire first night from watching all the people come through who truly needed it and the people coming through who wanted to volunteer! So many people told me they want to get involved and that this is a cause they believe in, but they just didn’t know how to go about it before!

And you know what else has happened?? My kids have gotten involved!  We’ve had many talks in the last couple weeks about why we’re doing this and what this will mean to the families who will come to eat with us on Tuesday nights.  My kids get it. They’re rolling up their sleeves and they’re in there with me every Tuesday night helping, interacting and understanding it more.  They’re full of love and this is a great way for them to show it!

Most of the images we see on TV, are often for children who live in other countries and it’s hard to know tangilbe ways we can support them and influence their lives in a positive way. But according to the USDA, more than 50 million Americans live in food insecure households, and more than 16 million of those impacted are children.

More than 16 million children live in households where food isn’t a guarantee!!  That’s right here. All around us and it’s a staggering number.  It also provides us with more concrete and immediate ways that we can get involved and help reduce this number.

Walmart is working with Feeding America and ten of the most recognizable food companies in America this spring to launch the third chapter of the  Fighting Hunger Together initiative. This initiative will focus on reducing hunger across America

The Fighting Hunger Together initiative will deliver $3 million in grants for hunger programs and generate millions of meals for local Feeding America food banks and their partner agencies across the U.S. between April 1 and April 30.  Have you visited your local food bank recently?  We have and it was shocking how little supplies they had.  It was also very surprising to hear just how many families in our little town rely on the food bank for their next meal.

There are lots of ways you can get involved in this fight against hunger, but WalMart has made it easy for your involvement to start immediately.  You can  join the fight against hunger in two ways:

1) Vote!   Vote and volunteer to fight hunger this spring with Walmart!  You can cast one vote per day for a Feeding American food bank or their partnering agency in a local community across the country (it could be your community!)!.  The 100 winning food banks will share $3 million in grants to fund hunger relief programs!  The voting wil occur from April 1 – April 30th and the winners will be announced in May.

b) Volunteer!  You can pledge today to volunteer at your local hunger relief organization by visitng www.walmart.com/hunger

It’s very easy to vote and could make such a difference in your own town!

Leave me a comment and let me know why you are voting and how you are going to volunteer to fight against hunger!

A couple weeks ago, I shared my kids’ bathroom and how it desparately needs an update. It’s needed one for the last couple years. But every time I go in there, I get grossed out and leave! It’s hard to muster up the motivation to redo a room when the people who use it are messy, MESSY, messy!

So while I was showing you their bathroom the last time, I failed to zoom in on this.

Nobody should ever give my kids a bow and arrow.  They have the worst aim ever.

So I set about to cleaning it this morning and thought I’d give myself a little Cottonelle challenge.  I wanted to see how clean I could get it by just using a dry paper towel.  No cleaners, not even any water. Just my filthy faucet, a paper towel and a little arm power.

So I scrubbed and I scrubbed and I even leaned into it.  And I was left with this beauty.

Sad trombone.

Yeah, that didn’t go so well.  So I went back to my trusted cleaner and got that baby all wet.

And you know what happened?  The cleaning went SO much faster and looks SO much better!

Wet is the way to go, people!  And not just with the faucet but with any kind of cleaning. Yes, even that cleaning. Don’t worry, though!  Cottonelle has you covered with their flushable wipes and Clean Care toilet paper.   You need BOTH to truly get clean and feel refreshed!

And guess what, lucky ducks?? One of you is going to win a Cottonelle care package that contains the Cottonelle Fresh Care flushable wipes and Cottonelle Clean Care toilet paper!

To enter, you must like Cottonelle on Facebook and follow Cottonelle on Twitter.   Then leave a comment on this post telling me why you want to win along with you email address!  That’s it!  The contest will end on 4/30/13 and the winner will be on their way to understanding what clean really means!

Check out a great video of another dry/wet cleaning challenge!

While you’re visiting Cottonelle, test our your cleaning knowledge and submit your entry for a chance to win one of four grand prizes of $10,000 bathroom makeover!!  I know you all need it!

sweepstakes rules

It’s the new line of Dear Lizzy Fifth & Frolic products from American Crafts and it’s all available now at JoAnn stores! The colors and patterns are so cheerful and fun!  I instantly had about 56 projects I wanted to make with them, but there was one in particular that I’ve been itching to make and these seemed just perfect for it!

A cake bunting!

These are so versatile and can be customized for any occasion and my absolute favorite part??  They can be made ahead!  As a cake decorator, one of the most frustrating parts of the trade for me, is the fact that everything has to be last minute.  It’s really hard to work ahead on something that also has to taste fresh and as if it was just made that morning! But unlike most other cake toppers, these buntings can be made ahead of time and just the thought of that makes me all sorts of giddy and giggly!

These were super easy to make too!  I took a piece of the scrapbook paper that was already patterned with triangles (aka pennants), and just cut some triangles out along the lines.  The glitter foam letters are stickers so that whole step of the project took about 7.8 seconds.  I taped some white thread onto the back of each pennant and then moved on to the support posts.

I LOVE this glitter tape! Such a pretty color (anyone else all over the glitter gold lately??), the glitter doesn’t come off on your hands and it’s flexible and sticky! Perfection!

I wrapped some regular old drinking straw with it.

I made sure to stop about 2″ from the bottom of the straw since that portion would be inserted into the cake and I didn’t need glitter tape in my cake.

Then I knotted the string onto the glitter straws and attached the fabric bows to the top with a little bit of hot glue.

So simple and pretty!  Love it!

I’ve got lots more projects lined up with this line but for now, be sure to follow American Crafts and JoAnn’s for more great projects featuring the Dear Lizzy Fifth & Frolic line!

American Crafts on Facebook
American Crafts on Twitter
American Crafts on Pinterest
American Crafts on Instagram

JoAnn on Facebook

JoAnn on Twitter

JoAnn on Pinterest

We all have it, right?  That one room in the house that cannot… will not… stay organized.

Mine is my basement storage room and I’ve gotten really good at ignoring it.  Although, something happens about 3 or 4 times a year where I literally can’t take it any longer.  I wake up on these days, determined to tackle it once and for all and not sleep until it is completely organized and pretty.

And I do a good job! I really do!  Everything finds a place and is stacked nice and neat, and I am able to go to bed a happy and content woman. Then it’s usually only a couple days after that when I need something from one of the bins and EVERYTHING must come down so I can get to it.

Case in point…

This was one of my bins that had it’s own special spot on the shelf.  Then I needed a gift bag andthe whole thing (and all the boxes on top of it), had to come down.  Guess where it never made it’s way back to??  Yes, it has sat here in this spot for the last couple months and you can betcha that this is where it will remain until I have another purge day.

This time, I’m going to do it a little bit differently, though.  Have you guys heard about the new Rubbermaid® All AccessTM storage containers?  They have a drop-down door, so you can access your items even when the containers are stacked. What the what??  Isn’t that genius?!  No more having to pull everything off the shelf just to get in one container! You can keep them stacked and still access the items inside from the drop-down door!

Plus they come in all kinds of pretty colors so I can know with just a glance which bin my items are in! Score!  I’m heading to Wal-Mart to pick some of these up and then go hole myself up in the basement until this is done!  You WILL see a new room soon!