Fluffy Giveaways

There are some awesome giveaways going on right now!

Check out this one at Thinking About Cloth Diapers. There's also a linky at the bottom to even more giveaways!

Here we sit like birds in the wilderness… or maybe it’s more like a construction zone!

As I write this, I’m sitting in the bathroom downstairs with my laptop in our office chair (whose home is upstairs). I’ve plugged my laptop into one of the few outlets that has power in the house and the router and modem are being powered off an extension run from the kitchen! That should give you an idea of what our life is like. But, a look at our living room is enough to make anyone with any sense of organizational desire scream…

Here’s our coat closet…

I mean couch.

Before we get a look at all of the before pictures for the loft, here are some pictures from our painting projects a few weekends back. We have had the paint to paint our bedroom since we painted our master bath before Thanksgiving 2010… Well painting that bathroom was a PAIN, so it’s taken us a while to come back around to the idea of doing more painting.

Here’s our white room before:

Looking from our master bathroom to the rest of our bedroom.

And here's the finished product!






The pictures aren’t the best representation of the true color. The three main walls are a medium brown with a hint of orange/rust. The accent wall is a rich aqua color. We were a little nervous about the way all of this would work out, even when we bought the colors we weren’t sure about them, but we absolutely LOVE it!! The colors make the room so much more inviting and warm.

After we finished this project we spent quite a while planning and preparing for our loft, which is in progress!

So here are the before pictures with some explanations…

This is looking from our bedroom down the hall to the extra bedrooms. To your right before the double doors are the stairs and inside the double doors is the utility closet with the water heater.

This view won’t be changing drastically, except that the bedroom on the right will be closed off and have a different entrance and the closet will remain just the door closest to use with the second door being removed and becoming a hallway.

This is the view from the very top of the stairs of the landing and all the way up to the second floor ceiling. This is where the loft will end up being.

This is looking onto the utility closet from the guest bathroom. The full door on the left will be has been knocked out and will become the hallway to the adjacent bedroom and ultimately the loft.

This is a view from the bottom of the stairs up to the second floor ceiling, this is the entire area that will be turned into the loft.

There will be many more pictures to come after the project is finished! We are really excited to have this entryway built. It has already opened up the upstairs so much. We can’t wait until it is finished!

Tomorrow, Troy and Weston will be here and I’m going to be giving them a tour of BYU campus. Hopefully, I’ll be able to do a decent job and convince Weston to come to school out here!

At some point, Nate, Michelle and Jenna will be coming down from up north to see Craig, Nate and Weston. It shall be interesting to have 7 adults and curious toddler in our disaster zone, but I’m excited to for everyone to have a chance to get together!

Mama-to-Be Event over at According to Jenny

I am really looking forward to this giveaway event! I can't wait to see what she has lined up.

Giveaways, Giveaways, and more Giveaways! and an update on life.

I haven't been writing at all lately. I never know what to write about. We have been really great lately! Kyle still has his job at Novell and his been fortunate enough to make it through Attachmate's (who bought Novell sometime last year I think), downsizing. Things continue to rapidly change at work for him and we just hope and pray that he continues to have employment through it all.

I just entered my last year at BYU. I will be going to school all year long but I will graduate in December and I just can't wait! I've finished all of my math classes, so I now have a mathematics minor. I'm finishing up my last few generals and also family life classes. As hard as school is, I really enjoy my courses, professors, and class mates, which will make this next year more bearable.

Over Christmas Kyle and I drove up to Washington to stay with my parents and spend time with my family. It was a ton of fun. Unfortunately we didn't take any pictures with anyone... So I can't share any pictures!! One of the best parts of our trip was surprising my sisters with our being there! We got to spend time with Charlotte, Cara, Eric and Brooklynn which was fun but as always Brooklynn was bounding full of energy and activity so we were beat each night! We had a wonderful Christmas with my side of the family and are very grateful that we were able to spend that time with them!

GIVEAWAYS!!

I have been entering a ton of giveaways the past few months. I started entered them in October but really just had one blog that I followed that did giveaways I was interested in. So I entered her giveaways and much to my surprise I won!! After that I started entering them fairly regularly! At this point I usually have 60-80 open giveaways that I have entered (and usually tweet about each day for extra entries). As of today I have won 16 giveaways. Some of them big, some of them small, each of them exciting to win! I haven't received all of the prizes yet but hopefully they will be coming in the mail any day now!

Here's the run down of the things I have won (and received):

MoDia Diapers Pocket Style Diaper (Elephant Walk with blue tabs)-$21.95

Bunzuke Pocket Style Diaper (lady bug with snap off wings)-~$20

The one I won is similar to this one, slightly different fabrics and snaps.

Real Nappies Intro Pack, Crawler Size-$17.99

Haute Mommy Swag Bag #1

Thirsties Dup Wrap (Size 2) in Warm Stripes-$13.75

Smart Mom Jewelry Teething Bling-$19.99

Willow Pad Reusable Feminine Pad in Robin-9.95

CJ's BUTTer from Modern Cloth (Sample Size x 3) in Unscented, Frankincense and Myrrh, Madagascar.-$4.50

Fuzzibunz Elite Pocket Style Diaper in Spearmint-$19.95

Fuzzibunz Original Pocket Style Diaper in Red-$19.95

Cheeky Cloth Fitted Diaper in Silly Santa-$17.50

BabyKicks Extra Small Prefold x 2-11.78

Oh Katy Pocket Style Diaper in Silver-$17.95

(Company is just right here in Spanish Fork!)

Thirsties Accessories

Fab Wipes in "Boys" (6)-$12.25

Booty Luster (8 oz, wipe spray)-$11

Booty Love (2 oz, diaper rash ointment)-$14.95

This adds up to: $232.51 plus all the money saved in shipping costs.

There are 6 giveaways I've won in the last month that I haven't yet received!

They are:

Boba 3G Baby Carrier in Kangaroo (as Pictured)-$125

Snappi Diaper Fasteners (an alternative to diaper pins) x 8-$20.85-28.60 (depending on sizes)

BumGenius 4.0 in Albert (snaps)-$17.95

Bumblebaby Diapers in a surprise print-~$20

Thirsties Duo Wrap (Size 1) in Meadow (different than pictured)-$12.50

Go Bananas Baby Newborn All in 2 (semi custom) in "What a Hoot Print"-$15.50

(This is just the print, actually diaper will be much smaller)

Prize total for those things I haven't received: 214.95

Assuming that everything arrives (eventually) I have been blessed to win $447.47 (plus shipping savings) worth of baby stuff. I am so grateful to have won all of these things!

We may not be expecting now, but we do eventually plan to have children and every bit that I win is one less thing we have to come up with the cash to buy! Plus I think we will get to enjoy some things that we wouldn't otherwise have purchased, like a $125 baby carrier!