It's Christmas Eve!!!

Can you believe it's Christmas Eve?! It's a little hard for me to because we currently have no snow. Which is totally weird in central NY.

So whats on everyone's agenda's today?
We baked cookies for Santa to eat tonight, cleaned the house, and now are relaxing til my dad and step mom get here to spend Christmas with them. Then we are off to my Grammy & Papa's house for our first dinner and then off to Zakk's mom's for our second dinner. So our Christmas Eve is a little hectic. If you had read my post on how I was being a Holiday Humbugh you could tell how upset and angry I was. But to let you all know this is the last yr Christmas Eve will be like this, next yr will start the alternating.

So today I just wanted to show some of my early Christmas presents I received. :)

 I won this necklace from Jessica at sebastian design hosted from Megan at & here's to you, Mrs. Robinson giveaway

 I choose to get it stamped with the word "Blessed" & I love it. 

I won a credit from Em over at and nothing else matters's shop hosted from Andi over at the hollie rogue

So Summer from made by munchies mama had this awesome giveaway & I won!!!

The tote bag I won from Beth at through the eyes of the mrs

I won a little gift from Katie over at punkinheads and doodaloos plus she was also my accessory exchange gal! She also threw in an old navy/banana republic/gap gift card. 

I won these Ho Ho Ho signs from Nichole over at yeung mother hubbard

This is from Ashley who I work with, she got all us girls one.

& this is my secret santa present from Ashley at work

My boss Matt gave us girls a giftcard. :)

My holiday card set I got from Pauline at leen machine

I also won a $25 credit to the Dayspring and I signed up for the free card holder and cards. I love it!

Babe made up a little wall in our room for me to relax with my new picture frames.

I love this little section of our Christmas stuff. I made the cards. 

Merry Christmas everyone!

Guest Post & a winner

So right about now I'm thinking we are all winners because Lena from Mom2MephisandRuby is here! I love Lena, she is a great friend and is always there when I have questions. :) So im gonna let this hot momma with tattoos and an incredible fashion sense take it away!

Hi everyone!
My name is Lena and I blog over at Mom2MemphisAndRuby!

In a nutshell... I'm best described as a thrifty, tattooed, fashion-loving, photo-taking mom of two crazy (& wonderful) kids.
I live in a small farming community in Quebec, Canada and I’m thrill
ed to be over here guest posting for Jessica… what a treat!

 

 
Can you believe Christmas is right around the corner!?

Literally, we can start counting down the 'sleeps' until the big day.

(easiest way for my kids to figure out when something big is going to happen!)

Truth be told, I absolutely love the holidays… and I always have!

I was that kid that would wake up at 3:00 a.m. on Christmas morning (we all have one, or know one, or was one, right!?). Well, of course, my parents had a ''nobody opens presents until 6:00 a.m.'' rule (which I thought was totally LAME at the time, totally get it now though!)….

So, around 4:00ish, we’d usually creep down the stairs to grab our stockings and run back to our rooms to sort through all the goodies!

Santa was usually pretty generous and our stockings would keep us busy until our parents got out of bed and had the chance to brew a cup of coffee…

(looking back, I never understood why coffee seemed so important, again I totally get it now!)

Honestly, I’m sort of looking forward to the day when my kids will be up at the crack of dawn on Christmas morning (I will probably regret saying this, haha!)…

On Christmas’ past, the hubs and I have been the ones to wake THEM up! Haha!

You can’t blame us, though… seeing their little faces when they come down the stairs and seeing the gifts Santa has left is one of the best.things.ever.

Ever!

Being pretty young still they aren’t overly greedy… meaning they aren’t super particular about what they want yet.  Which gives us Santa the opportunity to bring LOTS of little gifts...

which means present-opening time is at least double of what it would be if Santa brought less…

I know Christmas isn’t about presents. I KNOW that (really, I do!!), but I also know it’s the one day of the year my kids really get ''spoiled''… and I love it!  They deserve a magical morning!

Oooh, I can’t wait!

Just want to add that my kids are learning about the spirit of giving as well... We pick out a couple of gifts for the local ''Angel Tree'' and they know those gifts are going to little kids who don't have as much as they do.  We're working on donating some of THEIR old toys... ;)

I hope you will all come visit over at Mom2MemphisAndRuby and let me know what you love most about this time of year!

Happy Holidays from our little family to yours!!

Thanks so much Lena!

Oh & our three winners are 

-Cat from Stuff I love, and Mimi Baby Boutique/Big Red Kite

-Yvonne Davis

-Brandy Boone

Please shoot me an email within 48 hours to claim your prize.

I love you...so here's a giveaway.

How do ya like that?
My real friend from home is an amazing jewelry maker, & I keep telling her she has to get her name out there so she has offered to do a giveaway here. :) Exciting, I know.
So here are some pictures of her work:

This is the necklace she made for me. I love it! I wear it everyday & it has matching earrings. 

Her awesome magnets!

& This is Jenn, she is amazing, beautiful, & smart. 

I also bought my jewelry for the reception from her & she is making my wedding ceremony jewelry. :)

And today 3 lucky readers will win a little something from her shop. I dont even know what it is. So it's a secret. 

Thanks! 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Holiday Humbug

Happy Saturday everyone. :)
Hope you weekend is going well.

As you can see by my title, I am not feeling quite myself, let alone in the holiday spirt. I used to love the holidays, I have 3 families so I loved seeing everyone and getting presents. As I got older, I cared less about presents and just wanted to see my family, bake with my mom, and got excited for the new year to come.

3 years ago, Zachary proposed to me the night before Christmas Eve. I was so excited. I always knew I wanted to get married but I never knew it would be to someone I had known my entire life practically. I was also excited that we would have a baby soon and I was getting the greatest gift of all, my very OWN family.

In my mind I never thought that ours families would just disappear, however holidays in my mind were just Zachary, myself, and Hayden. I would learn how to cook so I could prepare a Christmas Eve dinner, we would each open one present together before bed on Christmas Eve, and we would read Twas the Night Before Christmas to Hayden. There would be no fighting about where we went or who was feeling left out or anything of the sort. Well I guess that is why I imagined it...

Having to deal with all this pressure has now put me totally out of the Christmas spirt to the point where I am staying home. I love my family and Zachary's family but I think sometimes that the point who we should be focusing on is not being seen. It should be about Hayden and by everyone fighting over where he will be is making it about them. I refuse to have to deal with this stress. I am working crazy hours, am a full time student, and worrying if Im going to have a break down from all the pulling in different directions. I am not opposed to anyone coming hear, I just feel that I should also get to spend time with my little family.

What do you do? They is no easy way to figure out an answer. I alone have 3 sides to my family, and Zachary also has 3 sides. Making Hayden have 6 sides to his family. 6 sides= to probably over 50 people who are making me feel guilty for wanting to stay home with MY son.

If you are new to this blog, let me just put it out there that I am a people pleaser, point blank. I have very high anxiety when I have to tell people no or when they are disappointed. Even now when writing this and thinking about how this will play out has me sobbing and nauseous.

& this not only puts pressure on me, like to the max but it also has Zachary and I fighting because we dont know what to do. And I hate it.

 I know I am young but I feel like this is it, this is how the rest of my life will be. & if we ever have another child, that we will go through this all over again or one child will get more attention than the other.

How do you deal?

Oh I am lucky

Hello everyone. Hope everyone is having a great day. I know I am and you will find out why.

So if you are friends with me or like my page on facebook Im sure you know that I enter many giveaways and also win quite a few. Today I want to show you the awesome things I have won in the past 4 1/2 months.

This was my first win. An entire month to month scrap book for the first yr after our wedding. :) 

From Scrappy Gifts

Fa Sew La Stitches

Cotton Lane

Munchies Made By Mama- I got the light pink ones. :)

Lush Longe's Blog

My Camera Strap is from The Lovely Poppy. OMG I loveeee it. 

I cant remember which blog but this is her 31 site, http://www.mythirtyone.com/mohr/

Sorry, it wouldnt rotate. It's the scentsey burner I won. :) 

Gallamore West Blog

Stuff I Love's Blog

I have never done this big, but I love it!

My bag from Johnny in a Dress. :) Just got it today.

I also 3 other giveaways in the past week. 

-A credit to Simple Nothing Else

-A credit to Brag About It

-& a ton of goodies from Munchies Made by Mama

I think I got them all. Sorry if I missed any.

I am so proud of myself because I never used to win stuff and now it's nice to. :) 

So bottom line is take the 5 mins it takes to do each entry and you too could be lucky.

& speaking of giveaways, go add me on Facebook and I will add you to this amazing group one of my bloggity friend made, Cerrisse. :)

It's Sunday~

Happy Sunday everyone!

So not much exciting news in my personal life. Worked today, got groceries, you know Sunday stuff. But for my little blog here, we have so exciting new stuff coming. I will be featuring my "sponsors" later on next week, a couple giveaways coming up, and some cookie recipes. :) I'm excited, are you guys?!?

Oh & quick question, is anyone else who uses blogger, having issues with updating their template or layout? I have had problems for a couple weeks and have emailed them and posted a group topic.

To end this short post I thought some pinterest, cause I mean can you ever get tired of pinterest?

Enjoy!

This is us, to the t

Have decided we love these sayings on the rsvp cards. :)

Love this song.                                            I love my bestie & we will be having some goofy photos. :p

Sources:here,here,here,here,here, and here

Writers Block is gone

Sorry I have been sorta MIA. I didn't have internet  and all I wanted to do was blog and now that it's back every time I sit down and hit the "new post" button nothing comes out. I know it's a mixter of a lot of things. My new job, started new classes, spending time with family, and being tired all the time, and none of these are good enough excuses for me. That is why that it is 12:30am and I am finally blogging. :)

Today I am blogging about life and death. I know, I know, this is a post where I'm actually typing and not just posting pictures, it's different from what your used to with me, hope you enjoy. :)

So I went to a great small high school in Central NY, named North Rose Wolcott High School. I loved it, best days of my life. My graduating class was 99 students. I was close with a small group of girls but I was one of those kids that was nice and friends with everyone, I liked it like that. :) There was one particular boy, his name was Brandon Brooks. In high school I talked to him like every one else, however I didn't really "hang" with his crowd and knew I never would.

                                     Tim                Kevin              Brandon               Bryce

So we graduated in 2007 and we all went our separate ways. Brandon wanted to be a sports broadcaster and I wanted to be a photographer. Long story short after I came back from college, Zakk and I got together and we had Hayden. Brandon and I talked once a week about Hayden, life, and our dreams. I looked forward to these talks and enjoyed talking to someone who was so heartfelt and caring.

This is Brandon and his sister. (Taken Nov 1st, 2010)

I still remember our last talk. We talked about how much we loved the penguins in the Madagascar movies. It was in November of 2010. I still can't watch the movie, I've tried and all I do is cry, and it's so hard because one of Hayden's favorite animal is a penguin.

So December 1st, 2010, I went to bed just like every one else that night not knowing that when I woke up my life would never be the same. I remember that day like I am watching a movie of my life. First I started seeing the Facebook posts and texting everyone I was friends with. I remember thinking, "wait this has got to be a joke, I just talked to him not that long ago." Well it was no joke. I didn't cry, I just went about my day.When I finally saw it on the news I was at Zakk's mom's house doing laundry, I broke down. That was my last bit of strength. I just sobbed for hours. It's crazy, I mean we weren't even close but you didn't know Brandon, he was unforgettable.

A year ago(now yesterday). It seems so surreal that one of my friends, my class mates was gone. An angel on Earth was taken way too soon. I believe in God and am not afraid to say so, however I disagree as to why He thought Brandon needed to be taken from Earth.

                                            This is the Brandon I will always remember.

                                              He had such a laugh that was contagious. 

This is how Brandon remains here on Earth. 

I introduced Hayden to him today. :/

He will be forever missed

Not a day goes by where he's not passing through my mind

I love him and miss him. 

I wish he could see how he effected everyone's life.