And the Winner is......for my First Giveaway

This evening I asked our Braedon when he was over visiting us to draw the winner for my giveaway. Of course being the gentleman he is he agreed to and provided some light entertainment for us as he did so.
I also would like to say a  very big thank you to Annette for her generous contribution to this, my first ever giveaway.
 Really if you were not lucky enough to win this you should still follow up getting these marvelous books for your home.

Thank you also to all of you who entered and now without further ado the winner is..... the lovely Marqueta.
Congratulations, I just know you will enjoy these as much as I do.

I will be in touch with the details on how to collect the books soon.

Blessings to you and your homes,
 

My First Giveaway...........

I have been seriously contemplating this for some time and feel as we are about to move and have a fresh start our selves  that the time is right.
This will be the first in a few give aways that I have planned, so keep in touch!

As I love crafts and seasonal activities with our children  we have over the years gathered many books and ideas and I love browsing through them making plans and collecting ideas.
Sometimes I do feel the need sometime to have a more structured guide for our seasonal ideas with everything in one place.
I have over the years contemplated putting one together in my spare time, but that spare time seems to elude me :) and I feel that at the moment it will stay on the back burner. Perhaps one day in the future.

At the moment I am really looking forward to our move and the start of a new season for us.....Spring.
Would you believe that we start our first day of our new adventure on the first day of Spring.
One of the lesson plans I will be doing with our younger children especially is a topic I did with our older children for a couple of years. We had a Seasons Notebooks and we read stories, drew pictures made crafts in a very deliberate way (they still have those notebooks)

As we really enjoyed this study I am going to start this when we move and start with Spring.
I am going to use Annette's Seasons of Joy ..Spring Book as a guide.

I really really love this series from Seasons of Joy and Annette has graciously offered a complete Season set: that is the four complete seasons to a lucky winner!!

Here is a listing of titles in the Spring Issue:
Introduction
Circle Time
Fairy Tales, Stories, and Extensions
Finger Plays, Songs, and Verses
Watercolor Stories
Handwork
Modeling
Coloring
Playtime
Nature Table
Cooking and Baking
Especially for Babies
Outings
Rhythms and Routines
Resources
Photos

Honestly there are so many ideas in these and all in one place an you will not want to miss out on a chance to win this.

So what do you need to do?

First off for chance number one Become a follower of this blog  and leave a comment saying you are or if you already are just leave a comment letting me know!

Then after chance number one you can then get additional chances by..............

For a second chance why not become a follower of Annette's blog Seasons of Joy and leave a comment back here to let me know

Would you like a third chance follow my facebook page, here and come back and tell me you are a fan or already were.

And for a fourth chance at this great offer, share this giveaway on your blog, facebook or twitter. Come back and leave a comment saying you did so.

Please make sure I can reach you, either through a blogger account of leave an email address.
I will leave this giveaway open all week and draw the winner on .........Friday 7th September

As I have no idea how to do a computer generated win I will do it the old fashioned way.....drawing a name out of the hat.

Please also note that I am posting this as we leave Tasmania and will be off line for a few (depending on internet provider) days I will be taking the comments off comment moderation - until I am back on line. If when I am able to check at a stop over or something and find I am getting lots of spam I will probably put in the' fill in the word box' that we all hate to do.

Until I check in again good luck and see you in the 'new world'

Update: Entries are now closed

Blessings to you and your homes,
 

Shared Posts!

As discussed last week, I am starting my weekly Shared Posts for as long as others  would like to contribute.

Here are some links to posts I have enjoyed this week:
Felt Christmas Tree -easy craft
Media and Parenting - something to be mindful of
Cinnamon Rolls
Blanket Stitiching
On Creativity - Pondered in My Heart
Party Ideas for All Saints Day
Crafting  A story
Nine Patch Doll quilt
Heart of Advent - Frontier Dreams
True Beauty - Storygirl
New Mass Printable Book - Catholic Icing

Looking forward to all the Shared Posts you may contribute!

Blessings to you and your homes,
 

Google Shared Items Anyone????

Like some others in the blogging world I was disappointed  to discover that my lovely little Google Shared Items was not able to be well.....shared anymore.

While not keeping mine as current as some friends I knew it was always there and I could keep tabs of what I was liking about others blogs. Because frankly there are a lot of blogs I like and and are inspired from and I often don't get to comment on a post that has tweaked my interest or encouraged me and I could keep keep it in my thoughts t by putting it in my shared items. Sadly now this is no longer an option and I am looking for  another way to do this.

Now I know also that some are trying out new ways of sharing items and most of these seem a trifle hard and complicated to organise. I also remember suggesting to Erin that we could share on Pinterest, but again it means a more complicated way of doing this.

However after discussion today I am wondering if anyone would be interested in a weekly Shared Items Post that we can leave a comment on or a linky too. Perhaps this is no less complicated than the other versions but I am just thinking out loud here.

So, I would be happy to coordinate if anyone is interested! Let me know if there is a need or interest in this please and I will follow it up.

Or if you have a super easy way to get my sharing happening again let me know.  I just know I am going to hate moving all those blog addresses to another site ☺

Blessings to you and your homes,

Wow....Stylish Blogger Award for me!

Some time ago Eva tagged me for this award and now Vicky has as well. So I had better get on with it!!

One of the requirements is to share 7 things about my self. Now these I am not sure if they need to be 'new things' or things currently known.
I will attempt to share some new information, but I think this is hard as I tend to use this space as a diary of sorts too.

1. I love to dance and sing, but usually at home within our family.
However I have been know to do this in public as if I were at home.

2. I am a fairly quiet spoken person.

3. If 'stirred up' about  a passion of mine I have no hesitation in letting others know, no matter where we are or who is listening.

4. I am from a small family. Parents (step father) and one sister. All my life I wanted a large family (at one time I thought 6 children was large) and so am thankful for this gift.

5. I adore candlelight, fire light, and reading and crafting by these.

6. After my husband, our children are my best friends and I love spending time with them.

7. A role model I have always loved is Ma from the TV series  "Little House on the Prairie"

8. My children believe I am stubborn.,...but I beg to differ!! Oops that is 8 and like Vicky I have no respect for rules that do not support my ideals.

You know I am so thankful for getting these but like so many others I know I am reluctant to pass it on to specific people, so this time I am just going to share the information and ask that anyone who has not done it who visits my blog takes it and uses it, because obviously you are a stylish Blogger if you visit here,☺

Blessings to you and your homes,

Blogger Etiquette and Nasty Comments

When we blog about our homes and life styles we are sharing our lives and our thoughts on many subjects, perhaps of interest to others and then again perhaps not.
We love it when we know people read what we have posted and perhaps even take the time to comment. It is how I have made many wonderful and dear friends.

There seems to be a flip side to this coin however.....
The anonymous nasty commenter!!

Is it necessary for people who don't like your blog to leave nasty and anonymous comments?

I don't think it is!

I follow and read a number of blogs, many of them different, as they appeal to different parts of my life. Faith, homeschooling, homemaking and parenting, craft and mothering. They are all interesting and beautiful blogs, and yet they are their 'own people' so to speak and each is as different from each other as to me.

Now even though I read these I don't always have the time to comment. Even though I would love to let the person know I have read what they have gone to the effort to share and how it affected me. How it made me think, how I was moved to be  a better person or  just that I appreciated the time and effort in sharing their thoughts.

Now in all honesty I don't expect EVERYONE to ALWAYS agree with EVERYTHING  I say!!! And I would be willing to allow you your opinion in a polite and agreeable way.

BUT this is my blog and I reserve the right not to publish just plain nasty comments about me and my family. Hence the use of comment moderation.

So I would like to ask the so called  anonymous KATE with no  profile information available (and others) who constantly leave these comments to stop reading my blog if it offends you so much. I am sure I will not miss you and you obviously are distressed by reading what I have to share.

I think it is a shame that people who have nothing positive to say 'run around' the blogging world and leave these spiteful little darts in our comments. Of course they are usually anonymous or leave a name (like dear Kate) but no profile to access.
I know that it happens to other kindred spirits as they have had to resort the path I now take and actually say something about this.......well, infestation.

So if you would be so kind, if you understand the meaning of the word, just go and find something else to useful to do with your life. You won't miss me.............

And I won't miss you!!

Blessings to you and your homes,

Gone Fishing!!!

Well not exactly...............
However, I will be offline for  a few days so will not be posting. I do plan on doing some crafting and reading while taking photos of some new sights.

I hope you all have  a wonderful weekend enjoying the gifts the Father has given each of us.

 Blessings to you and your homes,

Lost Posts and Blogger!!!

For those of you who blog with blogger, I am wondering if anyone last posts that you published  from after Tuesday 10th May, after their 2 days of 'routine' maintenance.

I certatinly lost my last two posts and subsequently any comments and when I checked in my dashboard they weren't even in drafts in the completed form.

Having lost some psots before I have come up with a simple way of being able to recover them.

I have meant to share this before but keep forgetting, sorry!!

I simple subscribe to my own blogs in Google reader. This allow me to open up the blog post and copy and paste it back into my dashboard and republish it, which is what I have done with my last two posts that went missing - Simple Pleasures and The New PlayGround.

So I apologise if you have seen these already (on the blog or in Google reader) and had left a comment that is now gone but it is the only simple way I know of to fix it.

I hope you all are finding your own blogs returned to you in a normal manner. Looking forward to postins more interesting posts soon.

Blessings to you and your homes,

The Gift of Friendship

Today I received in the mail a beautiful package from a very dear friend. Rox has become a wonderful friend I have made through this medium of blogging.

Isn't the gift just so beautiful? The letter was personal  and homely (just what I love) and the aroma from the candles was heavenly as I opened the parcel.  I have them near me know as I type this up, bringing to mind the treasured friendship that has come from Rox and others I now know.


When I started blogging over 2 years ago now, Rox was one of the first people who followed my blog. At that time I was very inexperienced in the ways of computers and all the accompanying gadgetry and not at all sure I had anything to offer in the blogging world.

Through blogging, social networks and email groups and later on Facebook I have come to know some wonderful ladies who I would consider kindred spirits. With a few I have exchanged the old fashioned type letters and gotten to know even better.

I still find it difficult to understand how some people still insist on the fact that due to it's electronic focus that blogging or FB or even social network groups cannot create REAL friendships.

I say this from personal experience....... I believe it can. That some of the dearest friends I have made in my life have been from initial phone friendships and now blogging.

Some of these friends I have met with and some I will never meet in person due to the vast oceans of water that are between us. But I still know that I can rely on these friends to pray for me, encourage me and to just be who they are.... as I am me.

In days gone past many friendships and romances were conducted by 'snail mail' and were true relationships. I just really can't see why the modern system we have can not be viewed as the same.

However, I as a relatively isolated person am VERY, VERY grateful for those wonderful women who have become near and dear to me. I treasure the trust and the gift of friendship that I have with them.

So I would just like to say to anyone else, don't be shy, open up and let others be gifted by who you are and what opportunities you may have to develop true friendships and kindred spirits, perhaps even with people you wouldn't have thought of.

I have never regretted it and I am sure you won't either.

 Blessings to you and your homes,

I Have Made a Blog Header.... please have a look

OK, I am VERY EXCITED I have wanted to make a header for my blog for ages.

This afternoon I actually did it and tried it on my test blog where I often try things out.
I would love for you to go over and check it out and let me know what you think.

So here is the link for my Test Blog

I am wondering what people think about changing my one I have always had. Do you think it changes the feel of what you see? Do you think of this blog as being synonymous with the header on my blog.

What is your opinion about changing my header from the standard one on this blog to the one on my test blog?

I really would appreciate some feedback....please!

Oh dear my dear husband pointed out I had a spelling mistake in the made header, just ignore for  the moment ( I was trying to get the writing in the right spot and just forgot to edit it)

Blessings to you and your homes,