Hello there … miss me? More on my absence later. In the meantime, the awesome weight losers over at Shrinking Jeans asked me to take part in their awesome Team Shrinking Jeans Bash for their Team In Training through The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

I’m so excited to be a part of this since I was totally going to take part in the training and the race before I found out I was preggers.

Basically, you can give a donation to Team Shrinking Jeans and enter to win one of a gajillion amazing door prizes. Okay, not quite a gajillion, but there are a lot of seriously GREAT prizes.

Including your choice of one 11×14 from the following prints …

So how do you enter?

GO HERE!

Congratulations to …

gkgirl says:

oh…how i love brandi carlisle…my favorite by her
was the first one i heard…
turpentine…
and i played it over and over
and over and over…
she has such a great voice!

I’m so happy it’s going to a big Brandi Carlile fan – you are going to love it!! It’s coming directly from the One2One Network, so I’ll email you in a bit with the details. :)

In other, really crazy the-internet-is-totally-broken news … I’ve had several photos hit the front page of Flickr explore lately! The first time it happened, I was so excited!! But now, I just think it might be broken.

Nah, a huge thanks to everyone who comments on my images. I’ve gotta be honest, it feels GOOD to have people like my photos … I won’t recite the whole Sally Field speech, but imagine that playing through my head over and over and over again.

And the leaf image was also chosen as the one word project for this month (illuminate) photo of the day at Shutter Sisters (LOVE them!!) and then a funny leaping picture for my friend Kristin was chosen as photo of the day at The Maternal Lens.

See? The internet is clearly broken!

So I’ll leave you with the cutest little itsy bitsy spider around!

This is so fun!!

First, I just have to say thank you to everyone for entering, blogging and tweeting! You guys are awesome!!

So onto the winners …

80 entries

I got Emma to help pick the 2 winners …

There’s the first one!

Time to pick the second winner …

Any day now …

And there’s the second winner!

Thanks again for entering, everyone!! Have a great day!!

Bwah-hah-hah. Just kidding.

Congratulations to …

and

I’ll be emailing you both shortly!

I wish I could give a print to everyone, but I can’t. Instead, I’m offering a discount code for anyone who would like to buy a print.

No expiration date on that one, baby.

Oh yeah, I only have one of each print listed, so if you actually want to buy something but don’t see it, just email me or post a comment here, and I’ll relist it asap.

And we’re off to the library for the rest of the morning – Emma is in destroy mode today, and I don’t want to stick around to see the aftermath.

Thanks again, everyone!!

I’ve got to get us both ready for a pediatrician appt in 30 minutes for Emma’s skin (is it eczema? is it hives? hopefully, we’ll find out!) so this will be a quick post.

Just wanted to post the winner of the super adorable stationary pdf created by Amy @ Living Locurto (if you haven’t fallen in love with her yet, go take a peek at her awesome blog).

So here are the notes you’ll be getting (in .pdf format so you can print over and over and over again) …

And the winner is ……………………………..

Congratulations, Jen @ Our Daily Big Top!

psst, she’s great, too – so go read her blog while you’re at it! :)

Jen, just email me and let me know what name you want on your notepad, and I’ll let Amy know today. Thanks so much, everyone!!

Did you see my new blog header? You might have to “refresh” to see it. Ahhhh, I love daisies.

Edited @ 1022am :: seems E has severe allergy-related eczema. So we now have an answer and a treatment.

Zyrtec once a day
Aquaphor head to toe twice a day (morning & after bath/before bed)
Steroid cream on bad spots twice a day
Benadryl at bedtime to help with the itchiness

She also said some kids develop a sensitivity to Aveeno, which is what we’ve been using, so no more of that. At least Aquaphor is cheaper, lol.

I Heart Faces has introduced a Pets theme this week, and I felt compelled to enter this picture of Jessie. They said that it would be “really cool” if we could stick with the “eyes theme,” so here we go.

When I first started dating Ken, his dog’s eyes freaked me out. She’s a black dog with light brown eyes, and she has a tendency to stare at you. It’s really unnerving. But over the years, I’ve completely fallen in love with Jessie – and her freaky brown eyes.

I really love this picture, because it’s so Jessie – happy and ready to play.

I know you guys have already seen this picture, but I’ve decided to enter it into the I Heart Faces photo contest since this week’s theme is “The Eyes Have It.”

You know, Emma may have Ken’s personality, intelligence, introverted spirit and laid-back attitude.

But by golly, she has my eyes.

Go check out the other entries if you dare … but I must warn you, it may cause you to spontaneously break out your camera and take 429 pictures of your kids. Or grandkids. Or nieces and nephews.

I am constantly striving to get better pictures. To use manual focus more. To fiddle with my aperture and shutter settings. To really capture Emma’s personality. So after reading about the iHeartFaces contest on Jen’s blog, I decided to do it every week. If anything, the other entries will inspire me to be more creative in my pictures, and I’ll also be able to work on my photography.

So this is the picture I’ve entered this week. This is soooooooooo Emma — with that little, “Excuse me? I’m playing!” look on her face.

E sure is cute, but there is some stiff competition out there, folks.

MomDot.com is giving away a super duper cute suede Babycape, and I know a lot of you have girls that would look delightful in one of these. :)

Remember this post about the Sleeping Angels contest to win this beautiful bedroom set??

Well … Emma made it to the finals!!

So while you’re on the internets, please PLEASE take a second to go vote for her. How awesome would it be for her to have her very own big girl bed?

You can vote HERE – she’s #8 / Twelve Paws. Please follow the rules set forth by 5 Minutes for Mom when voting!!

Thank you so so much!!! :)

Today is the last day to win the canvas tote from A Time to Be Green!!

It’s really easy … just name this picture, and we’ll pick our favorite one.

Signing up is easy, free, and we’d love to have you! :)

Which also means that today is my big brother’s birthday!! Happy Birthday, Chad!

Love you bunches!