bundle giveaway! winner takes all.

here's the deal:

you guys are wonderful and supportive and awesome. one of the things i like about blogging is the chance to give stuff away from some great companies. so, instead of making it complicated, winner takes all 9 things!

enter only through the rafflecopter and not with comments on this blog. winner will be picked next week.

here's what you can win:

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this awesome dress from hipknoties (sounds like hypnotize)that you can wear in 100 ways! ok, maybe just THIRTY different ways...but that's pretty amazing. i actually met the owner in the airport last month after i complimented her on her super cute dress. 

she was super sweet and super generous and offered to give one to my readers! check them out.

here's a little video on how it works.

and i tried it on today and have basically decided i want to live in it. it's so comfortable and super easy to maneuver different styles. HUGE fan. 

she is too adorable. and what a smart chicken!

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the sneaky chef bundle!

have you heard of the sneaky chef? i love them so much! they use creative tips and tricks to hide fruit and vegetables in recipes and have some great products like veggie packed pasta sauce and no nut butter that are delicious. i was scared to try the no nut butter, but was surprised at how much it really tasted like peanut butter. we tried it all and it was actually really good. and really sneaky with all those veggies hidden in there. basically,  if my kids will eat it, so will yours! they are pretty genius.

you'll get the cookbook, The Sneaky Chef: Simple Strategies for Hiding Healthy Foods in Kids' Favorite Meals, a jar of vegetable loaded pasta sauce, and a jar of no nut "peanut" butter(great for allergies).

you can keep up with them on Facebook and Twitter

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this amazing 11X14 print from the talented jaime rovenstine. so gorgeous.

seriously drooling over her stuff! and her show in KC (in the crossroads) is still up through may if you're in town. check it out.

Website // Etsy 

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one of these amazing reversible bags from this wonderful company called no.41 . when you purchase this bag, it not only provides a stable job and sustainable income, you are also providing lunch for local secondary school students. FOR ONE child, FOR ONE meal, FOR ONE year.

this company provides skills training and sustainable income to orphaned and vulnerable young women living in rwanda. these women in turn, use their gifts and talents to give back to the local community through a school feeding program! 

and check out there other cute stuff.

consider them for gifts and do 2 things at once: contribute to something beautiful and give an amazingly cute gift. 

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you guys know how i love vintage and modest dresses? well, meet Shabby Apple! they are an online dress boutique that specializes in vintage dresses and retro styles... and oh my word, can i have my whole wardrobe from them?! you'll get a $50 gift card to spend on this fabulousness.

you can see more of their selection here. but can you tell i like stripes?

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this 8X10 print from bow + arrow and a father's day card!

these prints are darling! and don't we need reminders like this hanging in our kitchens and bedrooms? 

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taryne with norwex is giving away an enviro cloth and a window cloth. norwex is committed to providing people with a complete line of products that are better for your health and better for the environment. 

these cloths are their best sellers and you can clean lots of things with wonderful results using only water. it's like a miracle cloth!

they sell everything from cleaning products to face creams! check 'em out.

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this crazy gorgeous necklace from wifeysinger.

basically. hannah singer is the jam. stalk her.

shop | blog | facebook | twitter | instagram 

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and this last item. stop it, right now. a tee pee pillow from sharp tooth studio? i will take 100!

and did you know that the profits she makes from her shop go towards helping the orphans in haiti? so great.

etsy//sharptoothstudio@gmail.com//instagram: @samanthapriddy

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a Rafflecopter giveaway

haiti: how you can help

so i've been bombarding you with images and stories from haiti. i just couldn't do it all in one post. it was too much to take in and a lot to process. and honestly, i'm still processing.

but i did want to tell you guys how you can help if you're interested. i know everyone has different passions and different places and causes that tug at their heart, so perhaps you're already giving and doing and involved. but my hunch is many of us aren't involved in global causes. thinking back to even a year ago, global world views and causes seemed pretty overwhelming to me. and if i'm honest, i was pretty stuck in my own world to see. but now that i've seen haiti with my own eyes, the despair, the need, the naked and hungry, i want to use my voice to shout, HELP!

babies like your babies are hungry and naked and don't know how to read or write.
HELP! babies like your babies don't have clean water and baths and medical care.
HELP! babies like your nieces and nephews are without parents and skills to help them succeed.
HELP! it's real! it's not just pictures! i saw them naked on the side of the road with distended bellies.

those are real children. with no parents, with so much pain. they need to hear about Jesus and they need schooling, skills, water, food, medicine... and they need hope.

praise God that he asked me to go and sit in the despair. and that he gave me the opportunity to go and really see it. to hear it, taste it, smell it, touch it.

those uncomfortable, hot 5 days helped me see that it wasn't about just going once, it's about long suffering love and long term care. it's not about bandaids and bandwagons or just jumping in and out of a country and saying, phew! glad that's not where i live! that God says, be in this with them. don't look away. praise Him that there are organizations that are already established working alongside haiti to bring the hope of the gospel and long term care in to a seemingly overwhelming situation.

i needed to be overwhelmed by it all. so that i would be overwhelmed with the God that is big and tireless. i needed to be caught up in the giant waves of poverty and suffering to see How big my savior is. to look at a motherless child and scream, HELP! this is so much more than i knew!
i needed to be bombarded by my own blindness to see Him who exceeds my very small view of the world.

maybe you're like me and you just needed someone to tell you and show you that it's real.

to say: there's a village in haiti that has 250 kids in it. 25 are orphans that live in the orphanage, another 25 come in from the village everyday to attend the school at the orphanage.

but what happens to the other 200 kids?

Les Prouty is the Executive Director of the Haiti Orphan Project. he said,  we pray that they get sponsored. and we wait. we have no choice...we just don't have the ends for it.

i said, well what's sponsoring look like? 

he said, 20 bucks a month let's a kid learn to read and write and more importantly, they get to hear the gospel.

so a shirt? eating out one time? starbucks here and there? that's it?
les, i have to tell people about this. they have to know how simple it is. how inexpensive it is to bring hope to a child.

that's what you can do to help. you can give to the haiti orphan project. my dream and my prayer is that all of those 200 kids, some of who i saw on the side of the road as we drove into the orphanage, would be sponsored quickly and fully. that my readers would not turn away. that we would ask God to expand our view of the world. and maybe he does it simply through our wallets.

or maybe you'll go. and see it. les said, tell your friends to come and see it with their own eyes. they have trips scheduled throughout the year. maybe you'll grab your friends and go. maybe you'll send your kids and your husband.

and can we all just pray? there is so much suffering going on in the country of haiti. pray for those sweet children. for widows, orphans, and families that are struggling to keep their family together. and for the gospel to be spread and accepted!

to sponsor a child for a month, go here. 

click monthly tuition and you can choose one kid or 2 or 3 to sponsor!
in the description box,  please write KCMO tuition so they know that you are specifically sending the $20 to help the children in the village go to school. i'm hoping my readers will kind of own this specific area. (or at least this is my prayer!)
will you pray about this? post it? tell your friends? we can't look away any longer.

penelope's elephant party

one of the things that i love to do is throw parties. it's weird, so don't judge me. i don't plan stuff out really, i just find a theme and throw things together. i feel like i work best grabbing stuff a day or 2 before (with the exception of a few things) and then finding random whatevers in my "party warehouse" (a.k.a. hoarders den) in the basement. when i decorate the hour before the party, i yell things like, resourcefulness is the mother of invention! this is what procrastinators like myself say to make themselves feel ok about the chaotic lives they live.

anyway, a couple weeks ago i saw these elephant masks at michaels in their dollar section and fell in love with them. penelope sleeps with a stuffed elephant, so i knew she would love it. so the masks were my inspiration for the color scheme and theme. orange and mint seem like a weird combo, but really, they meshed well together. because they had to...it's what i had.

for the cake, i found a mini tiered cake pan at tjmaxx a couple months ago. i throw a lot of parties so i felt like $19 was a good investment.

the cake plate is from minted.com and is my all time favorite cake plate i've ever owned! it's a gem and although a little pricey, it is something i look forward to passing down to my girls.

the elephant is from michael's in the kids section but i've seen them everywhere stores sell toys.

it kind of looks like the elephant had an accident on the cake but don't tell anyone i thought that about it. and unless you're using fondant icing on a tiered cakes situation, the cake will probably look weird if you have no icing skills like me. just do a pour over with your icing and it's much easier. 

i used a cake mix from the health food store called Namaste Gluten Free Chocolate Cake Mix. of course it has a hippie name. but man, those hippies make really good cake mix! like better than regular. i know i keep saying that, but gluten free stuff has come such a long way. 

a little tip: buy brown paper wrapping every time you're at the store. it makes for a great tablecloth especially for parties or when you have guests over. my kids are messy beasts, so at the end of a party, it's nice to just roll it up and not scrub the table for 5 hours.

these party favors were "elephant food" but were really just trail mix. i hate sending kids home with so much junk, so i thought this would be a healthy alternative. children were probably really disappointed. get over it.

the stamps i used on these bags were also at michaels for $1.50. scorrrrre.

remember circus peanuts? i do, because i OD'ed on them when i was 7 and never ate them again. and guess what? layne threw up last night because he also ate too many. this was a life lesson that i was glad to be a part of.  anyway. i thought i really jazzed them up with the toothpicks in them. like a fancy finger food. also, it says, just take one. not a handful, because you'll throw up if you do.

and peanut butter cups. well, they are orange and they have peanuts in them. HELLO... elephant written all over that!

i put the chips in coffee filters for portion control and cuteness control. it just looks more pleasing to the eye and says, hey...this day is special. eat your chips out of something weird. 

 homemade carmel popcorn(that i slightly burned for a more mature flavor? oops), peanuts, and hot dogs and donuts seem like carnival food and that's where elephants live, so... wait, they are from nature. but this is neither here nor there.

hot dogs are inexpensive and feed a lot of people. i let nato go to costco for me and said, there will be 25 people coming. he came home with 100 hotdogs. i will never allocate this job to him again. 

as his penance, i made him put the chips in coffee filters. 

in shell peanuts seemed like the right thing to string up on the chandi ...literally you just needle and thread them. and with a glittery letter P, also from michael's! can you tell i hit the jack pot there? ha. 

sweet turtle, so excited.

now, this was pretty much a gluten free party with the exception of the hot dog buns! my sweet mother made the amazing donuts from heaven. i prefer these over donuts at a donut shop...they are from the cookbook Cooking for Isaiah: Gluten-Free & Dairy-Free Recipes for Easy, Delicious Meals. buy it! you won't be sorry. uhhh maze balls.

penelope was so excited for her party. she really knew what was going on...a special day just for her. and we all had a blast. she is such a treasure to have as a child. 

a sassy turtle with lots of opinions. she gets it from her father?