Girls and Curls

Curls, curls, curls. With 3 girls, there's a lot of curls. It's Ellsworth grandkid picture time today and that means spongey curlers galore. I love it. It reminds me of all those Saturday nights as a girl with my 3 sisters feeling so turtured sleeping in spongey curlers so we could look so pretty at church the next day.

Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow!

After reading this recent post from a dear friend of mine wherein she tells about how her grandmother dusted off her old Christmas Village and handed it down to her, I started thinking about the Christmas Village that my mother-in-law has. When Ryan & I were first married, I remember seeing it every year set up in her house, looking so cute and radiating with charm . In recent years, it has been M.I.A. I have been missing this quaint little addition the past few Christmas seasons, so I asked my mother-in-law about it. She told me that it's just gotten to be too much work to set everything up each year. She told me she was even thinking about asking me to sell it on e-bay for her, but if I wanted it, and if I promised to set up with love each year, it was mine. I was super excited. Last night we were able to go over to her house and pick it up. The girls and I worked all morning (with lots of love) and completed our own little version of her Christmas village. It means so much to me to have this in our home. Thanks Cindy.

And The Winners Are...

Drumroll please....

To make sure that all was fair and square, I used my little helper and documented the whole thing. I will contact the winners via email also.

I ended up with 51 comments and a total of 57 entries!

The first winner, the winner of this amazing prize:

Hooray for Emma!

Next up, we have this awesome prize:

Hooray for Jillo!

Family Portraits!

I am so stinkin' excited to have a new family portrait. We haven't had one taken since before Audrey was born. That's just sad. We called up Jill Oak's Photography and I couldn't be happier with the way they turned out.

Santa, You Rock!

Dear Santa,

Anyone who can put looks like these on my kids' faces, is definitely someone special. Thanks for making time in your busy schedule to bring joy to our lives!

Playmobil Toy Give-Away!

A couple of weeks ago Playmobil contacted me and asked me if I'd like to do a give-away for them. As many of you know, we are a big Playmobil family around here (as seen by this post) so of course I told Playmobil that I'd love to be part of their give away.

So here's your chance to experience the magic yourself and get a free Playmobil toy. Playmobil sent me the two playsets pictured below to give away, and you have a chance to win one!

To help nurture your child's imagination, Playmobil wants to know how my readers might use a Playmobil playset to create "teaching moments" during playtime. These could range from teaching about numbers by counting the pieces of a toy to teaching what doctors do and how hospitals help people using the Playmobil Hospital set. One way that we have done this was to teach Audrey her animal sounds by using the different animals from the Playmobil sets. (Playmobil follows the WOMMA Code of Ethics / blogger code of ethics )

So here's how you can enter: Post a comment on this blog post telling me a way that you could use Playmobil as a teaching moment. Each person who comments will be given an entry into my drawing. For every friend you refer to this post, you'll be given an additional entry into the contest. Just make sure they mention your name in their comment. To maximize your chances of winning, feel free to link to this post from your own blog, and have your friends put your name when they comment on this post! The contest is open to anyone who comments!

On December 15th, I will do the drawing, announce the winners and send out prizes! (If you were referred to my site, please make sure to leave me a way to contact you in case you are the winner) Merry Christmas from Playmobil & Me!!!

So Stinkin' Cute

"Audrey, give me your best Indian pose."

Need I say more?