Lets Talk Pinterest

Pinterest has become a routine in my world. I find myself pinning away at night in bed, on my phone, while trying to fall asleep. I catch myself saying to many people "I found it on pinterest" But how many of the things that I have pinned have I actually tried?? Not many. I have had some success with what I do pin but have also had some fails. 

This little glow in the dark bubbles does not work! In case you are wondering which one it is, this is the one you cut open glow sticks and dump the solution into the bottle and your supposed to come up with glow in the dark bubbles. NOPE does NOT work!
Another fail was terra cotta pots made into a makeshift small heater

I went and bought all the supplies because we had a rough winter and our power had went out. We had no way to heat. I thought if anything I could set this up in a bedroom and everyone gather in there to stay warm. Fail!! It did not work. Plus side I got some extra tea light candles for my oil burners and pots to plant my day lily in . 

Not everything has been a fail, I have had some success with the pins I have took an interest in. Mainly the recipes because I get so side tracked that I dont have time to try out the rest. (I need to remedy that.) Here are some recipes I recommend trying. Pinterest did not fail me here!

Liquid Skittles Yummy!! If you like sweet and dont really like the taste of alcohol this is for you. I loved it!

Pot Roast, this particular one has got to be one of my favorites by far! 

Pinterest has also helped me indulge in some of my wants! If I won the lottery pinterest has inspired me to hope for these

I am realistic, I know I will never be able to afford a piece like this without hitting the jackpot but I can dream! 

I am not a fan of taking baths. I prefer showers but with this in my house I am sure I would be spending a ton of time in the tub!

Pinterest is also handy for finding out some of those life hacks that we never knew about. I have a special board for this called Good To Know if you wan to check it out. Learn how to build an emergency fund, kill ants, half recipes, and What foods are toxic to dogs. Very handy in my household. 

No matter what experience you have had with pinterest such as fails or complete success you have to admit, it sure is fun pinning your heart out! 

Now that I have said my piece on pinterest and shared some of my pins on my post how about joining up over at 5 minutes For Mom. Here it is Pin it Friday where you share your favorite pinterest pins and browse other bloggers favorite ones as well! Lets all get inspired shall we?

Just Tired But Still Smiling!

I am so tired today! My son did not go to school today and I forgot to turn off my alarm. I still woke up at 6:30 and just could not get myself back into a sleep mode. Logan ended up waking up around 8 or so. Lucky me I got to have a few text exchanges between Logans birth father and myself. I hope one day he will understand autism. Until then I will just have to keep preaching to him it seems. Logan goes for his surgery on Tuesday and his birth father has decided he wants to be present. This is fine and all but why after he has not been to see Logan since December? Why now? Logan needs routine and someone in his life regular and not to have a man that shows up whenever he can which is not often and at the worse of times. This is not only stressful for Logan but for everyone who participates in his care. His doctors, therapists, school teachers ets..I have no idea how much more I can explain this to his birth father. He just doesnt seem to understand. There is more to it but I spare you all the details. Unless I am asked of course. 

Anyways on to the happy part of the day! It so feels like it is the start of the weekend on my part. I do not know why I am hurrying it along. Logan has surgery Tuesday and he had a pre-op today. My son will have his tonsils and adenoids removed and another set of tubes put in. Needless to say I double checked with the ENT today to make sure he really needs this surgery and he told me it was very reasonable to be doing it so onward we go to slice and dice :-) I am trying to be humorous. I am really scared to death. I do not think I would be so nervous about it if he was "normal" but being autistic I think it may be more rough than anticipated or he could just surprise us all. 

We also stopped and got Logans new shoes with the build up and the new orthotics (the ones his physical therapist said he did not need) and after that we headed to Buffalo Wild Wings! I have never been there and it was my first time eating there. I have to say it was pretty good and will write a better post just about that in the future. 

I have thought I would give it a go and participate in the Family Photo Friday hop over at Thursdays Child
It is difficult for everyone to get into photos at once considering someone has to be holding the camera. I have decided to post pictures of what smiles we got today! We may not all be in ONE photo but we are in numerous, separately. 

 Yes our furbabies are family as well. Loki, Missy and Zuri

 Hey at least his finger was NOT in his nose

This was us today! The oldest was gone at a band concert for highschool graduation. WTF?? A graduation on a weekday?? Who knew?

Friday Hops and Flowers

I have impatiently waiting for some nice beautiful flowers to bloom but it seems we are behind compared to some other so I am limited on what has bloomed around here. 

Tomorrow we are taking the kids to the zoo for a family day. Maybe I can get some pictures of some pretty blooms then. Most of the pictures that I post on my blog are straight out of the camera with no editing done. 

Linking up with
Six Word Fridays
Welcome To The Weekend Blog Hop

Lovin' The Weekend Blog Hop (I am a Featured Guest Host)

 Who is in the mood for a weekend blog hop? Well if you are join in below!! I am a featured host. So I feel kind of special right now. :-) 

Welcome to Lovin' The Weekend Blog Hops with your co-hosts:

Karen from Tots and Me and Rena from An Ordinary Housewife.

Thank you to every one who has stopped by, whether this is your first visit or you have been a faithful ongoing participant! 

We would love for you to stop by both of the co-hosts and follow us, then feel free to add your links to any or all of the following linkies.

 We also randomly choose a Featured host each week from the Lovin' The Readers linky. This week we are featuring Melissa from Natural Beautisms and Flappings in Life.

 Here's what she has to say:

"I have been blogging since 2011. I started it just blogging because I wanted an outlet to rant and rave about anything and everything. I do not blog just about one thing. I have numerous subjects plus I like to participate in blog hops. I also try to get as much information about Autism as I can. I have an almost 3 year old (5 days away) autistic son. He is in the moderate to severe range. My family is blended. I am not married but live with whom I believe is my soul-mate. It took many mistakes and years to find him but I finally have. He has 3 boys of his own and I have two other girls of my own. Together we have 6 children. 4 boys and 2 girls. 3 whom of which are teenagers. Basically I am just on this crazy train called life and trying to survive and I like to blog about it :-)"

Don't forget to link up to the Lovin' the Readers Hop if you would like a chance to be a Featured host next week. Please comment with a way to contact you, especially if there is not an obvious way mentioned on your blog. We would love to include a little write up about you and your blog in the next week's Lovin' The Weekend Blog Hop post, including a link to your blog. And you will get to include the linky codes on your blog. Sound fun? We're looking forward to getting to know our readers better.

Here's how this blog hop works. We would appreciate it if you would follow Tots and Me and An Ordinary Housewife  then please head on over to our Featured Host and follow as well. If you no longer have GFC please follow in some other way. After that there are three different linkies you can link to. Whichever one you choose to link to, please grab that button and share it on your blog (the codes are on Tot's and Me's sidebar). We'd love it if you could tweet or in some other way share about this blog hop, the more people who know about it, the more potential visitors and new followers of your blog. We'd love to meet some new friends this weekend.  

Some people are more interested in just increasing their numbers, while others really want people who appreciate their blog and want to keep up with their posts. So, there are two separate blog hop linkies. 

The third linky is for you to link up your giveaways.

If you are interested in increasing the number of followers to your blog via GFC, Linky Followers, email, Twitter, Facebook or Google+ link up here. We will follow you back if you follow us (just note which one you are linking to):

If you are interested in gaining followers to your blog who will read and comment and truly find an interest in your blog, link up here:

If you have family friendly giveaways to link up, here's your spot. Please make sure to include an end date for your giveaway.

We are so glad you stopped by. Please leave a comment if you link up and we will be sure to stop by and follow back.

Don't forget to check out my "Blog Hops" page for other great blog hops!!

Random 5 Friday

This is my first time participating in the Random 5 Friday. Here is where I am supposed to name 5 random facts about me, my week, my pets or whatever I feel like. 

1. I will be glad when these pups go to their homes. 

I love the boogers but they are so much work!! I can not explain how much I hate to clean up puppy poo and to have it coming from five! Yeah enough is enough. They are 6 weeks old and ready to go. I had full intentions on keeping them for the full 8 weeks but with my sons home therapy starting it would be a bit much. 

2. I am actually blogging when I should be getting some other projects done. Two of these beautiful pups are leaving to go to their new homes tonight. I had an idea of creating gift bags for each new owner for the puppy. I have a few more things left to do and I will have it done. I just need to do it. 

3. My son has been home all week. I wanted to give him time to build his immune system up from being sick with pneumonia and the flu. He will return either Monday or Tuesday. I am sure he will be happy to get back to his routine. 

4. I have made a deal with myself. Well kind of. I really do not get anything in return. One of my most hated chores is laundry. Everyday I am doing loads and loads and some days I skip which then it backs up. I have made myself do at least 2 loads of laundry a day. Surprisingly I have kept up with this for a whole week now and its not so bad anymore. Maybe I can keep it up!

5. I am so ready to get our tax returns back! I am not a very patient person. After paying bills I am almost positive that I will be investing some money into a new camera. I love to take pictures but I am so dis-satisfied with the camera I have. I am not a fan of the Nikon and its old and outdated. Its time for an upgrade. I think I will be going with a Canon t3i. I am just not sure yet. I have a hard time thinking that I will drop $600+ on one item. 

So there it is. My random 5. Not very exciting I am afraid. Who knows it may be more exciting next week. You will Have to come back and see. In the meantime feel free to follow me via GFC, Bloglovin or my FB page which you can find in the side bar. Leave a comment and let me know how you followed and I will return the follow back! I hope you enjoy! 

  

Bloglovin' Issue? No Meltdowns At the Display

One of the hardest things I have discovered about blogging is not the writing one or coming up with a subject (there are plenty of hops out there that help with this) but its the coming up with a title. So I do apologize if my titles are somewhat cheesy but I just try to give it a small summary on the subject.

Anyway I have started using bloglovin' a lot more lately but have realized that my blogs are not being updated there? I have searched the FAQ page and can not find a solution. My RSS feed is valid so I have no idea. I emailed customer support days ago and still have heard nothing. Anyone else experiencing any of these issues or know what to do about it?

Our Fourth of July was a pretty good day. Started out normal and slow but that is the way a mother likes it. Most of the time. My SO (significant other) and I got into the pool for awhile and it was nice to play around and relax in there just him and I. It was to cold to bring out Logan. 

We all ate dinner then went off to a fireworks display. Logan enjoyed his time at the park but he was not a fan of the fireworks. 

I had to keep his eyes covered the entire time or he got upset. On the brightside, no meltdowns. I don't know why he could not watch them or why they appeared scary to him. He may be to sensitive to those sort of lights?? I have no idea.  Any answers to the parents with autistic children??

Linking to

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Presets Heaven

Hi all! Yes I have skipped out on my blogging lately because I have been preoccupied with my photography. I use several editing software's but my favorite has to be lightroom. I love love love it! It could use a few improvements such as the spot removal. It can be tricky and I have not gotten the hang of it yet. I just use photoshop elements for that and layers. The rest I go for lightroom and sometimes I do cheat and use Picasa 3 for adding text to my photography if the need comes around. I use them all and love them and now I am even more in love with my lightroom. I came across a site for FREE yes FREE presets. Over at Presets Heaven they have many presets to choose from and I am having a blast using them on some of my photos. Since I have not had many shoots lately I decided to pose my son and the dog. My husband laughed at me when I posed the dog. I started applying and playing with all these new presets. I have also taken a few pictures from my very first shoot and played with a few and have came out with some amazing results. I wanted to share a few of my pictures with you that I have edited again!

There's a couple of things I have been doing. I have also decided to host a contest over at my facebook fan page for my photography. If you want you can check it out HERE It has been going good. Just a lot to keep up with. My thing was to whatever fan sent me the most likes gets a free photo session, free copyright free disc and a free 8x10. I am hoping to reel in some more business. I am just a novice and need the practice. Through all this I have scheduled two photo shoots for Sunday. I am pretty excited about it. This evening (Friday) we will be attending the Benton Country Fair. I love Fairs. I do not care to ride any rides I just love the environment and hey maybe some photo opportunities.  Logan may be able to ride some of his very first rides if I can bear to let go of him to do so. 

Linked Up With

Photo Friday

Hop Along Friday

Eyes---Photo Friday

Photo Friday time and the theme is Eyes. I could not just choose one photo. I love to capture the innocence in a child's eyes. 

Logan my son! His eyes always just pop in photos. Of course I am a bit biased. 

These last four shots are from photo shoots that I have done. Beautiful Children. 

Join up at Photograph 4 Life

Boys Will Be Boys

It has been way to hot around here to do much of anything interesting or neat. It is even to hot to swim. (according to me) After refilling my homemade bird bath that my husband calls "ghetto" and a couple of aluminum pans with some water for the critters outside, we decided to let little Logan outside to play. It had cooled down enough to where I was not dying of heat stroke. He is so funny! He can not stand the feel of grass on his feet, and we have some dry grass so it makes it extra prickly. Finally he decided he would explore. My clean little boy ended up my dirty little boy. 

After discovering the pan with some water in it he decided to dump it in the dirt and make mud. He even tried out the taste of a nice handful of mud. He ate this better than he has been eating his dinner lately! I know my cooking is not THAT bad. My husband the whole time is freaking out because I am letting him play in the dirt, mud and water. "He is washable honey." 

Of course he gets a bath when we decide to go in. After bath it is time for dinner. He made it to the end of his grilled cheese and passes out! Poor baby was tired. 

 Boys will be boys!

This Friday I am participating in Friday Fences and decided since it has been so hot that this shot may cool you off just a tad.

Also linking up to

Fun Friday Blog Hop