So Glad They Told Me - Book Release Day!

I've always tried to be real about both the great and the really hard parts of motherhood on this blog and on my Facebook page (shameless plug, follow it if you don't already. That's where I share the really juicy stuff. Also ridiculous pictures of myself for some reason.) I try to tell the truth about parenthood, to laugh (and make you guys laugh, too) and to cry, and to be honest about it all.

Last year, an awesome blogger named Stephanie Sprenger launched a campaign called So Glad They Told Me and asked other moms to share honest, real and helpful advice that other people had given them about motherhood (or the advice they wish they'd gotten.) And since I try to be real to the point of embarrassing myself, I shared this picture of myself sitting on an embarrassing pile of laundry along with some helpful advice that my dad gave me about housework when you've got an infant.

Spoiler alert: I no longer have an infant, and my laundry situation is still this embarrassing. 

The campaign went viral, and the above photo of me, my baby and my ridiculous pile of laundry appeared on television and on The Huffington Post. I'm so proud.

Then a while later on Facebook, Stephanie posted a call for submissions for a book, also to be called So Glad They Told Me. Guys, I wanted to be in the book so badly! I ended up submitting two essays on the very last day they were accepting submissions, and then I waited. And waited some more, because it turns out that I was wrong about it being the last day to submit. So then I waited some more.

And then I got an email telling me that ONE OF MY ESSAYS HAD BEEN ACCEPTED FOR INCLUSION IN THE BOOK!!! AAAHHHH!! The essay they accepted was about my parents - two amazing people who I'm proud to know - and about the only time I can ever remember my mom refusing to talk to me.

And today, that book is available for sale!! With my essay in it!! And my name!!! And a little bio about me that was somehow harder for me to write than the essay itself!!!

Honestly, since I just got my copy of the book three days ago, I haven't even had a chance to finish reading all of the other essays in the book yet (shocking, I know, with two young kids at home,) but I've loved the ones I've read! The book is a refreshing and honest look at parenting - both the amazing parts and somewhat less than amazing part. And it HAS MY NAME IN IT!!!

If you want to buy So Glad They Told Me: Women Get Real About Motherhood, you can do so here!! (Full disclosure, if you buy it through that link, it will cost the same for you, but I'll get a small percentage of the sale. Like literally a few cents. But if you don't want me to get a few cents, you can just type the name of the book into Amazon and buy it that way.)

So, to summarize, I JUST GOT PUBLISHED IN A REAL LIVE BOOK!!!! And so did some other amazing women!! And you can read it if you want to.

I was promised more naps | Promote Your Page Too

The Beautiful Daughters

Towards the beginning of December, Nicole Baart, an author whose page I follow on Facebook, posted a request for applications for her "street team" to read advance copies of her not-yet-released book The Beautiful Daughters and then write a review of the book. Naturally, my reaction was "Free book?? Before anybody ELSE gets to read the book??? DREAMS DO COME TRUE!!" Also, she said she'd mail some gourmet chocolate and homemade organic soap along with the advance copy of the book, so, um... obviously I applied.

Then I got selected, and I suddenly got kind of nervous. Because, minor detail, I had never actually read any of the other books she's written, so I wasn't entirely sure that I even liked this author's books. If you didn't like her book, she wasn't expecting you to lie and say you did or anything, but still, you know, I didn't want to be like, "thanks for the free book. It stunk." Then I read her book. And it was good. Really good. As in, despite the fact that I have woken up to nurse Calista at least once a night (but usually two or three times) every night for four months and am chronically sleep-deprived, I still willingly stayed up past midnight to finish reading it. Two nights in a row. (I'll give you all a moment to pick yourselves up off the floor, as I assume you've fallen out of your chairs at this shocking revelation.)

So here's the scoop: The Beautiful Daughters is the story of Adri (short for Adrienne) and Harper. (Side note - how cute is the name Adri? If I'd read it before I had Calista, I probably would've suggested the name Adri to Dan as a possible name for our own beautiful daughter. And he would've said no. Moving on...) Adri and Harper are two former best friends who have been separated by time, a whole heck of a lot of miles, and one tragic event. It's equal parts suspense, mystery (from pretty early on you're told who committed a crime, but not how or when or why,) best friend story, romantic fiction, and a bunch of other goodies. Parts of the book are told from Adri's perspective and other parts from Harper's, so you see some of the same events and people through two different sets of eyes. Both main characters are well-developed and likable, and very early on you'll find yourself rooting for them to reconnect (all while trying to figure out why on earth they've been separated in the first place.)

The novel deals with some pretty intense themes, but without being too graphic, and the love stories are romantic but not sappy. Nicole Baart has absolutely mastered the art of writing vivid descriptions that allow you to visualize a person or place without being so overly detailed that you're thinking, "could you please stop describing a table and just move on with the story?" Overall, I loved the book, and now I'm planning to buy Nicole Baart's other books because I really like her writing style.

If you'd like to read this novel before you can buy it, you can win my Advance Reader Copy (autographed by the author) for your very own!! Not only will you get to read it before everybody else does (it's due to be released April 28,) it's also entirely possibly that if you take it with you to a doctor's appointment and have it sitting next to you in the examination room, the doctor might happen to notice that it's an advance copy and be impressed and then recommend some other good books you'll like. I'm not promising this will happen, but it has happened to 100% of the people who have read this particular copy of the book (although, to be fair, I'm the only one who has read this copy before, so...)

Wanna win it? (Of course you do.) Visit my Facebook page or check out the Facebook post below to enter (and check out the complete rules under the picture of my beautiful daughter with The Beautiful Daughters.)

Post by I was promised more naps.

This book comes with my 100% personal guarantee that Calista did not spit up on it.

Complete contest rules and details:
Open to residents of the United States age 18 and over. Contest ends 1/21/2015 at 11:59pm. Up to two entries allowed per person. Please do not comment more than two times on the Facebook contest post!

Requirements for the first entry: 
1. "Like" Nicole Baart's Facebook page.  
2. "Like" I was promised more naps' Facebook page. 
3. Leave a comment on the contest post on Facebook letting me know that you've liked both pages.

Requirements for the second entry:
In a SEPARATE comment on the Facebook contest post, tag at least two friends (or as many more as you wish) who you think might be interested in entering the contest to win a free book.

One person will be randomly selected to win an autographed Advance Uncorrected Proof copy of The Beautiful Daughters by Nicole Baart and will be notified of their win via Facebook. The winner is responsible for providing me with a mailing address within 72 hours of being notified. If the winner does not contact me within that time frame, the prize will be forfeited, and an alternate winner will be chosen.

This contest is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by or associated with Facebook. By entering, you agree to release Facebook of all liability pertaining to said contest. No purchase necessary. Void where prohibited. This prize has no assigned value as advanced reader book copies are not available for retail sale.

Great Non-Toy Christmas Gift Giveaway #5 - Bookplates!

Lucas has a lot of books. Like, a whole, whole lot. And at some point I decided that I should give him a book for every major holiday. So he will continue to get a lot MORE books. Someday when he has a sibling, most of the books won't belong to either child but will be shared, but I thought it would be nice to label the books that were given as a gift to one child so that he (or maybe someday she) could have his own library of special books. And then I found these personalized bookplates from Strawberry Street Designs.

Laura from Strawberry Street Designs sent me two sets of personalized bookplates for Lucas: trains and rockets.

They're printed on a slightly glossy paper, so they're a little more liquid (ie, drool) resistant than if they were printed on a matte label. They're small enough to fit in the smaller board books, but large enough to cover up the name of a book's previous owner. (Can you tell I buy a lot of used books?) They come in a lot of different cute designs, too! In addition to the ones in the picture at the top of this page, there are at least 13 more designs on her page (you can check them out here.) They're only $6 for a set of 12 (plus s&h.) You can save them to put in every book you give to your child/grandchild/niece/nephew/whoever, or you can give the whole set as a gift so they can label their own books!

From now through December 8, you can get 15% off your entire order from Strawberry Street Designs by using the coupon code HOLIDAY2013. She also sells personalized gift tags, party invitations, thank you notes and some other fabulous products! 

You can see all of her awesome stuff here. 

And one lucky reader will win two sets of personalized bookplates of your choice (or another product of equal or lesser value.) You can enter under the smiling mommy below (but could you please click on her first?) Don't forget to check out my past four days of giveaways, and come back all week for more giveaways!

If you're a fan of the giveaways I've been hosting this week, please click this!

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US Only, 18+

I was provided with free bookplates in exchange for my honest opinion.

Great Non-Toy Christmas Gift Giveaway #4 - Personalized Books!

I've said repeatedly that I love, love, love books. And I've been determined from day one to get Lucas to love books, too. (So far, so good!) So when Regina from Let's Read About Me contacted me about checking out the customizable books for kids on her website, I was obviously interested! I selected and uploaded a bunch of pictures of Lucas to the website, which was incredibly easy (ok, actually... the uploading part was incredibly easy, but the "choosing eleven pictures of Lucas out of the approximately 90 million on my computer" was a little more difficult.) I've actually created books online on different websites a few times before, and this was by far the easiest and fastest of the books I've created.

There are currently 11 different book options on the site (plus one "design your own" option, so really I guess the options are unlimited,) and I decided on the "Favorite Things" book.

And before anyone questions it: yes, "Lucas's" is the correct way to make "Lucas" possessive. :)

I received one of the hardback "Memory" books (which sell for $19.89) and one paperback "Just My Size" book printed on tear-resistant, water-resistant paper (which sell for $10.89.) (I'm fairly certain that no one who knows me in real life will be shocked to know that I actually tried to tear one of the pages just to see if it was really tear-resistant. Answer: Yes! I mean, I probably could've ripped it if I'd tried hard enough, but the paper isn't going to tear from the pages being turned too vigorously or handled by toddlers.) The Just My Size book is small enough to fit in a purse or diaper bag, while the Memory Book is larger.

This picture is just to show you the size difference and not for you to critique my photography skills. Which are bad. Those giant white spots are reflections. I'm a terrible photographer.

There's also an e-book version ($9.89) that can be viewed on your iPad or smart phone using an ebook app, and you can send the link for it to as many people as you want.

Lucas LOVES the books. Pictures of him, pictures of his favorite things, pictures of Dan and me... what's not to love?? He calls himself "Ducas," and so he will point to each page and say, "Ducas! Kitty! Ducas! Tractor! Ducas! Mommy!" It's kind of adorable.

Obviously.

The company was started by former kindergarten and first grade teachers who used to make individual books for each of their students using Polaroid pictures. They would make multiple books for each child throughout the year so that by the end of the year, each child had a library of books about themselves to take home to their parents. How sweet is that?? (Also, um, does anyone remember how Polaroid film used to cost like a dollar per picture?? That's some serious love on the part of those teachers. That couldn't have been cheap!) Let's Read About Me was created after the teachers saw how much their students loved to see the books about themselves and how it encouraged them to want to read.

These books would make GREAT Christmas gifts, and right now they are 10% off for new customers. And you can enter here to win your own customized book in both a Memory book and a Just My Size book! Don't forget to check out my other current giveaways and come back all week for four more giveaways!

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I was provided with a free Memory book and Just My Size book in exchange for my honest opinion.

This was totally not staged for the sake of my blog...

...apparently it's just fun to read in a basket.

Also, I kind of love the fact that he finally has enough hair to have bed head. 

Happy Friday, everybody!

Our library!

We bought our first house in July of last year. It's a newer house and was in great condition, but like pretty much everyone who ever buys a house, we had a million ideas for things we would change after we moved in... most of which will probably never actually get done.

One of the first rooms you see when you walk into our house is a room that maybe was supposed to be a formal living room, but it's really small for a formal living room. Also, we're not really formal people, so we have no need for a room with the word "formal" in front of it. The people we bought the house from used the room as a music room:

Music room/Formal living room

A music room is a great idea if you actually have any musical instruments, but since we only have one guitar that neither of us really knows how to play, our music room would've been super lame. So I Googled "what to do with a formal living room" (Google knows everything), and everyone suggested making it a library, and I was like, "OH MY GOSH, DAN!! LET'S HAVE A LIBRARY!!!" Because reading is my favorite thing ever. (Let's ignore the fact that although reading is my favorite thing ever, I was apparently unable to come up with the concept of a library on my own.)

Anyway, the library has been a year-long project, and it could still use some more stuff on the walls, but it's totally my favorite room in our house, so I had to share.

You can click on all of these pictures to see them larger. Just so you know...

We got the bookshelves soon after we moved in. My dad helped me assemble them, and my mom helped apply wallpaper (that I spent weeks hunting for) onto the backs of the shelves. And then it came off after the wallpaper paste dried. (Apparently you can't use wallpaper paste on whatever that cardboard stuff is that they put on the backs of shelves. Just FYI.) I reattached it with scrapbooking glue dots because I was fed up and just wanted the project to be over. But once the backs were hammered onto the shelves, the wallpaper couldn't go anywhere.

Then for a year, we had shelves and books in the room and nothing else, because it turns out that I'm very indecisive when it comes to chairs. Dan even gave me a home-made gift certificate for chairs for Mother's Day (which was hilariously worded and the sweetest thing ever) and I still couldn't figure out what chairs I wanted. Then I was talking to my friend Teri, and she was like, "Oh, I just assumed you'd get big, comfy white chairs with blue pillows." And of course, that was exactly what the room needed. So if you need decorating advice, ask Teri. Unless you don't know her. In that case, I guess you're just out of luck.

We found the chairs at Ikea (and the story of the two trips we took to get them could be a blog post in itself), and while white might seem like a stupid color for a house with a toddler boy, the covers are removable and machine washable.

I still need something on the wall above the chair by the window and something else to the left of the bookshelves (so if you have ideas, please share!) but my current decorations include a key wall hanging/picture frame that I made yesterday and am ridiculously proud of:

I'll make a tutorial of how I made it soon (even though it was embarrassingly easy,)
but this post is already getting too long.

A framed quote that says "Children are made readers on the laps of their parents." that is hanging above a basket of Lucas's books (I bought it here on etsy):

I feel like this needs something else hanging under it. Either that or a short bookshelf. Any suggestions?

And some framed pictures of Lucas reading:

Also, various other random items that I don't feel like listing.

So that's my library! Like I said, the walls need some more oomph, but it's taken over a year just to get it to this point, so I can't really count on it ever being a whole lot better than this. Unless, of course some of you recommend awesome things for me to hang on my walls! So... get busy!