Let me see your war paint!

We went to Alabama for Easter to visit my mom and family.  On Saturday after breakfast we decided to let Persephone do some finger painting!  A little messy, but it was fun.  I even kept the paper plate, because I thought it was sweet how she made art out of it.

Here are some photo's of the fun time...

 

 

 

Vine!

If you have an iPhone you need to download VINE - it's FREE!!

I know most "hot" apps are addictive at first and then the excitement wears off.  But I don't know if I'll ever get tired of this one.  I still love instagram!

Vine allows you to create and post short video clips for a maximum length of 6 seconds.  You can share them on the "vine" to let other users see it, the videos can also be shared via Twitter and Facebook.  You can use #hashtags to have your videos show up in searches (like instagram and Twitter), or you can just post them for yourself.  It's currently only available with IOS, but they're working on making it available to other platforms.

You record the videos using Vine's in-app camera and it only records while you press the screen.  So you can either have a steady streaming 6sec video, or break it up into random recordings.

I'm only following a few people I know and of course some celebrities.  I can't have a social media app and not follow random celebs...I'm addicted. 

Anyway - go follow me if you like, although I'm not sure how you could find me?!  LoL...my name is Amanda Jones.  I have a couple stupid videos, but also some cute ones of Persephone - at least I think they're cute. 

Some users I'm following

RiFF RAFF - a goofy white "rapper" (who sometimes uses explicit content).  I don't know why, but I love him...maybe it's the randomness - you never know what he's going to say/do.

Maci Bookout - Teen Mom alumni

Josh Peck - from that Nickelodeon show Drake & Josh, by the way...he's all grown up and looks NOTHING like he did at the beginning of that show.

Simon Rex - actor from all the Scary Movie spoofs (sometimes uses explicit content)

Fred Durst - lead singer of Limp Bizkit

Paul McCartney - the one and only

Rob Johnston - some guy that makes silly videos and I laugh

Greg Cleveland - random guy who makes funny videos with his friend/co-worker Josh Clark (sometimes uses explicit content). 

Josh Clark - random guy who makes funny videos with his friend/co-worker Greg Cleveland (sometimes uses explicit content)

Just check it out and if you don't like it, don't come crying to me.

And the winner is...

Jessica from KY!

Thank you for reading my blog first and foremost, but also thank you for participating in my first ever "contest". I hope you enjoy Beautiful Disaster as much as I did! I just finished the sequel Walking Disaster and LOVED IT.

Thank you also to Emily and Bonnie for playing too. Man it was so hard to randomly pick a winner out of 3 numbers lol. Maybe I'll do another one soon!!

7 Months!!

So you're 7 months old.  That means that in just 5 short months you'll be one year old. 

 

You've been such a joy to watch. 

Your smile is contagious.

You have the sweetest giggle.

 

We've been doing BLW for a while now and you've been such a trooper in trying foods.  You've tried every thing we've given you to try.  You're still drinking formula about 4 times a day and are getting the hang of having water in between.  You're sitting up on your own now!  It's amazing to watch you learn all of these new skills all on your own.  You've started rocking on your knees, so I'm sure crawling is in your near future.  You aren't saying any words yet, but you do babble often.  You're still sleeping through the night like a champ!  Still no teeth, but you love chewing and gnawing on anything you get your hands on, so I'm sure we'll see something soon.

 

I love you beyond measure and I'm excited to see what all you'll get into this next month!

 

 

On our way back from Mimi's

 Trying banana and mango

All smiles

Are you freaking kidding me?  This kid and her faces...

I love this picture my brother took of her during an afternoon walk

At our cousins wedding, being such a sweet girl!  She didn't make a peep!

 

Standing with assistance!!

Ya oh ya - I love how I blocked myself :)

Watching TV - wonder if it's already frying her brain?

My beauty

BOOK GIVEAWAY!

I would like to do a giveaway!  I don't know how many of you actually follow me on a regular basis....so the odds will probably be in your favor. Since I have read more books in 2013 than I did in my entire middle/high school career, I want to share one of my favorites with one of you lucky readers!  Hopefully someone is excited.

The winner will win a paperback copy of Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire - seriously one of my favorite books EVER.

Rules:

- Comment on this post with your name/email address, the name of your favorite book and a brief description of WHY it's your favorite.  ***For two entries, you can link this post on your blog and your name will be entered twice - but you must mention this with your comment for verification.

- Will ship directly from Amazon.

- Winner will be chosen randomly.

- Winner will be notified via email.  I will allow 24hrs for response with an address to ship the book to or someone else will be selected to win.

- Contest ends Tuesday 4/23/13 at 8:00pm EST

- If no one enters the contest,  you can all go to hell.  Just kidding, I guess you'll just save me some money and miss out on a good read.

Book Review - Beautiful Disaster

After finishing 5 books, I was on a roll and ready for the next love story.  Beautiful Disaster was referred to me by several people so I took the plunge and read it.  I was instantly hooked, couldn't put it down.  I think I finished it in about 2 days.

The story follows Abby Abernathy and Travis Maddox.  She's a simple girl who moved away from home to start a new life.  Abby starts off resisting, but eventually falls for heart throb/bad boy Travis.  He's used to girls swooning over him, but he's very much intrigued with Abby since she doesn't fall for his charm.  It's an extremely sweet love story, with a little bit of drama and a good bit of excitement.  I would re-read it for sure.

The author just released a companion novel Walking Disaster on April 2nd which I just started.  It's pretty much the same exact book only written from Travis' point of view instead of Abby's...of course I'm hooked again.  If you liked The Twilight Saga (because of the love story) you'll love this.

Book Review - Crossfire Series

Right after I finished the Fifty Shades trilogy I was dying to find something else.  A co-worker let me borrow the first two books in the Crossfire Series  (by Sylvia Day).  The first in the series is Bared to You and the second is Reflected in You.  The third book, Entwined in You is due out this June.

 

 

 

It's very close to the Fifty Shades series.  It took me almost 1/2 of the first book to get over the similarities and start treating it as a separate story.  It's obviously another erotic novel and actually written a little raunchier than Fifty (I know, hard to believe, but you'll appreciate the words EL James used in Fifty after you start reading the descriptions in this series)  Once I gave the books a chance and got to know the characters, Eva and Gideon I began to fall for their story.  Unlike Fifty - both of them come from screwed up backgrounds (which adds to the suspense).  A mix of past relationships/drama come into play and really test their relationship with one another, but end up bringing them closer at the same time.  Their passion for each other is beyond anything I've ever read.  I will always hold Fifty high on my "favorite book list", but this series was a nice filler.

 

I am excited to see how their story ends, so I definitely want to read Entwined to You when it's released!

Easter

We didn't pay for a fancy photo shoot with a rabbit or chicks, but I did want to get some pictures of Persephone in her first Easter dress!

We weren't dressed nicely enough to do a family photo, but we NEED to do one very soon. She's growing so fast.

Enjoy :)

Book Review - Fifty Shades of Grey

Lately I've been reading the hell outta some books.  I don't really know what's gotten into me.  I hated reading when I was in school, even when we had the option to check out books from the library.  In fact, I'm sure a big reason why I failed 9th grade English is because I didn't read To Kill A Mockingbird.  <<Yes I failed Freshman English, I also failed P.E. that year too...not because I didn't want to do the exercises, but because I rarely dressed out - I was the only Senior in Freshman English and P.E. when I went to South Effingham High School ha ha ha>>

Anyway, in the last month I've managed to read 8 books - 8 BOOKS!!!  It's almost like I can't stop either.  Once I finish one I'm dying to read another.  Luckily every thing I have read has kept me entertained.  Prior to now, the only books I read between 2009 - now were The Twilight Saga and The Hunger Games. 

After a lot of recommendations, I finally picked up Fifty Shades of Grey.  I heard a lot of people say it was written by a fan of the Twilight series, that didn't really sway me either way - but I'm happy I read it.  I haven't blogged about much lately, so I thought what the heck - I'll review some of the books I've read recently and maybe it will inspire some of you to go out and pick them up OR just to read in general.

Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy by E.L. James

I was hooked with the first chapter.  The story follows college student Anastasia Steele and how her entire world changes after a chance meeting with entrepreneur Christian Grey.  The book is written in her point of view.  The best part of the book (for me) was that the author actually wrote in Anastasia's subconscious.  It was fun to read what her head was thinking while scenes were playing out in the book.  As a character she was very easy to relate to and I think that's why I liked it so much.  Their relationship grows quickly and you just.can't.stop.reading.  Christian comes from a pretty messed up childhood, but it takes nearly the entire series to explain it all.  While he is somewhat controlling, his overall love and admiration for Anastasia is captivating.  I think the fantasy of wishing your boyfriend/husband/significant other felt as strongly about you as Christian does Anastasia is what makes it so appealing to women.  Anastasia brings out a side in Christian he never knew existed and he opens her up to things she's never experienced.  The series has been referred to as "mommy porn" and while it does have some sexual scenes, the love story is what grabs you (or at least that's what did it for me).  Sure reading the sex scenes made it exciting, you could live vicariously through a character in a book ha ha ha.  At the end of the series the author gives you a teaser of a companion novel **basically the same novel, but written from the other persons point of view**.  I can honestly say I would totally read the book from Christian's point of view.  The reading order for this series is as follows: Fifty Shades of Grey, Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed.

I give it 2 thumbs up - it's a series I would certainly re-read.