Baker Creek Seeds Giveaway Winners!!

I am sending out a huge THANK YOU to everyone who participated in this giveaway, as well as to Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company for generously sponsoring it.

While I would love to be able to choose everyone, I can’t.  But, I do get to bless two winners!

Each winner was selected via Random.org.

The first winner selected wins either the Northern Seed Collection or the Southern Seed Collection!

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And that winner is… comment #52

Britny | May 9, 2012 at 12:38 pm

ohh…I would love to grow Blue Curled Scotch kale! It sounds so fancy! 

.

The second winner selected wins the book The Heirloom Life Gardener by Jere and Emilee Gettle.

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And that winner is… comment #27

Julie | May 9, 2012 at 12:09 pm

I would love to try Hollow Crown parsnips. I love parsnips but have never tried to grow them.

 Congratulations!  You have 48 hours to reply or another winner will be selected for your prize.

It would be fantastic if you would pop over to Baker Creek’s page on Facebook and tell them ,”Thank you!”, for sponsoring this giveaway.  Maybe they will do so again in the future!

Keep those hands dirty and those gardens growing!

All for God’s glory,

~Rhen

**Join us on Yes, They Are All Mine’s FB page**

Thankful for Sisterly Love

A few weeks ago, I shared with you all the excitement of Emily Grace qualifying for regionals as a Level 7 Optional gymnast.  She is one of only 19 Level 7 girls who was selected to represent the state of Alabama as they competed against the top Level 7′s from many other states in the Southeast.

Being a competitive gymnast who has reached the Optional levels takes a lot of dedication (she trains 5 out of 7 days a week), a heart for it (this is not what she does- it is who she is), and a determination to do bigger, harder, and more complicated skills.

Emily Grace (11) is required (by Daddy and I) to raise her own money for her competition leo, her meet fees, her warm-up, and any costs she has as an Optional.  That includes the expense of her competitive season, competing at Regionals, and attending a gymnastics camp to work on bigger skills.   Mark and I pay for her monthly training fees, food, the gas to take her to practice, food, her practice leos, food, traveling, and did I mention FOOD?    Boy, that girl can eat!

She works very hard to earn money, to find sponsors, and to search out every opportunity to raise the amount she needs each competitive year.  With the added expense of Regionals and then Bama Camp this summer, she has been praying and thinking all the more!

Her oldest sister, Renee (15), not only believes in her and the gift that God has blessed her with, she has also come up with a wonderful way of helping Emily Grace raise the approximate $1000 she needs.

She designed a necklace to sell with almost every penny going towards Emily Grace’s competitive expenses.  The necklace is comprised of a simple black cord and a silver-toned charm that reads Believe.

• We Believe in God’s gifts and blessings
• We Believe in kindness and serving others
• We Believe in our kids
• We Believe in sisters helping sisters
• We Believe in God’s plan for Emily Grace
• We Believe in the heart that God has given Renee
• We Believe in being thankful for all of those things and more

Renee has even expanded the necklaces to include circle charms that read a variety of traits and qualities of a competitive gymnast- Focus, Determine, Passion, Strength, or Integrity.  Each creation also has a touch of color with a small glass bead that dangles with the charm.  She has also created matching Believe bracelets!  She sells them for $10 per necklace, $6 per bracelet, or $15 for a matching pair (necklace and bracelet).

It fills my Momma heart with thankfulness and joy to see a sister willing to step up, give of her time and resources, and help her little sister achieve her dreams and her goals.

Sometimes, God shows us that maybe we are doing an okay job of raising our children for His glory, and I am pretty thankful for that as well.

All for God’s glory,

~Rhen

~~Join us on Yes, They Are All Mine’s FB page~~

You can find many more Thankful Thursday posts at The Marathon Mom’s Thankful Thursday Link-up!

Why not join in and enter into my latest giveaway, sponsored by Baker Creek Seed Company?!

Seeds, Lightning, and a Giveaway

I was on my way home last night with a car full of groceries, children, and fantastic finds for Layla’s upcoming 3rd birthday when I noticed lightning in the distance.  Like right over my house kind of distance.  Great.

I prayed that God would bless me with enough time to get the kids out of the car and the stuff unloaded from the trunk before the bottom fell out.   While I was rushing around to load up as much as I could possibly carry in my arms, the lightning was popping around me.  I mean lighting up the sky as if it were daytime.  That is some serious lightning.  That is when the gardener in me came roaring over the top of my worry of being deep fried by a giant bolt, and I thought, “Oooo, all of this rain and lightning will have my gardens growing like gang-busters tonight!.  I can’t wait to see what has emerged and what has shot up in the morning!”.

Beans!

Come on, let me know if you have these thoughts in the middle of a storm, too.  It is your responsibility as my readers to help me feel like there are others out in God’s giant world that have at least some of the same thoughts as I do!  *wink*

Yes, it is still raining this morning, and I did brave the rain to check on the gardens.  My neighbors probably think I am a little odd from my cheering upon finding how much my plants had grown and discovering new seedlings emerging.

Olivia (7) inspecting our cotton plants

In our family, we love gardening.  Both Mark and I were raised with giant vegetable gardens, canning food from the gardens, and enjoying the fruits of our labor.  We are passing that love and those blessings on to our children.

The family vegetable garden holds many lessons for parents and children.  Amending soil to be the healthy, living organism it needs to be to grow the best plants, the hard work of tilling, weeding, watering, and tending to give our vegetables every opportunity to produce well, guarding against bugs, birds, and animals that would seek to destroy all that we have worked so hard to grow, and enjoying the literal fruits of our labors with a spread of fresh and yummy food at the dinner table.  There is nothing quite like the sense of accomplishment and  satisfaction of enjoying the incomparable taste of food you have grown yourself.

I am very picky about what we grow, and am a nut have a passion for the history and future that come with growing heirloom seeds.  It took a few growing season to find the right fit for our family and the company we wanted to buy our heirloom seeds from.  I have been buying our seeds from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds for years now.

Summer Squash!

The quality of seeds, the fast shipping, and the customer service have been fantastic.  The cool part?  I contacted them earlier this week to tell them how much I love their stuff and they offered to sponsor a giveaway!   Woo hoo!

What is better than that?  I get to bless not one, but two winners!

The first winner will win their choice of either the Southern Seed Collection or the Northern Seed Collection.  That is a $55.00 value!

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The second winner will win their very own copy of The Heirloom Life Gardener by Jere and Emilee Gettle!  That is a

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“The Heirloom Life Gardener is the first comprehensive guide to heirloom gardening—whether you’re just starting out in your backyard or have been gardening for years.”

Now it is time to get down to business!  Your initial entry into this giveaway is earned by visiting Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds and telling me what vegetable they offer that you  have never grown but would like to try.  Please give me a name and not just say, “Squash”.

You have to do the initial entry to qualify for the additional entries!

There are lots of ways to earn additional entries:

• “Like”  Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds on Facebook
• “Like” Yes, They Are All Mine on Facebook
• Share about this giveaway on Facebook (include a link)
• Blog a little bit about this giveaway (include a link)
• Tweet about this giveaway (include a link)
• Share a photo of your vegetable garden on Yes, They Are All Mine’s FB page 
• Subscribe to Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds newsletter

Please leave a separate comment for each entry.

A few rules:

• This giveaway is open to contintental US residents only.
• You do not have to have a blog to enter.
• The giveaway closes on Wednesday, May 16th, 2012 at midnight Central time.
• The winners will be selected via Random.org.
• The winners will have 48 hours to respond or a new winner will be drawn for the prize they won.
• Make sure I have your contact info!
• The initial entry must be done first before additional entries can be earned!

PS- I was not given seeds to review for this giveaway.  I already had purchased and planted my seeds when the folks over at Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds were generous enough to decide to sponsor this giveaway.

Happy gardening!

All for God’s glory,

~Rhen

Thirty-One Gifts Giveaway WINNER!!

Reviewing products is a lot fun.  Finding products and services that will bless my readers is pretty awesome.  But, I think that announcing the winner of a giveaway I am hosting has got to be the best part for me!

While I truly wish I could bless every single one of the wonderful people who enter my giveaways with a prize, I cannot.  Sigh.

Okay, enough stalling.  *wink*

I use Random.org to select a winner, and the winner chosen is #5 Lissy at Life with Lissy with this comment:

Lissy | May 4, 2012 at 3:24 pm | Reply | Edit

I tweeted! @LifeWithLissy!

Congratulations, Lissy!  I have emailed you, and you have 48 hours to contact me with your information.

Thank you to every one who entered in to, shared, tweeted, and blogged about this giveaway.  You guys are awesome!

Stay tuned for more giveaways!  *grin*

All for God’s glory,

~Rhen

Why not give a “congratulations” shout out to Lissy?!

The Pitcher and the Stones

Do you remember Aesop’s fable about The Crow and The Pitcher?

Not long ago, that fable inspired a fantastic learning moment with the kids during our morning Bible study.  It was one of those times when God blesses you with an absolutely engaging and eye-opening lesson, for both the children and yourself!

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Each of us is a pitcher that God fill up with His Spirit, His love, His grace, and His mercies.  Reading and studying our Bibles, sharing His word and His love with others all help us to keep our pitchers at overflowing.  Applying His word, serving others, and spending quiet time in prayer are also all things we need to remain steadfast in so that we continue to be at the point of overflowing.

All of this is necessary to keep the worldly influences from robbing us of our blessings and weakening our relationship with God.  The compromises that people make on a daily basis slowly but surely drain our lives and empty our pitchers of God’s holy influence.

Imagine you are a pitcher filled to the top and overflowing with water.  The water is the Holy Spirit, God Himself.  Around the pitcher are a variety of small stones, and each of them represent the compromises that you make.  One stone represents you watching a tv show that you know is full of foul language, inappropriately dressed people, and immoral lessons.  You pick up that one stone and drop it into the pitcher.  A small amount of water is displaced.  It seems like no big deal, after all the pitcher is still almost completely full.

What happens when we start putting in a stone for each compromise?  Compromises like:  forgoing time in prayer to watch tv, not reading God’s word because our schedule is “too full”, watching a movie that promotes ideas and situations that God’s word warns us of, seeking man’s approval rather than God’s, listening to songs that focus our hearts on worldly things rather than God, gossiping, “little white lies”, reading a book that fills our heads and our hearts with things that God tells us to avoid, coming up with excuses as to why you think God really doesn’t mind the compromises because they are “no big deal”, pretending and fooling ourselves into believing something is about God when it isn’t, applying the phrase” it’s just a game or book or movie and all made up” to whatever it is that you want to engage in, and using the actions of the people around you to attempt to justify a compromise, just to name a few.

Pretty soon we have completely filled ourselves with worldly compromises and emptied ourselves of God’s Holy Spirit.  How can we then stand strong against the attacks the enemy is so adept at throwing our way?  How can we share God’s love with others when our pitchers are empty?  How can we shine for God when the light has been doused?  All we have left to give to the people around us are stones.  

This brings to mind the children’s song, Be Careful Little Ears What You Hear.

This lesson continues to ring in my ears.  I find myself checking to see what I am filling my “pitcher” up with.  Does what I am watching/ reading/ listening to/ engaging in focus my heart on God?  Will other people see God through my life?

When we face a moment of decision, I ask my children these same questions.  It is amazing how often we are confronted with a situation that would be so easy to compromise about, but we must stand strong and fix our eyes on God.

What is your pitcher filled with?

All for God’s glory,

~Rhen

So tell me, do you ever “get” God’s lessons that are for your children but speak oh-so-loudly to you?

Click picture for link!!

Click picture for Link!!!

Click picture for Linky!

Click picture for Linky

All of this and the kitchen sink!

THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED.  THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO ENTERED!!

Back a month or 3 ago, Emily Grace’s (11) gym held a fundraiser to help the competitive gymnasts raise money for their competition expenses.   A wonderful Thirty-One Gifts representative not only sponsored the fundraiser, but she was amazingly generous with how much she gave and promoted it.

I had the pleasure of getting to know her over a couple of the evenings she spent at the gym with all of her gorgeous products.  One of the evenings, while she I and were talking, I was whining…complaing…expressing my slight frustration over the bags I had been using to take our school work with us when we were out and about.  My issues are the same that many homeschool moms have shared with me.  Most bags do not retain their shape, they do not allow us to organize little items easily yet be able to retrieve them quickly, they crush papers, and they just don’t hold up to the rigors of active homeschooling families.

That is when she pulled out her Organizing Utility Tote and offered to let me have it.  The next thing I know, she is even offering one for me to give away to my readers!  How awesome is that?

Here is my bag all packed and ready to go!

This bag holds a lot of stuff!  Let me show you what I had in it at the time of this picture…and I have put far more in it.

That is 2 teacher’s books, 2 student’s books, a 3-ring binder, my grade book, a ruler, 2 pens, 2 erasers, an extra bookmark, and 1 pencil.

Notice how my grade book corners have not been curled up or rolled because of pressure in the bag!

I have the pleasure of gifting one of my readers with an Organizing Utility Tote in the Lotsa Dots print.

You can see the bag here, as well as the pattern of the bag I am giving away.  Just click on bag “A”.

Now, this giveaway is not in return for a review, though I did one, but that is because I really am that pleased with my bag!  I love how easy it is to find items, to put the books into it, and just how cute it looks.  *grin*  Who doesn’t like to look cute?!

To enter into this giveaway, I would like you to leave a comment below telling me what you appreciate most about your mom, your mother-in-law, your grandmother, or any woman who has been a mother figure in your life.

That is your main entry!

You can earn other entries by:

• “Liking”  Yes, They Are All Mine on FB.
• Sharing this giveaway on FB.
• Recommending Yes, They Are All Mine to your friends on FB.
• Sharing a little blurb on your blog about this giveaway, w/ a link back
• Tweet about this giveaway.

Leave a comment for EACH entry you earn!

A few rules:

• This giveaway is open to continental US residents only.
• You do not have to have a blog to enter.
• This giveaway will end Monday, May 7th, 2012 at midnight.
• The winner will be selected using Random.org
• The winner will have 48 hours to respond or a different winner will be selected.
• The winner will receive 1 Organizing Utility Tote with a Lotsa Dots pattern.

Let the giveaway begin!

All for God’s glory,

~Rhen

The Lilla Rose Winner Is…

I know you guys are ready for me to reveal the winner of the Lilla Rose flexi-clip, but first, I want to send out a gigantic THANK YOU to Gail Harris for sponsoring this giveaway and allowing me to bless one of my readers!!

Now, onto the winner!

I used Random.org to select…

#9 Blair!

Okay, Blair, I have emailed you hun, and you have 48 hours to get back to me.

Mother’s Day is less than 2 weeks away.  Why not pop over and check out a flexi-clip, a headband, hairsticks, beautiful pins, or eyeglass lanyards for the mom(s) in your life?

Thank you to every one of you who participated in and shared this giveaway.  My readers rock!

All for God’s glory,

~Rhen