Give - Uh- What?

Give-Uh-Way!!!

I am back! I have been so busy lately with work! It has been crazy! We have a big accreditation site-visit next week and everything has to be perfect and in it's place. I have been working on my curriculum guides - basically a 2-3 page paper for each of the SEVEN subjects I teach. These are to be done before the site visit....and they decided to change the format a couple of weeks ago! So, needless to say, I have been SWAMPED! Twitter is the only thing that I have been able to deal with, just because it's quick and simple. I love blogs...but sometimes I just don't have the time to write up my own post, let alone go through and read all of yours! But don't get me wrong...I LOVE YOUR BLOGS!!! :)

I am trying to get all caught up on my blogging and plan on having a few new giveaways coming up! One in particular today!

Koryn at The Taffy Box has so graciously offered to do a giveaway through my blog! I am super excited about it! She has some wonderful jewelry and I am so lucky to be able to review her shop!

Here are some of her pieces that I love the most :

Silver Bird Tweet Earrings :

Brass Bangle Good Luck Bracelet:

Wax Seal Pendant in Silver :

Life Verse Sterling Silver Ring - Customized to the verse of your choice (what a cool gift or daily reminder!) :


To ONE lucky reader, The Taffy Box is giving away a Rectangular Antiqued Pendant with an organza ribbon necklace. You will be able to customize this piece however you like! It would be perfect for you to keep or to give to someone special as a gift! Koryn sent me one to review and I love it! It is so cute and different! Plus, you can easily layer it with other necklaces for a different look!



"But Hilary....how do I go about winning this wonderful pendant?!!?"...you might be asking yourself.....well here is how :


1. Make sure that you are a follower of my blog (this is a MUST!)....and let me know about it! (1 entry)


2. Leave a comment with your name and email address! (1 entry)


3. Head on over to the The Taffy Box's Etsy store and let me know YOUR favorite item! (3 entries)


4. Blog about this giveaway! Leave me a comment with your blog link! (3 entries)


5. Become a Facebook Fan of Hilabeans Frames! (3 entries)


6. Twitter about this giveaway! (3 entries!)


You have the ability to get 14 entries!!! HOLY COW!


Contest Ends on Saturday, February 27 at noon!


Spread the word!!!


Ready....set.....GO!!!!


XOXO,


Hilary

Tweet Tweet...

I keep forgetting to mention....

FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER!!!!


I have been on for a few months now and I am still getting used to it all! But I do love to follow others and see what is going on in their life! I hope that you will come and join me on my little Twitter adventure! :)

Also...thank you SO much for all of your sweet and uplifting comments about our sweet Skeeter passing away. Every day it gets a little easier. Today marks exactly a week. I honestly think that I needed to get through a week without him in order to be okay. Thank you very much! I really appreciate you all! Isn't it amazing how sweet and uplifting people that you don't even KNOW can be?? I love that about blogging...you get to know people in a completely different way! I hope that you all know just how much I appreciate you!

By the way...youa ll need to go and check out this cook new website....www.goodreads.com! I found it over the weekend. You can add all of your favorite books, books you have read, books you want to read, to your "bookshelves" and give them reviews! Your friends can see them and review them as well. It's so great! You can even "swap" books with others...you just have to pay for the shipping! LOVE IT!

Happy Tuesday....make it a GREAT week!

XOXO,

Hilary

Long Week...

I am so sorry that I have been neglecting my blog lately....life has been crazy to say the least.


Last Tuesday, our dachshund (and basically our child) Skeeter passed away. It wasn't something that we saw coming (he would have been TWO yesterday) and was quite tragic. I was crushed, emotional, hurt, angry and everything else that I could possibly be. I have never cried so hard for anything, ever. I know that to many people this does not seem like THAT big of a deal.....but we don't have kids and I am a HUGE animal lover...Skeeter was pretty much our child. We have two other dogs but we don't spoil them quite as much as Skeeter. He went EVERYWHERE with us and everyone knew him very well! We have friends that come over and just expect him to be at the door waiting. He was a part of many lives! To cut a long story short, he was a feisty little dog who thought he was a big dog. He snuck out of the backyard (we have a field behind our house) and he got in a fight with a coyote. We found him after he was gone...we don't think that he suffered. We are doing a lot better...it's just so hard to see something like that happen to a helpless little dog.



I am so glad that we have our Great Dane, Miley, to kind of fill that void. If I had to come home the next day to no dogs at all...it would have made it a lot harder.


It's amazing how God has perfect timing.... I spend the whole next day still mourning over Skeeter and then on Thursday, it started to snow in TEXAS. It was the perfect thing to keep my mind off of what had happened. My kids were CRAZY at school...so I didn't even have time to think about it. We ended up having Friday off and got 14 inches of snow at our house! We played and laid around all day....it was a very nice distraction!

Sorry...I don't mean to be such a Debbie Downer....I just felt that I needed to explain myself and let you know what was going on in my life last week. Casey did email Skeeter's breeder... Skeeter's mom should be having a new litter in March. We are thinking that it might be the perfect timing for us to get a new puppy. By the time we can bring it home, it will probably be close to the end of May and I will be getting out of school for the Summer and able to focus on the puppy more.

Well...I am off to pick up the house, put together some frame orders, and sit down with my new Better Homes and Gardens magazine. I hope that you all have had a wonderful Monday and a great start to the week.

XOXO,

Hilary

Valentine's Pretties....

Just a quick little reminder....

The Hilabeans Initial Frames are PERFECT for Valentine's gifts for anyone!!!!

If you need a cute Hilabeans Initial Frame for a Valentine's gift...LET ME KNOW! If you order one TODAY or TOMORROW...I can get them shipped on Wednesday so that they will arrive JUST in time for Valentine's!!

Please email me for more info! hilary.hymer@gmail.com

Also...you can check out other designs and styles on my Etsy page :

http://www.etsy.com/shop/blissfullyenamored

And on my Facebook Fan Page (you had better be a fan!!!) :

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Hilabeans-Frames/271307370336?ref=ts

GET YOUR ORDERS IN QUICKLY!!!!

XOXO,

Hilary

Abigail's Bake Shop Winner!!

The winner of the CUTE box of Valentine's cookies from Abigail's Bake Shop is.............

Stacy at Stacy Says....

I will be emailing you soon to get your information!!! Go check out her blog and tell her congrats!!!!

Thank you to everyone who entered!!!!!

GO SAINTS!!!

Olive Rue Giveaway....

And the winner of the Olive Rue giveaway is...........

Mrs. MFC!!!!

Go check out her cute little blog and tell her congrats!!!!

Thank you to EVERYONE who entered this giveaway!!

Check your email Mrs. MFC!! I will be sending you one soon! :)

TGIF....

TGIF....no doubt! This has been a long week!

I hope that you all have some amazing plans for the weekend! All I know is this :

• Friday night : out to dinner and then back home to watch LOST...we still havent watched the new episode!!
• Saturday : We will go watch our Labrador, Cache, train with his trainers
• Saturday night : Dinner, Movie, and Games with our new friends Heather and Jordan
• Sunday : Church!
• Sunday afternoon : We will be at our friend Tory's watching the SAINTS win the Superbowl! Oh...and watching the amazing and hilarious commercials!

I hope you all have an amazing weekend filled with fun and friends!!!

DONT FORGET TO ENTER MY TWO GIVEAWAYS!!!

They end this weekend!!!!!

Click the boxes at the top right of my blog to get to the giveaway posts!

XOXO,

Hilary

Cookie Monster.........

Who does not like cookies or cupcakes? Raise your hand...no no...raise it high.... That's JUST what I thought....NOBODY raised their hand!

Holy Moly! This might just be my new favorite little place! Check out Abigails's Bake Shop through Etsy and their personal website!

They have some of the CUTEST cakes and the most DELICIOUS looking cookies and cupcakes! I feel like I can almost taste them just by looking at their gorgeous pictures!

Here is a little inside scoop on the owner, Sarah Bisher, and her cute little company:

My name is Sarah Bisher, owner & senior cake master! I am married with 3 children: Emily, Abby (the Abigail in Abigail’s Bake Shop), and Jack. I have had a passion for creating delicious treats ever since I was a little girl. In 2006, my husband and I decided to start a website to showcase my most recent cakes. After a few days, we were bombarded with phone calls with requests for birthday cakes, wedding cakes, and more. Since then, we have designed hundreds of cakes including one for Kenny Chesney! Our little business has now expanded to provide gourmet cupcakes, cookies, party supplies, dessert buffets and more. I truly feel that Abigail’s Bake Shop is my dream come true and I hope you enjoy our creations as much as I enjoy making them!

HOW CUTE IS SHE?!?!?!

If I could pick some out some specifics to taste test right now....these would "take the cake" :

SOUTHERN RED VELVET CUPCAKE

RICH CHOCOLATE CUPCAKE

DARK CHOCOLATE MINT CUPCAKE

PEANUT BUTTER CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

SNICKERDOODLE COOKIES

Well...lovely ladies....sweet Sarah is offering ONE lucky winner a set of her SUPER cute Valentine's cookies....just in time for the holiday! This includes 4 big heart shaped cookies and 8 smaller heart shaped cookies! They are all decorated in shades of pink with royal icing and sanding sugars.

How stinking delish do these look?!?

Here is how you win :

• Make sure that you are a follower of my blog and let me know in a comment (1 entry)
• Leave a comment with your email address for contacting purposes! (1 entry)
• Hop on over to the Abigail's Bakery Etsy shop or website and tell me what item you just about cannot live without trying! (2 entries)
• Post a blog entry about this fun giveaway! (5 entries)
• Become a Facebook fan of Hilabeans Frames! (5 entries)

You could potentially get 14 entries!!

So that these fabulous cookies can be shipped out in time for Valentine's day...this contest will end on Sunday, February 6 at noon!!!

Spread the word and win some yummy cookies!

Good luck!!

XOXO,

Hilary

Glitter....

I don't know about you....but after watching the Grammys the other night...I CANNOT get the song "Glitter In The Air" by Pink out of my head!! What a beautiful song! If you haven't heard it yet....go download it! It's very unlike her...very mellow...and the piano in the background is amazing! I might be a little overly obsessed with the song right now!

Have a wonderful Wednesday!! Only 2 more days and the weekend is here!!

Don't forget about my Olive Rue giveaway!! It ends on Saturday!!! Click the link at the top right of my blog to be taken there!

XOXO,

Hils

GIVE-UH.....

GIVE-UH-WAY TIME!!!!

Not because I have reached my goal of 300 followers...but because I have a wonderful new friend that wanted to offer a little somthin' somethin' to you all!!!

I stumbled across the Olive Rue Etsy store over the weekend when perusing for some fun finds on Etsy! Have you ever seen her things before?! They are so wonderful! Very shabby-chic type items that would look perfect in anyone's house! I love anything with a fleur de lis, crown, and I have even gotten into the bees!

Here are some of my favorites from the Olive Rue shop:

Royal French Bee with Crown Tea Towel




French Crown Number 12 Tea Towel



Skeleton Key, Eiffel Tower, Crown Gift Tags



French Clothespins



One thing that I found particularly wonderful about the Olive Rue shop is that they SELL the digital downloads and iron-on transfers of their prints! So if you love one of their prints....but would rather have it on a pretty pillow, shirt, bag, etc....you can purchase it on their website and use it however you would like! How cool is that?! So smart!

Well...Crystal at Olive Rue has been SO wonderful to offer ONE lucky winner
the following items:

• 1 tea towel of your choice
• 1 set of gift tags of your choice
• 1 pack of 10 French clothespins

"But....how do I go about winning these wonderful things?!!?"
...you might be asking yourself.....well here is how :

1. Make sure that you are a follower of my blog (this is a MUST!)....and let me know about it! (1 entry)
2. Leave a comment with your name and email address! (1 entry)
3. Head on over to the Olive Rue Etsy store and let me know YOUR favorite item! (3 entries)
4. Blog about this giveaway! Leave me a comment with your blog link! (3 entries)
5. Become a Facebook Fan of Hilabeans Frames! (3 entries)
6. Purchase a Hilabeans Frame! (10 entries!)

You have the ability to get 21 entries!!! HOLY COW!

Contest Ends on Saturday, February 6 at noon!

Spread the word!!! Ready....set.....GO!!!!

XOXO,

Hilary