2.14.2014

BYOF....will yall be my F

okeeeeeeeeeee. 

remember how i said i was teaming up with my corporate crushmonster, IKEA, for some exciting things in the kiddos room? well here we are, nigh on three month since we started by adding the play loft and the room is almost done. 

of course, i shan't actually let you see the results until everything is spic and span, so go ahead and prepare to be teased in that regard. but here are a few little nugglets of the room in progress.

the kids have been unceremoniously kicked out of their room and made to sleep in the studio/office as we toil by night next door. they actually love this and call it "camping." of course, everyone knows the word camping means "wrestle and terrorize each other nonstop until you decide to join forces to get out of bed and ransack mother's perfectly organized spaces by night."

my electrician surveys our fuggo BEFORE lighting and plans his attack (by garrote!)

holy moly, we re-floored the room by ourselves, narrowly avoiding institutionalization AND divorce in the process. it was worth it. peace out, carpet a la hazmat! (please note Michael Scott managing us via satellite. we are scared by how much we love him.)

the STUVA skeleton being set up. this hefty lil' bank of built-in glory is the cornerstone of the room and makes TONS of beauty, organization and general wonderment possible.

i promise i will drown your eyeballs with better lit, prettier, and more inclusive photos of this transformation SOON.

BUT OH, HEY, HERE'S SOME AWESOME! every year IKEA hosts a BYOF event at their stores nationwide. BYOF stands for "bring your own friends" and is a day full of freebies, giveaways, discounts and general Blue-and-Yellow awesome that we've come to expect from our favorite Swedish overlords. 

it is happening on Saturday, March 8th, and yall (i almost cant even type it), i am giving a little workshoppy seminar (because adding a fake word to a serious grown-up one helps me) at noon on how we transformed the kids' room from necessary jumbled evil to magical, organized and dare i say, pretty space! 

let's just pause for a moment and reflect on how swoony i have been about IKEA for a good 10-15 years now and how bananarama coconuts thrilling this is for me to get to go sort-of-kind-of BE one of them for a day! honored, nervous, humbled, confused, giddy...these are all relevant words (dont know if i'm elated or gassy...but i'm somewhere in that zone).

so i would love (LOVE!) if any of you local-ish folkish people would come look at the finished product of the kids' room and say hi to me, provide moral support (because i think there is a britney spears mic involved, and i just cant do that alone!), and general just let me meet/snuggle you.

everyone who comes to the BYOF event gets a free breakfast, a free IKEA blue bag, free chair massages (not by me...no worries), free meatballs and--if you eat in the restaurant and then spend $150--you get your entire meal receipt total deducted from your total. check out the day's events to get details on all that's going on.

but the most important thing of your life, and just life on earth in general, i think,, is to come play with me at noon on March, 8th at IKEA atlanta (RSVP here!). okay i may be overstating it a bit, but i would love to stack the audience with friendsome faces. especially if/when i do something embarrassing right into my pop princess mic. 

and so, on this valentimes i ask you, will you be my F?



2.11.2014

loving KINDness

Does shopping for eyeglasses completely overwhelm you? Do you ever wish you could have someone who knows style and fit and frames stand there with you at the eye doctor and tell you you're about to make a huge mistake? How about having someone who actually designs frames and styles people in their sleep offer you something you may never have considered, but that actually refines your face shape, enhances your unique coloring, and compliments your style instead of defining it? 

Recently, David Kind styled 7 bloggers (including me!) based solely on head shots we sent their stylist, in order to demonstrate how personalized this service is. But the fun thing is, they didn't do anything for us that they don't do for all of their clients. If you sign up for a free style set, simply share a photo, you too will be personally styled by a professional, and you too will be matched with frames to choose from that flatter your face and coloring and style - six frames picked just for you and shipped to your home at no cost. (Not sure what to pick after trying everything on? No problem - these folks are happy to give you a moment of their time via video chat to answer questions and suggest options - it's VIP treatment for everybody!) 

 See what they did for us and why, then be sure to sign up to be styled yourself AND enter the giveaway below!

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Lauren blogs @ Lauren Elizabeth 


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Natalie blogs @ Take The Cannoli 


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Keight blogs right here, fools!

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Kacia blogs @ Coconut Robot 


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Carrie sells beautiful accessories @ Caroline G Shop 


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Diana blogs @ Diana Wrote 


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Raechel blogs @ Finding My Feet


Want to see more? Watch this amazing video they created to visually show you the process -- and the luxury of trying on your frames at home! You can read more about the process on the David Kind website as well!



And NOW - a happy and generous giveaway from our friends at David Kind! Enter below for a chance to win one of TWO Visa Gift Cards worth $250 each. (i know!)

2.05.2014

wherein my husband has children with another woman...for jesus

yall might be familiar with John Waller, the christian singer. 

a few months ago, one of our great friends, Dawn, who is a passionate advocate of adoption, and is also friends with John and was crucial in the production of the video, asked if Jesse and Layla could be a part of a project he was doing for his upcoming music video for his beautiful song about adoption and the heart of christ.

she said it was going to involve many real life families who have adopted (including hers...she and her hubby, Don--yes Don and Dawn--have 3 awesome adopted chilluns). i didnt think much of it. Jesse and Layla were gone the whole day and he told me about some of it when he got back, but i guess i thought he was probably making a bigger deal of his one little part in the video, especially since we havent adopted and children (so far) and i figured he was just a filler guy or something for the real stars.

and then a few days later he showed me the final cut (which just went public yesterday). ummm, so yeah they are sort of slightly prominent in the video just kind of. SERIOUSLY WATCH THIS:



you may recognize Jesse's flipping adorable "son" as Judah's real life BFF, Marc, who is Dawn's youngest son and who i just love to pieces because he is a beam of sunshine (and whose bday party this hilariousness occurred at).

okay so if it wasnt strange enough to see Jesse playing the loving husband to a (GORGEOUS!) woman i dont know, there he is being the dad of Judah's real life best buddy. and then just for funsies to blow my mind even harder, we throw in Layla as the adopted daughter in this fictional family.

i felt a little bit like i was having an out of body experience watching half of my family get swapped out!

Dawn told us that they had wanted a little girl who didnt physically resemble her "parents" in the the video so that it would be understood that the little girl with glasses who was adopted at the beginning of the video (who grows up to be Jesse's "wife" with glasses) had, in her married adulthood, adopted Marc and then also adopted a little girl as well.

despite being genetically 50% the same, the combo of Jesse and Layla fit the bill of "looking unrelated by blood." it also was perfect since they wanted the little girl to really run into the daddy's arms and getting a three year old to do this with a stranger would have been tough.

after i got over the initial bizzaro feeling that accompanies watching your spouse play house with someone else (how to spouses of actors do it?!?!),  i fell in love with the entire video. we have many close friends you have adopted (creightons, dockerys) or are adopting so this video and song are just such a beautiful picture for us of how we are ALL adopted by jesus and how much is heart is for earthly orphans as well.

the part with all the families toward the end are all real life adoptive families and that gets me every time. just tears for the heartbreak and the beauty and the jesus magic that is adoption.

a little director's cut bonus footage fact: Jesse told me the day of filming had been long and taken a toll on miss Layla's already miniscule attention span. so Dawn all day had promised Layla candy at the end if she behaved. so at that emotional climax of the video when Layla collapses into Jesse's arms and i am tearing up, i always start to laugh because Jesse divulged that in this loving embrace, my little mercenary is whispering into her daddy's ear, "you hab sweet tahts?" the piper must be paid.

after seeing the impact of the entire project, we feel so honored to have been even a teensy part of this beautiful song and the reminder of jesus' heart for all of us as his adopted children. rock on.


2.04.2014

Target Cartwheel App ($1,000 Target GiftCard® Giveaway)


i have confessed my weakness on Facebook and Instagram, so let me just reiterate it here: Hi, my name is Keight, and i am a (unrepentant) Target addict.
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from the moment i get sucked in to the $1 section at the storefront to what feels like just a few blissful moments later (but is actually 2 hours and jesse is texting "WHERE ARE YOU!?! because i just ran out to get paper towels...whoops) as i am swooning over the baby clothes...going to Target is basically a spa day for me.
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and even when i am not alone and have to bring the kids with me, they have their own kind of Target fun too. i would bet $100 that if youre a mom who has been to Target with her kids, that you have seen some version of this scene:

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it's hard to blame them. i mean, if it was fun for me as a 22 year old trying to frog hop over them and invariably getting stuck in isometric straddle mode...then naturally it would be fun for my preschoolers. oh man but they love the big red balls (and the Icee and popcorn bribes that await them inside if they just let mommy ogle/fondle the merchandise in peace).
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but my most passionate love (and most violent addiction) of all? the home goods sections that contain endless treasures from Threshold and this guy lurking everywhere ready to jump out and take my heart (followed by money):

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oh nate, with some major lifestyle changes from both of us, we could be magical together. i can just see it now "Target announces their newest house brand from their newly married design duo: N8K8®!" and our home would have useless--yet gorgeous!-- decorative accents, tufted ottomans and industrial modern nesting tables EVERYWHERE. i dare you to take 5 steps in our love nest without tripping over a rare sisal/jute accent rug.
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when the fall line of kitchen accessories (think cookie jars and such) was released i came upon them unsuspectingly from around a corner while looking for some plastic forks (thats how it always starts) and literally had my breath taken away by a salt cellar. this was when i realized my beautiful addiction (actually, it was right after i bought the cellar and like 6 other pieces of the line).
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so it's not like i needed another reason to go inside of Target. but, hooo buddy did they give me one. Their New Cartwheel App!
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i heard about Cartwheel on a blog a few months ago and immediately downloaded it. like me plus pretty much everything else red Bullseye...it's love.
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Cartwheel is a Target specific app that lets you gather and curate offers (coupons) from over 700 available. I have the app, but Cartwheel works on your tablet, desktop or any mobile web program. you sign up/login using your Facebook info (god bless not having to type in all your info into tiny blanks) or using your target.com login.  the Facebook functionality lets you see which of your friends are using Cartwheel and which offers they have used or like (there is a really easy way to make anything private though if you'd rather not share that "Keight is saving 15% off preparation H ointment!" 
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you can browse by specific category (kids shoes, furniture, makeup, etc) or by new/hot deals and curated offer lists that are already put together.
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i JUST found out about the barcode scanner too. if you have an iPhone or Droid you can use this tool to scan the barcode of any item to see if there is a Cartwheel discount currently available for it. i had been searching manually for each item that i was planning to buy manually like some cavewoman until i discovered this little beauty.
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so let me give you an example: sunday night i was shopping for some kids clothes. i opened up that section in my cartwheel app and was thrilled to see that almost all of the brands Target carries for kids clothes were having 25% off sales. after getting what i wanted (a Cherokee shirt for judah and a Circo skirt for layla) i grabbed those two offers and added them to my Cartwheel (you can add up to 10 at a time).
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when i got up to checkout i pulled up my Cartwheel (which is just a specific barcode just for me with all of my saved offers) and the cashier scanned it as basically one coupon. blammo, $8.59 saved.
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extra good news for professional savers is that you can combine your Cartwheel offers/discount with any Target sales, coupons (Target or manufacturer's), and your Target REDcard discount. you can also use each deal on up to 4 items and can use your each deal up to 6 times a day. you can keep using the same deal until it expires.
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so if you never thought you could do a carwheel...now you can. and with this version you'll end up with one less sprained wrist and at least one more affordable salt cellar. see ya in the dollar section!...or dragging my kids off of the big red balls.
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BlogHer is giving away a $1,000 (ONE THOUSAND...yes) Target GiftCard®. Just leave a comment on this blog post telling me your favorite thing about Target! Detailed giveaway rules and ways to get an additional entry below.
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Sweepstakes Rules:
No duplicate comments.
You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods:
  1. Leave a comment in response to the sweepstakes prompt on this post
  2. Tweet (public message) about this promotion; including exactly the following unique term in your tweet message: “#SweepstakesEntry”; and leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post
  3. Blog about this promotion, including a disclosure that you are receiving a sweepstakes entry in exchange for writing the blog post, and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post
  4. For those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry.
This giveaway is open to US Residents age 18 or older. Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail. The notification email will come directly from BlogHer via the sweeps@blogher email address. You will have 72 hours to respond; otherwise a new winner will be selected.
The Official Rules are available here.
This sweepstakes runs from 1/30 - 2/28.
Be sure to visit the Target Cartwheel brand page on BlogHer.com where you can read other bloggers’ posts!