I am so happy to announce our first giveaway in months, and it is an EXCITING one, just in time for Christmas!

***This post and giveaway are sponsored by Picturesongold.com. All opinions are my own.***

Let me tell you all about what you could win in this giveaway from PicturesonGold.com.

This is a $140.00 value sterling silver locket with your chosen photos laser engraved into the locket. That is my favorite part about it. You do not have to go hunting through your house for some tiny pictures. This is the problem with me and all those “personalized Christmas ornaments.” Who has time to go hunting for photos?

With this jewelry, you upload the photos you want in your locket straight from your phone or computer. I customized mine using the photos on my phone, and it took all of five minutes. Most of those minutes were spent just deciding which pictures to use.

First, you get to pick your locket shape and cover.

They have circle, heart, oval, dog tag, and square lockets. You can also order all sorts of pendants or bracelets, but this giveaway is for a locket. There are so many choices!

Choose whether you want gold or silver. I chose sterling silver.

Then you choose what you want engraved on the front. I am a sucker for a monogram, so I went with that on both my necklace and my mom’s.

Isn’t the monogram so pretty??

I ordered mine back in 2017, and I wrote about it here. This year I designed one for my mom, and it will be her Christmas present this year.

Personalized gifts are such a significant thing to give to your family and friends. I am a total sucker for a #1 Mom necklace or jewelry with my kids’ birthstones. This locket goes even above and beyond that with photos that feel like a hug each time you wear it and open it up and look at their smiling faces.

Choosing which photos to put inside is always the hardest decision for me. I was designing mine for my mom. Who do I choose?? She has so many of us to love!! I chose group photos to try to include as many family members as I could.

The photos in the locket turned out well, but it was hard to get a good picture of the engraved pictures. The one on the left side of the locket is of mom, dad, my brother and his wife, and my husband and me, along with our two-month old first baby. That was an extra merry Christmas, with the addition of the first little grandchild.

The picture on the right has all five of mom and dad’s grandchildren, all together for last Christmas. Plus, it was a good picture of everyone, which is always an amazing accomplishment in itself.

This locket holds up extremely well.

I still have mine that I ordered in 2017. In fact, I am wearing it right now, and it is still in perfect condition, though I did change out the chain this year for a shorter one.

Be sure to enter the giveaway, so you can win one of these beauties for yourself or to give as a gift this Christmas!

***Rules to Enter***

-Must be 18 to enter and win

-Must be U.S. resident

Don’t wait for the giveaway though. Check out all the ways you can make photo-engraved jewelry for your family this Christmas here: PicturesOnGold.com. Here is a discount code just for my readers: FESTIVE10

The post The New Perfect Christmas Gift Giveaway 2020 appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

I thought this picture was perfect for that nervous, excited but sad, feeling that you get, just as you are about to move. We are four weeks out from the longest distance, most emotional move we’ve ever made.  

This will be our eighth move. However, this is the very first move where our little boys are old enough to understand it.  We’ve been in the area for five years and in this house for three.  We have never lived in the same house for three years before! Saying good-bye is going to hurt this time.

Anyone who has done even a little bit of moving around will tell you that the people are what make the place.  If you have an amazing community of friends, you can weather Siberia together and be perfectly happy.  If you’re living with a crooked bunch of questionable folks–Paradise itself will not be habitable.

So if the people make the place, then this little D.C. suburban neighborhood has been a little piece of Eden for our family.

We live on a street where the parents all socialize over our chain link fences, while we pull weeds (only don’t look too closely at my neglected gardens…), our children run from one house to the other giggling and carrying on, and I know when one of my kids stray, one of my neighbors will step in!! We have a neighborhood school, a park, and a pool.  Our kids all play on the same basketball, soccer, baseball, and swim teams.  Some of us even go to the same churches. It’s like a small town, in an urban area.

“If I flick it (the slug) off, can I immediately go inside and wash my hands? Ew!  I touched it!  I touched it!!”

Joshua and Caleb both started kindergarten here. Daniel took his first steps here. JD was born here!  Geesh, I’m going to miss this place!

The people here are AWESOME, and that has just made all the difference. We have so many friends, we have so much in common, and they are all solid families with homes that I know I can safely send my children to.  I am just so thankful to have been a part of this!!!

Ok, you will notice I’m wearing the same outfit in a lot of these.  I had a little farewell lunch with some of my closest friends from our community this week.  These women, plus a whole bunch that are not pictured, are ALL incredible, and I can’t tell you how much I have learned from these gals. These are the “Park Moms” that got me through the birth of baby #4. They brought me meals, chauffeured my older boys, helped me with Daniel, and best of all–they were just there!! I will forever be a better person, just for knowing these wonderful women.

“17 Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.” Proverbs 27:17

Also, in defense of Betsy and me, we were pregnant in a few of those last photos!!

I’ve always felt like God put us here to provide a safe little nursery for our children to spend their youngest years. Do you know how you start your tomato plants inside so they get a solid start on life? While the weather is still too cold for them, you keep them warm and safe in doors. Once they are hardy, and the frosts are over, you take them out into the elements and plant them in the dirt.

Does moving out west mean that I am taking them out and putting them in the dirt now??  What if they aren’t ready??  Will we find another community like this one?? Ah, the timeless worries of a parent! Let’s hope I will find another nursery for them. They are all still so little. JD isn’t even walking yet.

I trust that we will be just fine.

When I start to worry, I remind myself, “God will provide.” Where he leads, I will follow. He hasn’t failed us yet.

So we say thank you one more time to our amazing friends, and not good-bye, because a.) we’re not gone quite yet, but also b.) we will see you again. And we press on towards the future, knowing that God is with us wherever we go.

The post Living Everywhere, We Have Learned that the People Make the Place appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.