Well, it's been such a fun week!  Thanks for being here with us.  We have thoroughly enjoyed putting these giveaways together for you in celebration of Mother's Day.  We have one last offering that we are bringing back from our 2nd Blogging Anniversary.

Isn't it disheartening when you get a gift packaged up all cute, and then realize you have no tag?  And no time?
Jilly and Mia to the rescue.


We are giving this collection of our own designs, packaged up and sent to one of you.  This gift includes four of each tag (24 total), as well as ribbon, lace and bakers twine to seal the deal. 

As far as wrapping gifts goes, we have certain things on hand at all times.  We like to keep our gear basic because it's so versatile.  If you have nothing else in your arsenal but the following,  you're well on your way to a successful package.

-Brown Kraft paper
-White Kraft paper
-Black ribbon, satin and grosgrain in varying widths
-Bakers twine in neutral colors
-Off-white lace in varying widths
-Assorted colors, patterns and textures of cardstock
-Take out boxes {restaurant supply}
-Misc sized white boxes

Here are some examples of gifts we wrapped with our basic supplies and tags to give you an idea of some different combinations.


And just because we want all of you to feel like winners, (because you definitely are!) we found this super cute printable by the very talented Hillary Henslee who lives right here in our own town.  She blogs at {the painted arrow} and is obviously crazy creative and talented.  She painted this (!) and turned it into a downloadable image.  Pay a visit to {this blog post} to print yours.  But grab a snack, you'll be there for awhile.  Thanks Hillary, this is simply beautiful.

How to win the tags: 

Please become a follower of our blog, and leave us a comment letting us know you did it so you can be entered in the drawing.  It takes about 20 seconds, and we would appreciate it oh so much!

Are you already a follower of Me and Jilly?  We LOVE you.  Leave a comment that conveys your undying devotion to us!  That will count as your entry.

You can still enter our {giveaway} from Tuesday, our {giveaway} from Wednesday, and our {giveaway} from Thursday.  You can leave a comment on each separate post to increase your chances of winning one of the four gifts.    We will be picking winners via random.org on Saturday evening, May 11th at 10:00 p.m. 
We hope you enjoyed our week of posts as much as we did.  Thanks for visiting our blog, and again, thank you so much for all the kind comments and encouragement.  We hope each and every one of you has a meaningful Mother's Day, filled with the people you love and cherish.

It's certainly no secret that we love food.  Pretty much all of it, all the time.  So when one of our BFFs puts out a cookbook, you know we get really excited and want to share it with you!  Allow us to introduce you to our friend Allison who also happens to be one of the cutest Grandmas in the history of the world.


Allison raised 7 kids and provided them with a hot and healthy breakfast every morning, which is something we are passionate about as well.  Actually, our kids get cold cereal on Friday mornings and they think it's Christmas.  We don't have the heart to tell them that someday they will miss sitting down to waffles with homemade syrup and fresh fruit smoothies before heading off to school.  They will come to that cruel realization on their own when they have survived on Captain Crunch for an entire semester of college and decide they never want to see another box of it!

At any rate, Allison has put together an excellent collection of many different tried and true recipes.    Her breakfast section will inspire you to get up 30 minutes earlier each morning to feed those hungry mouths that need a great start to their day.  Lemon Poppyseed Pancakes maybe?  Raspberry-Cinnamon French Toast, anyone?   Jilly made Allison's notable Egg Pinwheels for her sister's {baby shower} a few months ago, and about a hundred people asked for the recipe.

Her famous knot rolls will have your eyes rolling back into your head.  Try making them into cinnamon rolls or orange rolls, but only if you need to gain five pounds in one day.  Jilly's special Key Lime Cupcakes even made it into the book, along with hundreds of other recipes you'll wonder how you ever lived without.  This cookbook is 272 pages that can be read like a steamy love novel but kept in plain view in the kitchen because you'll want to use it every day.

We are so grateful and lucky to call Allison our friend.  She is nurturing, supportive, compassionate, genuine, beautiful, gracious and that girl can COOK!  She just finished culinary school at Le Cordon Bleu here in Scottsdale and we are so proud of her!  On the off-chance you aren't chosen as the winner, you can purchase a copy {here} for yourself or buy one for someone you love a whole lot.

We are giving one lucky reader a cookbook and  have paired it with a couple of our favorite kitchen things.


That funny looking gadget you see is not a curry comb you use to brush your horse with, but it is something that we honestly never want to be without in our own kitchens.  It's called a stir stick and it will change your cooking life!  It is such a handy tool to use when preparing a dish that you don't want to smash.  Think pastas, salads and vegetables.  It might not look like much, but we would never lead you astray in the kitchen, and you NEED this!  Also, we embellished an IKEA dish towel with a sheer little ruffle and put together a simple tutorial in case you'd like to make your own.


The IRIS gray dishtowel comes in a two-pack for $3.49.  It's nice and big and washes up beautifully.  Jilly happened to have a sheer curtain panel with a ruffled edge in her hoard fabric stash.

She simply cut the ruffle off of the panel, leaving the finished edge intact to minimize any extra work.  She sewed in onto the right side of each edge of the dish towel then went the extra mile by sewing a strip of elastic right across the center crease to make it fun!  Use a zig-zag stitch and make sure your needle is down, then stretch a small section of elastic and sew just that section.  Repeat until you have gone all the way across the towel.


How to win: 

Please become a follower of our blog, and leave us a comment letting us know you did it so you can be entered in the drawing.  It takes about 20 seconds, and we would appreciate it more than you can imagine!

Are you already a follower of Me and Jilly?  BLESS YOU!  We heart you.  Maybe you can leave a comment convincing us that you love us more than anyone else on the planet.  That will count as your entry.

You can still enter our {giveaway} posted yesterday.  We will be picking winners via random.org on Saturday evening, May 11th at 10:00 p.m.  Check back Thursday and Friday for more Mother's Day Giveaways!

 Have you ever met someone you were instantly drawn to like a magnet?  Or wanted to shout AMEN to every single thing that came out of their mouth?  Or felt so loved and accepted by them that you made up excuses to spend time with them whenever possible?

Let us introduce you to our dear friend Katie Hughes, who is one of beautiful women behind the new blog {The Vintage Mother}.  Katie and her darling sister Ginny are downright passionate about being mothers.  And not just any mothers...... They are working hard to restore the values and traditions that are being forgotten by our generation.  They are trying to bring attention to and show the importance of the family values and practices that the mothers of yesteryear lived by.

Here is a picture of Katie and Ginny, with their own dear mother.  Katie is on the right.


And they are off to a great start!  Every single one of their posts is so uplifting and heartfelt.  You can't help but be touched in some way after visiting their blog.  Whether it inspires you to start a new and beautiful tradition with your own children, or sparks a memory of being in your grandmother's home, we promise you will fall in love with following their blog and gleaning every ounce of inspiration that comes with it. 

Some of our favorite posts of theirs include {What is a Vintage Mother?} and {Build Great Husbands}.  If you really want to wish yourself a Happy Mother's Day, you can catch up on all their posts.  You will leave their blog wanting to be a better person, guaranteed!
    
This past summer, Mia and I were fortunate enough to visit them at their parent's gorgeous home in Midway, Utah.  We enjoyed a casual dinner and sat outside enjoying pleasant conversation while the children explored and played until the sun went down.  It was a magical evening of perfect weather, good food and excellent company.  To be honest, we were ready to spend the rest of our vacation with them, just eating and talking!  Too bad we had already promised the little boys high adventure every single day as well as hours of fun playing "Big Booty" in the car.

These sisters have graciously offered up a couple things that represent their blog to one of our readers.  An adorable t-shirt with their cute logo,


as well as a vintage inspired cuff.


The two of us enthusiastically join with Katie and Ginny in their efforts to celebrate purposeful motherhood and in working to foster a positive inner voice in our own children, as well as every child we have the opportunity to spend time with. 

How to win: 

Please become a follower of our blog.  It's not hard.  It takes about 20 seconds, and we would appreciate it more than you can imagine!  Imagine us on our knees, begging.  Leave us a comment telling us you're our newest and biggest fan so we can enter you in the drawing.

Are you already a follower of Me and Jilly?  BLESS YOU!  Can you please leave us a short comment that convinces us of your devotion and persuades us to keep blogging?  Cause seriously..... we do this for you and when we don't hear from you it makes us really sad.  REALLY. SAD.

A winner for this giveaway will be picked via random.org on Saturday, May 11th at 10:00 p.m.  Be sure to check back every day this week for more fabulous giveaways and chances to win! And don't forget to go check out {The Vintage Mother}!

We have three winners from last week, chosen via random.org....... and you girls are going to love these tags and trimmings next time you go to wrap a gift.



And while we're in the giving mood, who doesn't love some more free stuff?!  In honor of us sticking it out for the past two years of blogging, (through thick and thin) we have some fun things for YOU!  Three fabulous prizes, three more deserving winners!

Two years ago today, I was laying in bed recovering from intense and painful knee surgery.  Waaah.

After napping like a newborn, watching round the clock episodes of Divine Design, Little Miss Perfect Pageant, and America's Next Top Model, I thought I was going to SNAP.  I turned the TV off and opened my lap top. 

I had thought about starting a blog. Mostly to document parties and events, noteworthy home improvements, recipes that had to be shared, and gatherings with family and friends.  I thought....how hard could it be?

Hours of blog drama later, lets just say getting this baby up and running was NOT easy.  Thanks to Google and some helpful bloggers, plus oh, 100 hours of my life forever lost, it was too late to turn back.

I started throwing some blog names around and time after time, one thing was missing. 

JILLY. 

I called her up and told her the exciting news....We started a blog!  How could she say no?  After all, we do everything together. 

Now our baby girl is 2! 

So......Me and Jilly want to THANK YOU for humoring us over the last few years.  We originally thought our moms would be the only ones interested in what we had to say, but turns out we have a few other fans too!  We read every comment, obsess over every feature, and jump for joy every time we inspire you to do something great. 

To celebrate, we're sending some freebies and giveaways YOUR way until the end of the month. Starting. Right. Now.

GIVEAWAY #1
This set of four "thank you" tags is yours for the printing. 


                                                                              {click on image above to download}
We traced over the words with the {Quickie Glue Pen by Sakura}, then showered them with fine, black glitter.  The hole reinforcement was made with black and white striped paper, a 3/4" circle punch, and a hole punch. Just a quick idea to fancy them up.
                                               

It was an idea Jilly and I have kicked around every summer since we've known each other, so this summer when {Shelly} asked if we wanted to rent her adorable little cabin in Midway Utah, we didn't have to think it over.  What could be better than a get a way with my bestie for eight days and seven glorious nights without obligations, media, or the cares of the world?


We decided to take these three just for kicks.   My little {Nino's} cute face has to be blurred for privacy purposes.

As always, me and Jilly love to re-cap the highlights and low lights of our trip.  Please enjoy.

Highlight
Traveling with Jilly for 2,339 miles, not tiring of her for one minute, and not running out of something to talk about.  As a bonus, she drove the WHOLE way!

Highlight
The boys were three well behaved peanuts all the way to Utah, due in part to something I introduced called the FUN bag.  Every hour on the hour, I pulled out a new game and treat from the $ store to keep the munchkins entertained.  On one condition.  F stands for flexible, U stands for understanding, and N stands for nice (and I threw in NO whining).  As long as these boys were obeying the rules of F.U.N, they were rewarded with endless surprises and two very happy moms.  We'll talk about the ride home later.

Highlight 
Meeting up with Mandi of {Vintage Revivals } on our way to Midway in her home town.  We stopped for lunch at her family owned restaurant and devoured yummy, sweet pork salads while we talked about our latest and greatest projects, laughing ourselves silly.  Mandi is the fun bag.  Win. Win. 

Low light
Thinking we could rely on the i phone for directions to Utah and wondering how the heck this happened....

Yes, the boys were slightly bitter when we told them it would take an extra hour to reach our final destination. Until....we told them we'd be covering four states in just one day.  Who would be able to top that on the first day of school?  Pretty soon they were thanking us.

Highlight
The gorgeous weather and the scenery in Utah.  Me and Jilly spotted this quaint little cottage and thought we had arrived in heaven sooner than anticipated.  I'm sure the people inside started getting nervous about the white mini van that kept driving by, dying to spot someone sitting on the porch waiting to give guided tours.


Green fields and little farms as far as the eye could see.  We both agree, Utah is a photographers dream.


The beautiful mountains and light rain fall almost every afternoon.  We hadn't seen a jacket since February and each night when it was cool enough to put on our hoodies, we were giddy with excitement.




Highlight
CRAFT WARS PARTY!!!

I don't even know if it's legal to have as much fun as we did on the eve of July 3rd 2012.  From getting up close and personal to 150 of Utah's finest DIY-ers and bloggers, to the food, the venue, OH MY GOSH, it was amazing.

It's true, Jilly and Mandi got kicked off the show before their time.  But let's be honest, they're going to do something bigger and better, and I'll still be their biggest cheerleader. 

Now that I think about it, I'll have to compete with the woman who was in tears when she found out they didn't win.  THAT is a fan. 


Can you believe this cake? 

One of the funnest parts (is funnest a word?) about the party was seeing some friends who have moved to Utah from our home town.  Meet Shenise, one of the cutest things you've ever seen.  She came and brought her mom, her sister, and sis-in-law.  They were everything, and more.

We got to meet the freakishly amazing, and sweet, and hilarious, Bridget of {Bridgey Widgey Parties} who hosted the whole thing at her parents mansion.  Jilly and I pulled up to the place and had a pow wow about being on our best behavior so we didn't blow our cover.  We'd only seen places like this on TV.