Beautiful Hands Making Beautiful Things - A SUMMER GIVEAWAY!!

A girl loves a good product and a good giveaway, right? And I have just that something for you!

I know many of you are familiar with Etsy. And you know I LOVE to support Etsy business owners, and I LOVE to promote a good product. My friend, Nicole, has an AMAZING business on Etsy and has graciously agreed to participate in a summer giveaway here at The Bowden Brigade. Let me give you some information on Nicole's products.

INTRODUCING........


Nicole's store features organic soaps that differ from almost all other hand made soap because she uses the French Milled Method. According to Nicole, "This means that after I make my Cold Press Soap (where most soap makers stop), I wait for it to cure a week or so, and then I grate it up and melt it down again. For practical purposes, this makes the soap harder and more compact and lasts much longer than regular Cold Pressed Soaps." BRILLIANT IDEA, don't you agree? Way to go, Nicole!!

In addition to this process, when Nicole French Mills the soaps, she adds in additional ingredients that come directly from nature. I don't know about you, but this is VERY important to someone like me who has a daughter with eczema and other skin irritations. Many ingredients are harvested directly from her sea side cabin - seaweed [which dissolves and is destroyed in regular Cold Pressed soaps], stinging nettles, cranberries, rose petals and rose hips - whereas others are purchased directly from two Middle Eastern/African import shops that are in Bergen. There, she is able to talk to the owners about where the spices come from, how they are harvested and how organic they are. She does as much research as she can and purchases the best spices/ingredients that are available to her.

Nicole also has two women in Europe (on in Latvia and one in Sardinia) who are growing organic herbs and flowers for her. Talk about networking! These will be shipped to Nicole in a couple of weeks and I know she is very excited about using them. Because Nicole can guarantee that these ingredients are completely organic and are harvested by the women she speaks to, she will be using much more of these herbs in the year to come.

With the exception of Nicole's honey soaps, all of her soaps are vegan and all are palm oil free. Her use of olive oils and sunflower oils contain huge amounts of vitamin A and E, and considering the skin can absorb up to 70% of nutrients placed upon it, this is good to know. The use of coconut oil produces a hard bar and the use of rapeseed oil produces a very creamy texture.

I am eager for you to try her soaps and let us know what you think. Nicole is offering a one-time BOGO-Buy One Get One Free- opportunity for her bars of soap. Buy one bar of soap, and get one free. Wow! What a great summer pampering opportunity!! Visit her shop HERE and mention that you read about this opportunity from The Bowden Brigade in order to receive this promotion. In addition, let us hear from you! What did you order? What fragrance do you think you will favor most? Gosh, I can't decide! I can't wait to hear what you think of her products. I am betting that the Jasmine and Oatmeal blend is WONDERFUL for the skin.



This giveaway begins today, July 18th and expires on Thursday, the 22nd. So HURRY on over and get yours now. And tell all your friends about this AMAZING product. I know I am! :)

No Longer Ours

Remember this little girl? Well, it turns out she is really a he. And with she being a he, comes stinky boy disgustingness like no other I've ever experienced before. No one really paid Kimmy/Kimo/whatever his or her name is today much attention here in our house no thanks to our crazy year-long schedules, so now Kimmy/Kimo/whatever his or her name is today belongs to a new family. Yep, a family with 2 girls ages 6 and under. Way to go, L! You get Mommy of the Decade in your girls' eyes I'm sure. Enjoy!

Many Thanks

Do you like the new look? Many thanks to The Design Girl for the assistance. AMAZING! I have learned so much. Go visit her site now! You will be very pleased!!

You will notice the "Recommended Reading & Products" and the "Prayer Requests" tab at the top. Yes, for now, they are empty. When I have an extra few minutes, I will be able to go in and tag all previous posts that fit those categories, and will add to those in the future. So send any recommendations, prayer requests, giveaways, etc. here and I'll add them to the lists.

Enjoy!

Definitely A Scorcher...But Fun Nonetheless

Y'all, seriously...I can't decide when I will ever like the weather here in Germany. No reprieve EVER! I tried to take a pic of the temp posted in my car (it said 102 F today) but the pic didn't look good. Oh my! Yes, 102 degrees out today. And like I've said a hundred and two times myself, we have no A/C and with us possibly moving again in a few short months, I refuse to buy any of the portable A/C units that are usually around $400 or so. Yikes!

We have still been finding fun ways to beat the heat though. We've been doing lots of swimming and playing in the water at home. And we've visited a few amusement parks.

Our end of the year Girl Scout par-tay took place at Europa Park here on Tuesday. And it was fun!! The girls really enjoyed themselves as you can tell from looking at the pictures below.

















Now, let's see what else we can get ourselves in to before the summer is over. Speaking of summer being over, how many of you feel like summer is just about over by the time you hit the middle of July? We haven't even been out of school here a month, and already I feel like we are about to start back up again. And, right now, I can't tell you which makes me more miserable-the 102 F temps of summer or the temp of winter that feels like -102 F. :)

Enjoy the rest of your summer! I'm off to finish up some of my school work. I've had a VERY productive day so far but still have about 5 large assignments to finish in the next month.

On Which I Have No Comment...

We spend a great amount of time outdoors these days. That is, because it is miserably hot inside due to the no A/C issue here in Germany.

No A/C in Germany due to them being a crazy amount of money and we have no idea how long we will even be here to use one...no comment!

You can go here to see our current forecast. Temps upwards of 100 degrees...no comment!

We have only a lil over a month left in our summer. Where does the time go? My gosh...the kiddos just got out of school. And in the next month, I have to write 2 HUGE papers for my class, finish numerous other projects for the class, try to hopefully complete several household projects I have been putting off, and mark a million and one other things off my list...no comment!

Trying to clean and be productive in this heat...no comment.

Can you sense a trend? I know it was not this hot here last year. It was pretty hot some days but nothing like this. Many have said this is the harshest year so far weatherwise, and I say it can't get much worse than this. Cold showers before bed, cold showers after getting up in the mornings...yuck!!

We have made some time to have some fun in all this yuckiness. We've been to a few water parks, played outside with our hoses, pools, slip n slides, and water balloons. We've had some fun cookouts with good friends. The night of the 10th was the yearly light and fireworks fest and we are fortunate to live on a post where we can see everything all right here from the comforts of our closest playground. I bought glow sticks and glow in the dark tattoos for the neighborhood kiddos for that night and they were a huge hit. I also made homemade sno cones for everyone and they were delicious!! We've tried to make as many memories as possible during this most miserable time. We're doing the best we can but momma needs a break from the heat. Even the dog spends her days panting away from the heat.

What are you doing to beat the heat this summer? Hopefully you can go inside and cool off with your A/C after a long day outside. I really do try to appreciate the time we have here, but I am now counting down the days until we leave. Momma is spoiled with the A/C.

There is so much to tell you about and so much to write about, but I will sign off for now and share that for later. Life is pretty unbearable here even on a good day right now. Have heard that today is supposed to be our hottest day so far...and all I want to do is lay here and not move for sweating to death. Eeewwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!

A Home Is A Work In Progress

Oh my word! Where have the past few weeks gone? Can you believe it is already July?? Gosh!

I am FINALLY making progress on decorating our place. Yes, after almost a year, I am still working on it. I have been so anxious to get all of our new pictures framed and put up. They have been sitting out and about and really driving me crazy. So I had a little fun the past couple of days getting them put where I want them. I added these 3 black and white photos to my red/white/black bathroom and I LOVE them. What do you think?


This shelf is over our mirror. I tried to get more of the room but there was a huge glare on the mirror from the camera flash that it would just about blind you.

I have another large display going up in our hallway and will be sure to share as soon as I put on the finishing touches. :)

Our Favorite Recipes

I am making up our menu for our 4th of July celebration tomorrow and looking at all of my hundreds - and maybe even thousands :) - of recipes. And it got me to thinking, because...well...you know how short my attention span is.

Wait...what was I talking about? Oh yeah... LOL

I was thinking that I have always had many favorite recipes and Ronnie and Neeley have some faves too. So I am going to start sharing them here with you. I LOVE recipes and I know several of you have recipe blogs too and I visit them often. Sometimes I tell you and then other times I am just in rush to get a meal on the table so I go and find a good recipe of yours and then I fix it and forget about it. :)

So from now when I find a good one we love, I will share it here. And please feel free to share some of yours too. I will start soon by posting some of our faves that we have quite often. So be looking!!

Contact Us

Hi everyone! We get asked all the time to update our contact information and since we have so many new friends following the blog and finding us online, I thought I'd go ahead and give you this information.

You can email us!
Ashley - ashley.bowden@yahoo.com
Ronnie - ronnie.bowden@us.army.mil
Neeley - divagirlneels@yahoo.com

You can also find us each on Facebook...
Ashley
Ronnie
Neeley

And Twitter is always fun! :)
Ashley is ashleygbowden and would love to have you follow.
Ashley is also on 12seconds.tv and Youtube! Find her at ashleygbowden!
We love staying in touch with our friends and family all over the world and look forward to hearing from you! Stay in touch!

Sportin' New Duds

Neeley is so funny with new clothes, as I guess all kids are. When she gets anything new, she immediately has to wear whatever it is no matter where she is going or what she is doing. Friday, she went to her kids camp for just part of the day and they were doing tie-dye day and playing in the water and still she sported some of her newest duds...




Friday was her birthday so I didn't argue with her too much about the new clothes. :)

But after camp, she had to come home and change in to her Girl Scout shirt and bandanna and we headed off to camp with the Girl Scout troop for our year-end activity. Whoa...lots of stories to tell and pics to show you about that, but that will most definitely be another post. 10 wild and crazy 8 and 9 year old girls and 3 tired mommas. Hhmmm...wonder if we will do that again soon.... :)

These Girls Rock!!

I tell ya what, our lil Girl Scout troop sure does know how to have a good time! Watch them getting their tents set up. Now that's TEAMWORK!! :) (Neeley is in the light pink tank top and longer denim shorts...usually with her backside to the camera. :)