My Favorites Right Now

I don't consider myself to be in the know when it comes to fashion or make up. I mean really I simply do and wear what I like or is comfortable. Lately though I am really feeling a few things that are make up and fashion related. So strange for me and I still by no means am claiming to have any sense when it comes to make up or fashion. I'm probably just really behind the times on finding these things actually! Here are favorites that are out of my comfort zone!

1. This make up brush! I don't normally wear foundation and if I do I mix it with my face lotion and rub it in. This brush however is saving me on foundation and gives it an airbrush look. This is the IT brushes for ulta. I love the cover that goes back on it and keeps the bristles nice when I throw it back into my make up bag.

2. These two foundations. The pink papaya foundation I ordered from my cousin. I love it and have been using it for a while. I needed a lighter color faster than I realized this year so I got the IT cosmetics foundation at ulta. I really like how smooth it goes on. Both of these go on great with the brush I mentioned above.

3. Urban decay eyeshadow. It is by far the most expensive eyeshadow I have every purchased in my life but worth it! I got the naked 2 palette. All of the colors are matte instead of shiny. I am feeling the need to wear less shiny eye shadow especially during the day. This is possibly the most creamy eye shadow and stays all day! Worth every penny!

4. A top knot. It is so easy to do and I love it. I feel like it actually looks good too. (Don't tell me that it doesn't!) I am not confident enough to wear it without a headband yet but I know the day will come.

A few favorites in my comfort zone!
5. Friends good friends for myself and Blake. I love how much these boys love each other. Blake looks up to both of them and we are very fortunate to have them in our lives! I also hit the jackpot with their momma ;) She is such a wonderful friend!

6. Paper crafting. I love making things with paper. Banners, cards, scrapbook pages, etc. I haven't make anything since my SPOOKY banner but I have lots of plans for things in the upcoming holidays! Cards are the first on my list to make. Let me know if you have a need for any special cards!

7. Stocking caps for kids! I absolutely love when kids wear stocking caps. It is the only thing I can think of right now that I like about cold weather. That and boots!

Thanks for stopping by and seeing some of my favorites! Wishing you all a Happy Halloween!

*None of these products are sponsored by anyone. These are simply my personal opinions on products and things I like!
*Edited 10-31-14 4pm

Weekend Fun

My favorite weekends are ones spent with my two favorite boys. This weekend was a busy one but we were together enjoying ourselves. We enjoyed some traditional fall/halloween fun and got to have dinner with my best friend, her husband and youngest boy! 

We kicked our weekend off by carving pumpkins Friday night. Blake was so funny about cleaning them out. He was so grossed out by it he got chills. I laughed every time he stuck his hand in there. I was unsuccessful at capturing his reaction on camera. He eventually told me to do it because it was yucky. I ended up giving him a plastic glove to wear so that we would actually touch the pumpkin guts. (I had to wear one too because when I clean out a pumpkin it breaks my skin out in itchy red bumps no fun.) Andrew carved one pumpkin and Blake and I did the other. Our pumpkin looked like a 3 year old did it. Which he tried. I cut the mouth and when I walked away he cut one of the teeth out! Andrew's turned out much better! (I cut the bottom of the pumpkin, that way as it shrivels up it maintains it shape/face longer.) 

Saturday was a busy day. In the morning we did what we always do, laid around in bed as long as possible. Actually I was up at 4am working on some blog stuff for another time but my boys were both snoozing away until about 8am. I went back to bed to watch cartoons with them when they were both awake. We finally got ourselves together and headed out the door a little before noon. We went for lunch at Jason's Deli which allowed me to maintain my vegan eating habits. I actually really like their salad bar but was SO sad that I couldn't have ranch dressing on my salad. Once I started eating I didn't actually miss it. After lunch we rushed out to Sand Springs to meet one of Andrew's (and my) buddies at a car show. It was fun to walk around with Blake and hear him talk about the cars. He kept wanting to find Charlie and ask him if he was working on the race cars! 

After the car show we headed to Owasso for a birthday party. We got there way early so we drove around and happened to see a fire truck and police car outside Home Depot. Andrew being the awesome daddy that he is pulled into the parking lot without hesitation! They were having a fire safety day or something. We spent an hour with one of the firemen walking around the truck with Blake. The man was so patient and kind. He answered all 100 of Blake's why questions. It was so fun to watch and listen to them talk. Blake also got into the fire truck but wouldn't do it without his daddy. It was the first time he actually got into a fire truck even though he has had at least 4 previous opportunities to do so. We finally gave the fireman a break and talked to a police officer long enough for him to write Blake a ticket! Haha! Blake asked for one because we always tell him that police officers will write us a ticket if we speed.

We finally pulled Blake away from the emergency responders by reminding him of the reason we came to Owasso to begin with, Kealey's birthday party! He had been begging to go to her house to play all day long. She had a princess and prince party. Blake dressed as a knight. He didn't actually know what a knight was but we talked about how they protect the castle. It also just so happened that on Saturday morning Daniel Tiger had an episode where they were playing knights! Misty had the cutest table set up with cake, cupcakes and cake pops but I failed to take a picture of it. I did get one of the birthday princess and the knight!

I'm not sure of the last time you saw a knight but I bet he wasn't that cute!

After the party we met my best friend Megan, her husband and their littlest child for dinner at Bricktown Brewery Owasso. Megan and I had fun talking and laughing while our husbands talked and watched football. Blake was worn out from the party and entertained by games and movies on my phone while the adults talked. It became very obvious to our husbands that Megan and I are actually a lot more alike than they realized! I can't wait to do dinner with them again soon!

Today our plan was to just stay home. I was going to deep clean the kitchen until I realized that Andrew was planning on finishing ripping up the kitchen floor. Yay! He took Blake to the tool store and I started laundry and did some other light cleaning. When they got back Blake and I went out back with soap and scrubbers while Andrew got busy getting the tile ripped up. Blake and I washed all the furniture and toys to get the nasty dog pee smell out. We cleaned the patio off too. Blake made a huge mud hole in his digging area. We scrubbed the back door and the house to get all the mud off from Cooper jumping on it all the time. I always have a plan to take the backyard back but now I just want to make it a space we can share with the dog. A much better way of thinking really. Tonight while Andrew was giving Blake a bath I went out and sprayed this stuff we bought on all the places Cooper keeps peeing. I also sprayed it on our flower beds to hopefully keep him out of there. It smelled like cinnamon, eww. I just hope it works! Tonight Andrew read Blake his favorite fall book which we read multiple times a week. I love watching them snuggle together. It fills my heart with so much joy!

Look at that floor! No more uneven surface to walk on. 

Blake tonight at dinner.
He was so excited his pizza was in its own box!
We even got the fireman discount because he was wearing his firefighter costume.

The sweetest sight ever! I love my boys!

We had a great weekend spending time together as a family. Sometimes I think I loose sight of the importance of enjoying our family the way it is right here right now. I love us the way we are! 

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend! What fun things did you do with your family?

Focusing on my Health

Three weeks ago, on my 30th birthday to be exact, I had this strange very unsettling pain in my abdomen. It came on suddenly and felt like a gas pain. It didn't just pass but instead made it hard for me to breathe and I almost passed out. Once I got myself laying flat and cooled down I was fine for 15 minutes until the pain attack happened again. It was so scary I almost had my mom take me to the ER. I felt like my diaphragm was tightening up causing me to loose my breath. I have to say that it was probably technically painful enough to warrant a trip at least to urgent care but I'm stubborn and it was my birthday. 

After spending the next week and a half going from appointment to appointment to have multiple test run I got no answers. I had a full blood panel run. I also had an ultrasound of my abdomen done. Everything came back normal and apparently I have a really good looking pancreas! I don't feel like all the appointments were wasted or that something was over looked but I am happy to not spend every other day at the doctors office. I am very happy that there was nothing serious wrong because some of the possible diagnosis required surgery. I do however take it as a wake up call. I not only need to get my diet back in check but I need to listen to my body. My doctor also very firmly instructed me to come back or go to urgent care immediately if I had any problems again.

Made good use of my waiting time.

Once I was sure that all my test results came back normal I decided to take inventory of what else had changed that could possibly be causing the problem. I decided that diet was the biggest factor. I was so committed to staying vegan just a few short months ago but I had fallen off terribly. It wasn't even that I was cooking meat at home it was more that we were constantly eating out. I knew that a major change was needed and my body was telling me in the most powerful way possible. I let myself have last weekend as my "last" weekend to be indulgent. I mean I just couldn't let me possibly being sick ruin my kid free weekend. (Currently rolling my eyes, what was I thinking waiting.)

My fancy jewelry from radiology. 

I started back 100% vegan on Monday which I do realize makes today only day 3 but I can already tell a difference. I know that I can't eat chocolate of any kind since it made me incredibly sick this morning. I guess that means no more of my favorite chocolate covered strawberry smoothie. I am going to continue on my complete vegan track for the next 20 days. I am also cutting out all alcohol because it often wrecks some serious havoc on your body. 

My focus now is to keep track of how I feel each day over the next three weeks. I am taking careful note of everything I eat as well as how I feel before and after I eat it. I am also carefully tracking my workouts and making sure to slowly ease back into them. I am completely eliminating all dairy, meat, soy and alcohol from my diet while increasing the amount of water I drink. After three weeks I will slowly reintroduce things just like in an elimination diet. If my body doesn't respond well then I will do a complete elimination diet. Ugh.

Okay not really ugh since I decided to do this for myself but its hard to stay strong when all I really want to do is eat ice cream! I use to say oh it's going to make me sick but its okay. I'm over that now. I am to a point that I need to take care of myself and realize that a food making me feel bad isn't actually taking care of myself. So here's to my journey of figuring out if that strange pain in my middle upper abdomen just below my sternum is something I can prevent from ever happening again!

Lunch for B and I today while our friends ate corn-dogs.

Are you willing to completely change your diet in order to make you feel better? Have you ever had to do an elimination diet? Have you ever decided to just completely change your diet in hope s that you will feel better?

A Kid Free Weekend

Andrew and I enjoyed a fun filled kid free weekend. We missed our boy but we had a great weekend. 

Thursday during the day I met my dad halfway and he took Blake home with him. I returned home and ran a few errands before getting ready to go to RBar for a pumpkin firkin. I'm no beer expert so I'm out on what it actually means for it to be a firkin but it's something along the lines of it's not super carbonated and it comes from a cask. Anyway it was Anthems "go home pumpkin your drunk" I didn't like it but I'm probably the only girl who wants nothing to do with all this pumpkin flavored crap that comes out in the fall. Andrew on the other hand said it was the best pumpkin beer he's ever had, if I remember correctly. I drank Marshall's Oktoberfest which is my personal favorite Oktoberfest beer. After snacking and having a few beers we went to Hops-n-Buns to eat. Rbar has really good food but we wanted to try something new! Burgers, beer and good company you can't really beat that! 

Friday morning I went to get my last round (for a while) of acupuncture. Is that what you call it round, okay treatment. If you haven't ever been it's worth a try. I always feel so relaxed after going. Then I literally say on the couch and binge watched tv. I wasted my entire day doing nothing but it felt great! I did ride my bike for 30-45 minutes while talking to my sister! Andrew and I went to dinner at The Rooftop in BA. It was fun little place with a nice patio. The pizza was so yummy. Our intentions were to go somewhere else after but we went home and got sucked into date line. Seriously though it sucked us both in! 

Before Saturday even happened it was declared beer Saturday. We watched the OU game at Leon's. Their game day brunch was yummy. We shared the biscuit with jalepeno gravy and goat cheese. I also couldn't pass up the Bloody Mary bar. We had the bob Marley dip around halftime because what else do you do during football but eat and drink. I drank a lot of water during the game! As soon as the game ended we drug our sadness out the door and over to Prairie for their 2nd Anniversary party. We met up with our friends, who I always call B&B, to finish out our fun filled day. The beer we sampled at Prairie was the 2nd Anniversary Ale, Rum Barrel Aged Beer Wasteland and Phantasmagoria (double IPA). My favorite of those three was the double IPA. I also enjoyed a Limo Tint which is one of their table beers. After Prairie we headed over to Mixed Co. Bar for an Anthem tap take over. Anthem has a stout in a can (Uroboros Stout) that I drink at home often but I opted to try the Cherry Arjuna. It was okay but the Coffee Uroboros was awesome. After a beer each we headed to Linde Oktoberfest Tulsa. It was crazy busy and we filled up on lots of yummy food. I ate so much I thought I was going to be sick. That's what happens when I don't eat much between a snack and 8pm. Andrew and I also shared a huge Marshall's Oktoberfest. We all did the chicken dance and some other crazy dance before we called it a night. We were away from home all day!

Sunday we slept until the last minute possible then jumped up and ate our strudel that we brought home from Oktoberfest. It was SO good and I'm a big fan of the cheesecake one. I have resisted eating the other half that is tempting me in the fridge. I can't believe I have to wait until next year to eat one again. My parents arrived with Blake a little before noon and we headed out to Carmichael's Pumpkin Patch.

Basically it seems like we drank on our weekend without our boy. We did drink but we also enjoyed some much needed time just the two of us. I feel like every couple that has children needs a weekend or even just a day to be with each other because life gets crazy. We enjoyed our weekend but were so happy to have our boy back at home with us!

The only picture I took all weekend was of my beer. Haha! I'll share our visit to the pumpkin patch as soon as I get those pictures from Andrew!

Blake's Halloween Party

I asked Blake what he wanted to be for Halloween and he said, "a firefighter!" Almost immediately after that conversation the only thing he said to me was "can my friends come over in they Halloween costumes?" At first I tried to just say yeah sure maybe so and so can come over and you guys can play in all your costumes. That didn't work at all, he wanted all his friends to come over! Then I decided that it was a perfect time to have an actual Halloween party. (After all I would have an adult one every year but it doesn't seem to work out.) I ran the idea by Andrew and he agreed that it would be fun as long as I didn't go overboard on spending money!

I started planning for the party immediately. I looked at the calendar and picked the date that worked the best for us. It just happened to be a little over a week away, so super short notice for people to attend. I send out a mass text to all my friends with kids. I also asked Blake who he wanted to invite and he listed all of his friends (who I had already sent text to their parents). He also wanted to invite a few of his friends on our street who I don't have phone numbers for so I made these invitations. (Invitations are a love of mine!)

I only made 2 of these but I would make 20 if I needed to because making invitations and paper crafts is one of my favorite things to do! I added the fun spiders to the outside of the invitation which were confetti I found at the store.

I started looking at Pinterest for ideas to add to the few ideas that I already had. I was hoping for a day nice enough for us to be able to play some games outside but planned for an inside only party as well. (Turned out to be cool and wet so I'm glad I prepared for an indoor party too.) I had the party at a time that providing only snacks would cover the having food issue of parties. I put together a plan in my head and went to the store every single day last week because I kept forgetting what I was in need of. I wasn't 100% sure of exactly what I wanted to do until Thursday. I was also trying to figure out what I was going to dress up as and what Andrew was going to be. Blake also had a sudden change of idea about what he wanted to be so I was searching for him a final costume too. I honestly thought that I wasn't going to be able to pull this party off because I didn't feel prepared at all.

For the games I decided on ghost bean bag toss, skull/mummy bowling with a pumpkin, feed the spider, and bounce/toss the eye balls/glow bracelets in the cauldron. I used the ideas I found all over the internet to create games. I didn't want to make a bean bag toss game when I knew my parents had corn-hole and that I could use it instead. I just asked my mom to make it look like the kids were throwing the bean bags into a ghosts mouth. She did so good making the ghost! Blake wanted skulls and mummys for the bowling pins so I drew on the toilet paper rolls with a sharpie and highlighter. I had these sticky bugs that you could shoot that I found at target so I thought it would be fun to have a spider web and the kids could throw or shoot the bugs into the web. I made the web on a piece of poster board with puff paint. After all who says puff paint is only for fabric! I asked my mother-in-law to make the spider less than an hour before the party started because I couldn't wrap my head around making one stick to the wall like I wanted it to. She did so good on it. I found ping pong balls that looked like eye balls and couldn't pass them up! Tossing them into a cauldron seemed like the perfectly fitting game. I also put glow bracelets in with them because the ping pong balls were bouncing like crazy all over the house when Blake played with them. 

All of the kids loved the games. Even the big kids (adults) loved them! I didn't get many pictures of the kids playing because they were all moving so fast the pictures were blurry!

For the food I wanted to stick to simple snacks but when I saw those adorable mummy hotdogs I had to include those. I went with fruit, veggies and hummus, cookies, and mummy hotdogs. I saw a cute fruit platter that had a watermelon carved to look like it was throwing up fruit and I wanted to make it. I used a pumpkin instead of a watermelon and I love it even more than what I saw on the internet. Nothing special for the veggies and hummus except for putting a toy skeleton in them. I had planned on making skeleton shaped cookies but that attempt failed miserably, I don't want to talk about it. My dad saved the day by running to get some store bought cookies. The mummy hotdogs were so easy to make and they were good. I wasn't expecting them to be as yummy as they were!

The only thing I was sure about from the beginning of this whole party idea was that the food table was going to be orange with a black runner and things (spider confetti) sprinkled on it. I found the bat rings and love the color splash they added to the table. 

I wanted to have a place specific for staged pictures, ha! I made the SPOOKY banner a week ago and I love the way it turned out. I felt like it needed something else though so I (my mom and I actually) made the fabric garland. It gave the mantel the pop it needed for the photo area background. I really love fabric garland and could easily have one for every holiday.

I know we had a great time and spent our time the way we should when we don't have a picture of every single moment we spent enjoying ourselves. Here a few shots from the party.

Such a cute group of kids!

I am just thankful that we were able to have a Halloween party for Blake and all his friends. It was so fun to watch his face light up as each friend walked through the door in costume. Watching him show them where each game was in the house and how to play them was priceless. I absolutely loved every minute of the party and most importantly so did Blake and his friends! I think this might be a new tradition.

Special thanks to everyone who helped me put this party together. I couldn't have done it without your help!

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