Beauty review

One thing I love about reading blogs is when people recommend beauty products. I am a make-up and beauty product freak. I love trying new tips and make-up, but when I find a skin and hair care product I love, I usually stick with it. Gets kind of expensive, that's why I take advantage of whenever Sephora has sales! If I'm not shopping at Sephora, I usually stick with the Maybelline brand. I just got some new foundation from Maybelline I've been trying out, along with some new brushes. If I love them, I will post about it!

Anyway, I have two products that I want to gush about on here. One I've been using forever, and the other I just started using.

Haha, just realized the one I said I've used forever is from Make up Forever!

Sens'eyes Make Up Forever eye make-up remover-

I love this.  I used to use the make-up remover pads from like Neutrogena, but I'd go through them in no time and it would irritate my skin by rubbing it. With this stuff I just put a dab of it on a cotton ball (more if I used more eye make up that day) and wipe away! It helps to stick it on your eyelid for a few seconds and then wipe. I still obviously have to rub it but I don't have to push hard at all to get it all off. It takes off my eye make up, mascara, and under eye concealer. And it doesn't irritate my skin after I'm done. It's kind of pricey for one bottle but it lasts way longer than the wipes I used to buy. 

Falsies mascara from Maybelline-

Love love love this! I kind of gave up on mascara a long time ago because I have really short eyelashes and nothing I could do would make them stand out, besides fake eyelashes. I tried tons of different mascaras, including the ones with like a glue you put on first and they are supposed to create like tubes that are supposed to elongate your lashes. Does that make sense? Maybe I need to do a video blog (vlog) when I talk about this stuff! Anyway, that stuff worked ok I guess, but it was messy. I was using One by One by Maybelline and it was just alright. Falsies makes me feel like my lashes are thick and beautiful! It doesn't really make them look a whole lot longer, but definitely more volume. ::swoon::! 

Just a few of my favorite things for you. Oh, and I'm working on my favorite baby things for you all, I should be posting about that shortly!

This is why I blog

So today I had all these great plans to get stuff done around the house. I had dishes to do, things to put away, fun things to sew...well Landon had different plans. Well it's not his fault I should start off by saying. He's perfectly content in his swing, he loves it actually. But when I put him in there he was so happy and I felt bad just sticking him in there. And plus maybe I just felt like snuggling all day : ) But if he wasn't in his swing, he didn't want to be anywhere else except in my arms. So we lounged around the afternoon and when daddy came home after work, he snuggled with him and then I got some stuff done.
Anyway, while we were lounging around, I had nothing to do but browse the internet and after I blogged I randomly started reading my old blog posts. And after about ten minutes or so I had tears in my eyes. Sure it was fun to read about all the fun stuff I posted about, but those soul baring posts? Well I wasn't prepared to read those again.
Posts like this one, where I have a love/hate relationship with my body. Or this one, where I write yet another miscarriage post. Re-reading these posts takes me back to that exact day I wrote them. I can remember that emptiness I felt in those darkest hours and I remember how therapeutic it was writing all my feelings down. And how re-living those posts doesn't seem like the funnest thing to do, it is humbling. Posts like those are the reason I thank God for what I have, and the reason I'm not taking all this for granted.
And then I stumbled upon the quotes I posted. Quotes I repeated time and time over last year to help get me through. Quotes speak to me in a way at times, nothing else can. I love how a person's emotions can be summed up in a few short sentences.
Quotes like these:


"You see, when the almighty Father writes a story-it truly is a masterpiece. One that only he can put together. Though the road to get to the end of the story may be filled with pain, heartache, and sorry-the end is simply glorious. One we sometimes never see coming." Adeye


"I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they're right, you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together." 
-Marilyn Monroe


I remember I loved these quotes so much because they gave me hope, and if you followed my blog at all last year you'll know that hope was at times the ONE thing getting me through. After each heartache of yet another miscarriage, and the times when I questioned God, I clung onto whatever little hope I had left. And while sitting on the couch holding my 2 month old while he snoozed away, I read these quotes and thought "this is the moment I was writing for." I loved all those quotes and kept on hoping, knowing that one day it would get me to this point. Knowing that it would get me to Landon.

And then I thought, this is why I blog. To look back at different times in my life and either remember the little things that made me so happy, or to stop what I'm doing and remember to appreciate what I have.
I started this blog as a hobby in hopes to document our life. Never did I imagine I would pour my soul into it and let others read my most private thoughts. But I'm glad I did. Now it's kind of evolved into a beautiful mix of the two. If you're following me, thanks for being on this journey with me!

Christmas 2011

Baby's first Christmas! This year we saw lots of family, ate good food, and got many great presents. Landon was loved on so much by so many, and he was such a good boy. He was definitely on the nice list ; )  We literally have five Christmases, and even though it was super busy, I wouldn't have asked for it any other way. The Christmas festivities started off on the 23rd when we went to a Christmas party. I didn't take many pictures at all this weekend which was kind of a bummer. I always have good intentions to take lots of pictures, but then just get caught up with everything else, I forget. But we left Landon with Grandma and got to have a few hours away.

And these mimosas weren't that bad either ; )

 We had fun, but it was so nice to get home to Landon. Christmas Eve was spent celebrating Christmas with two of our families plus we went to my brother in laws gender reveal party! I'm very excited that Landon is going to have a little BOY cousin this coming May!

Our first family Christmas picture...

Christmas Day we had two other get togethers plus our own Christmas as family of three. We did stocking stuffers this year and I hope to continue on with that tradition in the coming years. I think they are so fun!

Yummy Nutella hot chocolate...

Funny story...On Christmas Day we had sugar cookie dough to make in the fridge, so I thought I'd quickly throw it in the oven to have cookies for that night. Well I had no frosting for the cookies and it being Christmas I couldn't just run to the store. I had what I thought was gel frosting, you know, to write or make shapes with. Well no, it was food coloring in gel form and how did we find out? 

Haha, scary picture, but as you can tell, it was food coloring! 

Then later on that night my mom helped me learn this bad boy...my Christmas present from Justin...

You have no idea how excited I am to start using this! I have so many things I want to make, but with the exception of home-ec in middle school, I've never touched a sewing machine. Definitely have a lot to learn, but so far, it's been fairly easy. Can't wait to show you all the cute new things I make!

Our first Christmas with baby was one for the books, I hope you all had a great Christmas like we had!

Pinspired: Chicken Ranch Puffs

I made these at the Girly Gift Exchange and they are so very delicious! I got the idea from Pinterest but played around with the ingredients a bit. I think I may have combined two recipes, haha, can't remember now! I took some pictures of me making them and I will post them, but they aren't the best and don't quite fully capture the deliciousness of these yummy bites.

Here are the ingredients: Oh, and some of the ingredients don't have measurements since I kind of played around with the recipe, sorry!

-About 1 cup of chicken chopped into tiny pieces. I use Foster Farms already made grilled chicken strips since it's so easy. I use these for salads, throw it in pastas...it's so simple! However, if you want to make the chicken yourself, just cook up some plain old chicken.

-4 ounces of cream cheese (at room temperature)
-handful of shredded cheddar cheese and italian cheese blend

-half a packet of Hidden Valley Ranch seasoning mix. You could probably use the full packet since half a packet isn't overwhelming at all, and if you want more ranch flavor use the whole packet.
-Two packages of Pillsbury crescents rolls

First unroll crescent packages. On the sheet, two triangles are in each square. You want to cut each triangle to make 4 small triangles in each square. Hope that makes sense! Picture below.

Here is the cut up chicken.

Mix together the chicken, cream cheese, cheeses, and hidden valley ranch.

Next take about a teaspoon of the mixture and place it in the center of each little triangle. Fold the 3 corners to meet in the middle. 

Bake for about 20 minutes at 350.

So yummy!

Girly gift exchange

Another successful girly gift exchange has come and gone! Every year I have a girly party at my house with all my girlfriends. This years was pinterest inspired (pinspired) and it looked great! However, with Justin having a party at the house the night before then leaving out of town that next day, plus having a baby to take care, I was running behind most of the day. Thank goodness for some friends who helped me pull it off at the last possible moment! I was worried we weren't going to have the food out in time, but everything was able to be served, and was delicious!
Because of this I wasn't able to take very many pictures as I had planned, kind of bummed about that. But did take some, although it doesn't quite show off the fabulous that was this party ; )

Sorry for the crappy quality of the pictures, I took them in such a rush that some are blurry and really, all I wanted to do was hurry up and try the sangria : )

Definitely blurry, but you get the overall feel for the food table.

The Christmas Sangria, one word can describe it....amazing. It was so delicious! And my first alcoholic drink since January, so also well deserved!

These were marshmellow dippers for the hot chocolate bar, so cute!

These were last minute replacements. I actually had planned to make gingerbread bites (which were also so delicious), but they randomly didn't turn out the THREE different batches we tried to make. Definitely was not meant to be I guess.

Here are the candy cane name holders I made. So easy to make and oh so cute. And you can't tell but the Grinch cookies are green. : )

Not the best shot, but the Nutella hot chocolate bar.

Christmas crunch, which everyone got to take home in their own tin. A party favor I suppose.

The tins that housed the Christmas Crunch. (And the mini deep dish pizzas right next to them).

And my little elf, who slept most of the time, but decided to get up for a bit and join the party!

Here is the list of what I made:

Chicken ranch bites

Mini deep dish pizzas

Caesar salad

Grinch cookies

Mini pumpkin choco-chip muffins

Christmas Sangria

Nutella hot cocoa bar

Christmas crunch

All pinspired : )

The Christmas post (part 2)

Finally putting up some more pictures of my Christmas decor around the house. I took these pictures in the daytime and the Christmas lights weren't on on the tree, so it's kind of blah in the picture, but very pretty when the lights are on!
I'm very excited about an upcoming post I have planned for next week some time. I am throwing my annual girly gift exchange with my girlfriends this weekend and have some very cute, fun, festive stuff planned for it! Can't wait to show you, but don't want to ruin it, so I'm waiting until after the party : )

 

I cannot tell you how excited I was to find this nutcracker. My two favorites things, WSU and Christmas, what a great combination : )

For the past few years I've had river rock and a candle in this candle holder and I've been looking to change it out. So I threw it all out this year and just put in some ribbon. The colors don't match the rest of the house, but it goes well with the room it's in.

Santa greeting you in the hallway.

My Christmas card holder. I desperately want something new, but think I will have to make one to get what I want. Project for next year I suppose.

<3 Holiday Scentsy.

I also am in the process of adding two new holiday items to the house, and hopefully will have it ready in the next few days. I just want to squueeaall with excitement for them, can't wait for you to see it!

Perspective

Being a mommy is tough work. Not in the day to day routine (although sometimes lack of sleep can be rough), but in trying to raise the best little man I can. Trying to make sure he gets enough stimulation time and we are doing everything we can for him developmentally. Trying to protect him as much as we can so he doesn't get sick (but not quite making him bubble boy yet). Hoping he's gaining weight as he should be. They weren't kidding saying that the worry continues after delivery.
I'm trying to soak every little thing of him in as much as I can, especially before I go back to work. Even when we are up at 2:30 in the morning, and he is wide awake. ; ) It can be frustrating for a minute when I am super sleep deprived and he won't go to sleep, but it doesn't last longer than a minute usually. Because then I think about where I was a year ago and how many nights I prayed to be doing exactly this.
A year ago I was going through yet another miscarriage, thinking that having a baby during the holidays seemed so far away. What a difference a year makes. And how I truly am thankful and blessed this holiday season for everything I have. Yes, the presents are nice. The food is good. The Christmas music is fun. But having your little family together and healthy? Well that is what Christmas really is about.

Part 2 of the Christmas post coming soon!

The Christmas post (part 1)

Christmas all year round? Yes please. I l<3 Christmastime. Something magical about it, and I hope to pass that love of it to Landon. My house is all decorated, the only music you will hear me playing is Christmas music, I've been doing some holiday baking, Elf has been playing nonstop in this house, and Landon already has plenty of Christmas outifts to wear. I even submitted a picture of Brea as Mrs. Clause in a doggy photo contest last year...and she won. Yes, Christmas is near.

(whoops, forgot to change that!)

Loooove Landon's first stocking, too bad he's too big for it or else I'd put him in it and take pictures : )

Of course this isn't all of my Christmas decor. I just didn't have any more room left of my camera! I will post more pictures of my Christmas decorations in another post.

Also, I looooooove receiving Christmas cards, this is the first year we did a photo Christmas card! Over on Walk with my by Faith's Blog, she is doing a Christmas card carousel, where you can view people's Christmas card.

 I submitted mine of course and am excited to look at everyone's! 

You like?

I finally updated the look of my blog, you like? It was about freaking time is all I got to say. My old one had some issues, haha! Anyway, I'm super pleased with this look, simple and chic if I do say so myself ; ) Although of course I didn't do it, I had the help of Allison over at Green Tangerine Design do the dirty work, thanks again Allison!

Photo Card

Whimsical Wishing Tree Christmas

Don't send boring Christmas cards , personalize them at Shutterfly.

View the entire collection of cards.

Right now

Saw this thing on another blog tonight and thought it would be fun to participate as I type one handed since I don't want to wake a sleeping baby : )

Right now I am...

watching: Step brothers, this movie is hilarious!

eating: nothing at the moment, waiting for my subway dinner to arrive.

drinking: water, good for me!

wearing: sweat pants and tee. why do I feel creeped out answering this question? ha!

avoiding: emptying out all my shopping bags from today

feeling: happy to be home. Was out of town for the day shopping and missed Landon.

missing: fostering animals. On a hiatus since having Landon, hopefully will start again soon.

thankful: for this little guy

weather: cold and foggy, brrr!

praying: for a dear friend who is dealing with spending her first holiday after losing her son this past August.

needing: sleep and some food!

loving: the holidays. Christmas is my favorite time of the year!

Now it's your turn, what are you doing right now?

8 weeks

Landon is 8 weeks old, my oh my! He has grown into quite a chunky monkey these past few months, haha! My maternity leave has consisted of hanging around the house with my little man, celebrating the holidays, and trying to enjoy every minute I can with him before I go back to work. Let me just say, I am uber jealous of stay at home moms, I would love to stay home with him if I could. Heck, with the price of daycare, I may just have to, haha!

So what does our day consist of? We really don't have a set schedule yet, which is fine since I'm not working right now. Landon eats about every 3-4 hours so every day is different. If I don't get much sleep that night then I try and sleep in that morning, but sometimes he doesn't let that happen : )  He absolutely loves his swing, so some days I'll put him in that so I can get some stuff done around the house while he sleeps. I don't get out too much with him during the day since I don't want to increase his chances of getting sick. Oh don't get me wrong, he's gone out plenty of times, or else I'd go stir crazy here! But on days where I need to run a ton of errands I just wait for Justin to come home so he can watch him.

Landon is a great eater, pretty good sleeper and seems to be an overall happy baby, I can't complain : ) He's starting to coo and follows objects, which makes this mama happy! Some of his newborn clothes are starting to get snug, pretty soon we'll have to start putting some clothes away! We just went to size 1 diapers this week, what a growing boy!!
Of course I've been pinterest crazy too since I sit home most of the day, so I want to blog about some stuff I've done after being pinspired! Can't wait!

Landon's birth story

Yes you read that right, I had my baby! This past week has been so busy yet so wonderful I feel the need to write my birth story. Now, two weeks ago I had a different opinions on birth stories. Some times I would read other's stories, but most of the time I wouldn't. They were always extremely detailed and loooong, that I would just skim them. Well, now? Ha, I love them! I completely understand the need to write every single second of that day down. Not just to share with others, but mostly to write it down while it's still fresh because I want to remember every single minute of that glorious day.
Landon was born on Wednesday October 12, 2011 at 3:28 pm weighing 6 lbs. 3 oz and 19 3/4 inches long. That was singly the most important day of my life...it was perfect. So perfect in fact, that I find myself reliving moments of that day over and over again.
 So here it is. My baby's story...if you read it all, great. If not, that's great too. But I'm mostly writing it down for me to look back on whenever I want to remember the most wonderful day of my life.

October 11th-
I had been having weekly u/s' and non stress tests starting at 34 weeks. I was 37 weeks and just had my tests done and was meeting with my Dr. He tells me my fluid level is low and that it had been steadily decreasing over the weeks. He said everything else with the baby looked great but he didn't really like the number my fluid scored at. Since I was technically full term he gave a few options. I could induce, or wait a few days and re check the fluid level. If it was still low then I would be induced. I decided to schedule another u/s for a few days in hopes that my fluid level started to go up on it's own.
That night I went into work. (If you don't know, I am a nurse in the NICU). Ever since the appointment I had earlier that afternoon, I didn't really feel right about my decision to wait it out. Since I work so closely with Labor and Delivery, I decided to talk to the nurses out there and pick their brains (which I have done often throughout this pregnancy!). They said with a number that I had, ladies usually come in for IV fluids at least to try and up the fluid level. They saw no problem with giving me fluids and talking to the on call doc. I was fine with that decision, clocked out from work, and went to get monitored. I got IV fluids and saw the on call Dr. who actually did my D&C with a previous pregnancy and I was comfortable with him. He didn't like my fluid level either and ordered another u/s. After IV fluids, my level actually went up a bit, not a whole lot, but just enough to still make me "on the fence." The Dr. gave me the option to induce now or to re check in a few days. I told him, I have no idea, that I needed him to tell me what to do! So he asks to check me and go from there. I was at 3 cms in the office earlier that day and now I was 4-5 cm. So he said "well that is an easy decision. Since you are progressing we should start the induction now."
I was fine with that decision but it was still a shock! I wasn't ready. We had no bags packed since we thought we had a few more weeks. Justin just showed up and ran back home to get a hospital bag. Both of us were kind of quiet since we couldn't believe that we would be meeting him sooner than we thought.
Since I was GBS + I needed to get antibiotics in before they induced me, so I got antibiotics and then at 5:30 am on Oct. 12th, they started the pitocin. Earlier on that day I started having some braxton hicks contractions, they were barely noticeable. As the morning went on, the contractions came a little more frequently but still not painful. He re-checked me later that morning and I was still about 5 cms. He broke my bag of waters and they continued to increase my pitocin. Slowly my contractions started to get more painful. They were pretty sporadic but definitely getting more intense. I think I did pretty good with the pain, whenever I would get a contraction, I would close my eyes and try to breathe through it. After they re-checked me again, I still wasn't making any progress and the pain was getting worse, so I decided to get an epidural in hopes to relax my body to speed things along. The epidural kind of scared me because I knew where they were putting it and I think the anticipation of something bad happening was worse than anything. After it was placed, I got hypotensive, light headed and nauseous. Which the Dr. expected so they gave me a drug to help and just like that my blood pressure got better and I slowly started feeling not so loopy.
After I got the epidural, I was able to relax. My contractions weren't painful and my lower half felt a bit numb but I was still able to feel pressure and move around. After a while I was re-checked and was at 7 cms! And it seems like within an hour, I went from 7 cms to 8 cms fairly quickly, and then next time they checked me I was complete! That part happened so fast. The nurse got me ready to start pushing and it felt so surreal to me. Whenever I though of myself in labor I imagined I'd be in complete agony and pain. But since I had the epidural, I felt pretty good. I was able to feel the contractions, but it was just some pressure, no pain at all. So when she started having me push, it just felt weird because I couldn't believe how fast everything was happening. I got the hang of pushing fairly quickly I think and pushed with the nurse for about 10 minutes or so. Then we were ready to deliver so the Dr. was called. The nurse kept saying how great I was doing with pushing for being a first time mom and that gave me the encouragement I needed. I think I pushed for a total of maybe 10 more minutes with the Dr. before Landon entered the world. As the Dr. was delivering him, I looked down and saw his perfect little body and immediately burst into tears. Not just a few tears, but full on ugly crying tears, and I didn't care who saw. My co-worker said it best when she said "I feel like I've been holding my breath for 37 weeks and just let my breathe out." That was exactly how I felt at that moment. The Dr. turned him around and put him on my chest. As he was being put on me, he was looking up right into my eyes and instantly I fell in love.

We're home now and trying to get into a routine. Landon sleeps all day and is up at night. We are sleep deprived but happy. Homebodies, but content. A messy house, but full of love.

"Heaven blew every trumpet and played every horn, on the wonderful marvelous night you were born."

My dearest Landon...you are loved.