Favorites

I am a girly girl! If you know me you will probably totally agree but also know that I won't hesitate to run out the door in my pony and no make up (although I would rather at least have some powder and mascara lol). However, there are a few things I love and I wanted to share and hear back from you!

I love my makeup bag in the back. I bought it at Old Navy and I think it was like $3.00. It is super cute with a zipper and it's girly but not over the top.

The Alba Un-petroleum jelly is awesome!  I had never heard about this product until I was reading Kandee Johnson's blog she is at Kandee The Make-up Artist and she has some great ideas! She is professional make-up artist and I love reading her blog and watching her make-up videos on you-tube. This jelly is a great moisturizer and it doesn't take very much but I feel like I can tell the difference in my fine lines around my eyes and I have been using it for about 3 weeks.  I only use it at night and like I said it doesn't take very much.

I do have a few different foundations that I love but currently I am in love with my MAC foundation and powder. It is about middle of the road in regards to the cost but I am a full coverage girl and these 2 products especially together work great for me!

As you can see I also have Heel Tastic - yep like the one they talk about on TV. I love to walk around barefoot and in flip flops (I do live in Arizona!) and my heels are some of the worst ever! My friend Mindy told me about this stuff and it is great!
Once I tried it out I try to use it each night but if I forget it's ok I will just start again the next night before I go to bed. It is amazing how the cracks in my heels just disappear.

You can see there is a small black tube right in the middle. Well this is an eyeliner that I am a HUGE fan of! It is Walk the Line Liquid Eyeliner by Hard Candy.  the eyeliner I have is very similar to the one in this picture. It is a liquid eyeliner and I have found that with liquid eyeliner my eyeliner doesn't start to run throughout the day and doesn't make me look like I have smudges all around my eyes. I often will blend my eyeliner with a brush to soften the look a little bit.

These are just a few of my favorite things! I hope to share more with you soon!

On A Mission

Last week we had parent teacher conferences and I was speaking with my daughter's teacher and somehow we got on the subject of exercise balls and how it is a great tool to sit on. She said her dream would be to  have one for each kid to sit on. They would have to get up every 45 minutes to an hour to stretch and move around but it is a great tool for kids and it helps them pay attention.

I checked out different exercise balls and I found one like this one - it is a bit smaller in size which I think would work great!


I am on a mission! I want to somehow get enough exercise balls for each kid in her class - so each kid can have one to sit on at their desk.

I need help and ideas on how to make this happen? I need to hear from you all! I know that I know people that have great ideas and can help me with this! Let me hear you!

I need help investing in our kids futures, our future! Help me with ideas!

Breaking Point

Ok yes because I am a perfectionist I like to think and look like I have it all together. However, every once in a while I seriously have a breaking point.


This week is it!
 **(Ok insert imaginary picture of me losing it in your mind because obviously when I am losing it I will NOT allow anyone to take a picture of me if they value their life!)


I have still been working on my small projects each night with tonight being not losing my mind lol and actually working on our annual budget and goals we are setting for the year! We are ambitious and I will blog about it later but not tonight since I am losing my mind!


Me on PMS is not like me at all - ok well maybe a little but like X 1oo! Throw in some shingles, a fever blister, headache, and a terrible day at work and that equals a not so cool, calm, and collected Shanna!


But one thing is for sure! I know that I am not alone and I know when others are having days like this it is comforting to know that others make it through as well. Tonight was a comfort night so I had a nice dinner of small heart shaped dark chocolates (uh that's healthy cause dark chocolates have anti-oxidants right?) and I washed it down with some cold sparkling Mt. Dew (aka Heaven in a bottle!)!


I was excited to see some of the awesome deals that came out in the Fry's grocery ad and then I was disappointed when I realized that I had left my coupons in my desk at work because I thought I will leave them there tonight (cause I am writing this tonight to post tomorrow) so I won't work on them at home and I can rest.  Oh bummer! Well I promise to try to get something posted by Wednesday evening about all the great deals and places you can get the coupons.


By the time you are reading this a new day will have started for me and I hope it goes a bit differently than today.  I love to hear how you all handle a bad day, I try not to wallow to long in my self-pity but I will give myself a few more hours till the morning!


What perks you up?

Buttercreme or Butterfinger? Why not both!

Once again this Sunday I was trying to think of things to do with the kids other than cleaning! I decided since Valentines Day was the next day why not make some awesome cupcakes together!


Who doesn't like a good cupcake? And as I mentioned before Cody loves to help me cook and bake!

We went and bought the supplies we were lacking to make the cupcakes and were debating what type of icing we would make. Butter creme or Butterfinger? We decided on both!

We decided to share our love - we made chocolate cupcakes with chocolate butterfinger, buttercreme icing and Funfetti cupcakes with the same frosting and plain buttercreme and buttercreme with sprinkles! 

We decided to share the love and shared some with our neighbors, friends, and  Haley even wanted to take some to her teachers on Valentines day!


In the middle of making cupcakes Michael called on his way home from work and was just starving!


So Cody threw together a toasted honey-peanut butter and banana sandwich with fresh fruit on the side!

I sure do LOVE my family! 


What random act of kindness have you done lately?

Pulling off a Birthday Party for a Tween Boy

I guess it comes more naturally for me to plan Haley's birthday parties because I was once her age and I like the things girls like and it just more natural.

However, it just doesn't seem right for Cody to have a party any less than spectacular than his sister's. For the last two years I have really racked my brain and asked him for his ideas on what he wanted! When he turned 11 we through a 70's, 80's, 90's birthday party. I know we have 3 decades in there but it made for an awesome party!

Yes that is me all dressed up 80's style rocking it out with all of Cody's friends( and yes with super dark hair)! We had everyone dress up in their best 80's dress! Even the adults had the best time getting into theme of the party!

Cody and Haley's outfits were easy to make with some paint and paint brushes in the back yard. They laid the shirts on the ground and just splattered the pain all over them and then let them dry.

I ordered bead necklaces  in all sorts of different colors to give out to all the kids!  I also ordered shutter shades just like these  which were a huge hit with adults and kids alike!We bought some disco balls  turned the lights down low and danced all night long!

For Cody's 12th birthday he wanted a party that was all about playing video games especially XBOX 360! At first I thought this will be easy! Uh no I was totally wrong! It was much harder to put this party together than the last. But I was on a mission!

Cody doesn't like cakes like most kids, he will eat them but no icing and he would much rather have candy, brownies, or cookies.

So I have to say I am proud that I actually did make all of his food and cookies! I would say that by nature I am not a very crafty person but having 2 kids that I love more than anything and want to make so happy and make happy memories sure does test my creative limits!

Because it was going to be difficult going with just one game system we decided to make it a video gaming party! I made these cookies of controllers and characters from different video games.

I used sugar cookie dough and then made homemade buttercreme frosting to frost the cookies. I used jellybean like candies and cut them in half to make the decorations on the cookies.

Since Cody loves chocolate chip cookies we went with a giant cookie cake we made at home (FYI do not spread the cookie dough to the edge of the pans because it will expand trust me I ended up vaccuming burnt cookie out of my oven lol). I then took the buttercreme icing and put green food coloring to made the green symbol of the on/off switch of his XBOX.

At the drink center I made sprite with jello mixed in (Cody says this is awesome so I did it) and we also had individual drinks and I printed out labelsfor the drinks as well to just bring the theme together even more!  The kids are huge fans of Jones Soda so I bought some green ones to match his theme .

I wish the picture showed it better but we moved the couches and brought 2 T.V.s down stair with the big screen and had 3 different game systems going so all the kids could participate with the gaming fun!

The party seemed to be a big hit and I hope it created memories for years to come!

IHOP: Entrees are BOGO free on Valentine

BOGO today at IHOP!

IHOP: Entrees are BOGO free on Valentine

Vampires or Werewolves?

We all know the debate around our house - Werewolves or boys who sparkle? I love sparkle so I have to say that I am TEAM EDWARD! However, Haley is TEAM JACOB so you can imagine the debates in our house lol! Well it is that time of year we start discussing her birthday party in March and I wanted to share her birthday party from last year!

It was such a fluke that the day we chose to do the party was the same day the New Moon DVD   was released ! Were we so excited! We had a Twilight/New Moon Double Digit Birthday party! Now some of the things were super cheap but I made most of the stuff so we really cut down on the costs.

Well I have to say I love this layout. I worked so hard on this for her and seriously for a 10 year old I think she really appreciated it. I made the cupcakes from a box and then made homemade butter creme icing and decorated the tops by using a zip lock back and cutting the corner out and then just swirling it on top. I dipped strawberries in chocolate and then drizzled melted white chocolate over them. I did the same thing with the stick pretzels. I really watched out for the clearance candies after Valentines Day because we knew were going with a red and black theme. You can't see it super well but I bought tulips that were highlighted in red on the end like the one on the book.

I printed individual labels out on the computer and just used clear tape to take them on the individual drinks and 2-liters. We looked for a variety of different drinks but the biggest hit was the Jones' sodas in the bottles like these  .

 I also printed out quotes from both of the movies and framed them in black picture frames I had picked up on Black Friday a few months before and put the quotes on the bigger drinks as well.

I did splurge to get a life size cutout like this one. 

It was a huge hit and we had it set up where anyone that wanted could get their picture made with it.

We started the evening with the original Twilight Movie  and then followed up with the double feature showing The Twilight Saga: New Moon (Two-Disc Special Edition). Even my husband was taking part in the festivities for Haley.

Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of the bags I made. I found these really cool black and white bags for dollar and then took sparkly sticker letters and made each girl a bag with their name and a quote from the movie. I also printed off pictures from the movies and laminated them for bookmarks. I also found little black, white, and red notebooks for a dollar and decorated these with sparkly letters with Team Edward and Team Jacob for each girl. Each girl got a bag with the goodies and plastic vampire teeth like these.

The food was great! The movies were great! And the kids had a blast!