2 Little Monkies Jumpin' On The Bed...

This is their favorite thing to do lately. Throw on some tunes (especially this song, "Tonight, Tonight" by Hot Chelle Rae), and jump on the bed. They.Love.It.



How do you like Powell's "Super jump twist?" Pretty rad, right? ;)

Mother's Day 2011

This Mother's Day was pretty laid back. Just the way I like them. We, of course, went to church in the morning. I was teaching the 2's and 3's junior church, so I didn't get to hear the sermon in the morning, but I did get to make help make some cute Mother's Day crafts for the children to give to their mommies. Isabel always points to the one I she made me and says, "My handprint!" I love being a mommy. After church, we worked on the garden some. Did I mention I was going to start a garden this year? My very first, so we shall see how it goes! I'm pretty excited about it. Kathy (my MIL) came over for a bit before we met everyone for dinner. My lovely daughter gave her "gramma Kappy" a Mother's Day she'll never forget. The unsuspecting grandma is holding her sweet granddaughter (who is wearing "big girl" panties because she is potty training) on her lap. All of a sudden, Isabel gets quickly put down, and poor Kathy stands up to reveal the fact that Isabel had let loose her bladder on her grandma. In a big way. Sigh... It was not one of her greatest moments, but later on, we all had a chuckle. After Kathy went home to change, we met up at Chili's with Matt's sister and her family and Matt's parents. It was a lovely, fun dinner. Afterward, we headed over to Dairy Queen for some dessert. Georgia Mud Fudge Blizzard? Don't mind if I do! I hope all of the mothers and mothers-to-be out there had a wonderful day!

Ahhh...So Refreshing!

I got my hair cut and highlighted. Feels so good. It had been over a year since I had had it cut or trimmed or anything! It had been since 2007 (shortly after Powell was born) since I had had any color added to my hair. I needed a new look. Caroline cut off about 7-8 inches of hair. My husband was a little skeptical of the length at first, but I think it's grown on him. He still does prefer my hair at a longer length, but he can live with this. Good thing! lol

Happy Easter!

Easter Sunday was a pretty relaxed day for us. We went to church in the morning. Before church, we attempted to get a picture of the kids. Need I say more? Isabel has been anti picture taking lately, and will not smile or look at the camera most of the time. I sang in the mixed ensemble for the Easter program, which was actually a first for me. I very much enjoyed it. The songs we sang were beautiful. So much meaning, and brought tears to my eyes just about every time we sang them. Just remembering the fact that Jesus died on the cross for all people and rose again on the 3rd day. It is so wonderful to know that I serve a living God, and that he loved all of us lowly, sinful people, that He would send His son to die for us, and that Jesus willingly did it...I am in awe.
That afternoon, we dyed some eggs (Matt made us do 36 eggs to be exact). :P Sadly, we didn't finish eating them all within the week, but I think we did pretty well! The kids did an egg hunt with candy-filled plastic eggs, we had a very low-key dinner, and watched "How To Train Your Dragon."
Super "egg"-cited to dye some eggs! Sorry. Couldn't help myself. :)
Isabel wasn't too interested in the egg dying. She did do one though, and here's the proof.
Stirring it up.
Looking for some eggs. Isabel caught onto this pretty well, and she didn't even know that there was candy in them! Imagine her surprise. :)

Showing us his "loot."
Her "loot." Again, anti picture.

I hope everybody had a wonderful and blessed Easter!

Super Heroes!

Here is my first "major" project that I have used my "new" sewing machine for. Matt got me my Singer a couple Christmas's ago, and I've used it once before this to make burpies for my nephew, Creed. Well, when I say "make", I mean that I attached some ribbon to some Gerber cloth diapers to make them look baby boyish and cute.

Powell always pretends to be a super hero (or super villain now, thank you to "Megamind"). He loves his Superman pajamas, and always wants to wear them because of the cape. I mean, who can be a super hero without a cape? I wanted to get him a cape that he could wear whenever he wanted, and I wanted it to be cute and good quality. All of the capes you see in the boutiques are $30 and up. Was not going to pay that. I decided to try and make one myself, and after looking at a few tutorials online, I decided to go with this one. Of course I had to make one for Isabel too since they like to play with the same things, and play together nicely...sometimes.... Mine did not turn out as nice and perfect as the ones in the tutorial, but it was my first time sewing something like that, on my own, with no real prior experience to speak of. I am pretty proud. The kids love them. That makes me happy.

Here are the finished products. Powell picked the colors of his cape, and I picked Isabel's colors. She didn't really care anway. ;) He has a lightening bolt on the back of his, and she has a crown on the back of hers. I realize you may have to use your imagination for the lightening bolt, and according to my husband, I should have sewn it on vertical, not horizontal. For the record, I had a seam that was a little messed up on the right side of the circle, so I really needed to sew the bolt on horizontally.

"My hero!" This really makes me laugh because this is Powell's infamous, "mad face." Looks pretty scary, don't you think?

Powell had to add the gloves to his ensemble. Apparently super heroes need gloves to help them fly. That's right. The cape is not enough for flight. Isabel didn't want her picture taken. This was right before naptime.
She's still cute, even though she's sad. Of course, she had to have some "glubs" too.

CoverGirl NatureLuxe BzzCampaign

I recently received my samples of CoverGirl's NatureLuxe liquid silk foundation and NatureLuxe gloss balm for a BzzCampaign that I am involved in. Being a BzzAgent is pretty awesome. You sign up for campaigns that would apply most to you, they typically send you a free sample and some coupons to hand out, and I get to tell you wonderful people how I liked the product!

First, we will start with the foundation. I am normally not a foundation type of girl. Even when I worked for Clinique, I loved wearing the eye makeup, cheeks and lips, but I always hated having to wear the foundation. To me, foundation has always been thick, cakey, heavy, and you can always tell who is wearing it. I have always been just a concealor kind of girl. Only wearing it when I had a blemish or dark shadows under my eyes (which seems to be happening a lot more than it used to!). I was pleasantly surprised by the NatureLuxe foundation. It is very light and smooth. It's not heavy, but it does a good job at evening out my skintone. The one thing I will never like in any foundation is when you rub your face against a light colored shirt, for example, your makeup is transferred to that shirt. Unfortunately, that's going to happen with pretty much any and every makeup.

Onto the lip balm. I love lip stuff. Lip stick, lip gloss, lip balm, chapstick, whatever! Obviously, I loved getting to try something else out on my lips. Really loved the NatureLuxe lip balm. I was a little nervous because of the color of lip balm they sent me. It came in the color 'Pinot', which, surprise, surprise, is a wine color. Thinking it was going to be very dark when I put it on, it only gave a hint of the color that it came in. Not sticky feeling at all, and very moisturizing.

Some interesting information about the NatureLuxe foundation and lip balm:

• 3 out of 4 professional make-up artists would recommend the new COVERGIRL NatureLuxe Collection to their clients
• 8 out of 10 professional make-up artists agree NatureLuxe Silk Foundation provides flawless coverage and a light, luxurious feel
• 9 out of 10 make-up artists would recommend NatureLuxe Gloss Balm to clients for a sheer color with a non-sticky, lightweight feel

Also loving that the foundation contains SPF 10 and lip balm contains SPF 15!

Don't know if you can tell the lip balm color or my evened-out skin, but here is a picture for posterity's sake.

The Little Stinker-Belle Turned 2!

This little cutie turned 2 today. How it happened? I do not know. One day she was this tiny, precious little baby, and the next, she was this fun-loving, sassy, sweet, little lady!
We celebrated by having Matt's parents come over for dinner, cake and present opening. Nothing too fancy this year. I made these delicious PF Chang's copycat lettuce wraps. If you love love their lettuce wraps as I do, you have got to make these ones! They were also a perfect gluten free meal, as my mother-in-law has celiac's. Matt bought a cake from King Sooper's, and since it was obviously not gf, I made some vanilla bean icecream using this awesome Vanilla Bean Paste.
Here is Isabel thanking Wiley the guinea pig (Matt's parent's guinea pig that we were going to watch for them), for the adorable hedgehog purse.
Getting good at ripping open those presents.
G'ma Kathy and g'pa Herb got Isabel Bitty Baby's crib. It was too funny, because Isabel thought the box was the crib and immediately tried to put Bitty Baby inside before we had actually taken out the pieces of the real crib and put them together. Funny little girl.
Here she is with her store-bought cake. It was pretty yummy.
Lovin' that cake

She was in stroller heaven. She received Bitty Baby's stroller from my parents and a little doll umbrella stroller from my brother and his family.

She also got this mini Rapunzel doll. She loves "brushing" her hair, but I'm afraid poor Rapunzel is a little more "tangled" than she's used to being. ;)
My brother and his family also got her the Cinderella jewelry you see pictured here. She loves it. Powell likes pushing the button on the shoe that says, "Hello. I'm Cinderella." Fun for everyone! Happy Birthday my Belle! We love you to pieces!!!

Isabel at 2:

-She loves fruit, and anything sweet. What can I say? She is my child.

-She doesn't like veggies, but will, on occassion, eat raw carrots or celery dipped in ranch or corn on the cob.

-She loves to be read to.

-She loves to sing and dance (again, my daughter)

-Loves shoes!

-Loves babies (real and pretend), princesses, going for walks, the twirly slide at the park (but is afraid of the swings)

-Has a huge vocabulary. I wouldn't even be able to list all of the things she says. She speaks in short sentences, and I just love her little voice. Some favorites: "I luf (love) you!", "Luf (love) you too!", "God bless!", "Where did it go?", "I found it!", "I need help.", "I got a boogie."...She will pretty much repeat any word/phrase you want her to say.

-She now sleeps in a big girl bed! I'll post pics later after we've taken down the crib and put the cute bedding on. ;)