These are a Few of my Favorite Things

When the dog bites, when the bee stings…now you will more than likely have that song in your head for the rest of the day!  I know I will.  Sorry!   But quite honestly I just had to share a few of the things that I just can’t live without right now!

 

First off I bring you some make-up related things!  I have been a Smashbox addict lately!  I love their primers and highlighters.  As I age I find it pertinent to highlight the good areas of my face in order to minimize the not so great areas!  You’re with me if you are over 30 right now, right?!

This is a product that I recently received as a freebie with an order as part of their Pretty Points Program!  Eye Beam Double Ended Brightener by Smashbox.  Put it in the corner of my eyes and also swipe some on the eye lid area just under my eyebrow.

My favorite Mascara has now become Hyper Lash by Smashbox.  This is another one that I initially received as a sample, and then ended up buying because I loved it!  I fell hook line and sinker for that one!

Perfume wise I have always been an Angel fan – and I truly believe if you are an Angel fan it is VERY hard to fall in love with another perfume!  It’s just GOOD stuff!  As of late though I had ran out of Angel, and decided to get a perfume that I had also received a sample vial of, and decided to try it.  Come to find out – it’s rather costly just like Angel, but I decided since I remember liking it I would try it for a while instead of Angel.  Prada perfume, which I bought at Sephora.

And I also fell hook line and sinker for a perfume called Flowerbomb, and bought a little travel set of that as well!

The lady at Sephora teased me that I , unfortunately, had a very high class taste of perfumes, when I told her I loved Angel and wanted to try this Prada one, and then she also suggested this Flowerbomb one, and I am sure glad she did!  Now if only I liked cheaper perfume scents.  Hahaha.

Hair wise I have a few favorites as well!!!  A line that I have really fallen is love with is a line called Big Sexy Hair.  I know their website and product look a  little goth, which isn’t my style at all, but give them a chance if you have fine hair!  The three I use religiously are Root Pump Plus, Powder Play,  and Spray and Play Harder.  In that order as well!  With clean wet hair I spray in the root pump plus in various places at the roots of my hair.  I dry with a round brush, then once I have dry hair I put some powder play on the roots again, and tease my hair.  This gives my hair texture, volume and hold thru the whole day.  And I finish with the spray and play harder aerosol hairspray. 

So, these are a few of the things I have been really loving in the area of products!

A Grandma?

I got into a conversation the other day with my girls about how many kids they want to have some day.  I don’t remember exactly how it came up, but I think Selah was talking about being a mom some day – she brings this up a lot, especially when I am making dinner, baking, or doing something that she thinks would be a fun “mom” thing!  All three of them were in the kitchen with Kyle and I , and so we asked each of the girls how many kids they wanted to have.  Documenting this here on the blog is more of a way for me to write it down and get it off the sticky note in my kitchen…hate having too many of those sitting on my counter!  This will definitely become a scrap book page at some point – just need to decide if I want to do one per kid or put all three on one page!

Braelyn’s answer at 7 years old:  2 kids, 1 girl and 1 boy

Selah’s answer at 5 years old:  6 kids, 2 boys, then 2 girls, then a baby boy , and another baby girl.  She was specific about the order and everything!!!

Gracyn’s answer at 3 years old:  4 kids, 2 boys and 2 girls

So, potentially someday Kyle and I will be grandparents to 12 kids!  Wow – that is a crazy thought!  I love it!

Fresh Fruit Pie recipe

I love summer fruit!  strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, all of the berries really!  And I love a good fresh fruit pie – almost better than a cooked pie and they are so easy too!  I thought I’d share the recipe that I got from my sister for fresh blueberry pie, which is basically good for any fresh fruit.  Think blueberry, strawberry, raspberry, peach, etc…!!!

 

Crust:  (if you should choose to make it from scratch!  I usually end up buying a Keebler ready made crust - it should be the shortbread kind though and not the graham crust!)
1/2 cup cold butter (real butter only - I use salted when I make it)
1 1/4 cup flour
1 Tbsp cold water
-Mix with two forks (hold back to back and cut thru ingredients).  Leave a bit crumbly, press into pie pan, poke a few times with a fork so that it doesn't bubble up and crack, bake at 425 for 8-10 minutes or until golden brown.  Cool before filling.

Glaze for the fresh fruit:
1 cup sugar
2 Tbsp corn starch
-mix dry in sauce pan
Add 1 cup water (or just a bit less than one cup)
Bring to boil/clear liquid and remove from heat.
Add 3 oz. box of jello (flavored to match fruit)
Chill the liquid by letting it sit for about 15 minutes or so.  Place your fresh fruit in the pie crust, and then pour the glaze over the fruit, and chill in the fridge until ready to eat!

Here is a very bad picture of the pie I made yesterday – doesn’t do it justice, but it’s all I got!

Hope you get a chance to try it!

MandaKay

Short Hair for Summer!

Braelyn has been bugging me to cut her hair short for the last month or so.  I wanted to keep it long until her gymnastics meet, which was last Thur. night.  So on Friday she was already begging me to cut her hair!  The girl doesn’t skip a beat!  So last Friday night I spent giving haircuts to Braelyn and then Selah!  They both have new summer short hair!

And of course some LO’s I have finished up since the last time I posted LO’s on here.  All of them using The-Lilypad product!  That store just keeps getting better and better!

Don’t forget to visit the Lilypad Store this weekend for all of the sales and new products!

We have a busy busy end of our week and weekend – but all fun stuff mostly!  Lots of cookouts with friends and family and a little work for mom and dad.  The 4th of July is always a fun summer holiday!

Have a great rest of your week!

MandaKay

Lions & Tigers & Bears! Oh My!

Well, not really! The Binder Park zoo actually didn’t have any lions, tigers, or bears!  Crazy huh?  We took our first trip to the Binder Park Zoo this summer.  Normally we head to the John Ball Park Zoo since it’s closer, but I got a great Groupon deal for the Binder Park Zoo and we have been wanting to see the giraffe exploratory, so we headed down to Battle Creek one day as a family!  It ended up being a cold and cloudy/rainy day, but we still had a lot of fun!  If you have not gotten a chance to meet the giraffes up close and live anywhere near the Binder Park zoo, I strongly suggest going!  It was amazing!  We were literally RIGHT by the giraffes.  Like petting them and feeding them!  So awesome to get so close to such a beautiful magnificent animal!  I’m always amazed when we go to the zoo by the variety of animals that God created and how different and amazing each one is!

It was a fun day for our family!

Once a Month Post

Guess I can barely call this blog my “Everyday Life” blog when I have been updating it only once a month lately!  I may have to come up with a new clever title!    As usual, and much like everyone else in life…things are busy!  Summer Break is officially here, and so all three kiddos are home with me on the days I am home and don’t work.  Our first week was very fun, very busy, and I guess I could say successful!  I think the kids would consider it that  at least!  I on the other hand felt a little overwhelmed with everything.  The constant questions about who can we play with, what can we have to eat, can so and so eat over, can we swim, can we have a play date, etc….Let alone the fact that they were in and out of the house a million times a day.  I had to keep telling myself that it was all ok, and that they are just being kids and enjoying summer!  This week we have a few more structured things planned which will be good!

Without sounding like I am whining, I just have to complain about the house for sale business.  I am so sick of trying to sell our house.  I keep telling Kyle that this is the last time I am doing this.  We are staying in the next house!   I am so sick of showings, so sick of hearing that people don’t like this or that about a house I LOVE, and sick of being in the top 2 or 3 choices for someone and showing our house 2-3 times to the same couple just to have them decide on another house.  I don’t get my hopes up when we have a showing.  I pretty much go into it thinking it won’t amount to anything, but I stress about having the house spotless and making it perfect, because you know it just takes that “1” right buyer.  And needless to say, doing that with 3 kids, and at kind of inconvenient times  in a bad market is just exhausting.  There.  My rant is over on that!

I haven’t been really into scrapping lately for some reason.  I’ve never had this much of a lull with that, but I have been trying.  Spring/Summer is always a tough time to scrap because there is always so much going on, so I am cutting myself some slack!  Here are some pages I have done since my last post though!

 

Our basement is now drywalled, painted, and on it’s way to being finished!  I am loving how it is turning out – it’s always fun to see your plan come together!  I’ve been repurposing some things and painting some canvases for art – which gives such a sense of accomplishment!  And Kyle has been doing some things on his own that he hadn’t done before like laying wood laminate floor and putting up a tile backsplash!

And one more thing to talk about!  We went geocaching today!!!  Geocaching is a real-world outdoor treasure hunting game. Players try to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, using GPS-enabled devices and then share their experiences online.  I had heard from a couple people that it’s so much fun and that the kids would love it, so I suggested we do some while we were on our bike ride to the park.  The girls got excited and we really enjoyed the hunt for the little boxes!  This is the site that we got our locations off of, and while we didn’t do it the exact way we were supposed to, by putting in the coordinates into a gps, we got the location from the geocaching website and then used some clues and ideas from the map!  We did two today, and they both were a little tough to find at first, but after some hunting we finally found both and signed our team to them!!!  The girls were enjoying it, and at the park they mainly wanted to find the box rather than play on the playground!  If you haven’t tried geocaching yet, you really should give it a go – there are hidden treasures everywhere!

Have a great week!!!

MandaKay

Vacation is over and I’m back to reality!

I’m always amazed the difference between my time on vacation with no kiddos and my time at home in the normal everyday grind!  We took an adult only vacation with our friends, and our only stress for the day was where we were going to eat that night for dinner!  I didn’t have to worry about making lunches, doing homework, running to t-ball practices or gymnastics, work, etc…  I didn’t really sleep in on vacation – it’s just not something I can do, but to be able to get up in the morning, check some emails, sit out on a porch listening to the gulf waves, and having a good breakfast was wonderful!  I even read a book – literally a whole book in one day!  That is a huge achievement for me!  I am just not a reader.  I wish I was, but I never take the time to do that.  To be completely honest there is always something else I’d rather do…like scrapbook or browse galleries/forums.  My girlfriend had brought along the book “Heaven is for Real”, and she was telling us some of the facts about the book, and it intrigued me!  She finished it up, and I started right in!  We had some great dicussions about the book and the concept of heaven, while sitting on the porch at night!  I now have my hubby reading it!  It’s a pretty unbelievable story, and it paints a great picture of heaven!  And the whole concept of children in heaven…wow – how precious!  They truly are Jesus’ children!

Here are a few photos from our vacation!

Our drink cups and tunes!

the dolphin that was extremely close to shore!  We could completely see his whole body very well!

We had a pretty good time watching this movie – The Other Guys!  Got a couple good lines from that to joke about all week!

From the roof of the condo – great pool and beach!

The guys went out for shark and tarpon fishing, but only caught one smaller shark.  Kind of a bummer.

And one night we went to the dog tracks.  I have never been and was interested in what they were.  We aren’t big gamblers and we have kind of bad luck with these type of things, so we were out after $10!  Good night though!

And of course we had to love the guys cooking breakfast and cleaning the kitchen!

And the guys were even good sports and wore these fun, LOUD, touristy shirts that Beth got a steal of a deal on!

Good times…just good times!  It was a great break from parenting and my kids loved the time they got to spend with Grandpas and Grandmas and Aunt!

 

Braelyn is in her second year of t-ball and she is liking it much better this year!  She is much more confident and is really getting the concept of it.  Last year was somewhat brutal to watch because none of the kids really understood what to do with the ball!

She made it to home plate on each inning!

And what would a t-ball game be without ice cream afterwards?!

My diva – jumpin’ around

And today we went to the Tulip Time Parade, and I forgot my camera!!!  Gasp!!!  It was fun to just enjoy it though!  I think I actually got more sun in one day here today in MI than I got the whole week in FL though!  I ALWAYS put on sunscreen when I am laying out, so I was lathered up in FL, but I don’t always do so good lathering up at home when I am just running around or doing stuff outside all day.

And I haven’t been scrapbooking much at all!  I don’t know what it is, but I am just not feeling it.  I did manage to do this LO while on vacation though, and I LOVE how it turned out – it was the perfect kit for the perfect picture, and the LO got picked yesterday on the Gallery Standouts blog!  Such an honor!

 

Have a great rest of your week!

MandaKay