Hilarious!

Ok, I don't have kids, but three sets of my friends became new parents this year. I came across this blog yesterday and I'm obsessed! It's so funny and real.

messagewithabottle.tumblr.com

Cousin-puppy Love

Spent Christmas with my brother and his wife up North. They live in  a 'sleepy little town' where I grew up. It was really nice to have the small moments of reminiscing. It was nice to just stop and sit and just be. The few days leading up to it was crazy-emotional-stress-filled crap, but once we were there that started to melt away. Being there, and it being Christmas forced me to breathe and let it be. For I few hours I did have to slip into robot mode - for the best, but that was counteracted with an amazing moment of vulnerability and understanding from my sister-in-law. It was nice. 

All of the emotions were also softened by the wonderful joy of watching our babies running around. The first time Bosley and Laila met it was not promising. Laila hid behind Saddie the entire time growling. Over Thanksgiving, it got a bit better. There was still growling and hiding, but there was also chasing and playing. This time, there was almost no growling and even some light cuddling!

Begging for a treat

Not pleased with being a reindeer

The moment Bosley received his gift, he became obsessed! Its a brain toy comprised of three squeaky owls that he has to figure out how to remove from a plushy tree trunk. He is extremely protective of his baby owls.

Protecting his baby owls

Excessively tired after getting home

Bosley is still trying to recover from his couple of days of partying with his cousin.

Wordless Wednesday: Cuddling with Teddy

Ooo, Sparkly!

I'm hiding behind my teddy because I was naughty. I was so inspired by mommy's Christmas spirit last night, that I was overcome. It caused me to feel compelled to eat a salt dough ornament right off the tree! I am now ashamed of my sparkly glitter poops.

Holidays

I have much to catch up on. The holidays have a duality about them for me. I initially wanted to actively not participate, but its unavoidable. It's not a perfect holiday greeting card I hoped for, but I really have so much to be thankful for.

Erik, Bosley, and I packed up the car and headed north to my brother's and new sister-in-law's for Thanksgiving.

Couldn't wait to get to the turkey and cousin-puppy Laila

Laila is upset with her mommy for letting another puppy so close to her

This is as close as they came for a very long time

belly rubs from Uncle DJ

Me and my dad - smiling is painful for him :)

Finally home and exhausted!

"No, I will not get out of bed this morning!"

Much to Bosley's dismay, mommy tried to make cute Christmas photos

Is it bad that I don't want to give anyone their gifts solely for the fact that I love how they are wrapped?

I am definitely in the Christmas spirit now and crafting like crazy! I can't share too many crafts just yet because they are gifts. Today I made salt dough ornaments.

Glittery salt dough ornaments

2.5 cups flour

1.25 cups salt

1 cup water

* I added 1.5oz Champagne colored glitter

(if dough is sticky, add more flour)

mix well and roll out

use any cookie cutter you desire and use a straw to punch out a hole at the top

I used rubber stamps to create patterns in the dough

bake at 250o for 10-15 mins

dough started to lighten as it was getting close to finished

a snapshot of some of my other ornaments

Enjoying the blanket from grandma

Right after Christmas I get to go up to Milwaukee and ring in the new year with Emily! I got a new dress and could not be more excited to show it off!

I hope everyone has a fantastic remainder to their Holiday season!

Lets Face it...

I have had acne problems off and on since I was 13. It never got to the point where it consumed my skin, but it stressed me out. I feel I finally have it under control with regular exfoliating and the right cleansers/moisturizers for my skin type. I do occasionally get a few spots - usually about the same time each month. I would like to never worry about my skin, but since I do, I've decided to have some fun with it. I researched some at home, all natural face masks and tried the one I liked the most. Its cinnamon and cumin! 

The original recipe said to also use honey, but I could not reconcile putting something so sticky and potentially pore clogging on my face. I changed it to olive oil. A little went a long way - it really didn't take much to make a paste. I first exfoliated then I left the spices on for 10mins. 

The cinnamon promotes circulation to the surface of your skin, thereby sweeping away any toxins that have built up under your skin. The cumin is anti-microbial so it will battle acne. 

When I rinsed it off I noticed that my skin was a little flushed so the cinnamon must have been working! Also, the olive oil made my skin soooo soft. I think I'm going to keep this up.

I Got De-Fluffed!

BEFORE

And after!!!!

Oh the Horror! Halloween Flashback

Halloween is one of my FAVORITE holidays! Probably because my birthday comes just before. I had my annual themed Halloween costume party again this year. This year's theme which all of my decorations centered around, was Horror Movies. Decorating is about 70% of the fun for me!

These supplies...

became this!

Another 'craft' I made for the party was a life sized Freddy Krueger. This was out of PVC pipe, a foam head, a mask, and some old clothes. Nate came to town for a wedding and crashed at our place. He is not the biggest fan of Halloween, so naturally Erik and I wanted to have some fun. We built Freddy, and stood him up in the living room to surprise Nate as he came home that night. When we woke up this is how we found him.

Nate thought Freddy needed to get his beauty sleep

I put Freddy behind some ripped plastic right at the front door. He was back lit with a strobe light for extra creepy-ness! 

I wanted it to look like there was blood all over my walls so I hung plastic covered in red paint all down the hallway and in my entry way. Making these plastic sheets was an ordeal! I initially tried to do it outside like a good responsible person who didn't want to get red paint all over her rented apartment. Well it was 40 degrees and my paint immediately went stiff. It refused to run down the plastic. I then added thinner to it thinking that would help. It really didn't and the paint started to clump and wasn't sticking to the plastic well. I now know that you can't add thinner to latex based paint - oops!

A movie I wanted to incorporate was SAW. I got this creepy little trike for $5 at a yard sale.

My next character was Michael Meyers. Building a whole person was a challenge so I wanted to avoid that again. He's just a foam head attached to my shelving in the second bedroom, but creepy right?

One of my besties, Kenny, came for the party. He made me a video of snow with the voice of the little girl from Poltergeist. It was the scene where she's stuck in the TV screaming "Mommy! I can't find you, Mommy!" Chills!

The rest of the second bedroom.

Here is a shot of the entrance to my bathroom. This is the sign I showed you in my preview post. Its a UPS box, christmas lights, and tissue paper. I treated a white shower curtain like the other plastic and back lit it with another strobe light. It was a super cool effect!

On the living room TV I had the cursed video from The Ring on loop with a skeleton dress up as the little girl from the well. That was the prop that actually scared me!

To keep the horror movie theme, I wanted to go as Carrie this year. My costume consisted of an $11 dress from Goodwill and a bunch of fake blood. Well at first it was that easy. Turns out the fake blood dried purple, so I had to go get some RIT fabric dye and try again. This dried pink so luckily the lighting was pretty low and no one could tell. I had red make up as blood dripping down my face and I got a blond wig that I poured fake blood into.

What do you think?

I also had the kitchen all decorated with skulls and chains and candles. I made some pretty creepy appetizers as well...

Cheese skull

Pretzel fingers

I took pretty much no photos of all the costumes but here are a few...

I had a blast and can't wait for next year's Vampire theme!!!

On actual Halloween, Dalyz and I got together with the pups. She was puppysitting our friends dog Josie who is an adorable riot!

Bosley as JAWS