My husband has ONE tattoo. It's a tribal thing he designed when our son was born and my son has talked about tattoos since he is about 6. He tells us all the time that on his 18th birthday he wants us to get him a sleeve tattoo. We tell him we will talk about it when the time comes and how permanent tattoos are...AND how they can hurt. Since he is so interested I have over the years purchased him sleeve tattoos to wear around the house which always get worn by everyone except after my husband puts them on they get stretched out. Falling down every one's arm the moment they put it on.
Two weeks ago we received this set which also came with a skeleton mask.
My family loves it and I usually see it on one of them...
My son on a video game....
The kids love the skull mask.
Goddess is small enough for her to wear them on her legs! She is dying to wear these to school.
We think people will like these because it can be used as a Halloween costume or just something to wear for fun!
We love how flexible it is and after two weeks it still fits all three and is not showing signs of wear and tear or being stretched out.
The mask has been confiscated by my husband. So I don't know when the kids will see that again but it was fun while it lasted. I may have to get my son another one for Christmas.
You know it's coming and if this past two weeks it passed your house, consider yourself lucky. Everyone in my town has had a nasty cough for a week or two. Not sure if it was allergies or colds but everyone I know and working in the school system you know a lot of folks, had a nasty, annoying cough. It hit me last Thursday. I felt a sore throat Wednesday night, Thursday morning the cough was there and it is only leaving now. This past Thursday I received a shipment of Pine Bros softish Throat Drops. It couldn't come at a better time either. I grabbed two containers and headed to work. One to two drops is all it takes to not cough my head off. As I was offering a co-worker a cough drop for the coughing fit that stopped her from working for at least 4 minutes, she grabbed two, said thank you and then wait, where did you get these. I love Pine Bros. I remember even saying to her that they reminded me of the ones I took when I was a kid but that these weren't them.
It wasn't until just now that I realized these were the cough drops I used to take when I was a kid. They just had a different package.
Source for pic: http://www.longisland70skid.com/tag/candy/
The Pine Bros cough throat drops as they are now being marketed as are definitely awesome. It is amazing how much better I feel after sucking on a Natural Honey or Wild Cherry drop. I love that I don't have to take a cough medicine before bed to sleep. These cough drops not only work but taste good.
They also sent along bags that I can use to refill the canisters. I haven't tried the Licorice flavor yet but might give them to the kids the next time they have a cough. I don't want them to think these are candy I know if I give them the honey or the cherry they will. They are that good. These is a reason these drops have been around since 1870 and ranked #1 in a recent independent clinical study over all other leading brands.
Yesterday Goddess and I prepared for a Pitch Perfect 2 Twitter Party by getting her up to speed with the Pitch Perfect original.
I was unsure that this was a movie she should see but while planning my Pitch Perfect 2 Party a few moms were excited that their daughters would get to see the movie with us. HUH? I had no idea this was a kid movie after all it is PG13 and these girls are only 10 through 12.
After asking some moms I heard that their daughters all watched and loved the movie and that most of the jokes were well over their heads.
Goddess was excited to see it so we watched together cuddling in a chair in my living room. She thought it was good and was excited to see Anna Kendrick from "Twilight and The Cup Song video", well that is how she knows her anyway.
We headed out to a friend's house (the hosting house; so much easier for this mom with a son and husband who wouldn't want to give up the TV for a girl party) with a platter of sweets, Sour Jacks, some drinks, chips, swag and more). When we got there the girls were really excited. They quickly put together the photo props I brought along and begged to start the movie. We kept them busy with snacks and photo ops with props.
They had a blast and loved
America’s
favorite mouth puckering candy, SourJacks NEW flavors: Lemonade, Wildberry & Green Apple.
The candy is so fun...I had to leave the Wildberry home for handsome because he was like "I don't want those girls to eat all the candy!" These are so good. They are sour but so good. The lemonade actually made me close my eyes but my daughter said, they are not that bad. Maybe because she eats lemons and limes for snacks. The girls has a great time and we had a great laugh as we sang along to so many songs that the girls were left wondering how do you guys know all these songs! Our Pitch Perfect Twitter party was a smash as were our Sour Jack Snacks! Great time, great night, great friends.
The 411 by Maria: I am a huge tea drinker. While I love my coffee there are times of the day where I just need my tea. If I'm feeling cold. If I am feeling anxious. If I want to relax. If I want to get ready for bed. I can think of so many reasons. Coffee, is only to wake me up but tea, gives me feel good moments. Back in the day I lived with two of my best friends. They called me Grandma because I was older then them and because every night I made myself a cup of tea. One particular day I went to the kitchen, put the water on and went to get a tea bag. They were missing. I remember searching high and low, tearing through the kitchen trying to find my tea. It didn't take long before I was agitated and letting everyone know it. As I slammed the last cabinet closed I heard laughing. They had hid my tea and thought it was hysterical. I on the other hand was not so happy and didn't talk to them for the rest of the night. Numi Organic Tea is a perfect gift for tea lovers. I love that there are so many choices. I can pick which one to drink depending on my mood. Chamomile if I need to get ready for bed. Aged Earl if I need to wake up. So many choices and like most of us, so many moods. LOVE THIS.
Children are like sponges in the early years. They learn so much before Kindergarten and reading can be one of them. Giving them an early start enables them to learn even more as they enter school because they won't have to focus on learning the very basics of reading.
Babies and young children love books. I have countless pictures of my son holding books as a baby and toddler to know this. When he started school he could read the newspaper. This didn't mean he could explain what he had read to you but he knew the words he was reading and I believe this is because I always had books available, read to him all the time, pointed out words, had magnetic letters on the fridge, chalkboards on the deck, we always wrote and pointed to words and spent a lot of free time at the library.
Books open up a whole new world to kids and as a book lover myself I love these books by Baby's Brilliant.
Check out my video showing some of the books from Baby's Brilliant:
I love anything I can do with my kids that keep them offline. While I completely understand the draw to be plugged in, I feel it becomes too solitary and not what we should be fostering in our children. We need to be around people. We are social beings and all my best times included other PEOPLE not my alone time on a computer talking to "virtual friends". There is a place for that but REAL people are what adds to our life and I have been trying to explain without insisting this to my children for at least a year now as their growing fascination with the computer world has grown.
The only way to get my kids offline is to GIVE myself to them, find fun things for us to do as a family and give limits. Anytime I can get the kids to play a board game, throw a ball, hit the park, paint a picture, do a craft I am a happy mom.
Handsome isn't much for crafts. He finds them stressful because of his hand coordination so I do most of those with Goddess. SHE LOVES being creative.
We recently got a Squirrel King Craft Kit that included everything we needed to create three squirrels and a acorn hut for them although Goddess won't let me cut out a door, she thinks it is great the way it is.
The kit was so cute as it all comes in this paper acorn.
They come with everything you need to make three squirrels
The 411: I am a huge John Schneider fan from way back. You can see my other John Schneider movie review here. In Adrenaline we meet Joseph Jenkins a hazel eyed cutie who is according to a friend the best street racer around. After a near fatal car wreck (terrible computerized effect and this is my last negative statement about this movie) Joseph shares a hospital room with Elijah Salisbury (like the steak). Elijah has been in and out of hospitals and helps a very angry Joe-Joe find his "new" normal.
What I loved most is how all the people in Joseph's circle who changed his life for the better (except for his best friend) came into his life when his life had drastically changed. When he thought he was nothing! When he thought the life he had was over and he was worthless. These people loved him and pushed for him without a history, without a personal agenda, they were there because they wanted to be. Because they believed in Joseph!
I appreciated the religious aspect as well. How none of it was shoved down the viewers throat, there was not radical message about believe in GOD. The message was more about having faith, believing and trusting in yourself and others, and learning to accept your situation because there is a reason for everything. You may not always know the reason. You may never understand it but accepting it allows you to move forward without wasting time suffering and losing out on life.
AND as for John Schneider, in my opinion there wasn't enough of him but I loved him as "Uncle Paul".
Here is a view from the boat of a lake in Orange County NY. It was a spectacular view with friends and my kids got to enjoy their very first boat ride. It was a perfect day weatherwise and the scariest part for me was watching my kids get off and on the boat.
The kids have swam in this lake many times. They loves seeing it from a totally different perspective.
While they begged to take their life vests off. I was too nervous. Yes, we were in a boat but accidents happen and the life vests were a must. I had mine on. Handsome has a death grip on that hand rail. I can't say I blame him. In my mind my kids were going to get swallowed up by the big bad lake. Too many nightmares to count made this mom nervous.
Goddess and I headed to the Sterling Forest Renaissance Faire like we have for the past two years. This was her third trip over and she loves it. We even spotted a dragon in one of the marshes. Such a beautiful place.
For our pop of color, here is a very thrilled Goddess in her first photo of the year at renfaire.
Her glasses turn into sunglasses and while I love them, I never see her eyes in photos anymore.
So in this photo I asked her to remove them. She can't see anything but obliged. This is probably my favorite photo of the day.
This weekend Goddess and I headed out to our early Renfare stop. We love it for so many reasons.
The Sights!
The Sounds!
The Food
The People
and The Artisans
There is so much to look at.
Here are just a few of our sights from Saturday.
Some random flags
She got one last year and really wanted another but they are sooo expensive
We spent so much time in this oil shop smelling all the beautiful scents
Look how colorful that window is with it's blue curtain and flowerbox
A fairy taking a break
The first shot of the day. We walked through the crowd and went to the end of the fair to start from the back, I turned and took this shot as we past the first few houses.
Goddess takes lunch every day. I don't usually stress about what she is eating at lunch because she balances her loves of sweets by being generally a pretty healthy eater. A typical lunch: Salad (just lettuce with a salad dressing) Cut Carrots (with a buffalo ranch for dipping, she likes it spicy) Yogurt Water AND Snack
Her snack used to be something chocolaty but this week she started taking Crispy Fruit from Crispy Green.
We received a box of snacks that we already went through and today I had to grab more because Goddess requested two of her favorite flavors. Can't say I blame her. They were delicious and I have my own favorite too.
My favorite was the tangerine! She never even got to try them because I ate the bag before she got home. It was like eating a sweet, crunchy, delicious tangerine.
Here are two of the others:
As you can see it looks just like the fruit and that is because it IS the fruit. All the moisture has been removed through a freeze dried process leaving just a crunchy, delicious snack that you can take anywhere. No need to keep it cool or worry about it being squished.
Great for lunch boxes, camping, hiking, boating, whatever!
We will be buying more. Thank goodness my Shoprite has them.
We have been using Luseta Tea Tree & Aragan Oil for a month today. It is a great shampoo and conditioner that works well for all hair types. Luseta Beauty is a beauty product company located in Los Angeles, CA, and specialize in
hair care products.
Wash and Wear with Luseta Tea Tree &; Aragan Oil
It smells amazing. It is a clean, fresh scent that goes well with the very light green color. I have extremely thick, wavy hair and it only takes one quick pump of the shampoo and two of the conditioner for my hair to be more manageable, healthy looking and knot free.
Also, my son has occasional dandruff due to his very dry, sometimes eczema outbreak scalp. He uses this and I have not had the need to de-scale his scalp which sometimes gets crusty due to his eczema. Tea Tree oil cleans the scalp making it healthy and dandruff free.
Luseta is sulfate free; something I look for in my shampoos and conditions.
The best part for me beside all of the other things I mentioned is that I use way less conditioner which is a huge savings for me. I cannot believe the whole house is using this and we aren't even down to 50% yet. I usually have to go with two hands full of conditioner for me and my daughter's hair each which means I usually open a new conditioner every week. I need to calculate the savings after we get through the bottle but I believe it it close to a savings of $20 for this month already. THAT IS HUGE.
