Costume Party Invitation {Manny's 4th & Maeva's 2nd Birthday Party}

I can't believe it, but birthday party season is upon us once again! Since the kids' birthday's are only 5 days apart, I'm going to get away with a joint party for as long as I can. It saves money & is easier for the most part, so it works well for us. However, deciding on a theme this year didn't come quite as easy as last year's confetti bash. What to do when you're faced with the challenge of throwing a joint birthday party for your son & daughter who have extremely different and unique favorite things that don't go together at all? Throw a costume party, of course!  So thankful for my BFF, event planner extraordinaire, who helped me shape this "vision", if you will. :)

I like to include a picture on their invite, and as luck would have it, Candice had a Minnie Mouse costume Maeva was able to borrow. MB loves Minnie...not quite as much as Spiderman, but she does love her. :) Her newest love is Cookie Monster. I hope you can see her Cookie socks in some of the pictures. She basically demands those on a daily basis...so that's fun to deal with. Manny mostly requested a Ninja Turtle birthday party, but he also loves Superman and Dusty from Planes...so those made his costume of choice, too.  

I took a ton of pictures because I never know what I'm going to get with them...so I just keep snapping. I put this collage on the back of the invite as they were some of my favorites, too. We laughed the whole time I was taking these pictures...and a few people stopped to watch us too. I'm sure we looked crazy. :)

 A few more of my favorites...MB biting Cookie...she loves to "chomp" him.

But then she decided to pucker up and give him a kiss. 

Here she asked for another cookie...and mean mommy said no. She was not happy, despite the fact she still had one in her hand. 

Manny was full blown ninja mode, so a lot of my pictures didn't quite turn out. He was too busy fighting the bad guys. :)

 Traveling on to a different location for more pictures...MB not happy about the cookie situation still.

And finally, some kisses for her daddy. She is such a daddy's girl - she asks for a kiss every morning when he leaves for work. :) I sure do love my kids and their silly, unique personalities! Couldn't be more the truth to say...never a dull moment here. And I wouldn't have it any other way. #mostdays :)

Some Favorite Beauty Products

When we were getting ready at the retreat, my sister was like - what are all these new products you're using?! I normally post here about new things I find and love...but since I haven't blogged in awhile, I failed to mention these to her. So I thought I'd share some of my favorite new products!

Sigma F80 Flat Kabuki Brush

I decided to order this after reading Brittany rave about it. Turns out this is what Kim Kardashian's makeup artist uses on her. And if it's good enough for Kim K., I suppose it's good enough for me. ;) I purchased mine on Amazon for around $21, so it's a little pricey. But it is worth every penny to me! I think it gives me a really smooth finish, and have even had several people mention so. I will say that since I bought this, I noticed e.l.f. has a similar brush for around $6. Not sure if it works the same, but I've had great luck with many e.l.f. products so it might be worth checking out for a more price friendly option.

e.l.f. Face Primer - I'm sure I've mentioned my love for the e.l.f. line before, but if not - it's a very inexpensive brand at Target (a few other places too I think) that I've grown to love. I purchased this face primer ($6 at Target) on a whim after realizing what a difference eyeshadow primer made for me. I absolutely love this stuff! My face feels so smooth after I put it on, and I really feel like it helps my makeup stay on longer.

e.l.f. Studio Angled Eyeliner Brush - Another great e.l.f. find! I use a gel eyeliner and this makes it really easy to get a nice thin line with the angle of the brush. I picked mine up at Target for only $3.

Rodan + Fields Reverse - I'm still using this and am starting to notice a difference! I have somewhat sensitive skin so have had to build up with it slowly because at first it dried my face out, but I'm really loving it. I need to take some progress pictures to show how it's helped.  

So there are some of my recent faves. I also finally jumped on the bandwagon and ordered some of that fiber lash mascara everyone keeps raving about. Do you have any new products you've fallen in love with? You know I'd love to hear about it if so! :)

MomLife Boot Camp 2014

The last weekend of March, I was lucky enough to get away for a few days with my mom and sister Rachael to MomLife Boot Camp. Rachael went last year and had a great time, so we decided to join her this year. It's put on by Family Life, which is the same organization that does a Weekend to Remember. Patrick and I have gone to a couple of those (I wrote about it here) and we have always loved the Family Life devotionals, so I knew this would be something I'd like.  Luckily Patrick was able to arrange his schedule to be off, so we all headed down to Dallas, and Patrick and Matt (Rachael's husband) kept the kids all at their house. It was so cute when we were pulling out - all the kids were yelling by and waving!

 

The retreat was held at Pine Cove, which is in Tyler, Texas, on Lake Palestine. It's a huge camp and the property is absolutely gorgeous. It had been raining on our way there, and when we got there we saw a beautiful rainbow! It's in the top right of the picture, if you look closely. None of those pictures here turned out that great - the sun was intense. All of our meals were included (and delicious!), so we grabbed a quick dinner and headed to the evening session.

The theme for the retreat was called Seasons of My Life, and the main sessions talked about The Girl I Was, The Mom I Am, and The Woman God Created Me to Be. It was SO good and a wonderful reminder for me to not be so hard on myself, and remember that God chose ME to be the mom of my kids...and He knows what He's doing, even when I feel like I don't. :) 

After the evening session, we had a super fun treat and got a pre-screening of a new movie coming out May 9th called Mom's Night Out! (They even brought in popcorn from the local movie theater - SO fun!) I cannot remember the last time I laughed so hard at a movie. It was just SO much I could relate to, and had an awesome message to it. I had seen the trailer before, but I didn't realize it's a Christian movie. But it's not cheesy or over the top at all...it is so so SO well done. If you haven't seen the trailer, you can watch it here.

And as if seeing the movie wasn't cool enough, one of the main actresses, Andrea Logan White (she's the one in the glasses on the poster above), was there and shared her testimony and did a little Q&A after the movie! She is gorgeous and her testimony is absolutely amazing. It's so neat to see Christians taking a stand in Hollywood! Seriously though, you guys - see this movie. It is so fun and refreshing and makes us crazy moms feel normal. ;) I'm going to get together a group of friends to go opening weekend and know it will be a blast. I want Patrick to see it too - I know he'll get a kick out of it.

Saturday morning we woke up to a beautiful day! The trees and lake were so gorgeous. Just such a relaxing environment.

We had a session and a few breakouts, then some free time for the afternoon. There were several activities we could chose to do (at no additional cost!) so we decided to take advantage of some of those.  

One of those being paintball!! I've always thought it would be fun, but was unsure what it would be like and really just haven't ever had a chance to try it...so we decided to seize the moment. Plus we'd totally earn cool points with our guys. ;)

We took like a million pictures all geared up...how could we resist?! We had the guy working it take all these pictures, and we were laughing about it because I imagine when guys play, they don't do an extensive photo shoot in the gear beforehand. :)

I ended up getting hit almost right away in the first game, and have a nice badge of honor to prove it. Not gonna lie - it stung for awhile. When I walked off the field, I asked the ref if I had paint or blood running down me. Gotta keep my dramatic flair in tact.

My mom and I also went ziplining. I screamed my ever-loving head off, even though I'd ziplined before from a lot higher places. It was fun though.

We didn't get good service there, so were pretty unplugged from our phones all weekend. I had texted Patrick asking for a picture of the kids at some point, and they sent back this group shot of them getting ready to head to church. They all looked so cute - even MB with her hair slicked back! Patrick had wanted me to fix her pigtails "really good" before leaving for the weekend because he wasn't sure what he was supposed to do with her hair. But he managed something here...so funny. They had a fun weekend together...Matt and Pat, cruising around in the minivan with all 5 kids. I'm sure that was a sight to see! ;) 

Oh here's a random picture I want to share. One of the breakout sessions I went to was on foster care, and the speaker shared this canvas she has that represents the children they've had in their home. I thought it was such a neat idea and special keepsake!

We headed home Sunday afternoon, and Maeva greeted me with an icy stare and crossed arms for almost a full 60 seconds before allowing me to hold her. She's so tough. :)

I am so incredibly thankful I got to go to this! The speakers were all great, and we had a blast with all of the extra stuff we got to do while there. We ate wayyy too much, and it was so nice to eat and not have to clean up after ourselves. The whole experience was much needed and just truly refreshing. Mom & Rach, we need to plan on it again next year - but just get there early enough we're not stuck on a top bunk again...haha! :)

Our Week

Well here we are. I feel silly even saying anything about never posting because that's probably how I've started my last 5 posts. I did manage to post once in March - ABOUT THANKSGIVING. Who does that?! I guess if anyone ever really wondered if I actually blog for myself...well there was your proof. :) I don't know that I'll ever catch up on the last few months I've missed. And I'm okay with that if I don't...but I'm going to start blogging the present and not worry about it. Why do I feel like this is group therapy and I'm the one oversharing? I think I have a knack for complicating things. Obviously.

But I decided it's time to jump back in, and what better way to start then with a few highlights from our week?

Most days I just wear workout clothes when I'm dropping Manny off at PreK. The other day I put on "real" clothes because I had a meeting to go to. When he saw me, he said, "Mama, why did you get dressed like that? So the other mamas won't laugh at you?" Umm...I didn't know they were. Thanks for the complex buddy. He really has been saying the funniest things lately. I have a bunch of them saved in a note on my phone, and need to post them here. He is a mess for sure!

Wednesday we had Muffins with Mom at Manny's school. In which, you'll notice, I wore workout clothes. Clearly I learned nothing from Manny's little chat with me. He was so excited to serve me my muffin (which MB ate, of course) and it was a fun little treat.

On Thursday Patrick went to talk to Manny's class. Ever since the beginning of the year when Manny's teacher asked about Patrick coming to talk to the class for the Community Helpers unit, Manny has been asking if it's time for daddy to come to his class yet. Well that day finally came, and Manny was absolutely giddy. Cutest thing ever!

But this. This would be the picture I've looked at nearly 100 times since then. Manny kept looking around at his friends and smiling while Patrick was talking. He was so, so proud of his daddy and it just melted my heart to watch his little face light up. 

On Friday, we hung out at Megan's for a bit and got to see Baby Annie. MB was thrilled about that, as you can see here. She's not so great at sharing her mama. ;)

Patrick and I celebrate 8 years of wedded bliss today! I have to use that term any time I talk about our anniversary because I made him a little book for our wedding, kind of scrapbook style. One of the phrases I put in it said Wedded Bliss...or so I thought. Upon 2nd glance, it actually said Wedded Bloss. Thank you, Dollar Tree, for letting me down on my special wedding scrapbook moment. But it's a fun memory we love to joke about and I'm sure will never forget! Anyway, we went on a date Saturday night and it was so fun to have some time together and reminisce about the old days and how we came to be. Time flies when you're having fun! ;) Sure do love this guy and couldn't be more thankful to spend my life with him.

On Sunday afternoon, I got to attend The Crafters Bash in Tulsa! Thuy hosts one of these every couple of months I believe, and they always look so fun. I've wanted to catch one but it never worked with my schedule. When she posted about the calligraphy one, I knew I needed to make it happen. So I put it on the calendar a few months ago, and fortunately I was able to make it! I had the BEST time and everything was so cute! I learned enough about calligraphy to get me started...now I just need to get to practicing. I certainly was NOT one of those that easily catches on and it looks perfect on the 1st try. Quite the contrary. But I slightly improved the more I practiced, so I think it will just take some time. Oh and the swag bags? Absolutely AMAZING. It was such good stuff - notebooks, earrings, necklace, headwrap, prints, notecards....and SO much more. It was such a fun treat and I loved chatting with old and new friends while we crafted!

So there you have it. And I just realized this post has tons of pictures of Manny but not Maeva...so here's one for good measure. Sissy Prissy is living up to her name and loves her accessories more than ever. The future with this one has me a little nervous of my parenting skills. :)

 

Happy Tuesday! :)