Rimmel London Moisture Renew Lipstick

Has everyone heard of the wonderful company that sends you free stuff to try?  No, not that subscription box that you pay for...FREE products for you to try?!?

If you haven't you should head on over to Influenster.com and sign up!  You fill out profiles to build up your badges, and can qualify to receive some pretty awesome products.

I was recently selected to participate in the Rimmel London Moisture Renew Lipstick VoxBox.  (VoxBox's are the awesome box you get in the mail with your awesome products!)

Now let me say that just a few months ago you would rarely EVER catch me with makeup on.  I mean...ever.  Broke my Momma's heart, but I just never really took the time.  However, an opportunity came up at work and my professional presence had to be stepped up...and that meant makeup.  Rimmel London has been absolutely amazing for a novice dipping her feet into the wonderful world of makeup!

This lipstick is so moisturizing that it doesn't even really feel like a lipstick!  The color saturates wonderfully and stays on for way longer than I ever would've imagined.  It's a product that has made it's way into my makeup bag and I see it staying there for quite a while!

*I did receive this product via Influenster to try, however  the opinions on both the product and Influenster are mine and mine alone!  Now go get some Rimmel London Moister Renew Lipstick for yourself!

Throwback Thursday

Throwback Thursday

Dreaming of a tropical destination this morning, and wishing I could be there instead of work!  

(Photo taken in beautiful Jamaica for my beautiful best friend's wedding two summers ago!)

Did you feel the earth shift on its axis?

Because this girl actually cooked!

That being said I did not make the Pinterest recipe I shared last week...but a recipe I had printed forever ago and for some reason (the reason being that generally speaking I don't cook) never followed through on trying it out.

Growing up my Mom made Spaghetti Chicken and I loathed it.   Flat out refusal to eat the abomination my mother had put before me was the standard reaction, so when it popped into my head a while back I was a little surprised!  BUT it sounded GOOD and so the search for a recipe that didn't involve Velveeta began. Nothing against Velveeta, but "cheese product" just isn't something I'm interested in.

I found the recipe on a website called Six Sisters Stuff, and it was so simple that I thought I would share it here.

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Here are some pictures from the cooking adventure:

Gathering all my ingredients! I put the chicken in to bake while I handled all the other components...cooking the noodles, chopping the onion, opening all the cans ;)

All the ingredients ready to go in the oven! I almost didn't have a bowl big enough to combine all the ingredients, but basically you take all the ingredients, mix them as best you can, and dump them in a lightly greased glass dish to bake.

Proof that I don't do this often...cleaning up as you go? Not for this girl!  Maybe that's a habit you develop over time? Also, notice the baby monitor?  LO went down for a FOUR.HOUR.NAP yesterday!! The Angel Care Monitor  is another post by itself, but it ranks for sure on the list of baby must haves!

Finished Product!!  It turned out very tasty, and you'll see the little bit in the corner missing...that would be LO's dinner!  He dug right in and enjoyed it very much!  I got a message after lunch today that C liked it too!  So awesome to find a recipe to add to the rotation that the entire family liked!

AND proof that I didn't leave the kitchen a disaster!

Hope you all have a great Monday!

That's Pintastic

If anyone ever looked at my Pinterest page they would perhaps be woefully misguided as to the type of person I am in real life.  You see on Pinterest I've got amazing recipes, cute outfits, fun activities to do with my LO, the list could go on and on.

Reality however, is not even close to Pinterest!  My humor board is pretty lined up with me, but other than that it's mostly all aspirations.  Cooking those fabulous meals would be wonderful!  Talking my husband into cooking the fabulous recipes would be even better!  One of my main focuses in bringing my Pinterest page to life is to start using some of the decorating ideas to bring some life to my home!  In the upcoming weeks I'm hoping to start tackling some projects and if everything goes well I'll be here to share them.  In the even that things crash and burn I'll share that too...

Here are a couple of things I'm hoping will be coming down the pipeline:

For LO's Room, imagine with Orange and Blue 

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No Promises on the lattice topping, but an otherwise doable recipe

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Some sweet treats to give to our neighbors...maybe football themed ribbon?

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These three should be pretty easy to complete and will hopefully give me the confidence to really branch out and see if I like being the person that I am on Pinterest!

Fit Friday

Trying to lose weight after having LO (Little One for future reference) has been one of the hardest things I have EVER tackled!  It's harder to stay on track than it ever was before.  Grabbing quick meals where you can is not always conducive to healthy eating although I'm sure I could make better choices!

Thankfully I have a job with a gym downstairs, now if I get to the gym a couple times a week I count that a success.  Definite room for improvement there!  I'm hoping that putting this out there will encourage myself to be more accountable to myself!  At this point in the game it's not about a number on the scale, but more about feeling like myself again.  Prior to getting pregnant I wasn't really happy with myself and now with the added lingering baby weight it's easy to slip into a place where you can feel sorry for yourself.  Here are a couple of goals for the month of August (even though we're already about a week into the month)

1.  Make the Honor Roll at the Turner Athletic Club.  You have to go 12 times in the month to make the honor roll which boils down to a couple times a week.  At the very least it's a start!
2. No Soft Drinks.  No point in drinking my calories!
3. Find the nerve to put up a before picture so that at the end of this journey I can see how far I've come! 

Let's start off small so that I get some success!  Other Momma's - what did you find was successful in getting the last bit of baby weight off?

Trip to the Baby Factory

In Atlanta, the majority of babies are born at Northside Hospital.  C was born at Northside and so was our little one.  

Our little man had no intention of coming out though!  I went to my scheduled weekly appointment and FINALLY (the day before my due date)  the midwife said I was done and that we would schedule the induction for that night!  It was such a relief and I can honestly say that at that point I was beyond ready to meet our little boy.  The induction was set for me to check in to the hospital that night at 7 to get the show on the road and I left with instructions to get my bag together and eat a good lunch and dinner in case I didn't get to eat again for a while!  Much to my office's amusement, I went on in to work to set my Out Of Office on my email and to let my management team know I would be starting my maternity leave the next day.  My supervisor looked at my like I had three heads when I told her I was being induced that night!  She couldn't figure out why on earth I was sitting in her office, but I knew that I needed to tie up my loose ends in order to focus completely on the task at hand!  After a quick call to C to let him know the situation (after my work...he was a little less than pleased) I was on my way to meet him and his Dad for lunch/dinner at Outback before making our way to the hospital!

Once we got to the hospital and go all checked in I'm pleased to report that everything went as smoothly as it possibly could!  It was like clockwork and I absolutely love that I have a positive induction story.  I truly believe that a lot of the credit for that goes to my OB/GYN, we didn't rush into an induction we waited until 40 weeks and I had made NO progress.  I know there are probably some people out there that would suggest waiting till past your due date, but I'm so thankful I didn't!  After going through the typical drugs and procedures for induction the midwife broke my water around 12:15, I got my epidural shortly thereafter  (which is a long story, but the lesson is if they say you have low platelets get that stuff checked out!! Otherwise you could have to go the no drugs route), and after a productive hour and a half of pushing William Noah Ford entered the world at 3:35pm on May 2nd 2012.  Exactly on his due date and his Momma's birthday!   

He was a BIG GUY!  8 lbs 10 oz and 22 in. 

Phone dump

Here's a first attempt at a mobile post, so we'll see how this goes! Thought I would take a second and drop a couple of pictures from my phone. While we have a big nice camera I'm so guilty of always just whipping my phone out to small pictures of my little man. It's so convenient and my phone is set up to automatically set to back up all my pictures to a drop box account, how awesome is that?!