Tuesday talk: Catching up edition

I never got around to sharing Mariam's 5th birthday pictures, Serena's 15th birthday pictures or Thanksgiving pictures--which thankfully too much time hasn't passed since then. There just isn't enough hours in the day! I'm going to need longer days around here. Instead of writing individual posts at this point, I'm just going to combine everything and catch ya'll up on the latest.

Mariam turned 5!

Our 3rd baby turned 5 on November 5th! Originally I was going to throw her a big party, but with big sister's birthday just one week later--who also wanted a party, it was just going to be too difficult for me to pull off. I can throw parties together successfully at the last minute, but I've been so exhausted lately and there was just too much going on in life. Serena convinced Mariam we should just do something low-key, just the family, and she was happy with the idea. For her pictures, I bought one single lilac balloon and cut some flowers from my lawn and attached them with tape. For the number 5, I first made a 5 out of floral wire and twisted the same type of flowers around the wire. I cut out small pieces of wire to serve as clips on some pieces of the flowers. Floral wire is a great thing to keep in your craft box year round. There are a lot of things you can make with it.

Serena turned 15!

I can't believe she's 15! Our girl is so big. We have been blessed with an amazing teenager and I'm just so thankful for her! We didn't really do a theme--since she's a big girl, but we did have a color scheme. She wanted white, caribbean blue and silver. The decorative highlight were the big 36 inch white balloons. Those were the first items purchased and I worked around that. I'll link the sources below. I originally had planned on having 8 balloons floating above the pool, but Party City forgot to blow one up and one popped on the way home. It was quite an adventure getting them home along with several small ones I purchased. I had to make 2 trips since I didn't want to crowd them in my SUV. 

Right before I was ready to get them in the pool, I attached silver foil tassels to them. I purchased the tassels on Etsy, but next time I'll just get them from Target. They had similar ones but more full and already assembled. Plus they were cheaper! You must be wondering what is holding them in the pool. Originally I had planned on buying balloon weights but I would have needed two each. Instead I cut 6 fabric squares out, made 4 holes and placed rocks inside. I had also cut 4 holes by each corner to tie the balloon string through. It worked like a charm! I had several other decor I had purchased but didn't get any good individual pictures of them. Serena had a great time at her pool party with her friends and I'm so glad she enjoyed herself. 

36 inch party balloons: Wrapping me up

Silver foil tissue tassel kit: Paper supply station

Silver foil "party" sign: Shop Celebration Lane

FHJ Baby turns 5!

Time sure does fly. Thankful for another year in business and getting to do what I love. It's not easy trying to juggle a family of 6 and run a business, but I've hung in there. The past two years have definitely been challenging with Ava still not sleeping through the night, but hopefully she will one day. I'm also so proud to announce that one of my products was featured in another magazine! Pregnancy & Newborn magazine featured one of the bibs in their November issue.

FHJ Baby bib: Charlotte white lace

Thanksgiving 2017!

Last week we celebrated Thanksgiving on our own again with no family. No relatives were in town and we thought we wouldn't put any pressure on ourselves by inviting any friends. With our family size, we really are our own party sometimes ha-ha! We did a traditional turkey with all the fixings and I'm happy to say we just threw out the last of our turkey last night. One can only eat turkey for so may days amiright?!

I made an apple pie as I always make every Thanksgiving, but this time I made a decorative lattice top. It was soooo much easier than I thought it was going to be and it turned out great!

H cooked 90% of Thanksgiving dinner including some delicious sourdough bread from scratch. Like the yeast starter and everything. He's gotten really good at breads now. 

I think I've covered the highlights in the past few months. We just wrapped up our first trip to Disney World this past weekend so I'll be writing about our trip this week.

Have a great Tuesday!

Cozy with Chrissy's knee high socks

I don't know about you, but I hate walking around barefoot on my hardwood floors. Other than my feet being cold, I don't like feeling crumbs on my feet! Sometimes I feel like an old lady when I come home from whatever activity the girl's had me driving them too, and I get to step out of my clothes, put on some yoga pants, a t-shirt, my robe and a nice warm pair of socks. I know my husband just loves that look. Kidding, but I guess he doesn't mind it. Haha!

When Chrissy's knee high socks reached out earlier this year to review a few of their socks, I couldn't say no. After all, I am a sock lover and my girls are too. Ranging from funky to chic, their knee socks offer a variety of different feels that will suit any taste and style. Chrissy's boasts hundreds of uniquely stylish socks for purchase online here. They have a large inventory and socks for the whole family! I love how soft and warm they are. I wear socks around the house for comfort so their solid dark pink socks were great for me and adorable. I love pink. 

These grey ones went perfect with Layla's school outfit today. Because they were long they can double as tights. They also fit my 15 year old.

Aside from just something cozy to wear around the house, a pair of knee high socks are the perfect finishing touch to a fall ensemble so be sure to check out their website and see all their options. 

http://www.kneehighsocks.org/

Have a great Thursday! I'm so glad tomorrow is Friday. Can't wait for the kids to be on their Thanksgiving break. 

Disclosure: I was provided with the products. All thoughts and opinions expressed herein are my own. 

The most simple baked brie en croute ever!

My 4 year old is currently throwing a tantrum and my 2 year old is looking at her wondering what is up. I figured now is a good time as any to finish sharing a delicious and simple appetizer with you all. I need to mentally detach myself for a minute. 

Two weekends ago I made a simple baked brie with raspberry preserves for a gathering and it was delicious. All you need is a few ingredients and it rates low on the difficulty scale and high on the delivery scale. I fell in love with baked brie when my neighbor made it for one of our gatherings last year.

Ingredients

* Wheel of brie cheese (7-8 ounce size)
* 1 sheet of thawed puff pastry
* Whatever you might want to add such as orange marmalade, raspberry preserves, honey, jelly, or nuts
* 1 egg for brushing the pastry before baking.
* A little bit of flour (about 2 tbs)

Instructions

Step 1: Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Lay out a piece of parchment paper on your work surface and dust it a little with flour.

Step 2: Lay your thawed puff pastry sheet on the parchment paper and just stretch it out a little bit with your rolling pin. The idea here is to just make it a little thinner and wider.

Step 3: Place brie right in the center and slather your jelly, marmalde, or what have you all over the cheese wheel. I used smuckers raspberry preserve. 

Step 4: Wrap your brie with the puff pastry. All I did was fold each corner over the cheese. It's hard to make it perfect so at the end just close it as best as you can. It will come out looking great however you do it. 

Step 4: Brush the pastry all over with egg, transfer brie on parchment paper over to baking sheet  and pop it in the oven for 35-40 minutes. You want it to be golden brown. 

Step 5: Let the baked brie cool for about 5 minutes and transfer to serving platter. 

There you have it. Easy peasy. I find baked brie is best served with water crackers. You can also add grapes and nuts. Some people even drizzle honey over the puff pastry. With thanksgiving and Christmas around the corner it's a fantastic appetizer to bring to your gatherings.

Have a great Thursday!

Ava's simple & pretty 2nd birthday party!

I've been meaning to blog about Ava's 2nd birthday party since September when it happened. Yet it's about to be November. Well! Better late then never right?!

This year I wanted to do something small again for Ava, but invite close friends and have it at the house. With this year being crazy busy and just entering the second month of having 3 in school, I didn't have a lot of time to spend on it. She's not big into characters or has too many favorite objects, but she is into farm animals. I did some research and felt like a girly farm based birthday party was going to be too much of a hassle at this stage in my life. I decided to go with a theme utilizing a few things I had already and just go from there. I find it's easiest to plan a party by finding one decor piece you really love and building it from there. 

With Ava, I had a pink, gold, and white tassel I had gotten back in 2015 and decided that those were the colors I was going to use. I also drew inspiration from the party fashion blogger Rachel Parcell threw for her little one. I loved the floral details!

The first things I purchased for the party were Meri Meri gold foiled kraft placemats, glitter candles, birchwood forks and pink paper plates.  

I searched high and low for a green leaf garland but could not find one I liked! I ended up making it myself based off a tutorial from The House That Lars Built. 

I prepared the garland ahead of time and added fresh pink roses about an hour before the party started. 

I like to say that it's all in the details. As you can see, there's nothing too elaborate on the table, but it's the tiny details such as the pop of pink, scallops on the place mats, and the cutlery that made all the difference. 

For her cake I went with a simple 9 inch round cake from Publix. the baker gave me a little funny look when I told him I just wanted a plain white cake with no decorations, but he didn't know what I had in mind. I found an adorable gold glitter cake topper off Etsy and just added a rose with a little bit of greenery.

I loved the way everything came out! This party was definitely one of my easiest to plan and not expensive either. For food we ordered pizza, and snacks were: veggies, fruit, and chips. I'm not crazy about having tons of sweets around when I throw a party. For drinks we had water, fresh squeezed limeade, wine and cocktails. All in all Ava had a great time and it was nice sharing her birthday with her little friends. 

Gold foiled scalloped place mats: Amazon

Fancy birchwood forks: Shop Celebration Lane

Meri Meri gold glitter candles: Shop Celebration Lane

Pink paper plates: Shop Celebration Lane

Cake topper: Glitter Topper

Green Crepe Paper (color moss): Amazon

Pink, gold, white tassel: Love Pretty Details

Gold glitter happy birthday banner: Hobby Lobby

Have a great Monday!

Halloween fun with Education.com!

There's only 22 days till Halloween! Is anyone else wondering where September went? It's almost like it didn't exist, it flew by so fast! Last week the girls and I put up our Halloween decorations and we are getting in the spirit. 

Some of the fun things I like to do during October is print out Halloween themed coloring sheets and games! Find what lurks around the corner in this free Halloween themed maze! Education.com has tons of educational games perfect for online and offline play.educational games.

Answer Key 

Enjoy this little maze and have a great Halloween!

My Home DNA Skin Care Analysis Results!

Hello beautiful people! Since I was a young girl, I've always looked younger then my age. My mother is the same way as is her mother. When I was a pre-teen I used to wish I looked older but people always told me, "just wait till you get older. You'll appreciate it then." They were right. I do appreciate it now especially now that I'm in my mid-30's and don't get nearly enough sleep as I should thanks to me kids. I'm actually not that strict about taking care of my skin. I frequently sleep in my makeup and just touch it up in the morning. 

Hey! When you have 4 kids and have to get them all out the door in the morning in a timely manner, you just might to. Haha! The truth is, I've been doing this since my 20's. It's not so much that because of my young looking genes that I think I can get away with things, but there are other things that I've been doing that have helped keep my complexion looking good. Since I could remember I've always used a facial moisturizer with SPF 15, I also started using an eye cream at 20 years old. Also take note that good skin care starts from the outside in. If you eat tons of junk food, or smoke, or do other things that aren't great for your body, it's going to show on your skin. I enjoy sweets, but I also eat a fairly healthy balanced diet. As far as face washing and moisturizing products I've always just used brands you could find at Walgreen's or Target. Nothing fancy. I've tried higher end brands from Sephora or a department store and haven't seen a difference to be honest. 

When I was approached by the HomeDNA company to try their skin care test, I jumped at the chance to find the back story on my skin and how to best treat any signs of aging.  Home DNA testing puts control back into your hands allowing you to make the right choices concerning beauty and diet regimes that work specifically for you needs based on scientific facts. This saves you time and money by avoiding the products that don't necessarily work for you.

The test identifies your skin's genetic potential in seven key areas:

*Collagen Quality

*Skin Elasticity

*Fine lines & Wrinkles

* Sun Protection

Pigmentation

*Skin Antioxidants

*Skin Sensitivity

The kit comes with cheek swabs, instructions, and a postage paid envelope to send back to the lab. The results are ready and available to view online in about three weeks once the lab receives them. Overall my global average was leaning towards optimal. After my global average I was also scored on each category listed above. 

The first category was fine lines and wrinkles and I was happy to see that my score was optimal. Honestly this category was what I most wondered about because it's fine lines and wrinkles that make people look older. 

The only category that I didn't score too great in was "sun protection" I was on the lower end of the global average. This means that UV rays from sunlight play a role in skin aging. My results indicate I carry some of the gene variations that can weaken my skin's natural protection against the sun. it was nice to see the recommended topical and supplement ingredients that can help combat this. 

Overall I thought this was a really neat and innovative product! It was nice to have confirmed how my genes/heritage came into play regarding the condition of my skin.

So what do you think about this product? Would you try HomeDNA testing for a personalized skin care analysis?

Disclosure: The HomeDNA Kit and Lab Results were provided to me. All thoughts about the experience are completely my own.

Roses are red....

That's all I got. It's not valentine's day. Currently Ava is screaming in the other room with H. It's a little after 10:00 pm and I'm just trying to catch a small break from the girl's. Every waking moment is usually spent with them. I'm tired ya'll! I love them like crazy but I'm spent. She's refusing to go to sleep this evening and I'm over it. Wish Ava was as happy all day and night like this photo we took yesterday, and while I'm wishing, I wish she slept better as well. I'm always talking about how busy I am, but these past weeks have really taken the cake. Sometimes I wonder if I'm doing this stay at home/work from home mom thing wrong. How is it that I don't relax at all till after they go to bed? That when I lay down my body is as tired as if I had been out all day doing some kind of back breaking work. I wish things were easier. I love this season in life with the girl's being little, and having one in high school but it's a hard season. 

Ps. I picked up this red eyelet dress last week from Target and it's amazing. Super comfortable and the best thing about it is, I got it under clearance for only $8.99! What a steal. It didn't come with a belt. I just added a red ribbon to give it better shape. It's currently unavailable online, but it may be able to be found in their clearance racks. I've linked a few similar below.

Saks Fifth Avenue

H&M

Nordstrom Rack

Talbots

Have a great Wednesday!