It's Friday!

A few outtakes..

Have a great weekend! Stay safe.

Let's talk about boots.

 

It's that time again to bust out the boots--if you haven't already. Or if you live in Houston.

 

I live in Houston. Sooooooo....I guess it's not that time for me yet, but it's been on my mind. I've had my eye on buying either brown or cognac boots this year, but there are a lot of black ones I like as well. I'd like a flat riding boot so it could go with several of my casual outfits. Let's face it, we all know I don't get much opportunities these days to dress up with three rowdy kids and working from home.

 

 

From top left: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

 

 



Wordless Wednesday

 

Ok. Maybe a few words. My husband picked these costumes.

 

A little girly Halloween...

When I received the October issue of Better Homes and Garden last month, I fell completely in love with their floral pumpkin display. I knew I had to create something similar. I found fake carveable pumpkins at Hobby Lobby along with faux floral bouquets. The gold studs and the glitter paper for the bat garland were bought at JoAnns. The glitter owl was bought from Target and the plush witch from Marshall's.

Have a great weekend!

Recent purchases

Before we left the resort on Sunday, I stopped in one of their boutique's called "Bella's" because I noticed a royal blue top kept grabbing my attention every time I passed by it. Upon closer inspection, I saw that it was absolutely gorgeous and I had to have it. It was also marked down to 75% off. Score! I probably can't wear it till spring when it gets hot again but that's fine by me. I also have to take it in because it's a medium and I wear small or x-small. Once I got home, I also realized that it's from Whitney Port's clothing line Whitney Eve. I loved watching her in The Hills.

I couldn't find this color online, but I did find one in white on Swell.com. Over the weekend I also bought NYX's mineral setting powder and an elf brush. I've only used the setting powder once quickly so far so I can't give a good review on it, but I will be using it again soon and writing up a post about it. 

Have a great Tuesday!

Weekend in Austin

This weekend H and I finally got a little getaway in without the kids. We went with two other couples (our closest friends) and had a blast! We left Friday around noon and got back yesterday. It was sooo nice to get a break from daily life. October has been an extremely stressful month with my father being sick and waiting on his diagnosis and dealing with a lawyer on a situation from years and years ago. On top of all that, the business had been extremely busy with wholesale orders, working with a flash sale site and the new collection. My stress level was through the roof. I literally cried off and on several times last week. 

This getaway was much much needed and you know what? I feel so much better. I've mentioned before that I'm terrible about having some time away from the kids, and just kicking back and relaxing even at home. It takes a lot to keep a household of 5 running smoothly. I keep saying I need to take some more time to myself, but then I don't, and when I do, I'm kicking myself for not doing it sooner. 

We stayed at the Omni resort and spa at Barton Creek in Austin and I loved the hotel. The bed was super comfortable, the anemities superb and the scenery was gorgeous. I would definitely stay there again and I don't say that about a lot of hotels. I think we did a lot for a weekend. Friday we stopped in a local brewery and then headed to Duchman winery. 

Afterwards we checked in the hotel and then had dinner at Jack Allen's Kitchen. Saturday we slept in and had breakfast at the hotel then headed to the grocery store for snacks and then rented a pontoon for 3 hours. So relaxing!

Sorry for the blurry cell phone pics, sometimes it's just easier to whip out my phone than my camera. 

After the pontoon on Lake Travis, we stopped to change somewhere and then headed to The house of torment. It felt like high school again and I hadn't been to one since high school in fact. Prices have really gone up since I was younger. We paid $84 for the 2 of us. I mean there was 3 different areas, but wow! The first one was really the only good one, but I felt like the actors kept zoning in and scaring me more than the rest of our group. Maybe I looked like the one who would be most scared and they'd get a good scream. Ha! I guess it was an experience and I think I'm good on haunted houses for the rest of my life. After that, we headed to Home slice pizza for some awesome pizza. Highly recommend this place! We stuffed our faces, walked around a little bit and then headed back to the hotel. Sunday we had breakfast at the hotel again and then headed to downtown Austin for some sightseeing. 

I feel so much more relaxed now. Laughter and friends is a great remedy for stress. Have a great Monday!

My skincare routine & new foundation review

Aside from the occasional pimple in high school, I've never had an issue with acne. My complexion has always been pretty clear, but I do get pretty oily in my t-zone. I also tend to get a little red in my t-zone. Overall I can't complain too much because I spent pretty much all of my 20's never really washing off my makeup at night and just washing it off in the morning. 

I still do that now, but I don't always wear foundation on a daily basis now that I stay home. For face wash, I like to stick to sensitive products due to my t-zone getting easily red after a wash. I've been really happy with simple brand moisturizing face wash. Right after that I apply Olay sensitive face cream. If I'm going for the full shebang, I first wash my face than use St. Ives even and bright skin scrub, followed by L'Oreal's hydrafresh toner, then apply Olay sensitive face cream and finally Roc retinol eye cream. On a normal day I normally just wash my face, apply the Olay cream and then the eye cream. 

I'm going to back track for a minute here and talk about St. Ives even and bright face scrub. I absolutely love this scrub. It smells great, wakes me up in the morning and my skin just feels so refreshed after I use it. Love, love, love it! I've been using St. Ives since I was in junior high school but I used to use their apricot scrub (remember that one?) they also still make it. This new one is really great though. 

When I got back from Florida in July, I was really tan so my usual foundation was way too light. I decided to get a new one and settled on Cover girl's new ready set gorgeous foundation. For the price point I really like it. The coverage is pretty good and it has a warm look to it. I would say it has more of a pink than a yellow base. I do enjoy this foundation but I don't think it's "oil free" components work that great. I find I get oilier with this foundation more than with my Revlon or MAC foundations. 

Bare face.

After applying Cover girl ready set gorgeous foundation and rest of makeup.

Have a great Thursday!

The happenings

Cue happy dance, my mom is flying in today from South Africa. I'm super excited about having her here for the next 3 weeks. Also excited about having her here because she can watch the girls for a little so I can breathe! It's no secret that Mariam is super clingy and I'm terrible about getting out. H and I haven't had a date night in awhile. 

As the week winds down, work wise things should be getting calmer again. I have a new seamstress again that I'm working with, I've got the huge orders out (well most of them) and now I just have to focus on finishing up updating the website with the new products. Here's a couple pictures from the photo shoot and a few sneak peeks!

Family wise, the girls are anxiously awaiting Halloween. Layla wants to be a dragon. She lets us know every day. No correct that, she lets us know just about every hour. Time to buy that costume already. Serena already has her costume since she went to a little Halloween bash last weekend. I haven't figured out what Mariam is going to be yet.

Have a great Thursday!
 

Twinning

I don't pretend to know what it's like to have twins, but sometimes I imagine this is what it feels like. Over the past year if Mariam wants something, Layla wants it too, or vice versa. I've learned to just start buying two of everything. 

We are working on sharing.

I don't normally take that approach with clothes since they are in different sizes, but sometimes I dress them in matching outfits. It's cute. What can I say?

A weekend getaway?

It's been about a week since I've blogged again. As I mentioned before, things have been crazy busy with the recent Groop dealz sales and getting everything done for my latest collection. I just got back from the photo shoot for it so I think I can start breathing a little easier now. Everything went smoothly and the weather was perfect!

More on that later, let's talk about why I put a question mark after weekend getaway. So the alone trip H and I had planned for just us two didn't pan out because we couldn't get a sitter or family to watch the girls. So we thought to ourselves "hey let's just head to San Antonio with the girls.". Hmmm..not such a great idea when you're taking a sick baby along. Mariam was super congested, it rained most of Saturday when we got there, and she pretty much just wanted to be carried by yours truly. She refused to be in her stroller. It was nice doing a little bit of strolling when my arm didn't feel like it was going to fall off, and lunch was nice along the river walk, but night time was rough. The next day we checked out the drive-thru wildlife ranch and that was a lot of fun! Afterwards we had lunch at The Buttermilk Cafe in New Braunfels which was a charming establishment of good home cooked classics such as meatloaf and fried green tomatoes. While the food was good, our little rascals were not. We paid the check quickly and high tailed it out of there. We had plans to check out more of the town, but I thought it was just best if we just went home. I'm hoping H and I can get that alone trip in after all in a couple weeks when my mom comes down to visit, but we'll see. Things are often unpredictable with children.

Have a great weekend!