He earned his Life award! I am so excited because that Court of Honor ran over two hours and I am POSITIVE there has to be a merit badge for those of us that sat thru it.
Now he has the all clear to work on his Eagle project. The possibilities are endless there. With as many hours that need to go into an Eagle award, I'll have to sit back and watch him choose what he wants to spend all that time doing.
Hows the weather up there?? Heh.
The whole idear here, was to make adorable little Leprechaun hats by dipping marshmallows attached to Nillas, then wrap the hat with black licorice laces. The problem was my chocolate was entirely too thick (see pic). And the package said that I must only use solid shortening to thin it out. Well, this may come as a surprise to you, but I was fresh out of lard-stufs.
Nina and I figured we'd just make the best out of it.
So we sculpted Leprechaun heads.
The AmeriColor Gourmet Writers were a huge hit.
*this was my own hairbrained project, not sponsored by any company*
Eat your heart out Frank Lloyd Wright!
We've never done a legit gingerbread house before. Now I know why. First of all, I shouldve bought my own because I couldn't stand it when the kids wanted to, like, decorate or help with it. I was super ticked that they actually ate some of the key design pieces.
This was a $19 kit from Williams-Sonoma. It smells divine, it really does. It didn't hold very well. I'm wondering if maybe I shouldve assembled the walls on the outside instead? I dunno. Maybe if I had another kit I could learn from my engineering mistakes, but at $19 a pop, I'm happy to keep the falling roof house as is. I hope they have insurance?
I've heard and seen so many people sing the praises of scrubs. When I saw a special display of Dickies scrubs at Costco yesterday I thought we'd give it a go. Couldn't go wrong with 3/$19.
Wrong.
I chose a pair of pants for Mike, Al and myself. Al still hasnt worn hers. Mike has worn his twice so far. I've worn mine twice, too.
Mike says they are just like any other lounge pant that he has. He doesn't irritate as easily as I do when it comes to apparel.
I've been hobbling all over the last two days because I did something (what I don't know) whack to my foot. As a result, all the favoring I've been doing has made the un-hurt parts of my leg sore. It's a win-win here {shaking head} I was almost crying yesterday at Costco because I really wanted to hop on the cart and have Nina push me where we needed to go. But I sucked it up and just inhaled many samples. Needless to say I was really excited to call it a day, take a bath and throw on the scrubs last night.
It didnt go over well. My undy layer wasn't agreeing with my scrub pants and I had to keep switching undy layers until I found a fabric combo that agreed with the scrubs. That was not how I wanted my first scrub wearing adventure to go. Then I had trouble cinching my drawstring, I couldnt get it to cinch. Again, with the fabric. I was bugged because that area that goes from the crotch to the waistband (whats the term I'm looking for?) is so big and long. I had to roll the waist. My final complaint was that my drawstring became knotted any time that I needed to use the bathroom.
I guess I can't really be surprised since I paid just $19 total for three pairs. It's just that I've seen many non-healthcare folk wearing scrubs and I assumed it was because they were so comfortable. But my first go-round was anything but.
The one thing they have been good for? Countless "I'm a doctor." jokes and comments.
Scrub-lovers where am I going wrong here? What's the magic of wearing the scrub?
Real quick, I celebrated Halloween early. Last night to be exact. I'm LDS and Utah wasn't keen on celebrating on Sunday. I however, would have been fine doing so on a Sunday. Sundays I go to church, visit with friends and family and spend time with my husband and kids. Last night, other than the church part, that's exactly what I did, visited with neighbors and friends and spent time with my family enjoying Halloween. But thats just me. And my family is anything but solemn and calm on a Sunday anyway.
Ok, here's what I have gleaned the last several All Hallow's Eves. Take notes.
DO's
* give out full size candy bars. If you can get them for less that $.40 a bar, you're probably saving money this way---->Unless you're the kind that strictly adheres to the one small piece of candy per child.
Maverik conveninece stores run a Nestle/Willy Wonka special 5/$2 in my area, so that's what I buy. They used to do 4/$1, but that deal was scrapped around the same time the gov't began mailing out $ to citizens. I heard that Costco was offering a B1G1 coupon on their full size candy bar boxes, but it is only good for 4 boxes. That may not be enough for your crowd. Our house usually gets 150 kids or more.
* if you can't get a good deal on the candy bars, check out the price on the huge Pixy Stix and the Red Vines licorice ropes at Costco. They work out to be $.30 apiece and yield BIG bang for your buck as far as the kid's reactions when they walk away from your door.
* I haven't tried this, but my kids all love to go to the hot dog house. You know, the joint that throws up tables and chairs in their garage/porch/party tent and serves hot dogs, chips and cider.
* Offer something cool to the parents. I've given hot chocolate or cider to the parents on Halloween. Not a $ saver, but definitely a friend maker. Purchase those nifty disposable hot drink cups/lids and boil tons of water. You have a big round orange drink dispenser (WalMart sells them starting at $20)? Fill that bad boy with hot water and the adults can get their non alc drank on. You could go all out and have whipped cream, sprinkles, cinnamon sticks, etc. Parents love a house that includes the adults.
* This is what I'm doing next year. NACHOS! Oh yeah. I'm thinking clear plastic nacho boxes from Costco, bags of white corn chips, two maybe three cans of Que Bueno and some jalapenos. Who's the favorite neighbor nooooooow, right? Make it a party and make it a two house gig. You and your next door neighbor can party together at one house and go in on the total bill.
*Soda. Soda, soda, soda. A few years ago, $ was tight (still is), and my neighbor kids were expecting the usual full-size candy bars. I couldn't buy as many full sizes as I wanted, so I had the idea to offer soft drinks in order to have enough loot for our treaters. The price was sure right, 4 12-paks for $11. That's cheap, yo. Oh my gosh, they loved it. My advice is to stick with the generic brand, the kids dont care and you dont need to be spending the big bucks on brand names for kiddies.
*bags of Doritos. Snack size. They will fly out the door.
* Don't like giving out candy? Oh, this is such a hot topic of convo amongst adults. My kids still remember the real estate saleman that gave out helium balloons with his biz card attached. Fun idea.
*My 13 year old son would tell folks, all sullen-like "I've Type 2 Diabetes and I'm feeling low....." He said it scored him fast candy and sometimes even more candy. Go figure. He learned the trick by watching a boy at his brother's birthday party. The kid got cake before the birthday-boy did :)
*Dump out the kid's candy even when it isn't full yet. Neighbors take pity on the empty candy bag and tend to dole out more than the usual amount.
DONT
*Whoppers. I love them, you love them. Kids do not, I have found. I learned this while spending some time with my 6th graders classmates. I put on a candy buffet for their 'Harvest' party - gotta love the prof that works around the no Halloween party rule. This was not an inexpensive idea of mine, so I had to choose candy that was cheap, while still making it 'neat-o'. One of my $ saver candy choices was Whoppers. They were not fans. (pretzels, Sour Patch Kids, Skittles, Rolos, Reese's mini cups, marshmallows - all good)
* If you're giving out soda, keep it kid friendly and parent approved (mostly). No caffeinated flavors, no diet flavors. Also, no Red Cream soda. I had a box of that last night and the kids were like, "wha? You're freaky lady, that's gross." Fruit Punch, Root Beer, Lemon Lime, Orange, Grape, Strawberry, those are winners. Black Cherry, not so much. Whatev, more for me.
* Here are the non-faves from 4 out of 5 Borzoni kids.
Quidditch player crossed with the scout from UP!, 13, "bags of flavored popcorn."
Sorcere's Apprentice, 12 (!), "gummy body parts."
Witch, 8, "one tiny 1 inch square chocolate." This child had the idea of using a sickly voice to woo more candy. No worky. Neither did her wheeze and sneeze gimmick.
Ninja, 6, "I didn't get disappointed this year." This is an improvement, since last year he would give the candy back and say "No fanks, you got somefin bettah?" as he peeked around the candy giver to look for more.
* Raisins. If you are in a spot where all you can give is raisins, then maybe just keep your lights off and bow out of Halloween this year. Its cool, we all have years like that.
*Try not to ba a Halloween hater. It's once a year, the kids LOVE it. Think back to your Halloween memories. None of those cool things you remember could have been possible if some adult hadn't gone the extra mile. Now we are the adults (it bites to be old, I get this) and it's our turn to create some cool things for the kiddies to remember.
Okey-doke, the birthday is over with. Still waiting for a husband, sister or parents to mention Hi-Chew, indicating that they read the blog within the last week.
MANY of the rest of you mentioned Hi-Chew, some even gave me Hi-Chew. Banana is a most interesting flavor. One of the more mild flavors for Hi-Chew, but delightful nonetheless.
On birthday-day I met Mike at Cheesecake Factory. My extra-cool neighbor (also, she knows all about Hi-Chew) brought me a birthday gift and also took Marik along with her own three boys on her shopping errands!! How nice is that? I ate stuffed tortillas, Mike had the Hibachi. We shared a slice of the Reese's cheesecake. It's really quite a good flav and the peanuts are plentiful.
Mike gave me a gift card for Nordstrom. As soon as we parted ways, I high tailed it into Nordstrom to see if they had a Clarisonic Plus. They did. It also happened to be some kind of beauty extravaganza. This meant that my Clarisonic purchase came with a gift (an additional face brush). The salesgal was so very helpful and she educated me on all the high end dermatology skincare lines, plus loaded me up with samples of serums, creams and scrubs and even a black patent handbag! Plus she threw in two add'l brush attachments for the Clarisonic. Heck yeah! Then she sent me over to a lady who was looking at peoples hair with a wand.
Have to talk about this hair thing. It was a wand with a camera on it. The images were shown on a screen/computer-y thing that looked like a portable dvd player. Except it was showing my hair and scalp magnified. It was interesting, but what she said she saw was not all that groundbreaking. She said my hair was pretty healthy (ok, thanks), my scalp not too dry, considering our desert climate, and that my ends had some breakage but not too much. Oh, also, she said she could see some product in my hair. Well, duh, I hope she could see product in my hair, because there WAS PRODUCT IN MY HAIR!. I expect breakage because I flat iron. I expect there to be traces of product in my hair because thats what I put there. Everyone knows that clean hair is ugly flat hair, product makes the world go round! Good hair needs product! I just didnt see the big whoop about the hair analogy with the computer and all. Gimmicky. However, she gave me samples of the line she rep'd and I will probably buy some in full size. It was Phyto. Supposed to be all natural or nice to the earth or something, but thats the last reason I buy products. I will buy it because it makes my hair look and feel real nice, soft. Although the shampoo isn't sudsy at all, and thats going to take some getting used to.
This is what it looks like.
any of their products are supposed to be safe for color treated hair.
Now. On to my Clarisonic. I already have decided I will need another one. Maybe not the big-daddy Plus like I have. But probably a MIA. That's the smaller version that has one speed and does not have a body brush attachment. Its cool because it comes in 5 color choices. Nolan and I have been using my Plus. In fact, Nolan probably uses it more than I do. He has his own little face brush attachment and uses it morning and night. Cute, no? We have been exploring skin care lines for Allison and Nolan. They each have different kinds of skin but I'm thinking all of us can benefit from the Clarisonic.
So far I really like it. We are not even a week into usage, so there aren't groundbreaking results yet. I expected a little bit of breakout from starting up the regimen. As far as my face, I can attribute three or four minor blemishes that probably surfaced due to using the Clarisonic. But nothing that I would call embarassing. Today I used the body attachment for my chest (or the decolletage) elbows and one knee (to see if theres a diff). My chest has already kind of broken out, but that's no surprise to me, my chest is easily offended. As far as we can tell, Nolan's face is the same if not clearer, so, bonus! Now it's just a matter of getting a second one so theres always one thats easily accessible.
I plan to show Allison how to use it. So far her face has really reacted well to using the Mario Badescu products.
All in all, I'm really happy with the Clarisonic Plus. This is the type of product that I would buy for all of my close friends at Christmastime if budget were not a concern. Except Id buy them the MIAs because they have such cute colors. Im actually toying with the idea of putting some vinyl design on mine just to jazz it up a lil bit.
I dont yet know if it is worth the extra $75 to have the three speeds and bigger appliance that has the body brush. I'll need some more time to figure out that one. But I can say that the PLUS has a nice feature on it that beeps every time you should move to a new area on your face. 20 seconds for forehead, 20 seconds for nose/chin, 10 seconds for each cheek.
I love all the serum samples I was given to try. They were from Kinerase, Dr Martin Gross and Erno Lazlo. Really would like to buy any of them in full-size, but I cant make up my mind. It's like eating several different kinds of candy each night. Such a treat. I wish I had enough nerve to go back and ask for some more samples, but I don't.
If I happen to get any other items from my wish-list, I'll be sure to update. Dont hold your breath, Im not holding mine.
as if it werent abundantly clear already, none of the companies mentioned above gave me any free product in exchange for this post. I feel lame that I have to spell it out, but I guess thats the law.
