Friday Favorites: Face products!

My beauty routine is lame.  I know it is.  I know there are all these awesome products out there that I should try.  That's why I love reading these kind of posts! I like seeing what kind of products others are using.  Here are a few of my favorite facial products for my Friday Favorites post:

How boring am I?!?!

 1. Aquaphor: I have written about this amazing-ness before. Remember in the movie "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" how the dad tells everyone to put windex on everything? That is me with aquaphor! I use this stuff on everything.  A zit pops up or I feel one coming on, I slather this stuff on it when I go to bed and it's gone by morning.  My wrinkles are feeling rather large on my forehead, load up some of this and they appear less in the morning.  I put it on scars, burns, cuts, bug bites... you name it! I use it on everything for the boys too.   Here's the thing with zits-- it's totally counter-intuitive from what you think because it's greasy feeling.  I am not saying it makes sense.  I am saying it works.  Trust me.  In fact, I might go slather some on right now...

2. Oil of Olay Regenerist face wipes:  These are my ADDICTION.  I use these to clean my face every morning and every night.  I am not a fan of leaning over the sink and splashing water on my face...feels great, but not my favorite thing.  These get all my makeup off and leave my face feeling super clean and fresh. 

3. Oil of Olay Regenerist Regernerating Serum: I put this on every morning either after my shower or after I wipe by face with above wipes.  I looooove this stuff.  It's a serum instead of a lotion so it has a different texture (#duh), but I love the way it feels on my skin.  It makes my face super soft. I plus to this one is they just started carrying it at Costco for cheaper than drug stores.... love it.

4. Oil of Olay Regenerist Moisturizing Night Cream: Before bed, after I use my face wipes, I slather this on my face and neck and let me tell you-- it feels like heaven.  It is super thick and my face soaks it up. 

Pretty lame, I know, but these are my daily must have staples.  Throw in some carmex chapstick and I am set! ha! Best part about these products is they can all be bought at the grocery store, walmart, target, etc etc... Part of me really wants to try some new stuff, like Rodan and Fields or some Lancome goodies, but part of me really likes to use some easy to get stuff. 

What are your favorite products? Anything I should be trying?

 

Brotherly love

One of the perks of working at the preschool where my boys go to school is getting to catch them in some random acts of brotherly sweetness. 

Today, I was working lunch bunch and on the playground, I watched this... Cal helping Andy across the monkey bars...

 This happens often with big kids helping other kids on the monkey bars, but there was something sweet about watching big brother being extra gentle and helpful with little brother.  Little brother putting all his trust in his big brother, knowing that he wouldn't let him down...
 These two can fight like you wouldn't believe.   They can drive me 50 shades of crazy.  But then they do stuff like this and I just feel so thankful for them.  Thankful they have each other. 

 I pray they will always have each other's back like this-- and will always help each other. 

These two are super close- obviously.  Cal had a play date this week and Andy was super upset about not being with Cal.  I let Andy have a play date too to try to help him.  He asked about Cal on multiple occasions.  They are both equally dependent upon the other. 

 Next year when they are at separate schools, I think they will really miss each other...and I will miss seeing moments like this on the playground. 

 I am so thankful for these brothers.  I love them and their friendship. 

"sometimes being a brother is even better than being a superhero"

 

#carriedaway: week 10

Week 10:

 Day 64: 61 pounds of puppy

 Day 65: happpppppppyyyyyyyy (I realize it's hard to see them in the camo...)

 Day 66: thanks to an awesome uncle, Cal got to go on the floor for college game day. Bucket list at age 5.

 Day 67: happy 10th birthday to my furry firstborn baby! #sainthank

 Day 68: post swim group hug!

 Day 69: cheers to spring and to the first soccer practice of the season! #goducks

Day 70: heading to the ACC tournament! #goheels

 

Weekend Update

Another weekend has FLOWN by! I can not believe how quickly the weeks are going.  I guess when you fill each day like we do, they tend to go quickly.  I met a new person who asked if my boys participated in any activities... I said, "well, basketball just ended, and tee ball is going to start soon, but other than that, they do swimming, tennis, golf and soccer....." When you list all of the activities off like that, it sounds like a lot! And it is a lot! But we love doing them all-- Cal LOVES being busy and going from one activity to the next.  Andy does too, really, but Cal thrives off of staying active and busy! We really want to expose the boys to as many activities as possible so that they can decide what they like/want to play.  I supposed we could expose them to more art-y activities, like musical instruments, but we aren't there yet.  Maybe one day....

I subbed at school on Friday and got to see Mr. MacDaddy working his charm on a special friend... it was his school picture day so he wore some khaki pants.  #thankyoujesus Home boy loves to wear some "sport shorts" because "they make me run so so fast..."

After school on Friday, this happened:

 We went by the elementary school where Cal will be going in the fall and picked up a registration packet.  HOW CAN THIS BE HAPPENING?!?!?! I am excited for Cal to go to kindergarten and I honestly think he will love it.  I just can't believe he is old enough for this ish! Am I old enough to have a kid in elementary school.  Apparently so. 

Saturday morning, I taught a Burn 1000 popup class (which totally kicked my rear-- I co-taught with Katie and I was dying by the end...and I am still sore today.) while Eddie took the boys to their first soccer game! I was bummed to miss the first game.  BUT, with the weather lately, there was no guarantee there would even be a game and I didn't want to say no to teaching only to have the game canceled and me not have a class to teach!

So, I taught and the boys played soccer and I have some amazingly sweet friends who kept me updated via text and pictures:

Andy has decided he isn't scared of soccer this year.  He has decided he likes it.  He played the whole game and didn't cry at all. #miraclesdohappen He is finally comfortable out there and is happy playing! YAY! Last season, he would get all decked out in his uniform and then look at me and say "I am not playing." (Notice the period at the end of that sentence? That's because there was no further discussion on the matter.....)

 From what I heard, Cal and Brad were in it to win it and they played hard and worked hard together; passing the ball and assisting in goals.  Just like we've been screaming at them for years.

These three little amigos are something else together... love their muddy little happy faces.  

I hustled to the game and caught the handing out of snacks afterwards.  Good timing.  We ran home so I could take a quick shower and then we headed to Raleigh for the dog show!

The guy we got Bruce from was there showing a few of his dogs and we wanted to see him and the dogs so we headed over.  There were a LOT of doggies there! We saw probably hundreds of golden retrievers there-- all soooo good looking!

Tommy and Tricia went with us... Tommy was a seat for both boys multiple times:

We were there for a few hours and then came home so I could get some cleaning done and the boys hung out on the porch for some down time.... love this picture:

That night, Trish and Tommy came over with their margaritaville machine for some margaritas and basketball action.  

Sunday, I got out of the house early for a target run -- I had to get a birthday present for this little princess, who was turning FIVE! My niece had her "princess tea party" birthday party that afternoon so I headed there, the boys hung out with grandpa and Eddie took Bruce back over to the dog show-- just to have him be there.... exposing him to a whole lot of dogs...? I don't know. 

After the party, we went over to my parents house to chat and let the boys run around.  And they ran SO hard.  We got home and they had a quick bath and were off to bed.  Cal cried out a few times and I went in to take him to pee (he's been not doing great at holding it lately.....) and after he went, he reached up for me to hold him... and fell back sound asleep on  my shoulder. 

 He might be heading to kindergarten in the fall... but he will still snuggle up to his momma...for now!


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We have a BUSY week around here! So much to get done before our trip!

 

Friday Favorites: all about that app

Back at it with another round of some random favorite things! I was going to do a WalMart post, but I haven't finished my little project yet.  I will do that post if when I finally do!

Here are some of my FAVORITE PHONE APPS!

Okay, this is really random, I know, but I figured if I shared some of my favorite apps and others did too, we could learn about some new ones that we might not have known about before! (all links below will take you to the app in the app store... just in case you wanted to download right away!)

 Here is my main lock screen with my little goobers on it.  Hank didn't come to this photo shoot and I sooooo wish he did.  I try not to load up my apps on my first page so I am not overwhelmed when opening my phone. 

Page one is all of the apps I use on a daily basis:
Camera
Weather
Photos
Contacts
Safari
Instagram
Facebook
Bloglovin'
Popup
Music
Games
Utilities

A few things to note:
*I use folders to help me organize apps- I have some friends that hate folders and I think it's just one of those things that you either use or you don't.  Eddie doesn't use folders on his phone- he likes everything out on display! 
*Bloglovin' is my absolute favorite way to read the blogs I read.  I follow quite a few and I don't remember to search for them all the time, so this way, I can follow all my faves and check the app just like I check instagram or facebook-- whenever I want to see if anyone has a new post up, it shows me. 
*The popup folder has three apps for me to use to check class schedule, collect payments, etc.  Nothing that fun.  It is fun to see who has signed up to take a class though!
*The music folder has my iTunes music as well as an app for Pandora and Spotify.  I used to love Pandora-- but the ads drove me crazy.  They didn't used to bother me at all. Then I played it while teaching a class and some inappropriate ad came up and I was done...and moved on over to spotify.  We have to pay something a month for the service (which we realize we could do for Pandora also to be ad free, but spotify had more options we liked).  You can make playlists with millions of songs, you can search ready-made playlists... pretty sweet app. 
*The games folder houses some mega time suckers-- as if instagram, facebook and bloglovin' didn't suck enough of my time.... I usually have 5-6 words with friends matches going on at once, and then I also have rummicube and candy crush.  (although I am stuck on a level of candy crush and have been for a while and I am ready to never play it again).  Truthfully, I don't look at the games very much. I might play one word a day in the scrabble match and I might play one round of candy crush.  There's just not enough time in the day! ha!

Page 2:

*Shopping Folder-- etsy, ebay, zulily, zappos, amazon, nordstrom.... ahhhh..... that's the good stuff.  So dangerous... yet so necessary.  hahahaha
*Find Friends: this is a random app you can get and your friends/family can get and you can see where they are.  It sounds stalkerish.  It is. In some ways.  We all have it in our family so when we are driving to the beach, we can look and see where everyone is without having to call 50 times and asking "where are you now??" Eddie has it on his phone so I can check and see how much longer he has in his golf game so I know when to start dinner... It is a handy little app to have-- we don't use it often, but it's nice to have when you don't want to have to call someone and ask "where are you?"
*Photography folder-- A beautiful mess (take your pictures and write on them), Pic Stitch (made a pic collage), waterlogue (make your pics look like paintings), shutterfly (takes you to website), TimerCam (you can set the timer and it will take a picture-- just like a real camera!), hyperlapse (I need to play with this more, but you can take a really long video and it will show it all back in a short amount of time, like in fast forward), and Chatbooks-- another one of my favorite things I will have to share another time!
*I have some random games that I don't play very often-- usually just killing time on an airplane. 
*Invites folder: I have an app for evites and paperless post and I swear this has been life changing! It was driving me crazy trying to go back through my email to find invitations to different parties that were lost in a bunch of junk mail.  More and more people are using electronic invitations and having these apps is soooo helpful!
*In my news folder I have: abc news, WRAL, and USA Today.  I use the WRAL one the most... especially on snowy mornings when checking for school closings!
*Gotta have the Uber app!!!
*the Blogger app is something I am trying to use more.... you can write your blog posts right from you phone... and upload pictures too! I did my weekend update post from DC from my phone in the airport... it took a while, but I think it would get easier with more practice!

 *I don't really have any important apps on the last page.  I have pinterest, but I try not to use it very often.  It stresses me out.  And makes me hungry. 

So there you have it! Some of my favorite apps! This post took a HOT minute to complete! There's a LOT of linking going on! But it was fun to do.  Let me know if you want me to post my favorite kids' apps too.  They have changed a lot over the past 2 years so I have some favorites from when they were younger until now...


 

Photo Fun

Waaaayyyyyy back in the middle of September, our famous photog friend was hosting a workshop and she asked if we would come and be "models" for her for an afternoon.  I use the term models loosely.  After we were there for 4 minutes, I got the sense that she was titling that segment "what to do when you have a wild ass, out of control family who has more energy than you know what to do with...." Oh yeah.  She invited Bruce.  When Bruce was just a puppy.  He is still a puppy now.  But he was reallllly a puppy then.  It was crazy.  And exhausting!

This was a picture I took from the shoot:

Lots of people standing around watching us have our pictures taken. Slightly awkward! No pressure!

But some fun pictures were taken...