6 Months Later

Well it’s been 6 months since our whole life has changed.  Alexis is 6 months old and we have learned so much from her. We have definitely done things differently than what we did with Eli. We have had our roughs days, actually months with her. Her first 4 months are kind of a blur. We were so tired and sleep deprived. She would not sleep any more than 4 to 6 hours a day and would cry and cry and cry. She had numerous doctors appointments. I had months of not sleep. I had months of crying non stop, blaming myself for her pain. I breastfed her for those 4 months and she was not tolerating my milk and what I was eating. She was miserable and so was I. I was heading into post-partum depression from all of this.  Also having her in the winter didn’t help and never hearing from anybody didn’t help either.  It was rough I learned a lot about myself and my husband. I learned he understood and we both learned a new meaning of patience and understanding.  Yes, my mother in law and ONE other friend offered to help but I didn’t want the help I wanted to do it myself because I needed to do it myself. Yes it was hard and exhausting to get through those months and it seemed like they were never going to end and I was always going be exhausted but I did it myself. I have a lot of friends who are going through this right now and feel like they are alone and nobody else in the world is going through this but trust me when I say you’re not alone. When people say that they know what you are going through and they feel your pain, don’t roll your eyes and say “Yeah right, you have NO idea!” I know I did but trust me when I say we know, we’ve been there done that and we DO feel your pain. I also understand when you don’t ask for help why you don’t ask for help. You’re not alone there either. A lot of people have absolutely NO idea what we have gone through in the last 6 months but that’s ok I’m not going to go into full detail about it.  Some things are meant to be kept from the public.  Although it makes me sad and has hurt my feelings to know that so many people that I thought would be in our lives are no longer in them, but we crossed paths for a reason. So, back to this little girl that is full of personality and MAJOR attitude.  At 6 months old she knows what she wants and when she wants it and if she doesn’t get it you’re in trouble, well we are lol. She definitely keeps us on our toes and NEVER EVER a dull moment with her. She’s a happy baby that’s for sure. She had a storm before the calm, not a calm before the storm. I can’t wait to see what else she has in store for us.  Whatever it is it will keep us on our toes. We have also learned that Eli is an amazing big brother.  He loves her to pieces and always makes sure that if she is crying he puts a smile on her face. She loves him just as much. He’s usually the one who can get her to smile and giggle. I know eventually he will get annoyed by her and vice versa so for now we will enjoy the love they have for one another.  Lol. 🙂 Our life changed the moment when I found out I was pregnant last year but did not know it was going to change SO much the day she was born. I had forgotten how things were when you had a baby, but I wouldn’t change it for the world and my life is exactly where it should be and I wouldn’t change it for the world. Posted from WordPress for Android

It’s tough

Last night Alexis woke me up at 2 in the morning. I was a little frustrated and I sighed and got mad. Then I realized that she had been laying on her left side and somehow peed through her diaper.  So I felt horrible. I got up and changed her. She woke up and she was all smiles at me while I talked to her and just stared at her feeling guilty and upset at myself for feeling angry that she woke up at 2 in the morning. 
I made her a bottle and held her in my arms while I fed her. She reached up and grabbed my nose and we just looked at each other she smiled and just held my nose and kept eating. I held her and remembered how time flies and how the first 2 months I wanted her to get older because she was so colicky that all she did was cry and I never got sleep and I thought we were never going to get through this. Now she’s about to be 5 months old and starting to explore more. I can barely remember the first 2 months because I was so sleep deprived but if I could go back and do it all over again I would. I would hold her and kiss her and remember that newborn baby smell. I know these times are limited and in a blink of an eye they are grown up and you can’t cuddle them and hold them and protect them from the big world.  I look at Eli and just shake my head because with him I did everything opposite. I didn’t hold him as much because I was told if you do they will just want to be held 24/7.  I let him cry it out because it was for MY own good. He never slept with because I will regret it.  I shake my head because if I knew then what I know now I would have held him and cuddled him and kissed him and enjoyed every single minute with him because you just don’t get that time back. He’s sitting here in front of me on his computer after being sick and I realized that this time he was sick and he didn’t want to cuddle with me he wanted to just sleep in his bed. He’s grown. My daughter I will try to hold on to her as much as I can and cherish all the moments like I did with her brother.
If I knew then what I know now I would do the same with Eli as I am with Alexis.  I don’t love her more I just know more. I know time is precious and it goes by way way too fast. I know to throw everything out the window and just enjoy them. I won’t be able to protect her from this big world forever. I won’t be able to protect  BOTH of them forever. From this moment on I make the promise to not regret not doing and making memories with my kids. They are only this little once. But no matter what they will ALWAYS ALWAYS be my babies! 

Weekend

Well this past weekend was a sleep deprived weekend. It was also the last weekend in awhile that my husband would actually have a full weekend off and we were super excited and had so much planned to do and get out of the house. Yeah Mhm that went out the window with a 2 month old who cries 14 hours a day and when sleeps only sleeps in 20 minute intervals.  This weekend I was reminded just how much Lance and I depend on and lean on one another.
Without him I would be sitting in a corner rocking back and forth crying while holding my baby wondering why she cries so much.
We have figured it out, she’s colic and gassy. Our oldest was colicky but compared to her he was the easy one. With him I at least got an hour of no crying instead of 20 mins.  Anyway, this weekend was a tag team weekend. Lance and I took it in shifts every 3 hours we would say “tag you’re it”. He would look at me and I look at him and we both just knew that we would get through this together. She really is a blessing and don’t get me wrong she does cry A LOT and ALL DAY but in between the cries there are smiles and coos that we both enjoy and look at her and just start laughing. She really is a sweet girl the other 10 hours of the day.  We just have to make it through the other 14. I’m sitting rocking her right now she’s somewhat asleep and will sleep for the next 15 mins or so. Then I will have to get up and walk with her because she is crying.  I know right now I want this to end all the crying and not sleeping but in a few months or even a year I will want her to be this little again. So in between all the crying and sleep deprivation I am enjoying her as much as I can right now.

And she’s awake.

The life of a stay at home mom!

Well my little one is almost two and a half months but the last two months have not been easy. She was born 5 weeks early and it has been rough. We have had a million sleepless nights.  Feeding was not easy. Her belly was so sensitive that breastfeeding was not agreeing with her formula was not agreeing with her so on top of not producing enough breast milk to feed her I had to supplement with formula. Talk about a stressful situations for me. She was SO fussy for hours, days and weeks. She cried non stop. Nothing we did helped her. I cried with her every time she did. Her pain killed me and it hurt more because as a mother you want to take their pain away and you can’t.  Lance and I were at our mercy with it all. The doctor said everything looked good and blah blah blah you know your child even if they have only been on this earth for 2 months. Anyway don’t want to jinx myself but the last two days have been somewhat smooth. 
My days have consisted of rocking, patting, humming, singing, walking around whispering “I promise everything will be ok!” “I’m sorry I can’t take your pain away!” Holding my pee in for 4 hours at a time because putting her down means she screams in pain and it kills me. Going all day with only eating one meal a day. Sleeping when she sleeps. Looking at my husband and thanking God that he is in this with me and helping me and being just as sleep deprived as I have been just to let me have my sanity back even if it is for an hour.  I have been frustrated because my house is a mess and I haven’t peed in hours or showered in 3 days but then I look at her and see that a shower a clean house and my bladder(at this moment) are not as important as this moment right now here with her looking at her because I will never get this moment back. I know this because I see our 10 year old and keeping thinking “Where has time gone? I barely remember him being as little as she is now!” Time does fly by!
So the last two days since she has been doing better I have had my hands full. Finally catching up on eating, cleaning the house little by little while she naps. I still don’t feel too comfortable showering so I wait until the hubby is here with us. I should be napping when she is BUT doing these things makes me feel somewhat normal. I never want to put her down because she is so precious. Being a stay at home isn’t easy not as easy as everybody thinks it is. It’s a never ending job. Your mind goes out the window everyday.  You’re lucky to be able to sit and watch a 30 minute recorded show from 3 weeks ago, brush your teeth, put your hair in a ponytail.  It’s rough, exhausting, trying and all of the above, but being a mother is the best blessings in the world and everything that I have gone through in the last two months with our princess and the last 10 years with our prince I would never trade it for the world.

My morning makeup routine.

So like most of you, I wait until the last minute to get up to get ready for work and then I am rushing to do EVERYTHING.  Props to all you ladies out there that don’t do this and actually get to take their time getting ready for work lol. I keep saying I’ll get up 30 minutes earlier. Pshht Rrriiiiiggggghhhhhtttttt that’s 30 minutes extra of sleep lol.

So here is a picture of the makeup I use. In all honesty it’s nothing too expensive.  I would LOVE to be able to buy everything at Sephora or M.A.C. but I’m on a budget!

I don’t use one specific makeup line. I use them ALL. I promise all this takes me 10 minutes to put on.

Always remember wash, exfoliate, moisturize your face and wear eye cream also. Those are the most important things before putting on anything. I have been using some homemade exfoliating scrubs, I’ll post them on my next blog.

Ok so after my moisturizer and all that fun stuff I put on my makeup primer. It’s Arbonne. I love it though,  makes my face feel silky smooth and fills in all my pores which let’s my powder go on smoother. Same thing for liquid foundation.  It is $40 but well worth it. I have had it for months.  a little bit goes a LONG way. You can mix your primer and moisturizer together to kill 2 birds with one stone.

Next, eyeshadow primer.  I use Milani’s. Good and fairly reasonable. I got it at my local CVS. I think I paid $7 for it. Works awesome. No creases. Eyeshadow is more vibrant and stays on FOREVER!

Concealer is a must for me. I have really bad dark circles,  I can’t go without it. Kat Von D’s tattoo concealer my favorite, the price NOT my favorite. So I researched to see what was equivalent and found Hard Candy Glamoflauge is just a good and it compares.  A little goes a long way. TRUST ME! You can find it at Walmart it’s like $7. I’ve only seen it at Walmart though. 

Then, it’s time for my powder. OMG I LOVE LOVE L’Oréal’s Bare Naturale Gentle Mineral Makeup.  Works just as well as Bare Minerals and it’s half the price. It’s usually like $15.99 but I have gotten it on sale for like $10. I love it and I use to be OBSESSED with Bare Minerals but with a budget there was no way I could afford it. L’Oréal’s lasts me forever. It’s great.

Eyelash curler is my next step before applying eyeshadow.

For eyeshadow I like Maybelline’s Color Tattoo Cream shadow. They don’t crease and the colors are so vibrant.  They last ALL day long. They’re like $7 each.

For eyeliner I have been using a black eyeshadow with an angled brush. I like doing this because it’s easier to manage and easier to remove with a Q-tip if you mess up. I only use it on my top lid. I use Cover Girl Liquid blast Eyeliner Pencil on my bottom or use it on my top lid if I want a bolder look.  I also use liquid eyeliner sometimes. There is a trick to liquid eyeliner. I will talk about that later.

My all time favorite mascara is CoverGirl Lashblast. I have tried a lot and this is by far my favorite.  Everyone has their favorite mascara. This is mine. I am going to try the Younique one eventually.  It’s a little out of my price range but I hear it’s well worth it.

Groom and fill in my eyebrows. I obviously use eyeshadow.  The pallet   with the 3 eyeshadows is the one I use. I use the dark brown. That’s Benefit’s Big Beautiful Eyes. It’s $32. I use it because I got it when I worked for them.  I also have a separate one I use for my brides. Omg these colors on brides AMAZING!  But usually I use L’Oréal’s HiP eyeshadow in their darkest brown. I just ran out and that was the closest thing I had lol. I use the angled brush with it to get get a defined line and it’s thin too. If it’s too dark I use disposable mascara wand to brush a little bit of it off.  

Last 2 things are blush. Which I use something that is good for my skin tone. Usually I use bronzer as my blush and add a little pink on top. Then I use Benefit’s What’s Up as a highlighter.  I put it under my brow, on my brow bone. Makes your brows POP and I put just a dab on my cheek bones as well. It’s $30 but well worth it and lasts forever. I also got it when I was working for them. I will research something comparable and at a reasonable price.

Yes, ladies that a my makeup routine. Of course I change it if we are going out or for a special occasion.  Sometimes just for fun to try something new lol. Same makeup routine gets boring. Hope this helped. Any questions contact me!

Eyebrows….

Ok so eyebrow lesson today. I always have people asking me who does my eyebrows and where do I go? The answer is I do my own eyebrows, I go into my bathroom to do them lol. But let me tell you I was doing my eyebrows ALL wrong for the longest time ever. I know right!  I went to school for this. I was taught how to do this and shape eyebrows,  but the wrong way. Until about 3 years ago.

I was freelancing for a cosmetic company. They specialize in eyebrows. Omg I LOVED working for them. Anyway my first day there and my jaw dropped because I was doing this ALL wrong. I thought my brows looked good. Psht man was I wrong. My shift ended and I went into my car and looked in my mirrior at my eyebrows and said “OMG I have a LOT of regrowth to do!”

Ok so I took some pictures to demonstrate. 

Left one was how my brows use to look. Which I thought they looked good. Right one is how the look now, the right way. Notice the difference in my forehead, how much smaller it looks. My nose looks smaller too. My eyes don’t look offset either.

This picture is to show you where you eyebrows should start and end. I used a wax stick to use as my guide or you can use your tweezers also. Take the stick or your tweezers and rest them at that little wedge on the side of your nose, kind of where they would pierce you for a nose ring. Take the stick or your tweezers and parallel them to the beginning of your brow make a little mark to show you where your eyebrow should start, I use an angled brush and eyeshadow to make my marks. If you see that you’re missing some hair between where your brow starts now and where it should start I would recommend to start the regrowth. If you can’t regrow there are ways to pencil it it. See the first and the middle picture to better give you a guide on the instructions above. To guide you where your brow should end, take your wax stick or your tweezers and find the outside corner of your nostril, line the stick or your tweezers with the outside of your eye and  connect it to the end of your brow see the last picture above. Mark it as well. To find your arch you take the stick or your tweezers and guide it through the outside corner if your of nose to the outside of your iris. (Sorry no picture) You can kind of see that my arch lines up with the outside of my iris. I would mark it too.  After you make your marks it’s really a connect the dots game. Connect where brow should start to where brow should arch. Connect arch to where brow ends. You can make your brow thick or your brow thin. I like mine a little thicker and more natural.  I hope that made sense if not let me know. The pictures pretty much guide you.

Just don’t start your brows from the outside corner of your nostril. Which is where I was taught in school. Look at how much brow you lose!!!!

Your brows shouldn’t look like semicolons, or like you took a sharpie and drew them on. Shouldn’t look like you’re frowning all the time or or mean mugging people.  I have yet to see a celebrity or makeup artist brows look like that. Ladies come on the first thing people see is your hair and your eyebrows.  Well at least I do. Trust me if you think you can’t fix your brows and there is no hope for them, HA are you wrong.  Trust me I have proven plenty of people wrong!

Hope this helped and made sense!

Here’s a link on what you’re eyebrows should NOT look like!
http://justsomething.co/28-hilarious-eyebrow-fails/

Let’s talk about what I did tonight. ..

So tonight I decided to go to an Arbonne meeting. Yes I already sign up as a consultant.  I went for support for another friend who just sign up.

Which she is doing really good. Two weeks in the business and she’s rocking it. Me on the other hand I’m far from where she is in two weeks.  My intentions were to go full force with the business.  But life got the best of me. 40 hour work week, homework,  groceries, cleaning, laundry, etc. Yeah yeah all excuses. I will start it full force one day.

Let’s talk about the company.  AMAZING company.  All organic, paraben free, preservative free, GMO and vegan skin care and body products. As well as make up.  It’s not a fast track to money company.  But the products are AWESOME. Take it from me who I am picky about my skin care products since everything breaks me out and this Is the only line that doesn’t. The products speak for themselves. Their clay mask and their body scrub OMG to die for. Best make up primer I have ever used. Let’s just be honest their whole line is to die for.

Anyway back to the meeting. Seeing all those ladies there talking about their goals and actually doing the business without an excuse made me start thinking about it all. Is 8 parties a month really a lot?  Even to support my monthly income that I have right now so I can focus more on my makeup and my photography. When the baby comes  I can stay home. So much to think about. 

Anyway it’s a great and amazing company. I did the pink Cadillac company for a little and it did not interest me but this one I will honestly say it’s not like any of the other ones when it comes to skin care and I am a really REALLY big skeptic! 

10 Years Later

Well the post was suppose to say 10 years later, not 10 years late haha. I swear I always do everything in a hurry that I never remember to double check anything. I am starting this just because. It will have a little bit of everything, makeup photography, my work, my life, my thoughts and everything under the sun lol. If I offend anybody #sorry#iamnotsorry! 

Anyway as most of you know Lance and I are expecting our second child. Yes to much of our surprise 10 years later. We swore up and down that Eli was going to be the only child that we ever had. He was our blessing and in all honesty he saved me from taking the wrong path in my life. He is and will always be my Sunshine. Hence why I always call him Sunshine. This one is another blessing, a BIG blessing as well. 

This pregnancy has been SO much different than when I was pregnant with Eli. Or maybe it has been the same I just don’t remember really being pregnant 10 years ago lol. I am 100% completely scared. Scared of losing the baby, scared that the dogs will eat the baby, scare Eli will not be as excited when the baby comes as he is now, scared of the delivery ( I swear this baby better not have me in labor for a week). As always scared financially. We had finally gotten ourselves above water and then BAM! Trust me I am truly happy and excited about the baby don’t get me wrong. I am trying everything in my nature to get our savings up so that when I am on maternity leave we don’t have to worry about where the money will be coming from. If it were up to me I would stay home with this baby for the first year of it’s life like I did with Bubba. I told Lance that I wasn’t going to miss any of Bubba’s first and that the first year was crucial for me and him. So I am trying to do the same for this one. Trust me it’s not going to be a big surprise for Lance if I do. 

Things I am not looking forward to are:

1. No sleep. I LOVE my sleep and now that Eli is older it’s so much easier just to sleep lol

2. Diaper bags. Although I guess it doesn’t matter because my purse is as big and weighs as much as one lol

3. Car seats and strollers lol. Bulky and heavy and always in the way lol 

4. Poopy diapers lol. Never was a big fan and Lance never changed them so once again I will get stuck with them. 

5. Crying and not knowing the reason why. I hated it when Eli was a baby and I did not know why he was crying and I couldn’t help him. 

Things I am looking forward to. 

1. Baby smiles 

2. Baby smells, the good smells lol. 

3. Having a baby in general 

4. Eli being a big brother and let me tell you he is super excited about it lol more than what we thought he would be

5. Having a baby in general lol 

6. Baby talk 

7. Baby’s first 

8. Baby everything

I know ALL of you would like it to be a girl lol. I have heard your requests lol. We won’t find out the gender of the baby until the beginning of next month middle of next month so we have a few lol. 

We were seriously truly Blesses with this baby!