We Just Bought the Most Giant Tree!

My brother-in-law was in town this weekend. Luckily I had the day off on Friday. Before taking Baby Fox to preschool, we had to decorate the cake for BIL's birthday!

Everyone eats oatmeal and frosts cakes during breakfast right? Yep I used canned frosting and boxed cake, it was delicious, why fix something that's not broke?

Baby Fox really wanted to put sprinkles on the cake

He takes his decorating serious

After taking Baby Fox to preschool, and doing Mini Fox's hair in a cute french braid. Okay it wasn't that cute, but I did it, and I am so excited for all the hair styles to come when her hair is a little thicker and longer.

And then doing the "someone is coming over, need to quickly do a 10 minute clean job when it really should be an hour worth of work" cleaning job, we were off to the airport. Everything went perfect, and we were back at home in no time.

Yep he's that tall, he's 13 inches taller than me. I could barely get us all in the picture, haha.

 We ate some lunch and then went to pick up Baby Fox from preschool

After nap time while we were waiting for Mr. to get home, Baby Fox colored and Mini Fox just wants to be where Baby Fox is.

Mr. got home and what was the first place BIL wanted to eat at? In and Out of course.

Friday night we laid low and watched  Fight Club, have you seen it? I didn't really want to watch it, but Mr. said I would like it and you know what? I was pleasantly surprised. Go watch it if you haven't yet.

Saturday I took Baby Fox to get his hair cut, actually we went Friday after school, but the wait was 40 minutes, no thank you!

He acts like she's hurting him, but he just kept leaning away from her...

The hair trimmers are tickling him

Then we hit up this home decor store that is basically the size of Costco and it sells everything whole sale. You have to have a sellers license to get in. A friend has one, so she let us borrow it, yay! We did some major Christmas shopping. She had told us that the Christmas stuff goes fast, and that after Thanksgiving most of it would probably be gone. I usually don't like Christmas before Thanksgiving, but well, when you really want an awesome Christmas tree, you gotta do what you gotta do...

The dislplay we're sort of copying for our tree...it looks really overwhelming in this picture, but in person it wasn't bad.

 We found the Christmas tree we wanted, we were waiting for someone to come take it down, since it was the last one.

Still waiting

 

Looking at some decorations.

Okay are you ready for the next picture? It's a picture of the tree we bought...it looks WAY bigger outside of that warehouse...crazy how small something looks in a big warehouse!

But it fit in my Mom's SUV, phew, I was worried!

Just us girls with some decorations

Baby Fox could hardly contain his excitment.

Baby Fox trying to help, but that's the last piece Baby Fox, not quite yet!

We really stepped up our game, our previous tree was 6 feet tall, this one is 10...perhaps we got a little carried away?

Now to the decorating...we're still looking for the "garland" I put it in quotes because it's ribbon, but we couldn't find the specific one we wanted at the store, so we're trying to find it else where.

After naptime we hit up our favorite Mexican place, yum! Then Mr. and BIL headed to a movie from dinner.

I have no idea who that lady in the back is

Sunday was pretty low key, we started things right with a quiche. Yum!

It needed to cool a bit, and Mr. really wanted it, Baby Fox was holding him back.

We decided to go with it and started decorating the house...my house is full on crazy right now, decorations everywhere! This was just the beginning. I keep telling myself, it gets worse before it gets better, right?

Baby Fox helped put up Christmas lights outside. He could no contain his laughter, he thought it was just the best time.

Mini Fox wore this cute little number all day. Mr. dressed her.

Kissing her little doggy

Before naptime everyone went swimming. Don't worry they just went in the spa, too cold for the pool (it was about 60°).

Mini Fox loved it!

I didn't take any picture, but I made potroast for dinner, and my parents came over. It was a great way to end the weekend. Until next time BIL!

and just cause they are cute.

Hope you had a great weekend! Hopefully most of you have the week off. I'm taking Wednesday off, and REALLY want to take tomorrow off, but don't really have a good reason to...so I guess I'll go to work. Boo.

Linking up with Faith, Sarah and Heather for Mommy Moments, Bella & Lisa for Weekend Link-up, Molly and Carly for Let it Shine , Meg for Mingle Monday and Erin for Weekend Snapshot

Winter Hats

Back with the Style Challenge Ladies for the next topic of winter hats.  You know I'm pretty much the worst person you could possibly ask to do this topic, why? I live somewhere where it rarely goes below 50° during the day. But I did put together a list of things I would put on my head if I did live somewhere really cold.

The only thing on my head that you'll actually see is this one, when I'm snowboarding somewhere, preferably Utah.

Giro Discord Snow Helmet Women's

You can't tell but I am wearing a pink helmet.

How cute is this hat? I can just imagine it with a cute Olivia Pope jacket some cute gloves and an awesome scarf.

Women's Eric Javits 'Lally' Wool Felt Cloche

I think I would wear this hat just about everyday, it's pink and it has a bow, need I say more?

Women's kate spade new york stitched bow slouched beanie

I know this technically isn't a hat, but it goes on your head, so I'm counting it, cute, cute, cute, although I'm not sure I can pull off the headband look. But I definitely love it when someone can.

Women's Made of Me Pleated Cashmere Head Wrap

These, I'm not sure if ear muffs really work cause I've never tried, but I can imagine another life living in NYC, walking to get my nails done, shopping, going to my next client (cause I have clients in this daydream), or hopping on the subway with these guys on.

UGG Australia 'Classic' Genuine Shearling Headphone Earmuffs

Shoes to Shiraz | Two Teens and their Mama | A Lovely Little Wardrobe | R Squared 

Confessions of a Frumpy Mommy | Family Love Inspiration Education  

The Mishaps and Mayhem of Solitary Life | The Blondissima | Familiar Joy

Positively Learning | Quilty Joy Joy | Daily Style Finds | Sheila's Potpourri | Puppies and Pretties She thought she could | Looks like Lauren | Foxy's Domestic Side | 
Once Upon a Time & Happily Ever After | Wardrobe Therapy

Linking up with: Erika, Andrea, and Narci for Friday Favorites,  September Farm and The Farmer's Wife for Oh Hey, Friday, 
April, Darci, Natasha and Christina for Five on Friday and Lauren for High Five for Friday  

Fiesta Surprise Party

I showed you a little bit of the surprise party on Monday, but here's all the details. Well as many as I can give you, I am such a horrible picture taker when I am throwing a party. I seriously need to hire someone to just do it for me, because I NEVER get pictures.This time I got the people, Mini Fox's party I got the decorations. One day, I'll remember to take pictures of both the decorations AND the people.

So all week I was making these:

I followed what I did to make really big tissue pom poms and modified it. After a lot of trial and error I got it down to a science. I'm going to share it with you, you're welcome. I think this might even spark a new pom pom tutorial, but need to take pictures and find the time to do a tutorial, but it's coming, I promise. Here it is in words, with no pictures. I hope this comes across well. If not, skip past this part.

I used one basic package of tissue paper (bought at the dollar tree store, it came with 25 sheets of multi-colored paper). Separated the colors, each one had 25 sheets, which worked out perfect. Then I laid out one color of tissue paper (5 sheets) unfolded and flat with the fold lines horizontal to me. I then cut the tissue papers into 3 vertical strips. Then each on of those strips I cut in half, now I have three stacks of 10 pieces of tissue paper that were roughly the same size. I then took two pieces of tissue from each pile and created another stack. Then I took one more piece of tissue from one other stack. So now I have 2 piles with 8 pieces of tissue, and 2 piles with 7 pieces of tissue. Then you just follow my pom pom tutorial and you're good to go.

I did make some smaller ones, instead of cutting into three strips I cut them into 4 strips. Just make sure that they only have 6-7 pieces of tissue, anything more then that and it gets hard to "poof". Trust me I learned the hard way.

Then I found some bamboo skewers and hot glued them in. Simple right? Find a vase, in our case we used some metal buckets and create your arrangements. There are 7 arrangements here.

One of them close up.

We bought a lot of the stuff at Party City, and then I made some of the stuff, okay I made two things, but still they were really time consuming.

This is not my house, it's my aunt's house: Here's the entryway. We hung these lanterns here and then the rest of the package went outside in the trees (which of course I didn't take a picture of).

On the wall opposite of the door, we just put one of these fans and some fresh flowers.

Then we put some buplap and fabric on the table with the "flower" arrangement and a fan, I thought it looked great, even though very few people sat here.

 

We hung a fiesta banner in the kitchen to make it a little more festive. 

We bought these margarita glasses for both the decoration and use. Which of course I don't have a picture of. We used some of those pom poms in them and scattered them around. You can sort of see them in the background on that wall back there. They've been moved and used, so you can only really see two, but we had them set up super cute on that wall back there.

We bought these napkins for the drinks, since the Taco Man was going to bring napkins, plates and utensils for us.

 

We bought two more of those fiesta banners and hung them outside. You can see them on either side of the lights. Which happened to already be there, so we lucked out with those! They matched the theme perfect.

Of course you can't forget the pinata! I was actually going to convert it to a pull string pinata, but it came with it already done, score! In case you don't know, see all those strings hanging? Well each kid gets to pull one and only one of them opens the trap door to release the candy. Although the candy we bought was too big, so after the trap door was opened nothing came out, really anticlimactic I tell ya.

We had two small tables outside, which we put the burplap and the fabric on.You can see it there on the left. This is actually the moment when the trap door is being opened, hence the two hand pull.

I cannot tell you how awesome having someone cater and serve the food was. We didn't have to worry about it at all, and everyone loved it. It was a fun part of the party, and of course where we spent most of our money.

Yep he brought all of the condiments too!

Meet Jerry, he's the most awesome taco man ever!

As soon as the birthday got there, everyone ran to get the food, yum! He stayed for three hours and pretty much people were eating the entire time.

And that is the party in a nutshell. So who's ready to throw a fiesta party?! If you can't hire a taco guy, you can still cater from a Mexican restaurant. We did that for Baby Fox's construction party and it worked out great!

Adios!

Linking up with I Heart Nap Time, Lil' Luna, Somewhat Simple, Tatertots & Jello & Today's Creative Blog for Link Party Palooza

Two In One

I bought this dress at Old Navy last year, along with the dress I wore for our family photo session (which I realize I never posted those photos...perhaps that will be a post soon). This might be my go to fall/winter outfit. Leggings, dress, blazer, scarf, ankle boots. Actually I'm wearing this same combo, different dress, different scarf, but same bottom line. Easy to pick out at 5am.

Then I took the jacket off for a more relaxed look. I love this look too. Super comfortable but put together.

I love these fake eyelashes, they're great! They are actually from Daiso Japanese store, and were $1.50, I think they are prefect for me.

So that's what I would look like if I actually had eyelashes.

If you look closely you can see my grey hair coming in...yea that white streak on the left side of my head (well left to you, right side on me...that's confusing) that's not shiny hair, that's grey coming in.

Mr. took action shots of me taking off my jacket.

What's your favorite go to outfit?

Here's a random story for you:

About 18 years ago my Grandma decided that she wanted to get all of the grandkids pencils with their name on it. I thought it was cute and used them throughout college. She bought each of us like 20 pencils or something. Anyway...fast forward and I'm now working, and I like using pencils you sharpen over mechanical pencils, don't you just love the smell of freshly sharpened pencil? I'm down to my last 3 pencils, which makes me sad, so I am using them down to the point I can barely hold them. So I've lost one, and I'm sad because now I only have 2 of them left. I'm in a meeting and someone has my pencil! They're using MY pencil! I say, hey that's my pencil! And they're like no it's not, it's mine. Besides you can't prove it. Then I'm like yea, does your pencil have YOUR name on it? He rolls over the pencil and sure enough he has egg in his face as my name in printed on the pencil clear as day. Bam, take that pencil stealer! I'm down to my last pencil, last 4.5 inches of it.  Now that my Grandma has passed away, I think it will just sit at my desk reminding me of how awesome my Grandma was.

Oh one more thing! It's my sisters birthday! Happy Birthday Aunt Foxy, the most fun, loving, creative and best aunt my kids could ask for!

 also Linking up with Because Shanna Said So, Get Your Pretty On, The Pleated Poppy, Tucker Up