I am a spoiled brat!

I hope everyone had a great holiday with their family and friends. I know I sure did! The girls and I made a total of 11 different batches of cookies, fudge, pies plus some other appetizer type foods for our big family get together on Christmas Eve. Then on Christmas I made a pretty low key dinner that included turkey, stuffing, mac & cheese, real mashed potatoes, gravy, green bean casserole and corn. Mom and Lisa had spent the night with us and then Dad came over to eat with us. It was a really laid back nice day. 

Here are a few pictures of the girls and Lisa opening their gifts. Lisa was so excited that Santa knew to bring her gifts to my house. The girls even played along with her excitement and pretended that Santa had brought them gumball machines. I hope one day they will realize the happiness that put in my heart. 

The girls with their 1/2 pound peanut butter cups!

 I was spoiled beyond rotten by some of my friends and family. Some of the packages I got were parts of swaps and secret Santa exchanges, but I decided they were all gifts since they mostly came on Christmas Eve haha! These pictures are the contents of 4 packages that came on Christmas Eve from my good friend Jessi, Gillian in Ireland, my secret Santa Traci, and my December nail pal Katelyn.

The cute little penguins are ornaments from my nail pal.

H&M minis and Gem Crush minis. Mom loved the Gem Crush polishes, I may try to find some for her for her birthday in April.

My first polish from 365 Days Of Color. Also look at the magic in that bottle of Barry M!

The last one is actually a shimmery orange. My camera refused to recognize orange last night.

Mom tried to steal the one on the right, it is a polish from the Betsey Johnson collection.

So much sparkle!

This picture is of the packages from my friend Jade who is in the UK. One of the GOSH holographic polishes is for my friend Robyn, it has been one of her biggest lemmings. I was so excited to be able to arrange to get it for her!

Yes that is 2 bottles of Fantasy Fire and GOSH holographic! I also got a Kinder Happy Hippo, but ate him before I got pics. I was definitely a happy fatty when I saw him!

These pictures are of the package from my friend Lynn who I share a brain with. I think she and I were secretly separated at birth or something, we can probably finish each others sentences. It is so funny how much we think and respond alike, we are always telling each other to "get out of my head!" She spoiled the girls and I and even Rowan rotten.

Look at the cupcake rolling pin and spatula, the cuteness hurts!!!!

This blankie is so soft and comfy!

Icing polishes

I laughed so hard when I saw the bag of all these orange polishes. I had been on a hunt for a true orange creme polish. I could picture Lynn going from store to store grabbing all the orange creme polishes LOL. Also LOOK! My very first KB Shimmer polish!!!!!! If you don't know, orange is also my favorite color.

My first Studio M polishes, look at all the sparkle in those bad boys.

There are sparkly moons in the middle polish!

OH I almost forgot I also got the Zoya Holo-Day Cheer Dream Box for myself for only $4 using my share the love points. It has the colors Aurora, Blaze and Storm in it. I think the Ornate collection was my favorite collection from Zoya this year.

The girls got me a Whitney Houston Christmas CD, because they know I love her. Hannah made me a sweet slideshow on the computer and some cute necklaces. One of my sisters gave me the cutest little crock pot, another sister gave me all sorts of cute cupcake themed stuff. My friend Rebecca gave me a couple pairs of earrings she made, they are too cute! I will have a post just for those though. I got to visit with my friend Marisela who flew in from California. I knew I missed her, but didn't realize how much until we hugged and didn't want to let go. She has been a true gift this year to the girls and I.

I can't wait to play in my polishes! I am beyond thrilled with everything I received from my family and friends. The things that I enjoyed the most were being able to enjoy time with my family and laugh, and knowing that I have good friends that love me despite how twisted I can be.Watching my 1 year old great niece eating cookies and fudge I had made and saying mmmmmm then giving me cookie goo kisses. My great nephew Gabe who is 3 rip his shirt off to put on his new scratch and sniff shirt that smells like peanut butter and jelly. That is what the holidays are all about love, laughter, and creating memories to carry with you. 

What was your favorite gifts you received? Is there a special memory that was made this year?

*All products shown here were gifts or parts of swaps with friends. All opinions are my own*

Peace, Love and Cupcakes!

Nail Polish Pals

So it has been a little bit, ok a long bit since I have had time or energy to even think about blogging. Even though I love to share all sorts of stuff with you all, life got crazy, I've been sick, mom had a fall, one of my sisters was in the hospital, so I had to put the blog on the back burner for awhile. Even though I couldn't make posts, I was always thinking Oooooooh this would be a great post for the blog, snapping pictures as much as possible. So here I am ready to put my blogger pants back on and come out swinging.

I have so much to share with you all, but I will start with something I think is super fun! I am part of a nail polish pen pal group on Facebook, where polish lovers from all over the world come together and share their love of polish. Each month we can sign up to be paired with a pen pal, the main point is to get to know and become friends with other polish addicts with the added treat of sending each other awesome packages. Last month was my first month to participate and I admit I was a little nervous, luckily I was paired up with 2 amazing ladies that made it so much fun for me. 

My first pal Cheryl lives in Singapore. We messaged back and forth with each other getting to know each other and learning some of our likes and dislikes. Then I stalked her page a little and found that she is as cute as a bug and likes adventure. She has been to some beautiful places and done some amazing things like snorkeling and diving. I could spend hours looking at all the pictures she took under water, they make me so relaxed feeling. She also does some gorgeous nail art too. I got her package within a week of her shipping it. I about died on the spot when I opened it, so many pretty things!!!!

My package from Cheryl!

Look at all those polishes! I had never tried any of those brands before and of course swatched them all immediately. I wont show you a pic of that though since I have a mani to share tomorrow that uses one of the polishes. I did learn something interesting, gum is illegal in Singapore, so no that isn't a pack of grape bubble gum. The only way to describe it is that it has the texture of gum, but it dissolves as you chew it. Thank you Cheryl for an amazing package!

My second pal Polyanna is from Belgium! We also messaged back and forth with each other learning our likes and dislikes. I also tried a new candy thanks to her, white chocolate Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. I had asked her if there was any candy or food goodies she may want and that was what she asked for. I never would have thought that they would be so good. I shoved as many as I could in her package and HAD to eat the ones that wouldn't fit LOL! She uses a "fake" facebook profile for privacy issues, but I was able to check her out on a few other beauty related social media sites. I can understand people not wanting to use their "real" profiles for things like this, especially if they have kids. Unfortunately I wasn't able to stalk her as well as I did Cheryl. I can tell you that she and I share a sisterhood concerning chocolate! Polyanna's package took a bit longer to arrive, probably due to hurricane Sandy. I don't think I could have taken the excitement of 2 awesome packages in 1 week anyway.

My package from Polyanna!

Look at all those goodies, amazing right?! Look at how cute those H&M mini polishes are, and the dual ended Essence! She even sent me some hand creams and a lip balm, I LOVE LIP BALM!!!! As much as I love the polish, my favorite thing hands down is the chocolate bar and I haven't even eaten any of it yet. The wrapper is so cute I can't bring myself to tear into it....yet. Thank you Polyanna for all of my goodies!

I hope these ladies enjoyed the packages I sent to them as much as I enjoyed mine. I can tell you that I will be looking into getting some more Skin Food polishes in the future. Check out the blog tomorrow for a mani I created using one of the polishes from one of the pictures above. Thanks for taking the time to read my post. I look forward to sharing tons of stuff with you all again. 

Have you tried any of the brands from the pictures? What are your thoughts on them? 

Peace, Love, and Cupcakes!