Perfume and Parties...

I just realized how literal the names of all my blogs have been... At any rate, a while back (about 6 months to be exact) I purchased a deluxe fragrance sampler at sephora. Basically you pay $50 or so and you get 12 sample sized of various perfumes and you get a card that you trade in for a bottle of your favorite of the 12 once you have tried them all.

The scents that were included in this particular sampler are:

Aquolina - Pink Sugar / Donna Karan - Cashmere Mist / Juicy Couture - Viva La Juicy / Prada - Infusion D'Iris / Dior - Addict 2 / Emilio Pucci - Vivara Variazioni Acqua 330 / Kenzo - Flowerbykenzo / Stella McCartney - Stella Nude / Dolce & Gabbana - Light Blue / Harajuku Lovers - G / Michael Kors - Very hollywood / Versace - Bright Crystal

I actually liked quite a few of the fragrances (hence the reason why I barely made a selection 6 months later!), I really love Very Hollywood, Bright Crystal and Pink Sugar, I also sort of like G. Eventually I decided to get Pink Sugar.

The reason you ask? Well of those previously mentioned this one gave me the most bang (more specifically perfume) for my buck. With the majority of the perfumes I would be getting a 1oz. bottle and with pink sugar I got a 3.4 oz. bottle so there you go I admit it, I can be a bit frugal sometimes :)

I do however plan on buying Very Hollywood and Bright Crystal as well sometime in the near future. I also absolutely love Issey Miyake's L'Eau d'Isssey it is so fresh and amazing I got a sample of it and plan on purchasing it (once I am receiving a steady paycheck), I haven't yet because it is a bit on the pricey side.

My oldest son is going to be 4th on May 3rd and I am so excited for him. We are going to have a birthday party for him at our house and then we plan on taking him to Disneyland later that month as well. We call him The Boogs (or booger, boogies, sometimes even booger bear, we are a family that is big on nicknames) because when he was a baby he constantly had boogers in his nose. When he was 2 we or my family would ask him, why do they call you the boogs? And he would reply "because I have booger in-a my nose."

But I'm getting off topic, so because we are having his party in a couple of weeks I could not pass up these great bowls for salsas and things of that nature when I saw them at Bed Bath & Beyond. They were $1.99 and I heart them :)

I honestly love them so much I had to take pictures from 2 angles....I am such a dork.

Lastly for your viewing pleasure here is a photo of The Boogs and I leaving the swap meet yesterday afternoon.

He said we were twins because we both had glasses on :)

And here we are being silly...

BBQ, Remodeling, Sephora and Boogers!

So sadly, it has been a long time since I have blogged. I wanted to do a lot of blogging this week since I was off but that didn't happen and there is an explanation of my week (in picture form) below...

It all started with Monday when my hubby (aka the crock) was off from work and decided to purchase a new medicine cabinet and vanity for our bathroom (something we have been wanting to do for a while now). He installed the medicine cabinet and later his dad came over to finish hooking up the sink and now our a bathroom looks something like this:

I love the color (because I am obsessed with black furniture mostly). But we aren't done yet. We are getting a new toilet and a storage unit for over the toilet and then we are going to re-glaze the tub and I am also thinking that the light fixture also needs to be replaced. So it's a work in progress. There is also construction going on now as we speak in my house because we are putting an opening in the wall that divides our kitchen and living room to be able to put in a breakfast bar to make more space in our tiny kitchen. I had a picture of what my wall looked like with its guts all exposed but decided against inserting it here.

Tuesday:
A couple of years ago I begged and begged my crocky to buy me a BBQ. He was very hesitant because he said I would never use it (sadly he was more right than wrong). So this spring and summer I have made it my mission to use it more often and this was the first use of the season. We invited my in-laws over (because they always invite us over for BBQ's). I made a lot of stuff, potato salad, burgers, hot dogs and my favorite bacon wrapped asparagus yum!! But the only thing I took a picture of was my deviled eggs...



I wanted to take more, but I didn't want my in-laws thinking I'm weirder than I already am :). Also there were 5 eggs in this photo but one disappeared right as the camera flashed...odd. I got the recipe courtesy of Sandra Lee and foodnetwork.com, I have been obsessed with these since I made them (I think I've made them like 4 times in the last week (probably not the best thing as far as cholesterol is concerned!). I'm actually getting a craving as we speak...

Now for yesterday (Thursday):

I went to Sephora for a VIB (Very Important Beauty) event and did some shopping. It's great to get out and do girly things, since I am surrounded by boys). So I picked up a couple of things because I had a 15% off coupon. First was the Clinique all about eye serum:

It has a roller ball applicator and is supposed to reduce puffiness and dark circles and the guy at Sephora just raved about it so I thought it was finally time to treat myself. I also got the OPI for Sephora Modern Flower mini collection of nail polishes:


Here are the colors from left to right: Handpicked for me, It's bouquet with me, Iris I was thinner and Leaf him at the altar. I have recently become obsessed with mini nail polishes because I have NEVER used up an entire bottle and I also have trouble choosing one color or two from a collection where I like 3 or 4 or 5. This is another mini collection that I purchased a while back from the OPI Spain collection:

From left to right they are: a mini Rapi-Dry top coat, Pink Flamenco, No Spain No Gain and Suzi Skis in the Pyrenees (my favorite)!. I think these mini nail polishes are the way to go for me :).

I also redeemed some points for this set:

It is an Ole Henriksen 3 Little Wonders mini set. It comes with truth serum collagen booster, invigotating night gel and sheer transformation. The girls just raved about this product so I decided to give it a go. I really need all the help I can get in the skincare department and I also like that these containers are refillable.

Now my Friday (today):

Last night was rough because my baby (7 months old) had a stuffy nose and kept waking up crying because he couldn't breathe. A long time ago when my oldest was around one he was very sick and stuffed up so his doctor recommended using saline drops, well he had none of that being squirted up his nose! So i recently was thrilled to discover these gems:

They are boogie wipes and I bought them at Sams Club, they came in a three pack. They are like wipies but they are soaked in saline solution instead of water. I have already used about 5 of them and it's 11 a.m. right now and he is actually a little less stuffed up than he was last night so I am quite pleased. Hopefully he will be better by tonight!

Well have a happy weekend and cross your fingers for me that my construction goes well!

The quest for the holy grail....

I have noticed much mention of "holy grail" make up items in the blog/youtube community and it got me to thinking, what are my holy grail items? Do I have any?

Well the answer is I have one holy grail mascara under my belt and that mascara is...

Diorshow, by well Dior. I loooove this mascara and can not say enough good things about it, I especially love the enormous wand (which some people don't care too much for). I first got this mascara a couple of years ago when my mom bought it for me in Las Vegas (everytime they would go to Vegas I would print out a wish list from Sephora for my mom, complete with pictures :) ). So it was free but at $24, I repurchased it only a couple of times but now that I have 2 kids (and I'm not technically getting paid for working at the moment) I have since been on the hunt for a cheaper alternative.

I tried Maybeline's Great Lash and I hate it, even though I hate to waste make up, I'll admit that I threw this one away before I finished the bottle. It gave me terrible raccoon eyes (which only highlight my already dark circles!), I really hated the wand and I also hated the way my eyelashes looked after application, we just didn't see eye to eye (pardon the pun).

So since then I have been using Maybeline Full 'N Soft...

Honestly, I am not too fond of it either, I still get raccoon eyes and I feel like I am just all over the place when I apply it and it seems like I have to run the wand through my lashes a bunch of times to get the look I want (something I really don't have the time to do in the mornings while I get 2 kids ready). But it isn't HORRIBLE, so I am using up the bottle before I buy another. I am thinking of trying Great Lash next but I'm still not sure.

As far as foundations go, I used to use Youngblood (a bare minerals type of makeup) but then I decided I wanted my skin tone to be more even. So I bought MAC's tinted moisturizer (mistake #1), then when I started breaking out I bought MAC's studio fix fluid (mistake #2 that I am still paying for!!).

Way back in high school I tried MAC foundations and they broke me out, stupidly I thought I was older now and that wouldn't happen because my skin was different now. Well I still have acne that has never gone away since then :( and before this I rarely got acne and when I did it would be one or two pimples at a time. Although my skin has improved since then, I still hate that I hav acne.

I have since tried an array of foundations in search of the right amount of coverage and what not (and I have been dissapointed every time). The second to last foundation I used being KORRES Wild Rose Foundation...

I really liked this foundation overall, but I could never work it in properly enough to provide me the coverage that I want. Also, it didn't last as long as I would have liked (but honestly no foundation I have ever tried does).

Once that ran out I decided to see what I got recommended to try at Sephora and it was...


Make up forever HD, I tried it on in the store and I liked it, I figured I would bring it back if I really hated it. It's OK, not my favorite but certainly not the worst thing I have ever used, it doesn't give me as much coverage as I would like and most of the time I feel like I really have to work it in to not look streaky (maybe I really need to work on my technique here haha). So I decided to go ahead and use up the bottle, before I buy another one, mostly because I was too lazy to make the journey to return it. I have no idea what I am going to get next but I want to try something that is more hydrating because I have very dry skin.


So my search continues....for now :)

Hello!

Well, I guess my first post here should really be one of explanation. My name is Bianca and I am a wife (been married for 41/2 amazing years) and I am a mom to two boys that are my whole world (my oldest is going to be 4 in May and my baby is 7 months).

Perhaps the first question on your mind if you are reading this is what the heck does "monk and crock" mean?? A valid question, allow me to explain here:
While dating my husband we stumbled upon these nicknames for each other, I will start with mine (because it is the easiest to explain). I have always had a real love for stuffed animal monkeys, I just love the little suckers! So my husband (boyfriend at the time) would always buy me some or win me some at theme parks or carnivals. Gradually this turned into him calling me "monk." Now for his nickname, when we were dating he really enjoyed watching wrestling (WWE) and his favorite wrestler was the rock. There was one day when we were watching together that another wrestler came out making fun of the rock and called himself "the crock." After that day he would just bust out with a "the crock" at a random moment. So now that you are no doubt bored, there you have it!

Now for a little about this blog of mine:
Basically I think this will be a place to jot down whatever is going on in my mind. My mind races about a hundred miles a minute any given day of the week and sometimes I just need an outlet to talk about things like marriage, motherhood, relationships, make-up, clothes, cooking, whatever happens to be the topic of the day. So here we go, thanks in advance for joining me for the ride!