Calvin Kline Reveal for men

So being a part of Influenster has it's perks not only for women but for the man in your life as well! This month I received complimentary a sample of Calvin Klines Reveal for men and my husband was especially excited because he loves colonge. He would probably have 10 kinds if I let him! Not to mention I was a little excited as well because the face of the colonge is Charlie Hunnam, who is the most perfect specimen on this earth, just sayin'. 

I am also happy to report that it smells amazing. This will definitely be on the list for the next colonge I buy for hubs. Not only did you get the sample but you also a little mini wallet case perfect for some cash and a couple cards!

Getting close!

Just a few weeks until we move into the new house! Seems so far away yet so close. 

Lots of progress has been happening so I figured an update was in order. 

First up, we painted the garage! No I take that back *I* painted the garage about 95% by myself. We planned on painting the ceiling as well, but after how raw my hands felt after painting that entire garage I realized I could live with the ugly ceiling. Ha! We had paint from the interior leftover so we decided to paint the garage the same color as the walls inside and my little laundry nook the color of our bedroom. Once it was painted I realized I'm not a huge fan of the grey and the beige next to each other, but it's fine, for now at least. I apologize for the picture quality. Most of these pictures are spur of the moment iphone pictures. 

Semi-before (primer was on the walls)

After:

Next project was changing out all the door knobs in the house. Most of the old hardware was bright ugly brass. That just had to go. We opted for an oil rubbed bronze which is my favorite!

Before:

After:

I've decided on a blue accent color for the kitchen and I've been loving finding new things and items I already own to put together the kitchen. Here's a sneak peek at some I've found. I'm a mason jar fanatic so when I saw the mason jar hand towel at target I knew it would be perfect in the kitchen! 

I've been moving things slowly into the house and I found this perfect contact paper to put into the cabinets. You can barely see it until the light hits it a certain way but it's a beautiful lace and it fits perfect in the house. 

We recently had the floors professionally cleaned as well which was great. HOWEVER, once they cleaned the grout in the tile downstairs the imperfections and wear and tear really were apparent. 

So needless to say another project presented itself. Luckily it's not the ENTIRE downstairs that looks like this, only about 3/4 of it. 

After that is done, then it's time to start moving things in! We have been getting some window treatments as well as packing up all our non-essentials. The move is getting so close, we can't wait!

Rimmel London ScandalEyes

I've gone through my share of eyeliners over the years and they have all just been "okay". I'm not a pro at lining my eyes either so liquid eyeliners aren't my favorite. So when I received Rimmel Londons Scandal Eyes complimentary in my Frosty VoxBox from influenster I was really excited to give it a try. Let me tell you, it's probably the best eye liner I've ever used!! It goes on so smooth and is almost creamy. Great product that I will definitely be buying again in the future. 

Taste of winter

I've always "imagined" being that mom who drinks coffee in the morning. I guess I don't really know why, my mom always had to have her coffee and all the commercials for coffee always seems to have moms in it. However, as it turns out, I'm not a fan of coffee! I am though, a tea fan. So in my influenster Frosty VoxBox I received complimentary a sample of this Celestial Seasonings Candy Cane Lane green tea. I have to admit though to me candy cane and green tea seemed like an odd combination. But to my surprise, it's delicious and is definitely a great winters drink. 

Mean Muggin' Santa

So the past few months Lincoln has developed into this bashful little thing. Instead of just hiding his face (which he does also) his reaction to people he isn't familiar with is to give them dirty looks. We call it his mean muggin' face. He does it GOOD. Granted, hes pretty much been doing it since birth, he just never did it as a reaction to being around new people before. It's pretty hilarious...sometimes. Other times I feel awful and apologize because I don't want the people to take it personally.

Well, now onto Santa. We are big, and I mean BIG, Christmas people around here. We usually decorate the first or second week in November because Christmas just makes me happy, I LOVE it, and with as much effort as I put into my decorations I need to enjoy them longer than just 30 some odd days. So we have been decorated over here for a couple weeks now, and I knew I wanted to take Lincoln to visit Santa soon. Mainly because I knew the lines would be shorter. Bass Pro Shop has had Santa for about a week now and we made the mistake on going the FIRST night. My thinking was "perfect, first night no one will be there". WRONG. Every person in Southern California was there. Apparently they had a whole event that night and so we had to turn around and come home. I was super bummed. So we decided to make the trip down there tonight hoping for a small crowd, and that's exactly what we got! A whole FOUR people in front of us. With a toddler a short line is a must. Especially Lincoln, he is SO energetic and never stops. Ever!

I was worried for poor Santa though. I knew what would happen if we tried to sit him on his lap. I didn't want to do that to Lincoln either. Sure, crying pictures with Santa are hilarious...10 years down the road, but I wanted Lincoln to have fun, not cry. We attempted to have him walk up to Santa and there it was...the mean muggin' face. My Dad picked Lincoln up and decided to just take a family shot instead of forcing Lincoln to get on the big scary red guys lap causing melt down central.

We got to look at the photo after it was taken, and there it was. The mean mug. A slightly less dramatic mean mug, but a mean mug none the less.

I asked the girl if that was the only shot they took, she said it was the best one and once I got home and saw it on the computer screen I realized MY EYES ARE CLOSED! CLOSED! I was so bummed. It was a great shot, but oh well. 

We then went and road the carousel after Santa which he really enjoyed and then went and had dinner. It was a great night! Mean muggin' face and all.  

The kitchen, the beautiful beautiful kitchen.

The kitchen is a huge focal point in our home. It's basically in the dead center of the house and it's part of one big room with our family room. When we purchased the house the kitchen was a huge eyesore. The sellers painted it the worst brown possible and it was just FILTHY. We contemplated just painting the cabinets and maybe just upgrading the appliances but it just wasn't going to work. We were already going to have a contractor come out and repair and paint the inside and outside of the house and we decided to have him re-do the kitchen as well. 

Here is the original kitchen to refresh your memory:

It may not look as bad in the pictures but trust me. TRUST ME. It was gross. 

First step was gutting the whole thing! 

We were making some slight changes in the kitchen. First, getting rid of the double oven and getting a slide in oven/stove combo. As much as I LOVE the idea of having a double oven I decided having a larger pantry is something I wanted more since I would only need a double oven a handful of times throughout the year. We also decided to move the dishwasher to the opposite side of the sink so it wasn't so close to the oven. Also the kitchen had some random lighting. Two fluorescent lights placed very strangely and I believe 3 can lights also not placed evenly. So we got rid of them all and had 5 new can lights put in. 

The next step was picking out granite, and the cabinets! 

We went with white cabinets. I've been pinning like crazy on pinterest lately and I love the white farmhouse kitchen look. 

It was so exciting to see it in progress. I knew it was going to look amazing. 

Then this morning we went to check out the progress and it was DONE! (With the exception of a couple cosmetic things.) We were blown away. It looks so beautiful. Just perfect!

(Lazy Susan that way the deep cabinet is more easily accessible)

As slight "ledge" was created that way it would block any possible liquid from going into the windowsill. 

We are in LOVE! It's so crisp and clean! I still would like to add some knobs to the doors but we will revisit that at a later time. For now, it's perfect.