Sephora Goodies

I can't believe I haven't posted yet about my most recent Sephora goodies... I'm hoping things will be calming down now that the holiday season is almost done and I can start posting more reviews.

I restocked my foundation and primer and also picked up some eyeshadow, nail polish, and stocking stuffers for H (not pictured) but I got him the Jack Black Hair Gel, Lab Series shave cream, and a sample of Versace Pour Homme Eau du Toilette.

I'm sorry to report I haven't tried out this eyeshadow trio yet, but I must say it's really pretty. Once I finally try it out one of these weekends, I'll be sure to post a review.

Sparkles for the holidays (and anytime quite frankly)

I decided to pair my new from Sephora by OPI's Flurry Up with OPI's Louvre Me Louvre Me Not on an accent nail and it was a great combo. I may re-do it again for New Years Eve.

Now my dilemma is that I'm still $94 away from renewing my VIB status, but I was only planning on spending $50 on my next purchase which must be made by the end of this calendar year to count towards renewing my VIB status. *sigh* decisions decisions...

I can either be responsible and not overspend... OR I could stock up on my staple items and be all set for a while and keep my VIB status going uninterrupted.. Hmmmm...

Sephora

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Christmas Weekend Finale

I was looking forward to our 5 day weekend for so long and it's already come and gone so quickly. I knew it would be weird not being up in CT with our families this year, but it wasn't as bad as I thought. No running through airports, no rushing around Connecticut trying to see everybody, and we were able to wake up in our own home and spend the day with our lovable fat doggy. It was so nice to relax the past few days, but it's soooo hard to go back to work tomorrow :(

Sunday, we went to happy hour to watch football since it's something we never do on a Sunday, then we came back to the house and lit a fire in the fire pit and enjoyed our patio while playing monopoly.

I wore my new polka dot top I picked up at Old Navy on Saturday

One of the many reasons I love living in FL... outdoor game nights in December :)

Then, we finished off the night with hot cocoa and guitar hero

Delish!

Monday, I spent the day in the kitchen baking creme de menthe cookies and red velvet cupcakes to bring with us that night.

I got festive on Christmas Eve with my sparkly top, sparkly scarf, and green skinnies

Friends of ours invited us to spend Christmas Eve with them, so we went over there and enjoyed yummy food, good drinks, and another lovely evening spent by the fire pit.

Tuesday, we got to wake up in our own home on Christmas morning for the first time in years since we always go back up to CT for the holiday to spend with our families.

I got up and cooked us a big breakfast featuring a breakfast casserole, cinnamon rolls, and mimosas

Then, it was time to skype with our families and open all our presents together. It was hard to not physically be all together, but it was nice to be able to see each other as we all opened our gifts. As usual, we were totally spoiled by both our families. So blessed...

H got me these beautiful Jessica Simpson bangles and slippers and I was also surprised with a little blue box! It was a beautiful butterfly necklace, that I took a pic of but I can't get it to not be sideways grrrrr...

~ Our tree with all the presents from each other and our families

~ Lola by Marc Jacobs set

~ Yankee Candles

~ New music for the car

~ A refill of my VS Heavenly

~ 3 fabulous reads that I can't wait to dive into

Awesome stocking stuffers from H and my family

Lots of new games to play and the cutest sign ever came from our wonderful neighbors. It says "A spoiled rotten bulldog lives here" So true!!

The aftermath...

After skyping with our families, we went to drop off some goodies to our neighbors and ended up staying all night for an amazing dinner and then dessert out by the fire pit. Fire pits were definitely the theme of the weekend :)

I wore a sparkly top with leggings and of course sparkly flats... now I'm just glad I put some effort in my appearance since we made a whole night out of it. Funny how things work out sometimes :-P

There was even a repeat of the famous swing incident from Labor Day weekend haha...

4 neighborhood bozos

Other randomness from the weekend... I received the cutest card and a beautiful ornament from the wonderful Nikki, Roxy donned her rudolph antlers, and I re-painted my nails in a festive gold and red. I kinda wish the gold was darker, but it doesn't matter now :-P

Our wonderful wall of Christmas cards... can you feel the love?

I'm so sad our long weekend is over, but we feel so blessed by our families, and for our FL friends who helped us feel more at home for our 1st Christmas here. Now, I'm just trying to enjoy our last night before heading back to work tomorrow. It's wine and a movie night :)

Absolutely love this wine stopper from my mom. It's a beautiful glass Christmas tree... great stocking stuffer!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas with family and friends now it's back to the real world...

OOTD

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Holiday Weekend Halfway Point

When we first decided to stay home this year instead of traveling back up to CT to see our families and friends I thought it was going to be extremely hard on me. But I've honestly been enjoying the fact that we didn't have to race through any airports, do the "tour of Connecticut" (i.e. driving around the state trying to see as many loved ones as possible), and we're very much looking forward to waking up in our own home on Christmas morning. Oh and I haven't felt this relaxed in a very.long.time... which was definitely needed.

Friday, I went to a gift wrapping party at my neighbor's house which was such a great idea for a girls night :)

I brought over some festive cupcakes that were delish

We had such a fun night... good food, lots of wine, and a lot of laughs. Oh and of course tons of gifts were wrapped too.

So much wine was drunk that our lovely host, Jen, labeled a gift for her nephew as:

To: Camden

From: Uncle Jen

Hilarious! She's a riot, and I love her for it!

On Saturday, I headed over to Target to check out the Neiman Marcus collection again since it's currently 50% off... all of it is half off this week! I was highly anticipating this collection, but once I got to see it all in person I was underwhelmed by the quality of a lot of the items and the prices they were asking for everything. So, I decided to wait to purchase anything until it all went on sale and now that it is, I'm a very happy shopper!

I went in wanting to pick between the Marc Jacobs pouch in rose gold (my current obsession), the Marc Jacobs scarf, the Jason Wu ornaments, and Robert Rodriguez dress.

I decided against the pouch since it's an odd size... it's too big to be a clutch or a makeup bag so I couldn't really figure out a use for it. But it is really pretty.

I also decided against the dress since all our Christmas party festivities are over for the year so I don't really have anywhere I could wear it as it's not really a New Years Eve party type dress.

However, I picked up both the Marc Jacobs scarf which can be found here and the beautiful Jason Wu ornaments which can be found here.

This scarf is beautiful and light weight which is perfect for FL since it only gets chilly enough to wear a scarf a few days each year. But, a light weight scarf will get a lot more use. I love that it's black and shimmery and can go with almost anything.

This picture does NOT give these ornaments justice, they are GORGEOUS! Hands down the best part of the entire collaboration/collection.

So beautiful, I'm so happy I got these and even happier that I got them for 50% off!

I also painted my nails a festive sparkly red

Love this color, I've been using it for the holidays the past couple years. It's so pretty and holds up great.

Merry Christmas Eve-Eve!

Target

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Sunday Social ~ Favorite Things

I am thoroughly enjoying this long holiday weekend, I can't even begin to explain how great it's been to know I don't have to be back at work until later next week and we're not running all over creation in a few short days.

Time to link up with Ashley and Neely for Sunday Social :)

1. What is your favorite ice cream flavor?

~ I actually just picked up a carton of it yesterday since it's "in season"... peppermint stick ice cream is both my favorite and H's! Plus, I get the slow churned which is 1/2 the fat and it tastes just as yummy and even creamier.

2. What is your favorite smell?

~ I have 2 favorite smells (other than yummy food being cooked of course) and that is a freshly cut Christmas tree and almond-y scents like my almond milk bath, it smells delicious!

3. What is your favorite TV commercial?

~ One of my favorite old commercials was the Snickers commercial where the guy paints the Chiefs field incorrectly and it says "Chefs" instead of "Chiefs"

~ I've also been loving the new Galaxy commercial where the daughters make their daddy who's going away on a business trip a cute video of them for the plane, and then the mom said she made him a video too but he probably shouldn't watch it on the plane.

4. What is your favorite day of the week?

~ Saturday.... we get to sleep in, I'm relaxed, and Saturday nights usually involve ~~shenanigans~~ something fun :)

I know this is referring to Sundays, but I just couldn't resist :-P

5. What is your favorite way to waste time?

~ Hmmm... other than surfing the wonderful worldwide web... tv.. yep I'm so exciting.. I'm currently catching up on old episodes of The O.C.

6. What is your favorite article of clothing?

~ Aside from my wedding dress, I'd have to say my black Gap skinnies and my new sparkly dress I wore to H's Christmas party

Happy Sunday and Merry Christmas Eve-Eve!

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Urban Decay Naked Nail Set

I've been a huge fan of both the Naked Palette and Naked Palette 2 since they've come out. I've had the original for 2 years now, and received the "sequel" last year for Christmas. At first, I wasn't sure if I really needed the 2nd one, but I can honestly say I use both all.the.time... and I may even use the 2nd one more than the original.

With that said, Sephora sent out an email today to all their VIB's announcing that the new Urban Decay Naked Nail Set is exclusively available right now to Beauty Insiders, and to everyone else on December 26th and you can find it here.

It's a nail polish kit featuring the 6 most popular colors from the insanely popular eye shadow palette I was mentioning above.

Hustle

Naked

Smog

Toasted

Creep

Sidecar

I never thought about matching my nails to my eyeshadow, but now I can :)

Urban Decay

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Happy Holiday Weekend

I am blown away that Christmas is in only 4 days!!! But I'm more than ready for the long weekend and all the excitement over the next few days :-D

Tonight, I'm going to my neighbor's house for a gift wrapping party

I'll be going armed with my wrapping paper tote and homemade cupcakes

I picked one of these up at Target a few years ago and it's super convenient plus it reduces clutter

What a great idea for girls night... gift wrapping the rest of our Christmas gifts, drinks, snacks, and my favorite neighborhood ladies.

Happy Friday and long weekend :)

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It's OK Thursday

Happy Friday Eve! I feel like today should be Friday, but I'm hoping before we know it, it'll be 5:00 tomorrow and I'll be all ready for my 5 day weekend.. YES PLEASE!

Linkin' up with Amber and Neely for It's OK Thursday

It's OK that....

~ I'm totally over this work week and am eagerly waiting to be on a mini-vacay for Christmas

~ I'm upset that my parents and my high school bff didn't receive our Christmas card that I sent out 3 weeks ago... I'm wondering who else didn't get theirs. Friggin' post office... boo!

~ I already let H have 2 of his Christmas gifts. He has been acting like an impatient child shaking and poking his gifts under the tree, but I also love seeing how happy he is when I let him have an early present or two.

~ I was offended by the lyrics to Ke$ha's "We're Gonna Die Young" even before everything that happened last Friday :(

~ As much as I'll miss spending the holidays with our families we're both relieved that we don't have to travel and spend the holidays running around trying to see everyone in a few days. Yay for waking up in our own house on Christmas morning!

~ I'm upset that Christmas is almost here and will be over before we know it. I love all the anticipation leading up to it, all the parties, the decorations, the red cups at Starbucks, the aisles and aisles of decorations in stores, etc...

~ Roxy sometimes ruins our mommy and doggy time with her fish breath... I like to refer to it as "feesh"

~ My grandmother sent us one of those Harry & David gift baskets filled with their candied popcorn, cheese, and meats and H ate it all... ALL of it! I mean of course I didn't want to eat it all or even close to most of it.. but come on now... save me something ya scavenger!

What's OK in your life today?

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What I'm Loving Wednesday

I've been looking forward to our extra long holiday weekend so much that this week is draaaaagging. But at least we've made it half way through. Linking up with Jamie for What I'm Loving Wednesday :)

~ I'm loving that it's less than a week til Christmas!!

~ I'm loving that all my Christmas shopping is DONE! And all our gifts for our CT friends and family were shipped out last weekend and have already started arriving whoo hoo!

~ I'm loving that Dan was Gossip Girl! I started speculating it was him in the last few episodes especially when he told Rufus "I've had a plan all along" (yes I watched that show til the bitter end!)