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Thanks so much for your continued support and love.

Brittany

Wedding Make Up

I’ve got some make up looks to tell you about!

June 13 I did my biggest bridal party to date.  It was five or six girls (I honestly lost count) and I was given a pretty short amount of time to be honest, but it was SO much fun.  The tough thing about doing a big group of girls is that they all have their own style, own foundation, and how they want to look.  It’s always a little nerve racking, but I assure them that if they look in the mirror and don’t see what they want to, tell me, and let’s fix it until it’s right.  Some girls will go back over my work again with their own make up and that is totally fine with me.  (I would probably do the same)  Anyways, here is the bride, Hannah.  Talk about the most gracious person ever.  So easy to work with, beautiful, charming, and so positive!  With Hannah we prepped her face with her Mary-Kay primer, and Too-Faced eye primer.  I then used gift wrapping tape and taped a two inch long piece of tape onto her face making a straight line from her outer eye lid.  I do this when I’m in a time crunch and don’t need to worry about being precise.  We used a mixture of eyeshadows but mostly kept with a mauvey-purple look.  We used the Naked 2 Palette as well as a matte mauve color Skinny Dip from NYX.  We then applied fake lashes she got from Sephora and lined her upper lids with just a small cat eye.  Hannah isn’t a fan of eyeliner in her water line, and prefers to do her liner herself under her lower lash line, so she lined her eyes and I highlighted the inner corner of her eye with Too-Faced Candlelight highlighter.  Next she put on a Bare-Minerals tinted moisturizer and I followed up with an under eye highlghter and her Bare Minerals powder foundation. We used an Anastasia Brow Wiz pencil to fill in her awesome brows that she had just gotten threaded for the big day!  Then I lightly contoured with my Anastasia Beverly Hills palette and with a wet beauty blender I blended all her powders together for an even finish.  We used a blush that she had gotten from an Ipsy bag I believe so I can’t tell you what the blush was.  She then finished the look with her own lip gloss and water-proof mascara.  She loved how her eyes looked with the fake eyelashes.  I recommend fake eyelashes for any big event!  We set her make up with the Urban Decay setting spray.  I usually don’t like setting sprays with alcohol in them, but for a long day like a wedding, it holds the best (in my opinion).  I don’t have pictures of the other bridesmaids but they all kept their look similar to Hannah’s with a smokey eye.

As for my look for the night, it was more dramatic than what I usually do.  I went with a navy smokey eye and a pink lip, I kept my contouring/bronzing to a minimum since my eyes were so dramatic.  I used all my usual products for this look.  My dress is from ASOS, their maternity line, and I was in love.  It held everything in seamlessly, which is a good thing because the reception food was TO DIE FOR.

I spiced it up with my hair and added two braids and secured it in the back with a simple bun.  When I really do up my make up, I like to wear my hair up to make my face stand out.  

How hott is my date?

Mail Time!!

On Monday I got so many new things in the mail!  Etsy, BhCosmetics, and Amazon all decided to shower me with gifts!  I love that when I get packages, rarely do I remember what I ordered.

From Etsy: (Still waiting on two of my items to arrive for Kerrigan)

Ahhh!! My heart is melting from this hat.  PoshPeanutKids is a store on Etsy that I stumbled upon and fell in love with this lavender and gold sparkly bow newborn hat.  These are the colors we have been drawn to with Kerrigan.  Her dad and I aren’t huge fans of the classic “baby pink” so we gravitate more on purple shades.  This is the hat that hopefully her head fits into on the day of her arrival.  (Here daddy has a pretty big head!) Maybe it’s me being a first time mom, but I want Kerrigan to come into this world and wear things that I’ve gotten for her.  I want her items to smell like her new home, having little things like a hat, mittens, and a blanket to be welcomed into the world with that are from home makes my heart smile.  I’m sure if,when, we have a second little nugget, I’ll be all like, “don’t care, wrap that precious bundle up in whatever ya got.”

Stay tuned for her nursery reveal (it’s not finished yet)!  

A lot of this pregnancy has involved some ER visits and extra doctor appointments for various reasons.  Mostly because I’m a worry-wart, but also because strange things seem to happen to me.  Almost everything I’ve dealt with this pregnancy besides the all day sickness up until 18 weeks, has involved pain.  I knew labor was hard, but growing a baby?  It’s actually really painful!  You body is stretching, moving, cramping, pulling, etc.  It doesn’t feel good at all!  I’ve always been pretty in-tune with my body and I’ve been told that it’s a good thing and a bad thing.  I know when something doesn’t feel right, or something has changed.  I swear I feel every stretch my muscles are doing.  This recent ER visit, well after two ER visits consecutive days last week, I was diagnosed with a strained/torn abdominal wall muscle.  They said both because without an CT scan they weren’t sure how severe it was.  However I believe it is a strain.  It started Tuesday evening and around midnight I finally woke up Adam and said “I think I have a kidney stone”.  I couldn’t stand up straight and every time I went to the bathroom it was a stabbing pain.  After being admitted that night, they first checked on the baby.  For the first time I knew baby was okay but they had to rule everything out.  I passed all the tests, as well as the fetal fibronectin test which to make it easy, tells if you are at risk for a preterm birth during the next two weeks.  The only test that I suppose you could say I “failed” was when they checked my cervix, they found out I was dilated to a little over 1 cm.  Not a huge deal, but they put a note in my chart so that every OB appointment from now on, I will have my cervix measured.  OH JOY.  I was released that following morning and told to call if the pain intensified, because they did find extra fluid in my kidneys, Hydronephrosis, which is pretty normal for pregnancy.  This is what they thought could be the cause of my pain.  I took Wednesday off from work, knowing I also had Thursday off for nannying because they were on vacation.  Thursday the pain intensified and I called to ask what I should do and they said to just come into the ER.  After more tests, not on baby, but on me, the doctor concluded that I had strained an abdominal wall muscle.  GREAT.  Holy hell did it hurt.  The night before I was bending over the bed and Adam was rubbing my back while I bawled, so I asked the doctor if a strained muscle could really hurt this bad.  He said yes, worse than you might think.  So off I went again, home with another issue to deal with.  I was now going on three days of bed rest, ice, heat, tylenol, and Hydrocodone (as needed).  Yes this is safe to take while pregnant if it is not in the last 4-6 weeks of pregnancy, and not to be used for an extended amount of time due to both mom and baby developing a dependency.  By Saturday I was feeling well enough to walk without the pain taking my breath away, and by Sunday I still felt some stabs of pain every now and then but for the most part bearable.

Where am I going with this little story?  Well I’m sick and tired of those hideous hospital gowns that are made for someone 200 lbs heavier than I am.  I’m tired of my phanny hanging out the back, and because of my strained muscle, I was in too much pain to even turn to the side and find the strings to tie the damn thing, so I went on Amazon and ordered a Labor and Delivery Gown.  Which then I found, the one that I ordered comes with a matching pillow case, as well as when I scrolled down to the bottom to look at reviews, I found the “frequently purchased together” items and ordered some “grippy” labor and delivery socks as well.  DAMN YOU AMAZON.  I know I said I wasn’t a big pink fan, but they were all sold out of the blue one that I wanted.  But these are called “Gownies” by Baby Be Mine and im so excited!  They button up the back and unbutton at the top for easy breast feeding.  The pillow case is just an added bonus!  I know I’m going to look like Hott Mess Holly on delivery day, so if I can at least feel “put together” I’ll settle for that.

Front

Back

Pillow case

My next package/purchase is all make up.  I LOVE BhCosmetics for a number of reasons.  Fast shipping, good product, good quality, and excellent price.  They were having a sale so I browsed through the site and settled on some new must have palettes.  This store is great for palettes because whether you use them for your day to day make up, or you use them to do bridal parties, for example, they are cheap enough that you aren’t going to break your bank just to stock up your make up inventory and give clients choices of blush, lipstick, or shadow.

This palette is the lipstick palette is called Ultimate Lips.  It has 28 lip shades that work for every skin type.  I know some people do swatches on their forearm but I always do white paper because everyones skin is a different color and color reflects differently on skin.  So I just stay safe with white paper.  I numbered the swatches so hopefully that helps a bit.  I love how they are arranged.  You can kind of look to see which row of colors you prefer.  I love the third row.  I would wear all of them.  Sometimes with palettes the color transfer is awful.  (Remember the big $10 cheap make up palettes you got when you were 12?)  This is not the case with BhCosmetics.  Everything is highly pigmented.

Next up on the left here is an eyeshadow/blush combo palette that I swatched as well.  The purple if you look closely got chipped during packaging and shipping, no big deal however.  These colors are also hi
ghly pigmented and are grouped in a complimentary way that if you follow them down vertically, or across horizontally, they all have a cohesiveness that if you chose 3 or 4 different colors to blend together on your eye, it would all work together!

 

On the other side of the eyeshadow palette, you have your blush.  These like all the rest are true to color and work well with all skin types.

Finally, I ordered two individual blushes, Lilac & Daisy.

Not purchased at BhCosmetics, I just got a new foundation and new exfoliant!  I tried to set this up really pretty, but Zelda was all like, you forgot about me mom!  So minus being cat-bombed, you can see the Philosophy Exfoliant which I should have done a before and after, but because of my perioral dermatitis, I’ve been skeptical to use anything on my face, but this has diminished it dramatically!  Along with Vaseline at night, this is so gentle!  I have also gotten Nars Sheer Glow foundation in Vallauris, medium 1.5.  I apply it with a beauty blender and it’s pretty legit!  Yes, I’m aware my chest is slightly purple, but I do my pictures in natural light in my bedroom so it always casts a really pretty “glow” onto my chest.

Adam celebrated his first official Father’s Day with lots of family, food and beer 😀

Thanks everyone for stopping by!! Kerrigan is still keeping me on my toes, my heart skips a beat in both excitement and sheer terror thinking that she will be here soon!

*B

Odds and Ends of Pregnancy

23 weeks

I personally love reading pregnant blogs with weekly/monthly updates on whats going on in a woman’s world of pregnancy but I know that they can become over whelming.  However with about 8 of my friends being pregnant and all due around August-early December I thought it would be neat to do a post on the odds and ends of my pregnancy and hear some feed back from some other moms-to-be!

I am officially at the 6 month mark.  24 weeks!!  To me it sounds like I still have a long way to go but really it’s only about 15-16 more weeks which sounds a little better.

Lets start with some typical pregnancy questions:

How many pregnancy tests did you take: Close to 10, two a day for about a week.  I have a little bit of an anxiety problem lets just say.

Weight Gain- “I’ll accept the weight I think I deserve”. This one is a touchy one for me, not because I’m embarrassed by my weight gain, just that it’s the biggest number I’ve ever seen on a scale with me.  So I started out at 123 at my 7 week appointment & I am now 145.  150 at the end of the day, so thats roughly 22lbs give or take.  When I FIRST got pregnant I was about 123 which according to my doctor my desired weight gain should be around 35 pounds.

Maternity Clothes: All my jeans still fit me in the legs, its the hips/waist that provide a challenge.  Like I said, I’ve gained 22 lbs since January, I’ve filled out a bit but my all my clothes still fit minus zipping and buttoning, but hey thats what belly bands are for!!  So yes I am in maternity jeans, maternity shorts, and maternity shirts.  The only reason I am in maternity shirts (dressy shirts, nicer t-shirts) is because of my long torso and maternity shirts have enough length and cover my tummy!

Cravings/Aversions: I didn’t do meat for the first trimester, not because it tasted bad, it didn’t sit right and I would become sicker than usual.  I always want sweets and lemonade.  First trimester I stuck with bland foods like plain Rice Krispies, bagels, and plain waffles.  But now I can eat pretty much anything, if I eat too much sugar though I get really nauseous.

Movement: I first felt her at 16 weeks at Keifer Brandt and Scotty Larson’s show and after that it’s been non stop movement.  My favorite thing to do is sit on the couch, no TV, no nothing and put my hands on my belly and feel her move all around.  I tap at different places on my belly and she will eventually drift on over to where I tapped and kick back.  Now, if I’ve noticed she hasn’t moved for awhile because she is sleeping, I am a mean Mommy and I gently poke at my belly to wake her up or get her to shift, just for a peace of mind.

Gender: Girl.  I’ll get sappy for a second.  When I found out I was pregnant again I was of course happy but for the first weeks up until even around 15 weeks I cared about the baby, but I didn’t love it.  I was scared to love it, scared that I would lose a baby again.  At 24 weeks now my love grows everyday but what I realize I was going through at the time is called prepartum depression, or depression before you give birth.  Mine was pretty subtle but the main thing was I didn’t have an attachment to my baby in my belly, no matter how hard I tried there was a road block.  Things are better now and like I said my love grows everyday but how can you be so in love with something that you’ve never actually physically seen or touched?  So with that being said, it was a no brainer for us to decide to find out the gender and give her a name,  I needed that connection and some sort of idea as to who I was bringing into this world.  It has helped out tremendously and seeing a 3D ultra sound of her turned my world upside down, when I get sad or down on myself I look at her picture and I just melt.  Now that she’s getting bigger, I also love when I can kind of decipher what was a leg kick or an elbow jab based on how pointy it is.

Sleep: Give me a pillow, preferably not a super nice one, and I will fall asleep instantly most days, as well as drool and snore.   Not drool like a little spit, I’m talking Lake Michigan on my pillow.  Snoring was something I did when I was heavily sedated (intoxicated) but now it’s almost an everyday occurrence.  I was napping the other day and I woke my self up three times from my snores.  Speaking of sleep, here’s a book about babies and just sleep in general.  Very beneficial!!

read this book.

Cosmetic Warrior mask from Lush Cosmetics!

Hair/Body/Skin: (As I touch the huge crater in the middle of my forehead) My skin has been on the fritz since day one.  Breaking out randomly on my back, chest, and even stomach.  My face isn’t too bad except now my excessive drooling has left me with severe dryness and little white heads around my mouth and chin.  I use Neutrogena body wash and a body acne spray.  They are all less than 2% Salicylic Acid so before some of you nutters start yelling at me about what I’m using on my face, I’ve done the research and it’s okay.  This has been working pretty well so far.  It’s slow, but I see improvement.  My skin in general is pretty dry, no stretch marks yet, I’m starting to get the linea nigra, it’s very slight right now but who knows what is to come.  I break out in hives randomly on my legs so that’s super fun.  Nothing a little prescription steroid cream can’t fix.  Just itches like crazy. I’m losing some of the pigment in my skin in too.  Where am I losing it at?  Well… lets just say “down south”…this is the craziest thing so far.  My hair grows faster, not much shinier or thicker, not that I’ve ever been blessed with great hair of course.  It falls out less which I’m thankful for now because I know postpartum hair loss is just all sorts of terrible.  My boobs creep me out, and that’s all I’m going to say about that. My body in general is sore.  My lower back is the worst, I do get adjusted when I have the time but laying belly down in an inner tube does relieve some of the pain.  I look like a 94 year old lady getting up off the floor and I get winded just walking up steps.  I’m not out of shape, well maybe, but the bigger the baby gets the more it presses on your lungs and you tend to get winded faster.  My husband biked 21 miles yesterday no problem, I walk the 21 steps up to our condo and I die.  Damnit all.  I will say while we are on the topic of my husband, he definitely is a fan of this thing called pregnancy, he likes my new body, my added “fluff”, and the curves I’ve gotten.  PRAISE THE LORD.  I know I should work out more, but I work close to 50 hrs a week and that is the last thing I feel like doing.

Mommy Thoughts: So many go through my head everyday.  More worries of course, than just random thoughts.  Like, what if I have a still birth? (How morbid I know) What if I hemorrhage during delivery and bleed out?  What if I have a super preterm birth?  Once she’s born, I’m still not out of the woods, ummm hello SIDS?   How much weight am I actually going to gain here?  Will she have colic?  What if we have to get rid of Zelda because she doesn’t take well to Kerrigan?

There are so many “what ifs” and that’s something people with anxiety deal with everyday, but the thing is, they are just “thoughts” and you can’t control the future.

So that’s just a snippet of whats going on, pregnancy can be the most exciting time of your life, or the most terrifying, I haven’t decided what it is for me yet but whatever I have to go through to bring Kerrigan into this world I will do, even though I tell her quietly that I really don’t enjoy being pregnant, but I’ll do it for her ( & maybe one more time so she can have a brother or sister 🙂 )

Oh and to all you moms to be, or for those ladies who can’t find a pair of swim bottoms, here is the link for these swimsuit bottoms for Aerie, they are convertible to high waist, mid waist, or regular bottoms.  They do not have any elastic at the top so love handles, or pinched tummy skin is impossible to get!!  I got mediums, but I will be ordering a pair a smalls for next year in hopes that I will be back to my pre baby size, but these are just incredible.  I tried on the black, blue, and pink, and settled for the blue.  The pink is a little see through in the front so I would warn you.  But these are BY FAR the best bottoms I’ve ever had.  Adam and I went to the beach today to swim, play frisbee, and get me some sun!  

Karma=Kerrigan

Can you believe that I have 17 weeks left of this pregnancy?  Maybe not because some of you may not even know I was pregnant.  I never wanted this blog to be more than make up, fashion, and product reviews but I made the choice to go out on a limb and talk about our miscarriage that happened over a year ago and it was received better than I thought possible.  So now I have a few weeks to decide if I want to become a mom blogger.  Scary thought.  From what I’ve gathered these last 23 weeks of being pregnant is that there is something called “Mom-Vice” and its something some women develop after becoming a mom.  It’s advice.  Good, bad, annoying you get it all.  However I’ve discovered that even if you don’t ask for advice, you will get it.  You get the

“you just wait till yours comes”

“sleep now”

“why would you want to do cloth diapering?”

“are you going to breast feed?”

“will you co sleep?”

“how long of maternity leave will you take?”

“why would you get glass bottles?”

And in all honesty most of the time I’m okay with answering the questions if its part of a conversation already started, however there are some mom’s that don’t know the unwritten “New Mommy Rule”, and that is…

 If I don’t ask for your advice, I don’t want it”.

I’m awkward enough as it is, please don’t make me sit there and justify why I do the things I do because chances are I don’t know.

On the flip-side though, when I do ask for advice and you give me honest to God truth, you will be receiving a Christmas card this year because I appreciate your helpful words.

Let’s start at the beginning of my road to motherhood, a road I guess that never ends.

January- West Des Moines welcomed us with open arms…Adam and I were SO excited to return to Iowa to be near friends and family again.  Notice the capital “SO”?  Yeah, it comes into play in about 4 weeks.  We both had jobs that we were okay with for now, and we were reuniting with friends and hitting up the night life again.  Life was good.  Then one of my hangovers began to last a whole week.  Remember how we were “SO” excited to return to Iowa? Yeah.

And this picture below shows how we felt about it.  Adam, all excited for a second chance and then theres me.  Happy with a side of fear, disbelief, and tears on the horizon.

So yay, we were pregnant.  One week later I put in my two weeks at my current preschool job due to a plethora of reasons and then we discovered that after FINALLY being seen to get my Thyroid tested, I had Hashimotos Disease. Which to make it simple if you didn’t click the link, it’s a disease where your body attacks your thyroid.  However, in my case, and my brothers case who was diagnosed with it in 2012, (I think) we have an overactive thyroid or, hyperthyroidism.  The symptoms of this are:

• Anxiety, nervousness, and irritability
• Frequent, loose bowel movements
• Difficulty sleeping
• Double vision
• Eyes that bulge out, or “protrude” (in patients with Graves’ disease)
• Hair changes, including brittle hair, thinning hair, and hair loss from scalp
• Irregular heart beat (arrhythmia), especially in older adults
• Menstrual cycle changes, including lighter bleeding and less frequent periods
• Muscle weakness, especially in the thighs and upper arms
• Rapid fingernail growth
• Rapid heartbeat, usually over 100 beats per minute
• Shaky hands
• Sweating
• Thinning skin
• Weight loss despite increased appetite

If you were lucky enough to have been around me from August of last year up to December 2014, you would have all known that I was down to 119 pounds,(I’m 5’9)  I was having bladder issues, SEVERE anxiety, insomnia, & of course the inability to get pregnant again.  So lets look at Hyperthyroidism and pregnancy shall we?  If you look on page two you see that miscarriage before the first trimester is number one.  From June-November I was on the phone once a week with a doctor trying to be seen because I knew I wasn’t okay, however, true story guys, no one did anything about it.  Up until November when my mom went to her doctor here in Des Moines (she also has a form of Hashimotos) who is on our Christmas Card list this year of course, she mentioned to him what I had been going through for the past few months.  He asked that I be seen as soon as possible which was January after we had moved.  Long story short, I was 5 weeks pregnant and after getting results back that I was at a 5.4 (normal range is between 1-2 for a woman trying to get pregnant) I was put on Synthroid and in 6 weeks my levels were at a 2.4, and 6 weeks after that I was at a 2.1.  Now, did getting put on Synthroid save this baby?  I don’t know but for whatever reason Kerrigan, (which if you read the title is baby girls name) is here with us now, I don’t care to question it.

A week after this I, naturally broke my finger at my job, the job I had just put in my two weeks for.  Talk about karma.  My finger nail had to be removed to set my finger and then sewn back on to prevent any infection.  This sounds minor, but I tell you what, when you can feel every vibration around you pulsating in your finger nail that has been sewn back on on top of a broken finger and the fact that pain killers are a no go for pregnant women, you will suffer.  Of course after finding out that on top of being on 150 mg of Zoloft (gasps heard round the world for a pregnant woman to be on anxiety medication) I was now going to have to take Synthroid, a prenatal, vitamin D, AND EXTRA STRENGTH TYLENOL?!  I refused.  I was a pill popping freak all of a sudden.  It wasn’t until the second night of absolute agony that my husband forced me to take two Tylenol and the pain diminished slightly.  So for 8 weeks I looked like a cave woman carrying around a club on her hand.  Now it is the end of May and I am still learning to use my finger again, the nail hasn’t grown in yet and some of the nerves are still damaged due to the fact that they had to sew my ligaments back together.  (face palm)

For the two months following these incidents, I quit my job and accepted a temporary nanny position, which led to taking another nanny position after that one ended in March and accepting a part time teaching job at a preschool, which is where I am currently.  Oh, and I was sick.  Sick, sick, sick.  I made it through each day with relatively no nausea and then every night around 5 pm I would be dry heaving in my bucket, sometimes throwing up, until I went to bed around 9 pm.  This joyful time lasted until 18 weeks I would say, and even now at 23 weeks there hasn’t been a week that I haven’t ran to the sink to heave something up.  At 9 weeks I began spotting, which is the same time that I miscarried a year ago.  I also am RH- which I’ve talked about before, but even if my spotting was nothing, I still needed to go in and have a RHOGRAM shot to prevent my blood from coming in contact with baby’s blood since she was more than likely RH Positive.  So I was seen for my first emergency ultrasound since I thought for sure I was miscarrying only to be over joyed with a bouncing 9.5 week old baby with a healthy heart beat.  Phew.

On a side note, while I was 9 weeks pregnant Adam came home one night and said he had gotten a new job.  I was in more disbelief than when I found out I was pregnant.  What the hell was he thinking?  After he calmed me down he began to fill me in on this new job.  He was going to be working for the city of Des Moines as a civil engineer and be able to review plans for new developments in Des Moines.  I knew this was always a place he wanted to be, working for the city so again, after I was calmed down, I cried many tears of joy!

Sent this picture to my sister around 14 weeks saying “Help”

At 13 weeks we decided to break the news to the world that we were expecting.  I was so nervous but I kept telling myself, I’ve seen this baby’s heart beat, if we lose it, it was still an itty bitty person that deserves to be known.  So we shared the news!

Soon 13 weeks turned into 14, 14 turned into 15, and so on.

13 weeks

14 weeks

15 weeks

16 weeks

At 17 weeks I began to have terrible pains in my cervix (sorry TMI) and across my uterus.  I didn’t panic right away.  I called my doctor and she said that she wanted to see my right away because she was concerned about an Incompetent Cervix. (Just what every woman wants to hear…your cervix is freaking incompetent)  Of course I Googled it, called Adam and started bawling.  I went in, they measured everything and brought baby up on the ultra sound and we saw that baby was pushing against my cervix creating my pain, but my cervix was looking real good (SCORE!) and it was high and closed tight (DOUBLE SCORE!) Then she asked if we wanted to know the sex of our baby since she could see it, well DUH yes, so she wrote it on a piece of paper and we were headed home that weekend for a wedding, so we were about to have an impromptu gender reveal party three weeks earlier than expected!!

17 weeks

So what are we having?!

Scratch Cupcakes
Notice one blue and one pink?!

Adam’s step dad read what the gender was and Adam was given the opportunity to smash the PINK cupcake into my face since I was 100% positive it was a boy.  At first I was a little shocked that my intuition was wrong, now I couldn’t imagine having anything except a GIRL.

18 weeks

19 weeks
The newest addition to our family, my 6 foot pregnancy pillow named Fluffy

20 weeks

At our 20 week appointment everything checked out great and measured great.  We even got to see a 3D image of our baby girl.  I was shocked at how my heart skipped a beat when I saw her.  She’s real.  She’s a real person.  Oh, and for those of you who are looking at the background, that is not an angry face, or another baby, that is my uterus and the umbilical cord with baby girls forearm where the mouth would be.  Haha.

At 21 weeks I did develop a nasty sinus infection as well as a rash on my legs that sent me to Urgent Care.  Here’s the thing with pregnancy rashes, you never know what you can take.  So he gave me a topical steroid cream and it went away, but has returned twice, which I just reapply.  I’m not too concerned about this rash, it is allergy season but there are some rashes that start on a pregnant woman’s belly that can be serious conditions.  

21 weeks

At 22 weeks, we had the biggest scare of all.  I woke up around 7 am with a terrible stomach ache.  It felt like I needed to have a bowel movement, which is exactly what I told Adam back in December 2013 when I had an appendicitis.  I called into work saying I would be late and I wanted to see if this pain would go away.  It increased.  I was in the fetal position on my bed for over an hour before I called Adam and said he needed to take me to the ER.  The pain was so intense I couldn’t even walk.  All that was going through my head was, this is the start of labor, this is it at 22 weeks I’m going to have a baby that will most likely not survive.  Adam rushed from work and took me to the ER where they hooked me up to all the monitors that you would normally be hooked up to if you were in labor.  Of course, they couldn’t find her heart beat, and Adam said he looked straight at my face and saw pure terror.  I told them I had checked her heart beat that morning, and she asked where I found it at.  I showed her where and she found it.  I have had Braxton Hicks contractions since around 19 weeks so I mentioned this to the nurse and she began monitoring for any significant ones, which I looked on the sheet and they were only minor ones about every 20 minutes.  After telling them how I felt and what was going on, the doctor came in and what she concluded was my scar tissue from my appendix was stretching due to the pregnancy and it was mimicking an appendicitis.  I think she called it Adhesion Pain.  Which totally made sense.  I was put on bed rest for the rest of the day and I took the next day off from nannying as well to rest.  Heat packs and tylenol help, it comes back about once a week and it is severe but hey, at least baby is growing, and like I told Adam I can handle any pain that comes my way, as long as Kerrigan is okay, bring it on!

So here I am 23 weeks, I have an appointment next Wednesday for a check up, Kerrigan is doing flips, cartwheels, barrel rolls, you name it, in my stomach and I love every minute of it.  I love watching my stomach move and bubble up.  I’ll try to do some more posts about updates..cravings, weight gain, random thoughts I’m dealing with.  You know, the fun stuff!

Thanks everyone for reading this I realize it’s a long one but this whats been going on through this pregnancy and I can only assume it’s going to get more exciting as the time goes on.

Much love,

*B & Kerrigan

Memorial Day…means I have time to blog!

Happy Memorial Day!!  I hate when this happens, when I do like five blogs at once, but I usually do a rough draft of them and I’ve been so lazy to post them!  Anyways, this post will be mainly about past make up looks I’ve done and some new products I’ve been using.  If you don’t feel like reading through all of this, these are my new products that I’ve been pretty pumped about.

Redkin Pillow Proof

BareMinerals Bare Skin

Lush Cosmetics 

The Balm Cosmetics

Sephora Pro Contour Blend #77

NYX Matte Lipstick in Audrey

Okay so here are some pictures of recent make up looks

This is a classic cat eye with a red lip. This was the day we announced our pregnancy 🙂

This is my natural with a pop look, I used a NYX blue liner on the top lash.

I love this spring look, again with the NYX Audrey lipstick.

This is the most make up I’ve worn in awhile. I loved the purple shadow from the Smashbox On The Rocks Palette.

Mallary’s make up was kept classic with a fun line of gold glitter liner on the top.

Brie told me she was used to wearing lots of make up from dance team, even though she doesn’t wear it on a daily basis so I went a little bit darker and smokey on her.

This look I used my new The Balm cosmetics palette, it comes with a cat eye stencil and AMAZING hippie-ish colors

As always these looks were used with my staples (at the moment).

Foundation:Revlon Colorstay

Brows & Contouring:Anastasia Beverly Hills

Mascara:Better Than Sex Mascara

Eyeliner:NYX Super Skinny Liquid Liner

Blush:I’m not going to lie I use a lot of random blushes that I have lying around but lately my go to has been InstaStain by The Balm cosmetics in Argyle

The following are some of my new favorite products that I’ve linked up above

This is a new foundation for me, I use it randomly when I’m not doing a full face of make up. It’s really light and easy to apply. The brush is also pretty awesome, it’s amazing the amount of coverage you get with it.

I stumbled across this at Kohls the other day, it’s actually very pigmented and there are lots of fun colors!

I constantly am using new contouring brushes to get that nice chiseled line, this is a little pricey for me but it works really well, do not put too much product on it however, it transfers color really well!

Balmsai is by The Balm cosmetics and it is a palette with both eyeshadow, eyebrow shadow, wet/dry eyeshadow, and stencils for eyebrows, smokey eye, and my favorite a cat eye!

This is a spray that you put in your hair when wet and you blow dry out. Redken Pillow Proof Blow Dry Express Primer with heat protection – Microflex stylane creates a ‘thermal blanket’ of flexible silicone resin that protects hair and helps prevent breakage. Trisiloxane and isododecane allow for quick drying, resulting in a smooth and silky finish. Benefits: Cuts blow dry time Anti-breakage

The next are all my new obsession.  Lush Cosmetics are all natural and cruelty free.  Being pregnant and on many meds, using all natural products (which you still have to be careful about) during pregnancy makes me feel a little better 🙂

These fresh face masks that you keep in the fridge and what they say on the jar is what they do for your face.  They smell pretty amazing and they only take 5-10 minutes.

This is me enjoying my OatiFix… Zelda also licked it off my face..that’s how good it is.

I honestly can’t say enough for this massage bar.  It is made for pregnant women to prevent stretch  marks but anyone can use it.  Here is the link for it that speaks for itself.  You massage it into your skin and it melts with your body heat.

Organic Therapy Massage Bar

This is called Buffy Body Butter Bar. This is also good for pregnancy! I rub it on my belly and exfoliate the skin and follow up with my massage bar.  Buffy Body Butter Bar… Adam uses it on the back of his arms where he has some bumps, this bar buffs them right off!

This is great for sore pregnant feet or just feet in general!

I use this for lipstick, but it has other uses like a cheek stain!  Perspective

This is my new moisturizer!! I love it so much!

My lips enjoy this a whole lot!

This lipscrub is a little messy, but it def does the job!

My next blog will be pregnancy related just a heads up, I’ve had a lot of flucky things go on these past five and a half months and they are worth blogging about.

Thanks again for reading!

*B

Welcome to Happiness. I mean “spring time”.

Holy long winter!! I want to apologize to all of my followers for the lack of posting.  Most of you all know that I broke my finger in January, my left pointer finger, which if that wasn’t bad enough, my nail also was removed due to the ligament damage.  So, for the first month I was in such pain that my beauty routine switched from “classic glam” to “stay home saturday”.  That is nothing to blog about.  However with this little hiccup in my daily routine I discovered the beauty of simplicity and the joy of air drying my hair.

This is where I would post pictures of my poor finger but I want to save you, the viewers, from cringing.

As for an update on my blog, I will give you an exact quote from Josh Davis, my site manager.  “I have it running on a server and everything.  It is just painful to theme it like I want to.  I’m making progress though.”

So if that makes sense to any of you…YAY!  So that’s where we are with Lipstick and Lavender.  I am building up ideas as to “how to not get in a rut while blogging”.  I’ve been thinking of doing “weekly favorites” or “products I forgot I loved” or my personal favorite “why this $45 make up item is rubbish”.

But as for any advice in this blog posting, I think I will keep it short and sweet.

Spring time is a chance for new beginnings and a fresh look.  Don’t go buying all the new “fashion week trends” because that’s what they are, “trends”.  Stick to what you know and what you like but switch it up.  So you love doing a thick black cat eye everyday.  Great! Me too!  But try a deep purple gel liner, or a blue.  Take your look and replace it with small pops of color.  I love neutral colors but lately I’ve been dipping into some print pieces.  My favorite piece is this transitional piece (see picture) that works for all seasons except for maybe summer since it is a heavier fabric.  I got it at Village Boutique in the East Village.  I love walking into the higher end boutiques and rummaging through the clearance racks because, for example, I found this dress that was originally $230 for $50.  True story.  It’s what I call a “Claire Underwood” dress.  It sits right on my hips and just below my knee.  Pair it with black tights for fall or winter, and for spring, pull your hair up and accessorize with spring color accessorizes such as a fun pump or jewelry.

See this beautiful color down below?  This is Marsala.  The Pantone color of the year.  This color gives you the ability to use it all year round.  I am currently on the hunt for a bomb ass pair of pumps in this color to go with this dress.  I am planning on keeping my jewelry simple as always with some stud earrings and a bold lip. Check out my below picture of my newest lip purchase.  Melted by Too Faced in “Melted Fig”.

Here are some other of my purchases since moving to the great city of West Des Moines.

This dress was from Ragstock and it works for all seasons, again pairing it with a black jacket and tights for fall or winter, or Keds for a casual spring and summer look.

This is a bold dress for me. It’s a body con and I do not do body con. However West Des Moines has been good to me, too good, and I’ve developed a little “fuller” of a figure and this dress actually accentuates my new “attributes”. This was $7.90 from Forever 21 and is also a piece you can wear anytime. I have a loose knit top that I wear over it and flats so it gives the illusion of a skirt. Also, throwing a cardigan over it with a scarf and some knee high tights and booties works for a cold spring day or fall.

This is the only piece that will probably be for fall and winter and early spring. It is also from F21 and it’s a little short on me so I haven’t decided what I want to do with it yet. Skinny jeans and black sandals would work for a chilly summer night I suppose. But otherwise spice this baby up with black tights and black booties and a high bun and a bold lip. Get it yo.

I have also updated my make up routine.  In the winter my skin is usually pretty dry so I use liquid foundation.  However I stumbled into Bare Minerals the other day and bought their starter kit again complete with blush, concealer, three brushes, primer, and then of course your foundation.  I will be doing a review on it soon.  However, the one day that my make up was on point, I didn’t take any pictures.  I know, the struggle was real.  I do have this picture of a more natural look with the products to hold you over until I get all dolled up for some of my weddings coming up.

#bareminerals in Fairly Light #bareminerals concealer in light #bareminerals mineral veil #bareminerals blush in “Glee” @anastasiabeverlyhills contour kit #twofaced bronzer #maybeline The nudes palette on eyes @nyxcosmetics #superskinnymarker for eyeliner #loreal voluminous butterfly mascara And of course @anastasiabeverlyhills #dipbrowpomade in Taupe on the eyebrows.

Today is Tuesday March 10, and it is 68 degrees in Des Moines.  If you all have been having the winter blues like me, you are all probably close to tears of joy with this weather.  Maybe not.  I am sitting on our patio enjoying our new patio furniture that we picked up from Lowes this past weekend.  Yes, I am tanning my pale legs and eating a surprising healthy meal for once.  Zelda enjoys the warm weather too!!
I’ve been sitting with only one side to the sun so it’s time I go back and proof read this blog and start sunning my other side.  It’s good to be back in the swing of things!

*B

Super Woman…Aka my sister

So this is a little something out of the ordinary but I know how many people view my blog and when I first publish a post, I get roughly 350 views on it the first day.  Now I would love for it to be way more, but I just keep telling myself “in time”.  So this is a little post dedicated to my sister Shannon.

My sister had my favorite little human, Hadley, Decemeber 9 in 2011, I’m unsure of how much she gained in this pregnancy but I do know that a few short months later she was back to her pre baby weight.  Then, this past May, she gave birth to my other favorite little human Eizley, and gained the baby weight back.  Pretty normal right?  Well of course it is normal, but Eizley was a special little human, she was quite the handful the first few months with lots of sickness, colic, and just all around fussy-ness.  So now Eizley has tubes and has done a complete 180.  My sister however, had dedicated the first 4 months of Eizley’s life to, of course, Eizley.  Shannon wasn’t happy with how she looked and like before, she did something about it.  Only she took it to the next level.  My sister is now a coach for Beach Body.  (I honestly don’t know how it all works but I will link you her page)  Here is her before and after picture…

This is her story…

I have been chosen to participate as an apprentice coach in the next Royal Republic Fitness Challenge. It’s an online fitness group that I started in 8 months ago. After I had my youngest daughter, I was so unhappy with how I looked and felt. I kept telling myself that, “its ok, you just had a baby”, or “the weight will come off on its own”. Well, here I was 4 months after having my second baby and I still had 30 pounds to loose. I wanted results NOW. I connected with a former nursing school classmate via Facebook, joined a challenge group, started a workout program called PiYO and started drinking Shakeology and I lost ALL my baby weight and gained more STRENGTH than I ever had. And I did this all in 4 months!! I have had so much success with this lifestyle that I want to share what I have learned and HELP YOU have this. Exercise SAVED MY SANITY. My second daughter was colicky for the first 3 months and then had 4 ear infections in 4 months after that. My husband and I were walking Zombies. Exercise made me a more HAPPY and PATIENT person and literally kept me from going off the edge. It gave me ENERGY even when I had been up all night the night before. I truly am a better wife and mom when I take time each day to focus on me. EVERYONE deserves this! I have the FIRE and the DRIVE to help YOU do this and reach your goals! My journey is not complete, I am still in a work in progress but I would love it if you would let me HELP YOU and have YOU join this journey with me.

So now that your know my story, here is the BEST part! I get to bring 3 FRIENDS with me to join me in this challenge group! Does this interest you? Are you ready to make a change? Then comment below or message me!

Words cannot even describe how proud of her I am.  I think my sister looks amazing in her husbands old T shirts or all dolled up, but to see her and know that SHE also feels amazing and knows she looks amazing is a whole new ball game.  Shannon puts everyone before herself and the fact that she has taken this time for herself and became selfish for the first time in what?…almost 4 years is the coolest thing ever.  Please look at my sisters page and ask yourself if this is something you want as well… Shannon would do anything for anyone so I just have to shamelessly advertise for her.

https://www.facebook.com/workit09?notif_t=fbpage_fan_invite

Her email also is friedrichsa01@gmail.com

Also, here are some snapshots of why I love my sister so much…

*B

Welcome To 7204

7204 is where you can find Prilipp Party of Three now.  We are in West Des Moines and are over the moon about our new adventure.  Is it perfect?  Everything I ever dreamed of?  Almost.  Our house isn’t sold, I get anxiety every time I drive, and (to keep things simple) I can see that my new job is going to take a little more adjusting than I thought.  But besides all of that, Adam and I are so happy to be here.  We have started a new workout regimen, been out with our friends, had dinner parties, and I may have swiped my debit card a few too many times at Sephora.  Clearly I haven’t been updating my blog, I’ve been busy getting settled in, decorating, driving around trying not to die, hitting up a few bars, and of course lounging around with Adam and Zelda.  Real important stuff.  So lets fill you all in!

Unfortunately this is not a make up blog, I’m waiting for my brother to finish with my website before I do anymore of those.  He claims he’s been busy, but I mean come on, the man works at Amazon in Seattle…how busy can he be?  So much sarcasm there.  Let’s be real, I’m so thankful for my brother doing all that he has done, I would be okay with it not launching until July.  No, not really…February wouldn’t be too shabby tho 🙂  So I guess you will have to just make do with some of my journal entires (or so I call them).

Welcome to our condo! It’s a 1200 square foot, 2 bedroom, 2.5 bath, paradise.  It’s so cozy and homey.  I used all the decorations from our home in Owatonna, obviously, but with the walls all being the same color and the white doors, instead of an eclectic feel, it has more of a modern and cohesive feel, which I’m okay with!  It’s a nice change.

Our sectional couch that my husband graphed into to AUTOCAD at work just to see if it would fit. It did. Phew.

Our shoe rack from IKEA! It’s so slick and convenient, all you do is screw it into the wall and then the drawers pull out and you slide the shoes in at an angle

Fireplace with my favorite wedding photo 🙂

My favorite vintage shelf came with, however we didn’t have a place for it, so it serves as a hidden gem! Oh, and I love my little piggy.

So it’s an open floor plan, and flows so nicely 🙂 Here’s our dining room

My Great Grandmothers cabinet that I painted a beautiful silver! Also, picture credit goes to my Aunt Farrah!

Just some lovely decorations from our local boutique in Algona calledThe Market.

It’s taken me awhile to get used to my dark cabinets, I was so in love with my white cabinets, but I will not complain.

Can you spot the kitty? Look at all my counter space!

Let’s just mosey on down the hallway and to the right is the spare bedroom with a bathroom attached.

It’s a work in progress

And now…where the magic happens!

You know, my clothes, make up, and jewelry.

Our bedroom set was from Ikea and our king mattress is a Restonic (similar to Tempurpedic) we used our honeymoon money on our mattress and furniture. Best choice ever.

My diffuser…thanks again to my Aunt Farrah!

This bed is a slice of heaven

Don’t mind the clothes in the corner, Adam has a vanity on the other side as well. Not sharing a sink is actually something I never thought I could care about…now however, I will never share a sink with him again 🙂

All the small frames are from our wedding that were set on the tables.

Hope you all enjoyed my little tour.  Most of my decorations are from Target, TJ Max, thrift stores, IKEA, The Phoenix, The Market, and from our wedding registry.

We are both so excited about what is yet to come…Here are some snapshots of our journey so far…

*B

Plot Twist!

You know that saying “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans”?  Welp, plans have changed once again.  In a series of unexpected events my husband was offered a job in West Des Moines working for Larson Engineering.  A lot of you may be scratching your head and wondering why would we move, and some of you are simply nodding your heads saying “I wondered when it was going to happen”.  After the miscarriage we both realized that living up here is not where we wanted to raise a family, so we put it on the back burner in hopes that in a year or two we would be closer to family and friends.  However, an opportunity arose and we took it.  The real big plot twist?  We move in three weeks.  Our house goes up for sale tomorrow (Monday) and we will be Des Moines metro residents by the new year.  EEEK!  I honestly haven’t really been able to process how happy it makes me.  Most of our friends and a lot of our family are in Des Moines and it will be amazing to be close to them again.

We have made many friends and even more memories here in Owatonna, it’s been a crazy ride.  Buying our first home that we thought would be our 5 year home, didn’t turn out how we planned, but who plans life anyways?

We are still in the process of telling friends and family, but like always, sometimes this is the easiest way to do it and I like the element of surprise sometimes and this is a good surprise!!  Adam told his work on Friday and I told my bosses on Thursday and informed my co teachers this weekend.  Word will get out soon enough through the grapevine I know or everyone can just read this blog and bam, cats out of the bag.

We will not be buying a house, instead we will be renting a town home/apartment in West Des Moines for the first year…one that is pet friendly of course!

This post is a little vague as I feel kind of scatterbrained writing it out, I don’t really know what to say as we literally need to get our crap together in three weeks.  I’ve been selling so much stuff that we don’t need as well as throwing out tons of junk.  Live simpler right?

We are asking for positive vibes and prayers as we hope our house sells quickly, our realtor had lots of faith that it wouldn’t sit on the market for long.

Here’s a picture of how we celebrated the good news…yes it’s frozen pizza…but the wine was $8 so we felt fancy

So cheers to new beginnings and never knowing whats going to happen next!

OH!!

Since we are just announcing fun things all around… my blog will be titled….

Lipstick & Lavender.

I am so excited.

B.