mangokisses.net

First things first, happy birthday to my wonderful mom. I’m looking forward to the weekend so my little monkey can visit her nana. And hopefully, my family will be getting together to celebrate all our January birthdays. Wonder if I can talk them into korean bbq or Boiling Crab? Hehehe.

Geez, can you tell how much I love Target? I think I’m there atleast once a week buying baby formula, food, and leggings. The leggings IMO are not that great and don’t last me long. Ever since I began gaining weight from the baby, I’ve basically been living in leggings. So, until I find a good quality pair that I like, Target leggings are just gonna have to do.

I’ve been on this WILD glittering spree ever since I found out how easy it is to make your own glittery shoes. (I love practically all things shiny!) So with diaper bag, baby, and 50% off one item coupon in hand, off I went to Michaels. I’ve been reading all kinds of great things about the Martha Stewart glitter. When I went, they were all 30% off (couldn’t use my coupon *tear*). There were soooo many different kinds of glitter and sooo many colors.

It was so hard to pick. I wanted everything but I didn’t want to go glitter crazy. There were iridescents, neons, tinsels, leaf glitters… total glitter heaven! So into my cart went a 12 pack of iridescent, 12 pack of tinsel, and the 24 pack of regular extra fines and off we went to explore the rest of the store. I think my little monkey and I were there for a good hour while I kept going and forth to the floral section debating whether I reeeally wanted to dive into the pink Valentine’s Day-esque stems and make a centerpiece for the living room coffee table.

To my surprise, I actually managed to resist. Go me! All the while, the voices in my head kept saying, “Do I really want to spend this much on glitter?” “But it’s on sale!” “I know but what if I don’t even like how my shoes turn out?” “I can use them for so many other crafts!” “I don’t even get to use my coupon!” “They’re already 30% off. Stop watching Extreme Couponing!”

*Sigh* The inner impulse buyer in me won that battle. BUT on the way to the cashier, I saw something that caught my eye. It was a big package, it was shiny, and it was regular price. Hmm, potential to use my coupon? I think so! There it was, a 30 pack of Recollections extra fine glitter for $30 which meant $15 for me. So the 24 pack MS went back on the shelf. Sorry Martha, but the Recollections glitter was $5 cheaper with 6 more vials of shiny goodness. And we went on our merry way to pay for my goodies.

So here they are…

MS Iridescent glitters. Very pretty and very shiny. I used these on a pair of old straw wedges. While the color look great in the vials and they packed a lot of punch in shine when I applied to the shoes, the color just wasn’t there.

MS Tinsel glitters. Colors are very vibrant, what you see is what you get. The bar shapes of the glitter add the lool of texture when applied.

Recollections Extra Fine glitters. These were perfet for the project I bought them for. Lots of color when I applied them to my shoes, lots of shine.

Packaging was very similar between the MS and Recollections. The main difference is that both had the shaker with the small holes to shake out a little at a time but the Recollections also had a larger opening in the lid as well to shake out more glitter at one time. Then again, you can always just take the cap off .

In terms of quality and value, while I didn’t buy the regular extra fine MS, glitter, I can say Recollections was a great buy. Color variety was awesome, cost was great especially with a coupon. If Recollections also carried tinsel glitters, I’d buy them in a heartbeart over the MS anyday.

Btw, here’s a picture of the heels that I decorated with the Recollections glitter. I used a combination of different blues and grays in the set. (Sorry for the photo editing, but you can see how shiny they are!)

Me: *sends mom an email for a deal on LivingSocial to Boracay*
Mom: It’s for those that want to spend some romantic nights and to relax.
Me: You and dad can go on a honeymoon!
Mom: Too late.

Oh, LivingSocial, why couldn’t you be around 38 years ago?

I finally got my shop up and pictures posted. It only took, ohhhhhhhhh, about seven months. So come visit me at http://khloeloli.etsy.com. The shop name inspiration? My beautiful babe of course.

I haven’t gotten every thing posted up but atleast it’s something. Sorry to the gals out there with baby boys at home but the girls run this shop.

I started my third full-time job about a week ago– first full-time job is at the radiology office, second job is a full-time mommy, and now my new job is housewife that doesn’t stay home. Yup, we moved into our house a couple weekends ago. Not completely moved in but enough to the point where we can live off of what we have available. And we already had visitors staying with us. The hub’s brother and his family came to visit so they bunked in our extra room downstairs. It was nice to meet them and let *baby K meet her cousin for the first time but, man, was it nice to wake up to an empty house!

I’ve got TONS of cleaning up and organizing to do but it’s hard when you have a husband that works and goes to school and you’ve got a five month old that won’t let you put her down– and by the way, she will be SIX MONTHS TOMORROW. Time sure did fly by… Anywho, our house is about 1/3 empty and feeling mighty lonely so I’m diverting my attention to my first project which is going to be in our dining room. I am in LOVE with photo gallery walls! I’ve been printing out old photos that I had scanned onto my computer before. They’re all in black & white. I also picked up some black picture frames from the 99cent store over the weekend but I need plenty more. All my frames are in black, just different sizes, some beveled and some plain, but all black which will look amazing. Just need to find more random frames (I’m on the hunt for a few round frames) and print more photos. I can’t wait ’til I get something up. Since I’m so much further away from my family it sure will be nice to have a wall dedicated to them <3 <3 <3.

And to be fair, I told *K that we’d put up some of his old family photos, too.

I’m going to go a little bit out of order on this Blog Challenge, not that any of you care . I think it’s fitting, too, considering today is the day of The Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. I didn’t watch when it first aired– there was NO way I was going to wake up at 3am and stay awake so as I ‘m actually watching it on DVR. You just gotta love DVR.

If I could have my dream wedding, it wouldn’t be some big fiasco worth thousands and thousands of dollars. I wouldn’t every single person I ever came across in my entire life. It would be my family and friends most important to me. I would get married in the church that I attended all throughout my childhood. And my daddy would walk me down the aisle.

And now. For the details. Mind you, this is just my dream wedding for now. It could change if you asked me tomorrow, or next month, or next year. And by the way, I’m already married. A girl can dream of her dream wedding  regardless if she’s already hitched =).

First things first, the dress. Not into ballgowns for me not super sexy and I love delicate fabrics like lace. These are gorgeous:

Green, green, & more green!

The cake would be three tiers, the bottom tier would be paradise cake like at King’s Hawaiian. So effing delicious. Second tier would be white cake with strawberry and banana filling. And the top would be.. hah, paradise cake, too. This delectable thing right here is a slice of paradise cake that I drooled over when I first tasted it (and it’s pretty, too):

This bouquet is pretty:

But I would much rather use the bouquet that I made for my wedding any day:

This is simple but beautiful… just imagine it green.

(The wedding pictures are not mine, I do not take credit for them.)

Can you tell I’m not an overly flashy person?

Today is supposed to be closing day. Haven’t hard back from my parents yet, so I guess we’ll see. As us moving into our own house gets closer, I’ve been thinking more about decor, and I keep coming back to this wall of mirrors they created on Restaurant Impossible before. It was a re-model of a cafe in Jacksonville, FL.

And I found these GREAT mirrors at Ikea for $2.99 each! I’ve been debating whether to just leave them the brown-black color or cover them in different patterns of fabric whatever colors I do the rest of the family/living room. Yeah, I haven’t decided yet which room to do this to, but I’m gonna do it! Maybe not a while wall… but a nice chunk of one. And maybe toss in a couple single shelves to replace a couple of the mirrors to put a couple candles or vases on.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeek! I’m screeching in silence on the inside.

I should have known I would only last two days in a row of this challenge. Whatever.

I’ve always hated questions like these– what’s your perfect this or that. Especially with a first date because I could have my idea of a perfect first date but if the other person is a complete douchebag or bores me to death, it’ll all be ruined. BUT I guess I’ll play along.

First things first, I like going out during the daytime. Evening events give me more of an intimate feeling and I have no interest in being “intimate” on a first date. Third Street in Santa Monica or the Venice Boardwalk are ideal because of all the shops, food, entertainment (not to mention they are VERY public places). He’d buy me random crap that I wanted, though when it comes to people I know well, I don’t like being given things from.Then, lunch/early dinner at a non-chain restaurant. I can go to a Cheesecake Factory or a TGIFridays any day because they’re everywhere. I want something that I can’t get on a daily basis.

Annnd my date would end there haha. Now, my first date with my husband? Went absolutely nothing like that. We went out to a bar at night, had some drinks, and ate at a popular taco truck. But then again, he IS my husband and we’d known each other about three years before we went out on our “first date.”

It’s been five months since *baby K made her debut into the world. This day five months ago, she was a tiny critter that weighed just over 6 pounds, cried, ate, slept, peed, and pooped all day. Now, she’s more than 15 pounds, still cries, eats, sleeps, pees, and poops. However, she’s also smiling, spitting, blowing bubbles, laughing, rolling over, and interacting with people and her toys.

Happy five months to the love of my life, my baby girl. Mommy loves you!