My new office!... well sort of.

If you haven't noticed I've been a little scarce with posts lately.  I blame it on the fact that even though I have a one year old and currently work full time I decided to start my own business!  I am a new Independent Consultant with Arbonne International!!!!!

It's taken me over a year to finally jump in and see where this amazing company can take me and I'm so excited.  I feel like I'm back to my college days when I sold cosmetics at a cosmetic counter... only better.  I tried the RE9 skincare for the first time about a month ago and after using 10+ different brands of products in my lifetime I have to say that it's the best thing I have ever tried.  My goal is to reach Regional Vice President within the next year thus earning my white Mercedes Benz.  Wish me luck!

Since my launch party over a week ago I have been accumulating samples, products to use in my presentations, products for clients, catalogues and other materials.  They are beginning to take over my small two bedroom apartment.  Therefore, I knew in order to stay organized I needed an office.  Unfortunately, as I just stated we live in a two bedroom apartment.  Thus I decided to take over a corner of our Master Bedroom and make that my so called "office."  

 Here is the small corner that I had to work with.

Here is what the corner looks like now!  Complete with organizing cubes from Target {favorite store}.  I have a box for office supplies, one for samples, another for paperwork, one for gift bags and tissue and the last for catalogues. {which by the way the new Holiday catalogues are out and I"M OBSESSED}

I love my new office.  Hopefully once I become extremely successful I can have a real office but until then this will work just great.

Max's 1st Birthday {Whale Birthday Party}

Saturday was Max's first birthday!  I cannot believe how fast this year has gone.  When he was first born the only song I sang that would calm him was "Baby Beluga" by Raffi.  Therefore, when I tried to think of a theme for his first birthday party I came up with a whale theme... baby beluga whale.  The colors I chose were blue and orange.  I had so much fun collecting blue and orange things and thinking up food that would go with the whale theme and also be blue and orange.

The party turned out great.  We had about 25+ people there of mostly family.  For food I came up with the idea to do a Mac n' Cheese bar because Max loves Mac n' Cheese.  Also, it's a kiddie food but as there were mostly adults at the party I had more adult toppings like chicken, broccoli, hamburger, tomatoes, scallions, Parmesan and bread crumbs.

The sailboat centerpiece is from my mom's personal collection.  She loves all things nautical.

I made this banner on my computer and then tied it together with orange and blue ribbons.

For the dessert bar I had blue cupcakes, angel fish cookies and chocolate covered pretzels.  I made the pretzels myself, the rest of it I bought from Market Street Diner.  They did an amazing job!

I made the cupcake toppers on my computer as well.

The chocolate covered pretzels were a hit.  I added food coloring to make the white chocolate orange to match the theme. 

Jello with gummy fish.

For table centerpieces I had little pales filled with gold fish crackers topped with a pinwheel. 

Even though Max was the only kid I found this whale pinata and just HAD to buy it.

I figured Max would get bored with opening gifts but he LOVED it.  He was so excited about his gifts.

Grandpa John got him his own loader to help with the construction.  

He loved that everyone sang him happy birthday!

Market Street Diner made him his own smash cake with a whale on it. 

I expected him to dig into it but all he wanted to do was throw it on the floor so I scooped some frosting up with my finger to try and entice him to eat it.  He didn't like the frosting that much and wasn't really interested. 

Instead he just chewed on the spoon.  The smash cake is almost completely untouched and sitting in my fridge.  I guess that plan backfired!

My best friend Morgana got him his "Beep Beep" It's a super cool car that is used instead of a stroller.  He had a blast riding around in it! 

It even has cup holders.  No drinking and driving allowed! :)

Popping a wheelie.

At the end of the party we realized that we never hit the pinata so we gave Max his mini stick (of course) and he tapped at it a few times. 

Then all the adults took turns.  Isn't this a sad picture of the little whale?

Morgana and my mom tried to help Max finish it off but as soon as they began beating the whale he started bawling.  I guess he didn't want to hurt it.

I have to thank my mom, dad and Morgana for all the hard work they put in helping me pull off such a great birthday party for Max.  I know he will never remember it but hopefully he will look back at the pictures and know how much time and love I put into making his first birthday special.

Pink Bridal Shower

Yesterday I hosted a bridal shower for my sister-in-law.  She loves pink and everything girly so I ran with it!  I came up with the idea to do and dip party and was trying to think of a way to combine the dip idea along with it being a bridal shower but I couldn't make it click so I stuck with the dips and left it at that.

There was a great turnout of people and thanks to the Maid of Honor, my sister-in-law's best friend, for putting the games together.  So much fun.

Maid of Honor, Bride, Me (we did not plan the coordinating colors)

It's worth it to ME!

Somehow the conversation at our class reunion last weekend turned towards cleaning the house and with pride I announced that YES I have a cleaning service.  I know I only live in a two bedroom apartment and that to some people having a "Cleaning Lady" is an extravagance but to me it's a necessity.

The first time the idea was put into my head was when we were living in Muskegon, Michigan for hockey.  My friend and neighbor in the building had a women come clean her condo every week or every other week and so whenever I went over there for wine it was always so nice and spotless.  While downstairs in my apartment there was a dust bunny farm in every room.  The hardwood floors were "hard" to clean especially without a vacuum and I just didn't see the need for anything other than a swiffer.  Which by the way does not really get the job done.  I'm not a dirty person per say I just don't enjoy cleaning so I typically only did it once a month... if that.  That meant walking around on sandy floors, rings around the toilet {yes I'm admitting it} and pink shower grout.  Not so cool.  The kitchen is the only place I clean daily and that's because it's not appetizing to have a gross kitchen and I enjoy eating.

So this friend of mine suggested I hire her cleaning lady and I thought it was a genius idea!  I brought it up to Luke and he laughed in my face.  I guess he figured that with me working from home and not having too many friends in town that I should have plenty of time to Swiffer the bunnys away.  So much for that!

It wasn't until we had Max that the cleaning started to be non-existent.  Luke would make snide comments about things being dirty and in the middle of feeding, changing, burping, doing laundry and trying to get Max to sleep I would shoot him dirty looks and sometimes even felt the urge to growl {although I never did}.  Instead I would just get angry and overwhelmed... that mixed with lack of sleep made me a SUPER FUN person to be around let me tell you!

I tried asking Luke to help but his idea of cleaning is spraying Fabreeze on it and letting it air dry.  I'm not even sure he would know where to find the Fabreeze if he needed to use it.  Therefore, in January I called up a cleaning service and had them come look at my place.

They talked about cleaning cob webs every time and getting on their KNEES to clean the floors and how they clean dirt out of the bathroom vent {I didn't even know you could do that}.  I was so giddy that I hired them on the spot.  They come every two weeks and I love it.  Some people hear this and possibly look down on me for spending money on something that I can damn well do myself but how I see it is this: I work full time, have a one year old son and and thirty year old husband and I would rather spend my time with my family, reading, crafting or just doing ANYTHING other than cleaning.  Therefore, this is worth the money to me.

What is something that you do or have that is worth the money to you that sometimes others just don't agree with?

My apartment on cleaning day {friend Hartman on the couch in his usual spot}

It's Been 10 Years...

This weekend was my 10 year class reunion.  I’ve been waiting 10 years for this reunion as I really liked my classmates and couldn’t wait to see everyone. {serious!}  Facebook made this reunion a little unique as I knew what most people were doing these days.  We had a disappointingly low turn-out but the people that did make it were quality J  I want to thank the committee for all the hard work they put into planning the event, if I was around I would have for sure helped!

Even though I brought a camera I didn’t take any pictures {sad} and since most of my high school photo albums are collecting dust in my parents crawl space I’ve got nothing to show you.  Instead I’m going to write down a few fun memories from high school.  Most of them include my friend Kim who headed up the planning for this reunion. 

1.     Me and Kim used to go over to my house after summer danceline practice and teach ourselves the dance moves to all the Britney Spears music videos.  Afterwards we would scarf down microwavable bean and cheese burritos {gross!} and sometimes take a nap.

2.     One of the last days of our sophomore year me Kim and Morgana skipped class and went to Park Point and Target for the day.  On our way to park point we got bridged and so were rocking out to music in Kim’s car.   While we waited a male college student that was parked behind us came up to our window and asked us to hang out with him later.  We spilled the beans that we were high school students skipping class and he was mortified.  We felt pretty cool though.

3.     This one is for my danceline girls out there.  I will always remember the year we went to TP houses and accidentally left Sara O at what’s his names house and we were freaking out cuz his dad had a gun.  She just walked to Food N’ Fuel though and everything was all good.  {I think that was before the time of cell phones so we didn’t know what to do as we thought we had lost her so we figured that if we went to Food N’ Fuel her favorite hang out that we would find her, and we did!}  I think that was the same year one of the cars got pulled over by the cops and girls were stuffing toilet paper into their sweatshirts in the back seat.

4.     Kim and Andrea… remember the party that got busted the moment we walked in the door and we hid behind a neighbors storage shed with some senior guys.  That night was interesting.  My mom still talks about that night.  She tried paging me {yes kids we all had pagers and they were COOL, mine was cranberry colored} and I didn’t call back so she knew I had lied when I said I was staying at Andrea’s house.

There are so many more stories I could write, especially if I read our danceline’s “remember whens”

It was so nice to see everyone on Saturday.  I hope we can keep in touch.  To all of you who didn’t make it I hope to see you in 10 years.  I wonder where I will be then?

Congrats to my great friend Andrea on her little boy Axel.  He’s a cutie and a perfect reason for your absence!  Don’t worry I won’t start keeping track on our locker door J