Halloween 2016

So my oldest son was obsessed with Elmo a few months ago and I had the idea to dress the family up as some of the characters for Halloween this year. My husband and I wanted quick and not too elaborate costumes this year as we just simply did not have the energy for it. So we bought the kids costumes from Walmart when they first put them out to ensure we got their 2 sizes. Next I went to a local thrift store and found this old dance dress which served its purpose with the big bell sleeves and bright color. I had intentions of adding a yellow feather boa to the rim of the dress, and a quick head piece, but ran out of time (damn procrastination)

Actually, when given the option the night before of completing a personalized trick or treat bucket for my son or my headpiece, I felt the costumes deserved another character. and then Oscar was born......

Oscar photo coming soon....lol

I plan on uploading a video soon of how I created him....so stay tuned.

Now leading up to Halloween we tried to keep the boys focused on the holiday and start some traditions together. Like decorating a haunted gingerbread house, which you can watch below:



And of course the expected halloween pumpkin carving. We opted to just paint this year since the boys were too young to cut things, and my 2 year old seems to think he can do everything himself and throws tantrums if we dont allow it. So in hopes of making this a tearless process, we just said were painting. No gutting the pumpkins...just painting.

So I`m sure you came here to see the pumpkin DIY, so lets get to it, here is the video below:

My adorable Elmo and Cookie Monster!

I hope you guys enjoyed our Sesame Street Halloween efforts. What do you think we should go as next year?? Did you go as a Sesame Street character as well? Post a photo below, I'd love to see it!

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Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

After having my son, I noticed my slightly bald patch had become way more obvious.
Hair was falling out left and right. I would swiffer daily and find enough hair to make a wig every 2-3 days!

With that being said, I decided to look into ways to deal with the temporary loss, and put them into videos for you! I hope you enjoy, and please leave a comment if you have used the items, or have some tips and tricks of your own to share!


Product used to conceal hair loss/balding - Tutorial


And of course, a video with numerous tips and tricks for hair loss

Xoxo,

Mariam Monroe

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Tons of Baby Freebies! Find out how you can get this stuff for FREE!

I made these videos in hopes of proving to weary people, that all it takes is half an hour of your time filling out some forms to get these things! Well....and then you sit pretty until baby and freebies come in.

Most of this stuff came in right before Roman was born, but its not uncommon to receive stuff afterwards.

Enjoy!

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Telling the Family....

Slight error in the date at the beginning, haha. But this was taken last December 2013!

We got together to do our family photos, and my husband and I surprised them at the very end with the news....It was a super fun day, and I'm glad we told them it like this, because its something I can now look back on and laugh at. I hope they don't expect this kind of news every Christmas.....lol

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Say Hello to Baby "S"

I just wanted to introduce you guys to our soon to be new addition:

Because we dont know the gender of the baby yet....I will refer to IT as "Baby S".
(S is the first letter of both of our last names....)

Baby S had a heart beat of 173bpm, was asleep for the entire process, and in the last 5 minutes finally woke up due to vigorous coughing. (I was instructed to do this to see if it will shake and wake the baby up).

Originally, we thought that was a hand in the air, but after the tech pointed it out - its a foot....we thought Baby S was waving to us...but in fact it was giving us the boot... =\

The whole ultrasound process took about an hour. They didnt tell me it would take this long, and my friend who had hers said it lasted only 10-15 minutes tops! So I was worried after 35 minutes of dead silence and my rude ultrasound technicians heavy breathing and grunts. I asked if everything was ok, and she waited a minute or so before answering me while staring deeply into her monitor...Her answer was that she needed me to roll onto my side for 5 minutes and she would return to the room shortly. She did this twice. and We even switched rooms once because she "didnt like the machine"

I kept waiting for the doctor to come in and tell me the baby was gone and we needed to schedule an appointment to remove what was left. When she started asking me to cough, I questioned her again if everything was ok...She responded with "Its asleep". Confused and enraged by her 2 word response, I asked "Is it asleep...or 'ASLEEP'?". Her response will shock you....

"I wouldn't be doing all this if it were dead." - Yup. This brand new state of the art building with the promise of outstanding customers service just blew my mind as well.....

I think because I now knew Baby S wasn't deceased....I smiled and remained silent for the remainder of the scan. Kyle was scared when he was called into the room 55 minutes after I had gone in. But in the end we saw the baby, heard the heart beat, and were excited to show the photo to friends and family....But they're just going to have to wait until Christmas!

Another shocker was that we thought the technician would tell us we were about 9 weeks along...We were soooo off. Turns out as of today we were 11 weeks 3 days!! Holy crap! This means waiting till Christmas for a surprise announcement could pose a problem if I begin to show - seeing as to how I would be 4 months at that point!

This will be interesting....But, alas, time to start planning the surprises!

xoxo,

Mariam Monroe

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