Hall of Flame Museum

Wow, summer is in full swing here in the Valley of the Sun. I don't know about y'all, but here in Phoenix we don't do much outdoors unless it involves a pool or water somehow during the summer months. So we are always looking for fun things to do that will engage the kids and eat up a good portion of the day! Enter the Hall of Flame Firefighting Museum in Phoenix.

I knew about the Hall of Flame from 8 years ago when I got married. My dad had contacted them to see if he could rent a firetruck for us to drive away from our wedding on. For some reason though, we never went to the museum just to experience it until my inlaws came to town a couple of weeks ago.

It is truly amazing to see the history of what firefighter started out with and what they currently have to fight fire. Some of the trucks (wagons) had really intricate engravings on the wheels and some of the other apparatus that goes along with the trucks.

We spent a couple of hours going through the 4 warehouses that house the firefighting museum. We actually even saw one of the firefighters who drove the engine we drove away on at our wedding 8 years ago! That was pretty cool! Sean was in his element since he was a firefighter for years back in Iowa. He loves anything to do with firefighting. That same love of all things firefighting has been passed down to my daughter as well.

A vision of things to come, maybe?

Sponsored Post - BloodSTOP

I was recently contacted to review a product called BloodSTOP created by LifeScience Plus.

BloodSTOP can be used on cuts, scrapes and even bloody noses. My daughter doesn't generally get cuts and scrapes, but she has been getting quite a few bloody noses lately due to the dry heat here in Phoenix.

They are just these little gauzy type strips that you apply directly to the cut/scrape or roll or fold it up and put in the nostril.

We have used these BloodSTOP strips several times now and each time, they work within a few minutes to stop the bleeding. I am definitely going to be keeping these in the medicine cabinet for future use!

*I did not receive any monetary compensation for this review. All opinions are 100% my own. I received a sample of this product for this review.

Dirty Secret Saturday

Welcome to another edition of Dirty Secret Saturday.
This is a linky party just for you. To get all those secrets off your chest. It can be funny, it can be heartbreaking, it can be real. It just has to be all yours. We want all the dirt. All that we ask in return is you give us some bloggy love, and share this button on your post. Then let all your friends via Twitter and Facebook know, we are partying it up over here!

Your hosts are:

Me, Chrissy from A Lil Dash Of Diva
Lena from Mom 2 Memphis and Ruby and
Megan from Absolute Mommy

So sit back, relax, and link up all your recent or not so resent secrets!

Okay, I am gonna be straight with you guys...err, well as straight as I get, I read 50 Shades of Grey (and Darker and Freed) within the span of a week...and I loved them. I'm not really the BDSM type of girl, but those books got me considering things I have never considered before ;) There, I said it.

Wanna know another secret? I feel like a boring old woman. lol

I Confess...

I'm baaack! Man that was a really long and unexpected break from this here blog. What better way to come back than with some juicy confessions ;)

I Confess...school is out for summer in these here parts. It's good but this also means that in 2 short months Hannah will be in 2nd grade. Wha?!!!!! How did this happen? I swear I don't know where the time goes or how it goes by so fast, but it does. We are planning lots of swimming and getting the hell out of Phoenix over the summer. It's just too hot here to do anything outdoors except swim, but even that you can only swim so much before you are totally water logged and don't want to set foot in the water. We are planning a trip to SoCal to see the inlaws and of course visit the beach. Another trip we will hopefully be making is up to Denver to visit some good friends that just moved up there.

I Confess...I just saw the announcement that Justin Bieber is coming to Glendale in September and my first thought was OMG Hannah would love that, we HAVE to go! So I'm hoping to be able to get us some tickets and surprise her!

I Confess...mama needs a girls night out, like yesterday. I don't really think this one needs much of an explanation! lol

I Confess...the last day of school was a rough one. I totally cried when I dropped Hannah off in her classroom. We have been so super lucky with the teachers she has had so far. In Kindergarten her teacher was awesome and we love her, we still see her most days on campus. For first grade again, her teacher was awesome and is actually best friends with the kindergarten teacher Hannah had so of course she's awesome. We had gotten Ms G (1st grade teacher) a smash book and a couple little things to go with it as the year end gift. I also gave her a gift certificate for a photo session. Hannah had written her a song too and Hannah decided to sing it to her while I was still there. I literally almost broke out into the ugly cry...but I didn't want to scare the children so I held it together! When I picked Hannah up that afternoon, she came out teary eyed and by the time we were in the car she was in the full on hysterical cry. Which lasted about an hour and then she was good to go the rest of the day. She just loves her teachers and will miss her. Poor baby.

Well, that's all I got for now. I am working on a few things that I can't wait to let y'all know about including the Hall of Flame Firefighting Museum, Memorial Day BBQ, some cookie and cupcake recipes and a new giveaway just for the heck of it!

If you have anything to confess go link up with Mamarazzi!

2nd Place

Another exciting weekend for us this last weekend. We had state cheer competition after placing 1st at Regionals the week before. We carpooled to Tempe with Hannah's bff.

I don't know what the problem is but my child will not smile a real smile in pictures to save my life these days. Grr.

It was a great competition and their team was one of 5 large squads that competed. Their coach had two teams competing against each other in the large groups and they did the same exact routine. I thought that was kinda strange, but it is what it is. After everyone had competed we were waiting for them to announce the winners for what seemed like forever.

They started announcing 5th place, 4th place and my friend and I look at each other and said, holy crap, that means we placed in the top 3! They announce 3rd place...we are in the top 2! AAHHH!!! Now, neither of Coach Lisa's teams had been announced yet, that means either way she gets 1st and 2nd place! Wow. The announcer says that it was really close, 2nd place was like a half a point behind 1st place. In the end, our team came in 2nd. We of course cried and are so proud of the girls for coming in 2nd at State!

This semester only has one more week before it's over. There will be a one week break and then summer session starts. There won't be any competitions over the summer semester but there will be a recital at the end of it. Hannah is super excited to continue on with cheerleading and I am excited she has found a sport she loves and wants to compete for a while.

I am off preparing for my inlaws who are coming to town for a few days, we are really excited to get to spend some time with them this weekend. Other than that not much going on besides the usual - school is getting out for summer next week, I'm trying to balance everything and am now watching a little girl full time. Lots going on right now it seems! Hope you all have a great week!

Field Trippin'

Happy Saturday lovelies! We are off to state cheer competition today! I hope you all are having a wonderful weekend so far.

Last Wednesday my daughter's class had a field trip to the Arizona Science Center. What a fun time! Another mom and I carpooled instead of riding the bus so it was a much more enjoyable ride! lol

We were paired up with another group to explore the science center for a few hours.

Lucky for us, we were paired up with my friend and Hannah's BFF. We had 6 kids between us two moms. I don't remember ever having this much trouble keeping track of 6 kids though let me tell you! All the other field trips I have been on where I was a chaperone I never had trouble keeping track of the kiddos in my care. But for some reason on this trip I thought I would lose my damn mind...repeatedly!

One of the really fun things we did was the planetarium show. The kids all loved that even though us moms got motion sickness! haha

After that we went and had lunch on the lawn and let the kids run around outside for a bit. When we headed back in we just wandered around til it was time to head back to the buses.

Because we had carpooled, Hannah's teacher gave us the option of signing our girls out of school for the day and being able to go back into the science center to look around with just our families. So that's what we did! We took our girls and headed back inside and were able to see and do a lot more than when it was all the kids. We went into the Digital Age room where the kids got to check out things like a Sand Wall...

and the Warp Screen...

After we were done in that room we went up to the next level to the Forces of Nature room where they got to experience all different kinds of forces of nature. Extreme heat, hurricane wind, monsoon, thunderstorms, earthquake. That was my favorite part. Really cool. We wandered around for a while longer and then decided to let the kids get a snack before we packed it in and head back north to the school to get our stuff we had left in the classroom all day.

We got back to school right before school got out for the day but still decided to take our girls home. My daughter was not pleased with this decision! Who is this child?! lol Anyway, it was a really fun day and I'm super happy I got to experience it with my girl.

I Confess...

I Confess...I have been offline most of this week and only giving myself about 1-2 hours a day to spend online and I don't think it has been helping my productivity at home like I thought it would. lol

I Confess...my daughter won her first cheer competition (regionals) last weekend and this weekend we are headed to the state competition. I don't know if she is more nervous this time around but I sure am! haha I, of course, will be proud of her no matter what but I gotta admit that winning that 1st place trophy last week kinda spoiled me and gave me a taste of what life will probably be like for the next 10 years with Hannah cheering competitively. I promise to not turn into THAT mom. You know the one I mean...the stage mom. The crazy mom. Living through her daughter. No way!

I Confess...I didn't really think that having one extra little girl in the house (a 4 year old that I am watching) would make that big of a difference. I am wiped out by the time she goes home! Crazy! lol But it is a lot of fun having her and Hannah around. The two of them crack me up almost non-stop. Yesterday we took them to the mall for a while and on the way home they were discussing how they wanted to have a party. At this party they would invite 63 boys, and they would hold hands with the boys in the pool. Then they would lay on their laps and drink wine. Hilarious! I told my hubby I needed wine after hearing that conversation and his response to me was that he needed more bullets. lol

I Confess...I love going on field trips with Hannah and her classes. In kindergarten we took 2 field trips. One to a local farm around Halloween for the pumpkin patch and the second one to the Wildlife World Zoo. This year for the 1st grade field trips, the first one was to a local theater to see a play. The second one was just this week to the Arizona Science Center. I don't know what I will ever do when I am not allowed to go places with her. lol

Go check out Mamarazzi and link up your confessions!

Favorite Color Swap Reveal!

OMG you guys! I recently participated in Mamarazzi's Favorite Color Swap and holy cow did I get spoiled by my partner, Ricki Jill!



For this swap, we were given our partners favorite color and a spending limit and set loose on the stores...awesome! I had a lot of fun going through Ricki Jill's blog learning about her and then shopping for her.

I was excited to see what she would get for me too! I was so anxious to get my package and was checking the USPS website tracker to make sure it would get here when it was supposed to. Well, imagine my surprise when the website said it was delivered...and I never got it! Aahhhhh! Luckily it was just at the post office and I got it the next day, phew!

I opened the box to find this amazing pinkiliciousness waiting for me!

I love love love the card she got me too..it's going in my smashbook!

I opened each gift and just fell in love over and over with all the fun things and man, did she nail me or what!

I cannot wait for mani/pedi day this week so I can use the new Sephora polish she sent and hello, the hand creme' is AMAZING! I couldn't contain myself and busted into the tea immediately and was not disappointed.

Thank you so much Ricki Jill! I love all of my goodies! And thanks Mamarazzi for hosting another amazing swap!

What A Weekend!

Happy Monday loves!

I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend, I know we did!!

Saturday morning we got up and decided to have our usual Saturday morning breakfast of doughnuts and milk. After that my daughter decided she wanted to watch the Kentucky Derby later that day so she and Hubby got online and were looking up the horses that would be racing. She picked who she wanted to win and even sent the trainer an email wishing them luck. She chose I'll Have Another to win. So about an hour before the race, she and I went and got all dolled up - hair, makeup, fancy dresses, jewelry and a big fancy hat!

After we got all ready, we went out to show Daddy and watch the Derby with him. We were on the edge of our seats and cheering on I'll Have Another and you should have heard how loud we got when he made his move and WON the Derby!!!!!!!!

What an exciting day! Later that night was the SuperMoon so we all went out and looked at it and took some pictures of it.

Sunday was another great day, Hubby had to to work but it was also Hannah's cheer competition day. Luckily he was able to get someone to cover part of his shift in the ER so that he could come with us to the competition.

Hannah's group is a Varsity group so they were towards the end of the competition. They also had one of the bigger squads. After all was said and done, Hannah's squad won FIRST PLACE!!!!!!! OMG I was so excited! They also won the Spirit Award. I am still ridiculously proud and excited! lol So since we won regionals we go to State this weekend. So exciting!

Mother's Day Ideas

Happy Saturday lovelies!

I don't know about you, but I am usually at a loss for what I want when my birthday, mothers day or christmas rolls around. Just yesterday hubby asked what I want for Mother's Day. So this year I decided to actually make a list...now, I am not crazy enough to think that I will actually get any of these actual items since they are kinda pricey, but I thought this is a good start for him to work from! lol

Diamond heart pendant necklace ♥

Coach bag ♥

iPad ♥

Poppy by Coach perfume ♥

Jessica Simpson sunnies ♥


What are some things that are on your Mother's Day wish list?

My Passion, A Few Fave's

Happy hump-day ladies! We are half-way through another week and therefore that much closer to school getting out for summer and all the shenanigans that will bring with it!

I am trying to get my house in order for summer since God knows I won't get a single thing done during summer while my daughter is home everyday and on top of that I am going to be watching a friends daughter as well! Clearly the only thing that will get done in my house over the summer is dressing up and playing princesses!

I wanted to take today and share some of my favorite photos I have taken over the last few years.

This was taken on the 4th of July a few years ago. We were at North Mountain Park to watch the fireworks.

Bartlett Lake north of Phoenix

Bartlett Lake north of Phoenix

My niece, Brylee when she was about 1o days old

The Bride of the one and only wedding I have ever shot

Love love love this photo! Obviously the couple whose wedding I shot. A young Marine and his Bride.

Now we are getting into some of my favorite boudoir shots...be warned, they are totally pg-13!

Thanks for letting me share my passion with you! I love taking pictures and I especially love boudoir photography, it just makes me happy! Go do something that makes YOU happy today!