Merry Christmas!

Just stopping by to wish all of my readers a very Merry Christmas! Our little family had such a wonderful day. We were able to see lots of our extended family. It was also nice just to be home and enjoy some of the smaller moments of the day.

Although my house is a mess, I think it will take me a solid week to find all the little bits of wrapping paper. Mister Mans had an awesome time opening up gifts, even helping others open their gifts! What a helpful boy.

We were also able to go to Christmas Eve mass. The sister church to my home church does a family service, and they have a wonderful space in the church for families with little ones, with quiet toys for them to play with / keep them distracted. It was nice to get back into a church. It was great getting to sing carols.

Mister Mans was most obsessed with ringing his bell and blowing out Dada's candle during Silent Night.

I'll post some more pictures later on, these are the ones from my cell phone! I hope you and your family had a lovely Christmas! I have been on facebook for the last few hours just looking at pictures of all my friends with their families, it brings such warmth and joy to my heart.

If you have been a follower of my blog for awhile, you know that I live in New Hampshire. We are used to cold, snowy winters. Christmas Day today we hit a high of 51 degrees while we were in the car! Holy Toledo! That's nearly shorts weather. And no snow to be seen.

Paint Nite!

Recently a girl friend and I had a chance to get away for a GNO (girls night out)! Shaun is a friend who is also a fellow blogger (Go give her some blog love, here!). We signed up for Paint Nite, where you can meet up at a local restaurant, drink and paint. Now I am by no means an artist, but I really enjoy this type of outing.

So Shaun and I met up at the Riverworks Tavern in Newmarket, NH. We met up a little early so we could grab a quick bite to eat. Then we grabbed our drinks and headed to the other side of the restaurant, so we could start our painting.

We met Patrick who would be our instructor for the night. And he showed us the final product, what we would be creating.

Hi Patrick!

Before we began, we had to take an oath, and pledge on our canvas! Poor Shaun could barely make it through the pledge, without breaking out into a giggle fit.

And then we started! The instructor was very good at explaining the steps and was very chill. I enjoy the casual aspect of the night. That we can just go and have a good time. There were people painting their own picture, or their interpretation of the picture of the night, or the painting itself.

The first few paint strokes...

Of course you have to take a selfie

Then we added some mountains in the middle ground.

While we waited for the paint to dry we took a break for a picture.

Shaun and I shared some laughs over randomness and nothing. Truly one of the better nights I have had in a long time. I am so glad we are friends. I was able to talk shop with her and get some blog tips, which kind of reinvigorated me about getting back into the blog world.

So are you ready to see the final product?

Viola!

It was such a great time! This is the third Paint Nite that I have done, and I really do enjoy this type of outing. It's not your typical outing; it's something different. I like that you can still talk with the other people in your party, that you can drink and you get to go home with something. If you don't want to paint what is being instructed, you don't have to, you can make it your own thing.

Photo credit: Paint Nite Portsmouth - Facebook

If you are looking for something to do, I would certainly recommend checking out Paint Nite!

Christmas Season!

Oh how I love the holiday season! I love the weather, I love getting to spend time with family. We've had the opportunity to see Santa and boy, did it not go over well. However we were able to get at least one good shot.

Photo credit: Bushor Photography

Mister mans was being quite the ham that day. And he was so wiggly. All he wanted to do was run around and have fun. Boy did he take a great nap that day.

The following weekend we watched the Christmas Parade in my hometown. Although it rained and was forecasted to rain throughout the whole event; the rain stopped just as the parade stepped off! I couldn't believe our luck! It was nice getting to enjoy the parade and see all the people out and about enjoying the holiday season.

My brother, Brenden and my husband

Oh what a fun time of year this is!

Leaves

With Fall quickly coming to an end, and Winter just around the corner. Which by the way, did I hear the weather people right? Are they calling for a significant snow storm Thursday evening into Friday morning? And it was 54 degrees today.... my goodness, it's New England weather for sure!

Anyways, we took the opportunity to introduce Brenden to leaves and the joy that is playing with them. He went right in, and ever since, whenever we see a pile of leaves, he must run through it.

Obviously it made for some pretty fantastic pictures...

We also took part in a community event, the Touch a Truck event to benefit the Richie McFarland Children's Center. There were so many people there! We ran into many of our friends from the Seacoast. There were a lot of things to do and see. I honestly think that Brenden was a little overwhelmed by the crowds and by the number of trucks/things to do. I think in another year or two this will be a great event for him. However we still enjoyed the family outing.

I can't believe that this week is Thanksgiving. Today we had our Christmas card photo shoot done. So I am excited to see what those pictures will look like. Brenden wasn't super cooperative today, so hopefully the photographer managed to get a few good shots!

Review: Old Factory Candles

I was recently given the opportunity to try out some amazing candles from Old Factory Candles. I opted for the fall harvest collection, which included Pumpkin Spice, Cranberry and Autumn Leaves. To say that these candles smelled heavenly, would be an understatement. I had them burning in my kitchen and they left the room smelling amazing for several hours, never loosing the potency.

What I really like about these candles is that they are soy based, so they burn a lot cleaner as well as they are made in the United States. Whenever I can I try and support businesses in America.

I purchased these candles through Amazon and used their gift wrapping service. When the package arrived, it was so neatly wrapped and presented.










And that's just what amazon did. I really liked the packaging for the candles themselves

















These candles burned very efficiently and cleanly, there was hardly and residue left after I was done. There was a good even burn on them. As I have said before, the smell is amazing, and it lingers.












These candles are billed to burn for approximately 20 hours I had them going for 10 hours, and there was about a third of wax left in the jar. I don't know if it would last a full 20 hours, but I do believe it would be close.

Head over to Amazon and check out my review of the candles!


Disclosure of Material Connection: I received the product mentioned above for free for review purposes. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the FTC


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Fall!

Fall is my favorite season. With October being my favorite month. I enjoy the crispness of the air and obviously the changing of the leaves.

The changing of the season is also a great time to reflect back on a great summer we had. Mister Mans really enjoys being outside, so we took full advantage of that and we were outside as much as we could be.

For the first time in my life, I had a legit tan. You see, being blond and fair skinned my whole life, everytime I would be out in the sun, I would burn. However with Mister Mans, I was diligent about putting on sunscreen for him, as well as myself. And since we were outside almost daily, I would get bursts of exposure. The result was a great base tan. Of course, I was still white, but it took a lot more for me to burn.

One of my many joys is getting to experience this world through Mister Mans eyes. He was becoming more aware of his surroundings this summer and through the fall. Yesterday's big moment was watching the leaves fall from the tree. Which then he proceed to run through the leaves on the ground. Picking up individual leaves to inspect them. Pure amazement.

Despite the weather not being perfect (we have had a dry September) the colors have hit their peak in the last week or so. Soon the colors will fade and that only means that winter is looming.

I don't think I could ever live in a place without seasons. Despite snow being troublesome at times, it's also enjoyable, especially now having a kid. We have a small hill in our yard and I envision many days will be spent sledding down the hill.

This is where I live....







And that is with no filter what so ever!

Happy Fall!




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

End of Summer

Holy Moly! How did it get to be the end of summer already? At the beginning of summer, I had all these plans to do day trips with Mister Mans and have fun and enjoy every moment of summer that we could. Fast forward to today, the beginning of Labor Day weekend and I still feel like there is so much left I wanted to do.

Hubby has been on vacation this week so we've taken the opportunity to get some day trips in. We went down to Boston for the Boston Duck Tours. It was great getting to be a tourist for the day. I learned things on the tour that I never knew about Boston. It was a lot of fun.

Tomorrow we are heading to Liquid Planet, which is in Candia. I am hoping that we have some fun, but I am excited to check out a new attraction.

I continue to struggle with the weight. There is a woman who my chiropractor recommends who deals with obese women. She is a nutritionist and a personal trainer, so I am hoping that I can work with her to come up with a game plan that will work for me. I am excited about the potential. I know it's going to be a lot of work, but it's work that is necessary.