Fall Favorites

Although it's technically fall according to the calendar, it's still blazin' hot here in Florida.

But that's not gonna keep me from posting some of my new fall favorites.

Granted, they're not going to include this fall's latest trends like faux leather leggings and above-the-knee riding boots, because it's just not cold enough for that kinda gear right now.

But I will share with you some great new items that are putting me in the fall mood...even if it is 90 degrees out today.

First up... a fall staple that will last you through winter...a fantastic red lipstick!

Now, I don't wear red very often. In fact, I always thought it made me look "yellow-ish" and clashed with my skin tone. But if Miss blondie Kristen Bell can rock a red lip, then so can I!

This Sephora Cream Lip Stain in "01 Always Red" is a great way to try the bold red lip trend without breaking the bank. This baby only cost $13 and it has some serious staying power without feeling sticky or dry.

I wore it last weekend to a casino-themed charity event where my entire outfit was black with some turquoise jewelry and this lipstick really completed the outfit. It made my makeup look very polished and classic. I highly recommend picking some up for the upcoming holiday party season.

Next up, a candle that I am totally crushing on right now.

I figure, even if it's hot outside, I can always crank down my A/C and light a pumpkin-scented candle and it will feel much more like a crisp fall day.

I've always been a fan of Bath & Body Works 3-wick candles because they smell fantastic, and last a long time. There are some great fall scents out right now, and there are some pretty heinous ones. I've made the mistake of ordering them online before without actually smelling them first... big mistake. Don't do it.

This one, called "Heirloom Pumpkin" is one of my favorites right now. I like to burn it by itself, or in conjunction with an apple-scented candle (my sis-in-law taught me that trick!).

There are several pumpkin/fall-scented B&BW candles out right now, so I'd recommend going to a store and smelling them for yourself. This one has undertones of nutmeg and vanilla, but I have another one that has more of a pumpkin-cinnamon smell to it and I love it too.

Another fall staple for me is this great Cable & Gauge tunic that I found at TJ Maxx (note: I did not pay $51 for it, as it's listed on this web site, I believe I paid closer to $25.

Sadly, my photography skills have a looooooong way to go, so this picture doesn't do it one bit of justice. Here's a better image of a lovely stranger wearing it that I snagged off the internet:

I'm telling you, I will be living in this tunic this fall! It is the softest thing I have ever worn and it's the perfect weight too. I've worn it with shorts, skinny jeans and cropped workout pants. It's so versatile, I just may go back and get it in grey too!

My next favorite thing has nothing to do with fall, and everything to do with starting my day off in a good mood.

I saw this line of hand-stamped silverware on Instagram and instantly (pun intended) fell in love. Milk and Honey Luxuries has the most adorable line of products. From funny, to sweet, and everything in between, they have come up with some great "one liners" to stamp on their beautiful silverware.

Every morning, I try to take this motto seriously and start my day with a grateful heart.

Because when I pause and think about the fact that I have healthy children, a husband who loves me and friends whom I know I can count on... life is pretty awesome indeed.

The next few "favorites" aren't necessarily fall-related items, but they are super important during this time of year as we enter cold & flu season.

I am a big believer in the healing power of essential oils, when it comes to fighting off germs and beating a cold once you've contracted something, but I also drink a glass of Super Orange flavored "Emergen-C" every single morning.

There are only 25 calories per pack and they are loaded with vitamin C, B12, Zinc, and lots of antioxidants and electrolytes. If you don't currently take a multivitamin, I would highly recommend getting a box of these and making it part of your morning routine.

Along the same lines, I am a firm believer in a daily multivitamin for my kids. They come in contact with some nasty germs at school each day (God please help them to remember to wash their hands after they use the bathroom!!).

I used to give them whatever brand of gummy vitamins were on sale. But then I noticed how loaded with sugar they were and how very little vitamins were actually in them.

That's when I switched to Rainbow Light Nutri Stars chewable children's vitamins.

 

I'm not gonna lie. They do not taste fantastic (kinda like a sweet tart but not as sweet). But my kids have gotten used to them over the years and now eat them without complaint. They know they can't get up from the breakfast table until their vitamin is gone. It's just habit now.

These vitamins have only 1.5 grams of sugar per vitamin and have no artificial colors, flavors, sweeteners or preservatives. They also have 92 mg of vegetables and green foods per vitamin. I'm tellin ya... these are powerhouse vitamins!

You can buy them on Amazon for about $15 or at most health food stores.

And one more thing I'm diggin these days are these awesome Kashi bars:

 

I realize they sound pretty bland, but they are delicious - really! They are crunchy and nutty and just the right amount of sweetness. Perfect to throw in your purse for an on-the-go breakfast or snack.

That's all I've got for today. Payton is home and ready for some multiplication quizzing, and little man is bound to wake up right in the middle of it, so I better wrap this up. 

I hope you try some of these products. And if you do, please let me know what you think. Stay warm, cozy and healthy this fall! Cheers y'all!

Vegas...Mommy Style

Phew, this month has flown by! Between birthday celebrations and school getting back into full swing, I feel like I've barely had time to breath, much less blog!

However, somehow, I was able to fit in a little trip to Las Vegas with Brian last weekend. (Thank God for Grandparents who are willing to babysit all weekend!)

When people ask me how our trip was, I usually say, "It was awesome, but definitely not your typical 'Vegas' vacation."

We didn't gamble.

We didn't see any shows. (Well, at least none that you have to pay for.)

Instead, it was just a weekend to unplug, relax, and enjoy total and utter freedom from schedules, work and kiddos.

I arrived late Thursday evening to our resort, the "Tuscany Suites & Casino." I barely changed my clothes and we were back out the door to have dinner with Brian's conference peeps. After dinner, it was midnight Florida time, so I went straight to bed (exciting first night in Vegas, eh??).

Here's a couple pics of our huge room:

The king-sized bed had 6 luxurious pillows on it. It was so comfortable!

This was opposite the bed. The flat screen TV was on the dresser to the left and the kitchette was on the right along with a spacious bathroom.

Friday, Brian headed back into his conference, so I went exploring with one of the other wives, Maria. We started off in older "downtown" Vegas. This is where a lot of the older movies in Vegas were filmed. Sadly, now it's mostly t-shirt and souvenir shops along with some much older casinos... except for... the outlet mall!!

Fortunately, Maria enjoys shopping just like me, so we spent the day wandering the outlet mall popping in and out of interesting stores. I got some really great deals and was very pleased with my day's loot. Then we visited a local farmer's market and ate from a food truck. It was one of the best salads I've ever had.

After all that walking, we headed back to the resort and out to the pool for some R&R.

That evening, we went out for a friend's birthday party at a popular resort called the "Stratosphere." The bar is inside the resort's "Space Needle" which is 117 stories up and overlooks all of Las Vegas. It was one of my favorite places we visited. You can also base jump off the space needle in case you were wondering. YIKES!

 

 (Photo courtesy: Hotels.com)

Inside the bar, overlooking Vegas.

After the birthday party that was filled with little appetizers and fancy drinks, this girl was ready for a big ol Vegas dinner! We headed to the Mirage and went to their famous burger restaurants, BLT Burgers.

 

Dad...aren't you proud of your little girl?? She found an awesome burger joint in the heart of the Vegas strip!

After that humungous meal (there may have been fries and onion rings involved) we headed back to our resort for a long night's sleep. 

Since the conference was now over, Saturday was the first day I actually got to spend some daytime hours with Brian. We decided to start at the Venetian and work our way down the strip popping in and out of some of the most popular resorts.

The Venetian was by far our favorite!

The lobby itself was breathtaking with the ceilings painted like the Sistine Chapel.

And then in a little further past the casino and up an escalator, we arrived on St. Mark's Square. It didn't quite compare to the real thing, but it was quite stunning!

 

 

The entire ceiling is painted to look like the sky, so whether you're there day or night, rain or shine, the ceiling always looks the same. There are shops and lovely restaurants all along the sides and then on the other end is the canal, where you can take gondola rides.

Little Vegas tip for ya...we got there early - around 10 a.m. - and it was very quiet, so we were able to get a private gondola ride ($20 per person) instead of the paying for the price of a private ride ($75 per person!!!). I guess Vegas doesn't really get hoppin' until after noon time.

Some pics from our ride:

Not the best "selfie" but I wanted to get our sweet Gondalier in the photo. She was from a small village in North Italy and had the most amazing operatic voice, which she used to serenade us in the coves of the canal. Very romantic!

After our boat ride, we took full advantage of not having small children with us and went to eat a leisurely lunch at the most fantastic restaurant in the heart of "St. Mark's Square" called "Postrio." It is owned by Wolfgang Puck and the food was out of this world!

Caramelized onions, olives, fresh sage, goat and mozzarella cheese. I'm drooling just thinking about it!

After lunch, we enjoyed the free "street shows" that occur on the Square. It's always nice to find free entertainment in Vegas. Because it seems everyone is both beautiful and amazingly talented!

From the Venetian we went down to New York, New York. Personally, I thought the outside architecture was more interesting than the inside, but again, we weren't gambling, so who am I to say? And then we stopped at Paris for a quick peek of the Eiffel tower.

After our looooooooong day of walking, we headed back to the resort to soak our tired muscles poolside for a few hours. Then it was off for our final night in Vegas!

This is the fountain in the front of the Tuscany where we stayed.

We took a cab to the Bellagio and walked in to the massive lobby where there are multiple escalators taking you up and down to different levels (a bit overwhelming to me). We decided to eat at Todd English's restaurant, Olives.

Photo courtesy: Trip Advisor

 Since there were over 600 reservations for just that night, we decided to sit at the bar, which offered the full menu and lots of entertainment. I highly recommend the beef carpacio - AH-mazing!

The olives and olive tapenade were so good with the flatbread crisps.

 

And of course, since we were at the Bellagio, we had to stay for a few rounds of their amazing water display. I've wanted to see this ever since the movie Oceans 11 came out. It was even better than I expected!

 

Pictures just don't do it justice.

We retired fairly early (in Vegas terms at least) again Saturday night since we had a very early flight the next morning.

I don't know if I'm a real "Vegas kinda gal" but I sure did enjoy a couple days of sleeping in, lounging by the pool and eating incredible food. It was a great vacation for this mama!

Thanks to my sweet hubby for arranging the entire trip (including scheduling his parents to babysit) and allowing us to have such a special getaway together. I love you babe!

 

5-Ingredient Beef Stroganoff

Popping in quickly today to share an accidental - yet delicious - recipe with you.

The other day, I was planning to make Crock Pot beef stroganoff with a McCormick's seasoning packet. Then I realized that the seasoning packet that I had was for meatloaf. That wasn't gonna work.

So I improvised a bit and came up with...

5 Ingredient Beef Stroganoff

Seriously y'all, this recipe could not be any easier. You simply dump everything in the Crock Pot and let it do it's thang! ;)

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 lbs cubed beef (you can buy it already cubed, or have the butcher cut up a couple of sirloin steaks for you).
• (1) can Condensed Cream of Mushroom Soup
• 1/4- 1/2 cup dry red wine (merlot or cabernet)
• Dried minced onion
• Salt & Pepper
• 3/4 cup sour cream
• ** You could also add fresh or canned sliced mushrooms, but sadly, my boys won't eat them.

Instructions:

1. Spray your Crock Pot with non-stick cooking spray
2. Place the beef in the crockpot
3. Sprinkle liberally with salt, pepper & minced onion
4. In a separate bowl, mix soup and wine (it will look kinda gross like a pale purple, but don't worry, it will look better in the end).
5. Pour soup mixture over seasoned beef.
6. Let cook on low 6-8 hours until beef is fork tender.
7. 30 minutes before you're ready to eat, stir in sour cream.

 

I serve it over egg noodles with green beans and buttered rolls. Super easy, and definitely delicious!

Complete Randomness

READER NOTE: Apparently this post never posted!! AGH! It was still labeled "Draft" on Blogger, so I am re-posting it for my own personal scrapbook purposes, but it is from a while ago. I apologize in advance if it seems dated and out of order. :) Thank you!!
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I have a bunch of great blog posts floating around in my head.

Recipes. Organizational tips. Recent craft projects. New house projects that I want to document and post.

Sadly, this post includes none of that.

This post is simply some total randomness that I want to document for my own personal benefit.

Since I took off a month or so from blogging over the summer, there were a lot of things that I didn't post here in my virtual scrapbook. So now it's time to play catch up.

Hang in there with me through the recap at the beginning and I'll share a teeny-tiny drawer re-org that I did this week to help make this post just the least bit useful if not inspiring.

Here we go...

Our Summer Bucket List had an item on it that said, "Hold a lemonade stand for charity." I'm sure everyone has seen charity lemonade stands before, and I always thought they were such a great way to teach kids about philanthropy.

I wanted my kids (or least Payton) to put some thought, time and effort into setting up a lemonade stand, and then "work" it - making him feel like he had ownership over it - and most importantly, tangibly feel the dollars and coins he collected as the day went on... and then hand it ALL over to charity.

That's not an easy concept for a 9-year old, in case you were wondering.

But Payton was really excited about the whole thing - as was Parker, although I think he was more excited about the container of lollipops that we had at the table. We all collaborated on what we wanted to sell at the stand, what we wanted the sign to say, how we would promote that the money was going to charity, and especially, which charity we would choose to donate the proceeds.

We decided on the Hope Children's Home. It's a wonderful charity located just a couple miles from our neighborhood. This is an excerpt from their web site:


Founded in 1968, Hope Children’s Home has rescued nearly 5,000 children between the ages of infant to 18 years of age. Most of these children have been discarded, abused, unwanted, or orphaned although some of the children have simply come out of a situation where a parent just needed help. Our purpose at Hope Children’s home is to share Christ with the children and while in our care to mold them into Biblically and Academically educated members of our future society.

We were all excited to be able to donate to such an important and worthy cause.

The day of the lemonade stand, the boys were so excited! They got up early and went to Dunkin Donuts with Brian to pick up some doughnut holes. Since we were trying to do everything before the heat of the day, we picked 9-11 a.m. as our time to host the stand.

We made a very simple, very cute set-up, using a buffet table covered in a white sheet, PVC pipes and an inexpensive banner from Target. We "sold" donuts, homemade cookies, lollipops and of course, lemonade.

The boys and our sweet neighbor, Avery, were ready for customers at 9 a.m.!

The kids had so much fun selling their goods and interacting with people. Their faces would light up every time someone would say, "Keep the change!"

And I was blown away by the generosity of our neighbors. More than a few people gave $20 bills in exchange for a little glass of lemonade. It was the kind of gesture that reminds you that there are really good people out there.

In the end, the kids raised $135. Then one of Brian's colleagues heard about the lemonade stand and mailed Payton a $20 check to the Children's Home.

So, a couple weeks later, I took the boys to Hope Children's Home and we presented them with $155.

To say I was a proud Mama, is a huge understatement. These boys' hearts are so big and so full of love. They really shined during this project, and I am super proud of both of them.

On to random subject #2...

We got a pool.

Not a $20K in ground pool.

A $65 Kmart clearance above ground pool.

Can you say redneck?

Lemme tell ya... it's the best $65 I've ever spent.

The kids swim in it almost every day. Even if it's just for a quick "cool off." Last night, all the boys jumped in for a night swim and burned off those last ounces of energy before bed. Every friend we've had over since we bought it has been swimming in it. And we're praying that it lasts through football season so the kids have something to entertain themselves while we watch some Gator football!

Last random topic of this post...

Do you have a junk drawer that's gotten a bit out of control this summer? I did!

This drawer is in our laundry room, which leads to the garage. So it holds all of our "out-the-door" items like sunglasses, hand sanitizer, tissues, and gum (apparently a LOT of gum). And over the summer it became a dumping ground for the kids junk.

A quick 10-minute clean-out got it back to tip-top organized shape!

Ahhh....that's better.

I promise I'll be back soon with more useful stuff... like a recipe or a craft. Unt

Founded in 1968, Hope Children’s Home has rescued nearly 5,000 children between the ages of infant to 18 years of age. Most of these children have been discarded, abused, unwanted, or orphaned although some of the children have simply come out of a situation where a parent just needed help. Our purpose at Hope Children’s home is to share Christ with the children and while in our care to mold them into Biblically and Academically educated members of our future society - See more at: http://www.hopechildrenshome.org/about-hope-childrens-home/#sthash.NtNxYmsC.dpuf

DIY Fall Decor {FREE Printables}

It's September! And around the Heckman Household, that means one thing: Fall Decor!

Okay, maybe two things: Fall Decor & Wedding Anniversary!

Okay, maybe three things: Fall Decor, Wedding Anniversary, and Pumpkin Spice Lattes!

Alright, I'll stop now.

And even though it's still hovering around 410 degrees outside, I am determined to make my house a cozy little ode to Autumn... even if that means our energy bill may be a tad bit high this month (sorry, honey).

It all started earlier this week when I spotted the bright orange bags of Brach's Candy Corn on the store shelf.

That did it. It was time to decorate.

Then I saw this adorbs idea on a blog, where you call the Candy Corn "Pumpkin Teeth." How cute is that???

One quick "Google search" later and this is now sitting on our counter:

Wanna duplicate it?  Great! Here's how ya do it:

Click here to visit She's Kinda Crafty's awesome blog and download the free printable template:

 

Cut out one of the squares, apply some double-stick tape to the back and stick it on any sort of jar, glass, bucket, or anything else you've got. Ta-da! Just like that, you've created an adorable fall treat jar (P.S. Wouldn't these make great teacher gifts too??).

And since I just knew this little jar would start getting a lot of attention from my boys, I thought having a little Bible memory verse nearby would be a great idea.

I just love the fall colors in this free printable created by the talented people at Johnson Ferry Women's Ministry.

 

 Click here to download your free copy.

Happy Fall Y'all!