Hi- I'm so sorry it's been several months since I've written anything. I'm a horrible blogger of you haven't noticed yet.  I keep telling myself remember to blog everyday or at least once a week but I usually forget.   So. Here's what's been going on..
I had stopped working out since I had my surgery in April 2014. I thought I was doing ok health wise and keeping up with my busy family.  But the scale kept raising.   Let's face it- I'm short. I'm 5" tall and even packing on 5 lbs, you can tell-
But I seemed to have not let it bother me.     In June, I got a KILLER migraine headache.  I'm not stranger to migraines. I use to get them all the time but it's been s good long while.
I was in bed for three days .  I was throwing up, dizzy and just plain miserable.
The doc had put me in some sort of steroid to take for ten days.
I started taking it and realized quickly that I was dropping weight.  I'll be honest. It freaked me out.
I finished my ten days and realized I had dropped about 7-10 lbs.   I had blood test done because I was terrified something else was wrong. (Dr.google is NOT good for peoe to read...at all).   Turns out. My sugar was a bit high but other than that I was ok.  The doc said the steroids usually make you hungry and you gain weight and I should be happy that I was eating and loosing.

So. I decided to take advantage of it and start back to the gym.
Wow.  In completely dedicated to the gym now and get frustrated if I have to miss more than a day or so.  Working out makese feel good all over.  I'm not down officially 13 lbs I believe and have lost 5" total between my waist and hips.    I weight now what I weighed about 12 years ago.  I still have about 7 more lbs to go but I'm not stressing because I feel like I look good.  If I don't lose those 7 lbs it will be fine- Why?  Because I'm working out and eating better and overall I'm the healthiest I've been inkre than a decade.

I did however decide after tons of research to do a cleanse.  It's called SkinnyMint TeaTox.

I chose the 28 day teatox. I love tea. And this is all kinds of herbal tea mixed together. You drinking the morning Boost everyday and the nighttime cleanse every other night.

I'm in day 4.  Here is how I've done dso far

Day 1: morning boost. Was delicious.  I felt a tiny bit more energized but not asucb as I do when I drink my
Morning coffee.
Day 1 nighttime cleanse:  It had a good taste.
I didn't have Nytbingbappen at all that night but around 1 am I had to pee.
Then again around 3.   Then around 5 my belly has some light has like cramps.
I finally went and had a BM around 5:30 AM.  (I usually get up around this time so no biggie). The. Had 3 more within the hour.   It was not a RUN to the bathroom thing either.

Day 2: Morning Boost. / delicious. Ate a light breakfast and got my three kids off to school and went to workout. NO more BMs

No nighttime cleanse tonight since it's every other night.

Day3: MB- this time after letting it steep I put ice in it and drank it cold. A little different but still delicious.   got up. Are breakfast.  It was Saturday so I slept in till around 9

5:45 pm. Ate dinner and drank the night cleanse.
Slept all night. Woke up around 5 am to Pee

Went back to sleep till around 8-830. When I woke up the urge to have a BM hit me.
I had three this day.    It's day 4 and  down 2 lbs.


No night cleanse for me tonight since it's every other night.  But I'm excited to see how the rest of the 28 days go- I already feel better and my tummy it's slimmer/less Bloat.   #skinnymintcom #daretobegorgeous

Our journey to Gluten/Dairy Free..........and why!

This might be a long post...
A year ago, our daughter  (now four) had a crazy reaction when she was eating our All time favorite food (Pizza).  Her face got red and swelled up. She had to put ice packs on it to make it quit burning.  Thankfully, it didn't cause her breathing to mess up in any way, but it was enough to scare the living daylights out of all of us. (Especially her brother and sister).

We ended up going to the doc, who send us to an allergist, who did all the necessary testing, and came up with EVERYTHING negative.
At the time, they told us they thought it was probably just a freak incident, where the wheat or yeast used could have been rancid or something like that.

Her pediatrician ended up giving us an EpiPen to keep on us JUST in case it happens again. Especially since we had so many question, and NO answers..

Off and On over the past year, her face would get this red angry looking rash when she would eat certain foods.....  Sometimes it would get puffy and a little swollen and then there were times where she would run to the bathroom to splash cold water on her face, or put icepacks to her face to cool it down.

So much benadryl has been given to her to calm down her reactions.  Then of course, we found all about Essential Oils, so we used a Allergy trio type blend to help as well. 

November 2014, She was in a Play through our Churches homeschool co-op. One of the characters was using Wheat in the play, and it was on the floor.  
Alba was playing on the floor with another little girl and rolled all around in it and within minutes, her entire face and arms had a red angry rash.

Two days before Christmas 2014, she got the Flu.  She is already Allergic to EVERY antibiotic you can take, but since none of THOSE are actually in the tamiflu, we decided to try it.   After only two doses, crippling pain, and a high fever of 105.5 we were in the ER where we realized she was having an adverse reaction to the medicine and told to stop it completely.  
So here we are back at home, with a very sick little girl and im looking up EVERY essential oil remedy I can find to help her feel better.
A friend sends us an oil that I didnt have and we used it, along with a few others and within 24 hours she was basically symptom free, except for a FEVER and no appetite (no appetite for a whole week!! Seriously).

From that moment on, every single thing she ate, caused a reaction in her body. Rashes, puffiness..etc.) 

Finally in January 2015 her doc decided to send us to another allergist/immunologist to see what in the world is causing all of these.. In February we had our appointment.

Turns out, sometimes when you get a viral infection, such as the FLU, your body can go into a hyper sensitive mode and anything that enters is, your body has a reaction too. This is why sometimes allergies are more noticeable during this time.

We find out she is allergic to cats and dogs..But that she also has a very high intolerance to GLUTEN/ Dairy, and MOST Spices.

So..let the adventure of Gluten Free/Dairy free and a lot of Spices free lifestyle being for my crazy, very picky four year old..... When I say Picky.. I mean it....

What we've been up too?

I can not believe it has been more than a year since I have written on this Blog. Life has been somewhat busy to say the least. In January 2014 (one year ago) we made the decision to start homeschooling our children. At the time, our kids were in 3rd and 5th grade, with a three year old. We had home-schooled our oldest before, when he was in Kindergarten. He had been in public school from first grade through fifth grade. I get asked all the time, "WHY" did we decide to home-school our children. I keep thinking to myself, I wonder if I just answered with "I got tired of waking up early"..if people would stop asking.. Its really no ones business why we decided to home school. They may sound like I am being rude, but what if every time you turned around someone was asking you "Why" you decided to go to send your kids to Public school, or Private School, or "Why" you decided to go to Publix instead of Kroger? I mean seriously, we get asked ALL the time. The answer is simple. "We just decided it was best for our family, at this time to home school.". I'm gonna be 100% honest with you.. I HAVE NO MORE PATIENCE than any other parent out there, If you ask me, I have LESS patience that most parents do.. There are days I want to give up. There are days that I want to send my kids BACK to public school. There are days that I don't even know if we are all going to make it through the day with school. There are days that I wonder and question if my kids are learning or if I am letting them down....but then I test them and realize, they KNOW this stuff. But there are also GREAT days.. Days where I can SEE stuff clicking in my kids heads when they finally figure out how to do something they are learning in school. You just can't beat getting to sit and cuddle with your kids, or being told "Mom, your the best mom ever!" because you helped them with something, or for no reason at all. I mean, what parent doesn't want extra cuddles from your kids, or "I love you's?". We have a pretty great life!! My favorite question is "Do your kids actually get to have "real" friends? " Yah, they do. Just the same as YOU, or I, or your kids do.. The only difference is my kids don't pick their friends based on their ages or grades.(not that there is ANYTHING wrong with that). My kids pick their friends based on what they in common or not in common with others. Let me ask you this.. are ALL your friends the same age as you? I know that Mine are not. IN fact, I have maybe ONE friend who is the exact same age as me.. The rest are older and younger.. BY YEARS.... My kids have no problem sitting in a group of kids that range in age from 3 to 18 and carry on a conversation. My 6th grader will talk to ANYONE, and if you like video games, well, He may NOT leave you alone.... EVER. My 4th grade daughter will sit and talk to ANYONE as well. It could be a teacher, parent, high school-er, or preschooler. Our FOUR year old.. well she's four.. but LOVES the fact that at any time during the day, she has her brother and sister around. We also are extremely active in Church.. and our kids go to a co-op, all day once a week with other homeschoolers in our area. They LOVE it. They also ALL dance. Even our son. He's an amazing Hip Hop dancer! Well that explains what we have been up to since LAST January. If you follow my Bridal line or kids line, you'll see I have posted much on that in the past year. But, its because I had taken a break. It was a good break. As much as I LOVED sewing and designing, sometimes it just gets overwhelming and you just need a sabbatical from it. Mine just happened to last about a year. Just over Christmas Break, I decided to start back to sewing. I've had a lot fun and I've missed it a TON. The moment I decided to start back, I was asked to participate in a really amazing collaboration. Its top SECRET for now, but its with an AMAZING makeup Artist who I really admire......Its set to go down in April! Last year, this same amazing Makeup Artist did a photo shoot.. I had taken an old 70s era wedding gown and made it more modern! Here is what I did:
I took THAT dress above, and cut off the big poofy sleeves, it also had a TON of see through lace that went around the top of the dress,well I TOOK ALL that off as well. I took the ZIPPER out of the back and make it a Corset. I pintucked the front of the dress, to make it flow better as well. This was the end results, before it went off to the photo shoot:

After I sent this gown to the amazing Ashley of True Bella Makeup Artisty, she did this:

Isn't it Amazing!!!!! The model in the photo's is her cousin!!! She is a beautiful young lady!!! Ok, Well enough about that for now!!!! I'll try really hard to get back over here and update more of what's going on!


You can click on True Bella Makeup Artisty to see more of the amazing Work from the Tennessee Based Ashley of True Bella!