Day Eight :: How To Make A Button {that links back to your blog}

You thought I forgot about this series!  It has been awhile...I think this pregnancy has made me a little lazy, or tired, or something along those lines {or both}.  Add recovering from a week away, and starting a new business, which doesn't leave as much time for blogging as I would like.  :)

So back to our topic...10 Ways to Beautiful Your Blog.  If you haven't seen the previous steps, you can find them here...

1. Find a layout you love
2. Post LARGE pictures
3. Peek-a-boo NAVBAR
4. Create photo collages
5. Add a FAVICON!
6. Background Patterns
7. Change Your Font
8. Create a Button!

Today I will explain how to make a button that links back to your blog.  A button is simply a picture or icon that you can click and it will direct you to whichever website you choose. Often you see them when people show they were "featured" on another blog.

So you can have one of your own!  And if you want to increase traffic, you can always switch buttons with a friend and "advertise" your blogs for each other.  Or whatever.  I experimented with making a few and you can see them on the bottom right part of my blog.  Not everyone may be interested, but for those who are...

Here are the steps.

1.  Make an image you want to use for your button.  This can be any mix of text, pictures, whatever.  If you need ideas, look around.  I've found the easiest way to do this is with either an advanced photo editor or a paint program.  You can to make sure your image's width is around 200 pixels.  Most people's buttons tend to be square-ish.  Save this as a Jpeg.

2.  This step has been on about every "beautify your blog" post that I have done, so I'm sure you're now familiar...Upload the image on Picasa, Flickr, Photobucket, etc.  Make sure to make note of the image's url (this should end with .jpg).

3.  Ready for this?  Create an html gadget on Blogger.  To do this, simply go to "design" (used to be called layout), then "add a gadget," and choose "html/javascript."  Then you will want to paste this into the html box, replacing YOUR BLOG'S URL with your blog's url {for example, mine is www.BambinaBabe.blogspot.com}, and YOUR IMAGE URL with your image url from where you uploaded your image.

<a border="0" href="YOUR BLOG URL/" target="_blank"><img src="YOUR IMAGE URL" width="200" /></a><br /> <textarea cols="20" rows="10"> <a border="0" href="YOUR BLOG URL" target="_blank"><img src="YOUR IMAGE URL" width="200" /></a><br />;

Also, I've chosen a width of 200. If you would like yours wider or narrower, you can change the number 200 to whatever number you would like.

Good luck! I hope this works for you!  Enjoy and share...and feel free to link back to this blog if you use these steps.  :)

A SUPER Fabulous Dessert {by Kiley}

I have to admit, I didn't even know it was possible to broil a dessert made of ice cream.

But Kiley did it...S'mores Fudge Ice Cream Pie...she's the queen of making desserts, ask anyone who knows her.  We had Ki and Matt (and of course baby Avery) over for dinner this week (one of the PERKS of having your sister live in the same town), and she brought dessert.  Just a heads-up, whenever you have Kiley and Matt over for a meal and they offer to bring something, always have them bring dessert!  :)

So she found the recipe from Epicurious, but made a few of her own special touches.  So here it is.  Start with a graham cracker crust.  Add layers of: chocolate ice cream, fudge, vanilla ice cream, fudge, and chocolate ice cream again on top.  Let freeze.  Then, my favorite part...

Add one jar of marshmallow creme on top of the ice cream.  Top that will mini marshmallows.  

Then, the coolest part of all.  Stick in the broiler for a minute or two (watch carefully because it burns fast)!  and this amazing dessert is what you get!  How cool?

So I'm not the best cake-slicer, but here's what it looks like...delish.  

Thanks Ki!!!

Beaches, Sunscreen, Guacamole, and Pesos...

I've finally gotten a chance to upload our pictures, go through them, edit them, and now post them!  This week has been a little crazy...our flight got in at 12pm on Friday night, we left at 6:45am the next morning for a family reunion in Iowa, and then got back on Sunday night, (not quite) ready to start a whole new week!  I've been up to my ears in laundry and it's been a busy week so far!



Here's to beaches, sunscreen, (virgin) margaritas, Pacifico, guacamole, sunsets, taxis, and pesos...a peek into our week in Mexico.

Here's our resort...it was beautiful and everything we had hoped.  

Another of resort at sunset...so beautiful. Can you tell we didn't leave the resort very often?  We pretty much read by the pool or by the ocean all day, shared some guac' for lunch, then went out to dinner somewhere in town.  I was so tired by the end of the day, I usually fell asleep while Kyle watched basketball.  :)

 We loved the open-air taxis.  Only found in Mazatlan.  

Our hotel lobby. 

 Went to see the cliffdivers one day.  Pretty crazy.

Our room had a great view of the ocean.  We loved watching the sunset.

A pretty ocean picture near old-town Mazatlan.

Lena, this picture is for you since you helped me pick out my little romper.  :) 

 Dinner the first night at the resort.  I god Pad Thai (not your typical Mexican dish) and Kyle got seafood enchiladas.  The lemonade was so yummy...it was actually fresh-squeezed limeaid.  I could take another one of those right about now!  :)

 Coconuts!  I totally wanted one!!!

I do have a few more pictures of some yummy food we had I will post later. A couple other things coming up...Cajun-grilled shrimp with cheesy grits, pictures of my parent's NEW house (white kitchen included), and lots of more of Callie.  Stay tuned!

The Last Seven Days...

Yes, it was wonderful.  It was super relaxing.  It was just what we needed.  We just spent the last 7 days in Mexico, like this...

You might notice we are missing someone.  Yep!  It was just the two of us. No baby (well, one baby but that one's pretty easy to take care of if you know what I mean, minus the morning sickness)!  It's hard to imagine it's actually been since 2007 that we went anywhere just the two of us.    

What did we learn?  We need to do this more often!  It's good to get away...vacation makes you miss your "ordinary" life.  And re-evaluate.  And you realize, there's really no place like home.  But oh.  

We had fun.  We did miss our munchkin quite a bit...but she had so much fun at Grandma + Grandpa Camp that I don't think she even missed us!  More pictures to come.  Happy Wednessday!

♥ Not One But Three ♥

Aren't dads just the best?

Callie and I are so blessed to have not just one but three wonderful dads in our lives.  My husband Kyle is such a wonderful father.  Callie is truly the light of his life; we are so thankful that he loves us both so much!  Happy Father's Day, sweetie!  My dad, aka pops, is such a wonderful dad that I've been so blessed with...he's been not only an amazing father but now grandfather as well.  And Brian, my father-in-law, treats me like a daughter and loves me and Callie.  I couldn't ask for a better father-in-law.  We love all three of you so much!

Happy Father's Day! 

I'm Not Fat, I'm Pregant...

Sometimes I feel like I need that saying taped to my belly!  I'm not really showing yet, but I'm definitely not looking quite the same either.  My waist is just a little bit more straight than before, and my belly has popped a little bit too.  Not really that fun, but it's all for a good cause, right?


My sister promised me if she didn't know me she would have no idea I'm pregnant.  Maybe she's just being nice...or maybe "my" view (from the top down) looks a little bigger than the side-view in the mirror that most people see.

I was talking with Kyle last year after we had watched the movie Castaway.  Tom Hanks gained 50 pounds or something.  I asked him if he would gain then lose 50 pounds for a movie role.  He said maybe not. And then I realized....that's exactly what women do when they have babies!  Except we don't get paid millions of dollars for it.  But that's okay because what we do get is priceless, right?  :)

So far I've gained two pounds.  At this point with Callie, I had actually lost a little weight due to the sickness and food aversions.  But this time, although I'm still sick, I really don't have any food aversions and certain foods really have made me feel better!  So I've been eating!  :)  The one thing I have to keep reminding myself as the number on the scale goes up (not a fun thing, no matter who you are or how much it is) is that all of the baby weight came off, and then some extra too.  So hopefully that will happen the next time too.  I've heard mixed reviews, but breastfeeding really did help the weight come off for me.  Along with diet and exercise, of course. 

Cravings?  Any kind of kid foods.  It's been so weird, but the things that sounds really good are mac and cheese, spaghetti o's, chicken nuggets, sugar cereal, chocolate milk, orange juice, grilled chese...pretty much anything you can find on the kids' menu and I'm happy.  :)  Oh, and lots of pickles and ice cream.  It's true! 

We had our first appointment with our midwife last week.  Everything looks great.  It was so, so exciting to hear the heartbeat for the very first time...150.  Boy or girl?  I'm just dying to know!  Are we going to find out the sex?  YES we hope to!  We found out Callie was a girl around 20 weeks and it was so much fun to buy LOTS of pink! August, August, August!

Do we have a name yet?  No. We have a list of girl and boy names,but have not narrowed it down.  I would say we have about 3-4 boy names we like, but girl names have been much more difficult.  Maybe that's because we used our favorite one already.  :)  And sorry, we're not telling...I think we plan to keep the name a surprise.  I always feel bad telling people that when they ask, so maybe getting it out their on the blog will help!

How have I been feeling?  Ugh.  Super sick.  Thankfully, I am just starting to feel better (with Callie I was sick up until 15-16 weeks).  And I've been soooo tired!  And the house has been a MESS.  I dont' get nearly the same amount of things done around the house as normal.  I'm NOT a nap person usually, but now I try and take a nap most days.  You heard me complain about how early Callie had been waking up, and that only made things more difficult.  But now I'm happy to say...she sleeps until 7 or 7:30 most mornings!  We tried moving to one nap, but that did NOT work.  So all we did was put her to bed one hour earlier, it was as simple as that!  Someone must be hearing my prayers! :)  Now she goes to bed at 7:30pm, and doesn't wake up until 11-12 hours later.  It's been soooo wonderful.  AND she still takes two naps a day (1.5-2 hours and about 45 minutes).   THANK YOU fellow moms for the great advice!  It doesn't seem to make mathematical sense to me that putting her to bed earlier would make her sleep later.  But it worked!

How did I tell Kyle the news?  Well, you can probably guess by the picture below.  Here's how I told him last time!

I wrote "I'm Going To Be A Big Sister" on Callie's onesie (which was underneath her clothes) the day I found out. It's a little messy because I was trying to write it while in the Home Depot parking lot while he was in the store and she wasn't holding still and really wanted to hold the Sharpie!  It was so hard to wait until that night, but when Kyle put her jammies on (he usually does that when he puts her to bed), I heard him tell her, Callie, you have something on your onesie.  Then I waited another minute (anxiously in the hallway) and I heard him say...Nealy???  He was estatic.

Is there anything I left out?  Any more questions???   We're both pretty excited and appreciate your prayers for a healthy baby and pregnancy.  That's all for now!

What's In My Make-up Bag?

I love hearing what's in people's make-up bags.  I think us women are always searching for the new miracle product.  Not that one really exists, but we still try to find it!  And maybe there are somethings that come close.  So I thought I would start the weekend out right with a little make-up talk!  Here's what's currently in my make-up bag, and products that I would recommend.

I've shared before about my love for bareMinerals.  However, that just may be changing...because I just bought a new foundation yesterday (hence the idea of this post) and so far I really like it!  Revlon Photo Ready Foundation.  Not that I'm in photos much these days (I'm more behind the camera now), but it's supposed to make your skin look radiant in any light...I was imagining J Lo or Jessica Simpson-style sheen (although I think they use airbrushed make-up).  But I'm liking the look and I think I just may be making a more permanent switch.  It's a light yet nice even coverage and a dewy look but not shiny. The color I got is called Shell and it matches my skin pretty well. And it's oil-free, which is a non-negotiable.

I've been using NARS blush and brozer for some time now.  I got my sister hooked as well.  The blush is just the perfect shade of shimmery peach-pink.  I can't tell you them name of the color because it would make me blush (maybe that's the point?) but I use the blush bronzer duo, from Sephora.  :)

L'Oreal Double Extend Beauty Tubes Mascara.  I have said it once, and I will say it again.  I LOVE this stuff.  It literally makes my lashes look super long...and I'm not one of those people with super long lashes naturally (someday I want to try this).  It doesn't smudge at all, and when you wash it off, it comes off in clumps not in streaks.  Kind of weird to get used to, but it's almost like wearing fake lashes.  And now my mom is also hooked!

I recently made the switch from pencil to liquid liner. Why, you ask?  I was tired of eyeliner smudges on my eyelids. I like this because it's smudge-proof. 

Okay, so I am using one item from Bare Minerals.  It's their eyeshadow.  I like the shimmery and the color choices (something I am very picky about).  I currently use a combination of queen linda, buff (from Sephora), and downtown. 

I'm not a lipstick girl, but I do like a natural-looking pinkish lipgloss (although my husband hates it so I don't wear it all the time).

Have you ever tried lip plumping gloss?  Funny story about this.  A few years ago, we were meeting my parents at the airport on our way to Mexico.   Since liquids were restricted, I quickly put on some of this lipgloss before I left the house.  When I met my family at the airport, one of the first things my mom asked was if I got my lips done!  Ha, ha...  So this stuff must work, because I'm a pretty unlikely candidate to actually get my lips pumped with collagen.  :)  They say it has ginger, cinnamon, and peppermint.   Sally Hansen's Lip Inflation and Lip Venom are my favorites.

Last but not least, I use clear mascara.  On my eyebrows!  Does anyone else do this?  I guess it's probably the same as brow gel, but this lasts longer.  Just keeps those 'brows in place. 

Hope you enjoyed seeing into my make-up bag!  I didn't take real pictures because it's pretty messy.  :)  And I would like to end this post with one thing that I like to remind myself when thinking about beauty..."charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised."  Pr 31:30