Cleaning Makeup Brushes

I haven't ever cleaned a makeup brush since I started using makeup but with using and buying so much good makeup I decided it was time to clean them. Especially my one lonely MAC brush lol. 

I was so close to buying the MAC cleaner until I did some digging and found out that I could use baby shampoo. Of course I have some of it laying around from when Adylee was little so I decided to go ahead and try it out! IT WORKS! 

Just use the simple baby shampoo and you've got yourself a brand new (cheap) make up brush cleaner. 

The first thing you're gonna do is put a small amount of shampoo in the palm of your hand. You may have to use more spending on how dirty your brush is and what you use it for. The brush I used to do this demonstration was my foundation brush so of course, it was majorly dirty and had a lot of product build up on it and needed more shampoo to properly clean all of it off. 

You're then going to wet the brush and then swirl it into the shampoo. Make sure to get it nice and soapy. You will see it start to work immediately and again, depending how much product is on it the color of the soap will change to whatever color is built up on the brush. 

Run it underneath the water and watch the magic haha. It will start to look clean right away. Once it's all clean, squeeze very lightly the excess water off and lay it down on the towel. Make sure to leave enough room in between brushes to allow the water to dry up. 

As you can see, the edge of my brush is no longer brown but now back to the original color of white. 

And I used it on my MAC brush too and got off all my concealer. 

Naked 2 Palette: real vs fake

I was lucky enough to finally get the real Naked 2 palette and oh my...I am in love. I had gotten the palette first off tmart.com because it was 1. cheap and 2. I thought it was real. Yes I know, I should've known better but I am still new to this whole super good make up thing. Anyways, I thought I would share with you the difference between the real and the fake. Now having the real one, it's literally astounding how different they are. 

First off the packaging is a pretty significant difference. 

Real is on top and the fake is on bottom. The differences are pretty obvious. Color, design, font, even size. Just the over all look. 

Real on top and fake on bottom. Again, the differences are pretty obvious. The don't is even upside down. 

Real on bottom and fake on top. Obvious differences. More writing on the real than on the fake. 

Real on top and fake on bottom. You can tell from the pictures that the colors of the eye shadows are completely different. Plus the over all look is different. The eye shadows are circles on the fake rather than little squares like on the real. 

Real on top and fake on bottom. They look fairly similar if you take a quick glance. But they are very different in size and color. The real is more gold while the fake is brownish.

Fake on top and real on bottom. The most significant difference in the actual palette shell is that the writing is upside down. Now to move on to the swatches....

Real swatch colors are on top and the fake is on bottom. At first glance, many look similar. But if you really look you can tell the major differences. 

Foxy, Half Baked, Bootycall and Chopper. Foxy is very similar but the fake one is kind of chalky looking. The obvious difference is color is Half Baked. The fake is more orange while the real one is gold. You can see a slight difference in Bootycall as well as Chopper. To me, the real Chopper is more bronze while the fake one is a deeper bronze with a hint of orange. 

Chopper again, Tease, Snakebite, Suspect, Pistol. You can clearly see the difference in them. Tease is more brown in the real one where as the fake is like a purple. Snakebite is more brown with hints of hold and the fake is just brown. Suspect is the same with a little less brown and it seems like the fake one is the exact same color as the fake Snakebite. Pistol is more a of dark silver in the real palette and the fake one is again just brown. 

Verve, YDK, Busted and Blackout. Verve is the obvious difference with it being silver in the real palette and more brownish in the fake. Obviously the people who make the fake palette seem to like brown. YDK is another brownish goldish color (yes I realize that I've said that already but I have no idea how to describe it other than that) and the fake is again....brown but this time it has flecks of gold. Busted is similar but when you put it on you can tell the absolute difference in color. Blackout seems to be the same but again is very different when you put it on. 

So there's the swatches. Sorry if they sound the same in some colors but like I said, I have no other way to describe it. I'm not super make up savvy yes lol. 

I decided to include a pic of the inside because I wanted to show you how different they are in color as well as how similar which is why it fools people. The top is the real palette and the bottom is fake. They are very VERY different when you touch the actual color. The fake is more chalky like feeling while the real on is more silky smooth. They go on very differently as well. It's hard to blend the fake super well (at least in my opinion) than the real one. 

Another major different in the brush that they include. The real one is gold while the fake is rose colored. They feel very different also. Not sure how to explain that because again I am not super make up savvy but compared to my MAC brush the fake is just heavy I guess. There are obvious color differences in the brush colors. The real is more caramel color while the fake is straight black and white. Oh and the real brush has a number on the back where the fake one seems to miss that. 

Another thing that didn't come with the fake Naked 2 palette was the sample of the primer potion. I'm not going to include it because it's just a little booklet with a few samples of their primer potion in it. 

As you can see, there are obvious major differences in the fake palette and if you don't own the real one then you probably wouldn't ever know. I suggest that if you want the Naked 2 palette just buy the real one. Now I completely understand that it may not be realistic for you because the price is $52 at Ulta but if you want good quality colors then I would say save your money and buy it or ask for it for a holiday. I was lucky to get it for a late Valentine's Day gift. It's worth the money! 

One Tough Momma.... (Guest post by Stephanie Kyger)

I was 18 years old, barely out of high school, and here I was holding a positive pregnancy test. I was heart broken, scared, anxious, maybe even a little bit happy. My body was now harboring a little human life. I was four weeks pregnant. The thought of it scared the crap out of me. I was hysterically crying and I knew I had to tell my boyfriend, Michael. We had been together for maybe four months and now we were gonna be parents? It was crazy to me.  

My family didn't react great to my pregnant, my mother tried to demand to me get an abortion, adoption or marry Michael. I wasn't going to do either. I knew I wasn't going to spend the right of my life with him. We taught way to much and I suspected he was cheating on me. My mother eventually tried starving me so I would miscarry. A week later my mother moved to Tennessee and I behind.

Michael and I tried to work things out, and eventually I thought we were, but then he broke up with me over the phone on 4/20 when I was 11 weeks pregnant or so. I was deviated. I went into a deep depression because I couldn't handle the thought of being a single mother. A week later Michael always had a new girlfriend. A younger one at that. Which confirmed my suspicions that he was cheating. From that point forward, to this day, all Michael and I did was fight. He started denying our baby, lying even more, lying about his training and deployment dates, lying about me. He had basically become a pathological liar. I hated whom he had become. 

When I was six months pregnant his girlfriend called me and demanded a DNA test, calling me a slut and what not. It devastated me so much that it made me physically ill. My friends mother ended up threatening her if she ever called me again. A week after that it was my gender scan, it was a girl! I was so excited to be having a baby girl. I already had a named picked out for her. her name was Brooklynn Helena (hel-lae-na). After the gender scan was over, we went back into a room to wait for the doctor to look over the ultrasound, to make sure everything was alright. When the doctor came back in, he checked the babies heartbeat and said it was perfect, but he was slightly concerned and wanted me to come back in. My doctor told me the most heartbreaking news I could ever hear. He told me that Brooklynn had a cyst in her brain that was about a millimeter long (I think, I don't completely recall). After that appointment was over, I broke down into tears in the parking lot and just cried. It was all I could do. After that was when I would start having frequent ultrasound scans every 2-3 weeks; just to check the growth of the cyst and to make sure it was benign. But still, the thought of a cyst growing in my daughters brain was the scariest thing that I had ever heard. And the fact that Michael didn't even care... Well I already had a knife in my heart from the cyst news, but Michael not caring was twisting that knife deeper in. I prayed every day for this to go away, I cried all the time. I honestly think I grew some what depressed in a way. I was so worried for the health of my child that I even grew restless. At this point, I just didn't what to do with myself anymore. I put on a smile for everyone around me, but behind that smile was a world of hurt. I was hurting more then anyone ever realized. Outside, I appeared to be strong. Because I had to be, but on the inside I was weak and no where ready for any of this. I thought it couldn't get any worse. My morning sickness was horrible, my emotions were getting the best of me, I ended up developing torturous hemorrhoids. I'm sure some of you ladies can sympathize. Could it get any worse? Think again. 

The following week passed, and my family begged me to come back with them to Tennessee. I figured it was for the best, with the conditions with my pregnancy, my strained relationships, the heartbreak Michael caused me on a daily basis, my lack of hours at my Job. I knew that this was the right decision, but it was also the hardest. Leaving behind my friends, my sisters and nephews was the hardest thing I ever had to do. But I was some what relieved, I was leaving behind all the negativity, the bullies, and Michael. That was the greatest joy of all. Texas held a lot of good and bad memories. My friends were there, my nephews were born there, my sisters lived there. But also my my enemies were there, and then there was Michael. The one whom I tried to avoid at all costs when entering Flower Mound. Because I knew I wouldn't be able to handle it. This pregnancy had cost me the majority of my friends and my relationship. But I was more grateful then ever. It showed whom my true friends are. And it also showed me that God has the right man out there for me. God gives his toughest battles to his strongest soldiers. So why did he make my pregnancy so tough? That is an answer only God can answer.

At 27 weeks pregnant, I went into preterm labor. I had cervical shortening and was dilated 1 cm. It was a scary thought to think that my baby could possibly be born so early. I was immediately admitted to the hospital's maternity ward and put on magnesium sulfate almost immediately. I was put on hospital bed rest for maybe eleven days, but then afterwards I was put on strict bed rest all the way up until 35 weeks pregnant.

When I was 34 weeks pregnant, I went to the doctors office to get Brooklynn's cyst checked. The good news is that the cyst was gone! But then there was bad news. The cyst was gone but now a gap in between her skull and her brain had developed. The doctor said she could have a possibility of having autism and would have to be monitored until the ages 2-3 years old to see if they could make any sort of diagnosis or not. I was devastated. As soon as things get good my world just comes crumbling down. But I had a feeling that god would make everything okay in the end. I had to keep my faith in check.

As time went by I ended up being induced on October 30, 2012. I was two weeks away from my due date and one week away from my induction date. I was induced due to preelampsia and my daughter was born on Halloween morning at 8:41 AM. She was 5 lbs 15 oz and 18 3/4 inches long. She was beautiful, the most beautiful baby I had ever laid eyes on. She was perfect in every single way and she was all mine. I was blessed. I had to have an emergency c-section after 12 plus hours of laboring. My blood pressure was sky rocketing and the doctor on call didn't feel it was safe for me to continue with labor due to possibility of a stroke or worse. The c-section was the worst experience I ever had. I plan for a VBAC with my next child.

Michael isn't involved nor has he ever met our daughter. To this day I still have a blood pressure problem and am on medication for it. I wish I would of waited to have my baby but she is the best decision I have ever made. I love her with all my heart.

to keep up with us and for more of our story go read our blog at: 

bordercrossedmums.blogspot.com

Side note from Kimmy: check her out on insta too! Vivalabrooklyn. She's an awesome mom and person ;) 

Don't Put Dirt on My Grave Just Yet....

"This time it's goodbye trouble
I feel the light at the end of this tunnel
I get stronger with every step
Come Hell - come high water
You push on me I'm going to push back harder
I got a whole lot more than a little bit left
Oh, so don't put dirt on my grave just yet
Oh, don't put dirt on my grave just yet"

I was watching a recent episode of Nashvilee when this song came on. For the first time, I truly listened to the lyrics and I fell in love. I felt like it was speaking not only to me but about my life. Especially when it says about becoming stronger with every step and also "push on me I'm gonna push back harder." 

Before my relationship with Bill, I was emotionally and physically abused my ex. It was the typical story of me thinking I could change him. We had been together since high school and the first time he laid a hand on me I was a senior in high school and he slapped me across the face, a year later we broke up. We got back together two months after that and then that's when the true physical abuse began. We moved into together and just about every other day he was beating on me. For not doing the dishes, not cleaning the house right, if the dog went potty in its pen while we were out it became my fault. Everything was my fault. I, of course, thought I could change him and if I did one thing right then it would all be okay. Obviously now I know better. 

It took me finally deciding that I needed to move back to Florida to be with my parents for us to break up. Shortly after that I met Bill and well, the rest is history (and also in my other post). 

It's taken me a long time to really come to terms with everything I went through and to also be okay with my past. It's made me the person I am, the mom I want to be, and also the person I want my daughter to grow into being. I don't want her to ever have to endure the things I did with both my ex and her father. I, as any other mom does, want better for my child. 

With every single step that I take and every single curve ball life throws me, I become a stronger person. I absolutely love the song "A Little Bit Stronger" because it got me through my break up with ex. I was able to put that one song on and drift away to a place where I was over him and could move on with my life. Now, I have this song "Don't Put Dirt On My Grave Just Yet" to also help me along with my journey of recovering from having a domestic violence relationship. Every day I live with the pain of the past but every day I get stronger and learn to live with my past. 

Best Sippy Cups According to Adylee

It's been a while since I wrote a review on something so I thought I would write one on Adylee's favorite sippy cups. We have a few she likes and uses daily and some that she only uses if the other ones are dirty. We have a wide variety of sippy cips and this mommy is constantly buying her new ones because they just come out with THE cutest designs :)

So the first we have is the playtex brand. Adylee likes both the hard spout cup as well as the straw. She is learning more towards the straw lately because she is miss independent but will almost always drink out of her pretty princess cup. I tend to like the straw more because I have read that is supposed to help with speech development and things of that nature so I am all for stuff like that. 

Secondly, she is beginning to like The First Years straw cups. I bought her this one on a whim because they didn't have the Nuk straw one that she likes (and recently broke). I let her pick it out and she of course chose the Princess one. I personally don't care for this brand because there is no stopper and the little hole that is supposed to be a "stopper" has somehow opened and leaks every time she sets it down. She tends to set them upside down or throws them a lot so then when she does I end up with juice and milk everywhere. 

We use two cups solely for milk because I am trying, and failing miserably, to get her off the bottle. So we use the Nuby and Nuk cups for that. The Nuby one was our first milk sippy and it's the one she uses the most for school. Adylee only really likes it at school and hardly uses it at home unless we absolutely have to. Her Nuk cup however, stays home and she loves to use that in the morning when she wakes up. 

There you have it, miss Adylee's favorite sippy cups. Like I said, we have tons ranging from playtex, nuk, first years, tommee tippee and even the little munchkin straw kind you get for $2 at Target. There are very good but my personal favorite brand for Adylee because she likes to turn her cups upside down and do all kinds of funky things with them is the playtex. I have never once had any major leaks with them. Yes, they have leaked at one point whenever Adylee shakes it like a mad woman but if it's just laying there it's never made a puddle on the floor. So those are my go to cups. 

Our Story

By now, most of my followers know the story about Adylee's father and why he hasn't been a present part of her life until recently. But I still wanted to kind of write it out once and for all and also for my own sanity right now. Things aren't always sunshine and roses still with us and it's moments like this when I just need to remind myself how far we have come as people, as parents and as a couple. Now, I am not bashing him in any way but there are things he has done that I hold a lot of resentment towards him for. This is simply...our story. 

Bill and I met through mutual friends and really had no interest of kings ever becoming as serious as they did. It kind of just happened. There is a 12 year age difference between us and really we were just doing the whole dating thing to see where it went. But, things kind of escalated and after only being together for a month found out that we were pregnant. I was immediately excited to become a mom but Bill wasn't so ready. 

Bill had more issues than I could've even imagined him having and didn't even know about him having before we got pregnant. Mainly drug related issues. He was heavily addicted to prescription pills and also would dabble in cocaine every once in a while. I didn't know how badly it was until I was pregnant. 

He hardly was there for me the entire time I was pregnant and sick in the hospital. Mentally he was just checked out of life and could really only care about where his next fix was coming from. When we found out we were having a girl he literally moped around for the entire day. When I was 6 months pregnant he moved 2 hours away for work and didn't come home till I was 8 months pregnant. He pretty much knew nothing about what was going on with his child. 

I went into labor two days before my due date and it took him an hour or more to get to the hospital (which was only 25 mins away). The entire time he slept. When it was time to push he didn't hold my hand or even help coach me. He just say there. He was coming off of a high and wasn't really all there. Adylee was born and he didn't show one ounce of emotion. He went over to where they were doing all her testing and held her hand. Then an hour after she was born, Bill left the hospital. He returned about 8 hours later and stayed for 3 hours or so and went back to our house to go to work the next day. His sister ended up bringing us home. 

When we got home he just didn't have the desire to really take care of Adylee. He wanted to hug, play and love on her sure. But take care of her? Nope. I did it all. He would bitch and moan about how he had to get up for work early and blah blah. Eventually I have up asking Bill for his help. You would think that at 30 something years old he would be ready for this. But no. His drugs were much more important to him. There were times when I would tell him days in advance that Adylee would need diapers but he just didn't care. The $30 it took to buy a pack of diapers was needed much more to buy 2 pills. I was always depressed and lonely and a lot of people around me could tell. 

When Adylee was 5 months old, Bill and I got into a very huge argument and he broke up with me and told me to get out. So I did. That was the last time we lived together. He saw Adylee regularly but it was always for short periods of time. I think, eventually Bill realized that it was time to get his act together and get clean for his daughter. So when Adylee was 8 months old, he left to move to Texas. He got clean and after several months of constant arguing and breaking up I decided it was just best to leave him alone. It was also around that time that Adylee turned 1 and he did not make it home for her birthday. Needless to say, I was disappointed. 

Right before Christmas, Bill had decided to call me and told me how badly he realized he had screwed up for a year of our daughters life. She hardly knew him. Adylee actually called my dad "daddy" not knowing any better. Bill visited us for Christmas and for the first time ever we felt like a family. A real family. Him and I are beginning to work on things as a couple and he has been clean and sober for almost a year. I'm very proud of him. Now Adylee knows who her father is and can point him out in a picture. 

Needless to say, we are still growing as a family and the healing process will take some time. It hasn't been a easy road but were willing to try. I'm proud of him for that. I'm hoping that things truly do stay on the right path but you never know. Things could go either way. But I refuse to let them get as bad as they did because Adylee is older know and will know and feel it so much more. She deserves more and so do I. But for now, we are working on becoming a family and eventually will be together again. God only knows what the future holds and I leave it up to Him. 

CJ's BUTTer Review

Since becoming addicted to cloth diapering I have been buying everything that is cloth diapering safe. I was searching for a cloth diaper safe diaper rash cream when CJ's BUTTer was recommended to me. So I checked it out and found out it has a few more uses than just diaper rash. 

I immediately went searching for somewhere to order it and came across a website that offered the small stick for $6.99 so I decided to get it. Then came the agonizing part of trying to pick a scent. Which is pretty hard to do if you can't smell it. But after reading some of the different scent descriptions I decided on My Pixie Pie. It just screamed Adylee to me. I ordered it and the waiting game began.

About 5 days later it showed up in the mail and I was extremely excited and anxious to give it a try. As soon as it was time to change Adylees cloth diaper I put it on. The smell was amazing!!!! It was very vanilla but you could smell the coconut in it. I rubbed some on my finger and applied it and then rubbed the stick on one of Adylee's eczema patches that we have had a hard time getting rid of. Check Adylee about 2-3 hours later and her rash was gone and I could feel how smooth her leg patch was becoming. 

Needless to say, CJ's BUTTer has gained a new customer! Not only for when Adylee has a red butt in either cloth or disposable but also for her eczema. I've had the worst time trying to get rid of it and nothing has worked but I can most definitely notice a difference on Adylee's. Anyone know if they have a lotion because that would be so much better for her eczema or else I will be rubbing the stick all over! Lol! 

Anyways, here's the scent description for My Pixie Pie along with the description on the stick for what it can be used for! 

My Pixie Pie: Named after CJs pet name for her little girl. A beautiful mixture of cherries, toasted almonds and finished with a touch of vanilla and coconut, this sweet fragrance is aptly named. BOTTOM LINE: A princess in pink, with some fairy wings and a tutu, poised and ready to tackle big brother when the mood strikes.

I HIGHLY recommend checking out their products if you cloth diaper and are in the market for a diaper cream or even if you don't cloth diaper! They are awesome! I can't wait to try out more scents. I have heard the blueberry one and monkey farts are great ones to try so they are next on our list.