Happy One Year to DHTBB!

So crazy how time flies right? It has officially been one year since I wrote my first post back on October 29, 2012. If you are a newer reader you probably haven't read it, but it was about our Susan G. Komen walk. Super inspiring if you want to go back and read it! If you have been with DHTBB since day one, thank you. I truly appreciate your support. 

Thinking back on my life a year ago, not a lot has changed, but change has definitely happened. Friendships I never pictured gone have diminished, while friendships I never pictured having are here. Jobs change. Family remains. Life moves on. Have you ever taken time to just reflect on how much can change in a year? And not on New Years or a birthday (because that's typically when everyone reflects including myself). Looking forward in a year I'll be graduated, hopefully working as a full time nurse, my brother will be in college, Madi will have applied to PT school. Just way too crazy. I can't wait to see what God has in store for me! So how crazy has this year been for you? Have you thought about next year? Think about it and set goals to make it happen! You can do anything you set your mind to!

On another note its been so cool to have this blog to look back. I love hearing people tell me that they read my blog and which posts they like! Thanks to everyone who read religiously and to those who just pop in to read every once in a while! I can't wait to continue this journey with you all!

Thanks for reading :),

-Olivia

Faith, Trust, and Pixie Dust: MNSSHP 2013

Hey readers!


My life has been super crazy lately! I am blessed to have so many awesome experiences and opportunities! This weekend I went to Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party with Madi. I had put a lot of time and effort into our costumes so I wanted everything to go smoothly. But until about thirty minutes before we left, I forgot that I had no idea how I was going to do my hair. I had planned to take time looking up videos and different ways to do a neat big bun but I didn't, and my go-to messy bun was not the look I wanted. I decided to quickly do some research and found some great YouTube
videos on how to do a sock bun, which I didn't know until watching some that you actually use a sock. Weird. Anyways that's what I did, so when I do it again for our halloween party I'll do a step by step demonstration of how to do one if you like my hairstyle that I had in my pictures! I also did some transformation shots while getting ready of my make up as you can see. I just thought it looked cool hah.

So anyways back to the trip. As soon as we arrived we saw about ten people actually in costumes out of about fifty, and eight of those ten were children. Didn't people get the memo you DRESS UP for this?! Not wear a Halloween t-shirt. Pet peeve. Anyways almost immediately we got comments on our costumes from laughter to "great costumes guys". The funny part about the way Disney does the party is that we get to get into the part at four when the event didn't start til seven, so when we arrived people who didn't know there was a Halloween party that night were SUPER confused, looking at us like we were grown ups who just dress up to go to Disney for fun. Which I totally would do, but Madi never would. It wasn't even ten minutes into the night when we had little kids saying "look there's Tinkerbell and Peter Pan mom!" So cool. Even cooler? A four year old little girl asking her mom to take a picture with me (well she thought I was actually Tinkerbell) while we were waiting in line for Buzz Lightyear. Of course I said yes :). She was adorable!

While on Splash Mountain a little boy around the age of five saw Madi and freaked out that he was standing in line by the real Peter Pan. Madi turned around and fist pounded him and that made the kid go crazy saying "MOM! I CAN TELL EVERYONE AT SCHOOL I MET THE REAL PETER PAN!"
The mom sort of laughed and said that yeah they are at Disney so that is true. Then Madi did the most adorable thing ever. He turned around and handed the little boy his whole bag of candy he had been collecting all night. The kid melted my heart saying "Thanks Peter Pan, Mom I told you Peter Pan was nice!" So. Dang. Cute. Moments like this show how much Madi has matured over the years (I mean yeah we are still standing there at Disney in Halloween costumes at the age of 20 but still), and how he is going to be a great dad one day.
I wish I could have captured that one on camera.

Anyways the Boo to You Halloween Parade and the Happy Hallowishes fireworks were awesome. Fireworks are one of my favorite things, so beautiful. We also definitely got some good ideas for next year while at the park! I love Halloween. Not the creepy stuff or demonic whatever, but being a kid again, carving pumpkins, watching the leaves change when we went up North, candy corn, fun movies, the whole thing is just so much fun. Luckily, I get to celebrate two more times! Once on actual Halloween at work, which I will be wearing a different costume, and at our party! I can't wait to see everyone else's costumes!

Thanks for reading,

Olivia :)

You Wanna Big Kitty? You Better Work, Work: Chattanooga, TN and Pet Peeves 3

Hello everyone!

You're probably wondering about the title of this blog, and if you weren't now you probably looked at it and are wondering. Well here we go! This weekend I spent my time with my favorite little sister and future mother-in-law in one of my favorite places: Chattanooga, TN. This trip was a little different than our other trips, and by a little I mean a lot! We did some of our typical things like go shopping at my favorite place McKay's and eat Lupi's pizza, but we also did A LOT of new things. The first day we left super early and arrived in TN around 3pm. Pretty soon after we headed out to Lookout Mountain and went to Rock City and did some exploring on the trails up there including Lover's Leap and the swinging bridge: freaky! At the top of Lover's Leap you can see seven different states which was so cool! It was a place I had never gone to before, so it was a nice change. While taking our typical five million pictures, Sondra and I were approached by and Asian man who said "you are so beautiful girls, how you say beautiful? yes beautiful can I have a picture with you?" and called over who I thought was his wife to take a picture with him. Unfortunately, we were too stunned to whip out our cameras and film this occurrence, but we did find the guy later and asked for a picture with him again for our blog site and vlog series. He said yes of course! Sexy American Girlfriend! Anyone? Anyone? Long duck dong, Sixteen Candles? Anyways whether or not you get the reference it was a hilarious experience.

That night we headed to Ruby Falls to partake in the Haunted Cavern which they have every year. I am not big on scary Halloween things, hence why we go to Disney and not Howl-O-Scream or Halloween Horror Nights, but I was up for trying new things. Little did I know that this little cute haunted cavern was actually ranked top ten scariest in the nation. Awesome. You literally travel down into the cavern as if you would on a normal day visiting the cave and there is no other way out except to go through the haunted cavern. Trust me I checked. After making it through round one, we got taken by a van to another section outside that you had to walk through creepy houses, mirrored halls, and a disheveled school bus. Let's say I was happy I faced my fear, but I will not be visiting those caves again, even outside of Halloween time.

The next day we woke up and headed back to the mountain, this time to go to the park at the top and walk around the trails. When we arrived, there was a nice sign saying due to the government shut down the park is not in operation blah blah blah. Dumb. Not to mention we saw a lot of people climbing over the stone wall to get in anyways (check out our video) So since we had already paid the metered parking, we decided to walk around and look at the houses on the mountain: can I say GORGEOUS?! It was so beautiful up there, and turned out to be a great morning! Next we headed to the farm at the bottom of the mountain and did the corn maize: clever pun. It was so much fun and a new experience. They also had a petting zoo for kids, but we had fun with that too! After being in the hot sun all afternoon we were tuckered out for the day and decided to go ahead and go back to the hotel and do McKay's that night. Overall the trip was so much fun as usual! Of course we caught our memories on tape and made a new Pet Peeves video! This will reveal the blog title! Please take a minute and watch it, let us know what you think as you all always do! And subscribe to us :)

Here's the link: http://youtu.be/FfHe2elUjno

Thanks for reading :),
Olivia

DIY: Halloween Costume Accesories

Hello everyone!

I am super excited to reveal my Halloween costume to you all next week after we go to Disney World :). This year Madi and I decided to be Peter Pan and Tinkerbell, and the costumes turned out so great! I bought my dress and wings, but I couldn't find a wand and shoes cheap enough to make me buy them. The cheapest shoes I found for adults were at least $25 (which is more than I paid for my dress and wings together). I found $7 children's patent leather flats on clearance that fit me at Target. I bought glitter, modge podge, a foam brush, and cotton poms on sale, both 40% off, for a total of $7. So total the project costed less than $15. That's a win in my opinion! Plus I only used like 1/6 of the glitter and 1/4 of the modge podge so I can totally use them again!

I started off cutting the bows that came on the shoes off. I kept the bows since they were in tact and who knows what I could use them for :). Next I combined the modge podge with a heaping amount of glitter and using that as my first layer. I tried not to make it too thick and got most of the area. Since my shoes were pink, I didn't want any of the pink showing through!

After that I let them dry, but there were still spots showing through. Many of the blogs I read stopped there, just adding a coat of the same glitter/modge podge combination to cover the spots, but I wanted these shoes to be SUPER sparkly, so I added a complete coat of just modge podge and dumped glitter on the shoes then shook off the excess glitter. Surprisingly, it worked super well! Even if some of the top glitter gets knocked off, the bottom and first layer will still be in tact, and I can always add another layer before my party if necessary. I also need to add the pom to the top of them still! But I couldn't resist posting :).

I had one last problem, I couldn't find a wand in a store that I liked enough, and I didn't want to pay for shipping or spend $25 online to get free shipping to order something off Amazon like I usually do. So this time I went over to the dollar store. All of their wands were more "fairy godmother" or "princessy" and I really wanted it to go with my costume. I found this baton toy for kids in the toy aisle, and realized I could take off the tinsel and cut it shorter with a knife or scissors to make it a better size and look more like a wand Tinkerbell would use. I think it will work well!


So I look forward to letting you see the whole outfit! Total I spend $30 for me and $20 for Madi! Not bad! Has anyone else ever made shoes like this? They really could be any color for any costume, and would make great ruby slippers if you used red glitter for Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz! Anyways, hope you have all have a great week!

Thanks for reading :),
- Olivia