In no particular order:

These CAbi Johnny Crop jeans ($98) are new to the Spring 2012 line at CAbi and I’ve been back on their page looking at these several times these week. I want.

This adorable blue dress from the Jason Wu for Target line which will be debuting in-store and online on February 5th.   The new Jason Wu line promises to be as popular as the Missoni for Target line was when that first launched (products sold out in hours!) so get there early!

Doesn’t this Favourite Jersey Dress from Boden ($139) just scream out sunny weather & a happy spring day?  Love it.

And this Edie attache bag from J Crew ($288) in flame color is just dreamy

Coming back to reality (and the fact that we still have a few good weeks of winter – 6 if Puxatony Phil has anything to do with it!), Ill at least feature one practical dress that can be worn winter or summer – this dress from Banana Republic.  Some things just look better in person. Had I seen this Annie faux-wrap dress from Banana Republic ($98) online first, I probably would have thought it was okay but passed it by. But recently I was in-store at Banana Republic and this dress was hanging up over in the side of the store and it was calling to me.

So what’s your diet downfall? Or, if you are going to splurge, in your opinion, what food or drink makes the splurge worth it?

Here’s my short list:
Cheese
Avocados/guacamole
Wine
Nutella
Chocolate
Warm, fresh bread

Did I mention cheese?

So on a recent trip to Rite Aid, a big display of various Sally Hansen Salon Effect prints caught my eye. I decided to pick up a kit and test it out. I selected Sally Hansen’s Salon Effects in Sweet Tart-an for $9.99 (Target apparently has them cheaper and for sale for $8.54)

Here’s what the box looks like:

Here’s what comes inside of the box.  16 strips, a cuticle stick and a mini nailfile:

Here are the nail strips:

The strips are obviously really long, I had to file this down:

Here was the end result.  I’m a little bit skeptical it’ll last 10 days as you can already see that it’s a little bit tired around the edges of my nails.  But to be truthful, that could have been me – I had noisy kids and I was trying to do it in a hurry.  (Which, by the way, the entire process took longer than I thought.  It was about 20 minutes for me to get all of these strips onto my nails.)

(

Overall, for $10 I’d do it again if I have a fun event and wanted to try one of the blingy-looking strips for a little pizzazz.  (See the entire line of Salon Effects Nail Polish Strips on the Sally Hansen website)

Find them at Target, Rite Aid, Amazon or any local store that carries nail polish.  And if you get them, let me know what you think!

But I wasn’t prepared – it wasn’t as warm as I thought and I have a little annoying thing called Raynaud’s Disease, which causes me to lose the blood circulation in my fingers and toes when it’s cold or damp out.  You can see that my fingers are swollen and the tips of several fingers had gone totally white with no blood circulation at all:

Most of the time it’s more annoying than anything but today it HURT.  If I’m out too long, the numbness gets kind of painful and I was kicking myself as I ran that I hadn’t thought to bring gloves.

Supposedly 1 in 4 women are affected by Raynaud’s – so what about you?  Do you have it?  Any tips for things that help?

My acupuncturist recently told me that adding Cayenne Pepper to one’s diet helps with blood circulation so I’m going to try that soon.

Kids get a unstuffed animal and using the Wuggle Pet Kit they can stuff their pets at home with stuffing, magic dust and adorable key words to give your animal “traits” that they’d like them to have.

Check out my boys here with the Starter Kit ($19.99+ S&H).

Here’s are the key ingredients that come in the box including two pets, stuffing and the Fun Factory:

Here Cole added the Magic Dust and stuffing to go into his Wuggle Pet:

Connecting the Wuggle Pet to the Fun Factory:

Cole was so excited to twist and add the stuffing and Magic Dust:

Cole selected “cool” and “brave” as personality traits for his new Wuggle Pet:

Overall, it was a fun and engaging experience for my kids.  They have named their Wuggle Pets and have been carrying them around!  Love the idea of a Wuggle Pet kit for Easter.

The movie is based on a true story from the late 80s – a family of three whales trapped by ice in Alaska and the media blitz and huge rescue that ensues to save the family from death.  Sounds interesting but not like it would be floor-stopping, right?  It was incredible.  Drew Barrymore and Jon Krasinski star.

You can check out more about Big Miracle on the official website but seriously, if you have kids of an appropriate age, it’s a must see.  It comes out February 3rd.

(Regarding age – personally I’d say at least 5+ should be the age for this movie and that’s even if you have a 5 year old who finds nature interesting. It’s rated PG and there is some mild swearing.)

Kids learn about state capitols, state geography and so much more.  (Which state houses which National Park and so forth.)

Nate (8) played this pretty much all day yesterday as he was in bed with a bad cold.  You play to “earn” states and he’s earned 45 of his 50 states and I can’t tell you guys how much he’s learned in just one day.  He can identify almost all of the states by shape alone, knows many of the capitals now and knows which states border one another.

Oh and you have to “stack” your states which can get pretty precarious!  If your stack topples over you are starting over, so it’s not only educational but fun. (Because that’s the best type, right?  The ones where my kids learn and they don’t even realize they are doing it…)

You can get a Lite (Free) version too but we only tried the paid version – get Stack the States for $.99 for the iPhone and $1.99 for the iPad on the iTunes store.

I noticed the reviews ae kind of mixed on these because of the rubber tip but I have the rubber tipped pen and it works great for me.

Get the 3-pack of Universal Touch Screen Stylus Pen (Red, Silver & Black) for $1.99 with free shipping on Amazon.

What can I say?  This Aerobed makes sleepovers and travel very easy and very comfortable.  And I’ll just note – in total times of desperation, if you aren’t that tall, adults can sleep on this bed too. (I slept on it once!  I’m 5’6″ and my feet came to the very edge but it worked!)

A nice feature on this aerobed that you don’t get on others are the slightly raised sides that you can see in the photo – they help to encourage kids to stay sleeping on the bed and not to roll off.  Score!

It inflates with an electronic air pump in under a minute.  I just love it and always feel the need to review it every few years because we think it’s such a fabulous product and it gets such use in our house!

Get the Aerobed for Kids on Amazon for $79.99 with free shipping.

So this week, I’ve totally lost it. I know how this story goes because it’s happened before – I bust myself for a few weeks, don’t like the results and then I fall off the bandwagon.

Today’s Friday and here I am dressed for the gym and I’m on my couch. They’ve kicked me off the wagon and I’m sitting in the dust, people!

Yup, I haven’t worked out since Tuesday. Granted, I’ve been fighting a bug all week so that’s also been a demotivator. But today hubby did the preschool drop off, it’s rainy and I’m discouraged. So here I am.  I’m even dressed for the gym (see?!) but it’s just not happening.  (Like the cat in the background?  He’s my little buddy.)

I’m telling myself OKAY to have a bad week.  I’m still on the healthy food plan, and to take a few days off isn’t going to make or break me.

Still, someone’s going to need to poke me in the butt with a little get-your-ass-back-to-the-gym stick this weekend to help me along I think.  A little sunny weather wouldn’t hurt either.