BB Cream vs. Foundation

Happy Sunday!

I'm excited about this post!  I've been wanting to write about the two beauty products that I've come to love recently.  I'm no Michelle Phan; not even a makeup artist.  Just your daily, regular, 30-something stay-at-home mom of 3.  But most women aren't makeup genius YouTubers, nor are they trained makeup artists.  And I know what works on my skin and what doesn't.  And for someone like me, who is prone to acne breakouts, you'll have to trust me when I say that I've tried a whole lotta products to get to the right balance.  

Since everyone's skin is different, I won't recommend any skin care line or products that will work well on you.  I would have no idea what goes well on anyone.  I thought my skin was super dry, so I was using all kinds of oils and thick moisturizers my entire adult life.  I'd been pretty fine all my life using those, but all of a sudden, for an entire year, I started breaking out like crazy.  One pimple would go down, and five more would come up.  It must be age and the hormones doing their best wreaking havoc on my skin.  I finally saw an aesthetician who put me on a completely different regimen and treated me every 4 weeks.  I realized the products I've been putting on my face were all the wrong ones!  

That being said, I can recommend a couple of beauty products though.  In one of my previous posts, I talked about how wonderful the Chanel Lumière foundations were.  Great coverage, goes on flawlessly, and was the only brand of foundation that I wore.  Well, guess what.  My aesthetician told me that on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being the least pore clogging to 5 being the most pore clogging, it actually falls on a 4 and 5.  Well, DUH!  No wonder a bunch of zits decided to set up permanent residency on my face!  My aesthetician then recommended the Tarte BB Tinted Treatment Primer.  She said that was the only liquid that she found out there with no pore clogging ingredients at all.  So I've been using that ever since.  I was originally hesitant about it because I just didn't think it offered enough coverage.  It was only a primer, after all.  Well, here is a picture of me holding the Chanel foundation and the Tarte BB Primer on each side of my face, with the makeup being on the side of my face covered with it.  

Can't even tell a difference, can you?  I guess if you wanted to go on date night, you can wear the Chanel one, then immediately wash it off when you get home.  But Tarte is the only one I use now on a daily basis.  It offers great coverage, and goes on seamlessly as well.  It's also a lot more friendly to your wallet than Chanel.  

I wouldn't throw away my beloved Chanel though.  On those rare occasions when the hubby and I do get to sneak out, it's my go-to product.  Even though we've been married nearly 11 years, I still want to look nice for him.  :)  

You can find Tarte BB Tinted Treatment Primer here, and the Chanel Perfection Lumière here.  

That's it for now!  Guess what.  Today is just any regular o'Sunday.  I'm going straight to the sink to wash off my makeup.  Sometimes, you just need to let your skin breathe.  

xoxo,

Lin

You've Done It Again, Pixar!

I'm not a sappy person.  Really, it's true.  I can count on one finger the number of times I actually cried.  I'm just not one to shed tears much.

But man, the creative minds at Pixar are the only ones that can make me bawl like a baby.  Before you continue to read this, there's a major SPOILER ALERT for the movie Inside Out, so if you're haven't seen it, and are planning on doing so, don't read this post just yet.

You're like, "Seriously, Lin?  A child's movie?"  But you all know how Pixar can make any of you cry.  Toy Story 3 had grown men cry.  Why not this one?  The thing about this movie was that I was not expecting it to be so emotional.  I should've known though, all Pixar movies tug at your heartstrings.  For me, the moment happened when Bing Bong said his last few words, "Take her to the moon for me, will ya?" I held it together for about a minute, then completely lost it when the little girl next to me asked her mother what happened, and her mother couldn't answer her because she was a ball of emotions herself.

It was so sad.  Yes, sad for the obvious reasons, that Bing Bong vanished because Riley had grown up and forgotten him, so he's gone (I'm getting emotional even as I'm typing this).  But for me it was also sad because he wanted to save Riley so badly that he sacrificed himself, and even as he was vanishing, he was still rooting for Riley, the very person who is forgetting him.

This specifically tugs at my heartstrings because I now have a little girl of my own.  And she's at the age where she's happy every day, goofy, wacky, curious, and has a big heart filled with wonder and love.  No complicated emotions, just pure and simple joy.  Ever since I watched that movie yesterday, every time I look at my daughter, and how beautiful and wonderful and yummy she is, I feel sad.  Sad that she's growing up, that every day she gets a little older.  All that childhood naïveté will be chipped away little by little, as each year, day, or even seconds go by.

Everyone says, cherish each moment.  You can't get your children's childhood back.  And in the hustle and bustle of our every day lives, we ignore this advice.  There are so many memes that say things like, "Cherish every moment, they say...but can I just get one moment of peace?!?"  I mean, we all feel that way, but man, that piece of advice has never hit me so hard as it had this weekend.  I literally just sat on the couch today and watched my beautiful little girl play with her stickers then sing and dance to Let It Go for the millionth time. I found her so darn cute, I realized I hadn't sat down with her like this for so long and just watched her do her thing.  It was like, I wanted to take it all in, observe and breath in every piece of her, and preserve that innocence for as long as I can, even if it's in my own mind.

So, cherish every moment with your children!  They really do grow up too fast.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go cry my eyes raw at Bing Bong's demise.

xoxo,
Lin

Products I Love

Happy Thursday evening, everyone!

My kids are on summer break, and I might regret saying this in a couple of months, but I'm loving this whole 3-months-off-school thing!  Woo hoo!  No more rushing in the morning trying to get them ready, no more rushing in the afternoon trying to get to after school activities, no more rushing in the evening to eat dinner and do homework before bed.  Most importantly, NO school stuff that I have to deal with!  Ahhh...

But since they're home, I have been busy trying to make lunch daily and finding activities for them to do.  But here I am, writing another post.  I've been wanting to blog about products I've tried and have practically fallen in love with.  I am a very practical person.  Everything I buy must have a purpose.  Every room in my house serves a purpose.  We have a formal living room and a family room, so when my kids were old enough to play the piano, we put a piano in the living room.  Now it's a piano room!  My formal dining room wasn't being used, so I started having the kids do their homework there.  Now it serves as their homework room!

So without further ado, here are the products I've been finding really useful.

1) The Pikibu Rearview Mirror
How many times have you had to turn your head around while driving, just so you can see if little Johnny really is being punched by his older brother, as he claimed he was?  Or if little Susie stopped picking her nose like you asked her to?  Our rearview mirrors are so small that we can't see anything below the hairline of our small children.  So we have to crank our necks and turn around, risking the lives of everyone in the car!  You KNOW you've done it!   In comes the Pikibu.  This thing is so wide, so long, that it has saved my neck muscles from cramping!  I can see everything my kids are doing.  They try to tell me that they've finished their breakfasts; then I check to see there's still half of a waffle left.  Ha!  Caught ya!  Or if they're secretly reading in the backseat when I've specifically told them not to (esp. at dusk, when they can barely see).  Caught ya again!  It's super useful.  it might take a little while to get used to, but trust me, it's worth every effort and every penny, especially if you're a mom of small children!  You can find it on Amazon here.

2) Glare Visor
If you're tall, then this might not appeal to you.  But to the rest of us average American women, I'm sure you can relate.  The sun shade on your car is just not long enough to shield that afternoon sun.  It's beaming into your car through your window, trying to darken your sunspots, making them appear even more obvious.  As if I need another reason to look older!  For someone that's nearing her 40's, no thank you, I don't need more sun spots on my left cheek.  A friend of mine recently showed me her glare visor,  I was curious if it really worked, so I bought one on Amazon too.  Lo and behold, I'm no longer dodging the sun!  It works!  I can notice a difference too! The sun spots on my left cheek isn't popping up as enthusiastically anymore!  Sun: 0, Mom: 1!  You can find it on Amazon here.

3) Sing In Chinese Bilingual Audio Books
As you must know, Chinese is a very difficult language to learn.  If it wasn't because I was schooled up to 2nd grade in Taiwan, if I hadn't kept up reading Chinese books because I'm just a nerd like that, and if my parents hand't insisted that we speak Chinese to them, I wouldn't be as fluent in Chinese as I still am.   As difficult as it is to learn, Chinese has become such an important language.  Trying to get my kids to learn Chinese has been a struggle ever since they started school.  My husband doesn't speak Chinese, so we're an English-speaking family  School, media, friends, etc, my kids live in the United States; they're exposed to English all day long.  Yeah, we do Chinese school, but that's only once a week.  Recently, I've come across this product that actually makes learning Chinese fun!    Each book includes a CD, the song lyrics, and beautiful, fun pictures.  The songs are upbeat, adorable, and sang in both Chinese and English.  The theory behind this product is that we learn faster through music.  And remember songs like The Itsy Bitsy Spider?  We still remember all the words.  You're singing it right now, aren't you?  Because that's stored in our long term memory.  Same idea here with these books.  There are even apps that go with the books.  Check them out here.  If you want your little wants to learn Chinese in a fun way, you can't go wrong with these books.

Although it's only 3 products, I think I've written enough words for you to need a break from me for a while.  :)  So, when I spend more money and when my hubby feels like he's been robbed again, I'll update my products' post.  ;)

xoxo,
Lin

Mile Long Lashes

Hi Everyone,

If you're one of the lucky ones who is blessed with luscious, full, beautiful lashes, then you can skip this post!  This is for those of us who did not strike jackpot in the genetic lottery.  But then again, even if you do have lashes that even Helen of Troy would kill for, who wouldn't want longer lashes?  I'm old school that way.  I think the glamorous old Hollywood movie stars like Liz Taylor, Bridgette Bardot, Sophia Loren, etc, were so gorgeous with their killer lashes.

What's an Asian girl to do with so little hair on her lids?  I contemplated getting a prescription of Latisse.  But chickened out on it.  So I heard through a friend, that Rapidlash works very well too, and you can purchase that via Amazon.  I thought, what was there to lose?  There were pretty good reviews on Amazon.  I might as well try it.

Well, see the results for yourself!  I've been using Rapidlash for months now, but you'll definitely see results in just one week.

xoxo,
Lin

Before - Right Eye

Before - Left Eye

After - Right Eye

After - Left Eye

Yet Another Frozen Birthday Party

My daughter recently turned 4.  It sounds so cliché, but it's true.  How time flies.  The movie came out and was in the height of it's popularity when she turned 3, but remember the time when Frozen anything was in short demand?  It's hard to believe, since everywhere you turn now, Elsa and Olaf are right in front of you.  But it was only about a year ago that there was such a shortage of Frozen products.  Hence I waited an entire year to plan one for my daughter.  And it was the perfect timing to do one for her 4th birthday.  Pinterest had tons of ideas, there were Frozen products everywhere, and I had time to shop until I dropped for the party.

I made whatever I could get done easily and quickly.  Time is of utmost value to me!  And whatever I couldn't make, I bought.  For example, I did a lot of research on Easy and Pinterest regarding the invitation.  I didn't want to send an evite.  Luckily I looked early, and found some beautiful snowflake cards in December that were blank inside.  All I did was type up the words, printed them out on paper, and pasted them on the inside of the card.

I didn't want an Elsa cake - every little girl under the sun had an Elsa cake - and I didn't want to have Elsa et al popping up all over the party.  I went with a more simple Frozen look.  Everything was blue and white, I had snowflakes throughout the party, and princess stuff and swords for the kids to play with.  I bought most of the decorations from Party City, Dollar Tree, Homegoods, and Birthday Express.  I made my own birthday banner.  I hired Elsa and Anna to come sing for the kids via Princess Party Productions.  They were fantastic, btw.  I called and booked them 6 months in advance, just to ensure their availability!   And, because of the entire year I spent planning my party, I had to hire a photographer to photograph every moment!  Thomas from Thomas Teng Photography did a fantastic job.  I couldn't be happier with the results!  So of course I had to hire him back 2 months later to shoot my sons' birthday party too!  :)  For event furniture, I rented them from Choura Events.  They were so professional.  There's a story behind my review, I'll tell you about it in the post about my sons' birthday party.

Enjoy the photos and drop me a comment if you have any questions!

I'm pretty proud of my spread!

The inside - excuse the iTunes gift cards - I had to cover info!

The front of the invitation

Me and the birthday princess

I bought mason jars and hot glued Dollar Tree snow flakes on

Snowmen Arms (Pretzel sticks)

Elsa's Icicles (Blue rock candy)

Elsa's Snowballs (Cake pops with white candy coating)

Elsa's Wand and Tiara

Hans's Sword (The boys needed something!)

Melted Snowmen (Blue lemonade and water)

I also made snowmen string cheese.  But the photographer didn't take a picture of them.  Here's an example of them.  I basically just used Washi tape and permanent markers.  I made 50 of them!

Here are the party pictures!

LOOK at her face!  This picture alone makes all the work worth it!

Xoxo,
Lin

Disney Cruise, Disney World, and Universal Studios Orlando

Hi Everyone!  It's been SO ridiculously long since I last wrote a post!  If you're a mom, you know how it is.  You just get so wrapped up in all the busy stuff in your day-to-day life.  I signed up at my sons' school as a co-chair for the 2015 Fall Book Fair, I since planned two birthday parties for my daughter and my sons (which were all pretty epic, might I say - I'll write posts on those later, along with pictures!).  And, let me just go ahead and admit it...I was lazy.

However, recently I took a not-so-pretty fall off my stairs at home (ironically, as a friend of mine put it, I was walking totally fine all night the night before in my 6-inch pumps!).  So as a result?  A spring with a possible fracture.  I was on crutches for 2 days.  I can't do much of anything but sit at home and veg.  I know what you're thinking, "What?  It sounds like you're complaining that you get to veg!  What I wouldn't GIVE to have that!"  Honestly, it gets really boring after about half a day.  I literally couldn't do anything.  Crutches are needed even to the bathroom.  And I can't drink much water because, well, I don't want to pee so much!  And it's hard when I see my poor husband who worked so hard all day coming home and do my job on top of his.  I felt completely useless.  Therefore, it's not that fun!  Plus, the little bit of weight I lost previously is creeping back because I've been immobile this whole time.  Pants.Are.Tight.Again.  *sigh*

Anyhoo, so that's why I'm sitting here writing a long overdue post about our experience on the Bahamian Disney Cruise - from DECEMBER!  Forgive me as I'm not getting any younger and can't remember all of the details.  But I'll have most of the important info so you can still use my post as research!

Ok, first things first.  When you're booking a flight that requires a transfer, and you have little kids, please, I repeat, please arrive at your transfer location a day before the transfer.  We had to learn that the hard way when we went to Turks and Caicos last January.  Long story short, AA cancelled our flight last minute, right before we left our house for the airport (I've since vowed to never, ever fly them again - I mean, it was so last minute, the airport shuttle was at our front door!  Then we get a freaking voicemail for the cancellation?!  WTH?!?), we were delayed by about 3 hours, we missed our connecting flight in Florida, had to find an overnight hotel so we can fly out the next day, and of course we lost our first night in Turks and Caicos.  All in all, the extra amount of money we spent for the whole fiasco was about $2k.  AA reimbursed me with free tickets.  With expiration dates.  Classy, AA.  The whole experience would've been horrendous with just adults, however, you put two 6-year-olds and one 2-year-old in the mix, it was a complete NIGHTMARE.  So, what's the moral of this story?  Say NO to American Airlines!!!

So, since you have to board the cruise ship at a certain time, get to your destination a day earlier!  Luckily in Orlando, there is a hotel right inside the airport. I'm telling you, those people know what they're doing!  The hotel even arranges with the cruise to have your luggage brought on the ship the day of so you don't have to do it yourself.

Disney Dream
On the day of the cruise, we left our room for breakfast downstairs, and when we got back, the luggages were already picked up.  We then headed toward the shuttles that would take us to the port.  Once we checked in, we were greeted by people offering hand sanitizers left and right before you board the ship.  And there were photographers taking pictures before you board too.

We were aboard the Disney Dream.  It's one of the newer ones so we were very happy with our room and the whole ship in general.  All the crew members are incredibly friendly.  I felt like I was in another world.  If you've been on a cruise, I'm sure you know there is plenty of stuff going on everyday.  There's no way you can do it all.  I'm really into live shows, so I watched the shows every night.  Can I just tell you that, WOW!  Disney really knows how to put on a show!  They are absolutely amazing!  Talk about being equivalent to Broadway!  Even my daughter was completely engaged in the shows.  There were also character meet and greets on certain days and times.  We missed the Sophia and Jake one, but we had to attend the Princess one.

The kids club on the cruise is called the Oceaneer's Club. They have a fantastic technology where your child is assigned a wrist band; all they have to do to check in and out is hold the wrist band against a scanner.  There are hand washing stations at the entrance/exit.  A hand washing machine with two cylinders first spray water as you insert your hands, then soap, then water again.  And voila!  your hands are clean!  Towel dry, then you're done!

One of the places we docked was at Castaway Cay.  This is Disney's private Cay.  We reserved a cabana so that our children can rest inside the cabana if they got tired.  I don't know if this was a good idea.  The cabanas are way off on one side of the island.  I felt so remote from everything else.  The fun water playground was located in the middle of the cay, and it was really far away from our cabana.  We had to walk a ways to get food too.   The only good thing I can think of is, if you want that privacy and serenity, that's what you get.  Maybe for families that still have infants or children who must nap?  It just wasn't ideal for our family.  The lagoons in Castaway Cay were freezing the time of year when we were there.  But that didn't stop us from getting ourselves wet.  I think the best experience about the whole Cay was finding thousands of little hermit crabs crawling everywhere.  What we thought were just shells, were all hermit crabs!  Tiny, little, ones, millimeters long!  They were adorable and we all got a kick picking them up.  There's a rule though - no keeping anything found on the cay!  That's a rule - they want everything to remain where their natural habitat are.  Let me tell you, I totally would've taken some of those cute little things if I could.  :)

Our second stop was Atlantis.  We did a swimming with dolphins excursion there.  That was really fun.  Pictures will speak a thousand words!  These dolphins did tricks for us as well.   

All in all, it was a good experience, but I doubt I would want to do it again.  I don't have much complaints, but the one thing that is important to me was just not up to par.  Food.  Oh, the food was just...not...very...good.  I've been on another cruise with my husband when we went on our honeymoon years ago.  There are no bad memories involving food.  But this time, I was glad we only had 4 days on the cruise because I was really craving better food on land.  Sorry Disney.  

Disney World's Magic Kingdom

When we disembarked, we rented a car and headed to our next stop: The Magic Kingdom.  Disney World has 4 main theme parks: The Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Hollywood Studios, and The Animal Kingdom.  Disney World is huge.  I mean, HUGE.  It is the size of San Francisco.  Yup! We were only going to be there one day so we only went to one park.  The park was so crowded - I was so glad that my husband bought us the guided tour experience because there would've been no way we could've gone on more than 2 rides without it.  We got to go on one of the newest rides, the Seven Dwarves Mine Train, and my daughter met Elsa, Anna, and even Ariel.

Needless to say, she was a happy camper!

However, the tour guide will exhaust you.  I mean, they want to guarantee at least 10 rides.  So you just go, go, go.  We stopped briefly for lunch, but other than that, we walked until we finally dropped.  All the kids were passed out on our way to our hotel.  

As far as going back to Disney World, I don't know if I would do that again either.  I can't speak on behalf of those people who have been to all the parks, but I didn't find the Magic Kingdom all that different from Disneyland here in So Cal.  If you have more time to spare in Florida, I do recommend spending more time in Disney World.  There are so many parks with so many experiences that you can't experience here in So Cal.

Universal Studios Orlando

Now, this is a theme park I would fly all the way to Florida again for!  Oh!  Before you read this, you must know, I'm slightly biased.  I'm a huge Harry Potter fan.  I mean, HUGE.  I love the books so much, I'm begging my boys to read the series.  Sadly, they lost interest at book 4.  *sigh*  And I don't let them watch the movies until they've finished the books.  Luckily, they watched the first 3 movies to somewhat understand what's happening in the parks.  

Oh how I LOVED Diagon Alley and Hogsmead.  I breathed in every single detail, every sight, and every experience.  From Hogsmead, where there was butterbeer, to the Hogwarts Express where there were interactive windows (and a dementor too!), to Diagon Alley where there was Gringott's and Ollivander's, everything was absolutely perfect.  The show where the wand picks the wizard was fantastic.  And after the show, you get to pick your own wand.  There are two types.  Priced differently.  There are the ones that are just wooden sticks, and another interactive type where you can "do" magic spells in front of different shops throughout World of HP.  Of course being the big fan that I am, we bought five of the interactive ones.

Now, mind you.   Dragon Alley and Hogsmead are located in two different parks.  And you need tickets to both parks in order to enter both.  Hogwarts Expres will connect you from one park to another, but you still have to purchase the tickets to both parks.   

We bought the VIP Tour package for this place too, again, we only had a day.  As my good o'hubby knew I would be devastated if I couldn't see World of HP.  It was every bit as fantastic as I imagined it would be, and then some!  I'm SO glad that they're building one here in LA!

The Owlery

Gringotts - the dragon breaths fire!

Platform 9 3/4!!!!!

Moving portraits!

The Pensieve!

Dumbledore's Office

J "performing" a magic spell

Butterbeer!

THE castle!

All the HP simulated rides are uniquely for Universal Studios Orlando.  Our tour guide told us therefore some of the actors had to film for the simulation, since they were all originals, nothing was taken from the movies.  There is also a stage in front of one of the rides; at one point (I'm sorry but I can't remember which park it was), there was a performance by the Durmstrangs and the Beauxbatons.  It was beautiful.  Everyone was in character.  I was so excited when I saw them, I almost cried.  I'm SUCH a nerd.  I know.

When you order your butterbeer, expect it to be ridiculously sweet.  Therefore, one was enough for my family of 5.  We took a few sips and had to throw it away.  It was like drinking a caramel candy.  But at least we got the experience!  There are different versions of butterbeer, you can have it as ice cream, as a slushy, or a drink.  In hindsight, we should've gotten the ice cream instead of the slushy.

Our guide told us that when Diagon Alley first opened, to stay true to the book, park employees would act dumb when people asked for directions there.  But since no one could find it, they finally just had to stop the acting.  However, they till stayed true to the characters!  For example, when we got to the train station, we were holding our wands.  So the conductor, being a Muggle, told my boys, to be careful with those "sticks," since they have no idea what wands were!  Ha!  Little things like that made me happy.  :)

Oh, of course, there were other rides like Transformers, Minion Crush, Spiderman, etc.  Yeah, yeah, who cares if each one of those simulator cars cost about a million to make?  I only care about my World of Harry Potter!  :)

Please, if you have any questions, drop me a comment below and I'd be happy to answer for you!  Until then, I think I've made up for my dry spell!  Ta ta!

xoxo,

Lin