thebabyperks

I've never taken the "new years resolution" thing seriously until now. I guess I should rephrase that, I've never really set any resolutions. For the 2014 year I do plan to create and accomplish my resolutions.

1) Develop this blog and my YouTube channel more. I really want to work on editing film and just becoming a better blogger. I know I only started this a few months ago but I'm honestly in love with blogging and creating YouTube videos. I couldn't do it without everyone reading this and watching the (2) videos I have up. Posting and seeing that people actually read my ramblings makes me so happy (sorry for the sappiness).

2) Be more confident. I'm not going to let other people bring me down anymore because I've been hurt too much by people I trusted. I want to finally be confident and say what I feel, not worrying about others opinions. Which will probably be a challenge because I have social anxiety, but again I want to work on my confidence so I can experience/do more things.

3) Stopping biting my nails. I love to paint my nails and I have a ton of nail polish but whenever I get nervous or anxious I pick at my nails. This happens quite often leaving me with nubs for nails (haha nail nubs) but anyway I really want to grow out my nails to a decent length.

-Also, this isn't a resolution but rather just something I'm excited to be doing. I'm getting a large mason jar and I'm going to throw all my loose change in. A couple weeks before Christmas I want to cash in all the money I collect and send it to St. Jude Children's Hospital. either the actual money or I might buy toys or whatever else they might want and give to them.

I bought a lot of different products this month but I want to wait to review those until I know 100% if I like the products. However, here are the products I used a lot this December and also enjoyed:


 So obviously everyone is raging about this book. I read the Fault in Our Stars already from the library but I wanted to have my own copy and read it again. I'm about 20 pages in but like everyone else, I'm in love.
 We all knew this was coming, if you haven't checked out my YouTube channel (thebabyperks) you should because I go on and on about everything One Direction related I got for Christmas. Anyway, I want to say that I love this book a lot. It's divided up into specific sections and then each boy has a "chapter" where they write about each topic. I love to hear them recount different events from their point of view. It was a pretty expensive book but it really does give you another insight to the boys lives. Oh and the book jacket opens up and is a poster!!!
 I realize that this picture is blurry, I apologize. This is the Bath and Body Stress relief scrub. It's in the scent of eucalyptus spearmint and is amazing. The scrub is an amazing exfoliating body wash and it does deliver a very soothing aroma. 
 This is my curling wand (it's unplugged, on the ground because my bathroom sink was messy...) by Bedhead. I love this wand because I already have wavy/curly hair and it just adds extra pieces to frame my face. I've had the wand for a little over a year and it works incredibly. You just have to mess around with your hair to figure out what style looks best for you.
I think I've talked about this product before but I've really liked it this month. This is the Neutrogena loose powder foundation. It doesn't clog my pores like other BB creams do. It provides great coverage and works with my skin really well. I've learned how to apply it so that it just blends with my other makeup.
This hot chocolate mix is amazingly delicious. There is a really strong caramel flavor that mixes perfectly with the chocolate. Ahh, just thinking about it makes my mouth water. Oh and it's from Target which makes it even better because Target is probably one of my favorite stores.
 -I'll be posting how to make the hot chocolate some time soon, most likely tomorrow??

 A few days ago I celebrated my friends birthday in downtown St.Louis at the Old Spaghetti Factory. While I don't have a picture of what I ate, I have my OOTD. I did order the Spinach and Cheese Ravioli in a red sauce which was delicious. I also got the spumoni ice cream, their speciality which I devoured in a matter of minutes.

Sweater: American Eagle      Jeans: I believe TJ Maxx    Boots: JC Penny

- I'm going shopping soon which means I'll be doing a Mall Haul/store Haul soon. I haven't gone shopping for winter clothes in around a year. I didn't buy any winter items last year, so everything I have is around 2 years old. It's about time I go shopping

Merry Christmas to everyone! I had a good time with all my family and friends. However, I had a high fever and sore throat (most likely strep) from Christmas Eve until now. That put a damper on things but I tried my best to have a good time. Before I started feeling bad I made Gingerbread Men cookies. I got the recipe from the "Taste of Home" magazine.

Ingredients:
6 Tbsp. butter, softened
3/4 c. packed brown sugar
1/2 c. molasses
1 egg
2 tsp. vanilla extra
1 tsp. grated lemon peel
3 c. all purpose flour
3 tsp. ground ginger
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
3/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. ground cloves

Royal Icing recipe:
2 c. powdered (confectioners) sugar
2 Tbsp. plus 2 tsp. water
4 1/2 tsp meringue powder
1/4 tsp. cream of tartar

(I did not have meringue powder so the recipe I used is linked here)

Instructions:

1) In a large bowl, cream butter and brown sugar until fluffy. Beat in molasses,egg, vanilla and lemon peel (I used a squirt of lemon juice because I didn't have a lemon peel). In another bowl combine flour, ginger, baking powder, cinnamon, baking soda, salt and cloves. Slowly add to the creamed mixture.
2) Once all incorporated, divide into 2 disks
3) Refrigerate for 30 minutes (I did it for 20 minutes) or until easy to handle
5) On a floured surface roll until 1/4 inch thick, or to desired thickness. Cut with gingerbread men cookie cutter
6) Place 2 in. apart on greased baking sheets. Bake 7-9 minutes or until firm around edges. Remove and cool.
7) Decorate as desired

P.S: Don't try raw gingerbread dough, it is disgusting. The dough looks awful until you add flour. Even then don't try it, I repeat, DO NOT TRY the dough. I almost scrapped it but I followed through with baking the cookies and they turned out well.

Doesn't it look gross. I don't know why I tried it really

Roll it out, roll it out

Use a cookie cutter like so

Yay for lots of gingerbread men

Straight from the oven

I outlined all of them in white icing

I divided the icing into white, green, and red and decorated accordingly

All finished

Hopefully everyone had a great Christmas, or whatever holiday they celebrate.


Connect with Me:
Twitter: @thebabyperks
Instagram:@babyperks
Tumblr: @thebabyperks

Now that I'm on Christmas break I'll get to update more **yay!!** and talk about everything that is going on in my life. So on my first Monday off school since Thanksgiving, I treated myself with an incredible coffee. Usually I just add some Splenda and creamer but today I went all out.

What You Will Need:
- Coffee mug, preferably a Christmas/winter themed one like this->
- Peppermint coffee grounds (or you can buy the K-cups with the cofffee already inside)

Hello everyone, my first YouTube video has been posted on my channel (thebabyperks here). 
If you all could like, comment, and subscribe that would be great. Thank you all so much for all of your support.

With Christmas approaching in 3 short days, a lot is still to be done. If you can't watch my video, I'll summarize some of it, it won't be the full video. There isn't a lot I want for Christmas, only one or two "big" items and the rest are books. Hey, I love reading and Christmas break is the time for relaxing by the fire, curled up with cocoa. I know, I know, cliche. Any who, my Christmas List (p.s. a lot of One Direction is on it)

1) One Directions concert tickets (they are coming to St.Louis!!!)
2) Who We Are (the book by One Direction)
3) Midnight Memories (One Direction's newest CD)
4) This Is Us (the One Direction movie)
  ** My non-One Direction related items include-
5) The Fault in Our Stars
6) Staying Strong by Demi Lovato (book)
7) Seriously... I'm Kidding by Ellen Degeneres

I got introduced to these for the first time last year, they are ah-mazingly addicting and really simple to make.
(This is the full recipe but I made a half-batch, I seem to do that a lot... and I seem to say this a lot). Anyhow, enjoy!!!

Ingredients:
1 (16 oz) jar unsalted peanuts
1 (16 oz) jar of salted peanuts
1 (12 oz) bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 (4oz) bar German Chocolate, broken into pieces
2 (24oz) packages white almond bark, broken into several pieces

Instructions:
1) Put everything into the crock pot in order above.
2) Cover and cook on low for 3 hours and mix(because I halved the recipe, I let it cook for 1.5 hours)
3) Drop the mixture by teaspoon and let cool

~Because I halved the recipe I just used unsalted peanuts, I think they turned out fine

Mixing the ingredients together

One tray of clusters

Second tray of clusters

Today was Ugly Christmas Sweater day at school. The last week of the semester is always spirit week because of finals.

To buy myself some procrastination time I literally will do anything, scrolling through new Tweets and tweets from days ago. I go on Instagram, even though the same 20 posts have not changed, read some Wattpad fan fiction, anything. I finally finished my studying, tomorrow's final consist of Spanish II, AP US History and Algebra II. For history we get one 4x6 note card to write all we want on it because we have to answer 5 IDs, he gave us 20 but he will randomly select 10, and we pick which 5 we want. Then we have 2 FRQs, we know one but there are also 3 other possible choices.

FRQ side

ID side, I'm going to have fun reading it

For Ugly Sweater day I wore the same sweater I wore last year, it has a Christmas tree on it and a gigantic snowman. Is it the ugliest thing ever, no, but it does the job. I did my hair all nice and curly (it is always curly but I added some more ringlets in) and paired it with my combat boots.

Yay for festive sweaters

Full view

Selfie with glasses, because of swim I've been wearing them more

On a side note- I hate that they now have an "Ugly Christmas Sweater section" in stores, that totally defeats the purpose of the tradition. You are supposed to go to your parents closet and look for one of their sweaters, or even get one from your grandparents. Buying one just seems to take the fun out of the day. I proudly retrieved my sweater from the basement of my home, from a storage bin. Nothing says happy holidays like that does.

~ I got this recipe from "Midwest Living" and made some of my own corrections

Ingredients:
7 c. popcorn, popped
3 c. small pretzel twist
2 c. lightly salted cashews or honey roasted peanuts
1 1/4 lbs vanilla candy coating coating, coarsely chopped
1 c. finely crushed candy canes

Instructions:
1) In a large bowl, stir the popped popcorn and peanuts, set aside
2) In a heavy medium saucepan, melt candy coating over low heat, stirring constantly until smooth. Remove from heat
3) Stir in 1/2 c. of the crushed candy canes
4) Pour melted mix over popcorn mix. Stir gently to coat. Spread onto large piece of foil or parchment. Sprinkle with the remaining crushed peppermint. Let cool

~Make sure to spread the mix onto parchment paper, I didn't and I had to use a wooden spoon to break apart the mixture
~ Make sure to finely chop the candy cane, I had some bigger chunks that I had to go over several times

Yay for snow days even though it's Saturday. Swim practice got cancelled last night, which allowed me to curl up on the couch and watch Christmas movies and all my recorded One Direction shows/interviews.

My Great Aunt made a cookbook by hand, not just a few pages stapled together. It has over a hundred pages (or at least it seems like it is), the recipes are divided by holiday/type of food/etc. She obviously put a lot of time into it and I've found some great recipes.

#1: Sugar Cookies:
Ingredients:
1/2 c. butter softened
1/2 c. sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
2 large eggs
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking powder
2 3/4 c. flour

Frosting:
1 c. Crisco
2 lbs powdered sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2-3/4 c. water

Instructions:
1) Mix together all ingredients
2) Roll out dough and cut into shapes (it is that easy!!)
3) Bake at 375 for 10-15 (check them because mine were done around 9-10)
4) After taking the cookies out of the oven, let cool
5) Mix frosting ingredients until fluffy
6) Decorate the cookies!! :)

~I thought the cookies were a little dry, but the frosting worked perfectly and brought the cookies back (does that make sense??)
~ I didn't make that many cookies so I halved the icing recipe

I love Christmas for a surplus of reasons. Not only is a warm fire and cup of cocoa great, but the cozy blankets and Christmas lights just add to the magical-ness that is the Christmas season.

1. Why do you love christmas?I love my family. Christmas allows me one day of staying in with my family, not having to worry about homework, swimming, or anything else that could be stressing me out. My dad, mom, brother and I just relax at the house, doing puzzles, enjoying the presents, baking delicious pastries, etc.
2. Does your family have any holiday traditions? On Christmas Eve we always go to our family friends house for a Christmas Eve party. We spend a few hours eating great food, laughing, playing games, and just catching up.
3. What is your favorite winter scent? I love the Vanilla Snow Flake Candle. I finally purchased a candle (in my previous post I talked about wanting a candle) and I love this one. In my journey of buying candles I learned I'm really picky, some are too strong, others are just plain gross. I love this candle because it's the perfect balance of sweet and warm. I also bought a mini Christmas Cookie candle, which I like too, but my overall favorite is by far the Vanilla Snow Flake.



4. What are your top 3 items on your christmas list? 1) Where We Are concert tickets (One Direction is coming to St. Louis!!!) I know I got these because my dad bought six, and I was going to keep two but he's also selling those so we can hopefully buy better tickets. 2) This Is Us Movie (One Direction) as well as Midnight Memories (One Direction's third CD). 3) Fault In Our Stars (John Green), Stay Strong (Demi Lovato's Book) and Ellen's book. I know these are all separate books but I'm going to link them together because they are books and I do what I want ;)
5. What is your favorite holiday beverage? I love peppermint coffee, as you know if you read my previous blog post, but I also found one of my new favorite drinks at Starbucks. I love the Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate, it has the rich chocolate flavor but the salted caramel just blends in perfectly with it.
6. What is your favorite christmas food? My favorite Christmas food is any kind of baked goods: sugar cookies, snowball cookies, these chocolate caramel saltine cracker things, OH and those cookies with the chocolate kisses in the middle. Obviously I have a cookie problem.
7. What do you put out for Santa? Cookies and milk, duhhh ;)
8. Do you open presents on Christmas Eve or christmas morning?Strictly Christmas morning, no matter how much my brother and I begged my parents they held their ground on only opening gifts on actual Christmas.
9. How do you decorate for christmas? We decorate my 12 ft tree and the trees outside. We also add some Santa figurines (that are pretty big) and garland.
10. Do you believe in Santa? Yes!! Haha, but in the Christmas spirit most definitely :)

I started reading Sarah Dessen's book in late November. At the time I was reading another book and kind of forgot about this one. It is a summer story and especially when it's getting cold I wanted a little summer time book.

Dessen's "Dreamland" is one of my favorite books. All the books she has written have turned out extremely well. Needless to say, I had high expectations for this novel.

In a way, I was a little disappointed, it took forever to get into. However, I powered through it, holding onto the hope that Dessen could turn the story around. She did. The characters feel real, some irk me, some make me fall in love with them. That's what I want, I want to feel like I have a connection with the characters, like they are actual people.

The negative I have is that it was kind of predictable (how the whole summer love thing turns out) and felt like something I read before.  I obviously knew this going into the story, therefore, if you aren't into the whole summer fling don't read this story.

Overall I give the novel a 7/10. It wasn't awful, it wasn't amazing. I love Sarah Dessen but this isn't one of my favorites. It seems like I enjoy her older stuff better (I do love Along for the Ride though) but pick up the book for yourself and tell me what you think.

If you don't know about the book:

Emaline has lived in the small town of Colby her entire life, so has her mom, and her grandma. She has been dating Luke for years, and now it's the summer before college. City-slickers Ivy and Theo came to Colby to film a movie. Something is intriguing about Theo, he's an outsider, he is so oblivious to the way in life in Colby. When things go wrong with Luke, Emaline starts to turn to Theo and his crazy movie project. Then, Emaline gets an unexpected visit from her father, who left her mom after a one night stand in high school (and never came back again, leaving her pregnant, stereotypical I know). This brought in another bout of twists and turns in the town of Colby, a small town where nothing ever changed, well except for that summer.

                                                         

❄ Top 2 Winter Beauty Essentials
Moisturizer/lotion and a good brown eyeshadow
❄ Top 2 Winter Fashion Essentials
Combat boots and sweaters
❄ Favorite Winter Accessory?
Do fuzzy socks count?? 
❄ Favorite Winter Nail Polish
Revlon's Smoky (820) I reviewed it in my November favorites
❄ Hot Cocoa or Apple Cider?
Hot Cocoa
❄ Favorite Winter Candle?
I don't really burn a lot of candles but I really want to purchase the Christmas cookie one!!
❄ Snowboarding or Skiing?
Skiing! I haven't been in a few years but I absolutely love it
❄ Have you ever gone Ice Skating? Are you any good or do you FAIL miserably?
Yes I have. I'm good after a while but when I start out I'm pretty terrible
❄ Does it snow where you live?
Yes it does, sometimes a lot other times not as much
❄ Have you ever made a snowman?
Yes but that is also something I have failed miserably at
❄ What holiday do you celebrate?
Christmas!!
❄ Favorite Christmas/Holiday song?
Really any Christmas song besides the one that's called something like "last Christmas I gave you my heart" I don't like it at all, it's just stupid. But I love Michael Buble Christmas album, as well as the traditional Christmas church songs we sing.  
❄ Favorite Christmas/Holiday movie?
I'll say the stereotypical Elf. I also love "It's a Wonderful Life" and a complete opposite, "Christmas Vacation."
❄ What is your favorite winter treat? (candy cane, gingerbread, etc…)
Anything peppermint, as well as sugar cookies!
❄ If you were to ask Santa for one thing and you were guaranteed to get it, what would it be? (even if you don’t celebrate Christmas)
To meet any of these people: One Direction, Louis Cole (Fun for Louis), Zoe Sugg (Zoella), Marcus Butler (marcusbutlertv), Tyler Oakley, Troye Sivan, Alfie Days (pointlessblog), Jim Chapman, Tanya Burr, Louise (sprinkleofglitter), or Ellen Degeneres.
❄ Do you have anything fun planned for this winter
 To swim a lot and just become more creative

My family has an outstanding Christmas tree. It's a 12 foot tall tree that came with the house because lets face it, only certain houses can contain a 12 foot tree. I love our tree so much, especially because we center it in front of the living room windows which have a street backing up to it. When we drive home, you can see the tree lit up. The only problem with a 12 foot tree is that you need a 12 foot ladder. This also means it takes FOREVER to decorate. Usually there are four people decorating our tree but this year my dad was working and my brother felt like Xbox was more important (story of his life). Decorating the tree took my mom and I around two hours.

It looks crooked in the picture but it really isn't, I was trying to avoid my family members being in the picture

The view looking up

Favorite Ornaments:

The Radio City Rockettes Ornament

"What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more." -Dr. Seuss

Santa stuffed in a phone booth with reindeer

I really don't know why I like this one so much, but I really like the mouse and the pattern

"Merry Christmas Charlie Brown." I love Charlie Brown so much!!

The triathlete inside me has to love this one

Frosty the Snowman and the Snow Baby, what could be more sweet??

I loved, loved, loved Arthur growing up, this has to be a top ornament

I think this is adorable, and my dad is a firefighter

I used to always make up stories about the chipmunk/squirrel inside the teacup ornament. There was a little home with a Christmas tree inside.

It's a little difficult to see but there it is

Another childhood favorite, this Barbie had a "twin" but it unfortunately broke. Again, I created stories about the Barbie and what events she would be attending.

The last is also difficult to see but my grandpa made it, it's a fire truck for my dad

 I will continue to showcase some of my favorite ornaments throughout the season!