Happy St. Nikolaus Day!!!

December 6th in Germany is St. Nikolaus day!

It's the day that you put your boot on your door step and St. Nick comes around and fills it with goodies (if you've been good) or coal (if you've been bad). 

My mom always still kept this tradition going for us after we moved to Canada. And she still keeps it going now that my sister and I are both away at school by mailing us a little St. Nick's day gift! 

On that note, guess what came in the mail today?!?!

My St Nikolaus Day Pressies!!!

I opened up the box to find a nice little message inside!

 My mom is so cute!

Under the little message?!

A whole bunch of goodies! 

Chocolate and lots of it, socks, red pepper jelly, mini perfumes, lifestyles cookies (which I'm pretty sure she got on the plane), a little penguin jelly lollipop, flavoured hot chocolate (candy cane, amaretto cookie and creme brulee) and leopard socks!!!

A closer look!

 These are the little perfume samples! So cute! I've actually been looking for a new perfume but haven't found one that I really like so I'm actually really excited about these little minis!

Bamboo, Cherry and Coconut! Can't wait to try them all!!

BUT WAIT!!!!!

We're not done here just yet. Today is also Day 3 of delish Christmas treats!!

I'm mostly giving you the recipe for these so you don't have to be jealous of everything I got today.

So I get to enjoy all of the above St Nick's goodies and you can make yourself some...

Candy Cane Snow Balls!

Well not so much balls, as interesting shapes/blobs

  

These things are seriously so delish! They are minty and light and perfect (and weirdly shaped, sorry)

 So here it is!

 

Candy Cane Snow Balls

*1 1litre tub of cool whip

*1 pack of white chocolate chips

*2 cups white chocolate candy melts (for dipping)

*1 Tbsp unsalted butter (or oil)

*1/2 packet of vanilla (or white chocolate) instant pudding mix

*4-6 mini candy canes, crushed (or more)

*1/2 tsp peppermint extract

Melt chocolate chips in microwave (at 30 second interval so they don't burn)

Once melted, transfer the chocolate to a different bowl (you don't want the bowl to be hot or it will melt the cool whip) and mix in cool whip with electric mixer. Add in crushed candy cane and peppermint extract. Mix. 

Add in the pudding mix and continue to mix until everything well incorporated.

Line a 9x9 inch pan with parchment paper and spread mixture. 

Freeze overnight, or a few hours. It won't get completely hard but you should be able to work with it.

Melt white chocolate candy melts with tablespoon of butter. 

Line baking sheet with parchment paper. 

Cut, or scoop out portions of the cool whip mixture and dip in chocolate. Place on parchment paper. 

Add sprinkles if you want. Then place back in freezer! 

Wait about 10 minutes.

Eat!

You can take them off the baking sheet and store in a container, but make sure to keep them in the FREEZER. 

Sooo fluffy and delishh!!!!

 Mmmmm. Hope you enjoy them!

 

Fave Beauty Buys!

I thought I would share some of my favourite beauty products!!
I'm thinking of making this an ongoing weekly or biweekly thing with some of my other favourite products and current obsessions.

So I'll start with my favourite hairspray.

Schwarzkopf

Got2b Smooth Operator Hairspray

The best thing about this hairspray?

It smells AMAZING! It doesn't have that strange chemically hairspray smell. It smells kind of like candy! It also works really well. I like that it gives me a lot of hold and smooths our my frizzies but still allows my hair to move! Oh and it smells great! haha

It also does a pretty great job at protecting my hair from humid weather. This company also used to make a really good anti-humidity spray, but I can't find it anymore. However this hairspray works wonders too!

I love it! It's the only one I buy!

Now lets hear from you! What's your favourite hairspray and why do you love it so much???

*This is my personal favourite  hairspray and I'm not saying it will work for everyone. I find that this particular one works best for what I want it to do and for my particular hair type*

Recap: Visit with my BFFH

My BEST FRIEND came to visit me last weekend! 

Here is a recap of our adventures in pictures!!

ENJOY

 Drinks on the first night!! Mango Martini (with 1/2 a mango) for me. Lychee Martini for Janelle!

Free Dessert!! Deep Friend Bananas! YUM

 Found a store with some yummy German things. So I had to buy something.

A little pouch that we got for free from lady where Janelle bought a hat.

Rediscovering why we are best friends!! Clearly because our Starbucks cups are the same!

Sharing a HUGE Raspberry Bellini!!

We got Manicure! I Obviously went with a sparkly gold color!

Late night snack. This place had the cutest cups!

Scented Soy Candle that Janelle made for me!!!

** And don't forget to head on over to Janelle's Blog too! Because she's awesome!!**

Weekend Visit from NS!!

I just had an amazing weekend with my mom!!! 

She came to visit me in my new apartment in Toronto (all the way from Nova Scotia). She stayed at a hotel because my apartment is small and she is a classy lady and doesn't want to sleep on my couch haha.

We had a great time though! 

We did some shopping!!

Had some bubbly in the hotel room (yes it is being chilled in the bathtub)

 We had some great food!

 Had some awesome cocktails (and then some more, and then maybe a few more)

 And then she had to leave :(

This is us the morning she had to leave in the hotel lobby.

I miss her already

Thanks for a great weekend mom!

Drinks in the City

Having some delish drinks with my mom overlooking Dundas Square in Toronto!

She has a Cosmo (my fave!) and I chose to go with a Caramel Apple Martini!! So yummy!

So excited to have her visit for the weekend!

Care Package from home!

Today I got a care package from my mom! 

She mailed it a while ago and it took its sweet time getting here...

But I was still super duper excited when I went to pick it up after  class today!! 

Can't wait to dig in and see what's there!!

Here are all my wonderful goodies!!!

 She sent me some chocolate!! White coconut Lindt chocolate to be exact! Also some delish clusters, Werthers candies, lots of individual hot chocolate packets (in yummy flavours!), granola bars, tea, some great free samples (I LOVE free samples!!!), some coupon and Tim's gift card!!

And.....

The very best part (which is kind of hidden in the above picture)

THE CUTEST WINE CHARMS IN THE WORLD!!!!!!!

I love love love them!!! I can't wait to use them!! 

Thanks mom! You're the best!

Brand new travel mug!!!

So not to long ago this happened to one of my favourite travel mugs:

My roommate microwaved it... And it melted :(

So my wonderful boyfriend brought this wonderful sparkly new one from his trip to Washington!

Whats on my toes?!?

Happy Monday Everyone!! 

I hope everyone had a great start to the week! 

I guess I sort of did. Yesterday was a nice warm sunny day and it really made me want to paint my toenails (hence the "whats on my toes?" title...)

So while spending some quality time with the bf, who left yesterday for Vancouver for a week, and watching some Cougar Town (PS - if you do not already watch this show you have to start!!) I decided I would paint my toesies!!!

I originally wanted something really springy and bright, but then I changed my mind and went with these polishes:

• Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Flashy Fushia
• Joe Fresh in Prune (I think that's the name, the sticker came off)
• Borghese Nail Lacquer in B125 Cristallo Shimmer (for a little extra sparkle!)

So of to work painting I went! I started with the Joe Fresh Prune color and did all my toes!!

Then I took a toothpick (also to paint my little toe) and put two Flashy Fushia dots on my big toe, and then pulled the dots together to form a heart. It kind of worked, but this plan was a lot easier in theory, hence the two different sized hearts. Oops.

Then I waited for the big pinky heart blobs to dry. 

***

I waited a little longer...

***

And just a little more...

***

Then, the most EXCITING part, Christallo Shimmer for SPARKLE!!!!!! I used this color just to lightly go over everything to give it a little sparkle! And less of a dark prune-y winter-y depressing shade. I love the color, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't really scream "Its summer! Look at my pretty toes" but with some sparkle is sure does!!!!

So here is the "It's Summer and Warm and I can wear Flip Flops so look at my Pretty Toes" picture!

Q:  Do you paint your toenails with seasonal inspirations? Or just a favorite go to color?

Sale Shopping!!

Hello Bloggers!!!

Yesterday I spent most of the day shopping!! (for deals)!!! My friend had a ticket to a L'oreal Spring Sale where almost everything is half price (or less!!!!) and she invited me to come. How could I say no to half priced make up?

We had kind of a late start leaving and maybe got lost on the way (the GPS kept telling us to do a U-turn, which really wasn't possible for a while). Anyway we finally did find it.

They had a ton of products there and even some great seasonal stuff and a few discontinued items (old favourties!!!) I knew I would probably end up spending more than I wanted to, but I told myself that I would probably buy this stuff throughout the year anyway, just not all at once, so it wouldn't seem like so much money.

Want to know what I got?!?!?!?

Doesn't seem like that much I know. But I ended up getting some Matrix Sleek.Look shampoo and conditioner (for $6.00 each!!!) a Vichy face cream (for $21.00) and some Maybelline make-up. I think I went a little overboard with the mascara, but they two red ones you see there are the holiday limited edition black sequins color (which means SPARKLES!!!) and they don't carry them in stores anymore, so I bought two. Only buying two took major self control. But that let me justify trying the pulsating mascara too ($5.00!!!!) and then I picked up a lipgloss, three eye shadows, a foundation and consealer and a corrector/cover stick. Each of those items were between $3.00 and $5.00.

After we left there we really wanted to check out this outlet mall which one of my friends coworkers had told her about. So we set off to find that. We didnt get lost this time and found it in a few minutes. We grabbed a super quick lunch (because at this point is was already 2:30 and the mall closed at 6:00 and we wanted to get in as much discount shopping as we could!!

We looked at the store directory and picked the stores that we really wanted to get to before they closed and then made a plan  go to those and then whatever we saw on the way. We ended up trying on a bunch of stuff, but not buying too much.  I bought a black (low-cut... oops) tank top for and a pair of jeans (for $15.00!!!!!!). The jeans were actually buy one, get on half off, but I couldn't find another pair that I wanted (and my friend couldn't find any) so I figured that I would just get the one. And then we browsed a bit more then it was almost 6:00.

We grabbed a scoop of Laura Secord ice cream (sadly not on sale) and made out way home.

The rest of the night for me consisted of watching Legally Blonde with a glass of wine (the last of the bottles my boyfriend brought back with him when he went to Germany a little while ago).