The Dallas World Aquarium

Here are the pictures from Miniboss's Birthday adventure at the Aquarium.

My favorite would be the shark lol! His face was so cute haha. Lexi seemed more interested in the birds and monkeys and was scared when we saw all the big fish in the tanks lol.

She was soo tired that she fell asleep before we even finished going through the entire place. I think we had more fun looking at all the animals more than she did lol. I thought it was very cute and it was set up so that animals were everywhere you looked. Lots to take in! The only bad thing was that the path ways were so small and there were soo many kids running around it felt chaotic at times. You got your head up looking at animals and you gotta look down at other animals and watch out for kids as you try to take photos..good thing we only had one kiddo to watch and one of us was carrying her the entire time. My Miniboss may be naughty, but at least she's good when we're in busy places!

Miniboss

We spent the weekend in Dallas for Miniboss's Birthday. We took her to the Aquarium and I got tons of pictures. We had a completely non-traditional birthday for her but it's okay, she had an awesome time still. We are a not a normal family and so her not having a normal (cake and kiddie party) Birthday is kinda normal ;)

Anyway I have tons of photos to edit and go through, so for now here's a preview!

Happy 2nd Birthday our beautiful Miniboss! We love you!

áo dài princess

Slacking on posts! This was Miniboss's Vietnamese New Year outfit. She's wearing a traditional Vietnamese outfit, that her Granny, (my mom) bought for her from Vietnam last year! Isn't she adorable heheh :)

I wish she would have given me actual great shots, but she was tired and fussy so I just quick ones and called it good. We are entering the terrible two's and its true. She's starting to throw temper tantrums at the store! *sighhhh

Anyway, her birthday is this weekend!!! EPPP This year is flying by already. We have all her birthday gifts bought and we're taking her to the Aquarium in Dallas for her birthday! Should be a fun weekend for all of us :)

Vietnamese New Years

It's almost Vietnamese New Years and I always get home sick! It was always my favorite holiday growing up and it makes me sad Miniboss won't get to enjoy a REAL New year with the red envelopes, the family, the foods, the Dragon dance, and games! This year her Poppa is working so we won't be able to make it to Dallas for the Dragon dance so we are going to make a mini New Years for her :)

I'm busy cleaning the house and getting rid of junk and organizing. Gonna have a perfectly clean home to start the new year right!

If anyone is interested in Vietnamese New Years, they are having food, entertainment, and a dragon dance at the local Buddhist temple in town. Everything starts at 7pm Saturday night! It's open to everyone. Hubby works so maybe Miniboss and I will have to go at it alone!

I've got the envelopes all ready to go and filled with the best kind of money there is, $2 dollar bills :)

Targets 70% off toy sale!

Took Miniboss toy shopping a couple of days ago just in time for the big 70% off toy sale at Target. It happens every year in January and it's perfect timing because I can buy everything and wrap it up just in time for her birthday! Not only that but I stock up for gifts for my niece and nephew too..why not it's 70% off!! I always stockpile during a sale and this is no different.

I went early and scored some major good deals.

I spent $87 and saved over $280!

Nice right!??! Why would you notttt buy sale toys and save yourself money on toys? There were sooo many toys I wanted to buy but didn't because we don't have room, and plus it's out of Miniboss and her cousins age range (3yr-1yr). Miniboss had fun too, she got to pick out her own toys and she starting sticking everything in the cart, so that's when I knew it was time to roll out lol.

I bought a ton more but I didn't picture them all...But I will tell you she now officially has everything a 2 year old could ask for.

BTW IF you missed the sale this time there will be another at the end of summer! :)

Stella & Dot: Independent Stylist Jennifer Tran

We're taking a short break from Minibossuary to introduce my sister Jennifer!

She recently started up her own business with Stella & Dot. At first I had no clue what she was talking about, but it's only because I live under a rock, what's your excuse?

Turns out it's an amazing company that sells wonderfully fabulous jewelry! And we all know I love me some bling! What girl doesn't?! And it's not your normal jewelry you get from the chain stores, you can only find Stella & Dot jewelry from the Stylists, like Jennifer.

These are quality pieces too. These are completely worth what you pay.

Are you drooling yet? Cuz I know I am hahah! Well my lovely sister sent us a couple of pieces for Christmas so I could see the pieces for myself because I'm a jewelry snob. I hate "fake" jewelry because most look cheap and break so easily. I was doubting everything about this whole "Stella thing" and thinking no way, I'll DIY my own pieces of jewelry lol! Boy was I WRONGGG...

We got these cute boxes over the holidays.

Inside was a gift for both Miniboss and I. That's right, they even have little girl jewelry! You know, so your baby can be just as blinged out as you are :)

She sent us the ISADORA PEARL BIB, and the TATUM NECKLACE for Miniboss.

They are sooooooo rediculously amazing in person. I love the necklaces! I will definitively be purchasing more jewelry from Stella & Dot. I was really impressed with the quality. The necklace has some weight to it, which I like, so it doesn't go flying around my neck on windy days haha.

I'm planning on wearing our Stella & Dot pieces for our family photos later this month!

Anyway don't just take my word for it, you can actually win some Stella & Dot jewelry for yourself! Jennifer is doing a giveaway over on her facebook page here.

Once she hits 100 "likes" she'll giveaway some bling to a very lucky person, she's at 41 so far, so please show her some love and tell her I sent you, and hey maybe you'll win some awesome jewelry! :)

DIY Reusable Coloring Book

Save yourself some money and make your own re-usable coloring books! It's not new news that Miniboss loves to color and being the cheapo that I am, I hate buying her coloring books that she's just going to toss and rip all the pages out of. She's too young to know how to color in the lines, and all her "work" goes everywhere lol. So I made my own coloring book.

I just googled a few of her favorite characters, she loves Bubble Guppies, and Spongebob. Hello Kitty was all me heheh. Then I printed them out on regular paper.

Then I put them in clear plastic page protectors, and put them in a Hello Kitty folder. To keep them all in place, I just used some left over yarn and tied it.

You have to use Crayola washable dry erase crayons for this to work! After she's done coloring I just take the wipe cloth that comes with the crayons to wipe down the plastic and it's ready for next time!

Too much work? Too little ink in your printer? Just plain super lazy to go find all the materials? Or maybe you don't have plastic protector sheets or yarn or a folder or binder...Fear not, I also tried printing the images onto glossy 4x6 hp photo paper!

Then I tested it out with the dry erase crayons..

Totally works! I just used my finger and swiped off the crayon! I should have used a darker color, but you get the point.

They look like little postcards :) You could hang them or put them all in a box with the crayons for the next time you have a road trip or just want to keep your little ones busy!

You can find the coloring pages here.Spongebob, Hello Kitty, Bubble Guppies did not have a page to get it from, I had to do a google search and just saved them to my computer from a bunch of different sources.

My Little Monkey

Ready for our daily walk. Yea she has high-water pants hehe. She still fits 12 month old pants, the waist fits her perfect but the length is too short. Sooo..sometimes we have high-water incidents. It's gloomy out today but she still loves being outdoors :)

Playdoh

NOTTT a good morning at all for the Douangphilas, but life goes on right? Right...

Well I recently introduced Miniboss to the joy that is Playdoh! At first she tried to eat it, but after I kept telling her no, it's a toy, she kinda got it. Then she got bored and tried to feed some to Parker! Good thing it's non toxic right? Maybe Playdoh and a 2 year old wasn't the best idea, but it was fun for a while :)

Do you guys give your little ones more age appropriate toys? Or are you like me and give her big kid things just to see what will happen? Of course I was supervising her the whole time, but playdoh still got on her shirt and on the carpet and random pieces managed to linger around and dried up before I got to put it back in the containers. She gets so bored of things easily that baby toys don't seem to keep her busy for long at all. What do you guys do to keep your little ones entertained?

January

I know it's Minibossuary this month and boy have we been busy keeping her busy lol! I've been taking her out to the park, out to breakfasts just me and her, out shopping, she always gets a toy, and doing some Miniboss crafts! I will be slowly uploading pics and getting them on the blog soon. Just been uber busy. Plus my new years resolution, was to get back in shape, so we have been taking plenty of walks, mostly she ends up sleeping in her stroller, but it's still a great time for me :)

Here's a preview of a part of one of her bday outfits I've been working on.

Adorable right? I'm still working on her bday outfits. But they will get done!!

ps...Did you guys see I added a twitter just for our blog! I will post deals and random updates on there! If you have a twitter please follow us :) If not you can get the feed on the right over there ------------>

Tips for the home: Best Stain Remover

I've been living with a ugly stain on our carpet for quite some time now. Hubby accidently got some car oil on the carpet. I've tried pretty much everything to clean it out but nothing ever works..so I just gave up. Well after wondering Pinterest I came upon this recipe and gave it a try, what's it gonna hurt, plus you guys know me, I love me some baking soda!!

I mixed the ingredients in a small bowl. I just did one part dawn, 2 parts baking soda, and added enough peroxide so it was runny but still a paste.

Here's my evil stain!

I applied the mixture and used a little scrubber to work it into the carpet really good.
Here it is after i scrubbed it in.

See still wet.. Won't know if it worked or not till it's dry so I came back in 30 mins to scrub again with a little water so the carpet wouldn't feel sticky from the dawn? I don't know it makes sense to me lol.

Then I let it dry, came back in another 30 mins and..

(The shading is kinda weird on the carpet in these pics but it's because the sun has moved and it's a shadow from the bench that's why one side looks whiter than the other, but really in person you can not see that there was a stain ever there!)

It's still a little damp but you have no idea how amazing this is for me! I hated that stain like no other, and now it's gone. Miniboss spills all sorts of stuff and draws on the floor so I'm sooo glad to have this around for when I need it. If it can take out car oil I'm sure it can take out all of Miniboss's messes!!

Another great use for baking soda I must say :)

(edit: Now that it's been over a day, omggg the carpet spot is sooo clean that the areas around it look dirty now lol! Husbands says maybe I should do the entire floor lol.. It worked even better than I thought and maybe now I can get that white couch I've always wanted!)