Miapella

Happy Customers

Here is an email that I received from a customer today regarding our Milk and Honey soap. I hope she doesn't mind me sharing this and I won't say who sent it since I didn't check with her first but emails like this really make us happy over here.

"This soap is the bomb!!!!!!!!!! Oh my goodness I have not ever had a natural soap lather like this. This thing is like shaving cream. I actually got the soap when I ordered your hair products. Thank you so much for letting me try it! I will be back for more. I switched to shower gels years ago because I hated the drying effect and little lather associated with soap. Man...You really got down on this.

Bless you!"

Here are some other recent comments from customers:

"This is one of the best body butters I have used."

"WHAT A GOD SEND!! FIRST, you completely stop my hair from falling out with your hair pudding--NOW--you've fixed my little sister's cracked and dry hands! What is going on here? Do you guys dabble in magic or something? If not--you certainly know what you're doing with natural products and their effect on our skin."

"Creamy, fresh, divine scent! Thank you!"

"I LOVE THIS FACE BUTTER!!! I have told everyone I know to use this product. It is organic, smells fantastic, and I have seen such a difference in my skin."

This is why we do this. We love it when we hear that something we have made has helped clear up a skin or hair problem someone was having or that they just love the way our products feel. Thanks to all of you for supporting Miapella! We appreciate you!

Enjoying the Final Days of Summer

 

 

 

Hope you are too.

Exericise Burnout

I've been experiencing exercise burnout. I just haven't felt like exercising ever since we got back from our vacation. So I thought blogging about it would help me stick to it! ;-)

Here is a quote I just read on Every Day Health:

"While many believe the faster and harder they exercise the better; in reality, this can lead to physical and mental exhaustion. Overtraining can cause loss of appetite, lack of progression, extreme fatigue, and even recurring injury. The mind, too, needs time to adjust to exercise. "For many, the thought of exercising every day becomes a chore," says Tuttolomondo. And that's when many people quit."

Looking back I think I was exercising too much. I was in such a hurry to drop extra weight from the pregnancy that I tired myself out. I'm still losing weight because I'm watching what I eat but I really want to add the exercise back in.

Here is their recommendation for how often to exercise:

"While everyone's situation is different, the American College of Sports Medicine and the American Heart Association recommend aiming for moderately intense cardio, 30 minutes a day, five days a week (or vigorous cardio 20 minutes a day, three days a week) plus 8 to 10 strength training exercises at 8 to 12 repetitions of each exercise, twice a week, to maintain health. (For weight loss, 60 to 90 minutes of exercise a day may be necessary.) These guidelines are for healthy adults under age 65."

So, I think I'm going to ride my stationary bike 3 times a week for 30 minutes. Then I'm going to add a little strength training twice a week.

Here is a great link for strength training exercises with pictures:

http://exercise.about.com/cs/exbeginners/a/begstrength.htm

4th of July

Did you all have a nice 4th of July? Some of our kids were sick so we had to cancel  our plans to go over to our friends house to swim and barbeque but we had a nice day at home anyway. The above picture is of some of our children decorating our flag cake. The older girls made a lemon cake and I topped it with home-made whipped cream. Then I let the kids decorate it with strawberries and blueberries. It was so good. Very light and not too sweet.Then, those who were well enough, took off to go see fireworks with Daddy. I stayed here with the sick ones.

Hopefully we'll be 100% soon. Besides the above cake, we're staying away from sugar and and resting so that we can all get better.

My poor babies. The flu is ruthless!

San Diego

We just recently returned from a trip to San Diego. San Diego is one of my favorite places. I thought I'd share some photos from our trip with you but beware- this is a picture-heavy post.

We went boogie-boarding and splashed and played in the water. The kids had so much fun. They did not want to come out of the water even after they were shivering and turning blue. We finally had to insist and promise to come back the next day.

This little guy played all day long in what he called the sandbox. He wanted nothing to do with the water.

We went to Little Italy  which is adorable. We walked around, did some window shopping and ate dinner.

We ate pizza at Filippis. Filippis is great and has been there for like 50 years or something. I believe the same family still runs it.

Then we ate frozen yogurt although we should have had gellato in keeping with the Italian theme. Oh well. The yogurt was great.

The next day was the USS Midway. It's a huge aircraft carrier. My oldest son is into photography. That's a film camera he's carrying. Remember those?

Me and my sweetie. He still had on his ear phones from the tour.

Have you ever been to the Children's Pool? It's so amazing. A wall was built here to make it more child friendly but then the Seals and Sea Lions took over and now it's their beach.

Isn't this a beautiful view? I'd love to just sit on those rocks and watch the sunset.

Then.... Sea World! Yay!

Hint: Bring your lunch to Sea World. They will allow you to keep your lunch in the car and leave the park to eat it on the tables they have outside the park. This lunch of 2 kids lunches (1/2 sandwich, raisins, carrots) and 5 turkey wraps cost us 70.00!

My 3 year old has been in love with Shamu ever since he saw the show. Now he sleeps with Shamu every night.

 

 

Taking time to relax

It's been a while since I last posted. A couple of weeks ago I think. I'm much better at keeping up with Twitter. You can see my "tweets" on the left sidebar.

We went to the park and rented the boats about a week ago. We've never done that before and I have no idea why. It was so much fun!

After the park we stopped at Rubios for lunch. We love Rubios. Their fish tacos are the best!

Then we let the kids play with the train set in Barnes and Noble while we looked at books. It was such a relaxing, fun day that I had to ask myself why we don't do things like this more often. So often we are busy with all the things that we need to get done that we don't take any time to just enjoy being together.

So, from now on we are going to try to make an effort to do something fun and relaxing each week. This week, we are going to our friend's house to celebrate my oldest sons birthday. He's 18!! Where did all the time go?

Busy Little Guy

This little adorable guy is now 8 weeks old and he's doing a great job at keeping us all busy. Don't let his calm expression in this picture fool you...

This is how he usually looks. A blurry bundle of energy, smiles and cuteness.

Happy days

This little guy has gained over two pounds since his birth. He eats all of the time!  Sorry for the blurry picture but he was moving all over the place here. I've been enjoying him so much. He's really changing every day and I'm just captivated. He's starting to talk to us a little, his smiles get bigger all the time and lately he's been waking up in the middle of the night just to talk. :-)

On a different topic, I haven't accomplished any knitting lately. I have a beautiful, half-finished sleep sack in an organic wool and cotton yarn but I don't seem to be able to find any time for it. My goal this week is to work on that a little and to order some yarn for a few more diaper covers. Our little one really needs some more covers since he has grown out of the littlest ones that I made for him before he was born. He has 2 that fit him well. Definitely not enough. :-)

I made some excellent shampoo the other day. It's so good for the hair. Moisturizing and nourishing too.

This is the herbal infusion steeping for the shampoo. It was just shampoo for my family but we are thinking of eventually offering some at Miapella.

We did just recently add some White Chocolate Hair Pudding to the shop. It smells so yummy!

I'm off to eat dinner! Later, we'll be adding a new line of Tropical Punch products!

A coupon for you!

Hey friends! Just poking my head in for a second to offer you all a coupon code! We appreciate all of you supporting our business and consider you friends.

Use this coupon code anytime during February to receive 10% off your entire purchase!

Coupon code:
friends

Just type that in the appropriate section while checking out. :-)

How are you?

I haven't posted much recently because I haven't mastered the art of typing with one hand yet. This little adorable boy only seems to like sleeping in someone's arms. As a matter of fact, he always wants to be held by someone. We don't mind at all. It won't be long before he's running all over the house and I'll be remembering how wonderful it was to hold him in my arms.

Tonight my 16 year old  held him while I made body butter and soap.  Our latest fragrance is a wonderful tropical-fruity scent. It will be available soon and we think you'll be pleased!

How's the weather where you are? It's been absolutely wonderful here. We've definitely been enjoying playing outside and soaking it all in.

Chamomile Tea Soap is up in the store now. It smells so sweet and is wonderful for your skin. I'd describe the scent as floral and slightly fruity. This soap has an organic chamomile infusion plus organic chamomile essential oil.