FAVORITE!!

It's FINISHED ~ FINALLY

I have a lot of favorites, but those who know me, know that anything UK is an obsession!! 

And if I'm going to be spending time in a room, facing a wall while I sew, I might as well like what I'm looking at!

This is my sewing room MASTERPIECE

The canvas on the left was a birthday gift (thanks mom), the phone booth on the top is a metallic print, photo shopped by my amazing husband from a picture I actually took while I was in London and the map on the bottom is from a new favorite artist of mine (kudos Miss. Tait) that, again, my amazing husband worked his magic to blow it up to a giant size with photoshop!

I absolutely love this wall and cannot wait to have a house of my own some day to display with smiling eyes and a happy heart :)

oKtObEr

Yesterday was one of my favorite days!!!!

hALloWeEn!!

Of course it started off with mom's famous donuts (my favorite's the holes)

Getting ready for the fryer.....

 Frosting prep station

 I LOVE DONUT HOLES

 Ready for the feast!

My other favorite part of Halloween is, DRESSING UP!

Our whole office dressed up in the 80's. We even had our front office in "mom jeans" it was fantastic (how'd Sarah get her hair to stay like that?)

 Halloween night Rachel brought her two dogs over, in matching outfits. A ref, football player (Zeus) and a football (Thor) it was Stellar!

 But the best costume goes to my brother Ben. He dressed up as..... DAD!! I literally thought it was my dad when I came home from work and saw him from behind. He not only had his clothes on, but had his mannerisms down pat. Ben took his kids trick-or-treating in our neighborhood and all the neighbors got a kick out of his costume. Perfection.

Martin's rockin' out.... or putting?

 Jacob carved this pumpkin.... and although it wasn't in black and white, it looked a little more like Jack, the Pumpkin King, this way......

And I couldn't showcase his work of art in the dark, so here it is all lit up.

I can't mention October without our amazing Martin family vacation to St. George!

We stopped on our way down for some squeaky cheese

Ahh, red mountains speak to my soul

..... and they say, YAY!!

 Jenny!!!! Nice canyon

 R-Dawg's pretty serious about his rock climbing

 I have never seen Alex do this before, but he ran and jumped in the air like he had total control, then flipped and landed in the sand.... I love him!

 Wonder where he got that from?......

 Alex and I took a walk the last morning we were in Sunny St. George, and I longed to make it last forever

 I thought this was a dragon's neck when I first saw this picture.... then I realized Alex had taken a picture of a plant. He's so creative. Thank you Papa Bear and Mamma T for sharing with us some amazing family time, and thanks to Ade for flying all the way out to show me how to do a "jumping picture" it's a new favorite talent :)

 Overall, it's been a pretty great month. Sad to see it go, not believing it's already NOVEMBER. 

We only have 2 months on this calendar year... isn't it great we get to end each year with some of the best holidays? FANTASTICO

Craftiness

One of my best friends from high school recently had her second little boy!! I was so excited to see baby Jackson, and for little Karl to be a big brother, so I decided to make them something their "hunting" dad would be proud of :)

I decided to make them neckties.... SUPER EASY

  The pattern was found online by my SIL Elaina and it couldn't have been easier.

Big brother tie for Karl, and baby tie for Jackson

Finished ties!! The strap around the neck is actually a bra strap! (Thanks for the idea Brooke) $3 for an old bra at Ross which makes them $1.50 a strap with clasp and adjustable strap, can't beat that! I improvised the pattern a bit to make the strip on the back side of the tie for the smaller end to fit in. Works perfectly! 

These ties are adjustable too they can be folded shorter or longer depending on their torso as they grow

 I was so excited to make these ties and LOVED the finished product, but I was even more excited to give them to Melissa and her boys. I couldn't have been happier when Karl wanted to put his camo tie on, and couldn't take it off. He loved it too :) .... he just happened to be wearing camo shorts that day too

 It's official, I am a professional! My Boss felt the need to give us business cards.... so I can pedal myself?

And what does a professional do? Burn her mode of employment....

The culprit? A POPTART! I hardly ever eat these things and as I pulled the apple cinnamon delish out of the toaster, the frosting ever so lightly touched my finger and got stuck! I couldn't get to the sink fast enough. :(

Now all morning I've been trying to keep ice on it, of course wearing laytex gloves only magnifies the heat but in my downtime I've been managing to. However I have found that typing is difficult without a necessity pointer finger.... As my mom said right after it happened, and I was trying not to cry, "Two positive from this, at least it's Thursday, and it happened to your left hand." Thanks for the positive side mom :)

  I wish my finger had one of these to cool it down... HEAVEN IN A CUP!!

Moose-tastic

It is official people..... I'm getting OLDer

It's been almost two weeks now that I've been 27 and already Alex called me "old." However in my defense I think it has to do more with my job than with the actual number of days I've been on this earth.

 I share my birth date with the great Michael Jackson and although I don't have his love for the spotlight, I could not keep quiet  about the talent of my family and friends.

For my birthday my SIL Elaina made me this AMAZING Moose cupcake

 She knows I love moose and found this idea in a cupcake book. It took her a while to make it and it turned out PERFECTLY!! Such a surprise!! Thank you!

 My friend Mandi made me this cake as well - do these people know me or what?

I LOVED it!!

I did notice no one put candles on any of these cakes......

My birthday was such a fantastic day. I LOVE having a summer birthday. 

I thank all my friends and family for sharing the love that day. Whether it was through e-mail, text, phone call, card, birthday lunch .... or a shamrock and a moose I felt so thankful for everyone who took the time to send a shout out.

sUMeR LuVin!!

I have the bike of my dreams!
Alex and I decided to get bikes since we didn't go to Lake Powell this summer. I do wear a helmet, but this was my test drive. I fell in love and we ride them everywhere now. The library seems to be popular and anywhere else that can be a bike destination.
THANK YOU Sun Cruz!!

Brooke knows my style :)
Thank you for the sunglasses, they match PERFECTLY!

About 2 weeks ago my sister, her dog Zeus (and new puppy Thor) and brother's girlfriend, Maria, were on their way home from picking up the new puppy Thor and were involved in a car accident. As they were crossing an intersection a lady turned left into them. Even though they had to use the jaws of life to cut my sister out and were taken to the ER, they left a few hours later with bruises, sore muscles and a little heartache about her totaled car.
*The puppies were also ok

Her car is the one on the left - firemen are extricating her from the vehicle at this time.

Alex and I went shooting last weekend with Papa Bear and I have to say, after 2 years, I wasn't too bad.
(Gun placement was Alex's request)

I was getting my hair cut at my best friend Amanda's new Sports Clips and she offered to give Alex a neck trim....

This is what he ended up with. Mohawk and STEPS!! I LOVE it
Throwback to the 90's -HECK YES

BACK TO BLOGGING!!

We are back to blogging my friends. We have finally figured out our computer/picture issue and recently got our camera back after having to ship it back to Nikon for a glitch to be fixed (under warranty yahoo!) So now I'm making up for the whole summer. It might be a bit overwhelming and you might want to get a snack while you catch up on all that we've been up to but it'll be worth it. Let's see if you can make it all the way through August without a break... ;) It's 5 posts long!!

One thing I've realized while spending.... 6 hours doing this now, is that we've really had a GREAT summer. I'm feeling so blessed. So without further adieu let us begin

APRIL

The whole reason we went to Virginia!

Grant was celebrating his first birthday and we wanted to experience as many FIRSTS as we could with him in one week.

CUPCAKES, CUPCAKES, CUPCAKES

the second reason we came to Virginia was to understand (and get hooked on) the cupcake craze. Boy did we get HOOKED!!

Round ONE

We enjoyed this round while watching Tangled.

Carrytown, round two

Round three, Frostings

Round four, back to Two Sweet - we decided after tasting so many, this place was our favorite. The bunny was for Grant

I wish I could fit all the pictures of the inside of their house, but you just get the outside. It's ADORABLE!! If my house looked like this, I could totally live in Virginia. It's just classic. I miss these guys!!

Grant's FIRST experience touching bark.... oh how the feet can feel

Grant's FIRST experience eating a leaf... shh don't tell Brooke ;)

Grandma Jo had given Grant this giraffe for Valentine's day and he LOVED to suck on it's head. It was so cute to hear him say 'raf" and know how much he loved his Giraffe.

Bath time!

Berkley plantation. It was awesome to see a real plantation house and all it's land. This house was the site of the REAL FIRST Thanksgiving.

Me, Brooke & mom at the Berkley plantation gates

I have my own store... every girl's dream ;)

Mom and I on the subway.... Brooke, you're facing the wrong direction

This place is HUGE

They had a special ceremony at the tomb of the unknown soldier while we were there. It was aww inspiring to feel the respect in the silence.

Grant's FIRST experience with grass.... he did surprisingly well.

It reminded me a lot of the American cemetery in France. It's a little overwhelming.

The Mall

There were so many things I learned while walking around this place with my mom. She retains interesting facts about everything. She was my personal tour guide.

We saw Washington's monument, Korean, Vietnam, the White house, National Archives and walked and walked and walked. Good thing I had a GPS in my phone.

This was part of the WWII memorial on our way from Washington's to Lincoln's. They're a lot farther apart than you'd think.

What an experience

I was so clever and used my iphone to find the nearest Hard Rock. Wouldn't you know, it was almost right up the street from where we were.....

Carrytown had a Galaxy Diner and I waited for about 20 min. while talking to Carl for my FIRST fried PICKLE!!! It was worth it

The kid is HILARIOUS. he would never leave his socks on long enough to put shoes on.

At For the Love of Chocolate, I found sour pickles to try!! They were so good. I love trying new things.

We found a vintage sore in Carrytown and I fell in love with this 1920's hat. I love the 20's and 50's styles so classic

We loved our tour of the HUGE Whole Foods, and Grant loved enjoying his FIRST taste of gelatto. Although it was an interesting try, I do not recommend the avocado flavor

Grant's FIRST petting zoo!

We celebrated Grant's 1st birthday on Saturday. Time went by so fast. He LOVES his Hop Hop, so Brooke enlisted Grandma Jo to make his bunny birthday cake. She's amazing right?

Birthday boy!

Brooke's ingenious idea to give him red velvet cake showed up so well on his white onezie to show how much he enjoyed his cake. He was so kind and gave his mom the first lick of the frosting.

After the cake it was time for presents, and I was so excited to give him his FIRST bean bag!! probably more excited than he was.

I had unbelievably so much fun in Virginia, it was like a therapeutic retreat. Thank you SO MUCH Bee and J it was just PERFECT!!

I introduced and consequently got Brooke hooked on Starbucks vanilla bean!! (you're welcome ;)

I surprised Alex by hiding an Easter basket at his parents house, where he was staying, before I left. It was so fun to hear him hunt for it and the surprise in his voice when he wondered how I'd done it.

Last, but certainly not least, in the month of April the future King of England was married to his lovely bride Katherine - let's admit it, we call her Kate.

My wonderful sister and brother-in-law who live in England sacrificed their time to wait on the sidelines to snap this picture and graciously sent it to me, so I could feel as much a part of the action as I could. No I didn't stay up to watch it, but I had it all recorded and was thrilled to relive the experience while wearing my authentic blue sapphire engagement ring replica!

Thank you RAYNE & TOM!