Sunday Snapshot #26

September 2, 2012

I am so ridiculously excited today, because my favorite lady in the whole wide world (pictured above) is out here with me right now!! She came out a week before the wedding to help out with everything and anything because she is that amazing! Seriously I am just so excited she is here because we always have a blast together (as you can probably tell by the picture above from my bachelorette party, hehe)

Things are starting to ramp up with wedding stuff, so I probably won't be around much this week, but starting on Thursday I am going to have some absolutely amazing guest bloggers for you all. I think you are going to fall in love with all of these amazing ladies! 

Hope everyone is having a super relaxing Sunday! 

x's and o's

Fall-ish?

I'm so excited for fall, I just don't think anyone has told the weather out here what is up yet. Today was so oddly warm, around 85. Not so much sweater weather yet, so I threw on one of my favorite summery outfits. 

I found this shirt on one of my trips back to my dad's house in Phoenix. I think my mom had bought it for me when I was in high school and I remember just hating it, but when I found it in my closet recently I got so excited! It's just so cute and comfy, two of my favorite things, and I think it works pretty wonderful with my skirt. Side note aren't polka-dots just kind of the best thing ever? (If your answer is yes we need to be friends!) 

shirt // Old Navy (forever ago)
skirt // Ruche
shoes // Forever 21
necklace // Fred Flare
glasses // Coastal

I love pocket watch's as necklaces, there is just something so fancy about them.

I am so excited about my new glasses. For the first time in my life of wearing glasses I have more than one pair to chose from, also I am pretty thrilled about them because I only spent $30! So if any of you guys are looking for some glasses you should check out Coastal, they have super cute frames and always seem to be having big sales. 

How's everyones week been going? Any big plans for the weekend?

My dad is actually flying out today and I am so excited! I'm trying to think of some fun things to do with him while he is here before the wedding (aside from helping with lots of wedding related projects which is something he will have to do, haha).

x's and o's

Chalkboard Mason Jars DIY

As I mentioned in my last post I had two of my lovely bridesmaids Shaye and Hannah come over and help me with a couple wedding related projects. I thought rather than going through tons of glasses for the wedding I would make it possible for everyone to reuse a single glass throughout the night. This meant I had to come up with a way that everyone could easily label a glass, so we painted chalkboard strips on each of the glasses. 

Us busting through all 80+ glasses in no time

Things you will need

• newspaper
• mason jars
• masking tape/painters tape
• paint brush
• chalkboard paint
• chalk pens

First you will want to lay down some newspaper on your work surface so you don't have to worry about dripping the paint. Next tape off the shape you want to paint. We created rectangles. 

We ended up putting three coats on each jar to get it thick enough. Once finished painting you will want to let them sit for the next 24 hours before you try to write on it. I also highly recommend using chalk pens instead of a piece of chalk, as it won't smudge (as easily) and you name can look pretty all night long. 

Hope everyone is having a lovely Tuesday!

x's and o's

Week in Instagram v10 (Under Two Weeks!!)

1. Yummy chocolate peanut butter rice krispie treats I made after a kind of crappy day. I seriously think eating these can solve any problem!
2. Littlest in her new favorite chair.
3. Hannah riding around on Will's old tractor.
4. Will riding around on the tractor, pretty much everyone took turns riding it, because I mean it's kind of amazing.
5. Poor little Wig-wog in her cone of shame, just kidding, she got spayed last week and has to wear it for another six days or so. She isn't all that thrilled about it, or seems to even realize that she had surgery and should just be taking it easy. Cats, there is just no reasoning with them hehe. 
6. These super amazing milk bottles Will's dad is letting us borrow for the wedding! We will be using them as part of our center pieces, I'm so excited to put them all together.

We are a little under two weeks until the wedding, it's crazy! It seriously feels like yesterday we still had all the time in the world to get ready, hehe. Thankfully wedding related things are coming together pretty smoothly. I had the lovely Hannah and Shaye came over the other day to help me with some wedding projects (which I will be sharing some pictures of in the next couple of days), so that felt really nice to get those done. Work, however, just seems to keeps hanging on no matter how hard we push to move things forward, hence my lack of updates really lately. Hopefully we can knock it out of the park before the wedding!

Hope everyone has been having a nice weekend.

x's and o's

Mrs. Mouse

First off thank you all for your such kind and encouraging words yesterday. I am feeling a thousand times better today, I think a good nights rest definitely helped with that! And I'm not going to lie, it made me so happy to hear that a lot of you guys have had the same dinner problem and just gone with cereal. It makes me feel like we are in a cool club, or something like that hehe. So thank you all again, they definitely helped get me a one way ticket out of Mopesville.

Now can we talk about when a "photo shoot" goes awry. I guess I was just in such a better mood today that I couldn't help but constantly giggle the whole time, but I mean goofy photos are way more my style, so it works, hehe. And now can you how much I absolutely adore plain white t-shirts. Not only are they my go to top when I am running errands but there is just something so about having a base that you can just layer onto without having to worry about things clashing. 

cardigan/jeans/shoes- Forever 21
shirt- costco?
necklace- my mom's

Ok so I love this cardigan with all my heart. It's just so fun and so incredibly comfy. (I think I was doing a little dance when Will snapped this photo, haha.) 

So I completely did not realize until the end of the day that my shirt has a hole in it, haha! I probably caught it on a nail or screw at the mountain house, I ruined many a shirt that way, hehe.

The rest of today will be filled with some wedding work, but mostly just work work. Our clients are being a little slow in giving us notes, hopefully we can light a little fire under their butts so we can get this project done before the wedding.

How has your week been going so far?

x's and o's

Come On Down to Mopesville

The last couple of days I've been a little down/stressed, mostly having to do with things just not getting done quick enough with the house and stressing out about the wedding. Then after a long talk with Will last night I think we were both feeling better, however, today as I was trying to figure out what I should make for dinner I found myself just getting so incredibly cranky. I knew it was getting ridiculous when I couldn't find anything that we had the the majority of ingredients for or sounded good, and I just shouted out, "Screw it I we will have cereal for dinner." Did I mention I hadn't uttered a single word out load to Will before this? 

I'm starting to feel a little less cranky and can thank this little cutie for her help, even if her idea of cheering me up involve attacking my hand, haha. I can hardly believe how big she has become. Her brother, that our friend Shaye has, less than a year older than her and he is massive, so I am hoping little Wigs will get to be giant like him! 

Hope everyone is having a nice Monday. 

x's and o's

Sunday Snapshot #25

November 18, 2010.

Did I ever tell you about the time Will and I decided to participate in our local theater's Harry Potter costume contest (Will as Hagrid and I as Rita Skeeter) during the midnight release of Deathly Hollows Pt 1? I was super excited as we were driving there wondering who other people would be dressed up as. When we got to the theater it was pretty obvious we were the only ones, besides the employees, to actually dress up, haha! Needless to say we won all the great prizes that they were giving out, score us! 

Hope everyone is having a nice Sunday!

x's and o's

7 Questions

I thought I would join the always adorable Gentri in her 7 Questions series this week. Not only does it look like fun, but it also gives me a chance to share a little more about myself with all of you. So without further ado.

1. Do you have any weird food combinations that you love?

I love spicy, sweet and salty. One of my favorite snacks (which I don't eat too much because I'm pretty sure it could lead to a heart attack) is pepper jelly and cream cheese on a salty cracker. Will has always given me the side eye when I would talk about this yummy little snack but once he actually tried them he was pretty darn hooked!

2. Have you ever written a blog post, published it, then immediately deleted it?

I don't think I've published one then deleted immediately. I have, however, written a post and then delete it almost as soon as I finish writing it, or leave it at as a draft only to delete it a couple days later.

3. What is a hair style you wish you could pull off, but would never be brave enough to try?

When it comes to hair  I have pretty much tried it all, from pixie cuts to crazy colors, and usually have no problem with trying something new, except for this cut...

(source)

I simply adore it but am way too terrified about trying it myself. Maybe one day I can talk myself into it.

4. Would you rather have to always use the sun to tell the time or directions by the stars?

Stars for sure, I have a feeling if I had to rely on the sun I would would lose my vision from just staring at it all the time trying to figure out the time.

5. What is a fall trend that you are excited to try?

Plaid! I know I pretty much wear plaid all year long but there is just something about it in the fall that is all kinds of wonderful. 

6. Who is your style icon?

I am super in love with Zooey Deschanel's and Mindy Kaling's style. I mean honestly who isn't. I sometimes wish I could pull things off as well as they do, but whatever, I still rock it (wow that came off a lot more full of myself than the confident I was going for, haha).

7. What's your favorite outdoor activity?

I absolutely love walking through our apple orchard picking apples. And when the apples aren't in season I love exploring the mountain to check out all the plant and animal life.

Let me know if you decided to partake in this weeks questions, or if you want feel free to answer these same questions in the comments, I absolutely love getting to know more about all of you guys!

Hope everyone is having a great Thursday!

x's and o's

Wedding Wood Work

I haven't really shared any wedding stuff here lately so today I thought I would share some of the projects we have going on. Yesterday Will and I worked on creating part of the table center pieces. Because we are doing it in the our little apple orchard we are using a lot of wood as decoration. It is also convenient because this was the first year we were really able to prune the trees and knock down the dead ones so we had a lot of wood just lying around. 

Will put them all through the planer to level them out .

We had about twelve to do so we created quite a mess of wood shavings. I'm trying to think if there is anything interesting that I could use them for.

I love how the older parts of the wood are just so dark. It just makes them so much more interesting looking.

Try not to be too jealous of my wonderful work outfit, haha.

After we planed them we rubbed in some stain to help protect them and get their colors to pop just a little bit more. I'm so excited to put a test center piece together to see how it looks, because in my head it looks pretty amazing, hehe. I also hope that after the wedding we can find something to do with all the wood, I would hate to throw it out after all the work we put into making them. Hmm maybe we can hang them, that could make for some interesting wall art. 

Everything seems to be coming a long pretty nice, which is all kinds of wonderful. I have a feeling we still be working till the last minute to get everything done though, hehe. Yesterday I started on the music playlist, just figuring out what songs we want to play, putting them in order will have to wait for another day.

I can hardly believe the wedding is only a couple weeks away! Eeee, it's so exciting!

x's and o's

Bows and Stripes

So as I mentioned yesterday I was absolutely exhausted due to jetlag, I'm talking about I broke down crying at least four times about minor things exhausted. For example, Will's parents sent a picture of what they have been working on at the mountain home and they had put some antlers on the entry way. I literally went from, I don't like those to bawling hysterically about them. I also started crying because I was so exhausted last night but I couldn't fall asleep. Needless to say I felt like a crazy person. Thank goodness Will is pretty wonderful and did everything he could to make things better. Thankfully I got a wonderful amount of sleep last night and am feeling a thousand times better, so can look back at yesterday and just laugh at how silly I was being. Hopefully Will can do the same thing, hehe.

Now onto an outfit post, I'm going to try and do these a little more often. Doing and sharing them are things totally out of my comfort zone, but at the same time they are kind of fun, so here goes. I got this dress during ModCloth's 70% off sale! I seriously look forward to this sale every year. I absolutely love ModCloth, but usually don't have the money to get anything, so when their adorable dresses are marked down to under $20 I am all over them!

This dress is all kinds of amazing. I love that from the front it is simple looking with just stripes on the bottom. But then the back...

Bam, it has these absolutely adorable bows on it! (That "bam" might be a little over the top, but I just have always really wanted to write a sentence that starts with bam, not sure why hehe.) It just makes the dress a little more unique, I think.

dress// ModCloth
tights and shoes// Target

Can I just say that I am so excited that it has started to cool off again, because I can wear tights/leggings again. That and the leaves will be changing soon and you can find pumpkin everything. I, like most people am a sucker for anything pumpkin, especially muffins/donuts. I have a feeling there will be a recipe post (or two) having to do with pumpkin finding it's way up here in the near future.

What are your favorite things about fall?

Hope everyone is having a nice Monday!

x's and o's

Back! (Week in Instagram v9)

I made it back safe and sound late last night, and boy am I out of it today. I woke up at like 8 this morning which was 5 Phoenix time, and my body was pretty set on still being on Phoenix time, ugh. So after forcing myself to get up we did some grocery shopping  and I got myself some coffee; however, it hasn't kicked in yet, boo. Hopefully it will wake me up soon so I can have a kind of productive day. Thankfully, Will is kind of the best and has already told me I can just have a lazy day to recover from the travels.

1.  My new favorite outfit, it's just so colorful and fun!
2. The only downside to being a freelancer is that I can work even on vacation.
3. I got super spoiled with dad's typical breakfast at this super wonderful little restaurant. They seriously had the best blueberry muffins I've ever had!
4. Watching Doctor Who with Will via Google Hangout. Haha, yes I do absolutely realize how goofy we are.
5. Waiting at Chicago Midway for the last leg of my trip back to the east coast.
6. Will brought Wig-wog to great me at the airport, which made this little lady happy! We are pretty darn lucky that she enjoys riding in cars. 

Hopefully tomorrow I will be far more awake, but until then I think it's time for another cup of coffee. Happy Sunday! 

x's and o's

Antique Shopping

Ok so let me start out by saying that because I left my DSLR back east I keep forgetting to use my little camera. Yesterday morning I remembered to charge the battery but then completely left it charging long after I had already left for the day. I feel all kinds of silly about it, so hopefully you can bare with some more phone photos.

Alesha and I decided to do some vintage shopping to see what we could find for some wedding decorations. It was kind of a bust, but I did get to enjoy lots of quality time with my best friend which is a winner, in my book for sure!  

Outfit for the day. I got the skirt from Rusch after winning a $50 giftcard over at the lovely Julie's blog. I've never won anything before so it was extra exciting!

One of the antique stores that we hit up was in Old Town Mesa. Now, having lived in Arizona from birth to 25 I am kind of ashamed to say I had no idea Mesa had a downtown. What makes it worse is that almost all of my mom's family lives in Mesa and I would pretty much spend every Sunday out there up until high school, haha. But I can report it was pretty cute, very small, and had an older feeling to it. Why if I actually remembered my camera I would have take a lot more photos. 

There was so much wonderfully adorable stuff. It was hard not to want to buy it all. 

Ok so this was kind of the most wonderful find ever! It was a series of safety cards Disney made in the 60's, this one is from the pedestrian safety set. I would have snatched up a set of these if they weren't $150, ugh. Alesha and I seriously sat looking through them for about 20 minutes before I decided against it, which still isn't actually final because I might just shoot her over some money via paypal to go back and get them for me, haha. I mean seriously how cute would those be hanging up. There is just something so wonderfully delightful about the illustration style! Curse you lack of money. But hey if anyone wants to get them for me as a wedding gift I would forever love you (I'm just kidding...only kind of haha).

Are there any things you've found while thrifting and was just too expensive? Do you still kind of regret not getting it?

Today is my last full day in Phoenix and I think it is going to include a movie with the Papa Bear (I seriously see more movies with him in a week than in an entire year back in WV, haha). Then dinner with my brother and sister-in-law. Finally, there will be a super early breakfast Saturday morning with the family before I head off to the airport to meet up with Hannah for our flight back to BWI. I must say I absolutely love having someone to fly with, it just makes the trip go by so much faster.

Hope everyone is having a great Friday!

x's and o's

Dork Alert!

Will is too darn wonderful when I am away, not only does he do lots of video chats with me, but he also makes sure to include Wigs in them! I got a little screen shot happy and decided to show just how silly I am and share the gif I made of the photos. Haha it is pretty darn ridiculous how excited my face gets in this, I just can't help it! Even if Wigs does not seem to be as excited to see me, hehe.

Hope everyone is having a wonderful Wednesday. 

x's and o's

And I'm Back

Can I just tell you all something? I seriously have some of the greatest friends ever! Alesha put together the best bachelorette party I could have ever asked for! I did not get nearly enough photos of all of the fun, because well I was having way too much fun to remember to haha, but we did manage to get some with our phones. (Please note this post is full of a ridiculous amount of exclamation marks, I'm just still so excited)

The bachelorette festivities started out with a nice relaxing evening full pizza and drinks at the amazing hotel room Alesha got for us. Then it was up not too early the next day for a pool day. We really lucked out that it wasn't too hot and there were plenty of clouds in the sky. 

I think I got a little bit of a tan, but if I did then I only went one shade up from ghostly white, hehe.

The absolutely lovely Hannah!

Then it was out to dinner at such a cute restaurant, Bliss. 

We then took the light rail to one of the cutest little tiki bars, Hula. 

 I really don't drink often but when I do it had better be fruity and out of a glass like this!

We really wanted to take these home with me because they are kind of amazing! 

One of my favorite photos from the evening mainly because it is so deceiving. It looks like I am almost as tall as the wonderful Alesha, but in reality I am a good 6 inches shorter, haha! My feet here pretty high off the ground. 

Then last night was the most amazing way to end this super amazing weekend, karaoke! Hannah and I did our best rendition of 'The Boy is Mine' only for me to realize I only knew the opening and chorus. Thankfully Hannah knows her stuff and helped carry me through it, hehe. 

Also can we please note how ridiculous the stripper pole is, haha! 

And what made it even more amazing was I totally got both my brother and my dad to come and rock out with us! The thing you have to know about my dad is that is a fairly reserved guy, so getting him to come out was a big hit with everyone because basically all my friends love him. Then the most amazing thing happened when 'Like a Virgin' came on: good old Papa Bear got up and sang it! We all died, it seriously was the greatest moment ever! 

The photographic proof!

This weekend has been beyond amazing! I am so lucky to have such amazing friends and pretty much the best maid of honor ever! I know this post has consisted of tons of exclamation points but I feel like even a hundred more still would not be nearly enough to show how wonderful this weekend was.

What did you all do this Labor Day weekend?

I will be Phoenix until Saturday, but should be back to a more regular posting schedule.

x's and o's