A few of my favorite princesses…

Last night was my fifth semi-annual princess party with my girls. I didn’t have this blog when I hosted the first one, but you can read about the second here, third here, and fourth here.

Pretty Princesses!!!

They are beautiful. And hilarious. And I love them.

My girls trying to teach me to model like “Top Model”. They are fanning me to create air so my hair flows behind me. Right after this they tried all running past me at the same time so my hair would fly out… oh, my girls, I love them. They crack me up for sure!

Dinner was at Firehouse Subs and we watched a movie called Sleepover (so appropriate for our very own Sleepover!). Also, has anyone else ever heard this whole “flush a DVD disc to clear scratches” thing? My girls all swear by it, but I’m a bit skeptical of sticking my hand in a toilet, haha!

It was a fabulous party! I am so glad I got to hang out with my girls. They are really truly precious. They all just headed out so I am updating real quick like while I make waffles for Topher and I! We have a big day ahead and I am excited to share photos and stories with you guys soon!

Who is that paranoid lady on the news?

So you know how my friend, Abigail, and I like to walk our pups around the lake? Well last week there was a news crew at the lake and they started asking me questions about recent car break ins.

You guys, I should never be put on the spot in front of a camera. I am so bad about saying the first thing that pops in my head. This is why I have always said that I could never be on a reality show. The editing crew would have a field day with making me sound straight crazy. Thankfully it didn’t turn out badly this time around, but the news article online makes me sound like I’m a paranoid old lady. Don’t believe me? Read on:

When you watch the video it’s obvious that I’m joking about the “I won’t tell you where I hide them because I don’t want anyone to steal them…” because I kinda giggle while I say it. But the reporter lady didn’t even crack a smile. I’m pretty sure she thought I was dead serious, ha!

Even Christopher couldn’t pretend that I didn’t sound at least a bit paranoid. He thinks it’s hilarious, though. Abigail called me right after the segment aired and she laughed uncontrollably for a good few minutes before saying how grateful she was that her part had been cut (yeah, she was supposed to be on it too! And so was Oreo! And Emma!). Ah, oh well… at least it makes a good story. “Hey kids, let me tell you about the time your mom acted like a paranoid old lady who thought the news reporter might steal her valuables…”

Memorial Weekend in the Lone Star State

Last week we got home from the beach late Tuesday night. We hardly had time to unpack before we left again bright and early Friday morning. We headed to Texas to hang out with Christopher’s family for a few days!

We went to White Rock coffee – one of the top 10 coffee places in the States and number 1 in Dallas – also my husband’s favorite coffee shoppe! We also checked out the Farmer’s Market in downtown Dallas (see photo at bottom right of the brothers with their produce) and spent plenty of time goofing off (ie. picture of Christopher and his dad).

McKinney, Texas has a cute little downtown area which we had fun exploring. MOM and POPcorn Company which has an assortment of popcorn ranging from dill pickle to plain jane popcorn (yes, we sampled the dill… it wasn’t half bad). The Salsa Shop which has so many delicious salsas and peanut butters and sauces… all out to sample! They had banana peanut butter which was delightful because one of my favorite snacks is peanut butter on a banana!

The Heard Museum! This place had a fun little museum, but even better it had gorgeous walking trails! I loved seeing the natural terrain of the area that was allowed to grow with wild abandon. Makes me think of what the prairie must have looked like long ago.

Me with my mother-in-law and sister-in-law.

The familia!

Hehe… this was us trying to get family shots. My sister-in-law and I both had cameras on timers and at one point we didn’t get them set at the same time so we both ran back to fix the cameras. I realized that mine was about to go off so I hammed it up and this is the outcome. This photo absolutely cracks me up so I just had to share it with you guys!

The familia again!

While in the Dallas area we also got to see my brother and his kids and my little sister on Monday morning.

My niece and nephew have gotten so big since the last time I saw them in October! Kaitlyn kept showing off her ballet moves. So precious. She and Austin are growing up far too fast!

And one last shot of us

It was a busy weekend, but we had a wonderful time. Such a blessing to spend time with family.

 

Destin, take two!

So a couple of you mentioned that there can’t be too many beach photos so…………………

MORE PHOTOS!

Hope you guys have a great weekend!

 

A few days in the Sunshine State :)

Sorry I went all incognito on you there. I have lots to catch up on so prepare yourself for a massive onslaught of photos! Since last Friday I have been doing a lot of this:

Ah, Destin, I miss you already…

We went with Tony and Abigail and had such a great time!

We even took the classic beach shot!

And a few not so classic shots (but still fun!)

Christopher and Tony carryin’ our chairs and the cooler!

Abigail and I! My favorite thing about this shot is that it wasn’t posed. I can’t remember what we were saying, but those grinning faces were genuine. This is just what we looked like every day when we were headed out to “our spot” on the beach!

Tony and Christopher spent countless hours playing with frisbee

Abigail and I spent our time split between our floaties in the ocean and our chairs on the beach

And of course, plenty of time for Christopher and I together as well

And of course, kissing shots…

Love him.

I have SO many more photos, but I figure this is too many for one blog post already, haha! But yeah, it was so good to step away from the daily grind for a few days. I didn’t realize just how much I needed this until I was there. We had a wonderful time. Definitely looking forward to going back!

The Curio Cabinet

This was my grandmother:

Stunning, wasn’t she?

If you look closely, you can see her china on the table in that photo. Before she passed away she made certain that my grandfather know that she wanted me to have her china collection when I got married. She knew it was only a matter of time since Christopher and I had been dating a couple of years already at the time. It makes me sad that she wasn’t able to be at the wedding, but I feel confident that she had a good idea I was going to marry that boy.

Anyway, after we married, my grandfather passed her china on to us, but since we were in a 400 square foot apartment, well… we didn’t have much space, haha! When we bought the house, we intended to buy a curio cabinet to display the china in, but we just never got around to it. So for far too long my china has been displayed like this:

Sad, I know. Sitting neglected in the corner of my craft room where no one ever sees it.

Well, this week Christopher found me a beautiful curio cabinet on Craigslist and on Wednesday evening we came home with this:

So pretty!

And now, I have a beautiful place to display all my gorgeous china from my grandmother.

I absolutely love it. Along with my grandmother’s china, this cabinet holds her silver, crystal and her mother’s depression glasses from the 1920′s along with Christopher’s family’s heirloom silver. I really do love walking by and seeing it all displayed so prettily.

This week’s highlights so far!

Girls’ night on Monday! Italian food, chick flick, and good conversation with two of my besties (Courtney and Whitney)!

“Plaid Day” at work today. I’m actually wearing a plaid shirt that I normally sleep in because all my other plaid was packed up with my winter stuff. So I kinda felt like I was in my PJs at work which was wonderful.  By the way, the two guys standing next to me are two of my bosses. They love coming up with random theme days for work.

And as soon as I got off work today, my other bestie (Abigail) and I took our pups out for a walk around the lake!

It has been such a good week already and it is only going to get better from here!