Thursday, December 22, 2011

Christmas Must-Sees

Every December, I can't wait to break out a few favorite movies. Really, they're considered staples in this household ;)

Here they are, in no particular order:

1. Elf- Need I say more? My husband really doesn't care for Will Farrell (what?! you say, I know, it's a shame) but he's made to watch it at least ONCE. Peyton and I might enjoy watching it another 80 times...

2. A Christmas Story- I know this poor movie gets played nonstop Christmas day, but you still can't deny that it's pretty much part of everyone's Christmas day, whether you like it or not


3. Muppet Christmas Carol- This is more my husband's favorite. I'm not much of a muppet fan, but I make him watch Elf so I guess I'll return the favor ;)


4. The Christmas Classics- Oldies but seriously the goodies. I can remember watching these when I was little and plan on watching them until I can't remember. I introduced Peyton to these this year. She wasn't quite on board (I don't think they are as colorful as Mickey)...but she will be, don't you worry!


5. A Charlie Brown Christmas- Everyone loves the poor, gloomy, Charlie Brown. Not to mention this movie talks about the REAL reason for Christmas!


Welp, there are some of the best. If any of these are not on your list, I think you need to add them pronto!      

Monday, December 19, 2011

Peyton's First Santa Experience


She is very weary of strange men and apparently Santa is no exception, lol. Santa had to "go away" and then snuck behind us for the picture. Maybe next year Santa!! ;)

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Our Christmas Card :)

Here's our card for this year:



And for a fun comparison, here is last year's:


I seriously LOVE Shutterfly. Their products are top notch! I was lucky enough to score free cards last year and even though I didn't this year, I still ordered from them because I know I'll be 110% happy :)

We are just about ONE week away from Christmas!! I can't believe it!! With Peyton being a little bit older, I can't wait to see how she reacts to Christmas this go around :) I'm also looking foward to my family's fun traditions.

Counting down....

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Thanksgiving Recap

This post will have no pictures....at least not yet, my sister's camera holds all of the goods.

We spent Thanksgiving at my parent's. It was my little fam, my three sisters, their husband and boyfriend, my parents and grandparents. We started off this Turkey day with a little drama...The night before, Amanda (sister #3) was baking her yummy cheesecake when we realized the oven was smoking. Butter was dripping onto the bottom of the oven and was burning. So in a quick, group effort attempt to keep a bunch of smoke from coming out, I whipped open the oven door and she quickly threw a cookie sheet underneath to catch the rest. Once the cheesecake was done, (it turned out PERFECT) my Dad decided to put the oven on "Self Clean" mode to have it ready to go for the next morning and then went to bed. Amanda and I were the only ones up at this point. We were standing in the kitchen when I turn around and look at the oven just in time to see FLAMES! I point, Amanda looks, and starts galloping and jumping around yelling "Fire!! Fire!!" We proceed to run and wake my Dad who then jumps out of bed and the three of us fly to the kitchen. He thankfully got it stopped in a matter of seconds, I think by just turning the cleaning mode off. ::whew:: Through all of this, the entire house never woke up...nice. Even with all of the smoke that was burning our eyes out, no one budged. The next morning when we told everyone what happened, my husband says, "I wondered why my eyes were burning"....I swear I could probably punch him while he's sleeping and he wouldn't flinch. Amanda and I had a good laugh at our silly panickedness afterwards. Her galloping around the kitchen was hilarious. FYI, that's what you do now when there's fire, haha.

Luckily the smoke was cleared by the morning and we used the oven with no reoccurring flames :) The food was DELISH and we stuffed ourselves silly with yummy food and dessert. That's what the holidays are for right?? We hung out, talked and of course, watched some football. None of us partook (is that a word?) in the crazy shopping the next day. After working in retail for 5 years, I know better than to go out into that madness.

It was a relaxing, long weekend. Just what we needed :)

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Give Thanks

Sheesh, October came and went oober quick! With Thanksgiving tomorrow, I thought I should list some things I am especially thankful for.

1. My family's health. This time last year my Dad was in the middle of chemo for Lymphoma and since January has been given a clean bill of health!

2. My family- both sides :). I'm very thankful for our close relationships.

3. My husband. He is an amazing provider and works so hard to give us what we need. He is an amazing father to our daughter. He is my Best Friend.

4. My crazy, beautiful, funny, strong-willed, tantrum-throwing daughter, Peyton. While we're entering the "terrible two" phase, and boy are we, I still wouldn't trade this time for anything.

5.  A roof over our heads and food to eat.

6. My husband's job. His company just went through a major reconstruction (meaning MUCH job loss) and his position was not affected! I am extremely grateful God spared his job!

We are headed to Orlando this afternoon to spend the holiday and rest of the week with my family :) I'm looking forward to stuffing (pun intended, ha!) myself silly! The hubs and I put our Christmas tree up as well as the decorations since we won't be home this weekend to do it. We didn't want to come home from being away and have to do it. I love having nothing but the tree to light the living room in the evenings. If only we had a fireplace...

Anyhoo, I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving and I will hopefully have some good pictures to post next week!! :)

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

A Helpful How To

While doing some blog surfing, I stumbled upon a really cool blog. The author sketches all of her posts. Sketches all of her posts!! Pretty awesome if you ask me. One of the posts popped out at me. I found it rather helpful, so I thought I would share. Not to mention, things are just cooler when drawn :)

(Click to enlarge)

Monday, November 7, 2011

Cosmetic Loves

Ok, time for a few beauty items I've picked up and been loving lately.....

Starting with a new polish color I picked up (my addiction is out of control!!):

Essie- "Power Clutch" 
This is the most perfect combination of a dark gray with a deep army green. Pure awesomeness.


Next, for the eyes:

Wet n Wild Eye colors 
Crazy I know. But the shadows go on great and stay on! I bought a smaller one to try, ended up loving it and went back and bought the bigger combo (like the picture). And, big bonus, it's CHEAP! Hooray. So since it's so inexpensive, you can buy four, lol. Also, if you're into coupons, I've heard they put good coupons on their website from time to time. (Like $1 off...which with their prices can make items almost free!)

What are some of yours?? I'm always up for trying something new!

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Give the turkey his day people!


I LOVE December and Christmas, but seriously, let's enjoy each holiday. Thanksgiving is next, did you forget??

Friday, November 4, 2011

The Big Apple

Finally. Just a few highlights from our trip.



















Thursday, November 3, 2011

Trick or Treat

Ahhh! I know, I know....I've got post pics from our amazing trip.

But first, I just HAD to post some pictures of my adorable kid ( <---I didn't say baby!) and her first Trick or Treating experience. WARNING: You may die from the cuteness.  Don't say I didn't warn you.

I introduce to you:
"Boo" from Monsters Inc.
 (Um, aside from the fact that I think she looks exactly like Boo, she sounds like her too. Ha)







Checking out the candy you just scored is much better than smiling for a picture, obviously. 



The night was a success. Peyton picked up on treating right off the bat. I don't see why she wouldn't, it involves people giving her candy, she would pay attention to that! lol. We just took her to a few houses. My MIL wanted to show her off to some of her neighbors, so those are the houses we hit. Peyton also helped her Papa (Austin's Dad) hand out candy. It was a little hard for her to let the candy go (She may or may not have licked a few pieces before putting them in kid's bags. SHH!). Since it was my actual birth day, we ended the night with some yummy birthday cake, courtesy of my MIL :)



Monday, October 31, 2011

Day of my Birth


to MEEEE!!! 

I'm celebrating 27 years today!! TWENTY SEVEN!!!! 

Where has time gone?? No, really people! While I do not feel I should be 27, I still don't even feel 25, I'm feeling extremely blessed today. I have had such a wonderful life thus far and am so very thankful for it. God has given me a family that is very close to one another (mine and my inlaws), sisters that also serve as best friends, a super wonderful husband, an amazing little girl, and sweet sweet friends to top it off. 

I'm off to enjoy my day, starting with a little shopping and lunch with my Bestest. I'd say that sounds pretty good :)

Thursday, October 27, 2011

The City of Lights

Well, we are back home and trying to get back into our daily routine (meaning de-granparentizing Peyton, haha). To say Austin and I had an AMAZING time would still be an understatement. It was completely what we needed. Mommy and Daddy needed recharging and this trip did the trick! :)

I'll recap day by day on all the deets.

Wednesday: Our flight was at 6 am (yes we are a little bit crazy for booking so early but hey, we wanted to get the most out of our time there!) and we arrived in NY at about 8:30. We Austin decided that we should take the subway from the airport train, into the city, so that's what we did. After an hour and a half of hopping train after train full of not so-nice-looking-people (let's just say, we stuck out like a sore thumb...BAD) we finally got to the city. We stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn, Times Square. It was a really nice hotel and a good location. Too bad the weather didn't want to cooperate, it rained nasty rain ALL DAY LONG. But we didn't let that kill our spirits, we walked around in it anyway!! We originally planned to do museums this day but everyone and their mothers were in line to do that so we decided to wander and shop instead. We had lunch at the Shake Shack. The hamburgers were SO good and their shakes are made with custard...omg, YUM to the MY! My only request for the entire trip was to go to Serendipity, and I've always been told you have to wait in line forever or call (way) ahead to make a reservation. Well, we just winged it and to our pleasant surprise there was NO line!! So we got right in and I ordered their famous Frozen Hot Chocolate and Austin had their Apple Pie. We shared and both were divine! After a little shopping we ate dinner at John's Pizzaria. This was Austin's food request. He had eaten here a few times when he was  away for work and wanted to take me badly. It was awesome pizza and the atmosphere was neat too. The building it's in used to be a church so the ceiling is stained glass and all of the details are very pretty. After trying to stay out "late", we retired to our hotel around 9:30 < Party animals right here people, ha ;)

Thursday: The weather cleared up and was beautiful!! We got up and headed to the Museum of Natural History. Very cool museum, extremely huge as well. There are like 6 floors full of exhibits...we didn't even get around to seeing everything. We had to go through kind of quickly because we had a tour of Ellis Island to get to. We grabbed some lunch to go from Shake Shack (again), grabbed a taxi, and headed to the water taxi for our tour. After waiting in line for like 30 mins we finally loaded the ferry and got to the Statue of Liberty. This was the only "touristy" thing we did as neither of us had done this before in our previous visits. We're glad we did it though because it was really neat to get up close and get our picture :) After the tour, we headed to the 9/11 site. To our dismay, they had everything blocked off and covered so you couldn't see all the work they'd done so far on the memorial. Boo. We did walk around a little memorial "museum" type thing they had set up. We passed the Wall Street "protesters"....the crowd was not very big for it getting so much publicity. There were like a gajillion cops though. We walked around a little more and then headed back to Times Square to find something for dinner. Our goal was to not eat at chain restaurants...we wanted find New York-only places to eat at. So we explored and stumbled upon Scarlatto's Italian. Again, SO GOOD!! Nothing compares to legit Italian, not even Carrabas, and I love me some Carrabas. After that, it was bedtime. (We can't party like we used to. Wait, we never did, lol)

Friday: *This is probably my favorite day. Again, the weather was beautiful. (The day before I had the Today Show on and saw that COLDPLAY was going to be there to perform!!!) So we got up early and headed to the Today Show. After finding out what time the concert started, we went and grabbed some breakfast at a little deli and then headed back to gather in the massive crowd. Coldplay sang 6 songs, one hit from each of their albums and two from their new one. They sounded awesome!! I've never seen them in concert but after this little preview even Austin wants to go to a real one. Seriously, SOGOOD! I took some (not so very good) pictures of the band and of the Matt, Al, and Natalie and then we walked around 30 Rock and the NBC Store. Since it was still fairly early, we decided to try getting into the Museum of Modern Art. The line was much smaller, so we decided to go. That was $25 each that we can never get back. I guess we aren't true "art lovers" because we found most of the pieces a joke. Two layers of brick in the middle of the room is art? I guess that means everyone's patio is art!! lol. Not to mention, way too much naked-ness for us. Afterwards we got lunch at another little deli nearby and headed to Central Park. The park was beautiful! Not to mention massive. We only walked maybe 1/3 of it. After our stroll, it was time to head back to the hotel to pick up our luggage. After our journey to the hotel (when we first arrived), we decided it was worth the $60 taxi ride back to the airport. My feet agreed as well. I will say, taxi drivers seriously know how to maneuver through that city, but you really feel like you're going to die in the process, lol. I did, however, find brand new Bulgari sunglasses in our cab! So they served as my souvenir ;)

Before we knew it, we were back home. My family brought Peyton to the airport so she got to see us get off the shuttle. The look on her face was priceless as she saw us because she was so surprised! lol. Thankfully, Austin and I both agreed that we didn't think our trip flew by. Time kind of paced itself, and that was nice. As for Peyton, we talked with her everyday and even Skyped one night. She had a great time :) Knowing how content she was helped us to enjoy our time away even more. Thank you SOO much Mimi and Uby!!

*Picture post to follow :)

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Wordless Wednesday

My little nerd ♥


*New York post coming SOON, promise!

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Can hardly contain my excitement!


It is officially TWO days until Austin and I are off to NEW YORK for three whole days of Momma/Daddy adult time!!! :) (to celebrate 5 years of marriage....5 years!!)

This brings with it two main emotions. One is obvious- excitement, duh. The other- a little bit of anxiety. After all, this will be the first time we'll be leaving Peyton for longer than a day. And while I will miss her, my main worry is just being so far away from her. We are flying out of Orlando so she will be staying at Camp Mimi/Uby while we are away :) She is going to have a blast!! My parents are equally as excited to have some special time with her. They have been buying things that are "needed" (so they say) to ensure she enjoys herself....a few examples include a coloring table/chairs, a tent playhouse, a beanbag chair, books, and a few toys and movies....this kid will NOT want to come back home! lol.

Austin and I share a love for travel and haven't been able to go anywhere distant since before Peyton was born. Long time. So needless to say, we are really looking forward to this trip :)

If you think about us this week, say a prayer for our continued safety and that I won't miss P too much!!

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Nail Awesomeness

Ok, it is no secret I LOVE nail polish. With it being fall, I obviously needed some new colors to welcome the new season :) (I can/will always rationalize why I need more polish) 

Here are some of the colors I'll be sporting:

 Revlon: Espresso- A deep, shimmery chocolate
 Sonia Kashuk: Taunting Teal
Revlon: Totally Toffee- a nice, burnt sienna

Sally Hanson: Plum Luck- a rich, deep purple

Ofcourse, I'll throw in some greys and taupes in the mix as well :) What colors are you loving? Anything I missed??


p.s. Anyone else get annoyed that spell check insists on "nailpolish" being two separate words? I like it as one....no?

Saturday, October 8, 2011

Saturday Mornings


For the most part, our Saturday mornings start off the same as any other day of the week. I've got my coffee in hand and am snuggled up on the couch with Peyton, watching Mickey. This is my favorite part of the day and I'm going to enjoy it to the fullest <3

Happy Saturday!!