Pattern-tastic and an Important Discovery

Important discovery? Yes! 

Shatter. Nail. Polish. {doesn't that seem like it should be pole-ish? huh.}

On Sunday, Adam and I had to give talks at church and everytime I looked down to practice my talk, I got distracted by all the patterns I was wearing, especially my shatter nails. {whoop whoop}

 Beyond the pattern on my nails, I really dove into the pattern pool for my outfit. I had flowers on my scarf.

 Ruffles on my shoes. Aren't these awesome shoes??? They were a gift. From a special someone. That I am married to.

 My skirt was patterned out as well. Thanks Target clearance!

 My pink shirt had little cutouts, making for an awesome pattern.  Maybe I was subconciously thinking I was creating a giant visual distraction so no one would remember my words? possible.

But I think I am just in love with patterns, especially flowers, ruffles, and stripes.

What's that? Did you need me to model it? Why, of course.

My favorite part of all of this is when I told Denae I needed to take a picture of all my patterns.  She quickly joined in, agreeing this is completely normal behavior, and began posing me and snapping away!

Thanks Nay!

Have You Been Nice to an Avocado Lately?

Do you want my famous guacamole recipe? Well, do you??

One packet of guacamole seasoning and two avocados. Yep, it's good. Simple...but good. I suppose you can add some fresh stuff to it too, like salsa or just tomatos or onions.

Trust me, or at least trust the packet. It doesn't lie.

Lessons from Aunt Nay Nay

Watch:

and Learn:

Photos courtesy of Andy.

Griffey Loves...

...sleeping in our bed.

 We only let him every now and then. {We don't want to start that habit} So, he gets really excited when we let him take naps in there sometimes.  So excited, that he asks for the light off and the door shut and falls asleep immediately.

Garage Sales! {or fun stuff that we really do need, I promise}

Well last week, I had a garage sale at my mom's and we did pretty good considering we only had a little apartment's worth of knick knacks to sell.

Brittany came and helped and also added a few things to the sale.  After decluttering our lives last weekend, we decided the best thing to do this week was, what else? Garage Sale!

We test drove a few things...

...and went all over Eugene, scouring sale after sale.  We finally narrowed down our search to specific things {me-frames to paint and Brittany-pots and chairs to paint}.

We were so successful in our day's work that we needed to take a picture:

Yes, it does look like we set up our own garage sale in the parking lot. We may have gone a little overboard, but we thought hard about our purchases before we made them and we didn't spend much money at all.

The movies The Little Princess and  Little Women  were free so how could I pass that up? The scarf was .50 and I think it will make a great headband this summer. 

The bat, baseballs, and softballs are for Adam. I had to call and check and yes, he would like them please.

The owls in the orange matted frames are mine and I do not regret them one bit.  They spoke to me.  Those frames are going to be white soon though. Gold is not my thing.

I got two little chairs for my nieces for camping.  A whole $20 box of unopened fondant for $2, free corks for Denae, and an Oregon pillowcase for my uncle Brad.

The Dodgers shirt is Brittany's, along with the pots, chairs, and Frederick.

And last, but not least, the first and most worthwhile purchase of the day....THE BULL.

This bull pitcher is the most amazing piece ever.  After I showed it to Denae, she told me about cereal parties and now I can't wait until Griff is older so we can do that too.  This would be perfect for the milk.

But for now, it will sit on the window proudly.



After we set up our loot photo shoot, we called Austin from the golf course behind Brittany's apartment.   We said we needed help, but really we wanted to tease him.  We told him all of that stuff was Brittany's and mine was already in my car.  This was his reaction:

He did not approve!  Once I removed all my knick knacks from the equation, he was fine.

I'm excited to get started on painting my frames and I can't wait to set up our own place at the end of the summer!

New Project

I've been working on a new project that I am very excited about!

I'll post pictures when I am done, but for now...

I cut these...

 ..turned them into this...

and am now working on the next step!

Best Cookies Ever!

Recipe for: Molasses Chocolate Chip Cookies

To prepare: Preheat of 375°F

Ingredients		Directions
1 C sugar ½ C shortening 1 egg ½ C molasses 2 C flour 1 tsp salt 1 ½ tsp baking soda 1 tsp vanilla 1 C oatmeal 6 oz chocolate chips 1 C coconut		Cream sugar and shortening together. Add egg and molasses and beat well. Add flour, salt, and baking soda and mix well. Add vanilla, oatmeal, chocolate chips, and coconut. Drop spoonfuls onto cookie sheet Bake 8-9 minutes at 375°F

These are my favorite cookies ever, so I thought I would share the recipe! Enjoy!

In Twenty Years...

I think this is what Griffey will look like:

That's Chord Overstreet from Glee.  They both have giant mouths {not a bad thing. griff's is pretty cute} and the same hair.

Mother's Day

Today is Mother's Day and it was great!

I woke up to a sweet card with a recording of Griffey saying "I love you Mommy. Happy Mother's Day." and a People Magazine.

Griffey also brought me a flower and let me smell it before he took it away.  They had also gotten a big bouquet of flowers that were waiting in the kitchen.

We then went to church where I got a beautiful planted flower from the young men and then went home and watched Swan Princess and ate cookies that my sweet nieces, Carlee and Haylee, made me.

It was a great mother's day! I hope my mom feels better soon so we can have a happy belated mother's day with her {now that we celebrate it and all}.

Here's my momma and I with Griffey and our truffles at the Truffle Shuffle last year.  Happy Mother's Day mom!

Let’s get down to business

First of all, did you ever stop to think that {let's} is a contraction of {let us}. How silly would it sound to say "Let us go get some dinner…" instead of "Let's go get some dinner." hmm.

Speaking of dinner or food in general, I have a serious question to pose:

I took this from sodahead.com

Diet Pepsi or Diet Coke?

Obviously, Diet Pepsi is my favorite because I think it runs through my veins. My body craves it because I am made of it. Pretty sure.

However…I will gladly drink Diet Coke if that's {that is} what I got.

But…Diet Pepsi out of a bottle? Hmm…. I guess it will do in a pinch. Fountain drinks are obviously the best.

Yes, I might choose water over bottled soda.

So…. What do you prefer? Diet Pepsi or Diet Coke?

{This is serious business!}

A Day Up the Mckenzie

On a whim, we decided to drive up the Mckenzie and get some fresh air and possibly go on a hike.  My first thought was Ike's.  I went here a long time ago with my dad and sisters and I remember how awesome the broasted chicken and potatoe sliced fries are. The pizza smelt awesome too.

 So we stopped and we ate and we stayed a little extra long just in case we'd see Morgan Freeman.  Yeah. Apparently, his manager lives around there and Morgan (we eat at the same place, I can call him this) comes here about twice a month to eat.  Anyway, we didn't see him.

But, we did see a stuffed snow leopard on the wall.  Seriously.  I love the way this place was decorated. It definitely made it more fun to eat there.

 There was a wall dedicated to the Mckenzie River Lions.  This stuff was old and awesome.

 Of course, there were antlers and stuffed everythings on the wall.  Plus, an arcade area.  Adam ran up to me and begged me for quarters.  Him and Griffey played while we waited for our greasy awesomeness.

Then we were off to the....

 Yep. Fish hatcheries are our thing. We are all about fish hatcheries.  I think this may be why we decided to tie the knot. Our mutual love for fish hatcheries and our mutual disgust in eating anything in fish form. We like looking at them. No, love looking at them, but we do not like them (Sam I Am).

 We are fish hatchery connoisseurs (Hood River is the front runner) and we are teaching Griffey to love it too. I told Adam I was out of quarters at the arcade after a while, earlier, because I really like putting a quarter in the fish food machine and getting a handfull of smell fish food.

He was not impressed by my craftiness.

 Like father, like son.  I dressed Griffey without knowing what Adam was wearing.  Their closets are so similar that these 'Who wore it best' moments happen a lot.

 Forget the fish, Griffey was most excited about having freedom to run around all over the place.

 Under the bridge, there were a lot of fish. Griffey was entranced by them.  I wonder why so many? Was Adam sharing his Rockstar with them?

The visit ended with a look at the aquarium and then a snack of trailmix that Griffey helped me make (pretzels, raisins, chocolate chips, crackers, and teddy grahams.  He learned that if you pull everything out and throw it on the ground, you can get to the chocolate quicker.  Yeah....

Once, we got in the car, Griffey fell asleep, and we continued up the Mckenzie to scout of some exploring spots for another day.  We went to Blue River and are excited to go back in the summer to camp there. It was beautiful!

I am so glad that Adam was able to take a break from schoolwork (I don't have any. Are you kidding?) and come play with us for the day.

Easter

Happy Easter!

Griffey, Adam, my mom, and I went to the annual Coburg Easter Hunt. In case you were wondering, no, there are no eggs and no, there is no hunt involved.

Each age group stands around a roped off area and when the Easter Bunny says 'go' everyone jumps in to make a mad dash for as much loot as possible.

I felt that I should show Griffey how to properly succeed at this 'hunt' because there were a lot of kids itching for the stuffed bunny that I planned on beelining to and there is nothing more thrilling than racing and winning against three feet tall children who have just learned to walk...

Griffey did not feel the same rush of excitement. He was nervous and overwhelmed. He puts his fingers in his mouth when he is overwhelmed.  I've only seen him do this a couple times.  He also didn't understand why a) he had to stay behind the rope and b) why there were stuffed animals and candies all over the grass. 

Plus, I may have scared him with my overzealousness...


eyeing the loot and strategizing the plan of attack



Oh yeah. We got the bunny. You better believe that.

Eating candy and looking for more.  He is definitely my kid. We love us some sweets.

He wasn't sure about the chic with the big white suit on.  He kept his distance.

Yep. Definitely tried to keep his distance.

He did sneek over when the Easter Bunny wasn't looking and grabbed a hard-boiled egg (yuck!) from her basket. Grandma enjoyed that. Griff stuck with his dum dum.

And of course, we tried taking a ton of family pictures. Our expressions never matched. In this one, I didn't get the serious face memo.

Happy Easter!