I <3 My Family.

Last week was super nuts but I loved every second of it. My little sister got married and my brother Billy and his family flew out for the wedding and to spend time with family in general. The wedding turned out really nice, I honestly didn't get to enjoy myself much, but it was Wendy's day to not have to worry about a thing so I think that I accomplished that! She looked really beautiful in her dress, and Chris performed the ceremony. He got a lot of compliments on it and I think it may have been a neat enough experience for him that he wants to do more.


The younger kids all wore their halloween costumes (the wedding was on halloween!) and they all looked so cute! Lora was a pirate, I made her the costume and she seemed to really like it! Its the third costume I've made for her.. last year I made her "a very real" looking Sally costume.. even hand painted the exact patterns on the different colors of fabric.. and the year before I made her a cute fairy princess costume. Its fun to be able to make stuff for her, I can tell she feels extra special in the handmade costumes and knows that most kids have to wear gross plastic cheapo ones. Billy and Christy's kids went as minnie and mickey mouse and were totally adorable!
I was so happy to get to spend as much time as I did with Billy and Christy and their kids. Its crazy that you can love little kids so much that you don't even get to spend that much time with. I feel like Alana (minnie mouse!) genuinely gets it that I'm her Aunt and I feel like we have a fun little bond even though I only get to see her a couple times a year.


Sunday night after the wedding everyone came over to my house to just hang out and eat wedding leftovers. We managed to get everybody there so of course we had to take a picture.. there is a lot of us and this is only the 2nd time in probably a decade that we've all been in the same room together! Last weekend was great and really made me so thankful for my family. I can't imagine ever having as many kids as my mom had.. but I really feel like people with super small families are missing out! My family rocks!

Just some stuff..

Yesterday was my little brother James' birthday, I can't believe he is really all grown up, 18 years old. I remember turning 18 and who I thought I was at the time and what I thought I believed and it's interesting to think that James is now that age, in my head he is still that cute little boy in his blue jammies holding Tiggy outside our house in Rexburg, Idaho. I think maybe thats one of the reasons its hard to see him as a "person", I see him and who he is and it just dosn't connect right in my brain.. he is still 5, not 18. We had a nice little get together at my house for him and it was nice to have everyone together.




Lora and I went down to my garden to finally pick the pumpkins I grew and I have to say, I'm pretty proud of them! First garden ever, and I managed to get some good looking pumpkins! I let Lora choose whatever one she wanted and she picked the worst one. I wasn't surprised at all.. I would expect nothing else from that little girl! Little girl.. I don't know how much longer I even get to call her that, yesterday she looked more grown up than ever.. even in her "Clarissa Explains it All" inspired outfit!


Yesterday got me extremely excited for the next week or two. My brother Billy and his family are flying out and my sister Wendy is getting married on Halloween. It will be nice to have everyone all together since it rarely ever happens. <3

Straight Outta Compton! Or the Mountains.. whatevs.

That picture pretty sums up the most recent camping trip. No, just jokes. It really was a great time, mostly due to the fact that my awesome friend Maddie came along for the fun! We were awesome and drove up just the two of us in my brothers truck and brought two big ass dirt bikes in the bed up into the mountains vagina.

Well its only 13 miles into the mountain but half of it is really fucked up dirt with rocks and a straight up cliff style drop off one one side that apparently 16 year old boys that drive jeeps that they really can't drive and Dodge Neons navigate up.

Both stories (the dumb boy driver, and neon) are really to stupid and long to even repeat. Pretty much, us girls rule and kicked that mountains ass. TWICE.

Smoked too many cigarettes, enjoyed lots of applefuntimegoodness, had really good almost therapeutic conversations with a rad girl, built the fire all by myself, had magical moments in the forest, was cold, was hot, almost annihilated my hymen, and fed Cuz lots of dog treats.

Camping RULES.

new pyrex!

I was so happy when I found this particular pyrex at savers about a week ago. Its a pattern that has always eluded me.. until now! Its called the "friendship" pattern and I have always wanted a piece from that collection. I want more of course, but to at least find one proves that there must be more out there too. That same trip to savers I found another really obscure pyrex bowl but I haven't taken a picture of it. Viva Pyrex!

Pyrex Love.

It took about a month but I finally got it done. My mom gave me these gross old shelves a long time ago, they were off white (or maybe originally just plain white!?) and they had writing on them and they were just really ugly. But they were also free shelves so I gladly accepted them. They were the perfect thing to put all my vintage pyrex on but they were just insanely ugly.

After moving into my new place I decided I wanted to paint them before putting them back into my kitchen, but meanwhile i had about 15 boxes of pyrex just chillin' in my kitchen. Chris and I went to Lowes to pick out the paint, I wanted red but according to Chris, red is trashy and juvenile. Chris - open a design magazine.. red is COOL. But we finally ended up both liking this neat green color. A couple weeks later i finally got it painted and a week after that i started the process of handwashing every peice of pyrex to finally go home to their newly painted shelves. I have to look through a few more boxes because Im missing a few lids, hence why some of them are resting wonky on some others.. but over all, i think it all looks great!

mixtapes and sewing fun.

Chris just made this cute mixtape for me. It looks all realistic like an actual oldschool mixtape.

Just press baby! But only if you want to listen to about an hour of funny/cute lovey songs. Everything from Ben Lee to Pat Benetar.

Perfect thing to listen to tonight while a finish up a craftster swap!

wow, I really suck.

I cannot believe how emotionally invested I was in American Idol this year.

Im not an Idol fanatic, in fact the only time I ever watched it was a few episodes 5 years ago in season 2. In december I would have told you that American Idol is for weird little tween fangirls and closeted middle age homosexuals.

I was watching the news on fox one night and they showed a clip about this kid from utah who made it to the finals for American Idol and soon as I heard him sing, I became completely infatuated with him and voice. His singing is incredible and as corny as it may sound, he really touches me and i feel happy when I listen to him. I can't wait for him to be done with that show and be able to do his own songs. He is a singer and a songwriter and some of the music he has written is incredible. Its like this soulful bright eyes meets john mayer.. soft and mellow and really pretty.


You should watch this video, you will understand the Archie love.

6 years.

Chris bought me a pretty bouquet of pink roses on sunday. Sunday marked 6 years together. I really can't believe its been that long. I've spent what i feel have been some of my most definitive years with Chris. He really has seen me grow from being practically a teenager (get those thoughts out of your head!) into (i hope) an awesome, smart, strong-willed woman. I was 18 when i met him, and i will be turning 25 in just a few months. What a strange, amazing, sometimes horrible but mostly awesome 6 years. He probably more than anyone has seen me at my highest highs and truly low lows. For some reason he still likes me. <3

I should be more ashamed...

that I have been listening to this hannah montana/miley cyrus cd for the past hour.. and liking it.

Its been nice background music while I've resized 200 pictures. While resizing those 200 pictures I found a picture that I took last week of my favorite thrift store find that I have found in quite a while.


I found five of them. They are diagonal handled in the "Old Town" pattern. They are in pristine condition and make my heart happy. I can't wait to move into my new house and finally be able to properly display my collection! I have and old set of shelves my mom gave me, which I currently have most of my pyrex on, (in unattractive stacks because there are to many!) but I want to paint the shelves a pretty red color and then put my favorite pieces on it.

Set the date!

So.. after much procrastination Chris and I have finally set a date to get married.. and I think we have got a pretty good idea of what we would like as far as a reception goes. Looks like we will be getting married on Friday the 13th of June. I was thinking maybe the first weekend of June, but that is Lo's birthday plus it just seems cool to do it on friday the 13th.. I have to talk to my dad, but i want to have the "reception" two days later on that sunday at his house. It will be the perfect weather for a fun, casual outdoor bbq with cake, lots of people that I love, and maybe even a few tacky decorations.

Im positive my dad will think its a great idea. I think between myself and the creativity of my sisters and Janell that it will turn out nice and pretty inexpensive. I think thats a lot of the reason I've put off making any real plans. Neither of our parents are in a position to help financially and Im not going into debt for a wedding! I don't even like weddings but after thinking about it as much as I have.. i've decided to just do it my way. I think I was scared of people thinking it was tacky but I really dont care. I don't like dresses, or flowers, or doing the freakin' chicken dance. I just like Chris, and want to marry him so I'm doing it my way.

Jills gettin' hitched!

Im leaving in about 10 hours to head down to southern utah to be with one of my most awesome friends as she gets married! Its so funny to think back to almost 7 years ago when I met Jill. I was 18, had just moved across the country and was working at Hot Topic. She was my manager and she kind of scared the shit out of me. She was moody and bitchy but I soon found out that she was RAD.. and moody.. and bitchy. We became friends pretty instantly and over the course of the next seven years I moved back to utah, she moved out here a while later.. we lived together, didn't live together, loved eachother, almost hated each other, and two years ago I helped her drive back to massachusetts when she decided it was time to move home. Since then she has become a mama and soon to be a wife. I feel totally lucky that I even get to go down there to help her out since it was such short notice but it should be a good time! I get to meet her little baby too :)

I have another two hours of work to do before i can even go to bed so I should get back to that!

Coz' i like him.

I've been working on a mix cd for chris. Of course its full of gross sentimental lovey songs, but I think I managed to make a decent mix that dosn't make me want to completely gag. The (tentative) track listing is as follows:

1. The Way I Am by Ingrid Michaelson
2. First Day of my Life by Bright Eyes
3. Air Traffic Control by Jets to Brazil
4. (There is) No Greater Love by Amy Winehouse
5. Cricket by Dance Hall Crashers
6. I will Follow you into the Dark by Death Cab for Cutie
7. No One by Alicia Keyes
8. When the Stars go Blue by Ryan Adams
9. Blue Carolina by The Alkaline Trio
10. I know I know I know by Tegan & Sara
11. To be alone with you by Sufjan Stevens
12. My Slumbering Heart by Rilo Kiley
13. You Belong to my Heart by The Old 97s
14. A Love Song by Anne Murray
15. My Heart by Paramore
16. Lovesong by Jack Off Jill
17. Without You by MxPx
18. I only wanna be with you by Me First and the Gimme Gimmes
19. I got you now by Kasey Chambers
20. Have your way with me by The Groovie Ghoulies

Im going to burn myself a copy and see how it flows!

Random Pretties

I signed up for a scrap fabric swap on craftster, I figured it would be a good way of letting go of some fabric with the possibility of getting some cool stuff back. I have a slight fabric problem. I love it. It brings such highs and bad lows. Theres few things that make me feel more on top of the world then finding seriously cute fabric, especially when its cheap. There is also nothing worse than when I go on fabric hunts and return with nothing. I've gone so far as printing my own designs on fabric because it didn't exist and I wanted it.

I asked for three partners for the swap and just got done with the hunt and have piled, folded and tied them up to go into their envelopes - off to their new home!

trips are fun.

So, I'm back from my much needed trip out east. I have never doubted how much I love/need my family close to me but this trip definitely reminded me. As much I as loved being in massachusettes with billy and christy I totally missed my sisters, and Chris, and my little lolo. My heart really is split between here and the east coast. Im not saying I want to move there... i just wish they weren't so far away. Alana is soooo cute, since i couldn't possibly pick who is cuter, I will just say that Alana is my cutest almost 2 year old neice and Lo is my cutest 7 year old neice! I got to spend a lot of time with Christy and I feel like we definitely got closer.. i've always been really fond of her but seeing how great of a mom she is to Alana as well as an awesome wife to Billy definitely made me admire her even more.

Hopefully I don't go 8 months without seeing them again like i did this last time.. 8 months is to long!

soooo hot.

few things get me hot and bothered as much this:

only click if you think you can handle it.

i feel all tingly.

warm & fuzzies

So, my living room is a mess, dishes need to be cleaned, carpets need to be vacuumed but goddammit my christmas tree is up! My $30-stayed up all night-lived through hell-froze my ass off-but $30 tree! I had been collecting various different ornaments through craft swaps and thrift stores and I really like how it all came together. Its pretty.

For some reason I have always really loved christmas trees. I love looking at them and they make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside (few things do that). I guess now that its up and decorated I should go start on those dishes.