Look at the pretty flowers!
On my bday (Friday), I got a message on my cellphone while at work that I had flowers delivered to my apt. I waited in suspense trying to figure who on earth they could be from. Not that I don't have people in my life who like me or anything, but I was going to be seeing most of the people close to me that weekend and it would have been silly for them to send me flowers.
I had one guess. Jon had his.
I won.
It was Diz! (she's awesome.)
Today we met Gina, Todd and Cooper at BW3's for lunch on their way out of town. It seems like Cooper is way older/bigger since the last time we saw him...which was a month ago. He can walk with help, he is eating table food all by himself (maybe he did that a month ago?), he waves and pretends to "talk" on his little toy cellphone. So precious.
After lunch we did a whole lot of nothing, which was pretty awesome. Not quite as awesome was how both Oklahoma AND Kansas got knocked out of the tournament, sealing my fate of not winning my pool. boo.
Meghan came to town Saturday to spend the day with Tom and I. We had lunch at Dotty's, did a little shopping on State Street and then made our way to Hilldale. I had to snap a pic of Tom in front of his favorite store while we were there. Look how happy he is to be there! Ha! We only tease because we love, Tom.
Gotta be honest, this was a TOUGH day to only pick 1 picture. There was one of Meghan holding up a teeny tiny shirt...that was not meant for a baby. Dang rules. I'm standing my ground. Only 1 pic.
Happy Birthday to me! Friday was my 28th birthday. Mom, Dad, Gina, Todd, Jon and I went to PF Chang's for dinner, then they all came back to our apartment for dirt cake, some tournament action and a few rounds of Mario Kart.
I got some good stuff too: the last season of Six Feet Under (my homework assignment is for everyone to find a way to watch this show from the beginning, if you have never seen it. It is a fantastic series!), some Tastefully Simple stuff, an electric can opener (ours is dull and doesn't work) and a bunch of fun camera goodies! I think I'll be set for a while with the camera stuff I got actually, which is awesome because that stuff is expensivo!
As a side note: as I was going through pictures from this day, at first I thought it would be appropriate to use a picture of myself since it was my bday...but I had to stand firm on the unofficial rules I made for myself that the picture of the day must be taken by me. However, I still thought I'd throw this one in the mix anyway...as a representation of me at 28 :)
Side note #2 - I made another unofficial rule for myself a while ago that I would only have 1 picture on these daily posts - so that I am forced to really decide which is my favorite. This will be the only day I break this rule. Maybe. Hopefully. Unless I change my mind and change the rules.
I snapped a bunch of pics of things around the house on Thursday night from different perspectives and angles. This is a glittery tree topiary/decoration thing that we have in our living room taken from underneath.
The funny thing is, I was thinking I should take it down soon since spring has sprung and it is pretty wintery. And then Saturday night happened...
We've been seeing a lot of Bernard lately! He stopped over again tonight to chat, use our wireless and to give me a totally unexpected bday present! It was so nice of him to even think of me! (Thanks, Barn!)
I also made him pose for me because, well...that is the person I have become with this little project. His tweet says "Kel is taking pics of me!" Ha!
This is my dress for Diz's wedding. She wanted to see what it looked like on me, so I took a few pics for her. I sent her a full body shot, but it wasn't approved for the internet...so you all get this one.
Diz suggested wearing black heels, so I put on the only pair of black heels that I would consider wearing for her wedding (not the ones I wear to work that have the nail sticking out of the heel and I polish with a Sharpie)...but my good lord, they are the most uncomfortable heels on the face of the planet. I know this too. I've owned them for at least a year and every time I wear them, I want to saw my toes off after 10 mins. They are awful. I don't even know why I keep them. No, I do know why. They are really cute!
I also realized I post a lot of pics of myself with a straight face. I swear I am a happy person. See, I am smirking!
note to self: clean the mirror. yuck.
I went out with Shari, El and Nancy on Monday night...and dangit, it had been too long since we got together last. We went around the table and took turns telling about our latest life developments. And we LAUGHED! There is nothing like the kind of laughter you have with a group of friends. Am I right? Yes, I am right.
El and Shari posed for a couple shots for me, but this blooper style one was my favorite. The lighting and overall cheesiness did it for me. That and the fact that their ensembles were exactly the same colors.
Look at this sorry looking lonely little tree/bush. It resides on the lawn next to our apartment with no other plant life surrounding it. Interestingly, I don't remember it existing last year.
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The last dessert I made for Dizzy's shower were quite delicious...and easy! You might remember them from this post. Bakerella totally made these famous, so I cannot take credit for this recipe at all. You can find her recipe here. Mine is as follows:
-1 box Betty Crocker butter recipe yellow cake
-1 can cream cheese frosting
-about 4 boxes of Baker's white chocolate
-sprinkles
-parchment or wax paper
1. Make cake and let it cool completely (I waited about 6 hours)
2. crumble cake into a large bowl and mix thoroughly with 1 can of cream cheese frosting
3. chill mixture (I chilled it for about 3 hours)
4. roll mixture into balls. We used a standard size cookie scooper so that each ball would be the same size.
5. melt chocolate in microwave per directions on the package, 1 box at a time. (If you melt all the chocolate at once, it gets hard to work with)
6. Roll balls in chocolate using a spoon. Tap off excess chocolate in the spoon back into the bowl.
7. place on wax/parchment paper until firm. (Place in refrigerator to speed up this process)
Jon, Barney and I went to see I Love You, Man last night. It was so funny! We all enjoyed it a lot. We took our seats in the very last row, which I think now rivals the front row (right behind the bar where you can put your feet up) as the best seat in the house. There was a lot of room back there!
Paul Rudd's character in this movie is so sweet and awkward that it is painful. He also likes to abbreviate and make up words, which reminded me of my husband. I would not put it past Jon to bust out with 'totes m'goats' as an abbreviation for 'totally'. I can't blame him completely though. Abbreviating was a personality trait had no choice but take on when he got together with me...
Jon and I went grocery shopping on Thursday night. We were thinking of getting one of those rotisserie chickens to bring home for dinner, but they were out. Luckily, our grocery store guarantees they will have chickens available from 4-7 or you get a free one!
That's not the point of this story though. Look at how that chick spelled rotisserie! I mean, she didn't even try.
This was the result of another day that I forgot to take a picture until I was laying in bed. I yelled to Jon to bring me my camera and I snapped a few of the corners of our bedroom walls while I layed in bed. It kind of turned out cooler than I thought.
I was kind of having a bad day on Wednesday and this is all I could muster. This is my cupcake courier! Don't start getting the idea that I make and transport cupcakes that often. I don't.
But when I do - this thing is awesome.
I was in Milwaukee all day (indoors) for work on St. Patty's day, and was not able to enjoy the weather until I got home. I promptly opened the door to let the fresh air into the apartment when I got home though! I love it.
These are so freakin good, I can hardly stand it. I also got this recipe from the fabulous Bakerella. You can find her post here.
The recipe is quite easy. Here it goes:
1. Buy the Betty Crocker Chocolate Chip Cookie Brownie bar box mix and make the bars according to the package in an 8x8 pan.
2. After the bars have baked, top with chocolate ganache.
-6 oz. (about 1 cup or half a bag) semi-sweet chocolate morsels (Bakerella's recipe called for a whole bag, but I thought that was too much - you could hardly taste the brownie- so I halved the recipe)
-1/4 cup and 2 Tbsp heavy whipping cream
-3 Tbsp butter
3. In a small saucepan, heat cream and butter until just before the boiling stage.
4. Pour over the chocolate morsels.
5. Let stand about 20 seconds and stir until smooth.
6. Pour over brownies and let set before cutting. (Both times I made this, I let it set overnight before cutting them.)
I mean, dang. These are so good..jpg)
All the desserts I made for Dizzy's shower were super easy, completely delicious and totally semi-homemade. Anyone can make them. First up is an adaptation of a fruit pizza recipe. Instead of making it in pizza form, I decided to make it into individual portions.
recipe:
-Pillsbury sugar cookie dough roll
-1 8oz cream cheese (I used neufchatel cheese)
-1/3 cup sugar
-1/2 t vanilla
-fruit
1. roll out cookie dough and cut out circles -or- cut 1/4 inch sections off the roll.
2. Bake according to package until it is golden brown
3. Cool completely
4. beat the cream cheese, sugar and vanilla together.
5. When the cookies cool, spread the frosting on them.
6. place fruit on cookies - strawberries, blueberries, kiwis, raspberries, and/or mandarin oranges work best.
7. Serve within about 5 hours, or the cookie will become rather soggy.
To make this in pizza form:
roll out softened cookie dough in a greased circle pan or you can just break it into pieces and sort of mold them together to make a relatively thin crust. Follow directions 2-5. Place fruit in triangle sections.
So yummy! And attractive, right? I'm not even a blueberry fan and I want to gobble those up. Enjoy!
Mom and I decided to take a stop in Johnson Creek today. She had to get bday gift and I gladly obliged to go with her since it is on my way home. The weather was so awesome. It was obvious too because everyone came out of hiding and decided to go shopping. It was crazy there! I actually saw a lady in capri pants and flip flops. That is taking things a little far I think.
p.s. This pic is kind of lame. I wish I would have had my camera handy while I was driving on the freeway to take a pic of a mini cooper convertible with personalized plates that said "kool taz", complete with a tazmanian devil tied to the back seat. yikes.
Dizzy's shower was Saturday night and I forgot my camera at my mom and dad's! Do you know how awful this is for someone with a new toy they love to play with? Especially with a new place, new people and new things to take pictures of? Ugh. It was awful. Thankfully, I had my point and shoot. However, being host left little time to take pics, so maybe it wasn't a total loss in the end.
This is Diz and 4 of her 5 siblings at the end of the shin dig. It was a cocktail party type bridal shower, which I think was a really refreshing change from a daytime/lunch/brunch shower. I made a spread of desserts that were quite delicious (I'll post recipes in the coming days) and we served wine, champagne and coffee. It was at Dizzy's brother and sister-in-law's place in their beautiful Third Ward apartment and was so chic and fun!
Only about a month left until Diz and Andy's big day!
This is my friend Meghan (and her bro, Tom).
She is obsessed with pugs, but does not have one.
As I was taking this picture, she was saying, "If I owned this pug, I would totally trim his whiskers."
...and then Tom and I told her she was cra-zy. [lovingly of course :)]
I have a confession. We've been married for 7 months and I just changed my name today. I have felt like such an imposter! I just never took time off work or made the time to go on the wild goose chase that is necessary to make the change. No worries, now I am officially KC. Just like that, I was no longer KG. It was kind of weird and bittersweet actually.
Oh, and my goose chase brought me downtown, so I took a pic of the capitol.
A signature hot chocolate on my faux Friday? Yes, please!
I just coined that phrase faux Friday, btw. It's when, in my case, you have off Thursday and Friday so your weekend starts on Wednesday night. Faux Friday.
Ummm, did you know that Lacoste has a home line? I'm slightly obsessed with Lacoste. Let's ignore that I own like 1 item from this brand and that it is typically way out of what I consider affordable...I still can't resist that little alligator!
Tom and I were at Macy's on Tuesday and I made him be my model while we were both dying over all of the goodies.
And let me tell you that every single sheet, pillow, towel, bath mat, robe, etc. have that little signature alligator embroidered on to it.
I die.
It makes me want to redo our bathroom into a preppy Lacoste wonderland.
I got this recipe from my friend Andrea and it was super tasty, so I thought I'd share. I also felt really proud of myself because I totally employed Robin Miller's Quick Fix strategies to make this (cook once, eat twice).
The base of this dish is regular old ground beef or turkey with taco seasoning. Here is where the "quick fix" came in. We decided to have tacos last night. When the meat was done to eat for tacos, I transferred a third of the meat (eyeballed it) to another pan and prepared it for the next day's meal.
I'm also always looking for good meals for 2. I hate having a ton of leftovers and I find that most recipes are for servings of 4 or more. Since I only used 1/3 of a pound of meat, I split the recipe in thirds. It made about 8-9 shells, which was still a little too much for just 2 people, but having only 1 portion of leftovers is better than 6.
Barney stopped over after work to hang out with us because he missed us so much...or maybe he wanted to use us for our wireless internet?
Either way, we enjoyed his company and he hooked us up with some new music. Now I can brush up on the Pussycat Dolls before the Britney concert. Yessssssssssss!
I took my earrings off last night and placed them on this little beaded charger we have on our coffee table in the living room. In real life, they were all chameleon like blending in with one another. In photo world, I'm not sure that is as obvious. Oh well. I tried.
And of course these are real ;)
We went to Sonic tonight for the first time! It was pretty fun. Here are some things I took away from the experience:
-The burgers were good. They kind of tasted like Gille's burgers. Kind of! I had to emphasize that because Gille's ranks pretty high on my list.
-The fries were just so-so
-The soda has the little ice. I love little ice!
-We had a malt which was pretty decent also.
-The voice over the intercom was so nice! The most pleasant I have ever heard from a fast food place for sure.
-Most of the carhops were not on rollerskates. umm, hello? I thought that was the whole deal with this place! Thankfully our girl, Red (yup, her name was red. She had red hair. Like red crayon, not natural red), rolled up on skates and we didn't have to complain :) (we wouldn't have complained. Who am I kidding?)
-This place has been open a little over a month and it was still pretty crowded! All the stalls were full at all times and the drive through had a line forming on the street.
-I give it 2 more months before the novelty wears off.
This is a weird picture. Right? Let me explain.
It's Thursday night about 11pm and I get into bed. I lay down and pull the covers up, put my head down on the pillow and all of a sudden I gasped and sat straight up in bed and said, "I forgot to take a picture today!"
This was tragic obviously.
I grabbed my camera, took about 3 pictures of Jon and my battery died...and I didn't have the motivation to get my other camera. So, that is how this ended up being the picture of the day.
I got these necklaces for 97 cents each! 97 cents!!
They are from Old Navy if you must know...and I'll admit I probably wouldn't have given them a second glance if they were their original price ($15). When I see 97 cents though, my wheels start turning.
The beads alone are worth more than that! They are on a velour/velvet cord, which can be easily interchanged for ribbon or whatever also...ya know, to be seasonally appropriate. Not to mention, they can be double and tripled up for a major statement.
They are so great! And did I mention, 97 cents! Gah! I love that.
I went to Kohl's to return something on Tuesday and then I found these...
It's official. I cannot leave a store without wanting to buy something. (I didn't get these)
I got a subscription to this magazine for free!
About a month ago, there was a link to get a free subscription to Martha Stewart living on one of the money saving blogs I read. I decided I'd give it a shot and see if it was really for real. All I had to do was fill out a survey and at the end, I was told I'd get my subscription.
I was skeptical.
This weekend though, I got Feb and March's issues! It worked and only took about a month to get the mags. I love free stuff...and Martha.
Our main objective for going to Green Bay this weekend was to celebrate Cooper's first birthday! Gina and Todd had a swimming party for the little guy at the Y. He went down the big slide with Todd, he got lots of good loot and stuffed his face with cake. So fun. Happy Bday, Coop (on the 4th)!
We were in Green Bay for the weekend at Gina and Todd's. We got up around 9 on Friday night and got right to Guitar Hero.
It was my first time playing.
I'm obsessed.
My husband. He looks so deep in thought! In reality he is probably watching a basketball game or something.
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