whipped.

I'm gonna be honest, I.AM.WHIPPED.

I've been with children 9837583465837 hours so far this week, including 2 over- nighters.

Which included getting hit in the face with a sippy cup at 3 am, a certain 5 yr old wetting the bed, being woken up at 4 am to ask for breakfast and cartoons, several slaps to the face and kicks to the ribs; Amounting to not much sleep at all.

And tomorrow's only Thursday.

This is me in my current state.

Beautiful House Wednesday

Here it is- the great Cottage Chic style I once referred to as

Modern/Bohemian/Vintage.

picture perfect

Bright and eclectic

Yay for mismatched dining chairs and chunky farm tables!

Get a load of that window

Eat-in kitchens with area rugs..nothing better.

So cozy. And they didn't even bother to hide the alarm clock and remote, love it!

more HERE

Check it-

Book of Possibilities

Has anyone ever seen "The Last Holiday" with Queen Latifah?

It is such a feel-good movie. My three roommates and I went and saw it in the theater on Valentine's Day 2006. In the movie, the main character has this "Book of Possibilities" that she puts together. It holds pictures ripped out of magazines of things she wants to accomplish, places she longs to visit, photos of meals she's cooked in hopes of opening her own restaurant, even ideas for a future wedding, AND a future man:) My roommates and I were all single at the time (and weren't going on many dates..ha!), so we decided it would be fun to make our own Book of Possibilies since our lives were just beginning.

We had a lot of fun with our scrapbooking skills. Mine has four pages devoted to travel destinations, a few pages of fashion (including an incredibly fabulous walk-in closet, of course), pages gathering ideas for a future engagement, wedding, children etc. I pulled out the book in preparation for Wednesday's "Beautiful House Wednesday," because I have been obsessed with Designer, Tia Zoldan's home since 2006 when the Book of Possibilities made its' debut!

Yes, I actually scrapbooked Zoldan's home back in 2006 into my book of possibilities, because even then I found every detail of it very inspirational. Gone are the days of sitting hunched over on the livingroom floor with my three roommates, arguing over magazines. We have this fabulous new technology...blogging. My very own Blog of Possibilities.

stay tuned for more of this California cottage tomorrow...

girlfriends

"My friends are my estate."

-Emily Dickinson

I truly cherish my girlfriends. A couple weekends ago, we all got together for food, drinks, laughter, and Mary Kay makeup!

Sara, Ashley, and I

Mom and Grandma are two of my BEST girlfriends!

Mom and Kerri

She likes to show us how it's done.

Saturday, Sara and I went to the fair/flea market/festival.

I begged her to go on the tilt-o-whirl with me, often known as the "twirl and hurl." She was going to make me go alone until I just bought her tickets and she couldn't back out. For old times sake, right?

Well, the twirl and hurl wasn't good to her, because it took 15 minutes post-war to rid her of her nausea.

But we still had fun. Elephant ear- check! Cinnamon toasted almonds- check! Weird animals- check! 

head-butts

So, my husband and I often butt heads when it comes to the area of my cooking. Probably because it's not really my thing. To be honest, I've cooked more in the last 7 months than I have in my entire life, but it's still not what he's used to! So, could I work on my skills? Yes. And could he not whine about it so much? Yes.

Tonight, I think I'll give it a whirl. This one's for you, Honey.

crush-turned-husband

In participation with Kelly's Show Us Your Life Friday, here is the story of how Jake and I met:

I was a senior in high school, had never dated, never had a first kiss, and told my best friend that there was no one in our town I would date...except maybe Jake. He was a good friend of my older brother's, 5 years my senior, we had no mutual friends, had never hung out, or even had a long conversation. I simply thought he was gorgeous. I'm not even going to talk about the stalking we did!
He would say hi in passing, and was always really friendly, but showed no interest in me other than that. Afterall, I was "Dale's little sister." Much to my dismay, he began dating a girl I kind of knew. So, all hope was lost. After I graduated, I moved to Nashville, Tennessee, and almost forgot about Jake. Because there was no chance there, and I had other things on my mind.
My brother planned to come down with my mom and visit for a long weekend, over Mother's Day. I told him he should bring a friend along, so while we were doing girlie things, he would have someone to hang out with.
The next day, my mom called and said, "You will never guess who your brother's bringing."
"Who??"
"Jake!"
She obviously knew about my minor infatuation.
It would be the first time we ever really spent any time together, and he would be staying at my house for 3 nights! I was pretty excited.
So, the four of us had a great weekend. Jake and I discovered we had so many things in common, like our love for Johnny Cash and Stevie Wonder, our outlook on a lot of things, our very-obvious (to my brother, of course) physical attraction to one another. We danced our first dance together to "I Just Called to Say I Love You." Which happened to be sentimental to us both, and that night he hinted that he thought I should move back to Michigan.
My response? "Yeah, that's not going to happen."
So again, I pushed him from my mind as best I could.
A couple of months went by, with little contact, and then I went home for a visit. We hung out non-stop, I experienced my first kiss, and then again, it was over. Well, God has a funny way of working things out, because I moved back to Michigan that August, for reasons other than him.
We were official a couple of months later, engaged 2 1/2 years later, and married 7 months after that!

Our first photo together, Nashville '06

September 5th, 2009