May 31, 2012

Summer Dreaming

While I'm cooped up inside studying for the dreaded Bar exam all summer... my mind is drifting from boring contracts and property lectures to fantasies of summery sangria, bright beautiful centerpieces, fruity foods and fun warm-weather fashion.

Sadly, most days as of late I don't get out of pajamas or put on a bra until after noon. I'm doing my best to at least run a brush through my hair before my poor husband gets home... but even that is not something I'm managing to do on the reg. {On the up side, I won't have to buy new make-up at this rate until about 2015.}

8 more weeks.

Until then... here is where my little (and overcrowded. and exhausted.) brain is wandering.

Dream on.
Raspberry and Serrano Sangria... need to make this asap!

These Jamba Juice recipes look sooo refreshing! Smoothies = brain food :)

I'm loving citrus + floral centerpieces for summer entertaining.

Super healthy strawberry shortcake muffins - these look like a perfect summer breakfast/brunch addition!

I'm daydreaming about this entire outfit... and also dreaming of a long toned arms/legs to go inside the clothes...

Thanks to my black thumb and no time, this will continue to be a pipe dream for basically... well, forever.
And with that, my 10-minute study break is up. Back to Professor Poke-Your-Eyes-Out-Boring for the remainder of the morning.

Go enjoy some summer fun for me, will ya?? :)

May 18, 2012

Brooke Michelle

The long-awaited birth of our precious niece finally arrived last week!

Brooke Michelle was born on May 14th.

Her perfect little cheeks weighed in at 7 lbs 5 oz.
She has stolen our hearts and we can't wait to get our hands on her next month!!!

Her first picture!

Cutest little burrito
One of my faves!
"No more pictures please..."
"Excuse me... someone get me outta here!"
So precious!!!!!
Despite being hundreds of miles away, we feel like we know this little bean already thanks to (almost hourly) pictures from my in-laws! We're an aunt/uncle... what a cool, special, amazing thing! We can't wait to watch this little girl grow. Her birth has made us really anxious to move back closer to family so that we can be part of her life on a more regular basis :)

Brooke ~ you have only been on this planet for a few short days and already you are so loved!!! Your auntie and uncle can't wait to spoil you rotten....... in fact, I'm headed out right now to mail you a (another...) present! xoxo

Lamp Shade DIY

As many of you know, moving is ex.pen.sive! No matter how hard to you try to keep things cheap... the cost of boxing and moving your stuff is never the only expense. Trying to fill a space that is quite a bit bigger than our last obviously has required purchasing some new stuff. Since we know we won't be living here longer than a year {depressing, let's not talk about it} I've had to really reign myself in and only buy what we need and not get everything I want since most of it probably won't be coming with us. There will definitely be some walls that remain blank and some spaces that remain empty in this house, but we're ok with that!

Aren't we? Ya, ya, ok... we are.

Homegoods and Target have been my go-to stores for the odds and ends we've needed to make this place feel "finished" ~ wall shevles, faux plants, rugs, lamps, etc. One room I really wanted to make feel complete was the office... since that's where I'll spend 90% of my summer studying for the bar exam. I tried to keep the room bright and fun, and for the most part I used things we already owned. The only new additions to the room are the rug under my desk, the floating shelves on the wall, and the lamp.

My study space

Our bright, happy vision boards

Andrew's adjusting table gets a place to live in the new office too!
We never had a desk lamp, and it always annoyed us when we'd study at night... to the point where we just didn't study in the office. So I picked up this plain white lamp at Target (the RE line, it was like $7 I think). The white shelves and lamp against the lighter-than-our-old-apartment wall color looked really blah. But in the interest of saving $$$ I decided to just fancy up what I already had rather than running out to buy new stuff!

Using a 40% off coupon at Michaels, I picked up some white rosette ribbon ($6) and pulled out some fabric glue I had on hand from the dollar store ($2). After cutting the ribbon down to fit the base of the lamp shade, applying a thin line of fabric glue (x3), pressing on the ribbon and letting it dry... I had a fancy pants lamp that I love in under 5 minutes and for about $12.
Plain lamp before

Ribbon and fabric glue

Glue...

Ta-da!
It looks the cutest when the room is lit only by the lamp light... but this is really hard to capture well using my phone. {Still no sign of our camera, for those of you following along!} I had some ribbon left over, so I decided to glue a little embellishment on the mason jars I am using to hold pens and highlighters too.
Can you notice a difference??

Cute and easy!

Before & After
There ya go. An easy, inexpensive way to add a little interest to an other wise boring lamp! I'm excited to have something a little prettier to stare at while listening to online lectures for hours on end about subjects far less exciting than home decor... :)

May 17, 2012

Sissy Visit

In the 3 years we've lived in Atlanta, no one has visited near as often as my sister Erika! Homegirl is down to see us every few months it seems... and we love it! duh. The past couple of visits, her fiance has joined her - double the fun! Especially for Andrew... who, as much as he loves (and is used to) girl time, really appreciates having someone to watch "the game" (what game? who cares.) with while we have sister time getting our nails done and chowing on fro-yo!

Erika and Carter are self-proclaimed godparents to our petchildren. And probably the most fun people we know! Our weekend revolved around eating, laughing, and eating. So fun!
I'm embarrassed by how many pictures just like this there are on my phone
The boys were REALLY great shoppers 
3.5 months til their WEDDING!

Sangria and tapas night
Darla looooves her Auntie Kiki :)
Its always hard to coordinate introducing our visitors to our friends down here... it seems like every time we have family in town, our friends are out of town. Luckily, this visit was different and Erika and Carter got to meet our bffs ~ and their baby! They wanted to kidnap Gia. I can't say that I blame them...
Andrew always hogs the baby

Its amazing how entertaining it is to watch a baby "sing" into an empty beer bottle ;)
As always, their visit went way too fast! Good thing we'll see them next month when we head home for a visit and our annual family vacation... and we're already getting excited to visit them for a change once they both move up to the East coast after their weddddingggg!! Can't. Wait.

Settling In

I think I underestimated how much work it is to move! Considering this is the first move we've made since owning furniture, wedding gifts, and 2 pets... we really didn't know what we were getting ourselves into! But I'm happy to report that things are finally coming together. Slowly but surely. More slowly than I had hoped due to having weekend visitors the first (and only) two weekends - in a row - that we've been living in our condo ~ but the hectic, unorganized house was a worthwhile trade for some quality time with our visiting siblings :)
Darla was not a fan of moving day!

I watched our furniture being unloaded...

And watched the boxes pile up...

And had a panic attack thinking about how/where/when I'd unpack all of our junk!
Thankfully, I have had a few weeks off between finishing finals and starting my bar review course... I worked on getting us settled in from the time I woke up until I went to bed at night! While my friends were working on their tans by the pool (ahem... Sheila), I was hanging pictures, organizing closets, and shopping for odds and ends we needed to make this place feel like home.
The furbabies seem to enjoy the guest room

I kept the office bright and cheery... an attempt to make bar studying less depressing!

The bedroom looks largely the same as it did in our old apartment (excuse the weird yellow lighting??)

The living room still needs some work but its coming along
My actual camera is still MIA (despite having unpacked all of the boxes....... yikes) so I'm hoping to take some better pictures once that sucker turns up! Digging through the closets to find it is on my to-do list for today because I'd like some real camera pictures from my graduation this Saturday!! woop!

Other posts I'm working on, to make up for my 17 day hiatus {why does this keep happening...???} include: sister's visit, a simple but adorable DIY project, and the arrival of our precious NIECE! Stay tuned ;)

May 1, 2012

Catch Up

Today I'm taking a few minutes for catching up the blog... on the quick - in iPhone/Instagram pictures!

Seriously, just when I think I can catch up on a few overdue posts... life goes and gets unnecessarily busy. So much for a post-finals week of R&R before Bar studying starts on Monday! Here's the quick and dirty recap of our what's been going on since... well... Easter-ish!
We've been taking advantage of patio season... and in this case, roof top bar season!
We spent Easter with our wonderful friends. After a delish dinner, the boys, the puppy and the baby all passed out :)
My mom, my sister and I all made cheesecakes (unplanned and unknown to each other until way later) for our respective Easter celebrations haha... creepy family brain waves? 
Darla has quickly become the most spoiled and most loved pup on the planet.  Also, she's the cutest. But I might be just a little bit biased.
Our girls are slowly but surely becoming bffs :) :) :) Until Darla chases Bella.... and that just ends badly for everyone involved. 
Dad is smitten with his little furbaby... however, in this picture she's being lectured on how good little puppies don't wake up at 5 a.m. ;) He asked me the other night "Do you love her yet?" haha... of course my answer was "YES!" but it was just cute and funny the way he asked. 
We celebrated my 25th birthday with our besties at Nava...
And after a fun dinner (complete with margs, of course) we headed back to our place to celebrate some more!
Danielle knows me well... she brought me fun cupcake liners, baking books, prosecco and ICE CREAM CAKE!
We got a surprise (and I do mean surprise...) visitor from NC over my bday weekend - Andrew's older brother showed up at our door at 7 a.m. for a short weekend visit :) We took advantage of our last weekend of being able to walk to Treehouse for brunch w/ little miss Wiggle Booty.
The husb took me to an amazing bday dinner on my actual birthday at Canoe... the cutest little restaurant overlooking the Chattahoochie River. 
At Canoe we both became possessed and decided we'd spew fire out of our eyes for the camera. Lovely. 
Then, all of a sudden, Darla doubled in size overnight. After staring at her for like an hour seeing if her legs were lengthening before our eyes, we realized we've had her for 5 weeks already! Nuts! 
12 weeks, 27 lbs. My big baby with the dumbest crooked puppy teeth haha.

My sweet friend from home sent me Happy bday/Congrats on finishing law school flowers!  They brightened my day - my week, really!
Those beautiful flowers are still the only thing in our sad, empty condo right now. After a few carpet-related set-backs, we had to push back our move by 5 days on just 12 hours notice. Yikes. 
All moving/finals stresses were forgotten after the post-finals celebration lunch I enjoyed with Sheila! Nutella milkshakes can right any wrong. I'm convinced. 
Keys to our new place... opposites attract, no?
Anddd the carpet drama continued. Thankfully I'm persistent to a fault, and somehow convinced our landlord to let me replace all the carpet in the bedrooms - at his expense - with some (economical and neutral) carpet of my choosing :)
Last but not least, my hard-working, oh-so-deserving husband got a shiny new car. He's obsessed.
Whew. I think 20 pictures is enough documentation of our lives for today! Our carpet installation is scheduled for tomorrow, and the movers will be here bright and early Thursday morning... so I'm sure I'll have more interesting posts to share once we get settled. I hope!

Next up on our post-move agenda: visits from some siblings and my parents, my graduation (!!!!!), the arrival of our little niece, and a trip home to Ohio! Thanks for bearing with me during this chaos... I know I'll look back one of these days and be glad I at least threw a few pictures up to keep track of what went on in our life during the spring of 2012!